football rambles

Well, it was a long time coming, but Sean finally got to see Villa win a league game and it was probably the first time he had been at Villa Park when the 'feel good factor was there'. Villa are still in slight danger of relegation, but recent wins against Spurs, Everton and an FA Cup Semi-final victory over Liverpool have only been slightly tempered by a defeat away to Manchester City where Villa should probably have got something. The crowd was in good spirits and the place was filled to near capacity. Villa were superb in the first half and we were right behind the goal where Jack Grealish jinsed in to set up Tom Cleverley for his 31st minute winner and third goal in three games. Villa should really have put the game to bed before half time. However, they went into the break with a slender lead and were forced to dig in a bit in the second half. It was a nervous end to the game, especially as West Ham had the ball in the net, but were offside. Villa deserved the win and T...

The first set I got was in the mid 80s with Nigel Spink and a couple of Watford players on the front. The set came with the generic red and blue teams, but a neighbour got a few teams out of his loft and gave the me, The ones that were and are still in tact came from the late 60s and had the goalkeepers on wire. The teams were Coventry, Wolves and West Ham, the yoke on the shirt gave it away that it was West Ham, although naturally we used them predominately as Villa. Wolverhampton Wanderers The Wolves team is a fairly rare one with the gold bases and was only made for one season at the end of the 1960s. At the time Wolves had recently been recently promoted back to the top division of English football. It seems like the boys at Subbuteo HQ had taken a bit of poetic licence with the kits though , as the picture below shows what Wolves werwe actually wearing then. Coventry City The Coventry team are the same style as a late 60s Subbuteo team, but I think that they are...

We didn't go to the second day of the tournament, but for the record West Ham won the trophy after beating Espanyol 4-2 and Shakhtar came second after beating Cambridge 3-2,

The tournament started off with a young Shakhtar team taking on a young West Ham team. The temperature didn't help with the pace of the game, but there were still plenty of chances with the Hammers probably having the slight edge. Kieran Sadler had the best chance of the game when his blasted shot rattled the Shakhtar crossbar. Artem Gabelok who came on as substitute for the Donetsk team also came close and looked lively in front of goal. Those chances did come though when West Ham had changed almost their entire team. The first chance of the game fell to West Ham who came close to scoring through Elliot Lee after Seb Lleget had done the hard work, but Shakhtar keeper Yevhen Grytsenko was equal to the shot. Shakhtar came back and came close from corner, which was expertly controlled by Rotislav Rusin who found Nikita Bezugliy in space, but he was unable to keep his shot on target. In the first 10 minutes Blair Turgott tested Grytsenko again, but he was able to save with eas...

A few photos from the game: West Ham clear the ball.  Some midfield action West Ham come close

Shakhtar and West Ham's under 21 squads line up before playing out a 0-0 in the heat at the Abbey Stadium yesterday. The bald fellow is Shakhtar coach Miguel Cardosa.

With the temperature in excess of 30 degrees I am not sure if the young West Ham and Shakhtar players really had to warm up, but here are a few photos of them going through their paces before the game.

Yesterday we went to the first day of the Absolute Sports Travel Cup sat the Abbey Stadium in Cambridge. We saw Shakhtar draw 0-0 with West Ham and Cambridge draw 2-2 with Espanyol on what was and probably will be the hottest day of the year. Match reports will follow, but firstly I am going to upload a few photos.