Monday, 17 December 07, 10:36 AM
Sometimes, you just have to make a stand. I've said on here before that the formation of FC United of Manchester was about more than the
issue of the Glazer takeover at Old Trafford. It was a movement which gathered it momentum from a more general disillusionment with the direction that modern football was taking. Whether it was
sponsorship, ownership or moving kick-off times to accommodate TV companies, they were sick of it. With the formation of their own club, they were back in control of their own destiny. Or so they
thought. FC United have spent much of this season in a battle against the heady mixture of commercialism and petty bureaucracy at bottom end of the football food chain.
Upon promotion into the Northern Premier League at the end of last season, it took about a month for their problems to start. The league insisted that they would have to wear a sponsor's logo
on their shirt sleeves. It is written into the FC United club constitution that no sponsors names are allowed on their shirts. A tense stand-off ensued, until an agreement was reached by which
United players would wear armbands with the "Unibond" logo on them for matches. This was just the beginning.
You might think that there is no televised football at this end of the game, but the Northern Premier League runs a reasonably successful web site which broadcasts matches live, and on
December 29th they had scheduled the Division One North match between leaders Curzon Ashton and FC United, and announced that the kick-off time would be brought forward to 12.00 to accommodate
this. Both United and Curzon Ashton objected to this, but the league over-ruled them and the match will now take place at lunchtime rather than at the normal scheduled time of 3.00. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, this didn't go down too well in Manchester. The FC United board issued this statement, requesting that their supporters boycott the match. This is a
significant decision. FC United take between 1,000 and 2,000 supporters to away matches in a league in which the average crowd is about 300 people. If United's supporters do boycott the match (and
it seems highly likely that they will), it could cost Curzon Ashton anything up to £20,000 in lost income.
There is no question in my mind that the club has taken the right decision. They founded their club on certain principles, and should stick to them. It is a shame that Curzon Ashton should
lose out on their biggest financial event of the season, but if they are looking for someone to blame, they should be fixing their eyes firmly on the Northern Premier League rather than FC United.
United's travelling support don't owe anybody anything, and this is their protest at a league which is aping bigger leagues in the worst way possible. How many people, exactly,
do watch the live Northern Premier League matches on this streaming broadband site? Are their interests more important than the supporters of the clubs in the match being played?
In a more general sense, at this level of the game, what is the reason for the existence of the league in the first place? There is no floating interest in this league (with the possible exception
of cranky loners like me), so surely the whole point of the Northern Premier League is to act specifically in the best interests of its clubs and their supporters, shouldn't
it?
Saturday, 08 December 07, 08:51 AM
It was, I have to say, an
impulse buy. Left to my own devices in Brighton and with work this morning forcing me to curtail my Friday night revelry, I opted for the Withdean Stadium for my first visit to see my home town
team play since I moved here eighteen months ago. The sense of eagerness that I felt was merely exacerbated by the opposition, Nottingham Forest, a club who still at least vaguely hold some sort of
fadedly glamorous connotations for some of us (you know, in the same way as you would categorize Bernie Clifton if he came to open your village fete). There didn't seem to be a lot between the two
teams on paper. Forest as ever, were promotion candidates in third place whilst Brighton sat in eighth place.
I've said on here before that the biggest single reason why I don't go and watch Brighton more often than not is the facilities. I've been
asked more than once why Brighton need a new ground so badly when they have an 8,500 seater stadium that they use week in week out. Asides from the issues of crippling costs, neighbours that
really don't want them and restrictions on what they can and can't do there on match days, there is still the issue that the Withdean is a terrible stadium. If you want to go behind the
goal, you have to sit in The Family Stand, which is about fifty yards from the pitch. The South Stand, which runs the entire length of one side of the pitch, hasn't got a cover on it. The away
supporters are such a long way away that one scarcely even notices that they are there. It is an unsatisfactory experience, although the club does what it can to mitigate this. The park & ride
scheme, which offers a free return bus journey to anyone with a season ticket, is excellent, and the stewards both in and around the ground are excellent. In addition to this, the small amount of
music that they are allowed to play before the start of the match (in this case The Faces' misogynanthem "Stay With Me" and Squeeze's brilliant "Cool For Cats"), along with the ubiquitous "Sussex
By The Sea" is a cut above the standard fare that you'd hear at a football match.
