Whose Money are we losing?

03/09/2008 by leo.

We had a post on our club forum, asking whether or not our fans would appreciate it if the club was taken over, and if we could achieve promotion thanks to the input of one or more directors. The question was supposed to be hypothetical, but I wondered if it was really hypocritical. The fact is that few clubs in the lower division are even coming close to running on an even keel, and at my club (Cheltenham Town), we rely on a regular input from two of our directors to offset the losses we post on an annual basis. Furthermore, Cheltenham won promotion in 1997 (from the Southern League), 1999 (into the Football League), 2002 and 2006 (both times from what is now League-2 to League-1) with only one relegation in the period. This has not been achieved purely thanks to good managers and players, but also thanks to directors dipping into their pockets when the requirement was there.
It is to the club’s good fortune that all this investment has since been turned into equity, and the directors will not be getting a return on their investment unless the share price was to increase. They cannot even leave the club and demand their loans to be returned – their only rights being to whatever they can get by selling their shares.

Many other clubs survive on their director’s pots of money, but these are still booked as loans to the clubs. At the top end, this means that Chelsea FC owes over £500 million to Mr Abramovich. Abramovich may have put far more than this into the club, but the figures show that nothing will move at Chelsea, without the express consent of the chairman. Unlike the rest of the ‘big four’ Chelsea are still returning year on year losses as well.

Looking at the news over the last couple of days, Newcastle and Manchester City have been highlighted. Newcastle changed hands a short while back, with Mike Ashley having to spend over £130 million to buy the shares. It appears to be a high price to pay, as the publicly available records showed that in the previous two seasons, on income of around £80 million per annum, the losses had totalled over £40 million. Later newspaper reports said Ashley had to pay another £75 million to pay off debts (and provide a little money for the purchase of new players). I would expect this to be noted as a loan to the company in future accounts. With Ashley’s major business, Sports Direct showing reduced profits over the summer, and the shares dropping 10%, it is not surprising that the club has been a little slow into the transfer market this summer, and that Milner was sold over the head of Keegan. Keegan, whose position is still unclear at the club (if not exactly tenable), should have known that with the club having an Executive Director (Football), a Vice President (Player recruitment) and a Technical co-ordinator all somewhere above him on the player buying and selling programme, his job was more a head coach, than overall manager.

Manchester City has changed hands twice in little over a year. The first buyer was former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra valuing the club at £81.6 million. Not bad for a club that had an £11 million lost to post for the 2006-7 season, and much higher accumulated debts. The buyout was controversial from the start, Shinawarta had to rely on those assets he had outside Thailand, as Thai courts had frozen some £830 million he held within the country, pending corruption trials. Despite the fact that his supporters have won the general election that returned Thailand to democracy, the trial will go on, (even in Shinawarta does not turn up). The club spent over £30 million on transfers in Shinawatra’s years, and paid the less than negligible wage bill of Sven Goran Erikson (including the inevitable pay off to remove him when the club only reached the UEFA Cup thanks to England finishing top of the fare play table). Shinawatra’s investment suddenly looks like a good investment, as he manage to sell the club for around £200 million to Abu Dhabi United group last weekend. The new owners splashed out another £32 million within 24 days to sign Robinho from Real Madrid (and more significantly, from underneath Chelsea’s nose). They also tried to hijack Berbotov’s move to Manchester United from Spurs.

This move appears to me to appear to be a piece of one-upmanship in the rivalry between the two oil rich gulf emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Dubai, through its investment arm, Dubai International Capital has been trying to buy Liverpool FC, so with this bid floundering, Abu Dhabi have gone and got a club for themselves. (Apart from football, both cities compete with massive construction projects in their cities, their own international airlines and airports; Dubai also owned Tussards for two years, profiting by £200 million on the sale, and retaining 20%, and owns Travelodge – the biggest hotel chain in the UK; Abu Dhabi has been buying extensively in the London property market, taking advantage of current low prices).

