Randers

Ground: Essex Park

Visits: 1

Date: 18th September 2010

Match: Randers - Aalborg 2-3 (Superligaen)

Attendance: 4 539

The game at Vejlby Stadion (Skovbakken-Otterup) ended at 14.20 but with Randers being only 45 km away I didn´t even had to rush to make kick-off (17.00) in my second game of the day. Randers FC was founded in 2003 as a merger of six local clubs. Randers Freja was the best of these clubs and since they played in 1.Divisionen (Level 2) it was in this division Randers FC played their first ever match. Randers play at Essex Park, which nowdays has a capacity of around 11 000. The ground had three new stands built in 2006 and it is only the north end of the ground which remains from the old stadium.

The open curved north end is where away fans are and it was those Aalborg supporters who could celebrate a goal already in the first minute of the game. Aalborg is only 70 km from Randers and even if the club has had a poor start to the season (and today´s game was live on TV) I was expecting a lot more Aalborg fans to make the journey to Essex Park. The Aalborg fans that did turn up gave their side an excellent support through-out the game though. In the second half Randers played much better and pressed on for an equaliser which they eventually got. As Randers continued to go forward in the second half a good counter-attack made it 2-1 to the visitors though. Aalborg then scored a third goal but Randers managed to pull a goal back with a couple of minutes left of normal time. In the 4th minute of stoppage time Randers were given a free-kick just outside the penalty box. The free-kick hit the bar and the game ended 3-2 to Aalborg. All in all a good and entertaining match to watch. With six goals in the earlier game I had the pleasure to see 11 goals this windy September Saturday, not bad!

essex park