ALMELO BLOG

The Almelo International Walking Football tournament in Holland is held each year in May and the Senior Spireites have been involved since the tournament started in 2012. For the past 3 years Steve Gleadall has used his journalistic experience and expertise to send daily updates on the trials and tribulations of the team and the tournament...

2026

Day 1

The first question I know you are asking is ‘how are the ducks on the canal next to the Heracles training pitches?’

Glad to say apart from the usual damp bottoms, they are fine. Anyway, on to the day’s events where we hoped to ruffle a few feathers, but starting with the weather forecast. Ninety per cent chance of rain — which of course makes the top half of the ducks damp and we players very wet.

Not the sunny start we all hoped for with our four newcomers, who I am pleased here to openly reveal their darkest secrets. Turns out our club secretary Hugh has a penchant for heavy metal music (among many genres it must be said), Shawn knows just about every pub in Bath (though maybe not every bath in each pub), Darryl once was in a taxi in Egypt and the car door fell off (happily the driver put it back on but didn’t blame Darryl), and Kevin accidentally went to Iceland once.

I make no comment on this. But these rookies make us oldies look quite normal.

So after the opening ceremony (thankfully back in the stadium itself) and watching the women’s teams kick off, it was down to business for the Senior Spireites.

First game was against Sung and under a threatening sky we took a 1-0 win courtesy of Darryl dancing through and slipping the ball between the keeper’s legs. Yet the true hero in a game dominated by us was a goal line save from John. Our opponents had barely created a chance but a great shot on target had ‘equaliser’ written all over it but John’s knee flicked the ball over the bar.

At this point we were feeling confident for the second game, against Walking Bears (we had earlier watched the mighty Łódź take them apart) but hope faded for us when they grabbed an early goal. Things got worse when John had to go off for two minutes, thanks to a bizarre new rule in which the third person caught running on a team was sin-binned. Worse was to come when first the referee gave a penalty that no one else saw—including a surprised Bears team—when John was back on, before the ref chose to give a free kick to them instead of a corner claiming the bounce from a save went over waist height, which other refs we saw had preferred to give as a corner first. The free kick was banged home to leave us with a cruel 0-3 defeat.

On to the last game, against the all-conquering Łódź who had won their previous two group games without conceding.

We set up to frustrate them but their mercurial play soon left us two goals down. They kept the pressure on and scored three more (the first day games are all 20 minutes) and even missed a penalty when Hugh made a brilliant instinctive save but in a no-hands keeper game that was a pen. It wasn’t however the only penalty Łódź missed in our group games.

Well done to the lads for battling it out, and every praise for Shawn upending their former international.

That left us at third place in the group, with three points and a goal difference showing for 2 and against 8.

So on to tomorrow and the 15 minutes games. Come on you blues!

Day 1 update

I must offer an apology. My first day report ran into an editing problem. All my fault; I inadvertently edited out the description of Darryl’s thunderbolt long range shot into the corner of the net late in the game against Łódź. It was a joy to behold and must have qualified as one of the goals of the day. Moreover it was a fitting reward for Darryl’s tenacious play throughout.

As it was the only first day goal against a very impressive team the strike deserved a bigger audience.

Day 2

The chase for rankings on the second day began with a good 1-0 win against home team Heracles with a fine Darryl through ball deftly put away by Clive. But under the bizarre new running rules a series of decisions by a fussy little referee saw Clive once and Darryl twice sin-binned; at one point we had two off and briefly down to four at one stage. Pete had a turn in goal and made a good save to preserve the win, so a promising start.

In the next game we came up against skilled Calne Town team who having beaten Grimsby 5-1 in their first game then took control against us and ran out deservedly 3-0 winners.

On to the final group game before lunch in the stadium but despite Darryl giving us the lead and Clive hitting the post we let things slip from a free kick and had to settle for an unexpected 1-1 draw. Billy, who was ill, put in a determined show in his one and only appearance of the day.

After lunch we looked a little lethargic, going down 0-1 to German side Bayer Leverkusen thanks to an early deflected shot which slid past Hugh. They might have made it two but hit the bar.

