football rambles

On Saturday I picked up a copy of 'Heroes & Villains'. The cover shows the image of Andi Weimann when he scored the opportune winner against Man City and ran to the Holte End before the ball had even reached the back of the net. Funnily enough, you can't tell if the mood of the fanzine is optimistic or pessimistic. After a fantastic home win against Man City, came a draw against Hull and then an abject defeat to Spurs. No wonder Villa fans are suffering from Schizophrenia. As well as the usual Blues baiting there are some decent enough articles, some of the highlights are an interesting article on how technology has changed our relationship with football; more on the 'safe standing' campaign that Villa have been the most instrumental in pushing for; an article on when Villa signed a rugby league player in 1912; a look at the reasons for not following England and Di Canio's ill fated reign at Sunderland. There's also some stuff on tactics, philosop

Sean was lucky enough to get Andi Weimann, Yacouba Sylla, Antonio Luna and Libor Kozak to sign the programme on Saturday. Sylla actually signed twice, going away to get a different pen when ours didn't work. Good lad, but as the song tells us 'he loves the Villa', or words to that effect.

As well as it being the 150th anniversary of the FA it was also a celebration of the most played football fixture in English football when Villa took on Everton for 215th time. There was the special programme (at the top of the page). Unfortunately, Everton won, so now they are just one behind Villa in the number of wins in the fixture.

Weimann's had a few flat performances lately, but this is just a bit mad. We met the real one outside a few minutes later. A view of the Holte end. It's been a quiet October, but yesterday we went to Villa to see the most played fixture in English football, when they took on Everton. It was Sean's birthday game and we were hoping for a win for a change after the last few years had seen Villa draw twice and lose once on this occasion. The day got off to a good enough start with Sean meeting Andi Weimann (the real one and not the one in the picture), Antonio Luna, Libor Kozak and Yakouba Sylla, which was a bit of a highlight and better than having to make do with the cardboard cut out in the club shop! The game started off well enough and Villa had a great chance to take the lead in the 6th minute from the penalty spot, but unfortunately Benteke's shot was saved by Tim Howard, who was on fine form. Too good form if the truth be known. Villa had load of ch

Ely have had a run of away games over the last 3 weeks, which it would seem is a blessing in disguise because what we witnessed last night was pretty terrible. It was perhaps fortunate that the crowd was lower than usual with England playing Poland in a must win game at the same time, as it meant not many people had to see the game. To be honest, the Cambridgeshire FA had a lot to answer for by refusing to put the games in the Cambs Invitation Cup on the Wednesday rather than on the Wednesday. I was one of the hardcore who turned up though in the hope that Ely could go one step further in winning the trophy 3 times in a row. Foxton shouldn't have offered too much opposition, playing 2 leagues below the Robins, but league places can sometimes be misleading. The Robins got off to a magnificent start and Diaper put the home team into the lead after just 5 minutes after some tricky wing play from Mendes. As Ely had already had one cleared off the line it looked like they were going t

September 2013 by jim_bomb on Grooveshark Here's the bands that I listened to the most in September and what weird mix of bands I had on. http://grooveshark.com/playlist/September+2013/91053665 1 Reinhard Voigt – In aller Freundschaft A bit of German techno always goes down well especially from the Kompact label 2 Бумбокс – Хвилюватися немає причин More Ukrainian and strangely more reggae than the tune that made the play list last month. 3 Рубль – Я хуярю на гитаре I didn't even realise I'd listened to these Russian punk rockers that much over the month, but it would appear that I had. 4 The Orwells - Mallrats It sounds a bit like 60s US Garage meets 90s Subpop, they are American, but they are far too young for any of that. 5 Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5 Were part of the Madchester scene, but looking back they sound quite different from the rest of the set, although a lot of bands around that time copied the Hammond organ sound. 6 ESG - Six Pack Som

So far it's been a season to forget for Ely and more and more players seem to be jumping ship, so the league cup offered a chance to offer a diversion from the rigours of the league and also offered the chance for some of the new players to stake their place in the starting level. The opposition was Haverhill Borough, who were only formed a couple of years ago and after promotion last year and a good run in the Vase are now sitting at the top of Division 1. It was difficult to know before the game what sort of opposition they would provide for Ely. They had knocked out some fairly decent sides in last year's Vase run, but at the same time the gulf between the Premier and Division 1 of the Eastern Counties League seems to have grown over the last few seasons. The game got off to a brilliant start with Adam Murray starting up front instead of Central Defence. Striker Richard Chadwick has departed from Newmarket and Darren Coe was available again. Murray has always done well