football rambles

As usual I've made a mix for New Year's Eve and here it is. This time available on Spotify. It's going to be the year of the Tiger and they have this beer on in the Minster at the moment (pub not the actual Minster), so I dare say I will see the New Year in with a few pints of it. Fluke – Atom Bomb Deadmau5 – Strobe The Chap – I Got Flattened By a Pig Farmer Hot Chip – Shake A Fist New Order – Confusion A Certain Ratio – The Big E Friendly Fires – Paris Kraftwerk – Musique Non Stop LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing At My House Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll Mexican Institute Of Sound – Dub-A El Tiempo Es Muy Largo Booka Shade – Outskirts Fever Ray – Keep The Streets Empty For Me Little Boots – Stuck On Repeat Ellen Allien – Einsteigen Apparat – Can't Computerize It Future Prophecies – Thunder & Lightning Burial – Unite No Bra – Super Subway Comedian Mouse On Mars – Wipe That Sound Passion Pit – I've Got Your Number Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Love Burn

This year saw me see go to 41 games the vast majority of which were at the Unwin Ground in Ely. Unlike last year where there were plenty of foreign football trips to some of the more obscure outposts of Eatern Europe, this year all of my football was concentrated in England and more often than not Eastern England. In the Premier League I visited Villa Park and Craven Cottage , the only other league ground being Peterborough's London Road . The second most visited ground after the Unwin was Cambridge United's Abbey Stadium . The other grounds were all non league and included Julius Martin Lane (Soham Town Rangers), Milton Road (Cambridge City), The Walks (home of the hopefully temporarily defunct King's Lynn), The Nest in Outwell (home of Outwell Swifts, but at the moment being used by Wisbech), and a couple of trips to Sherbourne Stadium home of Newmarket Town. Highlights Highlights of January were Cambridge United beating Woking 4-1 with Rodders in attendance on what w

Well it's been a cold and snowy Christmas period. I had toyed with the idea of going to Port Vale v Burton today, but was put off after a few public transport problems in Stoke over the last week. The weather has improved here, but Rocester's game against Biddulph was still called off, so here I am without a match to go to on what is probably the most boring day of the year. It looks like the Villa v Hull game on 12 December was the last game of the year.

Kings Lynn have unfortunately gone out of business and this seems to mean that their reserves will also fold, despite rumours earlier in the week that the reserves might take the place of the first team. It's a shame as Kings Lynn has got a decent history of football, in fact I think if my memory serves me that it was the first town to have a newspaper dedicated to football. The Walks where they played their home games for many years will be sorely missed, although I presume some bastard developers have had their eyes on it for a while. Let's hope something can be done, I've also heard that the bloke who runs the speedway is interested in doing something with football, but we'll have to wait and see.

It's not often that I get to write 'another Ely win' at the top of the post, although to be honest they made a hash of the Vase game at St.Ives on Saturday and lost 3-0, but I was at Villa and it wasn't the league. On Tuesday night the Robins played Newmarket in a game that was previously a draw, but was replayed after Ely had been found to have an illegible player on the pitch, and ironically it was Ely who prospered with Newmarket now losing a point from the fixture and Ely gaining 2. Ely started off brightly and had a number of the opening chances with Newmarket being hemmed in at the back, however we feared that Ely could be hit on the break and that is exactly what happened, and on 43 minutes after a very bright start for Ely, Stephen Bell made it 1-0 to Newmarket, which was another ironical twist and one that we predicted. He'd played for Ely up until recently and quite often for the reserves, he was a player I thought deserved more of a chance, he obviously d

I had to steal this picture from the Birmingham Mail and it just shows a minature version of the ststue that has recently appeared outside Villa park at the corner where the Trinity Stand meets the North Stand, so more about this later.

On Saturday I was up at Villa park for the clash between Villa and Hull. I can't get up there that often, so I had originally pencilled in the Hull match as one of those that Villa should win. However, Hull have hit form over the last few weeks and as Villa seem to struggle against the teams that they'd be expected to beat it was a calculated gamble. Fortunately Hull must have read my mind and didn't put up much of a fight at all. Villa had most of the play and Hull didn't get a shot on goal even though the referee seemed intent on taking the names of all the Villa players and turning a blind eye to infringements by Hull players, it was still a bit too easy for the Villa. Richard Dunne put Villa ahead with a shot that looked like he was imaganing the ball was Thierry Henry's head. Then on 28 minutes James Milner who was again on fire (Gareth who?) took the opportunity when Myhill came out to clear the ball for a throw in. Sidwell who wasn't playing reacted quick