football rambles

 At the weekend, we had a bumper weekend in Brussels and Brugge. Apart from beer and culture there was also the chance to see a relegation scrap between Cercle and La Louviere. It offered a trip to the Jan Breydel Stadium, which they share with Club Brugge and is much maligned by visiting fans in European competition. It was apparently renovated last in 2016, but it looks like it was longer ago than that. Anyway, fun was still to be had and going to see a game in a new place is always a good experience. Cercle are the second team in Brugge but have had their moments. They have won the Belgian league 3 times - albeit the last time being in 1930. They have also won the cup twice, the last time in 1985. As recently as last season , they reached the Round of 16 in the Conference League, but avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth. After this result, they will be playing in the relegation round again and hoping to stay up somehow. Similarly La Louviere are also close to the relega...

 King's Lynn took to the pitch at the Walks on Saturday with their 3rd 'permanent' manager with Paul Caddis taking over from Ian Culverhouse who was relieved of his duties after a disappointing run of results that saw the Linnets drifting towards the relegation zone. Hopefully, it wasn't just new manager bounce that saw the Linnets get the win. The game started off with neither side creating much but with King's Lynn with the lion's share of the chances. In the opening exchanges Terry Bondo and Ross Crane had a couple of good chances that they weren't quite able to convert and Marine had a single chance that fizzed over the bar. As the half drew to a close Ross Crane had another chance and Jayden Davis came close to giving Lynn the lead, but Barnsley in the Marine goal pulled off a couple of good saves.  The second half started in the same way that the first half had finished with the Linnets in the ascendancy. On 50 minutes they finally broke the deadlock w...

 At the start of the day, Cambridge were in 2nd and Mk were in 3rd. A win for MK would have seen them leapfrog Cambridge and a win for Cambridge would have seen them go top - at least until Bromley played earlier in the day. Both teams would have probably been happy with a draw before kick off. However, the manner in which the points were shared was disappointing for Cambridge and a cause for celebration for the visiting Dons. The first half was as to be expected a fairly cagey affair with both teams looking more afraid of conceding rather than scoring. The majority of the chances fell to Cambridge, but chance of the half fell to ex-U Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, who missed a gilt-edge chance to put the Dons ahead. The second half saw Cambridge start to dominate more and the attacking substitutions showed intent as the best attack in the division attempted to break down the best defence. The deadlock was finally broken after both Kakai and Brophy had come close to giving the Us the lead...