football rambles

  This is a newer version of the Obolon scarf and comes from the 4-2 win over Kremin in 2013 that is covered elsewhere in this blog when Obolon were going through their phase of  being Obolon Brovary that came to an end this season. There's more information in the labels.

  Well, despite having the weekend off this project and wearing a few of the ones that we have already had featured here, today we have another good one. Obolon Kyiv. This is an old school Obolon scarf that features Latin on one side and Cyrillic on the other. Also notice the controversial spelling of 'Kiev' on the one side of the scarf. this came from the end of 2002 and that was less of a bone of contention then.  My dad has the original one of these scarves, I got that one with Phil when we first met Andriy Tatarchuk. It was at a time when Obolon's first team were playing at Olympiskiy before the 'Remont' and eventual move to their own stadium. The mighty Obolon 2 were playing at the old ground in Smena at that time.  Nowadays, Obolon have their own Arena, which is often used for first league meetings and as a home for several displaced teams in the Ukrainian Premier League. I'll probably try and get to a game there next time I'm over, but last time I was...

Another cancelled plane led to another bonus match. I should have been grateful, but my final match in Ukraine saw Kryvbas visit Kyiv and as I have already documented in several places on this site they always do something to annoy me. Usually Kryvbas finish mid-table and their strategy for away games seems to be to kill the game and pick up a draw away every time. However, this time they were already relegated by a long way, so things seemed to have changed. In contrast Obolon were guaranteed to finish mid-table, but the game against Dynamo didn't see them have a shot on target and earlier in the week I had been to Andriy's house to see Obolon play Tavriya away, which had seen both teams play out a 0-0 draw without much enthusiasm, which was strange at least on Tavriya's part as they are going for a place in the Europa League (which unlike in England is quite a big deal). On the day of the match I met Andriy who had an awful hangover and to be honest I should have been fee...

Here are the Dynamo fans unfurling a giant flag and letting off fireworks on the neighbouring buildings.

As you can see from the buildings overlooking the stadium a lot of the locals enjoy free football. There is a story that one of the flat owners rented out his balcony for the Shakhtar game for 100 Hryvnas.

The top picture shows Shevchenko limping off the pitch when we thought he had seriously injured himself. The picture below shows him completely recovered a few minutes later.

Here's the entrance to the Obolon stand in an older picture on the site there is a picture of it before it was open.

A trip to Obolon Arena, as they now call their stadium beckoned on Wednesday night and although Obolon had had a brief stay in the Premier League before, or the Vishe Liha as it was then known it was strange to see the stands full and we were sat in the main stand, which wasn't even open the last time I was in Ukraine. When Obolon were in the Vishe Liha they tended to play at Respublikansky which always made the ground seem empty. On the night of the game I met up with Andriy and some of the boys from Obolon when Obolon played in the first league at Shaslive before they had their own stadium, so the contrast was really big. Dynamo seemed to outnumber the Obolon fans by about 4 to 1 and they seemed to have 4 times as many players on the pitch too. A lot of that had to do with another glittering performance from Shevchenko. Sheva put Dynamo ahead on just 8 minutes, and not to distract from his effort it was easy to see why Obolon have been having a mini goalkeeping crisis of late and...

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

Yesterday saw the final game of the season and Obolon went out with a bang. They managed to win 3-0 and a good time was had by all. It was probably one of the better performances by the club in the second part of the season. Unfortunately, despite being on a sunny Saturday the crowd was pretty low. This isn't much of a shock though, as after drawing to CSKA earlier in the week they had already missed out on promotion with Illichevest being joined by Lviv in the Premier League. So, as usual Obolon finished 3rd but it was nice to see them go out with a bang even if the opposition was Dnister Ovidiopol, who don't exactly strike fear into the hearts of their opponents, especially after travelling the distance they did by bus. 1. Obolon swing in a corner that led to a goal only for it to be disallowed for a foul on the keeper 2. Obolon score a penalty to make the score 3-0 3. the lads 4. the kids

1. What self respecting town doesn't have a statue of Lenin? 2. the tractor in the ring road as you enter the town, it's a bad picture, as I took it from the bus window. It is also the symbol of the town as it is famous for making farm machinery

1. Kids' football pitch with advertising for Euro2012 2. Pavillion at the ground- What self respecting stadium doesn't have astand for the visiting club officials to sit in, apart from the camera man there was only big nose there on this occassion 3. The pitch next to the main stadium where Obolon won promotion 4. The other stand next to the pavillion

