End of season review

Well, I've finally found some time to write about this and have realised that there is no chance of getting one more game in. On the local non-league front it was a season that exceeded expectations. Ely City, who over the few years that I have followed them have always been in the lower half of the table finished a very credible second, especially as at Christmas we were still thinking that it was great that they had got enough points to stay up. Added to getting the Eastern Counties League runner's up shield they also picked up the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup. In fact some of the best performances came in cup games for the Robins. In the Cambs Invitation Cup a last minute winner by Austin Diaper in the semis against Royston was only beaten by Adam Murray who scored the winner in the last minute of the Final against Soham. Earlier in the season there were another couple of great games in cups, most notably a very respectable 1-1 draw in the FA Cup against Needham Market, which despite the fact that they lost the Replay 4-3 at the Unwin was probably the catalyst for the fine league run that they then went on. Another cup performance to remember was a fine 4-2 win in extra time away to March Town United in the League Cup where Taz Chisongo started to earn his super sub reputation. In the league itself there wasn't a game that really stood out, but the overall performances and never say die attitude was always impressive. The wheels did come off in the end though. The biggest blow being the ridiculous sendings off of Lee Pacey and Richard Chadwick in the away victory at Great Yarmouth in mid March, which was made even harder to swallow, as it came after a rare home defeat to Champions elect Wroxham. Ely were still in with a chance of winning the title though and we went to CRC a few days later to support them against Wroxham, and CRC obliged by beating them 1-0 on a beautiful day at the Abbey. Ely didn't win the title though, but second on the budget the club has was really impressive. Thetford also had a great season and won promotion to the Premier Division, and were only beaten to first place on the last day of the season when Godmanchester managed to put more goals in than Thetford who we saw beat Long Melford 3-1. Earlier in the season we had seen them beat Long Melford 2-0 in the Vase. The next trip we had there was a fantastic 5-0 victory over Halstead and then a 10-0 victory over Cornard, the highest win I have ever seen and possibly will ever seen. We didn't really go and see Cambridge United, apart from a 1-0 win early in the season against Telford, as it costs the same to go there as Championship Peterborough, who had mixed results in the games we saw, but they stayed up comfortably, which was what they were aiming for. The least said about Villa the better, but at least McLeish has gone and Lambert might make it more worth the effort. The only time we made it up was to see a 2-1 defeat at the hands of West Bromwich Albion. I only managed to get to 10 stadiums this year, which is a lower than average amount. New stadiums were the Emirates where I saw Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal, New York Red Bulls and Boca Juniors in action; Broadhall Lane, home of Stevenage where we went on the last day of the season to see Stevenage claim a play off place after beating Bury; and also trips to Needham Market and March to see Ely in action away.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boca Juniors shirt history

Image
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
Read more

shirt history AS Roma

Image
Roma were the club that I followed in Italy and although they are most famous for wearing red and yellow, hence the nickname giallo rosso the club didn't always wear those colours. AS Roma were formed in 1927 by a merger between SS Alba-Audace and Fortitudo-Pro Roma SGS with Italo Foschi being the driving force behind the merger. AS Roma could also trace their lineage back to FBC Roma who were formed in 1901 and who wore red and yellow, but the first shirts they wore took the red, white and blue of Fortitudo-Pro Roma. Roma soon established themselves at the top table of Italian football and in 1931 finished runners up to Juventus and by now had settled on red and yellow as their colours. However, you'll have to take my word for it because the picture below shows Attilio Ferraris in black and white. In 1942 Roma went one better and won their first Scudetto with Amadeo Amadei scoring 18 goals to help them secure the title. Pictured below he is wearing the change shirt with a repl
Read more

Sud Tribune, Dortmund

Image
The Sud Tribune at Westfalen is famed for the noise and support that it gives the BVB team. They started up early and carried on until well after the match had finished despite the poor result. At the end the team looked suitably disappointed when they thanked the fans. Nobody apart from the Hannover fans probably expected 96 to win. Hopefully better times for the Sud Tribune are just around the corner.
Read more