football rambles

Here's a list of the different competitions I saw teams compete in with the number of games in brackets: Eastern Counties League Premier (11) English League 1 (4) Pre-season friendly (3) Absolute Sport Travel Trophy (2) Emirates Cup (2) Northern Premier League Premier (2) Cambridgeshire League Senior A (2) Eastern Counties League Division 1 (2) English Premier League (2) FA Women's Premier League Cup (1) FA Vase (1) William Coad Intermediate Cup (1) Bundesliga-1 (1) FA Cup (1) Central Midlands League (1) Creake Charity Shield (1)

Here are the stadiums that I visited last season with the number of games and home team in brackets. The Unwin Ground,Ely (Ely City - 15) London Road, Peterborough (Peterborough United - 5) Villa Park, Birmingham (Aston Villa - 3) The Abbey Stadium, Cambridge (Cambridge United - 2) The Emirates Stadium, London (Arsenal - 2) The Walks, King's Lynn (King's Lynn Town - 2) Memorial Playing Fields, Downham Market (Downham Town - 2) Recreation Way, Mildenhall (Mildenhall Town - 1) The Recreation Ground, Thetford (Thetford Town - 1) Cricket field Road, Newmarket (Newmarket Town - 1) Westfalen Stadion, Dortmund ( Borussia Dortmund - 1) Brisbane Road, London ( Leyton Orient - 1) Hillsfield, Rocester (Rocester - 1)

I saw slightly fewer games than usual last season, mainly due to a lack of mid week games and other football type commitments. I still managed to get to 37 games and see 121 goals though.  The biggest home win was Arsenal 5 Benfica 1 on 2nd August in the Emirates Cup and the same score between Downham Town and Halstead on 11th April. The biggest away win was Ely City 0 Ipswich Wanderers 7 on 15th November. The most goals in a match was also 7 from the above game and Mildenhall Town 4 Ely City 3 on 26th August.

I have taken a long time in summing up last season and we aren't that far from the start of pre-season now. One of the reasons for this is that it was so disappointing. With Villa it was another season of battling relegation, although the sacking of Lambert and replacing him with Sherwood helped to galvanise the team, it was still a disappointing season. At least Sean finally saw a league win when we saw them beat West Ham in May through a Tom Cleverley goal. What could have been the real highlight of the season ended in disappointment when Villa lost 4-0 to Arsenal in the FA cup final. We had already seen how powerful Arsenal could be at the start of the season when we saw them destroy Benfica 5-1 at the Emirates. The real highlight of the season was going to Dortmund and visiting not just the stadium, but also the museum. It was an amazing weekend and an amazing stadium to visit. Unfortunately, BVB went down 1-0 to Hannover, which was basically the story of our season. BVB like t...

I saw 42 games and 126 goals. Biggest home win: Cambridge Women 9 Fulbourn Bluebirds 0 (16/3/14) Biggest away win: Ely City 1 Godmanchester Rovers 5 (21/4/14) Most goals in a match - 9: Cambridge Women 9 Fulbourn Bluebird 9 The stadiums: The Unwin Ground, Ely 17 The Walks, King's Lynn 4 NSK Olympiskiy, Kyiv 3 The Recreation Ground, Thetford 3 The Emirates Stadium, London 2 Craven Cottage, London 2 Carrow Road, Norwich 2 London Road, Peterborough 1 Crown Meadow, Lowestoft 1 Westwood Road, St Ives (Cambs) 1 Dynamo Stadion, Kyiv 1 Obolon Arena, Kyiv 1 Villa park, Birmingham 1 The Pirelli Stadium, Burton 1 Brisbane Road, London 1 The Gold star Ground, Felixstowe 1 The competitions: Eastern Counties League Premier 12 Preseason friendly 4 Northern Premier League Premier 4 English Premier League 3 Emirates Cup 2 Ukrainian Premier League 2 International friendly 2 Eastern Counties League Cup 2 Cambridgeshire League Senior A 2 Ukrainian Under 21s Leagu...