Once the match started, though, the atmosphere ran flat. It was cold last night, and Brighton can pick up some nasty, chilly breezes off the
sea. Tonight they seemed to be to wracing up Preston Road and straight into the ground, catching the tongue of anyone that is about to shout. On the pitch, one could see that there was somewhat
more than a few league places between these two teams. Forest are expecting promotion, whilst Albion are out-performing anyone' expectancies by sitting just outside of the play-of places. The
difference between the teams, though, was notable. Brighton were very hard-working but limited and looked blunt in the final third of the pitch, and Forest seemed to know this, sitting back and
easily soaking up what Albion could throw at them. Brighton were best represented in this respected by Bas Savage, their lumbering lummox of a centre forward. Savage tries very hard. Very hard
indeed. You can see why he's popular. However, too many of his knock-downs were to the opposition, and too many of his passes seem to run to nowhere.
Forest took the lead on half an hour through a close range strike through Nathan Tyson, but the turning point came just before half-time when
the referee played an advantage for a clear trip inside the penalty only for Albion to force a very good save from the Forest goalkeeper and then follow it up by hitting the post. The cost of this
became apparent when, three minutes into the second half, Joel Lynch was caught in possession and Tyson made it 2-0. Not even Forest being reduced to ten men (a straight red card to Sammy Clingan
for a reckless tackle on Jake Robinson) made much of a difference, as Forest sat back and comfortably saw out the last forty minutes with Albion scarcely able to create so much as a clear
chance.
The biggest reason why Albion can't wait to get out of the Withdean was the effect that is has on the crowd. It was the quietest crowd that
I've seen for a very long time. The cold weather can't have helped, but the sheer distance from the pitch meant that I would doubt whether the players could even hear the little singing that
was going on. You could hear the Forest fans at the other send of the ground, though, singing, "2-0 to the famous team", to which my instant response was, "Well, yes. If you're over the
age of thirty-five". Forest fans should mind this sort of hubris. Anyone with any knowledge of English football would be able to tell you that their era of trophy winning was the exception rather
than the rule in terms of their history. Maybe they just don't care if people laugh at them as much as they did when they threw away a two goal lead in last year's play-off semi-final against
Yeovil Town. So, there we are. Brighton & Hove Albion can be ticked off the list at last. I almost certainly will go to the Withdean again (I'm tempted by the match against
Gillingham on the 21st of December), but even the best charm offensive that they can put on (the music, the helpful stewards, Gully The Seagull, who was dressed as Santa Claus for the occasion) can
mask the fact that it is a hopelessly inadequate as the football venue for a club with such massive potential. Roll on Falmer.
Wednesday, 05 December 07, 03:31 PM
Just a quickie again, this evening. I've got a lot of reading to do ahead of the World Club Championships. Is it a year already? In memorial of this, I have decided that I
will continue to update this blog at Ole Ole. You can see it here. I may even move the whole thing over
there in time - I haven't decided yet for sure. Meanwhile, over the next few days I'll be bringing you everything you need to know about Sepahan, Waitakere United, Pachuca, Urawa Red Diamonds, Boca
Juniors and AC Milan. It may still be a hopelessly lop-sided tournament, but the World Club Championships is one of the very few places in which you will
see teams play teams competitively that have never before. For that alone, it has value.
Secondly, and as discussed on the comments page on here just last week, the Barwick-O-Tron
3000 is now ready. It's the future of football administration today!
Sunday, 11 February 07, 03:49 AM
The other evening, in the interests of research, I was flicking through some old "Roy Of The Rovers" annuals. In one of them, there was a four page photo-spread called "No-Man's Land", about the winter of the 1981-82 season, when a blanket of snow fell across Britain. What do I remember most vividly about that winter? Well, quite a few matches were called off. More often than not, the featured match on "Match Of The Day" involved Manchester City, because they were the only club with under-soil heating which actually worked. Quite a few matches, however, were played on pitches covered in snow. They just cleared the grass around the lines, dusted down the luminous orange ball, and made them get on with it. I distinctly remember a match played that winter between Nottingham Forest and Birmingham City that was played on a pitch that resembled Captain Scott's base camp at the Antarctic. Forget about dogs on the pitch - it wouldn't have been completely out a place if a penguin had waddled into the penalty area at some point in the second half.
