Alpine Football Camp Training (Bangkok)

Alpine Football Camp Training is a company that provides venues for football training and matches to be played in top class facilities. It has centres in Lamphun, Chiang Mai as well as Ram Intra in Bangkok, which was formerly a golf driving range until opened for football in August 2019.

In July 2022 Liverpool FC used AFTC as their training base for their friendly match in Bangkok against Manchester United when a “Meet the Kop” friendly match was also arranged during the visit in which Jurgen Klopp praised the facility. 

The venue was also previously used as a training ground for competing teams in the AFC Champions League. AFTC is available for clubs to hire for training and to hold games and is fully floodlit.

My visit

TAO Dovechem 3 AES Moonlight 2 (Sunday 21^st August 2022) Bangkok Premier League FA Cup (att: c20)

This what proved to be an eventful experience on a wet Sunday afternoon for my intrepid matchday mate Steve Walker and me. Our original choice was a league fixture at CK Stadium in Minburi between PVV FC and Primera FC.

We grabbed a taxi from the bottom of Thanon Sam Wa in Minburi and eventually got to the soi we required before walking a mile down the narrow lane and then coming across a badly flooded access road to the ground.

I suggested taking our shoes and socks off and going for it, but my pal had more common sense and mentioned the potential of snakes. He was right. It was frustrating as we could here the referees whistle and shouts from players.

Chuck into the equation a Bangkok based Aussie mate Vaughan McClear was joining us, and he had gone down the next soi, you can see that it was a bit of a shambles. But we are resourceful chaps, and a Plan B was quickly engineered.

 

I had the list of fixtures from the kind league organiser via Facebook. Vaughan drove us to the magnificent Alpine Football facility where Liverpool had recently trained before their prestige friendly with Manchester United at Rajamangala Stadium.

My contact had forewarned me that Alpine was not a great venue for viewing with spectator access being restricted to under cover behind one goal. Another game was being played on the second pitch divided by netting alongside. 

I’m not sure of the reason that the match was played at Alpine, but we were grateful that it was. We arrived with Dovechem 1-0 ahead, though the western partner of when of the players who we asked wasn’t entirely sure.

At the break we made use of the café to get non-alcoholic drinks and then try to get the best view possible. Many were just there as family members and weren’t watching too closely which helped us moving to the net to see through.

 

The second half saw an excellent game between the two sides challenging for the Bangkok Premier League Division 3 title in which AES equalized before TAO, the second string of FC Bangsaotong restored their lead.

Again, Moonlight pegged them back on the immaculate pitch which help the heavy rain without cutting up and matched the rest of the set up before Dovechem progressed through to the next round with a winning goal. A cracker of a contest. 

Vaughan waved us goodbye as me and Steve set off walking towards Fashion Island but quickly realised that the tollway was obstructing us from reaching our destination with no footbridges. A taxi took us back to Minburi. I would be seeing AES Moonlight in action in the Thai FA Cup a few weeks later.