Groundhopping24

  It's often said that January goes on forever, and if you happen to enjoy attending football matches and live in Central Europe, a truer word could not be spoken. At least those in England, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, wherever else have the luxury of football to attend. Here, you've got the occasional friendly but little else worth making the effort for. Having said that, there is some mild regret at my having not attended Admira Wacker 4-5 Horn in a mid-season battle between top and bottom of the Austrian 2nd tier. But still, hey ho... Since I last wrote on my wonderfully enjoyable adventures in Celje back in December, I've seen a grand total of three matches - all with my beloved and very  mid-table (at the time) Stevenage side. This is best summarised by the fact I saw a 0-3 defeat (Wycombe at home), a 3-0 win (Bristol Rovers at home), and of course a goalless draw (Lincoln away). I did briefly think about writing a piece on Stevenage and my response to these game...

As if crossing just the one border isn't exciting enough, this weekend allowed me the opportunity to cross two. After realising that Hungarian first tier football is now pretty close to Brno geographically, I booked a 6.25am Flixbus to Győr on the Saturday, with the return at 6.25pm on the Sunday. At the time of booking, I saw the early start as a bridge to cross when I got there, but surprisingly when that bridge came, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Though buses are infrequent (at least the cheap ones seem to be), Brno to Győr takes a mere three hours, with a good chunk of that spent static at Bratislava bus station. As for bridges themselves, Győr seemed to have plenty, as well as many other wonderfully charming aspects to make this a bit of a hidden gem. Being in between the likes of Prague, Bratislava and Budapest, it might be fair to say not too many people make the stop in Győr. In fact, its population is actually lower than that of Stevenage, but I'd sooner spen...