Groundhopping

[bovril]

2 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Last weekend I did Greenock Morton & St Johnstone. Greenock a cracking ground and decent atmosphere by the travelling Partick Thistle fans. St Johnstone a cracking game if a slightly average ground - although did drive past Gleneagles which was something. 

 

September 

19th - Udinese v Cagliari

20th - Verona v Vicenza - derby played for the first time in years 

Not impossible to do Trento on 21st but public transport looks tricky. 

 

October - hoping for Valencia

 

November - might try to see a Eurostar link into Benelux 

Trento on 21st would be good because it's a beautiful city and Pro Vercelli are one of the more iconic names of the Italian lower leagues. What's tricky about the transport, usually there are loads of trains and buses from Verona to Trento? 

[CosbehFox]

35 minutes ago, bovril said:

Trento on 21st would be good because it's a beautiful city and Pro Vercelli are one of the more iconic names of the Italian lower leagues. What's tricky about the transport, usually there are loads of trains and buses from Verona to Trento? 

8.30pm kick off, trains finish either 2130 or 2230 (I ideally need 2300) 

[bovril]

6 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

8.30pm kick off, trains finish either 2130 or 2230 (I ideally need 2300) 

Ah that's a shame. Might be a flixbus or something leaving late and stopping off at Verona. 

[boots60]

4 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Last weekend I did Greenock Morton & St Johnstone. Greenock a cracking ground and decent atmosphere by the travelling Partick Thistle fans. St Johnstone a cracking game if a slightly average ground - although did drive past Gleneagles which was something. 

 

September 

19th - Udinese v Cagliari

20th - Verona v Vicenza - derby played for the first time in years 

Not impossible to do Trento on 21st but public transport looks tricky. 

 

October - hoping for Valencia

 

November - might try to see a Eurostar link into Benelux 

2 weeks ago i did

Stranraer v Edinburgh City

Queen of the South v Aberdeen

Motherwell v HB Torshavn

 

Great trip, go to Scotland every July for a couple of early league cup games with a bonus of a Motherwell European game. Met plenty of welcoming & knowledgable football fans.

Stranraer the most friendly, Dumfries welcoming & picturesque & was even surprised by Motherwell which while could hardly be described as scenic is not as bad as I thought.

Next trip, Derry v St Pats, which will mean missing Peterborough at home.

Sacrifices eh!

[Dan]

Belgrade derby next month!

[Filbert_Ross]

On 05/07/2026 at 12:38, Filbert_Ross said:

In Vienna next month so wanna take in Rapid Vienna game whilst there. 
 

Easy enough to get tickets ? 
 

they are playing Grazer AK

Rapid won 8-0. Ha.  Had a great time. 

[BrummieFOX]

I'm in Madrid in September, two fixtures available Atletico vs Ossasuna OR Vallecano vs Espanyol.

 

Any suggestions on what might be the best or easiest fixture to get to?

 

 

[SemperEadem]

3 minutes ago, BrummieFOX said:

I'm in Madrid in September, two fixtures available Atletico vs Ossasuna OR Vallecano vs Espanyol.

 

Any suggestions on what might be the best or easiest fixture to get to?

 

 

Atletico surely more tickets spare, Vallecano id hazard a guess way more fun and gritty in a good way.

[BrummieFOX]

Yeh that was my take really, althought the Wanda Metropolitano does look impressive! 

[CosbehFox]

6 hours ago, BrummieFOX said:

I'm in Madrid in September, two fixtures available Atletico vs Ossasuna OR Vallecano vs Espanyol.

 

Any suggestions on what might be the best or easiest fixture to get to?

 

 

 

5 hours ago, SemperEadem said:

Atletico surely more tickets spare, Vallecano id hazard a guess way more fun and gritty in a good way.

Not sure when Vallecano’s ground issues be sorted. They are playing in Burgos currently. Alongside that bizarrely you’d have to go in person the day before as Vallecano don’t do online sales! 

[BrummieFOX]

3 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

 

Not sure when Vallecano’s ground issues be sorted. They are playing in Burgos currently. Alongside that bizarrely you’d have to go in person the day before as Vallecano don’t do online sales! 

Oh wow hadnt realised that! Probably made our decision there then. 

[OadbyBlue]

Did St Pauli yesterday. Didn’t plan on it, but thought I’d chance my arm and see if I could pick one up on the day whilst over in Hamburg staying down the road from the Millerntor.
 

Due to the high demand and low supply of tickets, I wasn’t sat as close to the action and atmosphere as I usually like, but there was a solid atmosphere throughout despite the poor performance from the team.

Seemed to be more of the general stadium getting involved than I’ve seen elsewhere in Germany, rather than just the ultras.

 

Everyone I spoke too was very friendly, open and welcoming too.

