A Wasted Evening in Freezing Yorkshire

I took a trip to Huddersfield on Wednesday to visit the John Smith Stadium and for the quality of the football I really needn’t have bothered.

Huddersfield’s stadium is one that I’ve wanted to visit for ages and the stadium itself was incredible. It’s just the football that let it all down.
I started this game 2 weeks ago when I was in Huddersfield for other reasons. I found myself at the stadium and Jenna on the ticket office helped me get a ticket for a game I could make. It was either this game or waiting till November 30th. Jenna was a great help but I should’ve waited.

I got to town early on in the day to check into my hotel for the evening as the last train back for me was leaving 5 minutes after the final whistle. Whilst the station is essentially a straight walk from the station google maps put it at 15minutes and I wasn’t taking that risk. Heading to the station that timing felt accurate. To get there you walk straight out of the station down the road straight in front of you and just keep going, turn right at the junction just past farm foods and then through the car park and you’re at the stadium.
To be fair though, from the station you could do a lot worse than head straight ahead and follow the arches.

The Stadium itself is gorgeous, it’s set into a natural bowl in the landscape. It’s got four white arches and when set against the green hills behind it the scene really is quite stunning. On the other side to the green hills runs the River Colne, alongside which runs a path that takes you from the entrance to the car park right up to the stadium.

Having got to the town early and with no other commitments for the day I got to the ground almost 2 hours before kick-off. The turnstiles weren’t even open. I have never been at a ground that early before so I had to find things to do. I couldn’t find any programmes as I was reliably informed that they were only sold inside the ground. Instead I found far more important things to do.

Opposite the turnstiles just past the ticket offices there was a stand set up by the NHS to teach supporters CPR. With the events at Newcastle vs Tottenham last weekend it is great to see Huddersfield taking this action to ensure as many people know CPR as possible. The fan who had the cardiac arrest last weekend was treated at the ground and appears to be on the way to a full recovery. The paramedic teaching me CPR told me that this recovery is partly down to the fact that two fans near him in the crowd knew CPR. Learning this skill really can save lives so it was great to see Huddersfield doing their bit to ensure more people can learn it. I hope other football teams take this onboard and set up stands like this to teach their own fans this important skill.

Behind this life saving stand there was a games hut with both table football and Fifa 2020 ready to play. What I didn’t realise and which there was no sign of on the outside of the hut is that you’re supposed to have under 18’s with you to enter. I got most of the way through a game of Fifa before a steward in the room enlightened me to this rule, but at least they were good enough to let me finish my game before I had to leave. From this point I decided to head into the ground.

Just after I got inside I was able to pick up a free programme. I have yet to be at another game where programmes are free for a league match, but to be fair the programme wasn’t worth paying for. It was rather thin and had no league table inside nor much about either team. The back did however have the normal squad list, just without a column to record the starting 11. It did have circles to record goals and cards though, not that either was particularly needed. The club shop sold something better than the programme though, it sold poppy badges which were a great sight to see and I’m sure poppy badges will be on sale at many other club shops across the land in the next few weeks in the run up to Remembrance day.

On the far side of the pitch during the warm up there was a cluster of orange shirts at the far end of the ground which turned out to be the strips of two local junior teams that were to form a guard of honour for the teams as they entered the field for the match. This was a lovely idea from Huddersfield and a great way to connect the senior team to the community and provide the juniors with role models to inspire their own progress in the sport.

Unfortunately they probably wont have found role models from this match as both Huddersfield and their visitors Birmingham City started the game with the first thought simply to keep the ball and they achieved this by passing backwards at every opportunity. The first half was a real snooze-fest. There was only one chance of note in the entire half where a team actually looked like they may actually score a goal. This came in the 43rd minute when Huddersfield got a freekick halfway within their attacking half. The freekick was sent into the box and met by an excellent diving header that flew mere inches past the post.

There were other attacks in the first 45, but none where either team looked like scoring nor looked like they truly wanted to score either. There was one minute of added time at the end of the half and I’m really not sure where they got it from. The ball hardly ever went out and there were hardly any other breaks in play either. Suffice to say that EFL on Quest must have been struggling to find highlights for their midweek programme.

The screens on the stadium concourse at half time showed both the current league table and stats from the first half. I didn’t see any stats for shots or shots on target in the first half, perhaps this speaks volumes about the quality of the play. One stat that did stand out from the first half was the amount of long balls, it was 30 for Huddersfield and 40 for Birmingham City. A more depressing stat from a half of football I cannot think of.

The halftime break also allowed me to buy a hot chocolate to warm myself up on what was a freezing evening in Yorkshire. What it didn’t bring was any substitutions from either side, which was quite baffling given the dearth of skill or desire on show in the first half.

The first thing to note about the second half were the two clashes of heads that occurred in the half. Both times this occurred the medics were one quickly to attend to the players involved and after a quick assessment the players involved were able to re-join the match.

To be fair to Huddersfield they were the team that had the only clear and obvious chances of the match, the first of which was in the 43rd minute as mentioned. The next of which was in the 57th minute seconds after they had a penalty appeal turned down by the ref when Ward went down in the area. The ball broke to O’Brien on the edge of the penalty area who hit it first time with a splendid strike that flew inches wide of the post. It was the second piece of quality all match and given that fact it was now an hour into the match this made the complete lack of substitutions by either side particularly puzzling.

The first much needed substitution didn’t arrive till the 70th minute when Birmingham’s Lee Bowyer made the first move. He took off his captain Lukas Jutkiewicz and bought on long-time Watford striker Troy Deeney who joined his boyhood heroes in the summer. The important substitution of the game came six minutes late when Huddersfield took off Danny Ward and bought on Frazier Campbell, the first player all match to show the desire to win.

He almost scored within a minute of coming on with a glorious spinning volley from 12 yards out, but the Birmingham keeper got into just the right place to prevent it from going in though and denied the home fans that had come to the game having something to celebrate. Campbell had one last glorious chance of the match in added time at the end of the 90, this time he hit the post with a powerful shot from distance that flew just wide. Campbell was absolutely the man of such an otherwise boring match and he was only on the pitch for 18 minutes.

The lack of desire to win shown by the rest of the players in the home team can be summed up by 2 examples for the final 10 minutes of the game. The first of which was a freekick in the 83rd minute when they had players lining the edge of the box ready to make runs to latch onto the freekick but it was instead played square 35 yards from goal where the receiving player instantly turned away from goal and looked to play it back into his own half. The second was in the 89th minute when the keeper decided against clearing the ball to Harry Toffolo, who was in space on the right, in favour of wasting time. Toffolo was not pleased with this any more than the 15,608 fans in attendance, including the 1,600 away fans who had made the long journey up from Birmingham for the match.

The atmosphere of the match was lacking. This was partly due to the awful lack of quality of the play on the pitch but also partly due to the design of the stadium, which makes each stand a separate structure entirely with gaps at each end for any noise that was made in one stand to escape from the stadium. there is no fully joined up outer structure to keep the atmosphere inside.

Also, one last note for those driving to the match. The main walking route from the stadium heads straight out through the car park and as such no cars are allowed to leave this car park for 15 minutes after the final whistle. Park instead in the car park attached to the cinema 2 minutes away on the far side of the stadium from the station. There appeared to be no such restrictions on that car park.

The stadium was amazing to visit, just a shame the football wasn’t at all up to the same standard. I may return later in the season in hopes of catching a match that lives up to its beautiful surroundings.

This weekend I’m heading back to Prenton Park to see how a Men’s game there compares to the Women’s game I witnessed there 10 days ago.