End of season review - football 2023-24

Going to the Wales women's international at the very end of May marked my last live game of the season. So, so here is my review of the year. The Futbology app gives a useful summary:

65 games is a new personal season record. I wasn't expecting to set a new record at the start of the season and the achievement was unintentional. That's more than a game a week, and a bit silly really. 

However, my number of new grounds was lower than previous seasons. I achieved a decent geographical spread, though. (Map from Futbology)

On my season round-up, I listed Barry's away win at Caernarfon as my favourite game of the season. It was a game with 5 high quality goals including a late rocket shot that settled the game in Barry's favour. It was also my debut as a radio commentator. 

The game with the most goals - Swindon Supermarine v Poole Town - was right at the start of the season. Former Barry defender Luke Cooper was playing for Supermarine who unfortunately conceded seven. 

I didn't see any games with more than ten goals this season (unlike 2022-23) and my overall goals total was noticeably lower than the previous season, despite going to more games. 

My stand out memories are Shrewsbury taking the lead against Leeds at a packed Elland Road, being in with the Leverkusen fans at West Ham, the Caernarfon and Supermarine games I've already mentioned, completing the Cymru Premier at Colwyn Bay (with my nephew Zac), Shrewsbury's hilarious three goals at Notts County, and Truro City playing a "home" game in Gloucester against Torquay United. I was also in the crowd at a sold out Meadow to see Shrewsbury renew rivalries with Wrexham for the first time in 15 years, after they were drawn together in the FA Cup.

There weren't many matchgoing disasters, although getting on a train at Cardiff Central to go to a Newport County game and then discovering the next stop was going to be Reading was stressful!

So, it's been an enjoyable 11 months! Roll on next season!

The 12 cards of Christmas

I have decided not to do a Christmas card audit this year. It's something I might do again in future, but I felt like a Christmas off. 

However, I haven't dispensed with all my blogging traditions - here are a selection of the cards we received this year. It was tough picking just 12 from the pile. I have only included cards that could scan easily on the flatbed, so you will just have to picture the 3D musical R2-D2 card with flashing lights that Connor gave me in your minds eye!

First up is a card that just made me smile. Santa has upgraded his transport - to a big red bus!

I'm never sure whether "peace" counts as a religious theme or not. It felt very apt this year with some of the horrors grinding on in other parts of the world, particularly in the middle east. I really liked the design of this peace dove. 

A more definite religious theme - the three "kings" (AKA wise men or magi). The curly shoes of the king in the middle amused me. 

I love cards designed by kids. This one of robins sat on a goalpost (I think) was by Delilah. It was printed as a fund-raiser for her school. 

And this drawing by Jowan was hand done. Got to say this is a contender for my very favourite card this year. A duck-billed platypus in a Santa hat? What's not to love? (Although I don't think platypuses quack, despite their duck-bills.)

Keeping on an antipodean fauna theme, here's a tree of koala bears from my friend Jon in Oz.

This card was given to us 11 months early by my friend Sian. It's a pun and a moose.

And another moose! Including this card is a bit of a cheat because it's one of the ones that I gave to Cathy. It's designed by Cardiff-based artist Ana Palamar. I liked his wellies. 

More animals. This time it's some sheep saying "Baa humbug!" I liked the stripy sheep who actually looks like a humbug. 

But nobody does humbug as well as the Modern Toss cartoonists. This gave me a belly laugh when I first saw it. 

Cathy's card to me. Very cute. 

And then the final card of the selection. This one really had it all. A pun. Camels! Wearing Santa hats! Fair play to my Mum, she ticked all the boxes with this one.

As ever, a massive thank you to everyone who sent us a Christmas card. If it wasn't featured in the post, I can promise you it was very much appreciated.

And that was 2023... a recap of a busy year

I normally write my annual reviews on a month by month basis but this year have decided to recap it in thematic chunks...

Life events

We celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary in September with family and friends. We had a very enjoyable time and are grateful to everyone who travelled to be with us on the day. 

