football rambles

To be honest last night's match wasn't really a friendly as the Doug Unwin Memorial trophy was at stake as Ely took on Soham Town Rangers in a local Derby. The last time the two teams met was at Soham when Ely beat them in the Cambridgeshire Senior Cup last season. Soham play in a league above Ely, but the opposition finall brought out the best in the Robins in what was probably their best pre-season performance. I have to say probably as I've missed a couple due to work and the Villa game. Ely were unlucky to go in at the break one goal down to Soham. However, they battled well in the second half and Robbie Mason scored a spectacular equaliser. The weather was dreadful, and I was alone with the kids, so I was quite thankful that the managers agreed to go straight to penalties and it did give the kids some extra entertainment. I feel that if the game had continued rather than going to penalties Ely would have probably gone on to win it. However, it wasn't to be and desp

Last night Ely City played Bury Town in a friendly. I wasn't expecting the Robins to beat a club who have always played at a higher level, but the result was a bit of a disappointment. Ely went 1-0 down early on due to what was a defensive / goalkeeping error. However, they did manage to pull one back with some nice moves, but as was the case last season discipline and the defence looked a bit iffy and I know that it was a friendly, but some of the commitment shown even now was questionable. Another question has to be asked about where the manager, who is supposedly building a new team was. As soon as Ely equalised Bury went up the other end and some foolhardy goalkeeping that would have led to a red card in a more competetive match led to a Bury penalty. Pacey did make ammends later on in the game by saving a penalty, but Ely were really outclassed. It was 3-1 at half time and 6-1 by the end of the match. Let's just hope it isn't a sign of things to come. Ely play St.Neots

The Villa slogan is 'proud history and bright future', obviously having an American owner cranks up the bullshitometer a few levels, but yesterday's performance at Peterborough would suggest that the future is bright for Villa. Villa started the game with some established players namely Brad Friedel, Carlos Cuellar, Zat Knight, Curtis Davies, Nicky Shorey, Nigel Reo-Coker, Steve Sidwell and Marlon Harewood, but by the end of the match it was virtually a youth team on the pitch. Furthermore in the starting line up it was youngsters Andreas Weimann and Barry Bannan who impressed the most. It looks like Marlon Harewood's days at Villa are numbered though as he was guilty of squandering a series of chances. Talking of squandering chances Peterborough looked good for the first 20 minutes and squandered chance after chance. However, and not wishing to be nasty as I had a good day out I think that Posh will be out of their depth in the Championship, their ground looks more lik

Villa start their pre-season programme with a trip to Peterborough on Saturday and I will be in attendance, so let's have a quick look at the club known as the Posh. In 1932 the original Peterborough team, Peterborough and Fletton United folded after being suspended by the FA. In 1934 Peterborough United were born and made their ultimate aim to become a member of the football league, however they had to be content with starting life out in the Midland League and their ambitions of getting into the league seemed a long way off. They might have started off by adopting the nickname of Peterborough and Fletton whose nickname had come from an advertisement player manager, Pat Tirrel had put in a local paper asking for 'Posh players for a posh club', but the new team were beggars rather than playboys. They had to get a loan to play in the league and to pay to play at the London Road ground, which they still use and the original green shirts were supplied by a local clothes shop.

Last night Ely took on Cambridge United in the first pre-season game of the season. A lot of people had predicted a new look Ely side and many thought that Trevor Munns would more or less replace the whole team. However, this didn't really come to fruition and the team that took the pitch against Cambridge was pretty much made up of players who were at the club last season. New faces included Adam Dalby, Dave Daniels (who was at the club before) and 2 trialists, Dave Werthmann from Mildenhall and Lee James from Lackenheath. Therefore it might be concluded that the biggest differences last night were the new fence all around the pitch and the new kit, which actually had the badge on it and saw the red shorts being replaced by white shorts. Oh, another big difference was that there was a crowd of 560 instead of the usual hundred-odd, but that was mainly due to the visitors being Cambridge United. Cambridge United more or less put out 2 different teams for each half. The first half of

July 2008 The season for me started as early as July and got off to a somewhat predictable start with Dynamo beating Illychivets Mariupol in one of their customary 2-0 without breaking a sweat home victories. The following week saw Arsenal Kyiv draw 1-1 with Kryvbas Kriviy Rih in a rather lacklustre performance. The only highlights being the fact that all the lads, apart from Sid were present and that Arsenal actually scored against Kryvbas. I wasn't expecting entertainment in either of these games and I certainly didn't get it. August 2008 August got off to a flyer with Dynamo slipping up against an inspired Metalist team in one of the best Ukrainian league games I have ever seen. The only pity was that Han wasn't there to see it. Dynamo then a few days later got a nasty fright from Drogheda in the Champions League qualifiers, but finally managed to scrape a draw and go onto win 3-2 on aggregate. What a difference a few months makes though as Drogheda are now fighting for

I said I was going to resist the temptation but I just couldn't. So here comes a bit of a round up of what happened last season. First of all I went to 40 games, a number I doubt that I will be able to beat this season, especially with having to work quite a few Saturdays. Anyway, first of all here are the 10 teams that racked up the most points. Obviously Ely City came first just from the sheer number of games I went to. 1. Ely City p 18 w 7 d 2 l 10 f 28 a 36 pts 23 2. Cambridge United p 5 w 3 d 2 l 0 f 9 a 4 pts 11 3. Wisbech p 2 w 2 d 0 l 0 f 9 a 3 pts 6 4. Dynamo Kyiv p 3 w 1 d 1 l 1 f 5 a 4 pts 4 5. Cambridge City p 2 w 1 d 1 l 0 f 4 a 3 pts 4 6. Coventry Sphinx p 1 w 1 d 0 l 0 f 4 a 1 pts 3 7. Whitton United p 1 w 1 d 0 l 0 f 3 a 0 pts 3 8. Mildenhall Town p 1 w 1 d 0 l 0 f 4 a 2 pts 3 9. Newmarket Town p 1 w 1 d 0 l 0 f 3 a 1 pts 3 10. Fulham p 1 w 1 d 0

Hopefully this will be the last banal post I make, as I have finally got a new computer. Not much has been happening in the way of live football, as there hasn't been any, so I haven't missed out there. I went to Lucca for a week and apart from that the works party last week not much has happened, but there should be some football news soon with pre-season friendlies starting as soon as next week