Investment funds like Abu Dhabi United (part of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority - ADIA) are state run operations, original set on a cause of low risk (but therefore low return) investments. Manchester City football club sits uneasily in such a portfolio, but ADIA has assets of US$ 875 billion – approximately US$ 1 million per citizen of the Emirate, so they can probably afford the hit.
While many buy outs of football clubs seem more to do with prestige than business, the highest profile of them all, the American buy out of Manchester United appears to be a hard headed business plan, which is so far paying off. Despite the two or three thousand disenchanted fans watching FC United, Old Trafford has not yet gone empty, and the company has been making the profits required to finance the debt leveraged for the original buy out. If the world wide fan clubs of Manchester United could group together to raise the finance, then there are few clubs that are better positioned to operate as a true, supporters run co-operative under Football trust ideals.

Most of those clubs that have tried a fans trust based ownership method have not been successful, as despite the good will that attends the start ups (normally from the ruins of a failing club), trusts are not a good method of pulling in finance to support a loss making enterprise, and even part ownership does not persuade fans to come week in, week out to watch a relegation bound club. The most successful (maybe the only successful) trust run clubs are those where the supporter base is still so far above their league rivals as to give them an income edge, (AFC Wimbledon still fits into this category – their crowds took an annual hit every season after formation until last season).

At lower levels, the arrival of a businessman with money has often resulted in a brief flare as a club climbs the pyramid, followed by the even more sudden decline when the money runs out. Non-League football is littered with the ruins of temporary success – Rushden and Diamonds, Canvey Island, and Hornchurch being some of the most obvious. Rushden were in fact one of the best of these, with Max Griggs’ club climbing to what is now League-1 before the cash ran out. Despite the owner trying his best to gift the club with everything they needed to be self sustaining, they had not built a level of support that matched the owners’ ambition, and dropped back to the Conference in quick time. They have survived better than the others, and have not been forced into administration, or re-named. There are far worse owners that can befall a club, than Mr Griggs at Rushden. If you do not believe me – look no further than Oxford.

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Confused? - it must be Austria!

26/07/2008 by leo.

The European Tournament has come and gone, giving a fleeting glimpse of full stadia to Austria, but all too soon, the domestic season restarts, and the confused world of Austrian football is there for all to see – except of course not many people are looking.

The Austrian Bundesliga has two divisions, of ten and twelve teams. There is only one promotion and relegation place. However, the lower division (which of course, in common with so many is the Erste Liga – First League) relegates three teams each season – allowing the champions of each of the three regional leagues to gain promotion. This has only been the case for four seasons; prior to which a play-off system meant either one or two new teams would appear each season. The lower division used to have only ten teams, the same as the top league, but it was extended to 12 in 2006.

There is now a move to try to change the system again, and place a restriction on the number of sides promoted from the Regional leagues. Statistically, there must be a case. Nine teams have been promoted 2005-7, while only 5 have been relegated in 2006-8, (thanks to an increase in the numbers in 2006, and two clubs losing their license to bankruptcy in 2007). Of the nine promoted clubs, three were relegated in one season, while one lasted two years (they would have been relegated first time out, but were reprieved by the clubs losing licences). In other words, only one club with a history of more than two seasons in the league have been relegated in the last three years. Co-incidentally, no club has risen to, and then dropped out of the top division in that time.

To confuse matters further, two of the nine clubs have sold their license this summer, so only three of my nine promoted clubs are still running in their original form in the Erste Liga, (and two of those are reserve teams!). Naturally the Regional leagues do not want a further change, and wish to keep their direct promotions, but in order to make a good argument, they need the promoted clubs to start looking like they deserve their promotion, and can keep both their status and identity. The trio for 2008 look like as good a bet as any. St. Pölten won the Eastern Regional league. This is a team with plenty of history who competed in the top division in the 1980s and early 90s. Vöcklabruck, which was part of my European tour in May, won the Central Regional League. Their facilities are more than adequate, and were frequently getting good crowds at the end of last season.

