football rambles

Well, I missed out on live football this weekend, but I'm glad I didn't miss out on one of the greatest derby games in livivng memory on the box. I met Rob, Bo, Sid and Rol at the new German bar on Lisenko. The game started off as tense as usual, and I have to admit in the first 10 minutes I thought that the Noses might even snatch one. However, what followed was beyond all expectations. Villa roled out 5-1 winners with 2 goals from Ashley Young, 2 from Big Bad John Carew and one from Gaby Agbonalahor. The whole game was a bit of a blur for me, as Derby games tend to be, although the serious drinking (of champagne) didn't get started until after the match, so I've been re-living it here: http://www.1000goals.com/aston-villa-vs-birmingham-highlights In Ukraine it was a good week for Kyiv's clubs with Milevskiy scoring twice and Shatskhi another against Naftovik away. Arsenal pulled off a surprise victory beating Dnipro 2-1 on Friday afternoon, with Selezinov scoring ...

Let's get one thing straight, Villa and Blues haven't always been the biggest rivals, as Villa's traditional rivals have been West Brom up until recent times. When I was growing up Villa were hardly ever in the same division, so the hatred was pretty one way coming from Small Heath. At the time Villa's main local rivals always seemed to be Coventry, and although it didn't feel like a Derby to the Villa fans it certainly was seen as such by the Coventry fans. That was all to change when Blues came up in 2002-2003, when things got really nasty on and off the pitch. In this season Blues won both games 3-0 at the sty and 2-0 at Villa Park, and the only highlight for Villa was seeing Dublin nut Savage (see picture above), and even he got sent off. in fact the first few year's of Blues return to the Premier League were not happy ones for Villa with the games ending in draws (0-0 and 2-2) the following season and Blues winning both encounters in 2004-2005 (2-1 and 2-0)...