football rambles

I didn't make it to a game again last weekend. I'll be going to Ukraine for a couple of weeks this Saturday, so here's hoping for a football bonanza. There are a couple of Kyiv derbies and a possible few other games starting with Arsenal v Metalurh Zapporizhia on Sunday. I've contacted Ewig so hopefully everything will go smoothly and hopefully the game will be round the corner at Bannikova, although I fear that it's going to be in Boryspil.

Dennis Lightning was moaning in the local paper last week about the number of games Ely had left, so I was expecting a fixture bonanza at Ely at the end of the season, and I thought Dennis was on to something with the amount of weeks in Winter where I was left fixtureless. However, it turns out that of the 9 games Ely have left; 4 are at home and I'm away for 3 of them and working on the other one. Therefore, last night was probably my last trip of the season to the Unwin, not even the reserves have a game left I'll be able to go to. At one time it looked like Ely might have a relegation battle on their hands, but apart from the demise of Kings Lynn Reserves (it looks like the first team will be playing in the Eastern Counties next season) and Harwich & Parkestone Ely have put together a fine run of wins of late, so I was expecting that run to end last night. The game itself was a pretty rough encounter, which culminated in Brady Stone limping off injured near the end, alth

It's good to see that Ely have been on a pretty decent run of late. I have to admit I've been neglecting them a little of late with work and other stuff. Hopefully, I'll be at the Unwin on Tuesday night for the visit of Debenham LC.

For a long time yesterday at Ipswich's game against Scunthorpe United it looked like I might be in for a second goaless draw in a row. However, 16 year old Connor Wickham popped up in stoppage time when he got on the end of a long goal kick to win the game for Ipswich. It was no less than Ipswich deserved and the 3 points helps them ease away from the elegtion zone, whilst at the same time putting Scunny in the bottom 3 for the first time this season. On yesterday's performance if they go down they won't be soarley missed. Ipswich tried to play the ball around and John Walters nearly put Town in front in the first couple of minutes. Throughout the game Walters, Daryl Murphy and Pablo Counago peppered the Scunthorpe defence that remained resilient with their only real chance being a 23rd minute shot from Matt Sparrow. Scunthorpe were negative throughout the game as any team playing 5-4-1 using the off side trap and time wasting from 30 minutes into the game can be descibed a

I managed to take one picture during the game, so here it is.

We were in the South Stand, so here are the viewsof some of the other parts of the ground. Top: Cobbold Stand Middle: Britannia Stand Botom: North Stand

Top: View of the stadium on the way from the train station Bottom: The Bobby Robson Stand

Top: Alf Ramsey who won the league as managerof Ipswich and the World Cup with England Bottom: Bobby Robson, who as manager won the FA Cup and UEFA Cup with Ipswich and who took England to the World Cup Semi Finals

It doesn't seem as if there was a badge for Ipswich until John Grimmage designed the badge at the top in 1972. The badge shows the Suffolk punch, which he described as ' a noble beast'. The castle parts are the turrets of Wolsley Gate and I think that the squiggly lines represent the river that leads an estuary in Ipswich (I'll rectify that later. Below is the latest version of the badge, which is pretty much the same, although on the shirts it also appears with 3 stars to celebrate the League win in 1962, the FA Cup in 1978 and the UEFA Cup in 1982

Strangely for a team that have been in the top 2 divisions since I started watcing football I can't recall ever seeing Ipswich live. That will change on Saturday when I go to Ipswich v Scunthorpe. When I was a small lad and Villa were the champions of England and Europe Ipswich were themselves a force to be reckoned with losing out on the last day of the season to Villa in the race for the title in 1981 and going on to win the UEFA Cup the following year. Most of the players were household names, although being very young at the time I perhaps remember them for the wrong reasons: Paul Mariner in the Golden Wonder cards, Alan Brazil in Topps bubble gum cards, John Wark as the ugly guy on 'Escape to victory' and player of the year in 1981, Franz Thijssen and his unpoppable balls. They were the balls that actually didn't pop, quikly turned a dirty brown and if you played out with them in the wet turned to concrete. I actually have fonder memories of them when another Dutch

Top: The teams line up Middle: Gateshead corner in the first half Bottom: Histon take a corner

The second picture shows Histon taking a corner, here's the picture from the warm up.

Histon has a decent bar with a good view of the pitch and we managed to see Pomey beat Blues in the cup on the TV there. The staff were friendly, but the prices were a bit on the steep side. One strange thing is you have to go into the ground near the dignataries seats to get there and then go out again and through the turnstile. Photos: Top: The badge on the wall to the bar Middle: Players check the pitch out, which despite the recent bad weather looked better than Wembley Bottom: The seats we paid to sit in, although Sean insisted going on the terrace

I've been put off visiting Histon in the past, as it seems odd to go into Cambridge to come back out towards Ely, but it was relatively straighforward getting the Citi 7 to MacFarlane Close in Impington, although we did make the mistake of walking the wrong way down the road and ending up in a leisure centre before getting back on the main road and to the ground. Pictures top: Sean gurning middle: The approach to the ground bottom: The Cambridgesgire FA Headquarters situated next to the ground

We finally made it to a Histon home game yesterday and it was a lot easier to get to than I had predicted and as the bus wasn't as crowded as getting back into town as from a Cambride United game after. The sun was shining for the first time this year, but it seems like the storm clouds might be starting to descend over Histon. Out have gone the money bags chairman, out has gone Steve Fallon, who guided the team to 5 promotions a third place finish in the Conference and a decent FA Cup run, which included a win over Leeds (for ayone who might have forgotten). In place is now Andrew Lewer, who obviously has some financial constraints, but banning 5 of the senior players from the game yesterday while they sort out contracts seems a little odd. Histon therefore fielded a fairly young team against Gateshead and where as this time last year Histon were top of the Conference with Burton and Gateshead were in the division below both teams seemed fairly well matched. Histon are now placed

This weekendhas been much better with a good trp to Histon yesterday and Villa's win in the quarter final of the FA Cup coming from 2-0 down to win 4-2 with a John Carew hat-trick.

sorry about the silence, but last weekend was shite on the football front. First of all the Cambridge v Tamworth game was off because of the rain. Luckily, I checked the website just as I was leaving the house. Then on Sunday Villa lost to ManUre in the league cup final. Hopefully thngs ill go better this weekend with a choice between Histon v Gateshead or Peterborough v Coventry on the cards. I know which one I'd prefer but with a trip to Ipswich v Scunthorpe next week on the cards and having just forked out on tickets for Ukraine flights it loks like it will be the Stutes, if I am lucky.