Simliarly, the concept of the "frozen pitch" is a relatively new one. I have on DVD the highlights of a match between Aston Villa and Liverpool from about 1984, which was one of the first live league matches shown in Britain, and was played on a completely flat and completely frozen pitch. Ian Rush scored a magnificent hat-trick - largely because he was the only player on the pitch that had mastered the fact that the ball was bouncing three times as high as normal. I'm almost certainly alone in thinking that players should be sent out, regardless of the conditions. There's no greater joy than a match played on a clearly water-logged pitch. Forget about all the cliches about things being a great leveller - there's only one real leveller, and that's a pitch covered in enormous puddles, that makes players slip and slide around like drunken ballerinas. The look of surprise on a player's face when he kicks the ball into a puddle and it stops moving is an interesting insight into the intellect of the average professional footballer. They should send them out there in snorkels and flippers, and leave them to get on with it. There is a consensus within the modern game that nothing should detract from "the spectacle". Nothing should detract from the homogenised, family-friendly, Sky Sports-approved version of football. You know what I mean. It's the version that you see every single week of the year.
The thing is, though, it's not what we all want. Sometimes, I want something un-photogenic, messy and chaotic. I get as much pleasure from seeing a football falling flat on his arse as I do from seeing a flowing ten pass move finished off with a volley into the top corner. There is this creeping orthodoxy within football, and I don't much like it. I'd like to see a return to the days of frozen, snow covered pitches, with luminous orange balls and players scooting around with their knowledge of how a football reacts to gravity shot to pieces.
Tuesday, 16 January 07, 05:27 PM
It's not often that something that happens on the terraces ever gets discussed on "Match Of The Day" these days, unless it's a fat Geordie without his replica shirt on. These days, fans are little more than consumers - paying extras who turn up, buy merchandise, occasionally sing, and leave five minutes before time in order to avoid the worst of the traffic. However, the eerily quiet atmosphere at The Reebok Stadium did provoke comment from Gary Lineker et al on Saturday evening. The reason for this lack of atmosphere was obvious - Manchester City supporters boycotted the match in protest at being asked to fork out £36 for tickets for their match against Bolton Wanderers.
Although their recent performances on the pitch have been encouraging, there has been an atmosphere of torpor surrounding The City Of Manchester Stadium this year. Crowds have frequently been 10,000 or more below capacity, and disquiet has been rising as the season has gone on. When City played Bolton at Eastlands in December, Bolton's travelling support were charged £27 for tickets, but for the return match, the ticket prices were hiked up again and City fans decided to make a stand against this cost. It was a timely reminder to the Premiership's clubs that they cannot take the regular attendance of people to their expensively constructed temples for granted and that, if they do so, they do so at their peril.
I commented earlier this season on the paltry number of Fulham supporters that made the long trip north to Blackburn at the start of December, and it's easy to see why they didn't bother with the trip. It takes a full day out of your week (at least three hours travel each way), and with tickets now starting to reach nosebleed-inducing levels, is it really worth the effort? The City fans that didn't bother travelling across Manchester didn't exactly miss much. The game itself was a dismal goal-less draw. At some point, something has to give.
Everybody has their own personal horror story to tell. Last season, the last time I went to a Premiership match, I went to see Spurs play West Ham United at White Hart Lane. Someone had dropped out from a group of people that I know, and I didn't have to pay for my ticket, in the giddying upper tier of the West Stand. The price that Spurs wanted for this seat a quarter of a mile up in the sky? A jaw-dropping £70. I made a resolution at that point to not bother with the upper end of English football any more. It's not necessarily that I can't afford it - more that I simply can't justify that sort of expenditure for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon any more.
This isn't merely a problem in the Premiership. With the TV money no longer filtering down through the divisions in the same way as it did in the 1970s and 1980s, clubs outside the Premiership have a stark decision to make if they want to have any chance of staying in touch with the bigger clubs. They can either dig themselves into massive mounds of debt, or they can ratchet up the prices and hope that the die-hards will continue to turn up. When Ken Bates pitched up at Leeds United, the first thing that he did was shove the cheapest ticket prices at Elland Road up to £25. This would be all very well if Leeds were playing well, but their finances are still the subject of considerable intrigue (as demonstrated by the change in ownership of Elland Road to a holding company in the British Virgin Islands - nothing suspicious going on there whatsoever), and their team is dreadful. Crowds there have plummeted to well under 20,000. The good people of Leeds won't waste their hard-earned cash on such dross.
