Warriors Way

Welcome, height-enhanced reader, as this week we talk about our visit to go and see the Golden State Warriors ply their trade at their home court, the very shiny Chase Cent(er|re) in San Francisco.

The first thing that strikes you about this place is that it's big. Really big. I think it seats about 20,000, which for a game like basketball that is played on a small court, means there's a lot of seats going up a long, long way.

The second thing that strikes you is that you're in the minority of people in the crowd that isn't wearing a Stephen Curry shirt. See the three people in the picture with the number 30 on their backs? Yep, Stephen Curry is number 30. The man certainly has a fan base.

Before the game we were treated to the work of DJ D-Sharp, who presumably is actually just a bloke called Darren Sharp. And if that's the peak of his powers of imagination, maybe it's not all that surprising that he wasn't a blinding DJ, even if he was pretty loud.

The game, the crowd and the venue are clearly a bit more polished and classy than either the baseball or the football: even the toilets here are fairly non-terrible. Like all US sporting events, the geography means that there are basically no away fans unless it's a local derby; we spotted 2 fans supporting the visiting Utah Jazz, but that was it. The applause is fairly polite, and the booing of the opposition rarely gets above the pantomime level. There's lots of kids here, although maybe not as many as at the baseball.

As for the game itself: the Warriors ran out winners, with Stephen Curry very obviously the star of the show, although his team mates did manage to turn up and pull their weight in the second half. Renowned rent-an-argument pantomime villain Draymond Green only looked like he was going to thump the ref once, and things were pretty calm overall.

So that's three sports down, and just the ice hockey to go. That's coming up in a month or so, and hopefully we won't get thwarted by the COVIDs this time!