football rambles

After beating Woking 3-2 at home, then losing 4-3 away to Histon and then drawing 2-2 at home with Kidderminster the game between Burton Albion and Lewes always promised to be a goal fest and we weren't disappointed. Burton started off as if they meant business and nobody was surprised when Greg Pearson fired the Brewers ahead after just 10 minutes with his cleverly picked out goal, which was his 5th already this season. However, the lead didn't last for long and Scott Taylor levelled things due to a defensive error on 15 minutes. Another Burton mistake led to Lewes going 2-1 up just 4 minutes later, when Adam Yates, who is on loan from Morecambe fell over and handled the ball in the box. Michael standing levelled from the spot. Nigel Clough, the Burton manager has said that although he is happy that Burton seem to be able to get goals from anywhere, he isn't happy with the number of errors the team are making defensively and today would have been no different. At the same

Today's visitors to Burton are Lewes FC, and the Rooks, as they are known, must be suffering from a nose bleed as the Conference National is the highest league they have ever been in. Lewes were formed in 1885 and prior to 1920 they played in the West Sussex League before being promoted to the Sussex League where they stayed until 1965 when they were promoted to the Athenian League Division 2. In 1968 they won promotion to Division 1. In 1977 they were again promoted, this time to the Isthmian League division 2 and 3 years later made it to division 1 where they remained until 1991 when a rot set in. Two years later they found themselves in division 3 of the Isthmian. In 1998 the former Northern Ireland International, Jimmy Quinn, took charge of the club and steered them to 2 consecutive promotions up to the Isthmian League Division 1 South. In 2003-2004 Lewes won promotion to the Conference South and at the end of last season finally managed to get into non-league's promised la

I didn't actually make it to the Burton v Kidderminster game today and had to make do with Rocester v Cradley Town in the Midlands Football Alliance. To try and be nice, the programme was  fairly well put together, as usual, and the cider was nice and the chips that the kids had looked fairly good; however the football was fairly dreadful. Cradley had most of the chances in the first half, but had probably 2 of the worst finishers in the history of the MFA, although to be fair the Rocester goalkeeper, Paul Wood, was on pretty good form. Rocester on the other hand probably had one shot on target all match. It came as no surprise then when Cradley opened the scoring early in the second half, however Rocester were thrown a lifeline with about 10 minutes to go when the Cradley keeper handled the ball outside the box and received his marching orders. As they had already used all of their substitutes an outfield player had to take his place. However, despite pushing everyone forward, Roc

I won't be able to go to a game this Saturday, so the next match I will see will be the bank holiday showdown between Burton Albion and Kidderminster Harriers at the Pirelli Stadium. Kidderminster Harriers are an ex-league team, who have been responsible for an interesting few records. They were founder members of the Birmingham and District League in 1889, they were the first team to hold a floodlit FA Cup match (in a preliminary round game against Brierley Hill in 1955, which they won 4-2), the first team to have a match officiated by a team of all females ( against Nuneaton Borough in 1999 - they won 2-1) and were involved in the first match at the new Wembley in 2007 (the FA Trophy final, which they lost 3-2 to Stevenage Borough). Kidder despite having played in the league have never really been one of non-league's giants, mainly because of the support for bigger league teams in their area. They were formed from an athletics and rugby team in 1886, hence the strange name. T

Hillsfield, which at the moment is the home of Rocester Football Club, will soon be developed into an Engineering College for the very locally based JCB. They recently bought the ground and at the moment are charging the club a 'pepper corn rate' to use the ground. However, this also means that the club can be evicted whenever JCB see fit. The company has promised to build another ground for the club, but where it will be and if it will be adequate for football of this level still remains to be seen. Rocester moved to Hillsfield in 1987 after gaining promotion from the Staffordshire Senior League (which is the league in which their reserve team now play) to the West Midlands Regional League. The ground was originally called Riversfield, but was later renamed to Hillsfield after the ex-chairman Don Hill, who oversaw Rocester's most successful period.  The capacity of the ground is allegedly 4,000 and the floodlights and stand originally came from Walsall who sold them after

The top picture shows the view of the goal situated infront of the Mill.  The bottom photo shows the goal which is situated just infront of the River Dove. The river apart from dividing Staffordshire from Derbyshire also gave the ground its original name of Riversfield and has also claimed many a match ball that has been blasted off targer

Views from top to bottom:  1. View of the clubhouse and mainstand from outside the ground. 2. Signs outside the ground trying to entice people in. 3. Home dugout with the clubhouse in the background.