In the rush to earn dollars today, the clubs are potentially storing up problems for themselves in the future. Go to any match, particularly in the Premiership, and you'll see that the crowd has aged. Those between sixteen and twenty-five, in particular, simply can't afford to go any more. When the forty and fifty-somethings that make up the lion's share of the crowds today aren't there any more, the game could have found that it has lost an entire generation of supporters. If you're, say, a nineteen year old earning, say £250 per week, can you seriously afford to splash out £50 every other week for a couple of hours' worth of football on a Saturday afternoon? It kind of strikes me that there are now three "classes" of football supporter: the upper class are the ones that can afford the season ticket, the Sky Sports subscription and the replica shirts. The middle class will go to a handful of matches per season, as a treat, and would like to go more but can't afford to. The lower class have simply been priced out of the market altogether. They can afford the replica shirt because that's a once a year investment of £40, but they are never going to be able to find the money for a Premiership match ticket. They're also considerably more likely to be younger than the other two groups - and if they fall out of the habit of the ritual of football, then the game is potentially heading for a massive fall in a few years or so.
Football supporters are all too often berated for being "disloyal" when they don't turn up, but the game has changed over the last fifteen years or so. There used to be very little excuse for not turning up, when the entrance fee was a couple of pounds and there were plenty of places to stand, but the post-Italia 90 surge in interest in the game, coupled with the The Taylor Report, limited the number of tickets available, and introduction of all-seater stadia allowed the ticket prices to be pushed through the roof. I no longer believe that not turning up is an act of disloyalty. It's an act of resistance - a conscious decision to not allow your loyalty to be taken for granted. It's a point that Manchester City supporters made very simply and very eloquently last weekend, and those that run our football clubs ignore it at their peril.
Wednesday, 10 January 07, 01:30 PM
There aren't many things that transport me back to my childhood more than the fact that FA have reinstated the draw for the FA Cup to its rightful place, on Monday lunchtimes. Of course, times have changed since I was a child. In the days of my youth, the FA Cup draw was treated like some sort of masonic ritual that we could peek at through a metaphorical key-hole. If you weren't lucky enough to hear it live on the radio, you'd have to wait until the evening news on the television or even wait for the following morning's papers to find who'd you'd drawn in the next round. These days, with rolling news channels, the internet and other forms of saturation coverage, the mystique has been lessened slightly, but that's not to say that it doesn't still exist. In offices the length and breadth of the country, designated football geeks will have been assigned by their peers or their bosses to check the draw and report back. The more organised ones will send a group email to everyone that cares. In others, though, hearsay will reign supreme as Chinese whispers sweep the building - "Chelsea have drawn Arsenal, Manchester United and Spurs? How did this happen?".
So, what have the Gods Of The Plastic Tubs And Multi-Coloured Ping Pong Balls granted us this time around? Well... it's not bad, as these things go. The remaining "big three" have all been drawn at home, but two of them have tricky matches, and there are at least a couple of others that at least warrant our further inspection. The two potentially tricky matches are, of course, for Arsenal and Manchester United. Arsenal take on Bolton at Ashburton Grove. Bolton's improvement this season cannot be understated, and the match also provides an opportunity for Nicolas Anelka to return to North London and show Arsene Wenger exactly what he's missing out on. Also... Bolton have beaten Arsenal this season in the Premiership, and dumped Arsenal out of last year's FA Cup. Manchester United's reward for their somewhat fortuitous win against Aston Villa is another home match, this time against Portsmouth. Now, United did brush Pompey aside in the Premiership earlier this season, but Portsmouth are brimming with confidence and, in the likes of David James, Sol Campbell and Kanu, they can hardly be said to be lacking in experienced big game players. It's also worth reminding that Harry Redknapp was in charge of West Ham United when they knocked Manchester United out at Old Trafford in 2001.