For the second year in a row I started a new job. After 13 years working in the NHS, I applied for and was offered a role working for Diabetes UK. It was a frenetic start, landing in the middle of a rebranding operation for the programme! Highly enjoyable, though. 

There have been a couple of sad moments as well. Our friend Colin passed away in February and we went to his memorial service in Haddenham. In September I went to Leeds for the memorial for my friend and former colleague, Margot. 

Holidays

This year Cathy and I had our first ever trip to DisneyLand Paris. I followed it up with a weekend in Hartlepool. We also had two week-long holidays in North Wales - in July and in November and a week in Worcestershire in April that included a day on the Severn Valley Railway on my birthday.

Football

I went to 62 games in 2023 - you can read more detail in the recap post. I saw Barry Town win two cup finals and get promoted before the end of April. I did my first ever live radio commentary, in Caernarfon in November. And I went to Oxford, Ipswich, Peterborough, Derby, Leeds and Nottingham to watch Shrewsbury Town. 

Culture

My plan to read a book a month fell to the wayside, but I've read more this year than I have since before the pandemic. The one gig I went to this year was Bastille at Cardiff Castle. I watched my friend Rhys in his one man play about Fred Keenor, the captain of the Cardiff City team that won the FA Cup in 1927. I've seen a few films but realise now that I didn't blog about any of them, particularly. I think the best cinema outing was seeing one of my all time favourite films, The Nightmare Before Christmas, back on the big screen as part of its 30 anniversary release. 

I'm not a big believer in New Year's resolutions, but I'd be happy for 2024 to be as full of good times as 2023 was. 

Recap of the month - December 2023

The final month of 2023 was relatively football-lite, although it started with a trip to Nottingham to watch Shrewsbury play Notts County. I went with my friend Paul, who is a Nottingham lad, so was able to show me around the city centre before the game. I got to see the statues of Brian Clough and Robin Hood, both of them much mythologised heroes in the city. 

Before the game I also met Chris, who I've known from an online forum for a while. We were meant to meet up at the end of August when Brentford played Newport County, but I got on the only train heading east from Cardiff that didn't stop in Newport so didn't meet him then. Happily, a few months later there were no such transport mishaps and we were able to finally meet in real life. 

The next Saturday I was helping to deliver a workshop in London, at the Diabetes UK HQ. It was an enjoyable, creative day and well worth getting on a train at 7.42am on a Saturday! 

I put this work trip to good use and booked a late train home so I could meet my friend Gawain for a meal before coming home.

I've known Gawain for a few years now. He is my main source of baseball cards for my collection. We have had several virtual chats about baseball, collecting cards, and loads of other stuff. But this was another first time meeting up in person. We went to Passyunk, which is an American sports bar transplanted from Philadelphia to London. 

I ran a risk and wore one of my Padres shirts to meet up - the owner told me it was OK to wear anything except a Patriots shirt. No chance of that...

For various reasons, including my travelling schedule and Cathy's health, we went for a restrained Christmas. The tree stayed in the loft but we still had plenty of decorations and Christmas stuff around, including 5 advent calendars. My favourite was the Star Wars Droid Factory calendar, which gave you the parts every day to assemble droids in festive colours. These were the first two assembled:

We saw friends and family in the run up to Christmas, focusing more on those connections than decorations. We had some mayhem with small children and a relaxing time meeting Cathy's uncle and aunt in Monmouth.

Awesome R2-D2 card from Connor

For Christmas itself, we went to Shrewsbury. We travelled up the day before Christmas Eve and came home the day after Boxing Day. I went with my brother to the Midnight Communion service in the local Anglican Church on Christmas Eve (via the pub!) and we had Christmas dinner with my mum (and Fred the dog). 

Photo and filter by Cathy

On Boxing Day my sister and brother-in-law drove down from Edinburgh for the day with their family so we got to see all the nieces and nephews. It was a lovely time together.

