Our first journey to a Swiss third -flight ground took us to the Canton of Jura and the town of Delémont. The Swiss 3rd flight, Erste Liga Promotion as it is called, is having its inaugural season. Five sides relegated from the Challenge league have been joined by 11 teams promoted from various regional leagues to form the third national league in Switzerland.
We took the train over to the French bit of Switzerland not knowing quite where the stadium was. Out of the station we came, and started peering at one of those town-maps looking for something vaguely stadium-like. As we were looking, a yellow and black clad gentleman asked if we were looking for the football ground. He then gave us directions. Unfortunately, he gave us the directions in French and my French is embarrassingly bad but with his pointing we got the gist. Friendly! Good start.
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| La Blancherie from the Flyover |
The stadium actually turned out to be about a 10 minute walk away, just on the edge of town. We paused on the flyover. We had a good view of the pitch, and probably were no further away than fans who pay silly money to sit at the back of the Emirates stadium. Could we just stay here?
Absolutely not! This is simply outside of the spirit of our tour.
Heading towards the ground, and we had our normal debate about how we were going to get our "orange juice" inside. It was complicated this time, but we just about managed to get all the orange juice enhancer shared between two plastic cups and a burger king cup. There was just about enough orange juice to take the edge off the enhancer. The plastic cups were carefully stashed in the side-pockets of my rucksack and with my innocent looking, Burger King Coke, we headed for the stadium.
A friendly bunch of kids gave us a program. Its actually a leaflet but its free and has the team information and we bought our tickets, using our atrocious French. The lady on the ticket desk responded with vastly better German and in we went. No security whatsoever. After all the skill and guile we'd applied, I was kinda disappointed!
Points Time
Getting There
7 / 10. It's easy to get to Delémont as there are regular trains from Basel. The town map just outside the station is very clear so I'm confident we would have found the stadium. After 5 minutes walking in the right direction, you see the floodlights so no real problem at all.
Friendliness
10 / 10. See what happens when you start to visit the smaller clubs!
First of all, we have the helpful fan doing his best to explain how to get to the ground. No issues getting in and in the ground it got better.
As ever, we wanted our mini-pennants, but we couldn't see a club shop. So we asked (remember, we do not speak the language) and were pointed to a gentleman who spoke German. This guy went into the offices and brought back two lovely pennants and some stickers. He wanted 10 Sfr for the lot. Wow!
At half time, the local fans chatted with us about our tour and it was thoroughly enjoyable. The lad who had directed us to the stadium wanted to buy me a beer. I insisted on getting him one and we were invited back for Delémont's cup clash with Super-League Lausanne.
Clear 10 / 10 and we are going to do our best with that game against Lausanne.
View
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| View: Sadly poor from behind the goal |
6 /10. Absolutely fine at the sides of the ground, but sadly, due to it being an athletics stadium, behind the goals its a dead loss.
Safety
8/10. Security was non existent but it would also have been completely unnecessary. I just hope they get it right when the larger teams visit. No fences for me to get upset about and the terraces were fine in terms of height.
Atmosphere
4 / 10. Very tough. There were just 480 spectators in the 5263 capacity stadium so it was never going to be a surround-sound roar.
Refreshments
7 / 10. Sausages again but it was nice to see them barbecued. Sadly, the Veal Bratwurst that I tried was very mushy (they are normally, quite mushy, but this was very mushy). The beer was Heineken which is also something that we should hold against them!
Pluses. There looked to be some nice wines available. At 25 SFr a bottle, it wasn't that badly priced either if you consider restaurant prices.
Overall
42 / 60
The Match
A first comment I'll make is how well Swiss ball-boys manage the multi-ball system. I know its not rocket science but I've seen lads older than this kid mess it up enough times in England.
The match wasn't bad although it was characterized by the lack of ability to cut through defences you often see at lower levels.
Decent enough though with the home side always the stronger. Early on, Delémont pressed and eventually Badara Sene burst through into the 6 yard box forcing the Old Boys 'keeper to bravely save at his feet. The best moment of the half came when Delémont broke up an Old Boys break and attacked themselves. A shot from 30 yards plus from Tomi Saarelma brought a great save from Florian Stocker. Other than that, much probing by Delémont, but little from the visitors.
More of the same in the second half. Sene was played in perfectly with the goal at his mercy but scooped it high over the bar,. but on 55 minutes, he made a mends, powerfully heading home a corner.
If Delémont were dominating up to now, it was only going to get worse for the Old Boys. A horribly late challenge by Claudio Zenger resulted in his dismissal. From now on it was chance after chance for Delémont but they only managed one more goal. On 71 minutes a good run from Enès Morina was spotted and the striker made no mistake with his one-on-one with Stocker. Delémont pressed for the third goal their dominance deserved but it was not to be.
The Match
A first comment I'll make is how well Swiss ball-boys manage the multi-ball system. I know its not rocket science but I've seen lads older than this kid mess it up enough times in England.
The match wasn't bad although it was characterized by the lack of ability to cut through defences you often see at lower levels.
Decent enough though with the home side always the stronger. Early on, Delémont pressed and eventually Badara Sene burst through into the 6 yard box forcing the Old Boys 'keeper to bravely save at his feet. The best moment of the half came when Delémont broke up an Old Boys break and attacked themselves. A shot from 30 yards plus from Tomi Saarelma brought a great save from Florian Stocker. Other than that, much probing by Delémont, but little from the visitors.
More of the same in the second half. Sene was played in perfectly with the goal at his mercy but scooped it high over the bar,. but on 55 minutes, he made a mends, powerfully heading home a corner.
If Delémont were dominating up to now, it was only going to get worse for the Old Boys. A horribly late challenge by Claudio Zenger resulted in his dismissal. From now on it was chance after chance for Delémont but they only managed one more goal. On 71 minutes a good run from Enès Morina was spotted and the striker made no mistake with his one-on-one with Stocker. Delémont pressed for the third goal their dominance deserved but it was not to be.
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