football rambles

Thetford Town 10 Cornard United 0 Bruno Tavares (4 minutes) Matt Dixon ( 14 - pen) Matt Dixon (18) Valter Rocha (19) Matt Dixon (25 - pen) Bruno Tavares (28) Matt Dixon (34) Steve Harley (73) Nathan Szsyzlk (80) Steve Harley (90) .... and it could have been a whole lot more.... This was the biggest win that I have ever seen and followed hot on the heels of a 9-0 win for Thetford last week, although they did blot their copy book in midweek with a 1-0 defeat against March. Even before the game it looked like Cornard were whipped, when the team sheets went up Thetford had players with names that wouldn't sound out of place in the premier league, Cornard looked like a bunch of strangers. In fact only 5 of the players named in the squad were on the pitch. This could have meant that they had signed a load of players recently with an eye for moving up the table or that they were having to bring in players from wherever they could. It certainly seemed like the latter was true. In the warm

On Saturday I'm planning on a trip to Thetford to see them take on Cornard United. Thetford who were running away with the First Division of the Eastern Counties League have had a bit of a wobble lately, but after a 9-0 win in the Norfolk Senior Cup at the weekend and the fact that Cornard are bottom of the league they will be confident of picking up the points. Cornard are not one of the leagues oldest clubs having been formed only in 1964 when they joined the Sudbury Sunday League. In 1966 they joined division 3 of the Bury and District League and in 1970 they joined division 6 of the Colchester and East Essex League. In 1976 they joined the Essex and Suffolk Border League after having climbed up to Division 2 in C&EE League. Cornard's most successful period came at the end of the 1980s and start of the 90s. In 1988-9 they won the Suffolk Border League, League Cup and Suffolk Senior Cup. The following season after gaining promotion to the Eastern Counties League Division

Although I didn't make it to any games while I was away in Staffordshire last week I did manage to visit a ground that I hadn't been to before and that ground was Crewe Alexandra's Alexandra stadium. It's a pretty nice stadium and was renovated when they were looking to be regular participants in what is now called the Championship at the start of the millennium. However after doing what they do best and developing new players that are then sold on they have found themselves to be a mid-table League 2 side. In fact it was the sale of Dean Ashton to Norwich in 2005 that was blamed for their slump that season that set them on a downward trajectory. The Alexandra stadium, which was then known as Gresty Road and for some unfathomable reason has been renamed (if it wasn't bad enough with all the sponsor changes and new grounds) has been Alex's home since 1899 and been a built stadium since 1906. It was renovated in 1999 after the Taylor Report and has the impressive

The ice had finally disappeared and despite the wind Saturday got off to a bright enough start for the under 7's game I was required to go to. The unexpected good weather lasted until I left the house to get down for Ely v Felixstowe & Walton and then the skies opened up and I got soaked. That wasn't the final deluge of the day though as Ely got off to a fine start despite not having kicked a ball for 3 days and it was raining shots on the Felixstowe goal. The first 20 minutes were a complete bombardment with Nick Impey and Luke Parkinson firing in the crosses and full backs Lewis McDonald and Sam Parkinson also joining in the fun. Adam Murray came close with a couple of headers from crosses and Nick Impey hit the bar with a cross/shot. Ely couldn't quite find the finishing touch despite it being more or less one way traffic. The visitors first chance, and what was to prove to be their only real chance, came on 29 minutes when some bizarre head tennis amongst the Ely pl

Well, the last few weeks haven't been much fun on the football front or any front really. Apart from being especially busy there were a couple of weekends where there were no games in the East. Villa have been useless and apart from the Africa Cup of Nations there hasn't been much on telly that really inspired me. I have to say regarding the African competition, hats off to Zambia, who were amazing and I regret writing them off a couple of weeks ago. The nearest I got to a football ground was when I visited the Crewe Alex club shop last week. However, football was back on the agenda today and although my plans to go to Peterborough v Bristol City were foiled by internet failure I did manage to get to Ely v Felixstowe and Walton.