football rambles

Here's a picture of me with hard tackling defender Mamady Sangare. He was a hero, who always gave a 100 per cent for CSKA, he now plays for Desna Chernihiv. We met him at the game between Obolon and Desna. Funnily enough he wasn't playing because he was suspended. I think commited is the euphemism usually used to describe such players

Obolon are sponsored by a brewery and Desna come from Chernihiv that is famous for its brewery, so guess what yesterday's pre, during and post-match entertainment included? Yep, beer and lots of it. There was no poncey kashtanchik, no go-go girls, just good honest ale. which was just aswell, as although the game was billed as a promotion challenging match it was rather disappointing. To be fair Desna brought a lot of fans who made a lot of noise and dominated for most of the game. However, it was Obolon who went ahead on the 38th minute and then who finished the game off with a penalty early on in the second half. The weather was sunny and it was probably Obolon's biggest crowd of the season, but for some unknown reason only a few big wigs were allowed in the main stand. We eventually got programmes, although I think we annoyed Tatarchuk in the process and we did get to meet ex-CSKA legend and now member of Desna, Mamadi Sangare. Ex-Dynamo and Ukrainian National Team manager Jo...

Obolon's opponents today are Chernihiv Desna, unfortunately unlike most of the other teams I have written a focus on they have quite an unremarkable history. In fact one of the most important facts is that when they were formed in 1960 they had a young goalkeeper known as Viktor Bannikov between the posts. He later became one of the best goalkeepers in the USSR and was a visionary when he was a director of the Football Federation of Ukraine. His influence was so great that now the training pitches for the underage Internationals (and sometime venues) are named after him at the House of Football. There is also a tournament named after him. for more details see some previous posts: http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/03/bannikov-training-complex-and-house-of.html http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/03/entrance-to-bannikov-training-complex.html http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/03/house-of-football-and-banniko.html Anyway, as I was saying Desna have not had the most g...