football rambles

Yesterday and today was the fourth round of the FA Cup, in fact Notts County and Man City Plc are playing on the TV in the background as I write this. So the media has been going on about the magic of the cup and several hundred other cliches, although looking at the attendances the general public hasn't been that enthralled by it. That said the way the TV has controlled the fixtures probably has something to do with it. I can't think that Huddersfield fans would have been happy about getting up at the crack of dawn to get to London even if they were taking on Arsenal or should I say 'the mighty Arsenal'; I really have been watching too much TV. I still can't stand Crawley though, so they haven't completely brainwashed me. Anyway, it was a very different sort of cup game that I went to, but it had all of the elements of a classic cup tie. I travelled over the border into Norfolk for the Ridgeons Division 1 cup semifinal between Thetford Town and Long Melford. Th

Last night's game was entertaining enough and Ely deserved to come away with at least a point. The game started off well with both teams creating chances on what was a skiddy and fast surface. However, it was Mildenhall who drew first blood and went ahead on 20 minutes when ex-Ely player John Sands put the ball in the back of the net. After a few more good chances for both sides Ely scored an equaliser on 34 minutes when James Wallace piled the ball in from a 35 yard free kick. Ely could have easily been a head just four minutes later when Chris Sterecki was clear through only to be foiled by the last defender. Unfortunately, the half ended in a bit of stupidity when Richard Chadwick clashed in what looked like an accident with the Mildenhall goalkeeper, it didn't appear that the Mildenhall players and referee agreed and he got booked and Robbie Mason followed him after giving it some back chat. The second half started off lively enough and it was Ely who dominated for long per

In the right of the photo is the stand at Mildenhall, unfortunately the light was not really up to it, so I changes it to black and white.

Last night saw Mildenhall take on Ely City in the rearranged Boxing Day Derby game, so we went on the relatively short journey. I didn't really know what to expect. They finished second in the league a few years ago, but the money ran out and they seem to have been mid-table ever since. They are a club with ambition, some might say delusions of grandeur: they have applied for promotion despite being in midtable and there being rumours that they couldn't even pay the cleaning lady last month. The ground is a bit of a strange one and despite them wanting to get to Step 4, it looks more like a Step 6 ground when you get in there. As you enter the ground on the left hand side of the pitch is a small covered terrace, a clubhouse and a very small stand, which consists of three rows of benches and offers restricted view if anybody is ordering from the tea hatch. The rest of the ground is open and unterraced. They obviously have some commercial ideas though, as they had a decent stall

Ipswich Wanderers are not a team with a long history, but their rise to the Eastern Counties Under 14's team and 2 years later became an adult side and joined the lowest division of the Ipswich Sunday League. Just 6 years later in 1988 they became founder members of the Eastern Counties League. This coincided with the same year that they were named after their sponsors and were called the faintly ridiculous Loadwell Ipswich. Fortunately, that only lasted for a year though. In 1998 Ipswich were Division 1 Champions after only losing 3 games all season. The following season Wanderers struggled in the Premier League and just avoided relegation. There was one silver lining though, as in the same season they also won the East Anglian Cup. They were back in Division 1 in 2003, got promoted to the Premier in 2005 and back to Division 1 in 2008. They are currently challenging for promotion again.

Thetford Town are known as the Brecklanders, wear claret and blue and were formed in 1883. Their ground is called Mundford Roadand they have played there since 1905. Up until World War 1 they played in the Norwich and District League. After the War they played in both the Norfolk and Suffolk league due to a geographic anomaly that meant that the town was in both counties (no I don't get how that works either!) Anyway, this meant that Thetford were able to win the Norfolk Senior Cup in 1948 and were Suffolk League Champions in 1955. Unfortunately they weren't able to defend the Suffolk Championship, as the county boundaries changed and Thetford was firmly in Norfolk after the change. It took them time to settle in the Norfolk League and they didn't really make a mark until they finished 2nd in the League in 1982. In 1990 they were runners up in the Eastern Counties League Premier and in 1991 they won the Norfolk Senior Cup again, although they might be on the way to win the

Here's a picture of the stand at Thetford, unfortunately I couldn't find the camera, so it's been taken with the phone again.

Today I went to Thetford for the first time for a game in Division 1 between Thetford Town and Ipswich Wanderes. The journey was easy enough as the ground is only a few minutes walk from the train station, although luckily I bumped into a groundhopper who was making his way to the ground as obviously I went the wrong way out of the station. The ground wasn't a bad ground. There was a clubhouse, as I saw people with beer, but I couldn't find. There is a stand on one side, but the other 3 sides are open and back on to a park and cricket pitch. Collecting stray balls seems to be a full time job there. The game got off to a good start with Ipswich taking the lead on 10 minutes and Thetford equalising on 15 minutes. Ipswich, who are looking for promotion had two of the unfittest looking players I've ever seen, but they looked pretty effective. For the first half hour it was end to end stuff and both teams looked like they had plenty of goals in them. However, in the second part

... but the picture of Gary Johnson in the dugout a couple of posts ago was to be the last time he would take charge of the Posh after resigning earlier today.

Some of the Peterborough end. One of the few areas of the ground that was packed. It got more packed later, as some of the Posh fans seemed to turn up late, if the trains from Peterborough were anything like they were from Ely that wasn't a surprise.

Mark Hughes and Gary Johnson in the dug outs

Yesterday I went down to Craven Cottage for the FA Cup third round tie between Fulham and Peterborough. The day started off in the usual style of a trip to Fulham with a sampling of over priced beers in the pubs of Hammersmith. I had no idea of what to expect from the result, but I though that a lot of goals could be on the cards Macca had a bet on Danny Murphy being the first goal scorer. The only thing he seemed sure of was that the first goal scorer wouldn't be Diomansy Kamara. At the ground the crowd was a dissapointing 16,000 with over 6,000 coming down from Peterborough for the game. We were sat near a couple of familiar faces with Barry Fry just behind us and the more popular George Boyd in front of us. The game went in favour of the Premier League team and although as usual Tomlin and McCann looked competent in midfield and Mackail-Smith looked capable up front the defence that can look frail in League 1 looked really out of their depth against a Premier League attack. It w

After a real hiatus of getting down to the Unwin due to bad weather and then being away on the two days when they actually managed to get a game on I finally made it down to the Unwin for Ely's game against Newmarket Town yesterday. The first disappointment was no programmes, but let's be honest the printers were probably on holiday like everybody else and apart from anything else the club has probably had to pulp a few over the last few cancellation heavy weeks. Anyway, the game got under way and there were a few changes to the Ely team with Adam Murray and Robbie Mason being suspended and a couple of faces from the reserves were present as well as an Ebanks-Blake up front who had previously played for Histon A. Ely got off to a bright start and the first 10 minutes saw the Robins peppering the Newmarket goal. The best chance falling to Chadwick, who only just misconnected with a cross from Ebanks-Blake. After 10 minutes of dominance Newmarket came close when ex-Ely player Gra