Bucknell University Athletics
Orman Kimbrough Checks in from London after a Bison Win
3/10/2014 9:12:00 PM | Men's Soccer
The Bucknell men's soccer is spending Spring Break in London for a week of soccer and British culture. After arriving in England on Saturday, the Bison team attended a Barclay's Premier League match between Southampton and Crystal Palace. On Sunday the team played the first of its three scheduled games and came out on the winning side of a 4-2 verdict over Shenfield Academy.
Senior goalkeeper Orman Kimbrough checks in from London with this recap of the team's first two days of the trip.
I want to start off by thanking my coaches and the alumni of the program for making this trip not only possible for the team, but also for me personally along with the other members of the senior class. Playing soccer at Bucknell has been an unbelievable experience for me so far, and being able to extend my career a little longer, even if its just one extra week with the team, means a lot.
The trip began Friday afternoon as we left Lewisburg to catch a 7:30 p.m. flight out of JFK to London, and because not many people were able to sleep on the plane, it made for a long day. After arriving in London, we took a short bus sightseeing tour of London, where we were able to see a few of the more famous monuments before heading south to watch a Premier League match.
I've been to professional games in the U.S. before, but this was the first European game I had ever been to, and there was no comparison. Rather than tailgating before the games, the locals all head down around the stadium to get food and hit the pubs. We ate lunch down there as well, which was a pretty unique experience. All the restaurants are small, hole-in-the-wall places, most of which have only one or two tables. I was pretty surprised with the type of food they served: burgers, chicken, and lots of places called "House of Kebab."
The match was between Crystal Palace and Southampton, and although the stadium only seated about 25,000, the atmosphere was absolutely electric. The fans sing traditional songs throughout the entire match, many of which have been stuck in our heads ever since. You can't go 10 minutes on the bus without hearing someone humming or singing one of them. After the game, everyone was pretty exhausted from being up for over 24 hours straight. We headed back to the hotel, got to shower and eat, then headed to bed by 9 o'clock.
After having a breakfast of eggs, sausages, and potatoes at the hotel, we drove to historic Wembley Stadium for a tour. Wembley is the largest stadium in England and is the home to their national team, as well as hosting the FA Cup semifinals and finals. When I came to England about 10 years ago, I saw Manchester United's and Liverpool's stadiums and from what I can remember, this blows them both out of the water. Its by far the nicest stadium I've ever been to.
We had planned to go on a walking tour that afternoon, but it got cut a little short because of some traffic. However, our tour guide, John, did get to take us around some cool stuff for a couple hours before getting lunch. It's unbelievable how much history can be packed into just a couple hours of walking, especially when you have a guide as knowledgable as we did. I thought my house downtown in Lewisburg was old for being built almost a hundred years ago. Some of these buildings are over a thousand years old. Some of the landmarks we saw were St. Paul's Cathedral, the Old Bailey, and the Millennium Bridge. For those of you who are Harry Potter fans, the Millennium Bridge is featured and destroyed at the start of the 6th movie.
After lunch that afternoon, we headed to our first game of the week against Shenfield Sports Academy. From what we've been told, it was a team made up of guys around or just a little younger than us who had been in an academy, and just missed signing professional contracts. All the guys seemed to be pretty excited to play their first game since losing to Navy in the fall.
As the game got going, there wasn't much separating the two sides, but towards the end of the first period, we started to get going a little bit. While I was in goal during the second 30 minutes, we seemed to dominate possession of the ball, yet still weren't able to convert. Towards the end of the period, the opposition had a rare attack into our half and served a ball across the box which took an unfortunate deflection off one of our center backs and went in for an own goal.
The guys didn't let that phase them as we completely started to take over in the third period. Jesse Klug got a couple of goals along with Jono Grad and we went up 3-1. From there, we went on to keep control of the game and it finished with a score of 4-2. Overall, I think it was a great start to the spring for the guys, and although we seemed a little jet lagged, it was a good victory. More than anything maybe, it's good to be able to put ourselves next to some of these guys that are in the academy system and potentially sign professional contracts in the next couple of years, and see that we can truly hold our own against them, and in this case, can get a good result.
Although it's been a long couple of days, I'm very excited to get back going again early tomorrow morning to do some more touring of London and head into another part of the country.
-- Orman Kimbrough '14
