15 for the road, Welsh fans have a ‘nightmare’

Indervir Grewal

Rourkela, January 13

The dream of watching their national team participate in its first men’s World Cup has turned into a bit of a nightmare for a group of Wales fans.

Unable to find accommodation in Rourkela, the group, of over 15 fans, has been forced to shuttle between Ranchi and Rourkela for Wales’ first two games, against England and Spain.

After failing to find rooms for all the members of the group in a single hotel in Rourkela, their best option was to stay in Ranchi, almost 170km from Rourkela. Not willing to pass on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the group decided to take this option. The result — they must travel over nine hours during the two-way journey.

For their team’s opener against England, which started at 5pm, they had to leave Ranchi in the morning. As the match was to finish close to 7pm, they were most likely going to miss the India-Spain game as the return journey was going to be long. “It’s been a bit of a nightmare,” Rob Furlong, one of the Welsh fans, was quoted as saying in a news report.

Unfortunately, the fans’ sacrifice could not bring much luck to their team as Wales lost 0-5, with Nicholas Park (1st minute), Liam Ansell (27th, 37th), Phil Roper (41st) and Nicholas Bandurak (57th) scoring for England. Wales did, however, make a fight of it. They played most of the fourth quarter around the opposition’s semicircle and created countless chances but just could not convert.

OZ open with bang

World No. 1 Australia shot out a warning to the other title contenders with an 8-0 thrashing of France in their opening game in Bhubaneswar. Comeback man Tom Craig (8th, 31st, 44th minutes) and drag-flicker Jeremy Hayward (26th, 28th, 38th) got hat-tricks, while Flynn Ogilvie (26th) and Tom Wickham (53rd) were the other scorers.