football rambles

I don't know why, but every time Ely have a midweek game that's in a cup the game always goes to extra time. We had the never ending story of Shelford last season, an epic fight against Soham away and a cheerless end to the Cambridgeshire Cup run on a very cold and wet evening at Cambridge City and then there were the heroics of the game against Diss last week. Last night Ely took on Kings Lynn Reserves in the Ridgeon's League Cup Preliminary Round. For most of the match Ely dominated and a Robbie Mason goal separated the teams after a defensive error in the first half. Ely continued to dominate, but with 3 minutes left disaster struck again and Kings Lynn sent the game into extra time. I'm not proud of myself, but as Mick wasn't there, I'd had a day off work the day before with a heavy cold and getting home at midnight after another disappointing game didn't fill me with much joy. So for the first time since in 1996 when I was at a Moscow Spartak game that

Yesterday Ely took on Wivenhoe Town in what could already be billed as a relegation battle. Wivenhoe are a team who have been sinking like a brick over the last few seasons and the position they are in at the moment doesn't suggest that they will be in the Ridgeons Premier last season. In the game Ely had most of the ball and just couldn't score, unfortunately the fans and the players decided to take their frustrations out on each other in a way that wasn't big or clever. Brady Stone was sent off late on for a tackle that most people would say he was lucky not to break his opponents leg. I'd rather say that he was unlucky, as his intention was clearly to break the strikers leg. In the end Robbie Mason came off the bench again to score the winner 4 minutes from time, but let's be honest this was football at its worst

Some things on Tuesday night when Ely took on Diss in the replay of the 2nd qualifying round of the FA Vase. Autumn was back with some football in the dark for the first time in months and a cup tie at the Unwin ended in extra time, as it did on so many ocassions last season. However, after the last Ely match I went to ended in 0-0 at Newmarket, Tuesday night's game ended in a goal fest. As may have been predicted the Diss player pictured in the club focus for Diss, Xavier Huckle, who is pictured in the club focus below did score against Ely again. In fact he scored 4 times, but it wasn't enough to save Diss. Trevor Munns has stepped down as Ely manager and now Dennis Lightning has taken control of the team again at least for the time being at least and he got off to a winning start. We predicted a lot of goals from the start when Grant Robbins scored after only a couple of minutes. However, we had to wait until the second half until Ely managed to extend their lead when Nick I

Tomorrow night Ely have a second round replay in the FA Vase against Diss Town after a 2-2 draw in Diss at the weekend. Diss are currently second in division 1 of the Eastern Conties league, while Ely are struggling in the Premier. Diss also have a bit of a history in this competition after winning the FA Vase in 1994, but it's a long way from Wembley yet! Diss were formed in 1888 and one hundred years later they became founder members of division 1 of the Eastern Counties League. They have played in the Eastern Counties since, but from 1993 to 2006 they played in the Premier division. This year they will probably be hoping to gain promotion and last year despite missing out on promotion did win the division 1 league cup. Famous faces at Diss have included ex-Norwich and Chelsea player Robert Fleck, who managed the team until being replaced in 2008 and Mathew Upson, who is from the town, but I'm not sure if he has any connections to the club. The nickname of Diss is the tangeri

On Saturday I went to Villa v Portsmouth, and it was Villa's 4th consecutive league win and Portsmouth made it their 6 defeat out of 6 a record in the Premier League. Villa controlled most of the game without having to break too much of a sweat. The first half was all Villa and the pressure finally paid off when Stylian Petrov was upended in the area and James Millner scored from the spot. Villa continued to pile on the pressure and it again paid off when Gabby Agbonlahor scored a beautiful goal on 43 minutes. It was almost over at half time, but as usual, or as it seems as usual Villa didn't finish them off in the second half. There were chances for Milllner, Sidwell and Ashley Young in the second half, but Pompey probably had the best of the chances. The statistics say they had more shots on goal, but some stout defending from Richard Dunne and James Collins along with Brad Friedel and his magic magnet gloves meant that they never looked like breaking the Villa down, and that

I haven't actually had a lack of camera recently. I just haven't been to any new grounds, so I haven't actually taken any photos at recent games. I'll try and remedy that situation soon.

Football God is a figment of my and Phil's imagination. He was always there looking over you awarding hardcore football fandom and punishing the fair weather fan. The funny thing was that it actually seemed to work. If you went to the trouble of going 100 miles for a meaningless Ukrainian 2nd division game with no public transport back to Kyiv, you could rely on Football God to provide a sunny day with plenty of goals and a free lift home with a friendly truck driver who was making a delivery to Kyiv (true story). Similarly if Tatarchuk went home early because the game was dull or the weather was bad the last 20 minutes would be a flurry of goals and excitement. He certainly rewarded the faithful and punished the weak. So when I entertained Joe on Saturday and had a football free weekend and Ely won 7-1 and Cambridge won 7-0, I was expecting the worse when I went to Newmarket for the game against Ely on Tuesday night. And surprise, surprise the final score was Ely City 0, Newmarket

I was texted on Saturday by Phil to let me know that CSKA had finally called it a day. I won't go into the details too much here, as I have talked about CSKA and what they meant to me in several places on this site. After Arsenal took their place in the top division it was always going to be a struggle for survival. There was then the problem with their ground (photographed on this site and you can look at through the tags) which saw them having to play at Dynamo's training ground at Chapaevka, outside of Kyiv. When I was there they got relegated to the regional 2nd league. Most people thought that they wouldn't take part in the 2nd division last season, but they did and just missed out on promotion. However, they didn't seem to have the finances and stomach to face another season down there and it's shocking to think that 8 years ago they were knocking Red Star Belgrade out of the UEFA Cup.