football rambles

This weeknd I decided to do a bit of research into a few bands who give away their music and here are my favourites Pope John Paul iii Pope John Paul iii are a band from California and their innovative folk, lo-fi, tongue in cheek crapcore is well worth a listen. The band members are Adam and Ryan Beebe who claim to record on some of the World's worst recording equipment, hence them wanting to swap their studio for Paul Mc.Cartney's in the song Paul Mc.Cartney's studio . Your guess is as good as mine for the inspiration of the song Booze . For a selection of free tracks click on the albums at http://www.last.fm/music/Pope+John+Paul+III dress up like a hooker, i'll be charlie sheen I don't know much about this band, but their songs are lo-fi classics, with European Soul being my favourite. You can download their album Hi five for lo-fi at http://dulahibcs.bandcamp.com/album/hi-five-for-lo-fi Harperative Harperactive is James Harper who was born in Bangkok but now l

No live football this weekend either, as I was working and even if I hadn't been the Ely game was called off, so I've been surfing the World of obscure music a bit more.

Next week Villa take on Manchester United in the League Cup final, or the Carling Cup as it is known at present. Villa have previousy won 5 of the last 7 league cup finals that they have appeared in includig an impressive win over United in 1994. However, United are the holders and Villa haven't won the cup or any other major trophy since defeating Leeds 3-0 im 1996. The league cup was originally the idea of Alan Hardaker who was secretary of the football league between 1957 and 1979. His idea was to have a mid week cup that would make use of the relatively new floodlights around the country and the format of a 2 legged competition was seen as advantageous to lower division teams. This wasn't popular with some of the bigger clubs, but the inaugaral tournament in 1961, which was won by Villa was deemed a success. In 1966 winning the league cup led to a place in the UEFA Cup, as it still does when one of the big 4 don't win it. In 1967 the tournment made yet more concessions

Last night it was freezing and persisting down, but I had already signed up for a Saturday of work drudgery so there was no way I was missing the chance of a match. Another Tuesday and another rescheduled local Derby as Ely took on Mildenhall Town. As I said the weather was dreadful and for some reason the programme hadn't turned up. Luckily I've got over my programme dependency thanks to the fact I've probably lost most of my Ukrainian and Korean programmes on my travels, but it's still always nice to get one. When I arrived at the ground the referee was in the middle of his fourth pitch inspection and Mildenhall were trying to convince the ref to have the game called off, which seemed a bit strange as it was Ely who had several players missing including the talismanic Robbie Mason. Anyway, it seems that Mildenhall's worries were well founded as Ely took an early lead when David Smith scored on 9 minutes. The rest of the first half saw the home team having slightly

Well the weather is still rubbish, but I finally had a Saturday free and the weather wasn't too bad for football to be called off so I had a decision to make. I was half tempted to go to Cambridge v Wimbledon, but I wasn't sure if it was all ticket or not, although I doubt it was given Cambridge's recent form. The other possibilty was a trip to Soham Town Rangers, but as it turned out I couldn't be bothered, so I scraped the barrel that is Ely City Reserves. To be honest the standard quite often isn't lower than the first team and it is never short of incident. I seem to be (almost) alone on this opnion though, as the crowd was so small the bloke who collects the cash hadn't turned up, so I had to track someone down to pay the two quid to. Things did't start too brightly though and Ely were 1-0 down to Eaton Socon at af time in a half with few incidents. To be honest Ely could have had a few goals if the bloke who I see on the tran every day hadn't been

Last night Ely played Wisbech in what can perhaps be called a local derby in front of a not too bumper crowd of 101. However, the weather was pretty bad and the league had fiddled with the fixtures that many times nobody could be blamed for not knowing what was going on. In fact before the gam we weren't entirely sure if the opposition were Wisbech or Mildenhall. As it happens Mildenhall were playing CRC in the Cambridgeshire cup last night and will be playing at Ely next Tuesday. The weather has been dreadful lately though, hence this being my first trip to the Unwin since Decmber and more snowfall today might mean that the Mildenhall game could be off if things don't improve. Thankfully the pitch wasn't frozen or waterlogged last night, a state it has been fluctuatng beween for most of the winter. Finally, though Ely got a victory over the Fenmen, who seem to have been a bogie team for Ely at least since I have been following the Robins. The first half was a bit of a stal

Well a great day was had on Saturday even if it wasn't the most exciting game of the season. The game started off quietly enough (well at Craven Cottage would you expect it to start any other way?) with both teams looking like teams who were severley lacking in form - funny that. However, it was Villa who looked the stronger team and Collins and inparticularly Richard Dunne looked capable of coping with anything that Zamora et al could throw at them. The break through finally came on 40 minutes when a cross from Petrov found Gabby Agbonlahor in space and he headed home clinically to make it 1-0. Four minutes later just before half time Gabby doubled the scoring with a superb individual effort after a pass from Carlos Cuellar had picked him out in space. The second half saw Villa passing the ball around nicely with Fulham not really ever looking like breaking down the Villa defence. Fulham did get the ball in the back of the net in the closing stages of the game, but David Elm was o