football rambles

New York Red Bulls, who play at Harrison Park in New Jersey were one of the ten clubs who formed the MLS in 1996. They also hold the unpleasent record of being the only MLS club not to have won a major trophy, all this despite boasting some big name players over the years of the calibre of Donadoni, Matthaus, Djorkaeff and er, Juan Pablo Angel. At the moment their star player is Thierry Henry, which is probably one of the reasons that they have been included in the Emirates Cup. As well as some famous old players they have also had some famous foreign coaches, such as Carlos Quieroz, Carlos Alberto Parreira and the controversial ex-Rangers and Celtic player Mo Johnston. They have also been coached by two of the biggest names in US 'soccer', Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena, both of whom have had more success with the national team. Their current coach is Sven Goran Erikkson's ex-right hand man, Hans Backe. New York Red Bull haven't always been New York Red Bulls, in fact the...

Arsenal were formed as Dial Square in 1886 and the first crest the club adopted were when they were still Woolwich Arsenal was based on the coat of arms of Woolwich, with the three 'posts' in the middle representing the cannons of the artillery based in Woolwich. It was a motif that would remain apart of the crest up until the present day. In 1922-23 Arsenal started to use a crest that was similar to today's after first introducing the single cannon as the emblem in 1922. It was a west facing cannon, which appeared to be based on the Royal Arsenal Gatehouse in Woolwich even though the Gunners had left Woolwich in 1913. The next change to the badge came in 1949 with the marksman's motto being included on the badge. This was the badge that Arsenal more or less stuck with until 2001 when it was tidied up a bit and then again in 2002 when they had to change it due to copyright problems. The only one occasion when Arsenal used a different badge was the 'Art Deco' bad...

PSG are one of the richest, most prestigious and well supported teams in France despite only being formed in 1970. They were formed from a merger between Paris FC and Stade Saint Germain with the original idea being for Paris to once again have a top team that could challenge at the top of French football. The idea certainly worked as PSG reached League 1 in 1974 and have been there ever since. They are now the second most supported team in France after Marseilles and like L'OM have unlike any other French club won a European trophy - the Cup Winner's Cup in 1996. Over the years the dislike between Marseilles and PSG has grown and grown and now the fixture between the two clubs is French Classic. PSG's golden era was the 1990s when they had a massive cash injection from television company Canal+. This coincided with success after success at home and in Europe including two appearances in the Cup Winner's Cup Final and a semi-final appearance in the Champions League. How...

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...

It doesn't look like I will get the chance to go to a match until next week, but it should be a good one or two next Sunday, as I have tickets for the Emirates Cup where I'll see Boca Juniors v Paris Saint Germain and Arsenal v Red Bulls New York. It was the subbuteo style advertisement that made me notice this event and with tickets only a few more quid than what I paid for Cambridge v Mansfield last season it was pretty good value for money. I have wanted to go to the Emirates for a while, but the tickets usually do cost a fortune. One question though is why is Martin Palermo shown as the Boca representative in the advert? He mighy be a Boca goal scoring legend, but he has already hung up his boots.

Ely continued their pre-season preparations today against Deeping Rangers of the United Counties League. Ely continued to play well, but were again unable to get a win in a friendly match. Let's just hope their luck starts to change when it matters. Last season Deeping finished in a similar position in the UCL to Ely in the ECL. So, it should at least on paper have been an evenly challenged affair. However, Deeping are more used to finishing higher in their league and have spent a bit of cash over the summer. Ely have stuck with what they had last year with the addition of Kenny Smith and Austen Diaper, who is making a big step up from Long Stanton, there were also several Ely players missing today due to one reason or another. That said the teams were evenly matched. There were few chances in the first half an hour with both keepers having saves to make, but neither of them being overly worried. Rangers took the lead though on 32 minutes after a comedy of errors in the Ely defence...

Last night Ely City took on Biggleswade Town in a friendly at the Unwin and although the result didn't go Ely's way there were plenty of encouraging signs. Biggleswade have been holding their own in the level above Ely, so the defeat didn't really come as a shock and it took Biggleswade only 7 minutes to go ahead. Their centre forward was a brilliant and the slightest error in the Ely defence saw him smash the ball into the back of the net. Ely also had their chances in the opening minutes with Tom Beech coming close on 20 minutes and Chadders also forcing a decent save from the keeper on 24. However, Biggleswade really were a cut above Ely and they always seemed to have an extra man wherever Ely were and when their tricky centre forward came close again on the half hour mark with a lovely turn that he whipped just wide of Pacey it was his third quality chance and other circumstances he might have had a hat-trick. Ely did battle on though and the last quarter of an hour of ...