Coming back to Cardiff  with a few days spare before New Year meant we had some time to unwind. We went to see Wonka at the cinema with our friends Bryan and Elaine. I think it was only the 6th film I'd seen at the cinema all year. We also had a day trip to Oxford to see another friend, so I have chalked up a few miles in the final month of the year.

Football recap - December 2023 and the rest of 2023!

I made it to just one game in December, on the very first day...

Game 32: Notts County 2-3 Shrewsbury Town

Reason for going: When Shrewsbury were drawn away at Notts County in the FA Cup, my Nott-supporting friend Paul said we had to go! So we did. 

Point of interest: Ryan Bowman scored a hat-trick after three woeful defensive errors that became memes for how bad they were. The first goal came after a Notts defender just fell over instead of clearing the ball. It was very hard to cheer the goal because I was laughing so hard. 

And then the fixtures conspired against me for the rest of the month. On Saturday the 9th I was working. Barry Town's home game on the 16th got swapped for an away game. I was driving up to Shrewsbury on the 23rd but getting there in time for Shrewsbury's home game was a bit too much, logistically. Shrewsbury weren't playing at home on Boxing Day. And then on the last Saturday of the year I had other plans. So, that means December 2023 is a one game month!

Despite the low tally of games for December, 2023 as a whole calendar year has actually set a new record for me. I went to 62 games since my first game of the year on the 2nd January at Llantwit Major. 

Futbology has given me a handy summary

Futbology also produces a map showing all the new grounds I visited in 2023. There were a lot in Port Talbot, but I got a decent spread of football grounds across England as well.

As I am the kind of nerd who dissects his football attendance data, I have a breakdown of the games I have been to as monthly totals. This past year I set new monthly records for February (8 games), May (6), July (7) and September (5). I also equalled previous records in March and November (both 5 games). 

If I equalled all the monthly records in 2024 I would end up going to 76 games. That feels like a lot!

Football recap - November 2023

A short round up of November's games... 

Game 27: Caldicot Town 0-0 Tredegar Town (Caldicot won 5-3 on penalties)

Reason for going: My friend Ben was playing for Caldicot and my friend Steve who also knows Ben was free to come with me. So off we went.

Point of interest: I had a run of 30 games without seeing a nil-nil until this game. Strangely the previous nil-nil was also with Steve and also went to penalties. This was the fourth penalty shoot out I've seen this season. (And Ben scored his penalty, which was fun to see.)

Ben waves hello

Game 28: Barry Town 1-0 Guilsfield

Reason for going: To support Barry. (Although this was the first time I'd seen them for about a month.)

Point of interest: This was apparently the 150th Welsh Cup tie played at Jenner Park. An extraordinary stat, really.

Game 29: Caernarfon Town 2-3 Barry Town

Reason for going: Caernarfon was one of the few remaining Cymru Premier grounds I hadn't seen a game at, so this was on my "hit list" at the start of the season.

Point of interest: I made my debut as a co-commentator on Bro Radio for this game, after answering a call out by Daley Chapman for whether anyone was going to the game. It was tremendous fun. We got a great view from the commentary position as well.

Game 30: Shrewsbury Town 2-1 Port Vale

Reason for going: we were on our way home from a week in North Wales, so this fitted into our travel plans nicely and I got to go with my brother and eldest nephew.

Point of interest: there was a sad memorial before the game for four local teenagers who died in a car accident the previous weekend. The 1,600 Port Vale fans in the sold out away end all joined in with the minute's applause. 

Game 31: Barry Town 1-1 Penybont

Reason for going: There wasn't a particular reason. It was a Barry home game and I tend to go to them even on cold Tuesday evenings in November!

Point of interest: Barry were wearing their special charity festive kit featuring a penguin and a reindeer. The kit is majority black and Penybont were playing in a mainly white kit. I don't think I've ever seen a black kit v white kit game before. 

And that's the five games for November, which equals my personal record for November games.