football rambles

New York Red Bulls, who play at Harrison Park in New Jersey were one of the ten clubs who formed the MLS in 1996. They also hold the unpleasent record of being the only MLS club not to have won a major trophy, all this despite boasting some big name players over the years of the calibre of Donadoni, Matthaus, Djorkaeff and er, Juan Pablo Angel. At the moment their star player is Thierry Henry, which is probably one of the reasons that they have been included in the Emirates Cup. As well as some famous old players they have also had some famous foreign coaches, such as Carlos Quieroz, Carlos Alberto Parreira and the controversial ex-Rangers and Celtic player Mo Johnston. They have also been coached by two of the biggest names in US 'soccer', Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena, both of whom have had more success with the national team. Their current coach is Sven Goran Erikkson's ex-right hand man, Hans Backe. New York Red Bull haven't always been New York Red Bulls, in fact the

Arsenal were formed as Dial Square in 1886 and the first crest the club adopted were when they were still Woolwich Arsenal was based on the coat of arms of Woolwich, with the three 'posts' in the middle representing the cannons of the artillery based in Woolwich. It was a motif that would remain apart of the crest up until the present day. In 1922-23 Arsenal started to use a crest that was similar to today's after first introducing the single cannon as the emblem in 1922. It was a west facing cannon, which appeared to be based on the Royal Arsenal Gatehouse in Woolwich even though the Gunners had left Woolwich in 1913. The next change to the badge came in 1949 with the marksman's motto being included on the badge. This was the badge that Arsenal more or less stuck with until 2001 when it was tidied up a bit and then again in 2002 when they had to change it due to copyright problems. The only one occasion when Arsenal used a different badge was the 'Art Deco' bad

PSG are one of the richest, most prestigious and well supported teams in France despite only being formed in 1970. They were formed from a merger between Paris FC and Stade Saint Germain with the original idea being for Paris to once again have a top team that could challenge at the top of French football. The idea certainly worked as PSG reached League 1 in 1974 and have been there ever since. They are now the second most supported team in France after Marseilles and like L'OM have unlike any other French club won a European trophy - the Cup Winner's Cup in 1996. Over the years the dislike between Marseilles and PSG has grown and grown and now the fixture between the two clubs is French Classic. PSG's golden era was the 1990s when they had a massive cash injection from television company Canal+. This coincided with success after success at home and in Europe including two appearances in the Cup Winner's Cup Final and a semi-final appearance in the Champions League. How

The first game that I will be at on Sunday sees Boca Juniors take on Paris Saint Germain. I have always wanted to go and see Boca Juniors and I can't see me getting over to Argentina any time in the near future, so I am going to have to make do with seeing them in North London. On my travels I have met plenty of Boca fans, but funnily enough they have all been Russian or Ukrainian. I am a bit disappointed that Martin Palermo has now retired, but I am still looking forward to it. Obviously to do justice to the club history of Boca Juniors I'd probably have to write a book, so here's a quick history of their kit and colours instead. When Boca were formed in 1905 they originally played in pink, but obviously came round to thinking that this was a bad idea and changed to a light blue colour later in the year. They didn't stick with this shirt for very long either and for the 3rd time in a year decided to change the shirt colour, this time to black and white stripes. The fol

It doesn't look like I will get the chance to go to a match until next week, but it should be a good one or two next Sunday, as I have tickets for the Emirates Cup where I'll see Boca Juniors v Paris Saint Germain and Arsenal v Red Bulls New York. It was the subbuteo style advertisement that made me notice this event and with tickets only a few more quid than what I paid for Cambridge v Mansfield last season it was pretty good value for money. I have wanted to go to the Emirates for a while, but the tickets usually do cost a fortune. One question though is why is Martin Palermo shown as the Boca representative in the advert? He mighy be a Boca goal scoring legend, but he has already hung up his boots.

Ely continued their pre-season preparations today against Deeping Rangers of the United Counties League. Ely continued to play well, but were again unable to get a win in a friendly match. Let's just hope their luck starts to change when it matters. Last season Deeping finished in a similar position in the UCL to Ely in the ECL. So, it should at least on paper have been an evenly challenged affair. However, Deeping are more used to finishing higher in their league and have spent a bit of cash over the summer. Ely have stuck with what they had last year with the addition of Kenny Smith and Austen Diaper, who is making a big step up from Long Stanton, there were also several Ely players missing today due to one reason or another. That said the teams were evenly matched. There were few chances in the first half an hour with both keepers having saves to make, but neither of them being overly worried. Rangers took the lead though on 32 minutes after a comedy of errors in the Ely defence