So than leaves SV Grödig, champions of the Western Regional League. Grödig is just a few km outside Salzburg, and looks the part – an attractive but generally quiet place to live, with the city not far distant. The football club is on the edge of the town, and until last season had few facilities at all. During the summer a new stand has suddenly been raised, giving the club 252 seats – but the rest of the surrounds is merely flat standing. The stand faces south, which is unusual and with matches in this division generally taking place on Friday evening, the sun will glare into the faces of the spectators at the start and end of season. This is compensated for by the mountain views, which makes the whole place a delight.
The visitors for the second home game of the season have styled themselves as FC Trenkwalder Admira. They are the embodiment of a lot of outsiders complaints about football in Austria. They appear to be the plaything of businessman Richard Trenkwalder, whose main business in a personal and recruitment agency. A year ago, SC Schwadorf, from a small club 25km south of Vienna won the East Regional League and a place in the Erste Liga. In Austria, where football is completely dependent on sponsorship money, he who pays the piper gets to call all the tunes, so once in the league, the club name became SKS Trenkwalder, letting the country know whose money was holding the club in place.

Meanwhile, in the regional league, sat the complicated name of FC Admira/Wacker Mödling. Admira, with 8 titles are the fourth most successful club in Austria after the two big Vienna clubs (Austria and Rapid), and Wacker Tirol Innsbruck (under several variations of the names). They merge in the early 70s with Wacker, another Viennese club and champions of 1947. Playing at the Sudstadt stadion, in the southern suburbs of Vienna, they also absorbed second division Mödling in 1997. They were relegated to the Erste Liga in 2006, and were refused a license at the end of 2007, (when with 33 points, they might have just escaped relegated thanks to GAK of Graz also being refused a license). That of course meant that Schwadorf had replaced them in the league.

In the first half of last season, it became apparent that while Trenkwalder may have raised a team into the professional league, it did not come with instant support, and so during the winter break, he arranged a swop. For the second half of the season, SKS Trenkwalder played at Sudstadt, while Admira/Wacker Mödling switched to play in Schwadorf. SKS avoided relegation by one point, while Admira were a mid-table team. This season, he takes it one step further, and has basically merged the clubs – with the Erste Liga team now known as FC Trenkwalder Admira, and the regional league team, FC Trenkwalder Admira Amateur (Amateur being the tradition way of ending the name of a second or reserve team in Austria or Germany, assuming the first team is professional). There is no mention of Schwadorf at all, and anyone watching football there this season will see only real amateur football some three divisions lower down the pyramid.

Getting back to Grödig, some 700 people and I saw an entertaining game. The home side played with a 4-4-2 formation, although on midfielder held back to shield the defence. The visitors were in 5-4-1, which looks defensive, but does allow the wingers to roam with no defensive duty, and did threaten the home defence on many occasions. Grödig won 2-1, both goals coming from penalties and scored by their Brazilian striker Diego Viana, (who led the regional league charts with 33 last season). Viana has scored four of Grödig’s five goals in the opening games this season. The home defence looked uncertain on many occasions, and Admira had hit the post, and sent a few shots wide before Christoph Mattes levelled the first penalty a little before half time. Grödig just about deserved the win – they have now won both home games, but lost their only away one this season. However, it is too early to say that their entry into the league will be a success.

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Starting with the Finnish

24/07/2008 by leo.

As summer reaches its height, the international tournaments have come to an end and the more fanatical football fan is already looking forward to the new season. Some glory in the morass of friendly matches available – from the beginning of July, there are always a good selection of matches, with some grounds that are not normally available, and some mighty mismatches presenting hats full of goals. Others complain that these matches, which are really nothing more than public training sessions get lost in substitutions, or even that programmes are not issued.

Frankly, I am not one for the friendly match, and even when they are accessible, I tend to see only a couple involving my own team. A couple of well established pre-season tournaments help to bring me gently into the new season, but it is the overseas voyages that really start the season off. In Europe, the leagues of Scandinavia and the former Soviet Union tend to play through the summer (and Ireland as well). The lengthy efforts to pare down the European competitions before the big teams enter also starts in Mid-July.

