Since the team had to go to Nottingham half a day earlier and the game was in the afternoon, they had to go to Nottingham in the morning and do some simple acclimatisation exercises. So on the train from Wimbledon to Nottingham, there weren't many fans walking with them. Fans generally only go in the afternoon, and they have the opportunity to go home with their beloved players after the game.

Chu Zhongtian sat on the train from London to Nottingham, which was the first time he "went away" after studying in the UK. The train ticket from London to Nottingham is fifteen pounds, which is equivalent to Chu Zhongtian's income from a three-hour job at the Wimbledon bar, but fortunately the club pays for the "public tour".

The teammates were not idle on the train, some of them got together to play cards and bet a little money, while others gathered outside to watch the excitement. Chu Zhongtian didn't get involved, although his intuition was very sharp, but his card skills were ugly, and as long as it involved gambling money, it didn't work. Some teammates took a nap listening to music with headphones, and some brought books and magazines to read on the trip to kill more than two hours of travel.

Chu Zhongtian looked curiously at the scenery of the English countryside outside the window, and large areas of gray fields spread from the train line. It's mid-November, and winter in England is slowly approaching, and if he were to take this route in the summer, he would see endless green. Now, under the gray sky, there is the same gray earth, dotted with only a little green, or flashing out the window, or standing alone on the distant horizon.

The train has left Greater London and is speeding through the countryside of the East Midlands, aiming for Nottingham, the capital of Nottinghamshire and the most important industrial city in the East Midlands of the United Kingdom.

Chu Zhongtian didn't know much about the city, except that there were two professional teams here, and he knew that it was the birthplace of the legend of Robin Hood. However, his roommate Yang Yang has traveled here a few times.

When Zhongtian was still receiving football training at the Chinese Football School, he knew a lot about football, but at that time, the information dissemination conditions were very limited, there was no Internet, and most of the reports about football in the newspapers were focused on the world competition, and the TV broadcast was not available to everyone, so he didn't know much about the two teams in Nottingham City. Nottingham Forest still knows a little more, after all, he has watched their game on the Premier League broadcast, and that game impressed him was Nottingham Forest's 1-8 defeat to Manchester United, and he immediately remembered the name of this tragic team. Later, I learned that Nottingham Forest was so depressed now, and their ancestors were still wide - they had won the European Champions Cup for two consecutive seasons before. Chu Zhongtian, who knew about this, was very surprised, he had the impression that the teams that could win the European Champions Cup must be top giants in the leagues of various countries, but he didn't expect Nottingham Forest to fall to this point now.

Nottingham Forest has been famous in its history, and the other team, Notts County Chu Zhongtian, is almost unknown. All we know about the game with Nods County was only gained during this time, after the first round of the FA Cup was revealed. Because he will pay more attention to his opponents, he will pay attention to collecting relevant information about them. Knowing that Nots County's home jersey turned out to be the same as Juventus and Newcastle, it was a black and white sword stripe, and also knew that they were the founders of this kit, and Juventus and Newcastle were later imitators. Newcastle's nickname was "The Magpie", but in fact Nods County used it earlier than them, as the Norts team crest had two black and white magpies. Newcastle's nickname was also moved from here in County Nodes. He also knew that the team was the world's first modern football club, and that their crest was marked with the year the team was founded - 1862. It's been one hundred and forty-one years ago, and one hundred and forty-one years ago, Chinese still had that braid on the back of his head, and China's country had just been blasted open by the cannons of the Opium War, and it was indeed a long history...... This is the only thing they can be proud of, because in terms of achievements, they really have not been able to grasp the glorious history of one hundred and forty-one years.

Now that the old club is in financial crisis, if they don't manage to scrape together at least £3.2 million on December 8, two days after their 141st anniversary, they will be forcibly closed and disbanded, and the world's oldest football club will disappear completely.

However, none of this has anything to do with Chu Zhongtian, and now he only knows that he must defeat this team that is in deep trouble, step on the corpse of Nods County, and complete the minimum goal. We may not be as strong as our opponents, but there is no shortage of "dragon slaying legends" in the FA Cup where amateur teams have beaten top professional teams, and the predecessor of this team has twice become "dragon slaying heroes", why can't Wimbledon slay dragons again, not to mention that Nods County is still just a sick magpie, not a dragon.

After a two-hour train ride, the team got off at the train station in Nottingham, packed their bags and took the bus to Mad's Lane Stadium (meadow_lane), home of Nottsshire. Here, they will have an hour of acclimatization before heading to their makeshift hotel for a light lunch and preparing for the afternoon race.

If it weren't for the fact that this game is a very important game, the club would not have spent money for the team to come away half a day early. They would choose to have an early lunch at Wimbledon and then take the car to the away game, just in time for the game, and then take the train home after the game, without a minute of delay or waste.

Made's Lane can only accommodate 20,000 and 300 people, but it still looks a lot more imposing than the 4,000-seat pitch at King's Ranch, and it's all standing.

The other stadium across the river is Nottingham Forest's home city. These are the two closest rival stadiums in the world.

In the morning, the Madfield Stadium was quiet, and the fans could not see a few people, but there were more than a dozen members of the media, all of whom were local media from both sides, among which the media that followed the away team Wimbledon were the most. It wasn't a big game for Nottingham's media, who were all concerned about whether the team would be able to raise a huge £3.2 million sum to help the club survive. So they lack interest in coming to Wimbledon for acclimatization.

However, the local media at Wimbledon took the match very seriously, and 10 journalists followed. They didn't think their team could do wonders, so they followed. They just think it's the most senior competition that Wimbledon amateur team has been able to play since its inception, and it's worth keeping an eye on.