Last night Ely City took on Biggleswade Town in a friendly at the Unwin and although the result didn't go Ely's way there were plenty of encouraging signs. Biggleswade have been holding their own in the level above Ely, so the defeat didn't really come as a shock and it took Biggleswade only 7 minutes to go ahead. Their centre forward was a brilliant and the slightest error in the Ely defence saw him smash the ball into the back of the net. Ely also had their chances in the opening minutes with Tom Beech coming close on 20 minutes and Chadders also forcing a decent save from the keeper on 24. However, Biggleswade really were a cut above Ely and they always seemed to have an extra man wherever Ely were and when their tricky centre forward came close again on the half hour mark with a lovely turn that he whipped just wide of Pacey it was his third quality chance and other circumstances he might have had a hat-trick. Ely did battle on though and the last quarter of an hour of

On Tuesday night Ely City take on Southern League Division 1 Central side Biggleswade Town. Biggleswade were formed in 1874 and started off playing mainly friendly matches at their Fairfield Road Ground, which they shared with a local cricket team. In 1902 they became founder members of the Biggleswade and District League, which they were also the first champions of. In 1920 the club joined the Northamptonshire League, despite being based in Bedfordshire. However, the league was l to become the United Counties League in 1934 and today takes in clubs from several counties, although the majority are in Northamptonshire. in 1945 they joined the Spatan League before returning to the United Counties League in 1951. They also had a short stint betweeen 1955 and 1963 in the Eastern Counties League where they broke the record for the biggest victory when they beat Newmarket Town 12-0. A record which still stands today. In 1963 they returned to the UCL mainly because of the extra travel costs o

Yesterday saw the start of the pre-season football at Ely City as the Robins took on the Linnets at the Unwin. Despite all of the pre-season rumours about players leaving and players coming in Ely had a familiar line up with 2 of the changes being Brady Stone who returned from an unsuccessful season at King's Lynn and Tom Pell who seems to turn up at Ely from time to time. The only other change was the right back who had a good game and whose name I don't know. Both sides performed well, although it was a rather typical first pre-season game in many ways. Ely went ahead when a well worked move was finished off by Wilson on 19 minutes and could have had 3 or 4 before Lynn equalised on the half hour mark after an uncharacteristic slip up by Adam Murray allowed Jack Defty to get his name where you will often find it, on the scoresheet. Not much more happened until the hour mark when Lynn were awarded a penalty, but Defty wasn't to get a second as Lee Pacey did well to save the

There are a multitude of teams in Berlin, so to catalogue them all would be a very time consuming job. Apart from the bigger clubs like Union, Hertha and Tennis Borussia there are many smaller clubs, some of whom show the cosmopolitan feel of the city with their ethnic backgrounds, such as Turkiyemspor and Croatia Berlin. However from the ethnic teams one name stands out: the name of Makkabi Berlin. TuS Makkabi Berlin were formed in 1970, but can trace their origins back to Bar-Kochba Berlin who were formed in 1898. In the 1920s Bar-Kochba had a moderate level of success and between 1925 and 1927 won 3 consecutive lower league championships. In 1929 they merged with another Jewish soceity, Hakoah. Unfortunately with anti-Semitism on the uprise the club were excluded in 1933 and in 1938 all Jewish soceities were banned in in Germany. Since 1970 the club has operated with a keen group and is now one of the biggest Makkabi soceities in the world. They now play in the regional leagues. 189

What's left of it, around by Potsdamer Platz.

Germany's parliament building.

The former city gates to Berlin and probably the most famous of German landmarks.

The Holocaust memorial was built by Peter Eisenmann, who claims it has no symbolism, although it is to mark the genocide of the Jewish people during the war. It was built between 2003 and 2004 and was opened in 2005 to mark the 50th anniverssary of the end of the war.

The Television tower that was built by the GDR in the period 1965-1969. It has the weird quality of looking very small and very big at the same time.

I was mainly in Berlin for a visit to Sony. The land around where the Sony and Daimler buildings are was where the Berlin Wall was and was for a long time a flat piece of land. Thanks to the innovative work of the architects Murphy/ Jahn and a lot of investment from mainly Sony, but also Daimler the area is now a state of the art business centre.

I didn't see that much of Berlin as I was there for work and only there for a couple of days, but I still managed to see a few places.

... I'm not sure if that sentence really makes sense, but with no football tournament this year, it's been a quiet off season and I have swapped the usual weekend trips of the football season to such soccer hot beds as Cambridge, Peterborough and er, Thetford for places like Cromer, Hunstanton and Lowestoft (although I wouldn't mind visiting Lowestoft for a football game some time in the future.) One highlight of the period was a work trip to Berlin. Some photos of that to be uploaded in a minute. Next weekend I am off to Cirencester for a wedding, but after that the pre-season friendlies will be well and truly underway.