football rambles

I thought it was about time I did a little mixtape, as I haven't for a while. This week I have been listening to a mixture of stuff, but one of the things I rediscovered was the Ninja Tunes record label, which I haven't listened to about 14 years, so here's a mix of some of their tunes: 1. Abe Twist - BREAK TO THIS 2. Anthony Bagette - Brown Said 3. Audiac - Everybody's Sneaking Baby 4. Comfort Fit - The Hunt 5. Daedelus - A Formula for Procrastination 6. DSP - Memories 7. Mentz - Sleepy 8. Saine - Elements 9. Sicilian AV Project - Todo Modo (a mio modo) .... and here pop pickers is the link for you to mellow out to: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=H0HYC2CG

Harry sodding Redknapp, not content with calling Villa fans morons for being pissed off with him for gesticulating at them when his team won at Villa last season or calling Pompey fans idiots for not being chuffed when he returned to the city for an award and a bit of rubbing their noses in it 2 days after leaving them in the lurch for a second time there is his sodding Wii adverts. Now normally this wouldn't rancour with me, but isn't this the manager who blamed the dirth in English talent (well that was his excuse for buying second rate foreigners) on the fact English kids were playing computer games instead of having a kick about outside? Well Harry, you moron shouldn't you be encouraging kids to play football rather than encouraging them to play computer games or is it just you love the smell of money? I think we know the answer to that (unless it is a 50p lobbed at his head)

Leiston FC, who play in the Eastern Counties League. The same league as Ely City managed to beat Conference National strugglers Lewes 3-1 away in the FA Cup Qualifiers last night. Therefore they will play in the first round of the FA Cup and will be the lowest position team to play in the FA Cup proper this season. They might have wanted the chance to get an even bigger scalp, but they will play Conference North team Fleetwood Town, at the moment they are in a mid table position in the Ridgeon's League, but due to FA Cup commitments have played considerably fewer games than most teams due to their cup commitments

Well we finally have the Cambridgeshire FA's decision on the game that Ely were winning 1-0 with 1 minute to go in the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup. It's going to be replayed on 11th November. Let's just hope the Robins can get a win and have a decent run in the competition and maybe get one of the bigger teams in the competition

I have to admit, there's something good about going and watching a game when the weather is really bad. Last night the weather was appaling it was freezing and pouring it down with rain when Ely met wisbech in the Eastern Counties League. the weather was so bad that Luton and Northampton had to call their games off. As for the football, it was entertaining enough, although the bad weather saw some pretty direct long balls. The game finished 3-2 to Wisbech Town, in a game where the result could have gone either way and frequently did the Fenmen of Wisbech showed a bit more knowledge than Great Shelford and Market Needham did. Firstly they seemed fairly sussed to the offside trap Ely tend to use and defended well from Bradley Stone's long throws. That said, the game could have easily been a draw and the kids were probably disappointed when they called for another failure of the floodlights, as Wisbech scored a winner in the 80th minute. Andy Petit managed to net a double for the

Tomorrown night Ely play a team known as the Fenmen from a town that proclaims itself as 'the capital of the Fens.' So the question is, how did I miss them out when I first wrote the Fens football focus? Wisbech Town were formed in 1920 when 3 teams from the town came together to form one club who went on to play in the Peterborough League, which they won in 1925,28,29,32 and 33. They then turned semi pro and joined the United Counties (which they won in 1947, 48 and 60) , they later switched to the Eastern Counties League and then the old Midlands league. In 1958 they finished runners up to a club who are now well established in the league, Peterborough United. The game against Peterborough in that season saw them get a record crowd of 8044 and finishing second led to them gaining a place in the Southern League, where they remained for 12 seasons. After a shortage of cash they went back down to the Eastern Counties League. They won the ECL in 1971, 72 and 1995 and in 1983-84 t

