football rambles

Tuesday night football usually means horrendous weather, rain, gale force winds and storms. If it is a cup game it will go to extra time or penalties and the only time I remember it being a nice evening was when Ely drew 0-0 in an away game at Newmarket at the start of last season. So when there was a torrential rain storm on my way home from work I expected the worse. However, it was a bit overcast and a mild evening for the match and the rain had helped the pitch, which had been a dust bowl for Saturday's game. Ely were taking on Swaffham Town, who play in division below, and after the fine performance against Hadley on Saturday I was hoping for a cricket score. Things didn't pan out like though and Nick Impey and Tony Beck, who had had good games in midfield on Saturday started on the bench and there were a few more changes. Ely went behind early on from a well taken blaster of a goal from about 25 yards out, but managed to get a goal back when Robbie Mason equalised on the

Next up for Ely on Tuesday night are Swaffham Town. Unfortunately, I don't know that much about them. Their nickname is the Pedlars and they were formed in 1892. They spent most of their history in some of the lower local leagues and moved to their current ground, Shoemaker's Lane in 1959. They were promoted to the Eastern Counties League in 1990 and were the first division champions in 2000 and 2001. They currently play in the first division of the Eastern Counties First Division.

I don't often take a camera down the Unwin, but here are a few pictures. Top: Ely cathedral in the background Middle: Hadley come close to an equaliser Bottom: Ely push forward.

Yesterday Ely City played Hadley in a friendly game. Hadley, who I thought were Eastern Counties Hadleigh were actually Hadley from the Spartan South Midland League and are situated in Hertfordshire. The league they play in is thought to be one of the tougher ones at this level and they are seen as a pretty strong club. Therefore, Ely who have lost player of the season for the last 2 years Bradie Stone to Kings Lynn along with Jamie Allsop and Scott Fielding returning to St.Neots and the left back returning to CRC looked like they were going to have a tough time of it. I'm not sure if Hadley had put their strongest team out, but Ely had most of the other players who featured last season and Dion Dublin's son and the left midfielder/ left back from Soham had been drafted in. Ely looked the stronger of the two teams and went ahead on 21 minutes when Grant Robbins scored. The new left back ( won't know his name until the paper comes out or I've had a couple of programmes )

Really that should be Peterborough v Villa, as the game was at London Road. Not really much of an attack here, but I wasn't going to waste my time on taking photos when Villa really looked like scoring.

Posh attack in the first half, but Villa get it clear

Photos from top to bottom: Various Villa players including captain Stylian Petrov warm up. Brad Friedel warms up. John Carew, hes' bigger than me and you and definitely the Posh mascot. Stewart Downing has some shooting practice.

Another preseason, another birthday for me and another game between Peterborough and Villa at London Road. Last season when the clubs met things were probably looking a bit rosier for both clubs. Peterborough had just been promoted, had a fine young manager in Darren Ferguson and probably thought they had a bright future. However three managers later and a relegation sees the very experienced Gary Johnson take control of the team, which is good news for Posh I think, but when you consider that one of their players recently moved to Crawley for more money, perhaps things are not as optimistic as last season. Likewise Villa were looking to crack the Champions League this time last season, they didn't make it, a usual 6th place was coupled by a trip to the League Cup Final and the FA Cup Semi Final (both occassions being ruined by Howard Webb who reffed the World Cup Final with the same level of ineptitude). I hope that Villa can improve on that, but there seems to be a lack of funds

This was the corner that resulted in Ipswich's fourth goal after a bit of penalty area pinball.

... Unfortunately this might not be a regular occurance once the season gets underway

On Friday me and Sean got the preseason started by visiting the game between Histon and Ipswich. The game had only been arranged on the Tuesday afternoon and it was a big plus to be able to go. Not surprisingly the cash strapped Stutes who were relying on a lot of trialists, mainly from Dagenham and Stevenage struggled against, despite what the league table suggested last season, one of the stronger teams in the Championship. The weather was great and the atmosphere at the ground was pretty good for what was a really impressive performance by Ipswich. A lot of people, including the new announcer at Histon expected Ipswich to put out an experimental team, but in fact they put out in the first half what is likely to be their starting line up on the first day of the season with the excellent Connor Wicken coming in after impressing for the England under 17s recently. This was the only change from a team that had beaten Newmarket 9-1 earlier in the week. However, the Histon defence perform

The World Cup will come to an end today, with Holland V Spain, and I feel like I have wasted a lot of what has been a very warm summer so far by sitting in front of a telly in a darkened room watching it and by doing far too much work at weekends. At least we managed to get to Cromer and Hunstanton on a couple of the weekends. Anyway, the World Cup isn't even over and the preseason has already started.