Niemi Family in England: Olympic Football in Cardiff, Wales

On Saturday, August 4, we drove to Cardiff, Wales to see an Olympic Football semi-final match between the home team, Team GB, and South Korea in Millennium Stadium. When we purchased the tickets, we did not know who would be playing. Since Men's Team USA didn't even make it to the Olympics, Team GB is the team I would most like to see play!

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Our hotel, in the background, was right in the centre of Cardiff and a short walk to the shopping district. The weather was nice with a few typical U.K. rain showers.

The streets were all decked out with Olympic banners and filled with people before the match.

Security was visible everywhere. We even saw a group of officers checking the security seals on all of the manhole covers in the streets.

Our hotel was only .5 miles from the stadium and the street was closed off which made the walk easy for us.
(I like the helmets that the officers wear.)

We arrived early so the security queues were short. We even picked up a few souvenirs.

I needed to prove that I was really at the Olympics: I never thought I would ever attend. Our seats were only 18 rows from the pitch, which was in great condition. It was hard to believe that many matches, both men and women, were played here before this one.

We had the BBC feed on the screens but there was no commentary in the stadium.

The match started with the Korean national anthem...

...followed by "God Save the Queen."

We had a few Korean supporters in our section. Whenever a Team GB fan would ask to have their photo taken with them, they would make sure the Korean flag was in front of the Union flag.

The match was low scoring. The teams were pretty equally matched. Here Team GB is throwing the ball into play. I took a lot of photos to try out the capabilities of my new camera.

Of course we cheered for Team GB.

The GB goalkeeper, in orange, was good. He made some amazing stops.

The score was tied 0-0 after extra time. The game would be decided by penalty shots. Just before this shot, GB missed a goal. If this goes in, Korea wins.

GOAL!

It must be tough to be the goal keeper. He stayed on the ground for a few seconds after the ball was in the net.

The Korean team celebrated on the pitch.

The friends and families of the Korean team were directly above our section so the team came over to celebrate in front of us. The crowd was pretty subdued as everyone filed out of the stadium.

On Sunday, our hotel offered a nice breakfast buffet.
The full English breakfast, even though we were in Wales, was delicious.

We visited Cardiff Castle; a short walk from our hotel.

The walled-in castle was large. In the center was the oldest Norman fortification.
The Normans built their castle on top of an even older Roman fort.

A clock tower is the newest portion to the castle.
It looked like something that should be in Germany.

The audio tour explained the ruins. The Victorian era house is in the background.

Matthew, the king of souvenirs, used some of his money for a sword.
One cannot visit a castle without a sword!

There were many steep narrow steps to climb to get to the old castle.

The top of the castle afforded a fantastic view of Cardiff.
Millennium Stadium is in the background.

Matthew, looking sporty.

There were Welsh dragons everywhere.

Under the ticket office, we found the Museum of the Welsh Soldier. The curator brought out a full size replica of a Brown Bess for Matthew to try. It is hard to believe that soldiers could fire 3 rounds per minute while loading through the muzzle.

Matthew liked the dress up area.

There was a portion of the museum dedicated to the war of 1812. We Americans do not talk about this war much because we started the conflict, by attacking Canada, and lost it.