|
Gabe Dahl (what a super surname - that must be investigated to see if he's related to Cardiff's own Roald), is studying in Durham and has visited several UK 'soccer' venues including The Emirates and Wembley. He is from Los Angeles, an LA Galaxy fan and is a fan of USA Soccer and Eddie Johnson inparticular.
His blog of his trip to Cardiff is here and the text below was posted by Gabe to the messageboard on this website after his trip to South Wales.
"Hey guys, I just wanted to say I had a really great time at the match. It was well worth the 6 hour train ride each way, seriously. I got down saturday afternoon, and explored Cardiff a bit. It's a really charming city in my opinion, one of my favorites I've seen in the UK so far, actually. I really liked the giant park by the river, and the Cardiff Bay area was nice too. It helped that Saturday was such a nice day.
I went to check out the stadium the day before the match, just to make sure I knew how to get there. And even though I new that you were building the new stadium, I have to admit, once I turned the corner on to sloper street I started walking right to the new ground before I realized what I was doing.
But then I looked across the street and saw Ninian. I immediately loved it, I couldn't believe how old it looked. I just walked all around for like 20 minutes exploring. I really really liked it.
And then the match the next morning was great. It's too bad you couldn't get all three points, but it was at least a very exciting match. It's a shame that the coin incident is taking all the publicity from what was a great match. Everyone I talked to was very nice. The man sat next to me was very talkative, and gave me lots of info about the stadium, the team, swansea, etc. He was also intersted to hear me talk about the Galaxy, what I was doing out here, etc.
The grandstand seemed like a perfect view to take in the match, and Block A right next to me (I was in B) was great in providing lots of atmosphere and giving hell to the swansea fans all match. I was a bit worried I wouldn't get too emotionally invested, and would stick out when everyone else was going nuts. Well I'm happy to report I went suffiecently nuts when Cardiff scored- I couldn't help it. You may have a new fan developing here.
After the match I just waited around the stadium for a while, watching all the excitement going on, and after about an hour the players started to come out of the players entrance. I got a picture with Eddie, which was great, and made the day even better. I was happy he got at least a few minutes in the match too.
And a bit later I went over to the parking lot and had a 15 minute conversation with him. That was really amazing, and pretty exciting for me. He was really nice, and treated me like a friend, not just some random fan.
All in all, it was a great day, and I had alot of fun. Thanks to everyone who I talked to at the match, everyone was nice and welcoming. Like I said, overall, it was well worth the train journey. Best of luck in the Derby match tomorrow, and the rest of the season. Hope you guys can get promoted. I'm only out here for one year of school, but I might have to come back in a few years to see the new stadium.
Oh yeah, I wrote a short blog about my experience here:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=4772
It has some pictures, including a terrible one of me with Eddie
. But I'm not sure how interesting you'll find it, since it's written pretty much for an American audience, and you probably already know most of what I wrote. Anyway, cheers for everyone's helpful advice, welcoming attitude, and encouragement on these boards. If it wasn't for that, I might not have gone all the way down there at all. Again, good luck the rest of this year,
Gabe