Thanks to the efforts of Ryanair, I arrive in Tampere, Finland around 10.30 at night. It is still daylight, although the sun will set soon, returning after less than five hours below the horizon. The first question on my mind is why Finland feels it needs to have Daylight Saving Time? I get a simpler answer to the next question – where is the bus to Helsinki?, so I board and head to the capital.

Its 1.30 in the morning when I get off the bus, by the city is still very lively, and when I reach my hotel, there is loud music in the front bar. This will go on until after 3, so I am not about to get one of my better night’s sleep. Come the morning, I have some free time to look around the city centre. It is an easy, comfortable place to walk around, but I am not overwhelmed by local architecture. The big white cathedral in Senate square seems to be over the top, a laughable oversized reminiscence of the Sacre Coeur. By comparison, the older orthodox Uspenski Cathedral likes much more within the scale of the city. The Uspenski is on a mound above a docks area, and it appears the city has been growing away from it – certainly, the ultra modern shopping buildings are well away, past the railway station.

One thing Helsinki is not short of is coffee. It appears that every second shop in the commercial areas is a coffee shop, and what is more, all have a fair number of customers. It seems unlikely though that the citizens of Helsinki will ever get the caffeine jitters and start a riot – this seems to be as laid back a city as I have been too. As well as the nice “girls in their summer clothes” brightening up the pavements, one can also view various extremes of fashion, punk, goth and the like – and the population just ignores it all and gets on with their own business. Naturally, fat middle-aged Englishmen are also ignored by all and sundry as well. I passed one crowded street during my brief exploration of the city, making me wonder what the fuss was about – as it happened, sometime in the next hour or so, Bruce Springsteen was expected to step out of the hotel door, and get into a car to be driven away. Now I certainly cannot sing like Springsteen, but I can manage the walk from hotel to car as well as anyone.
In Finland, Saturday afternoon is not normally football time – but while most fixtures were the following day, there are always some, normally lower down the pyramid to see. The top division in Finland is the Veikkausliga – the name is that of the state gambling organisation. The next divisions down are the Ykkonen and Kakkonen which are First and Second – so the Veikkausliga is by default, Premier League – although the term is never used in Finland (except for the English League, of course). The Veikkausliga and Ykkonen are national leagues, whereas the Kakkonen is divided into three regional groups.

I chose the match at IF Gnistan, whose ground, now known as the Fair Pay Areena is situated in the Helsinki suburbs, just ten minutes by train from the centre. The spelling of Areena with two ‘e’s is correct, whereas the name Fair Pay (and not as I originally thought Fair Play) comes from sponsorship from a local financial company, which has also stolen the yellow card symbol used in the FIFA campaign. Just to confuse matters, the ground has not one but two other names – it is either the Oulunkyän Liikuntapuisto or the Åggleby Idrottspark. This is because most public signs are shown in both Finnish and Swedish. Finnish being the language that looks as if all the letters have been mixed up and then squeezed out through a mincer to create incredible long unpronounceable that even the German’s would not be proud of. The letters IF at the start of the home club name suggest that it was started by Swedish speakers, but the matchday programme was in Finnish. The programme was free with the admission charge of €5.

It is an athletics track with an artificial surface football pitch in the middle. On one side there is a steep slope, and about 10 rows of wooden seats mounted on a steel frame. Some of the wood has come away and some steps sway when stepped on. I cannot imagine a safety certificate being available! No other facilities were inside the ground, with dressing rooms and the only toilets I could find being in another building, over 100 metres away. Entrance was at the top of the slope, and there is a wide tarmac path above the seats. A small tent shades a refreshment area. Fried sausages were available, but knowing that the Germans (surely the world’s experts on Sausages) consider a Finnish sausage to be little more than a vegetable, I stuck with the local favourite, coffee and a doughnut, for €2.