 

Their number 9 is class too btw, Ceesay I think. Looked like the only competent footballer on the pitch to be honest.

[Dan]

After the lack of success of the Istanbul derby a year ago we went for Belgrade this year, and it fell pretty early in the season.

 

For context around Istanbul, it was basically impossible. This was the total opposite. Landed on Thursday morning, taxi straight to the ground and just bought eight tickets at the ticket office straight away, around £8 each. Near to Delije (Red Star's ultras) but not actually within it.

 

 

That's about 45 mins before kick off - it did fill up more than that. Attendance probably 25/30k? Ground holds 54k.

 

Block we were in was a bit of a mix I think of the calmer Zvezda fans and tourists, which you could tell from the number of phones that were out every time the pyro went off. We saw a group of about 15 in black walk towards the away end in front of us towards the end of the first half and I did wonder what was about to crack off. Turned out it was all for the biggest pyro show of all which got the game delayed for about five minutes. I'm at a limit on photos but will link some tweets below.

 

It was pretty impressive stuff.

 

It does make me laugh when you tell people you're going to a game like this and the default, while obviously half joking, is that you'll do well to come out alive. Now obviously we've purposely avoided times the fans may clash but it really mostly passed without incident between the two sets of fans at least.

 

A few of the firecrackers woke me up. Must've been about 30 of them go off during the game and a couple of them were ridiculously loud.

 

Partizan's end looked excellent at the start but did definitely drop off a bit, which I think puts me onto another point about this fixture and the one real flaw to the whole thing. There is a big misconception about this league that it is dominated by two clubs. It's as good as the biggest one horse race in Europe.

 

For some context, Red Star went into the game with two games in hand on the rest of the league, in early September, yet were already top, and almost certainly will go on to secure their 10th in a row this season. This run includes not losing a league game between October 2021 and August 2023, and going unbeaten for what I make 153 home games in the league. It's a situation pretty common in European leagues now and I think the Champions League money that teams get is only going to exacerbate it with someone like for example, Slovan Bratislava, on their second pot of Champions League money in three years and absolutely dwarf their competition. But Serbia feels like probably the most egregious example in the whole of Europe today. This is a genuine shame because I think it takes a lot of the sting out of this fixture. There's a reluctant acceptance from Partizan that Red Star will just walk it. Especially this year where Partizan have started terribly. Both clubs sacked a manager in August as well - Red Star's coming after their Champions League exit (and look up what happened to them in Plzen!).

 

The game has also caught the headlines for the tifo and minutes silence for Ratko Mladic which both sets of fans were united in. They're getting absolute pelters online for it, lots of calls for UEFA to ban Serbian clubs.

 

Belgrade is definitely worth a visit. It's pretty cheap, loads of nightlife and bars, taxis a doddle etc... it's split into two essentially either side of the Danube. My hotel was superbly located, Hotel NB Skadarlija it was called, bang in the middle of the old town, cheap and pretty nice for what I paid as well, only about £25 a night each for two of us in the room. The other side of the river is Novi Beograd (aka New Belgrade) which is essentially one giant brutalist housing estate.

 

I did already know this before going but with a city dominated by two big clubs you would think that they were split one side and the other. Galatasaray and Fenerbahce are in different continents. Not the case here - the grounds are 5 minutes walk apart, which I find really quite surreal. I'm interested to know how you establish which are Zvezda areas and which are Partizan.

 

Most taxis seemed to get onto football chat. The majority of them support foreign teams. Chelsea, Arsenal and Inter were the three I had memory of. Chelsea for Ivanovic, Inter for Stankovic. One of them was talking to me about Leicester and saying how much he celebrated the night Chelsea drew with Tottenham. It's pretty mental and hits you how much outreach it really had. What is a shame, and again ties into what I said above about the Serbian league is that none of them had any time for their league at all, with the Zvezda institutionalised dominance really killing their interest. The Inter supporting taxi driver who said what he said about Leicester was saying how his Dad is a die hard Zvezda fan but he just doesn't like them

 

Serbian football is a bit broken really.

 

But don't let that put anyone off going. The atmosphere, while not absolutely deafening throughout (though I don't think the ground hugely helped this) is still great and well worth a visit. It's really got plenty in its favour.

 

I did go to a third tier game on the Friday at IMT's ground (top tier club but the local club, Usce, were using it) which is within Novi Beograd. Free entry but wouldn't let anyone enter the bar which was a bit daft. I lasted a half.

 

We went to Novi Sad on the Saturday, about 45 mins on the train. In truth I didn't see a great deal. It was about 37 degrees - just too hot to really do anything. It's a shame the derby didn't fall a month or so later really, but so be it.