The other cup favourites have got off a little more lightly. Chelsea entertain Nottingham Forest, though Forest might fancy their chances of causing a major shock if Chelsea still have no central defenders (though this looks unlikely), especially with Kris Commons, the best attacker in the bottom two divisions, still in sparkling form. Should they get past Cardiff in their replay, Spurs will be at home to Southend or Barnsley. Southend took them to extra-time in the League Cup, but Barnsley are their more likely opponents. The last time that The Tykes went to White Hart Lane in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup was in 1981, but their opponents weren't Spurs, but their once-mighty non-league neighbours, Enfield. More of that story should they end up back there this year. Newcastle have to get past Burnley for the right to play Reading or Burnley, and there's yet another all-Premiership match at Upton Park, where West Ham United play Watford.
The large number of all-Premiership matches means that the Football League will have at least six representatives in the last sixteen. Should Wolves force their way past Oldham Athletic in their replay, they will have a home Black Country derby against West Bromwich Albion. Wolves and West Brom have a particularly intense rivalry - should they get to face each other, it will be one of the ties of the round. Other League clubs looking at the distinct possibility of a place in the last sixteen include Derby County (who I would say should see off Bristol Rovers, were it not for that Rovers knocked Derby out a couple of years ago, while Derby were still a Premiership club), Ipswich, who are likely to face Swansea City, and Crystal Palace or Preston North End, who play each other at Selhurst Park.
Thursday, 04 January 07, 07:07 PM
So, what do we love most about the FA Cup, then? Is it the big matches between Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United? Of course not. You've got the Premiership for that. Is it the occasional meetings of three-quarter strength Premiership clubs? Well, obviously not. What we love about the FA Cup is when lower division clubs stick one over on the bigger boys. It's one long schadenfreude-fest. Every year, someone comes a cropper, and every year it's great. The sight of a big-time full of it Premiership manager eating vast amounts of humble pie after having been dumped on from a great height against a team that we all know that they feel as if they shouldn't have to lower themselves to play in the first place. Here, then, in no particular order, are five of the best. And all of them are from the Third Round.
1. Sutton United 2-1 Coventry City (1989): Of course, not many non-league clubs beat teams from the top division in the FA Cup - still less a team that had won the Cup just two years previously. Having beaten Tottenham at Wembley in 1987, Coventry didn't exactly cover themselves the following year, going out in the Third Round at Fourth Division Northampton Town, but they really excelled themselves in 1989, going out against mid-table Conference opposition at the splendidly named Gander Green Lane, in the heart of South London's commuter belt. In truth, the result came about due to a mixture of a bit of luck and a fairly abysmal Coventry performance. Sutton took an early lead through left-back and captain Tony Rains, but were pegged back through an equalizer from Phillips. A second-half goal from Matthew Hanlan proved to be the winner, though Sutton had to survive a couple of late scares, including clearing the ball off the line twice in the final few minutes. At the final whistle, the cameras descended upon Sutton's bashful, pipe smoking manager Barrie Williams. They lost 8-0 against Norwich in the next round.
2. Hereford United 2-1 Newcastle United (1972): If there was any one match that is more redolent of the grim, desperate days of Britain in the early 1970s, it's this one. For one thing, the random power cuts that hit Britain throughout that window meant that clubs saved energy by playing cup replays on midweek afternoons. Then there's the fashion. The entire crowd of 15,000 all seem to be wearing green snorkel jackets. The match seems to hark back to a somehow more innocent era. The pitch invasions after each Hereford goal and at the end of the match were at least in part due to a crowd that was separated from the pitch by a length of white rope. Hereford were, at the time, in the Southern League. Newcastle were in the First Division. The match seemed over early on when Newcastle's star striker Malcolm McDonald headed them in front. Then came that goal. Hereford's player-coach Ronnie Radford's thirty-five yard drive into the top corner not only brought Hereford level, but also the crowd onto the pitch. Five minutes later, a defensive slip allowed Ricky George to scuff the winner in. In the next round, they took West Ham to a replay before losing and, at the end of the season, were rewarded with a place in the Football League.
3. Wrexham 2-1 Arsenal (1992): This wasn't any old fourth division vs first division encounter. Wrexham had finished the previous season bottom of the entire Football League (and had been spared relegation by the resignation of Aldershot), whilst Arsenal were the defending First Division champions. The parallels with the Hereford-Newcastle match were striking. Arsenal also took the lead (through Alan Smith), but failed to capitalise on a string of chances to make the game safe. With ten minutes to go, and out of nowhere, Wrexham's veteran midfielder Mickey Thomas (most famous otherwise for getting stabbed in the backside when caught in flagrante with another man's wife and getting imprisoned for handling counterfeit money) drove a free-kick into the top corner from twenty-five yards out. Barely two minutes later Steve Watkin slipped the ball past David Seaman to win it for Wrexham. Also, like Hereford, Wrexham drew West Ham in the next round and took them to a replay before losing. Spooky.
