football rambles

Here are the 50 most listened to bands of 2013: Countdown to 2014 by jim_bomb on Grooveshark The Stone Roses 916 Рубль 622 Happy Mondays 465 The Courteeners 454 Tequilajazzz 436 Сплин 337 Бумбокс 323 Ундервуд 319 Orbital 310 Воплі Відоплясова 257 Ляпис Трубецкой 233 The Charlatans 211 Aphex Twin 208 808 State 202 Reinhard Voigt 195 Мумий Тролль 195 Cage the Elephant 194 The Bodines 188 Inspiral Carpets 178 Boards of Canada 177 New Order 174 Arctic Monkeys 174 Kasabian 173 Nathan Fake 161 Tokyo Police Club 160 Superchunk 155 Ellen Allien 147 Echo & the Bunnymen 146 Vennaskond 144 ESG 143 The Thermals 140 The Jesus and Mary Chain 137 Kraftwerk 136 The Twang 136 Flunk 135 The Wedding Present 135 Mogwai 133 65daysofstatic 133 Kapten Röd 133 The Orb 131 Stanton Warriors 131 Curve

January The year started off with a trip to Villa Park to see Villa beat Ipswich in the FA Cup, which was probably the highlight of the month. Ely also provided a highlight by beating Histon on penalties in the quarter final of the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup. Unfortunately, the impressive FA vase run also came to an end when the Robins went down to Spalding once the game eventually went ahead. February We saw King's Lynn defeat Rainworth Miners Welfare at the Walks and Ely continued their run in the Invitation Cup. They booked themselves a place in the final after beating Cambridge University Press 2-0 in the semifinal. The other game we saw in February was when the Robins lost at home to Wisbech in freezing conditions. March Ely had a well balanced month in the games I attended winning one, losing one and drawing one. Elsewhere goals were flooding in as we saw Leyton Orient win 4-1 against Carlisle and King's Lynn beat Mickleover Sports 7-0 on their way to winning pr

In 2013 I saw 139 goals in 46 different games, which is an average of just over 3 goals a game. The biggest home win was 30 March when King's Lynn beat Mickleover Sports 7-0, which was also the most goals in a game. The biggest away win came on 4 May when Ely Reserves went down 6-0 at home to Fulbourn Institute. The stadiums - the number of games in brackets 1 The Unwin Ground, Ely, Cambridgeshire (23) 2 The Walks, King's Lynn, Norfolk (4) 3 NCK Olympiskiy, Kyiv, Ukraine (3) 4 Villa Park, Birmingham (2) 5 The Emirates Stadium, London (2) 6 Brisbane Road, London (1) 7 Julius Martin Lane, Soham, Cambridgeshire (1) 8 The Abbey Stadium, Cambridge (1) 9 London Road, Peterborough (1) 10 Westwood Road, St.Ives, Cambridgeshire (1) 11 Crown Meadow, Lowestoft, Suffolk (1) 12 Dynamo Stadium, Kyiv, Ukraine (1) 13 Obolon Arena. Kyiv, Ukraine (1) 14 Recreation Ground, Thetford, Norfolk (1) 15 Craven Cottage, London (1) 16 Carrow Road, Norwich (1) 17 The Pirelli Stadium, B

Well, I sank a brewery load on Christmas Day and talked a load of cobblers, so going to watch the Brewers v the Cobblers on Boxing Day was the natural choice. I hadn't been to the Pirelli for a while, so I was looking forward to the trip and the game was well worth the visit. The Brewers are currently in the top 4 of League 2 while Northampton are languishing near the foot of the league. Last season both clubs made it to the play-offs and whereas the Brewers have taken off from where they finished last season the Cobblers have struggled. They sacked Aidy Boothroyd just before Christmas, so Burton were always favourites going into this game. Neither of the teams started all that well, but it was clear that Northampton were going to sit back and hope to hit their opponents on the break, but at least they seemed to have ditched the hoof up the pitch that they were famous for last season - which actually might have encountered for their undoing. Hussey, Kee and McGurk all came

It had been a long time since I last went to Carrow Road, in fact it was that long ago most of the ground was standing when I last went. Then it was turn up on the day, but nowadays getting in the ground is a bit more complicated, so when I saw an offer for the Swansea game I thought that I would give it a go. I was quite impressed with the ground and the game was entertaining enough. Most people probably thought that Swansea would be groggy after their exertions in Europe on Thursday, but it was Norwich who looked more sleepy at the start. On 12 minutes Sebastian Bassong was caught napping by Nathan Dyer who lashed on to a half chance to put the visitors 1-0 up. 2 minutes later Norwich could have got on to level terms if the referee had been more sympathetic when Leroy Fer's header hit Angel Rangel on the arm, but the official wasn't interested. Up until the half hour mark Norwich continued to push for the equaliser, and Gary Hooper seemed to be in most of the thick of

There are times when you feel like football god owes you one and Saturday was one of those occasions. After Sean's game in the morning we decided to go down the road and see what the reserves were up to. Brady Stone has now taken over at the reserves and they seem to have a few more decent players than they did last season, even though they are now in Senior A of the Cambridgeshire League, a division below where they were last season. On Saturday they were taking on Great Paxton who are currently second in the table. Ely had been on a decent run of late having one their 3 previous games including a 6-2 win over leaders Gaminglay. Ely started off the game promisingly. They had one shot just wide in the opening encounters and hit the woodwork. However, the game sort of petered out into a pre-Christmas snooze and it was a game that was small on action and chances. Even the referee seemed non-plussed by it all. He started the game 7 minutes early, had a shorter than normal half-time,

December usually turns into a barren month for me in terms of football, even though there seems to be loads of it on. So the chance of a double header at the weekend was too much to pass up on. The weekend started off with a trip to see Ely City Reserves take on Great Paxton and then it was up to the dizzy heights of the Premier League on Sunday when we went to see Norwich take on Swansea.

Yesterday Ely had a good chance to get their first home points of the season. Wivenhoe are struggling even more than the Robins and after a decent draw away to Newmarket and beating Mildenhall in the league cup it looked like a decent chance for the home team to turn their season around. It didn't work out like that though. The first half was a scrappy affair and Ely seemed to be labouring a bit, they definitely had more of the ball, but Wivenhoe looked a bit more convincing on the odd occasion when they did threaten the Robins. The teams went in at 0-0 at the break in what was a fairly uneventful half. Ely started the second half off a lot stronger and soon had Wivenhoe pinned in their own half. Stuart Walker had the ball in the Wivenhoe net on 50 minutes, but it was ruled offside. This set the tone for most of the half with Ely pressuring, but not having much luck with the decisions. The Robins were given the chance to take the lead on 59 minutes when they were awarded a pena