football rambles

Semechki.... The small sunflower seeds that are so popular at Eastern European football grounds were in abundance at the Arsenal v Shakhtar game on Sunday. Free entry and enough seeds , served in red cups with the Arsenal logo on, led to a crowd of 33,000 chomping fans entering the ground. I don't know what state the ground was in today, but I presume the local sparrow population was pretty chuffed. The game was also fantastic and one of the best I have seen in a while. Unfortunately Arsenal lost 4-2, but they always entertain. Nobody apart from Metalist has scored more, and nobody apart from Zakarpatty has conceded more. Arsenal went ahead in the 25th minute with a goal from Zakarluka, who I haven't seen play so well since his CSKA days of yesteryear. The same can't be said of Vitaliy Reva, who was a goalkeeper of heroic status at CSKA, but seems to be a nervous wreck in goals for the Arse. Anyway, surprisingly it stayed at 1-0 until half time, and we expected Shakhtar to

On Sunday Arsenal will take on Shakhter. Arsenal have made a couple of impressive performances lately with the win over a desperate Vorskla being followed by an away drubbing of high flying Metalist. So you might think that there would be reason for optimism, as second place Shakhter come to town this weekend. However, that is the problem, Shakhter are in second. Their lead before the winter break seemed unasailable, as Dnipro were starting to buckle and Dynamo looked a shadow of their former selves. Dynamo are now top and in fine form, although Shakhter still have a game in hand. After losing to Tavriya last week they are going to be angry and God knows what form of punishment their lunatic, billionaire, political manipulator and club owner Renat Akhmetov has subjected them to. In the past after humiliations in Europe he has allegedly had them doing push-ups on the plane home and ordered a steamroller to crush all the cars belonging to the players in the car park. This season he has b

Only my own ramblings, but here goes. CSKA Kyiv When I first came to Kyiv in 2000 CSKA were the team I decided to support. At the time they had a pretty good team, but very little support, due to the dominance of Dynamo. What support they had seemed to centre around eccentrics, dissatisfied youths and old guys with nothing else to do and out of towners, who didn't want to support Dynamo, but would probably prefer to watch Karpaty. In other words they were the underdogs, and what British person doesn't like an underdog? Like most ex- army teams they were woefully short of cash and the stadium showed it. Over the next year the scoreboard disintegrated to the point where the kids behind the goal wrote the score in cardboard and put it up on the holes that had appeared on the once electronic device, a Cup semi-final in November 2001 with Dnipro went to penalties and the referee had to play it at the end where the floodlights were better (about 60 watts) and one time an old geezer t

This week's music/ football crossover is from The Sultans of Ping FC. The Sultans are/ were a band from Cork who were Cork City fans. They were most popular in the early 90's and their single Where's Me Jumper? was a hit on the student circuit at the time. However, unfortunately most people can only name this song although the Sultans released 3 albums. Apart from their name being football related they also have 3 songs related to football: I'm in Love with a Football Hooligan, Back in a Tracksuit and best of all Give him a ball and a Yard of Grass. This song is about ex-England, Forest and Liverpool midfielder / striker Nigel Clough. During his time as a footballer I didn't have much time for him at all, mainly because of my dislike for the clubs he played for. However, as boss and sometime player of Burton Albion he has done a great job and the Brewers are looking good for the Conference play-offs this year, so well done to him. He has stayed loyal to Burton ove

Double headers are few and far between and when they happen it usually feels like the canonball run from one stadium to another, today was a bit more relaxed, in a way, and I saw 2 good games and didn't feel guilty as I was excused from going to some kid's birthday party. First up was Obolon v Prikarppatiya. I have to say that Obolon's ground is a real sod to find, situated in a housing estate at the end of a metro line and without floodlights doesn't make it easy and neither does the fact that very few of the locals know the way. I had been there twice before, but I still found it hard and ended up phoning Andriy for directions. Luckily I found it in time and it's a good job I did. First of all the beer is dead cheap and straight from the brewery, it costs the equivalent of 20p and tastes good, so it's a good job the club have the sense to have plenty of portaloos there. The weather was terrible, hence the poor photos from today, but the football was satisfacto