A top of the table match, visitors Warkaus started the day in pole position, Gnistan one point (but two places) behind - the season is just approaching the half way stage, with only one promotion place available. Gnistan took the lead in the first half, but were pegged back soon after the break when a not too clever back header from a corner resulted in an own goal. Warkaus then took command, and deservedly went ahead with under 10 minutes to go. The equaliser, in the third minute of extra time, came as a bit of a surprise as I could not see Gnistan getting back into the game. The draw meant that Warkaus gave up the leadership of the league, and results since my visit have not gone their way, with Klubi-04 (actually a reserve side connected to top division HJK) now six points ahead, Warkaus down in sixth place, while Gnistan are still third (but now five points off the top).

About 120 people on the benches. About a dozen further fans on the far side, generally shirtless and drunk, and shouting and chanting for the team (on the benches, polite applause was the norm). They were in fact watching the game from outside the fence, as beer is not permitted inside – an odd rule that appears to apply to the minor divisions, but not at the top level. I saw beer being drunk at both Veikkausliga matches I was to see.

On Sunday, I visited the Olympic stadium complex. Its impressive late art-deco tower affords fine views over the city. The football pitch is used by Finland’s international team, and also if HJK play in Europe. The stadium was built in the late 1930s, completed by 1938, and would have held the 1940 Olympic games. With the war intervening, it instead took its turn in 1952. It was of course at the stadium that Bruce Springsteen had been playing on the Friday night.
The stadium is surrounded by park land and other sports facilities – most notably the ice sports Arena just to the north, (Ice Hockey being the most popular spectator sport in the country). To the west, the Töölön Pallokenttä was a series of football pitches with degrees of concrete seating along the sides. (Töölö being the district of Helsinki, an easy 30 minute walk from the centre). However, at the turn of the Millennium, part of this was replaced by a very modern stadium, known as the Finnair Stadium.

There are two pitches left of the Pallokenttä, each with about 30 steps of concrete, covered with wooden bench seats on the East side, and a ten foot wall on the other side, as the grass pitches are well below the level of the adjoining road. The more northerly pitch which has seating for its full length is used by Kakkonen club HIFK. At the junction of the pitches, some of the terracing is cut away to give a joint cafe area, while immediately to the North of these is the Finnair Stadium. HIFK now head outside the stadium and use dressing rooms at the new stadium.
HIFK stands for Helsingfors Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna - which is a Swedish name. Talking to some of the home fans, it appears they would have difficulty in spelling the name, let alone translating it. Idrottsföreningen translates as sports association, which is appropriate as this is a multi sport club. Translating Kamraterna is apparently more difficult, as they say it is means more than a club - perhaps a group of friends or comrades. When it started, most of the support would have spoken Swedish. The support generally refer to the club as “Eee-Eff-Koh” which is a close as I can get to the Finnish pronunciation of the letters IFK, as chanted. When they named the town, which was not often, they said Helsinki, not Helsingfors (the Swedish variation). HIFK are said to be the only ‘sleeping giant’ in Finnish football – while there was only around 200 people at the game, including a hard core who chanted through the game – because this is just part of a major sports club, there is a latent fan base that could return if they were to be promoted. The club has been champion of Finland on seven occasions, but the last of these was in 1961.
The visitors, Rakuunat from Lappeenranta, only 30 km from the Russian border, a fact that is borne out by the players names, many of which have a Russian feel. Relegated from the Ykkonen league (first divsion, second level) in 2006, they look likely to suffer another drop this season. As a further sign that the club has problems, they could only name a single substitute. Although Rakuunat tried hard to make an impression, especially early in the game, it came as no surprise that eventually, it was an easy home win, 4-0.

Since the trip, Rakuunat have stayed in bottom place, while HIFK have drawn with Warkaus, and beaten Gnisten to stay in touch with the leaders.

And so, after the match, just the short walk into the Finnair stadium to see HJK take on FC Haka in a Veikkausliga match. The Finnair stadium has an artificial surface, and long curved roofs rather high above the seating. The roof on the west side extends beyond the end of the stadium, rather reminiscent of the graceful, but useless structures built in South Korea for the World Cup. Talking to a journalist later in the week, this opinion was confirmed – the roofing of the Finnair being rather unhelpful in poor weather.