4. Shrewsbury Town 2-1 Everton (2003): Shrewsbury of the Third Division against Everton of the Premiership. A straightforward for the team looking for a place in the UEFA Cup, yes? Well... no. Five minutes before half-time, another veteran journeyman, former Nottingham Forest star Nigel Jemson, curled a twenty-five yard free kick past Nigel Jemson to give Shrewsbury the lead. On a heavy pitch and in unfamiliar surroundings, Everton were clearly struggling, but drew level through Niklas Alexandersson on the hour - just a couple of minutes after Shrewsbury had been denied a clear penalty. The match seemed to be heading aimlessly towards a replay at Goodison Park until the dying seconds, when Jemson struck again, heading in a free kick from another elderly ex-Forest stalwart, Ian Woan. Shrewsbury received another "dream" draw in the next round, at home against Chelsea. Here their luck, ran out, though, and Chelsea won 4-0. In the long term, the result didn't do them any good at all. The Shrews couldn't pick up their league form accordingly, and were relegated into the Conference in bottom place at the end of the season.
5. Burnley 0-1 Wimbledon (1975): This is, I guess, the "forgotten" major shock - partly, I guess, because the match wasn't covered by either of the two big TV networks, and because these were the days before all matches were recorded for posterity. Burnley were half-way up the First Division, and Wimbledon were in the Southern League (a top semi-professional league, these being the days before the Conference came into being). The only goal came early in the second half, when Ian Stevenson's shot was parried by the Burnley goalkeeper into the path of Mick Mahon, who couldn't miss from close range. The true hero for Wimbledon, though, was goalkeeper Dickie Guy, who single-handedly denied Burnley an equalizer. He repeated the trick in the next round away to the champions Leeds United, when he saved a penalty from Peter Lorimer to force a replay. Leeds won the second match thanks to an own goal from Dave Bassett, who would be the manager to mastermind their rise through the Football League after their election in 1978. By 1988, The Dons were at Wembley for the Cup Final, beating Liverpool 1-0.
And another five from the archives...
6. West Bromwich Albion (Div 2) 2-4 Woking (Isthmian League) - 1991
7. Birmingham City (Div 1) 1-2 Altrincham (Conference) - 1986
8. Bristol Rovers (Div 2) 4-0 Manchester United (Div 1) - 1956
9. Aldershot (Div 4) 3-0 Oxford United (Div 1) - 1987
10. Leeds United (Div 1) 0-1 Crystal Palace (Div 3) - 1976
Now... who's going to cause an upset this weekend?
Sunday, 31 December 06, 07:10 AM
After the last round of Champions League group matches, there was considerable excitement at the fact that all five British clubs had qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League. It was, said much of the press, proof of the strength of the Premiership, and was almost certain, at some point, to set up a "mouth-watering" all-British knock-out tie. Speaking as a supporter of none of these five clubs, I would beg to differ.
This has been a weird season for European football, and it almost feels as if the game on this continent is going through something like a transitional phase. In Italy, Serie A is still rocking at its foundations as the fall-out from last summer's corruption scandal. Juventus, of course, aren't involved, and Milan have been struggling in the league. Britain and Italy take up no fewer than eight of the sixteen places in the last sixteen, but Roma, Inter and Milan don't seem to have the pulling power that they used to have to draw in the big names. Five further clubs come from Spain and France. Barcelona, of course, we know all about, but Real Madrid appear in some sort of turmoil (as ever), and Valencia have had a tough time of it so far, and lie in fifth place in La Liga. From the French contingent, Lyon have been the team of the tournament so far, but it's tempting to think that they might even have peaked too soon, and Lille can probably be dismissed as also-rans. The same can probably be said for Holland's PSV and Portugal's Porto. All of which leaves Bayern Munich, who are below par in the Bundesliga at the moment.