I don't subscribe to most of the rubbish that is said about the decline of society in Britain. I mean all this rubbish about ASBO and binge drinking, also gave the likes of Disraeli and Gladstone a headache, they just didn't have the jargon to know what to call it. However, the new subbuteo is pretty indicative of the rise of the individual and the selfish attitudes that were set all those years ago by Thatch. You might ask am I still blaming her for some of the crap things that happen? Well, yes I bloody well am. Anyway, what annoys me about the new subbuteo is that kids are encouraged to collect a team of superstars, so there's no more Yeovil, Bournemouth or Plymouth to collect and apart from Gareth Barry and Micah Richards, there's probably no Villa, Man City or Portsmouth, just a team of Galacticos . Let's hope it is as successful for them as it was for Real Madrid. Subbuteo has been around since 1946, when it was just a set of cardboard men on plastic bases, a

A few weeks ago I was talking about the Zidane album by Mogwai. This time it's George Best by The Wedding Present. Never has a band and a footballer been so paradoxical. Best burst onto the football scene after being discovered by Manchester United's legendary scout, Bob Bishop, who said the club had to 'sign him at all costs'. He was born in 1946 and made his debut in1963. He is generally regarded as one of the best footballers of all time and won the league in 1965 and 1967 and the European Cup in 1968, where he performed excellently. However due to alcoholism and his other vices his career was over by 1975. He also played for several American clubs, Bournemouth, Fulham and Hibs. The Wedding Present ironically haven't been so 'rock and roll' in this respect. They were formed in 1985, made their first Peel Session in 1986 and released George Best in 1987. Rather than being glamorous they have been steadily successful and have produced some good albums. T

My favourite 2 Vische Liha clubs do battle on Friday evening as Metalist take on Arsenal in Kharkiv and I'm faced with a bit of a conundrum on Sunday. Dynamo take on Kryvbas and Obolon take on Prikarpattiya on the same day. I was unaware that Obolon were playing this weekend, as most of their games tend to be on weekdays, due to them being in the first division, although they are looking good for promotion. The only reason I found out was that I saw the Horse from the fan club in the street. However, I don't have any clue regarding the kick off time and a phone call to Andriy and a browse of their website didn't shed any light on the situation. Furthermore their ground is situated at the arse end of town and even the football daily Komanda prints kick off times for the Vische League wrongly, nevermind the first league. That said, it will test my resolve to go to Obolon and give Dynamo the elbow a bit if and when Obolon get promoted. I find Dynamo pretty annoying, most of t

After groundsharing for a while with Dynamo, Arsenal are now back at Respublikansky, and although I missed the first game with Zorya (which ended in a 1-1 draw) because it was on a Friday evening they didn't disappoint this time. 6 years ago when Arsenal were playing at Respublikanskiy I met some of the people who have become my best friends in Ukraine, so it was good to catch up with Bo and Ewig from the old days when we used to have a few beers and sing all game. The 'Ultras' are a younger bunch now and fancy themselves as hooligans, which is a bit lamentable. It appears that Ewig and Bo still control a lot of other things, including the printing of a fanzine ( which I haven't seen yet) and tickets for the sector that celebrate 5 years of the Arsenal Ultras. I was accompanied by the family for the game and thankfully it was a cracker, and the atmosphere was better than Dynamo, so at least the kids are more likely to follow Arsenal than Dynamo. Vorskla opened the scori

The first match I went to after the winter break was Metalist v Vorskla, Vorskla again provide the competition on Sunday when they take on Arsenal Kyiv at Respublikansky, so who are they? The side that were to later become Vorskla started out in Poltava as Kolkhoznik ( Collective Farm Workers) when they were formed by Mikhail Stakhurskiy in 1955. In that year they took part in a tournament of Physical Culture, surprisingly the following year they won the Soviet Cup and in 1956 were admitted into catergory B of the Soviet league, where they spent 11 years and changed their name to Kolos. What happened after this is unclear from all the research I've done, it appears that Kolos stagnated and by 1982 had reached new lows finishing in last place in the 2nd division of the Ukrainian zone of the Soviet league. What is clear that during this period is that another Poltava club that was to become a part of Vorskla were in the ascendancy in the region. In 1968 Selstroi reached Division A o

Fanzine culture in British football was most prevalent in the 1980's and early 1990's. At this time it was often very easy to find 2 or 3 publications on sale at most top league grounds. However, times have changed, so I was surprised to see that the fanzine of the year for 2007 - 2008 is up and running albeit sponsored by what seems to be another anachronism The Football Pools . I haven't been back to Britain for nearly 3 years, so I can't say how important printed fanzines are, although last time I was there I noticed that The Oatcake was selling like hotcakes at Stoke and Clough the Magic Dragon seemed to be doing a roaring trade at Burton. It's true that the British public as a whole have always been keen to get their hands on printed journals, as newspaper circulation in the UK compared with other European Countries illustrates, but in recent years the Football Pinks and Greens from various cities that formed an integral part of Saturday evening have fallen by

