Blog number ten in the #Doingthe92 challenge is a visit to the Proact Stadium. Home to League 1’s Chesterfield. I chose to watch the England U17’s because the tickets were cheap. They were £3 or £4 on the night. One thing I was thinking about going into the game was how many Slovenians would come over to watch this game. I guess I would find that answer out on the day. I always like seeing the youngsters play as it give me and the others in attendance a chance to see who maybe our future stars. The recent example of young talent getting a chance to shine on the big stage is Harry Kane who scored on his England debut against Lithuania.
For anyone who has never been to the Proact Stadium, it takes 20 minutes to walk to the ground from the town centre and is located next to a Tesco’s and a KFC. So if you arrive early you can do your weekly/monthly shopping while having eating a bucket of chicken. One thing I found interesting was how small the ground was. Mostly the area where you get food and drinks. As both teams were warming up before the game, I spotted the away fans and noticed that not a lot turned up. Only 19 Slovenians attended the game and all looked like they didn’t want to be there. Another thing I noticed was that few of the fans brought trumpets and snare drums. I thought they were there to perform the national anthems for both teams before the game but I was wrong. They were actually sat in the same stand as me but sat on the back row whereas I was sat on the second row. All the fans excluding the away fans were sat in the west stand or as it’s known for advertising reasons, the HTM Products stand. The 19 Slovenians were sat in the Karen Child Stand.
The game started and for the first 18 minutes, not a lot happened. But after twenty minutes England took the lead from a goal by West Ham’s Reece Howard. But nine minutes later, Aston Villa’s Easah Suliman was yellow carded for a rough tackle on someone. England continued to capitalise on Slovenia’s mistakes and scored again with a goal from Everton’s Nathan Holland. It didn’t take long for England fans to celebrate even more as Domzale’s Majita Rom scored an own goal in the midst of a scramble.
That’s what it says online but me and everyone else in attendance were told that Arsenal’s Christopher Willock scored. The second half started and it didn’t take long for more yellow cards to be shown as Vitja Valenčič was yellow carded two minutes into the second half. More yellow cards were shown to both Reece Oxford and Southampton’s Oskar Cvjetičanin who both got into a little bit of an altercation. There was a few fans shouting at the referee to send off both players. Yes, England fans wanted this to be 10 on 10. Why you would want the referee to send off your team’s player? I could understand wanting the referee to send off the opposing teams’ player but your own? This was very confusing.
Yet another yellow card was shown to Slovenia. This one doing to Olimpija Ljibljana’s Jakob Novak for being unsporting and shouting at the referee. Slovenia did manage to score one goal from Fiorentina’s Jan Mlakar but it wasn’t enough as the game ended with England winning 3-1. I remember leaving the ground and having to walk along the river which doesn’t have any lights and was so dark I nearly fell into the river. I was so scared that I was constantly looking behind me as even someone jogging in the dark managed to scare me. I made it to the train station and I found a first in all of my travels. A vending machine that sells milk!
Overall, I had fun at Chesterfield. I got to meet a lot of nice fans who came to the game. The only downside to my trip to Chesterfield was that my camera decided to delete all of my photos that I had taken. I was a little upset as I had taken some very good photos. So good that the fans sat next to me wanted to see every photo I took. If you have any recommendations on where I should visit next, then leave it in the comments or send me a message on Twitter @DanWhite1993. I hope you have enjoyed this. My next blog will be about my visit to The Emirates, home of Arsenal, to see Brazil vs. Chile, or as it was promoted on Arsenal’s website, Neymar vs. Sanchez.
Here are the full stats about the game
Team Visited – England U17
Taking on – Slovenia U17
Venue – Proact Stadium
Date Visited – March 23rd 2015
Overall Attendance – 3126
Score – England U17 3-1 Slovenia U17
Goal Scorers – England U17 – Reece Oxford (20), Nathan Holland (36), Matija Rom (OG) (38)
Goal Scorer – Slovenia U17 – Jan Mlakar (65)
Yellow Cards – England U17 – Easah Suliman (29), Reece Oxford (44)
Yellow Cards – Slovenia U17 – Vitja Valenčič (42), Oskar Cvjetičanin (44), Jakob Novak (48)
UPCOMING VISITS/BLOGS
11th – Arsenal (March 29th Brazil vs. Chile)
12th – Stevenage (April 25th vs. Carlisle United)
13h – Morecambe (May 2nd vs. Southend United)
14th – Crystal Palace (May 26th – Julian Speroni’s Testimonial vs. Dundee FC)