What irritates me to the point of distraction is the attitude of the press in this country, particularly the television broadcasters ITV, who seem to expect us to support the English clubs (and Celtic) because they're from England. Let me make it clear right now that I have no interest in Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool, and that I would prefer it if this self-perpetuating English elite all went out in the next round. It's unlikely, though. Liverpool will struggle against Barcelona (a shame, since if I had to choose, they'd be the team of the English sides that I'd want to win), and Celtic will have their work cut out against Milan, but we can certainly expect United, Chelsea and Arsenal to be in the last eight, playing out their increasingly tenuous mind games before a rapidly wearying public. Personally, I'll be lending my support to Lille.
Friday, 29 December 06, 05:51 PM
1. Celtic vs Rangers - The Glasgow rivalry suits both Rangers and Celtic, but this is one of the fiercest local rivalries. As long ago as 1909, the Scottish Cup Final was abandoned because of repeated pitch invasions by supporters of both teams with battles being fought upon the pitch. Things have mellowed slightly over the last ten years or so, but The Auld Firm matches haven't even been dissipated in their passion and bile by the fact that the two teams meet four times per season in the league, as well as regularly in the two Scottish cup competitions. Socio-political feelings (some of a particularly nasty type) also underpin this fixture, but the main rage seems to be reserved for on the pitch, these days.
2. Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal - When football resumed at the end of the First World War in 1919, Arsenal chairman Henry Norris talked the Football League into voting The Gunners into the First Division at the expense of... their North London rivals, Spurs. They're the only team never to have been relegated from English football's top flight since. The atmosphere at a North London Derby remains one of the most poisonous in English football, and this hasn't been helped by Arsenal's rise into the Champions League elite whilst Spurs have consistently under-achieved for almost twenty years. Spurs fans like to think back to beating Arsenal in the first ever Wembley FA Cup semi-final in 1991. For Arsenal fans, it doesn't get much better than their 5-0 win at White Hart Lane in 1979.
3. Portsmouth vs Southampton - Two relatively benign clubs from the south coast of England, whose hatred of each other seems to know no bounds. Folklore has it that the intensity of the rivalry goes back to the nineteenth century, when dockers were bussed in from Southampton to break a strike on Portsmouth docks. Pompey folk will even tell you that the word "scum" is an acronym for "Southampton Company Union Men", though that's not true. Even now, the two towns tend to be something of a no-go area on match days.
4. Swansea City vs Cardiff City - The fortunes of Wales' two top teams have ebbed and flowed over the last thirty years or so to such an extent that these two teams very seldom meet, which must be something of a relief for South Wales Police, if no-one else. Matches between these two sides have frequently been marred by crowd disturbances, and there is even a story (possibly apocryphal) of a pre-match sky-diver at The Vetch Field who was blown into the Cardiff fans' end and received, well, not the best of welcomes from the visiting supporters.
5. Manchester City vs Manchester United - Don't pay too much heed of the story of Denis Law back-heeling United into the Second Division in 1973. It's not strictly true. The former United legend had gone to Maine Road from Old Trafford the previous summer, and he did back-heel a goal on the last day of the season with United staring relegation in the face, but it wasn't the goal that relegated United - results elsewhere had already rendered the result of that particular Manchester derby meaningless. United, of course, almost always get the better of City in these matches, but occasionally City put one over their considerably bigger rivals. In 2004, they beat United 4-1 at The City Of Manchester Stadium, and in 1989 beat them 5-1 at Maine Road.
6. Everton vs Liverpool - Of course, some people in England may try to tell you that the Merseyside Derby is the "friendly" derby, but the truth is more complex. Liverpool FC were only formed when Anfield fell empty after the rent there was put out of Everton's reach in 1892. The height of the rivalry came in the mid-to-late 1980s, when the two teams competed two FA Cup Finals, including an emotion-filled day at Wembley in 1989, shortly after the Hillsborough disaster had killed 96 Liverpool fans. Everton's record in these matches has improved dramatically in recent years. When they beat Liverpool 1-0 at Goodison Park in 1979, it was was their first victory over Liverpool in any competition in 9 years.
7. Brighton & Hove Albion vs Crystal Palace - At first glance, it may seem strange that one of English football's fiercest rivalries is between two teams 60 miles apart, one of which is one south coast, whilst the other is in South London. However, the roots of the Albion-Palace enmity go back to a number of successively more and more bad tempered between the two clubs in the mid to late 1970s, which culminated in Palace snatching the Second Division (now "The Championship") title away from Albion on the last day of the 1978-79 season. The rivalry exists to this day, though if you ask the majority of supporters of either club how it came about, it's doubtful that many of them would be able to remember.
