The Football Match

A K-League Sunday

Words and Pictures

On Saturday night I was out celebrating Sarah's birthday, and heard tell of a football match taking place the next day. Not being one to turn down the opportunity of something to do on a day with an empty schedule, particularly a beautiful sunny one, I gave Laura a call on Sunday and we both headed down to the World Cup Stadium.

We arrived about an hour before the 3pm kickoff, and the stadium hadn't filled up yet, not that it really did. The upper tier remained empty throughout the game, but the lower seats were 80% full eventually. The World Cup Stadium was constructed for a recent international sporting event where lots of different countries, from all over the world, played football for a cup of some kind. I don't recall the name of the tournament though. That said (and I did have to say it, it's 12:20 am, and that was officially my fist joke of the day) the stadium was beautiful, and the seating was so close to the pitch it felt like you could stretch out your legs and trip the players as they ran past. We got seats right at the front, near the middle of the pitch.

The Daejon Citizens were playing the Chunnam Dragons. The football was lively, but it wasn't until about 40 minutes into the first half that Daejon scored the opening goal, which made the crowd very happy indeed.

Within another minute Daejon scored again, and the first half ended shortly afterwards. It was interesting to do a bit of people watching, and the game really was a 'family event'. There were lots of kids, and there seemed to be only slightly more men than women. Indeed, the away supporters seemed to be about two thirds girls. Maybe the players brought their wives and daughters with them. Half-time distraction was provided by a Korean dance squad, which was a little surreal.

As the second half started I went walkabout to take some shots. The game carried on, but as I am wont to be, I was more interested in taking pictures.

I took my seat about 20 minutes into the second half, in time to see Chunnam score their first goal. The away crowd, and I think calling them a crowd is being generous as there were less than fifty of them, became somewhat more animated, but when the equaliser was scored, out came the flares. I must admit, for all that there weren't many of them, they did make a lot of noise.

Daejon managed to score the winning goal shortly before the full-time whistle, and the team wandered around the field bowing to the fans.

And if you wanted an idea of the kinds of snacks popular at Korean public venues, here's a picture of some Ritz crackers, and some dried squid to put on them. What the other thing is, I have no idea.

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