These 15 minute games do not allow much recovery time, but we were right back on form in our last game when we were all over FC Glanerbrug like a rash but they somehow hung on for a 0-0. It was agonising to see our shots just go wide with a Shawn piledriver hitting the post but Darryl narrowly failing to turn the rebound home. Clive was unlucky right at the end too after a good move but his shot just cleared the bar.

We can feel unlucky not to end with a win and in the final reckoning we (dubbed Chesterfield Spirits by the stadium announcer) finished 7th out of 16 teams in our classification. Good work from a talented set of lads on a very hot day.

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A final note from self-appointed manager Steve (and briefly player manager for a whole three minutes): I told the team I was very proud of how they played some great stuff despite coming up against some good teams including the expected champions Łódź and some frankly bizarre and inconsistent refereeing. It was a privilege to see the team in action and appreciate how they listened patiently to my sometimes strange tactical decisions. Still I am happy to have now been a Chesterfield Spireites manager on a foreign tour and been able to survive to resign at the end, neatly leaving the path open for a new manager to take these wonderful players forward next season.

2025

Reflections on the Tournament and the background music: It was great finishing the last day at Almelo unbeaten, though I didn’t mention before that we did come perilously close to five draws instead of our one win and four draws. The team we beat in the first game managed to hit the bar with what was a decent move and shot, but that’s football as we all well know.

One flaw in the game they play is the ‘waist high’ rule, so when you block a shot and the ball springs up the opposition often gets a free kick somewhere around three yards from goal, with every chance another block results in yet another free kick followed swiftly by a third. Happily we didn’t actually concede a goal from that situation though one of the opposition goals of the five we conceded did come from a free kick somewhat further out. So it goes.

I also want to make an observation not only regarding the game but about music. As you might expect the preponderance of music over in Holland is pretty much all English language hits—indeed the first two songs in Heracles stadium at the prize-giving were the Pet Shop Boys singing ‘Go West’ and as we are accustomed to at sporting events, ‘Sweet Caroline.’ Yes, people from many nations were joining in. Loudly.

But not all were familiar hits. The trouble was the music piped out as we played football was what I imagine was Dutch drinking music. It was that strange, beer-guzzling incentive of a band comprising accordion and drums accompanied by rolling, jolly (very Dutch) lyrics.

Finally, in the hotel’s three lifts there was always the sort of pop music we know, and there was a time when—quite alone between floors—I happily danced along to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen.’ As always, these lifts have a security camera, so somewhere in the Preston Palace vaults there is now a video tape of me dancing. So, should you ever go to this tournament, please do not ask to see it. You would be horrified at how bad I am at dancing.

But I bet now you can’t get the ‘Dancing Queen’ tune out of your mind.

Day Two: By rights this should be named the Clive Ellison day. The lad netted all three of our goals in which—drum roll please—we made it to a final and while we drew, at least we were unbeaten on the day.

So, picture this table after our morning games:

1) one of the two Billericay teams W1 D2 L0 Pts 4

2) the other Billericay team W1 D2 L0 Pts 4

3) Senior Spireites W1 D2 L0 Pts 4

4) FC Trampled On (actually a team called Putten) W0 D0 L3 Pts 0

Oh, the joy of these World Cup little leagues… We only finished third because the top two beat poor old Putten by more than one goal. Still, it put us in a semi-final, of which more later.

Actually we had a scary start to the day as one of our team—who shall remain nameless—was sampling Almelo night clubs between the hours of 1 and 3 in the wee small hours and we feared he wouldn’t make it to the bus taking us to the stadium. He did arrive on time, saving us having to play with five (I briefly wondered if we were in an Agatha Christie novel, going from 8 originally down to potentially 5)

In the opener, Clive netted our winning goal against Putten after some magic from Pete, who mostly played defence with Billy but went forward from time to time to help us out. A clean sheet made us think we were on our way, having watched the two Billericay teams fight out a goalless draw. Apparently they had the idea we weren’t too good after they watched us win, but they admitted afterwards we were a much better team than they thought.

