Bob Uecker should have gone to see Fulham play Stoke

Second of what will probably be three parts about vacationing in England. You can see the first one here.

We showed our tickets to the usher, and he told us to walk down the steps ...

When Mrs. Last Honest and I were looking for tickets to an English Premier League game during our vacation to London, my first choice, Liverpool, was on the road, and there weren't a ton of games in the city.

The best bet was the game between Fulham and Stoke at Craven Cottage, and after much exploring on the Fulham website, we found seats that were relatively inexpensive in the mixed zone, available to home, away and neutral fans.

... so we walked down the steps, all the way to the front row, right behind the goal.

Yes, we were in the front row. When I posted pictures on Facebook after the game, my buddy Pizz asked who I killed to get the seats, and to be honest, I was shocked to see where we were sitting. The only thing I can think of is that they weren't as expensive either because they were in the mixed fan area or the seats behind the net aren't considered very desirable.

Me, I thought they were awesome.

Being able to see plays develop right in front of me? I had no complaints.

Since we got to the game early, we saw a lot of the Stoke warmup right in front of us. During one of the drills, Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begovic tipped a ball over the bar, whereupon it bounced off a seat about six rows behind me and then right toward me. I was holding my phone in one hand, so I tried to grab the ball with the other. I'm lucky I still have a hand ... even after a tip and bouncing off a seat, that ball had some heat on it! 

That was a small clue as to the speed of the game. Even so-so to poor teams like Fulham (whose manager, Martin Jol, has been rumored to be in line for the sack, meaning the Martin Jol Memorial Death Watch is once again being applied to ... Martin Jol) and Stoke have players that can start and break up play almost faster than you can see up close. (Except Peter Crouch, who I don't think can move out of his own way.)

After a while, when I was filming corner kicks, I didn't even try to follow the ball in from the corner because I couldn't keep up.

Fear not, Martin. We're here to save you!

One thing we didn't see in front of us was a goal. A Stoke player kicked the ball into the net at one point, but it was obvious that the play was offside, so no one moved anyway. However, this still disappointed the Stoke fans in our midst, who seemed to outnumber the Fulham fans, or were at least louder, particularly the ones in the official away fans section in the upper corner, who when they weren't singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" were chanting various sometimes-profane unintelligibles.

Of course, the fans had to entertain themselves beyond the action on the pitch because, as Mrs. Last Honest noticed, there isn't a lot of extraneous stuff going on. Fulham has a mascot, but there are no cheerleaders, no games on the scoreboard, no organ music. They actually rely on people to watch the game. What a concept!

So we didn't get a goal on our end, and for most of the game, we were afraid we wouldn't see a goal, and the possibly only Premier League game I ever saw would end in a scoreless draw. Fortunately, Darren Bent tallied for Fulham, and even though it was clear on the other end of the pitch, we were able to see the play develop and the goal go in. 

Yay, a goal! Maybe Martin gets to keep his job for a couple more weeks!

After the game, we were filing out when some random guy asked the most-obvious question anyone probably heard all day.

"Are you Americans?"

I can't imagine how he figured that out, but I confirmed that yes, we were from America. He then started chatting us up in an accent that I fingernails-hanging-on-a-cliff understood about how he and his brother were lifelong Stoke fans and that English football is better than the American version.

Then he disappeared into the crowd, replaced in our conversation by another guy, clearly American, who said, "But at least in America they let you drink through all four quarters, none of this stopping 15 minutes after halftime BS."

So there you go.

My new best friends are in that group somewhere.