The main stand at Bannikov training complex

One of the stands at Bannikov with the House of Football in the background

A lot of the facilities at present in Ukraine are not yet ready for 2012 and some of the training facilities would have Roy Keane running back home like a big baby if he were still a player, so the facilities at the Bannikov Training Complex are impressive in that they are already in place and offer some great opportunities for young players and football specialists as a whole. A few years ago the site, which is above Respublikansky Stadium, where the 2012 final will take place was just a running track and a badly maintained grass pitch which was occassionally used by non-league teams. The running track remains, as do other facilities for athletics, but they are now flanked by 2 astroturf pitches with stands and the House of Football. The main pitch is often used for youth internationals including the under 18 tournament also named after Bannikov and some of the matches in the Lobanovskiy tournament, which has morphed into an under 21's tournament since in recent years. The whole c

Well, I didn't go to the match, but Dynamo won 2-1 and the league is starting to have a familiar feel to it with Shakhtar and Dynamo in 1st and second, although Dnipro and Metalist are both in with a shout, however Metalist drew 0-0 with Tavriya and Dnipro haven't looked like being able to break the Kyiv / Donetsk dominance of late. I was wrong about the crowd at the game as it drew a very respectable attendance of 14,000 +. On the other hand the congratulations to Ihor Surkis on the Dynamo site was changed to a congratulations from him to all the women at Dynamo, maybe he read my post, although I somehow doubt it. The cup in Ukraine also has a familiar feel with Shakhtar and Dynamo somehow avoiding each other yet again in the semi finals. At least things are going to be different in England this year with Barnsley putting Chelsea out and Pompey winning at Old Trafford. Thank God for that, I used to love the FA Cup, but of late it's always been won by one of the big four, b

Women's day apart from being a day when all the women get flowers and presents is one of the biggest holidays in Ukraine, so I'm wondering why there is football on today. Normally I'd be heading off to Dynamo v Metalurh Zapporizha today, but I'm not that callous. It's a bit of a shock that the PFL haven't thought about rescheduling the games today. Most men will be doing something for their wives and girlfriends, and those who don't have one will probably be doing something for their mothers. It's not a sexist statement, but football just isn't that popular with Ukrainian woman to the extent it is in Western Europe and East Asia. Added to this Monday is a bank holiday and people will have nothing to do, so there is every chance that playing the games on Monday would have boosted attendances rather than reducing them, which is the effect a Saturday kick off will do. Actually, the stupidity of the PFL is nothing new, as was illustrated in November when

There is no doubt about it Zidane was one of the greatest footballers ever, and 'Zidane- A 21st Century Portrait' is a film that is a damn site better than such turgid rubbish as 'Goal'. I was lucky enough to see the great man play in the flesh, and on TV I don't think you realise just how good he is, although the aforementioned film does a damn good job of portraying him in full flow and ironically ends with him being sent off. I saw him play for France against Russia in Moscow, for Juventus against Lazio in Rome and for Real Madrid against Dynamo in Kyiv. Another great thing about the film is the soundtrack which is written by Scottish post-rockers Mogwai. Here's a link for it for sampling purposes. If there are any objections I will remove it straight away. http://rapidshare.com/files/64552004/zidane.zip

Well, thank god the winter break is over or so I thought until I saw that Arsenal were playing Zoria on Friday evening. As it turned out Respublikansky was re-opening and a crowd of 42,000 saw the game, which would have usually attracted about a tenth of that. Anyway, I used the opportunity to go to Kharkiv and catch up with some old friends, and check out the new stadium as well as a spot of tourism in what will be one of the venues for 2014. The journey there wasn't great we paid for first class tickets, but second class looked better. The first class compartment was tiny and for 6 people and came accompanied with a TV showing DVDs of ex-Soviet films everyone had seen a hundred times before. Therefore we went to 2nd class and indulged in a light refreshment or 6 before arriving in Kharkiv at 1230 where we were met by football journalist, Tolya Hamaev. After a couple of beers and a trip round the town, which took in the biggest square in Europe a monument to the ex-leaders of the