In the second game we held one of them to 0-0, though Clive hit the post, and we deserved more as we played well. Same in the third game when we went close a couple of times but defended well for another goalless draw.

Shame Putten were so weak defensively in conceding more to our other group teams, but we were in a play-off round for a decent place.

Lunch probably didn’t help us in that we took time to get our rhythm in the afternoon against a team going by the name of Sonderborg, who took the lead against us, meaning our little run of clean sheets was over. But before too long, Andie got the ball into the middle and Clive coolly finished to give us a 1-1 draw.

There were no penalties for a decider as it was judged on fouls committed, which were mostly running offences. As we were more controlled than our opponents we thus earned the place in the final.

Our opponents were Cleethorpes Walkers, an off shoot of the Grimsby Ancient Mariners, who had so many players that the men teams and the women teams were able to travel by coach having taken the ferry over from Newcastle.

It was a tight game as we expected, and they were quite physical—and like the team that beat us 3-0 yesterday they employed the tactic of putting a player directly in front of me in goal. He was a tubby chap too. However slim Clive put us ahead from another Andie feed and with a few minutes left we had visions of another win. Alas a counter attack caught us out and they levelled.

Our fourth draw then, but a commendable performance with just six players to our name, though early on in a group game we did borrow a Grimsby player.

The outcome was we finished ninth out of 32 teams, and generally we showed we could play. Two wins and four draws, with only one of the two defeats seeing us outplayed and the other we should have at least drawn, so all in all a good tournament.

One final bit of news was Clive finding himself very popular with the Dutch girls. If you come over anytime, do as he did and wear an orange shirt; the local girls thought he was an Ajax fan.

Day One: After a long, long journey from Chesterfield to Almelo on the Tuesday - a trip enlivened by both Graham and Andie narrowly avoiding being squashed in the train automatic doors - we had an evening to ourselves, with everyone off sampling different pleasures of the oddly named Preston Palace hotel (I have been to Preston and: trust me, there isn’t much Royal about it). Eventually we all settled for pool (both water and potting) and ten pin bowling. By the time tiredness took over Billy was leading in the ten-pin battle and your humble reporter somehow second.

Most of us went to bed early-ish but one of our number - who will not be named - found himself, a glass of Bailey’s in hand, making friends at 2 in the morning with one of the hotel security guards.

To the football on Wednesday. Weather forecast said likely overcast, coolish; Mother Nature said sunshine and heat. Still, it was nice waiting in the morning sun waiting for the opening ceremony to begin and our train survivors, Andie and Graham, to do us proud with the Spireites flag.

First game was against a team from Germany, Sung 2 (possibly their back up Eurovision Song Contest entry). They got an early goal, we bossed about 75 per cent of the rest of the game but couldn’t make our possession count, though Pete was desperately unlucky when in front of goal the ball stuck between his feet and the Germans scrambled it away.

Second game was against Putten, a Dutch team, and we won 2-1, thanks to a Graham opener slotted from the right and after they squeezed in an undeserved equaliser, our so far top scorer repeated his skill from the same position with a last minute winner. Great stuff!

We did however for this game borrow a player from Cleethorpes Walkers who distinguished himself by coming on as sub for Andie, and managed to get himself yellow-carded almost at once and thus two minutes off, so we played with five men mostly without his help. At least we managed the win.

To the third game and, by now tired, played FC Bintang Timur and they, armed with plenty of subs, somewhat overpowered us 3-0. At the end, our thoughts were we did well to hold them to three, with Graham very unlucky when with the score at 0-1 his shot rebounded off the post. For long periods we defended well against this highly mobile team, though I can’t forget Clive’s comment: “Two or three of them must be German—they have hard faces.”

Those results left us with three points and third position in our group. We shall see tomorrow where this puts us in the Thursday structure of better or lesser teams.

Finally, after all the football we attended an award ceremony of sorts for some teams who had played often at the Almelo tournament, coupled with a fundraiser for disabled children to allow them to play football in specially adapted wheelchairs. It makes you think when the local organisers tell of this very worthwhile appeal not in their native Dutch, but entirely in excellent English.

It was like being home, but with better speakers.