In this month's edition of 'When Saturday Comes' was an interesting article about how nowadays not even a rich local could ever dream of buying his local football club with all of the overseas investment of multi billionaires. The writer also mentioned that the only possibility for those who had the chance of making millions could dream of was buying a local club and building them up, a bit like Rushden & Diamonds a few years ago. He also said that that wouldn't be fun because with more success, you'd get more fans and then have to put up with away fans coming and shouting stuff like 'where were you when you were shit?'. Well apart from being rather negative, I wonder why the writer never thought about plugging those football fans at myfootballclub.com. The idea which was hatched last year and was that people could buy a club online and for a subscription of £35 a year they could run the club and choose the team and vote on things like transfers. A wack

While we're on the subject of badges, if we were. I saw a bloke on Ely market who was selling all sorts of attributki, as the Ukrainian call them, or football tat that I waste money on and then put in cupboard, so what could I do, of course I bought some. One of the items I was tempted by, but didn't get was a Forest Green Rovers badge. The first time I cam across Forest Green Rovers was when they were playing Burton Albion and were coached by Villa legends, Nigel Spink and Paul Birch. They managed a 2-2 draw and at the time were near the bottom of the Conferenc. They have since established themselves as a Confernece team with few resources compared with some of the other teams in this league. The starngest thing about them though is the fact that they have a badge which is a complete rip off of the Barcelona crest. It probably isn't a coincidence, but all I can find out about it is that 'it has the flag of St. George and looks like Barcelona's badge'. St. Georg

Reading about slavia sofia's victories in the Balkans Cup (see below) mad me interested in finding out more about this now discontinued cup. It was started in 1961 for clubs in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey and the former Yugoslavia. Strangely enough it was not taken that seriously by all the clubs at the time, although the also discontinued Balkan Cup, which compromised of the national teams of the aforementioned countries was. The cup was last played in 1994 when Samsunspor of Turkey beat PAS Giannina of Greece over 2 legs. It was played every year from 1961 to 1994, apart from in 1989 when it was postponed due to the Romanian Revolution. The most succesful team in the tournament was Beroe Stara Zagora of Bulgaria, who won the trophy 4 times. The first winners were Steagul Rosu Brasov of Romania, who won the competition in the only year that the title was decided by a league rather than a 2 leg knock out format. The chances of the cup being reinstated seem to be a lo

No football yesterday, as it was Sean's birthday, but my dad brought down some old badges that I had collected when I was a kid, including some that a Bulgarian penfriend had sent me. At the time I couldn't read cyrillic, so I hadn't a clue who the teams were. Now I can read it and managed to work out all the teams were apart from one and this one turned out to be Slavia Sofia. Slavia Sofia were formed on 10th April 1913 and have since won the Bulgarian Championship 7 times and the Bulgarian Cup 8 times. Their last victory in either of these competitions came in 1996, when they won the double. They also won the Balkans Cup twice, in 1986 and 1988. They were formed as the first incorporated sports club in Bulgaria when Bofev and Razvitie came together to form Slavia. Their first president was a 21 year old student whose name was Dimitar Blagoev - Palio. In 1921 they settled on their current strip of all white and became known locally as ' white pride' or 'white a

My fourth visit to Ely City finally led to a victory, well at least a definite victory as it doesn't seem like a decision has been made about the game on Tuesday. It came as a bit of a shock as it came against Needham Market, who finished runners up in the league last season and who won the Suffolk Cup. In fact I was expecting them to get a good thrashing, but the scarf I got in the club shop before the game must be a lucky one. The first half was pretty incident free with Needham dealing better with the Ely attack than they did with the offside trap. On 29 minutes Andy Petit fired Ely ahead from 12 yards, but they didn't hold on to the league for long. Just 3 minutes later Ely's stand in keeper had what is known in Rocester as an 'empty head' moment, he came charging out of the goal and Needham were able to score into an empty net from 35 yards. The second half was a lot more exciting and Ely had the best of the chances. On 73 minutes Russell Flinton scored what ca