8. Blackburn Rovers vs Burnley - These two Lancashire clubs have only been in the same division for one season since Blackburn were promoted into the inaugural Premier League in the summer of 1992, but the two former powerhouses have a lot of history. There used to be a tradition of carrying a coffin painted in the colours of either of the clubs if they were ever relegated, and when Burnley blew a chance of promotion from Division Four in the 1980s, a Blackburn supporter hired a plane and flew it over Burnley's Turf Moor on the last day of the season with a banner saying "STAYING DOWN 4 EVER, LOVE ROVERS" trailing from it.
9. West Ham United vs Millwall - It's a simple matter of geography for these two teams from East London, though West Ham are clearly the bigger club. Both sets of supporters have, at various points, been known to have a bad reputation, and it's commonplace nowadays for away fans to be banned from their (admittedly rare) meetings in the League. There are currently two divisions between them, though this gap could narrow of West Ham continue their current antics (though Millwall are doing a pretty good good job of trying to keep this gap open, as they are currently struggling to hold onto their place in League Two, just three years after reaching the FA Cup Final).
10. Newcastle United vs Sunderland - The first reported abandonment of an English football match due to crowd trouble was at a North East derby match at the turn of the century between these two clubs. As with many of the above rivalries, the local "bragging rights" have become more and more important as the two sides have continued to under-achieve. Newcastle haven't won a major trophy since the 1969 Fairs Cup (the predecessor to the UEFA Cup - and, no, I'm not including the Intertoto Cup as a major trophy!), whilst Sunderland haven't managed anything since their surprise FA Cup final win over Leeds United in 1973). Newcastle may be a division above Sunderland at the moment, and are having to make do with Middlesbrough for League rivalry at the moment, but ask them who they really dislike, and there's only one team in it.
Tuesday, 12 December 06, 04:20 AM
Good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone. I was considering writing a full preview of today's match between Club America and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, but then it occurred to me that it will be kicking off by the time I've finished writing it, so I've take an executive decision to jettison that plan.
Sitting here in the Media Centre at The Olympic Stadium in Tokyo (which looks like nothing so much as a bigger model of the gymnasium at the school which I went to), I am struck by the considerably greater number of journalists here this evening than there were in Toyota City last night. Now, Toyota City is an absolute devil to get to, and it has to be said that they didn't miss the match of the tournament, but I was surprised to see quite so many empty seats at the Toyota Stadium last night. It doesn't look as if we're going to see the same thing happening again tonight, though. The presence of big hitters like Branco and Claudio Lopez has seen to that.
I was up until three o'clock this morning, watching Arsenal and Chelsea battle out a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. It was nice to see Jens Lehmann and Didier Drogba auditioning for their places as pantomime villains in time for this Christmas, but I rather think that most of these casting decisions have already been made for this year, at least. What is interesting is the difference in cultures between football at home and football out here. Out here, it's all about friendship, in that almost-slightly-nauseating "hands across the ocean" way FIFA talks about things. I rather think that the supporters are supposed to leave the stadia after the match arm-in-arm, exchanging scarves and forging new friendships. At home, it's amusing to see the spit and bile that was accompanying the match played yesterday afternoon. From Alexander Hleb clattering into Ashley Cole in the first minute to Lehmann and Drogba pretending to have been knocked about by each other, there was no "togetherness in the name of football" on display at the Bridge yesterday.
It becomes difficult to take any of it seriously. Regardless of whatever Arsene and Jose were whining about after the match (and the good thing about watching matches that finish at three in the morning is that you don't have to sit through any of that guff afterwards), a point each did neither of them any favours. The only winners last weekend were the improbably unbeatable Manchester United. Meanwhile, out here in Japan, there is a bit of a buzz in the air this evening. It feels like, after something of a preliminary last night, there could be a real match on here tonight. I'll be back later to let you know, in my usual illiterate and rambling way, roughly what happened. In the mean-time, I'm off for a wander around outside the ground to see if i can find anything interesting to take photos of.
On The Top Ten British Rivalries