Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2012 21:37:03 GMT
Last night I was at the League Cup game between Doncaster Rovers and Hull City. An ordinary enough occasion, you’d imagine, watched by a crowd of less than 5,000. It’s funny how such affairs remain low-key and not particularly attractive to punters even if you only charge £10 a ticket.
Flicking through the programme, I was surprised it was the first time the two clubs had met in the League Cup since 1975. Wait a minute: I was at that one too. It was the year Donny reached the quarter finals.
And, on their way, Doncaster had to negotiate a third round trip to Plainmoor. I bet we fancied our chances in that one – a team from the same division at home on the back of our earlier wins against Swansea and Exeter – but we had to settle for the draw after being a goal up at half-time (who remembers it?). Being in Sheffield, I made it to the Belle Vue replay where we were absolutely bloody awful: 3-0 to them (O’Callaghan 2, Balderstone. Attendance 9,764 compared to the 2,785 at Plainmoor). How many times, I ask you, have we reached the third bloody round of the Football League Cup since?
I was peed off but somehow I decided to go to the fourth round game at Belle Vue against Hull City, then a couple of divisions above Doncaster. Something of a localish Derby too – well, they’re both Yorkshire and there’s not much population in-between them. My Lord, what a rattling good evening. 20,000 inside Belle Vue – it wasn’t a particularly comfortable experience – and Doncaster won 2-1. A Real Cup Tie. I even got fleeced for a pirate programme by some likely looking lads up from London. I was livid falling for it.
Thirty-seven years later I knew last night would be totally and utterly different. The League Cup itself isn’t quite the competition it was in the 1970s. In those days you picked a team to win the game just about whoever you were with just one or two clubs being less than fully-committed. The crowds tended to be higher than league games with the atmosphere revved up. Now the opposite is often true and, for long periods last night, the atmosphere bordered on the somnolent. I imagine that’s partly because we’ve become slightly suspicious over how seriously teams treat this type of game. And, perhaps, because we’re only being charged a tenner we start to smell a rat. Hull certainly rested a few players from Saturday – no Liam Rosenoir for instance – but so did Doncaster. No starting place for David Cotterill or the highly-rated Kyle Bennett (is he off somewhere?). Instead there were four substitutes who weren’t named in the programme.
The style of football was in complete contrast to 1975: technically far, far superior; less physical (albeit with a sending off for violent conduct) and much more flowing. A time traveller from the 1970s would probably have judged it to be a pre-season friendly. The players too were somewhat different: a number who had started at Manchester United as well as several from West Africa. Most looked rather more athletic and quicker than their predecessors. Oh my Steve Uzelac and Alf Wood long ago!
What of the surroundings and the spectators? Well, Doncaster – like Hull – have changed grounds since the 1970s so the contrast was starker than it would have been at Plainmoor (but think on that too). Also, of course, everybody was seated last night which has its own impact upon atmosphere and behaviour. But taking everything together – the nearby retail park, the families eating at Pizza Hut before the game and the off-the-shelf nature of the Keepmoat stadium – the whole experience didn’t feel distinctively anywhere. Belle Vue would have had its unique character in the 1970s but now Doncaster play in almost identical surroundings to MK Dons, Llanelli Scarlets and a whole host of other sports teams. They’re also watched by those nice classless, inoffensive kids who play on their phones through the match.
But we know these things already even if it needs such a direct comparison between two games, played thirty-seven years apart, to bring it into sharper focus. I’ll confess to not being over-keen on the Keepmoat – I much prefer the grounds at Chesterfield and Rotherham for instance – but it has its’ merits: good sightlines, reasonable space, decent facilities. A certain blandness too - I’d contend anyway – but that, as they say, is in the mind of the beholder.
As are opinions about all the rest: the football: the tactics: the behaviour of the players (less violent but more cunning?); the atmosphere; the entire experience from start to finish. History, as we sometimes insist, is about comparisons rather than saying it was better in the past than it is now. The things about going to Doncaster v Hull in 2012 – rather than 1975 – which may superficially seem worse to the likes of me can easily be argued to be improvements. It depends on your starting point. I guess if I was twelve I’d know what I’d prefer and it would probably start with a trip to Pizza Hut.
So, rather than saying what is better or worse, I’ll just reflect on how different it is watching football now compared to thirty-seven years ago. And – you know what? – football still has the capacity to enthral and entertain, often when it looks wholly unlikely to come up with the goods. Last night Hull City didn’t know what to do with a two-goal lead. Nor, it seemed, did Doncaster know how to claw their way back. For long periods the Keepmoat was like a morgue; the match lifeless. But Doncaster made it back to 2-2 triggered by one of those proverbial "goals from nothing". They then looked the more likely team; Hull broke in the closing minutes and hit the post; Donny won the match deep into stoppage time just as I'd settled for extra time and a late return home. Suddenly I was on my feet cheering. From a game that felt anything but a cup tie we’d ended up with, well, an absolutely belting evening of cup football. That’s football and that, I suspect, will be how it’ll always be.