Last night saw Great Shelford visit Ely City for the preliminary round of the Cambridgshire Invitation Cup. It might not sound like a big match, especially as Great Shelford play in the Cambridgeshire Senior League, 2 steps below Ely (who are a step 5 team) and the same league as Ely City's reserve team, but the crowd was bigger than they usually get on Saturday, although there were no programmes available. When I was leaving Cambridge the weather was pretty bad and it was raining. I feared for the worst and that the game would be played in a storm, but by kick off the evening had turned into a fairly pleasent autumn night. The pitch was obviously a bit skiddy and I thought we would probably be in for a lot of goals, especially as Ely had a fairly strong side out, despite top scorer Andy Petit being off the team sheet and it also looked as if Great Shelford might be amongst the goals, as Ely were having to play the 'A' Teams goalkeeper. The first half was a fairly dull affa

On Tuesday night Ely City will play Great shelford in the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup. They play in the Kershaw Premier Division (the Cambridgeshire League), which is a feeder league for the Eastern Counties and the same league that Ely's reserves play in. Great Shelford were formed in 1912 and have been playing at Woodlands Lane since 1920. Their first major trophy came in the 1950s when they won the Foster Cup, which was followed by the Creake Shield in 1963 and the Cambridgeshire Premier League in 1963. In the 1970s the club started to become very successful, when they won the league title in 1975 it was to be one of 12 victories in the league over the next 15 years. They also won the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup 3 times, which is the most number of victories for a club of this level. In 2006-2007 all 3 of the clubs who play under the name Great Shelford won trophies. The first team won the Kershaw's League and the Terry Wilson Trophy, the reserves won the Foster Cup and

Next month I'll be going to Germany for some work related stuff, and although it is highly unlikely that I'll get to a game I thought I'd look at the local team, who are 1. FC Koln. Die Geissbocke or 'Billy Goats' as they are known got their nickname when circus ring master Carola Williams gave them a billy goat as a mascot in 1950, whose name was Hennes. Nowadays Hennes has his own fashion label with the fan friendly club doing their own merchandising under the label. Koln, who last season averaged an attendance of of 43,741 in 2 Bundesliga and gained promotion were formed in 1948 when Kolner Ballspiel club and Spvgg Sulz 07 merged to form what has become one of the best supported clubs in the Ruhr Valley. Kolner BC themselves were formed in 1901 when they split from the more gymnastically inclined sport club Borrusia Koln. In 1912 they became the Westdeutsher Champions and in 1920 lost the league final to a club who have become one of Koln's bitterest rivals,

The first thing you notice on returning to Britain is all the doom and gloom about the future financial armegedon, and a lot of affluent, well fed people moaning about how hard up they are as they spend 80 quid on stuff they don't need in the local Waitrose (I'm not saying people haven't been badly affected by the financial shenanigans, but the people in Ely Waitrose and on commuter trains to Cambridge probably aren't that close to moving into a garden shed on an allotment just yet). Anyway, the other thing that you notice that as well as people on Radio 2 going on about the worst financial crisis since the 1970s and that you'll all have to give up your second cars (I wouldn't mind having one, to be honest) is the actual wishes, at least those expressed by the media are to return to the crap old days, just looking at the TV the last couple of days bears this out. First of all yesterday I witnessed a programme, I think called, 'Britain's Hardest Pubs'

Well, I've been busy settling into a new job, new place and new school for Nadiya, so I've been getting a bit slck on the old blogging front. I've also noticed how parochial the blog has been of late and I'm going to hopefully rectify that, but first a bit of Football Culture, touching on the very subject of moving back, parochial attitudes and stuff like that

No photos from Saturday's game betweeh Ely and Histon in the Eastern Counties League, but Scott was in town, so he was able to sample the delights of the Eastern Counties League and the Greene King on offer in the clubhouse, although unfortunately it was so cold we ended up switching to tea. The first half was full of passiion and was fairly entertaining, although Histon made the most of the wind and went ahead early on. a speculative shot from 40 yards also was taken by the wind and hit the crossbar. Ely pulled a goal back with a penalty before half-time. The second half was a calmer affair and Histon went ahead just after the break. Ely weren't able to take advantage of the wind and the game finished 2-1. In the evening we went on a pub crawl of the town, although we spent most of the time in The Minster, so as well as lacking in photos, I'm a bit lacking in memories of the game. It might have been better if Sean had written this report