July The pre-season got off to a start with a mouthwatering Derby between King's Lynn and Wisbech at the Walks. The bumper crowd probably couldn't believe it when Wisbech ran out 4-1 winners. I was a bit worried about how they were going to do, being in the same league as Ely. I needn't have worried though, they finished near the top, but have now cleared off to the United Counties in the hope of having an easier chance of promotion. King's Lynn in the regular season got into the groove though and won their second promotion in a row. The lowlight was probably the 3 Ely friendlies in July that I went to and didn't offer great hope for the season ahead - losing 2 and drawing 1. August August got off to a great start with Villa again having a friendly at Peterborough that the Villa won comfortably 2-0. In the FA Cup Ely absolutely smashed Rothwell Corinthians beating them 7-1 with a surprise Richard Gammon hat-trick being the highlight. I also saw my first women...

First of all it was a mixed season for Villa, which with time and money at a premium I only managed to get to twice. The team seemed to turn a corner when beating Liverpool at Anfield then fell apart over Christmas after that game with Chelsea. Then some brilliant performances towards the end of the season saw them stay up and the future looking bright at last, if Lambert keeps hold of the good players, gets the dead wood off the books and signs a goal scoring midfielder and a couple of solid defenders. Ironically the two games I got to at Villa Park were against teams from East Anglia. First up was a league match against Norwich, which Villa drew and would have probably won if Joe Bennett hadn't got sent off. Secondly was an FA Cup match against Ipswich, at a time when Villa were short on confidence. Villa made heavy work to win 2-1 with Darren Bent, who will hopefully be going scoring first and Andi Weimann, who will hopefully be staying getting the second. The other Villa game w...

During the season I went to 44 games and saw a massive 160 goals, thanks to some big wins and momentous games. I usually like to produce a league table, but with so many games involving Ely City it seems to be a bit counterproductive to do so this season, so here are some other figures: Most goals in a game = 10 17/11/12 Hatfield Town 3 Ely City 7 Biggest home win 30/3/13 King's Lynn Town 7 Mickleover Sports 3 Biggest away win 4/5/13 Ely City Reserves 0 Fulbourn Institute 6 Despite the whopping number of games, I wasn't exactly groundhopping. With Sean playing on Saturday mornings, it has been a bit harder to get to different grounds. In fact all 44 of the games were seen in just 9 grounds 1 The Unwin Ground, Ely (30 games) 2 The Walks, King's Lynn (4 games) 3 London Road, Peterborough (2 games) 4 The Abbey stadium, Cambridge (2 games) 5 Villa Park, Birmingham (2 games) 6 Gosling Sports Ground, Welwyn Garden City (1 game) 7 Recreation Way, Mildenhall (1 g...

July The season started off for me almost as soon as the uninspiring World Cup had finished with a friendly on 9 July where cash strapped Histon took on Ipswich Town in a hastily arranged friendly. Ipswich put out a strong team and Histon had barely been able to summons a starting 11. Not surprisingly Ipswich ran out 6-0 winners. On the 19th Villa took on Posh at London Road in what seems to be becoming a yearly fixture. Villa ran out 3-2 winners. Elsewhere Ely looked good in preseason winning 3 out of 4 of the games that I saw them play in preseason in July. Highlights: The games between Histon and Ipswich and Peterborough and Villa. Lowlights: The fact that Villa at this stage looked like they were losing their way a bit. The writing on the wall for the in most parts poor season seemed to be on show in the somewhat lacklustre performance. Heroes: He might be on his bike from Villa Park soon, but Ashley Young gave it is all in the game at Peterborough. For Ely Kentoh Gray looked li...

I know it's been a long time coming, but here it is finally. The end of my season review. The season started off pretty early and ironically July was one of the busiest of months in the season with a number of preseason friendllies. In fact the first match of the season for me was on 7 July when Ely took on Cambridge United in a friendly on a very wet evening in front of the largest crowd I have seen at the Unwin. The result wasn't great though as Ely lost 3-0. Other highlights of July included Villa's preseason friendly at Peterborough, which Villa won pretty easily with a team of kids and reserves and even then the writing was on the wall for a difficult season for Posh in the Championship. They went on to get through 3 managers and were easily relegated. The other bit of fun was when Ely took on Soham for the Unwin cup and the game went to penalties, unfortunately Soham won but the kids enjoyed it. The lowlight was definitely Ely going down 6-1 to Bury at the Unwin. Augu...