Ground number 380 (381 includin Motspur Park, Fulham from ootside!)
Date of First (& last!) Visit: 8th August 2026
Camp De Mestalla, Valencia, Spain
Valencia CF 1 (Ugrinic)
Newcastle United 2 (Yoane Wissa, 2)
Attendance: 41,383 (2,000 Toon fans, 'up in the gods'!)
Orange Bat Trophy Final
"LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL!" ðĶ
We travelled on the Friday for this Saturday neet time friendly for the 'prestigious' Orange 'Bat' Trophy----A game Valencia play every year at The Mestalla! (Their badge features a large bat, az that iz the crest of the city!)
It woz roastin hot when we got there via Toon airport, Amsterdam and Valencia!
We dumped wor bags in the Ibis hotel near Valencia airport and went straight on 'the hoy' in the hotel bar—and then to the centre of the city, 15 minutes away on the Metro! (Seee bar crawl pictures below this article)
After drinkin in several locations with the temperature in the high 30s it woz time to heed nearer to the hotel for the final 'liquid lubrications' before retirin for a good neets 'shut eye'! "ZZZzzzz!"
Most of the bars didn't open til high noon bells the next day, but it woz just az well az the game didnt kick off til 9 bells' Still plenty of time to dee a proper pub crawl!----We decided to visit the site of their new 70,000 seater stadium 3 miles from their old one--and got the Metro to a station near the groond to take some photos, before gannin on 'the hoy' again, startin at a cafe bar nearby!---
By the time we went to the match we'd done six or seven more on the way ---and the bit we dreaded woz the walk up the nineteen levels of stairs, to the top tiers! (Nee lifts!)
242 stairs later (Blokey coonted them!) we reached wor level, with breaks to get wor breath back every 20 or so stairs (It woz still in the mid 30s and breathin in hot air iz NOT good for your health!)
The stadium iz unreal, with very steep stands gannin up and up to reach the sky, which are suroonded by residential tower blocks on every side!---The sad thing iz that they are gannin to move 3 miles across the city to the new stadium, which they started buildin nearly 20 years ago! (They ran oot of money, but now the stadium iz nearly complete!)
The game kicked off with plenty of spare seats in the home stands, with the 2,000 Toon fans on the 2 levels highest to the sky, behind one of the goals! We were in the slightly lower away section!
Disaster struck aalmost immediatley az the 'new boys' entered they fray! A bad mix up between wor new goalie Lukas Hornicek and wor defence, let in Valencia's Ugrinic who fired home in front of the Toon faithful! 1-0 to them!
Elanga then had a perfectly good goal ruled oot for offside and then the main talkin point of the game came sometime later in the 39th minute, when Gaya went in on Elanga with studs showin to leave wor number 19 in agony on the pitch!---A full scale battle then ensued az angry Toon player confronted Gaya, who woz 'red carded' by the ref!
The home side held on til half time az we huffed and puffed in the heat, even though the old 'current bun' (sun!) had went to bed! (It woz still 31 degrees accordin to mee 'telling bone'!
NUFC brought 4 subs at the start of the 2nd half, includin Lewis Miley's younger brother Mason, Steur, Toure and Wissa!
And it woz Yoane Wissa who scored the equaliser, 7 minutes into the half, when Valencia's Rodreguez played a horendous back pass to their goalie and Wissa woz on hand to intercept the baall, to score an easy goal to level the scores 1-1
And then in the 77th minute it woz Wissa again, who played a one-two with Toure and fired into the net with their keeper stranded, to send the 2,000 Toon fans into raptures! 2-1 to us!
Henry Johnson (who we'd never heard of?) and Dylan Charlton then came on and in total 20 players were used!
We hung on to win the Orange winged Bat Trophy (or whatever its caalled!)which woz displayed to the Toon fans after the final whistle!
(We didnt see the 'Bat' Trophy presentation, az we didnt naa that there would be one and left az the final whistle blew!)
New manager Matthias Jaissle woz pleased with the result, but not exstatic, az we were anly playin against 10 men for most of the match!-----Impovements need to be made and with a rumoured 4 new player in the pipeline, things arnt az bad az we thought it would be, with 3 key players movin on this transfer window!
Anyway!---we heeded back to wor hotel on the other side of Valencia on the ram packed Metro for some celebratory alcholic beverages, anly to be told that the bar closed at 11:00pm bells!--(It woz after midneet) THE BAAAASTARDS!--And aall they could serve us woz bottled waataa!
Next day (Sunday) it woz off to the city centre again where the temperature approched 40 degees!---The hottest day a'v ever known!
So! *Az yih dee!" more hydration breaks were needed to keep cool in various locations!
It woz soon time to heed for the airport to catch the flight back to Amsterdam, which woz uneventful---apart from the fact that we were charged 11 Euros a pint!---And then had the nerve to ask us to drink up after 15 minutes, az they were puttin the chairs on the tables and dimmin' the lights!
But much worse woz to follow!
KLMAMITY!
Wor flight from Amsterdam to Toon airport with KLM woz on time and we boarded quickly!---We took off on time for the one hour flight ---BUT!!! 20 minutes into the jorney an annoocrment from the captain told us that: "They had a technical problem and would have to retorn to Amsterdam immediatly!"
We landed back in Amsterdam and 'az luck would have it' (If you can caall it 'luck') we were told that there woz another plane to take us back to The Toon!
Of course it would take time to unload the passengers and baggage and prepare the new plane!
It took a canny while, but we were soon back in the air and arrived safe and well some 2 hours late in the orly hours of Munday mornin'
*That's SIX times we had landed and taken off from Amsterdam from Friday to Sunday! (A world record, perhaps!?)
We heeded to the car, where 'Jimmy the Riddler' had parked hiz 'jam jar' in a lang stay car park, which he had pre paid, but when we tried to get oot the barrier wouldnt open because the time parkin limit had now run oot! (Of course!)
He went to the kiosk to explain to the gadgy what had happened with wor flight and thankfully he gave Jimmy a pass card to let us oot of the car park to take us aall yem!
OH! the joys of followin NUFC home and far away!
PUB CRAWL PHOTOS: We visited 16 different drinkin dens in total in airports and Valencia
FRIDAY: TOON AIRPORT
FRIDAY: AMSTERDAM AIRPORT
FRIDAY: VALENCIA
SATURDAY: VALENCIA
SUNDAY: VALENCIA
SUNDAY: AMSTERDAM AIRPORT
VARIOUS PHOTOS FROM VALENCIA