 

Good trip though and I'm lucky to have a wide group of mates that are up for this sort of thing pretty frequently. One of them has hit a point where he's now trying to go to a game in every UEFA confederate and I may have a crack myself, I think that's taken me to 21 out of 55 now. He's up to forty something, including Kazakhstan and Georgia.

 

But yes - definitely recommend it.

[1972 Fox]

9 minutes ago, Dan said:

After the lack of success of the Istanbul derby a year ago we went for Belgrade this year, and it fell pretty early in the season.

 

For context around Istanbul, it was basically impossible. This was the total opposite. Landed on Thursday morning, taxi straight to the ground and just bought eight tickets at the ticket office straight away, around £8 each. Near to Delije (Red Star's ultras) but not actually within it.

 

 

That's about 45 mins before kick off - it did fill up more than that. Attendance probably 25/30k? Ground holds 54k.

 

Block we were in was a bit of a mix I think of the calmer Zvezda fans and tourists, which you could tell from the number of phones that were out every time the pyro went off. We saw a group of about 15 in black walk towards the away end in front of us towards the end of the first half and I did wonder what was about to crack off. Turned out it was all for the biggest pyro show of all which got the game delayed for about five minutes. I'm at a limit on photos but will link some tweets below.

 

It was pretty impressive stuff.

 

It does make me laugh when you tell people you're going to a game like this and the default, while obviously half joking, is that you'll do well to come out alive. Now obviously we've purposely avoided times the fans may clash but it really mostly passed without incident between the two sets of fans at least.

 

A few of the firecrackers woke me up. Must've been about 30 of them go off during the game and a couple of them were ridiculously loud.

 

Partizan's end looked excellent at the start but did definitely drop off a bit, which I think puts me onto another point about this fixture and the one real flaw to the whole thing. There is a big misconception about this league that it is dominated by two clubs. It's as good as the biggest one horse race in Europe.

 

For some context, Red Star went into the game with two games in hand on the rest of the league, in early September, yet were already top, and almost certainly will go on to secure their 10th in a row this season. This run includes not losing a league game between October 2021 and August 2023, and going unbeaten for what I make 153 home games in the league. It's a situation pretty common in European leagues now and I think the Champions League money that teams get is only going to exacerbate it with someone like for example, Slovan Bratislava, on their second pot of Champions League money in three years and absolutely dwarf their competition. But Serbia feels like probably the most egregious example in the whole of Europe today. This is a genuine shame because I think it takes a lot of the sting out of this fixture. There's a reluctant acceptance from Partizan that Red Star will just walk it. Especially this year where Partizan have started terribly. Both clubs sacked a manager in August as well - Red Star's coming after their Champions League exit (and look up what happened to them in Plzen!).

 

The game has also caught the headlines for the tifo and minutes silence for Ratko Mladic which both sets of fans were united in. They're getting absolute pelters online for it, lots of calls for UEFA to ban Serbian clubs.

 

Belgrade is definitely worth a visit. It's pretty cheap, loads of nightlife and bars, taxis a doddle etc... it's split into two essentially either side of the Danube. My hotel was superbly located, Hotel NB Skadarlija it was called, bang in the middle of the old town, cheap and pretty nice for what I paid as well, only about £25 a night each for two of us in the room. The other side of the river is Novi Beograd (aka New Belgrade) which is essentially one giant brutalist housing estate.

 

I did already know this before going but with a city dominated by two big clubs you would think that they were split one side and the other. Galatasaray and Fenerbahce are in different continents. Not the case here - the grounds are 5 minutes walk apart, which I find really quite surreal. I'm interested to know how you establish which are Zvezda areas and which are Partizan.

 

Most taxis seemed to get onto football chat. The majority of them support foreign teams. Chelsea, Arsenal and Inter were the three I had memory of. Chelsea for Ivanovic, Inter for Stankovic. One of them was talking to me about Leicester and saying how much he celebrated the night Chelsea drew with Tottenham. It's pretty mental and hits you how much outreach it really had. What is a shame, and again ties into what I said above about the Serbian league is that none of them had any time for their league at all, with the Zvezda institutionalised dominance really killing their interest. The Inter supporting taxi driver who said what he said about Leicester was saying how his Dad is a die hard Zvezda fan but he just doesn't like them

 

Serbian football is a bit broken really.

 

But don't let that put anyone off going. The atmosphere, while not absolutely deafening throughout (though I don't think the ground hugely helped this) is still great and well worth a visit. It's really got plenty in its favour.

 

I did go to a third tier game on the Friday at IMT's ground (top tier club but the local club, Usce, were using it) which is within Novi Beograd. Free entry but wouldn't let anyone enter the bar which was a bit daft. I lasted a half.

 

We went to Novi Sad on the Saturday, about 45 mins on the train. In truth I didn't see a great deal. It was about 37 degrees - just too hot to really do anything. It's a shame the derby didn't fall a month or so later really, but so be it.