One of the key features of the ground is the mill from 1870's that is adjacent to it. Here are some views from the walk to the ground from the village

My first game back in Britain wasn't exactly clash of the titans, but Rocester and Oadby served up an entertaining enough game, which ended in a 2-2 draw.  Dean Smith put the visitors ahead with a cleverly worked move, that they had obviously worked on at the training ground.However, Lee Bagley put the home team level when he was left unmarked on the far post on 15 minutes.  What followed on for most of the game was a battle in the middle of the field with some breakaways and hard tackling in the centre of the pitch. For the most part Rocester looked like the better team, but they couldn't beat the off-side trap. However, on 81 minutes Rory Maxwell capitalised on a defensive error by Oadby, and it looked like The Poachers would be heading back to Leicestershire without any points. All Rocester had to do was keep possession and despite attempts to do this they continued to give free kicks away in the corners and fail to look comfortable on the ball when it was in the middle of t

So the first match I will see back in England will be a ninth level affair between local team Rocester and Oadby Town in the Midlands Football Alliance. Oadby Town or 'the Poachers', as they are sometimes known started out life in about 1938 as Oadby Imperial. In 1939/40 they won their first competition 'The City Medals'. In 1943 they merged with a local junior team and became briefly Oadby United before changing back to Oadby imperial for 1949/50 season when they entered the Leicestershire Senior League Division 2. They only stayed in this division for a couple of seasons before gaining promotiom to the top tier of the Leicestershire Senior League.In 1951, the same year that they gained promotion Oadby finally settled on the name Oadby Town. However, it wasn't until 1963 that they received their first major piece of silverware when they won the Leicestershire Senior Cup beating Newfoundpool WMC in the final. The following year they retained the cup and sealed a tre

Just some photos of Dynamo stadium from my last day in Ukraine and 2 days after the famous victory by Dynamo in Moscow, where they beat Spartak 4-1

The last game I went to was Arsenal v Zorya Luhansk. The match took place on August 10th. It ended up a 1-1 draw, but was far more entertaining than the game between Arsenal and Kryvbas, despite the final result being the same.  The game was surprisingly held at Obolon Stadium, and most of the Arsenal fans boycotted the match, not because it was at Obolon, but because of mistreatment by the police at the previous home game. Vovo Lysenko put Arsenal ahead in this game, just before half time with a headed goal. To be honest he had a great first half and if he and Serhiy Zakarlouka can hit off a better relationship upfront then the future of the team could be secure up front, but Zakarlouka really needs to keep a calmer head when he Lysenko misreads his passes.  Zorya had a blast from the past in defence with Harrison Omoka playing at centre half. A few years ago there was a rumour that Dynamo had signed an African player who could play up front and in defence called Lucky Harrison. In fa

Well, my computer broke down for the last week in Kyiv. Now I'm in Staffordshire and will probably be going between here and Cambridge for the next few weeks. This means, obviously that the focus of the blog is going to change, and I don't know how much time I will have to do this and even attend football in the next 4 or 5 weeks. Anyway, now it is time to catch up on what has been going on.

Gartland completes the scoring in the Dynamo v Drogheda game, although Drogheda came close to scoring another 2 goals in the last 2 minutes

Milevskiy makes it 2-1 to Dynamo

Robinson makes it 1-1 in the Dynamo v Drogheda tie

Aliev puts Dynamo 1-0 up in the tie against Drogheda

I have to admit since coming back to Ukraine I've neglected the K-League, which I followed in Korea for 2 years. During the time there I made it to most FC Seoul matches and also managed to visit Seongnam and Daejon for games. The K-League is one of the most succesful leagues in Asia, relying on a steady flow of Korean players and Europeans. However, unlike some leagues the foreigners that are signed, for example Riccardo, who played for FC Seoul while I was there still seem to have a hunger for the game. Watching football in Korea is a much different experience to watching it in Europe. It's a bit of a family and popcorn event, although it's pretty easy to get beer in the stadium. There are also a lot of freebies on offer. For example, they often give ballooons and sweets to kids and programmes are free. I also have a badge to commemorate the game between FC Seoul and Suwon on 21 March 2007. Not a bad souvenir as FC Seoul beat their hated and more successful neighbours 4-1

Before last night's game with Drogheda United, Dynamo were already confident that they would be in the next round and playing against Spartak. They were 2-1 up from the tie in Ireland and had no fear of the Irish team. Last night, however showed that they had everything to fear and the style of play that they have recently adopted and I have criticised before can leave them vulnerable as they are pretty easy to hit on the break. They also have too many long range shots, which occassionaly lead to goals, but more concentration might see them putting games beyond doubt instead of keeping their opponents in it up until the last minute. Last night Dynamo started off brightly with Oleksandr Aliev putting them ahead with a goal from outside the area (where else?) and a few minutes later he also hit the post. Bangoura also had a few good chances, but he still doesn't seem to have found his scoring boots this season. Nevertheless, Dynamo's lead was cancelled out on 42 minutes when

As tonight I'll be going to Dynamo v Drogheda and Sunday sees Arsenal take on Zorya, I thought I'd take a look at Villa's opponents in the UEFA Cup. Hafnafjordur were formed in 1929, and despite being most famous for their football club, they also compete in other sports including track and field. As a football club they only really came to prominence this century with 3 back to back championships between 2004 and 2006. Last year they narrowly missed out to Valur of Reykjavik, and this season they are again top of the league. Their most famous victory in Europe came when they knocked Dunfermiline out of the 2nd qualifying round of the UEFA Cup in 2004-5 ( I will be hoping that they don't pull a shock off in this year's tournament at the same point) In recent years they have been expanding their ground's capacity from 2,200 to 6,000, which will make it the second biggest stadium in Iceland after Laugardalsvollors. Whether this is really necessary remains to be se