1. Obolon celebrate scoring 2. Obolon go on the attack 3. Dynamo score a penalty

Borodyanka, Thursday evening a game so meaningless that the PFL allowed Obolon 2 and dynamo 3 to move the game to a day before the other teams played. The last couple of rounds are usually played on the same date at the same time, but not this one, that is just how meaningless it was. Apart from the fact that neither of the clubs can get promoted under any circumstances, as they are obviously feeder clubs to the bigger Kyiv clubs, the result of the game was completly meaningless, as neither club could change position in the table regardless of scores elsewhere. Borodyanka is situated about 80 KM from Kyiv and has the feel of a village, although I suspect that it has quite a large population. It is most famous for producing tractors at the Borex plant. It has had several clubs, the most successful of was Sistema Borex, who had close ties to CSKA. They ultimately went bankrupt and several clubs that have followed in their footsteps have also gone under. This is a shame, as they have a ni...

It looks pretty impressive, but then it should the stadium has been 6 years in the making with Obolon playing their games in a variety of other stadiums before finally getting the job done. To be fair to them there was a hostile takeover bid of the brewery by Sarmat, which led to construction being stopped for a period of time. That said, as you can see from the outside it doesn't look very welcoming, at the moment the chosen few who are allowed to sit here enter from the side and are allowed in at the stadium manager's discretion. hopefully they will get promotion and will be forced to open it up for the purpose for which it was built

Obolon played Dnipro Cherkasy on Sunday needing a win to stay in the chase for promotion to the Vishe, soon to be renamed and rebranded as the Premier League. The game was exciting enough, with Cherkasy trying their best to spoil the party in much the same way Vorskla attempted to when they played Dynamo at the end of the Vishe Liha's season. In fact the first 20 minutes were all Dnipro, so much so that Obolon made a couple of early substitutions in an attempt to put some bite back in their attack. The result was a fairly balanced game for the most part with both team's forwards squandering chance after chance. It was difficult to imagine why Cherkasy were just above the relegation places and on 75 minutes they went ahead with a brilliantly well taken goal drilled in from the right wing. Finally Obolon woke from their slumber and 4 minutes later they drew level with another well taken goal. This prompted a last 10 minutes of wave after wave of attack and dive after dive in the ...

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...

So tomorrow is the last day of the season for the Vishe Liha and as I've already said most eyes are on the battle for the championship with shakhtar leading by 1 point ahead of Dynamo. Most other issues have been resolved, as Metalist and Dnipro will be playing in the UEFA Cup and Tavriya will be in the Intertoto. In 6th place are Arsenal, who I will be going to watch, the highest Arsenal can finish is 6th and the lowest they can finish is also 6th. Their opponents, FK Kharkiv will be hoping to avoid the drop. At the bottom of the table are Zakarpattiya, who have already been relegated and they will be joined in the 1st Division with either Naftovik Ukrnafta, who are on 25 points, and who will take on Vorskla at home, Fk Kharkiv on 26 points and Zorya who are on 28 and who play Zakarpattiya away. As the Vishe Liha finishes I'll be concentrating on the lower divisions. There are still 8 games to play in the 1st division and at the moment it is led by Illichevets Mariupol, who ar...

Geroiv Dnipro is the name of the nearest station to the Obolon ground, which means Heroes of the Dnipro and is a tribute to those killed in action during World War 2. so it seems fitting that I visited this part of town on Victory Day for Obolon's game against Stal Dnipropetrovsk. We also had our own hero of the Dnipro in Sean who decided to go for a swim in the river at Hydropark with all his clothes on before the game. Unfortunately the effort to get him dry meant we were 30 minutes late for kick off and missed both of Obolon's goals. Obolon went on to win the game 2-1, with Stal scoring a consolation goal in the last minute of the game, which I didn't miss. Obolon now look like they can't avoid promotion, famous last words. The game was entrtaining enough with both sides coming close to scoring on several occassions, although Obolon always had the upper-hand. Fair play to stal though, as teams who are 2-0 down away from home often give up, but they didn't. In c...

This game took place on the 29th April, and when I came home from it was when I realised my computer had been broken. The game took place between FK Obolon and Helios Kharkiv. Recently Obolon seemed to have been bottling it quite badly, as they often do in the second half of the season and they have been overtaken by Illichevets in first place. However, this game went some way in dispelling rumours that they were to start throwing games as they won this hard fought battle 2-0. The weather conditions were less than ideal and me and Andriy got the soaking of our lives. This didn't seem to bother the referee though, or he wasn't wearing a waterproof watch, or for some reason he wasn't aware that football matches go on for 45 minutes a half rather than an hour. Either way he didn't have the best of matches and sent off 2 players (1 from each team) for sliding tackles, which the slippery pitch made look a lot worse than they really were. Obolon created plenty of chances and ...