Chu Zhongtian was training on the Mad's Lane Stadium to adapt to the venue. Schilling was joking that the land didn't have to be used to because it was no different from the turf of the King's Ranch.

He is not saying that the turf of the Kings Ranch is of good quality, on the contrary, the quality of the turf is quite poor as a small pitch shared by two amateur teams, because neither club has the money to maintain the system, and from the air it looks like the football field is mostly yellow dirt, and the green one by one, east and west, this is Wimbledon's home field.

The current Madfield Lane Stadium is not much better than the Kings Ranch, even though it is home to a third-tier team. With Nods County in financial crisis for 18 months and under the trust of the government, the maintenance of the turf has not been carried out systematically for a long time.

Today's Madfield Lane is simply leveled. Since it was November, the green grass was scattered in all corners of the football field, and the yellow-brown dirt was dominant, with the area in front of the two goals being the worst.

This will be the venue for them in the first round of the FA Cup.

"I thought I was playing in the FA Cup, and I was able to play a game on the pitch that looked very comfortable, but I didn't expect it...... "Halfway through the adaptation training, Joe. Shirin let out another exclamation. 'When I used to play at Chelsea, people used to say that the turf at Stamford Bridge was terrible and now I think it's better to play on that turf than at Madfield Lane, but it's a pity ......'

"Then try to play to the next round, the next round, dead Jeep!" There was a shout at someone, and the others laughed along with it.

As the team settled into the pitch, Eames was surrounded by a dozen reporters asking him some questions about the afternoon's game.

Most of the questions were not nutritious, mainly because he was "honoured, surprised, happy and surprised to be able to participate in the FA Cup after only one season". Eames' reaction did not come as a surprise to many media outlets - two weeks ago, Eames had claimed to be a madman and an idiot when he was told reporters that they were going to beat Notts, but now he is very humble enough to say that the difference in quality between the two sides is so great that it is a great achievement for the Wimbledon players, who are not expecting to win away from home. Such a statement made the media think that Eames was a normal person.

To challenge a third-tier league team as a ninth-tier league team, and to insist that you will be able to win, there must be something wrong with your brain. The protagonists of the FA Cup's much-talked about "Dragon Slayer" didn't think they would win before the game was even played.

After acclimatizing to the venue, the team will take the bus to the temporary hotel for lunch and a short rest, and they will return to the Madfield Lane to prepare for the 3 p.m. game.

And for many players, they can't wait to start the game at 3 p.m. now, and don't prepare. Since they knew that their opponent was Nods, their training was all for Nods, and they had been preparing for more than two weeks. By now, they don't really want to prepare anything more, they just want to compete.

Chu Zhongtian is still very serious about preparing according to the requirements of the head coach. You can't eat too much at lunch, because when you are full, the blood circulation slows down, which will make the body feel tired and weak, and the afternoon game is listless and no longer in a state. Eat dinner and take a break for a while, even if it's just a nap for ten minutes, as long as you fall asleep, you can recover some energy, which is quite important for the afternoon game.

Chu Zhongtian always wants to do his best for what he is determined to do, and now that he is going to play the FA Cup, he is not here to go through the motions, if he wants to win, he must be prepared. So he is very particular about this, he is not like some of his teammates, after lunch and get together to play cards and gamble money, he found a quiet seat in the car, took off his clothes and covered himself, and leaned back on the chair to sleep.

There are many people who think the same way as him, and many people in the car are seizing an hour to rest and recharge for the 3 p.m. game. The club couldn't afford to open a room for every two people in the squad for the sake of that hour, so their lunch break was settled on the bus. Although this may not make them sleep very comfortably, and they may feel back pain when they sleep, but for an amateur team, this is only the way to go.

Eames and Ingrid and other members of the coaching staff gathered at the front of the car and whispered about the afternoon game, they prepared a lot of things before the game, but now we have to re-discuss it, maybe after seeing the game venue, there are new ideas?

※※※ Chu Zhongtian felt as if he had slept for a long time, he didn't even dream, he opened his eyes and looked at the Casio electronic watch on his wrist that his mother bought as a reward for his admission abroad, which was the most valuable thing on his body.

One point forty-five.

He remembered that before he went to bed, he looked at the time at 1:15, but he didn't expect to sleep for half an hour.

Although there was still some time before departure, Chu Zhongtian didn't plan to sleep anymore. It's just right to take a nap like this, and then you can sleep softly, and when you yawn, your eyes are sleepy, and your body is weak, so how can you play the game?

He sat in his seat for a while, a group of teammates who were also taking a nap lying on the side of him, and some of them even snoring and grinding their teeth. The group of card players were still fighting, but none of them shouted loudly to wake up the other teammates. Chu Zhongtian thinks this scene is really interesting, I wonder if there is such a scene to watch when a professional club goes out to play away?

They don't look like a group of players going to play in the FA Cup, but rather a group of passengers waiting in the waiting hall of a train station.

This kind of experience is really something that I can't experience as an international student honestly. If he returns to China after graduation and publishes a novel about his experiences in the past three years, it will definitely be very attractive. The title of the book is "My Days of Playing Football in England"!

When Chu Zhongtian was still obscene, the teammates around him woke up one after another, they rubbed their sleepy eyes, yawned and stretched, and the bus became lively again for a while.

Eames also stood up, slapped the players, told the players who were not yet awake to "get up", and told the card players to stop.

"Alright, guys! It's almost time, and we're ready to go! ”

The driver climbs into the car, sits in the driver's seat, fastens his seatbelt, and starts the car again. The bus trembled slightly at the sound of the engine, lifting the spirits of those who had been sleepy-eyed, yawning, and listless just a moment ago - the FA Cup game was getting closer and closer!

(To be continued)