Flicking through the programme, I was surprised it was the first time the two clubs had met in the League Cup since 1975. Wait a minute: I was at that one too. It was the year Donny reached the quarter finals.
And, on their way, Doncaster had to negotiate a third round trip to Plainmoor. I bet we fancied our chances in that one – a team from the same division at home on the back of our earlier wins against Swansea and Exeter – but we had to settle for the draw after being a goal up at half-time (who remembers it?). Being in Sheffield, I made it to the Belle Vue replay where we were absolutely bloody awful: 3-0 to them (O’Callaghan 2, Balderstone. Attendance 9,764 compared to the 2,785 at Plainmoor). How many times, I ask you, have we reached the third bloody round of the Football League Cup since?
I was peed off but somehow I decided to go to the fourth round game at Belle Vue against Hull City, then a couple of divisions above Doncaster. Something of a localish Derby too – well, they’re both Yorkshire and there’s not much population in-between them. My Lord, what a rattling good evening. 20,000 inside Belle Vue – it wasn’t a particularly comfortable experience – and Doncaster won 2-1. A Real Cup Tie. I even got fleeced for a pirate programme by some likely looking lads up from London. I was livid falling for it.
Thirty-seven years later I knew last night would be totally and utterly different. The League Cup itself isn’t quite the competition it was in the 1970s. In those days you picked a team to win the game just about whoever you were with just one or two clubs being less than fully-committed. The crowds tended to be higher than league games with the atmosphere revved up. Now the opposite is often true and, for long periods last night, the atmosphere bordered on the somnolent. I imagine that’s partly because we’ve become slightly suspicious over how seriously teams treat this type of game. And, perhaps, because we’re only being charged a tenner we start to smell a rat. Hull certainly rested a few players from Saturday – no Liam Rosenoir for instance – but so did Doncaster. No starting place for David Cotterill or the highly-rated Kyle Bennett (is he off somewhere?). Instead there were four substitutes who weren’t named in the programme.
The style of football was in complete contrast to 1975: technically far, far superior; less physical (albeit with a sending off for violent conduct) and much more flowing. A time traveller from the 1970s would probably have judged it to be a pre-season friendly. The players too were somewhat different: a number who had started at Manchester United as well as several from West Africa. Most looked rather more athletic and quicker than their predecessors. Oh my Steve Uzelac and Alf Wood long ago!
What of the surroundings and the spectators? Well, Doncaster – like Hull – have changed grounds since the 1970s so the contrast was starker than it would have been at Plainmoor (but think on that too). Also, of course, everybody was seated last night which has its own impact upon atmosphere and behaviour. But taking everything together – the nearby retail park, the families eating at Pizza Hut before the game and the off-the-shelf nature of the Keepmoat stadium – the whole experience didn’t feel distinctively anywhere. Belle Vue would have had its unique character in the 1970s but now Doncaster play in almost identical surroundings to MK Dons, Llanelli Scarlets and a whole host of other sports teams. They’re also watched by those nice classless, inoffensive kids who play on their phones through the match.
But we know these things already even if it needs such a direct comparison between two games, played thirty-seven years apart, to bring it into sharper focus. I’ll confess to not being over-keen on the Keepmoat – I much prefer the grounds at Chesterfield and Rotherham for instance – but it has its’ merits: good sightlines, reasonable space, decent facilities. A certain blandness too - I’d contend anyway – but that, as they say, is in the mind of the beholder.
As are opinions about all the rest: the football: the tactics: the behaviour of the players (less violent but more cunning?); the atmosphere; the entire experience from start to finish. History, as we sometimes insist, is about comparisons rather than saying it was better in the past than it is now. The things about going to Doncaster v Hull in 2012 – rather than 1975 – which may superficially seem worse to the likes of me can easily be argued to be improvements. It depends on your starting point. I guess if I was twelve I’d know what I’d prefer and it would probably start with a trip to Pizza Hut.
So, rather than saying what is better or worse, I’ll just reflect on how different it is watching football now compared to thirty-seven years ago. And – you know what? – football still has the capacity to enthral and entertain, often when it looks wholly unlikely to come up with the goods. Last night Hull City didn’t know what to do with a two-goal lead. Nor, it seemed, did Doncaster know how to claw their way back. For long periods the Keepmoat was like a morgue; the match lifeless. But Doncaster made it back to 2-2 triggered by one of those proverbial "goals from nothing". They then looked the more likely team; Hull broke in the closing minutes and hit the post; Donny won the match deep into stoppage time just as I'd settled for extra time and a late return home. Suddenly I was on my feet cheering. From a game that felt anything but a cup tie we’d ended up with, well, an absolutely belting evening of cup football. That’s football and that, I suspect, will be how it’ll always be.