The anniverssary of the so called 'Death Match' occurs this week, as it took place on August 9th 1942. The match took place between FC Start from Kyiv and a Luftwaffe team called Flakelf, the Ukrainians winning the game 5-3. FC Start was a team formed in the war by a few professionial footballers who had stayed behind to fight in Kyiv. The central point was a bakery that some of them worked at. The backbone of the team was made up of Dynamo players, but there were also players from Lokomotiv Kyiv represented too. It is a common misconception that it was Dynamo Kyiv who played in the death match, as despite the fact that most of the team were from Dynamo before the war this team was called FC Start. They wore red shirts to stir up emotions and show that they were representing the USSR. FC Start came to prominence in the Kyiv League that took place during the early days of the war and their form against both other Ukrainian clubs and army garrisons led to them being challenged b

I won't eulogise too much about Valeriy Lobanovskiy, the ex-Dynamo coach as I already have done so here: http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/06/lobanovsky-tournament.html I had always been too self conscious or unable due to the huge number of people who have photos taken with the statue of Lobanovskiy outside Dynamo on match days, and I also felt smug knowing that the people who usually do it are football tourists rather than people who never miss a game at the stadium. Anyway, that's enough of my own character flaws. Yesterday I went to the stadium to pick up tickets for the Dynamo v Drogheda game on Wednesday and decided to take a couple of photos, so here they are.

Fantastic Jackson gets all 3 points for Metalist with this 50th minute strike.

Ninkovic scores in first half stoppage time to make it 1-1

Top: Dynamo fans respond to the taunts of 'Pervaya Stolitsa' (The First Capital), Kharkiv was the capital of Independent Ukraine before Kyiv- with some woderful choreography. Bottom: Metalist fans continue to go mental, as they did for about 2 hours

Metalist fans celebrate going 1-0 up and their victory at the end of the match

Here's a picture of the 20 man brawl, but it really was just a bit of pushing and shoving, the fans were going mad, but nobody was even booked during this incedent.

I spent Saturday afternoon watching FK Kharkiv take on Arsenal in Sumy on TV. It was a pedestrian 1-1 draw and the unloved FK Kharkiv have proved that they are unwanted in their own town, as they are having to play in the impressive Sumy stadium after Spartak Sumy went bankrupt when Luk Oil pulled out of their sponsorship. The Arsenal lads had gone to the game, and when I found out I was texting them saying I wish I had gone with them. On second thoughts I am glad I didn't. Instead in the evening I went to the game between the two bigger Kyiv and Kharkiv teams, Dynamo and Metalist. This was one of the best games I have seen in a long while. Both teams were up for it and were roared on by passionate fans. Sure, there were the usual Dynamo idiots who spent most of the game taking photos of each other in their new scarves and one woman who had wandered in with her boyfriend 40 minutes late asked if Dynamo were wearing yellow, who still celebrated the Blue and Whites goal 2 minutes lat

If Dynamo beat Drogheda in the Champions League their next opponents will be Spartak Moscow. In the days of the Soviet Union this was the biggest match of any season. Dynamo and Spartak were the 2 most successful teams and the 2 best supported clubs. Unfortunately I won't be in Kyiv to see it, but it should be a very interesting match indeed. Spartak were founded as a meat processors' team in 1922 by Nikolai Starostin. They quickly became known as 'The People's Team' in Russia, as they weren't affiliated to a branch of the party and were seen as an alternative to CSKA (army), Dinamo (Police) and Lokomotiv (Railways). Starostin was always keen to promote the image of the team as the downtrodden and cheated, although some of his statements about match fixing against Spartak seem to be a bit exaggerated given the success the club had. He also claimed that the name Spartak came fro his reading of the book by Raffaello Giovagnoli, and he was inspired by the story of

One of my unfullfilled ambitions, which will probably remain unfullfilled is to see Luch Vladivostok play a home game at their Dynamo Stadium. Another is to see them get into the Champions League. Can you imagine how pissed off clubs like Manchester United would be if they had to travel basically as far as Japan for a midweek game, and without the massive pay-day of a friendly in Japan? Luch's location even causes problems in the Russian League. For example in 2006 3 Zenit fans drove to the match from St. Petersburg in a clapped out Honda. Unfortunately, the car broke down in Vladivostok and the lads had to get a Trans-Siberian train back to Leningrad. An especially arduous journey that takes several days and travels the distance of 15000 KM very slowly. At least Zenit showed them their appreciation and gave them a brand new car when they eventually got home. Professional football arrived in Vladivostok in 1947 when it was decided that a team from Siberia and one from the Far East