 

Good trip though and I'm lucky to have a wide group of mates that are up for this sort of thing pretty frequently. One of them has hit a point where he's now trying to go to a game in every UEFA confederate and I may have a crack myself, I think that's taken me to 21 out of 55 now. He's up to forty something, including Kazakhstan and Georgia.

 

But yes - definitely recommend it.

Do you know what it would be like in comparison for the return fixture at Partizans ground? Attendance, atmosphere, hostility, etc?

[Dan]

 

 

 

 

That's probably the most iconic building in Novi Beograd. Sort of sums it up. 

 

[Dan]

1 minute ago, 1972 Fox said:

Do you know what it would be like in comparison for the return fixture at Partizans ground? Attendance, atmosphere, hostility, etc?

I'd imagine it's all fairly similar to be honest. You would probably expect it to be more hostile with the underdog at home but what I said before still applies in that I think there is just a reluctant acceptance that this is a one horse race. I haven't checked the record but I expect Red Star probably win there more than Partizan do.

 

Partizan actually went ahead within a minute last night but it never really felt in any kind of doubt (as somebody who needed Zvezda to win for quite good money ) that Zvezda would just win it. I think they played with the handbrake on a little bit and could've really taken them apart if they wanted to but the fact they didn't, in a derby, sort of backs up what I think about this game. It's very good but if Partizan were any good it would be even better.

[Dan]

Tell you what I'm miles off there. Zvezda's record at Partizan is actually pretty shit.

 

They have won the last two trips there but before that there were no wins in 11. That's pretty cool.

 

Predictably though Partizan are winless in their last 15 trips to Zvezda.

[Dan]

 will add as well the taxi driver when criticising Serbian football (he didn't even know the derby was on!) said if Partizan have a chance of winning then Zvezda will get a penalty or something and just win.

 

Sure enough.

[1972 Fox]

19 minutes ago, Dan said:

I'd imagine it's all fairly similar to be honest. You would probably expect it to be more hostile with the underdog at home but what I said before still applies in that I think there is just a reluctant acceptance that this is a one horse race. I haven't checked the record but I expect Red Star probably win there more than Partizan do.

 

Partizan actually went ahead within a minute last night but it never really felt in any kind of doubt (as somebody who needed Zvezda to win for quite good money ) that Zvezda would just win it. I think they played with the handbrake on a little bit and could've really taken them apart if they wanted to but the fact they didn't, in a derby, sort of backs up what I think about this game. It's very good but if Partizan were any good it would be even better.

I see the capacity of the FK Partizan stadium is just under 30k, which might mean more chance of a full house.

[Dan]

55 minutes ago, 1972 Fox said:

I see the capacity of the FK Partizan stadium is just under 30k, which might mean more chance of a full house.

22,000 last time and judging by flash scores it's frequently just over a third full. It'd be interesting to do but would imagine we'll probably do some other stuff now, with an international weekend triple header lined up for November.

[Leicesterpool]

Away in Skeggy next week, however saturday doing at detour to Boston United to visit the new stadium as taking on Wealdstone. First visit to the new stadium, once did York Street and I thought it was one of best non league grounds in the ground. Not forgetting in the mid 00's Boston Utd were a football league team and wouldn't surprise me if there soon back there. However one negative i've noticed, whilst York Street was within walking distance of the town centre, the new stadium like many is outer town. 

 

Anyone else visited Boston United before?

[LCFC1996]

8 hours ago, Leicesterpool said:

Away in Skeggy next week, however saturday doing at detour to Boston United to visit the new stadium as taking on Wealdstone. First visit to the new stadium, once did York Street and I thought it was one of best non league grounds in the ground. Not forgetting in the mid 00's Boston Utd were a football league team and wouldn't surprise me if there soon back there. However one negative i've noticed, whilst York Street was within walking distance of the town centre, the new stadium like many is outer town. 

 

Anyone else visited Boston United before?

I'd be interested to hear how you get on, tempted to do it for the National League Cup game against our U21s to get a Leicester fix without trudging to the KP 😂

[CosbehFox]

10 hours ago, Dan said:

 will add as well the taxi driver when criticising Serbian football (he didn't even know the derby was on!) said if Partizan have a chance of winning then Zvezda will get a penalty or something and just win.

 

Sure enough.

Saw that with my own eyes when Partizan momentarily equalised at the game. VAR picked up the most tiniest encroachment 

[CosbehFox]

Rather annoyingly the Verona v Vicenza derby is going to be on sale to people from the Verona area for now. The away end no tickets on sale as well. 

 

I will try on Thursday on the free sale and try to use the Airbnb as an address but I have to register my passport so might be tricky. 

[Stuntman_Mike]

York v Gillingham on 26th September to complete the 92 again.