HJK is a Finnish name, Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi meaning the Football club of Helsinki. FC Haka are from Valkeakoski, about 150 km north of Helsinki, they have won the title 9 times, most recently 2004, and were runners-up 2007. HJK are the record holders with 21 titles, but none since 2003 – but only finished 7th last season.
HJK were rather surprised by Haka – the first club I have seen in Finland that tried to build from a defensive position, and fielding a 4-1-4-1 formation. HJK had never looked like conceding a goal up until they scored just after the half hour – but almost immediately a right wing cross was met on the far post and the scores were level. HJK dominated the second half, but I do not think they got a single shot worthy of the name on target – they were all but smothered by the visiting defence, and this caused them to forget the wingers and play direct long balls, which only helped their opponents. The winning goal, scored after 61 minutes came because Haka were persistent when breaking forward – holding the ball and making short passes until HJK were caught out of position, and a shot could be curled in from the edge of the area. HJK could have gone top by beating Haka (at least because the two teams above them were playing on Monday), and have since won away and are back in third place. Haka have since drawn at home, and are down in sixth place, two points behind HJK.

I paid €5 for admission at HIFK, and €25 for HJK, although in the second case, I could have found cheaper tickets. Both clubs issued free programmes. HIFK, like Gnisten the day before was a photocopied four page A5 programme, while HJK was a glossy programme.

So Monday saw me leave Helsinki, taking the train 200 km west to Turku, the city was busy enough, but it was a damp grey day, and I did little exploring. The stadium surprised me by being further out of town than it appeared from the map. Anyone trying it from the railway station should allow at least an hour.

The Veritas stadium (named after an insurance group) is two sided with no facilities at all behind either goal. The south stand is quite old, single tier along the full length of the side, constructed from concrete with steel supports, so there are pillars blocking the view from the back few rows. The North stand is very new, the lower tier being seats, and with a row of business boxes at the top of this tier and an upper tier exclusively of business seats and executive boxes. The crowd for a top of the table match was just short of 3000. (Yesterday at HJK, the crowd was 5324). MyPa 47 were the visitors and started the weekend in second place (and would have gone top with a win). MyPa is pronounced Moo Pa, when chanted by about 20 visiting fans.
Inter Turku is currently top of the Finish League, but is not the most popular club in the country - in fact it is not the most popular club in the city! It shares the Veritas stadium with the city’s other club, TPS.

Inter were founded by Stefan Hakans, the managing director of a salvage and waste company. Hakans has funded the club throughout its 18 years of history. The story is the club started as a youth team because Hakan’s 11 year old son could not get a game for any other club in the city. A senior side was started in 1992, and by buying out another club, they arrived at the third level in 1993. Promoted to the second level in 1995, and the top level in 1997 - they spent 1998 in the lower division but I think have been top level since.

Playing in Blue and Black stripes, the club appears to be doing homage to Inter Milan. Incidentally, the full name is International Turku. The Milan and Inter Bratislava clubs are also short for International (allowing for different languages), but if any one remembers the short lived Inter Cardiff club – that was just Inter.
Admission was 10 Euro, (8 Euro in the old stand). Programmes were once again free.
The game was quite dull, Inter took the lead on 63 minutes with a fluke - a long free kick was punched out by the goalkeeper, and it hit the head of the Inter centre half and rebounded into the net. The scorer stood still, rather stunned by his luck. MyPa equalised two minutes later.

For Inter, it was the fifth successive draw of a still unbeaten league season. They have since returned to winning and stay top. Inter have never finished higher than 4th place, so their owner is clearly hopeful that this will be their year. MyPa won the title in 2005, and with a win since my visit, (over the champions, Tampere United), they are a testament to the ability of a small town team to do well, if sufficient local sponsorship can be found.

Another train ride on the Tuesday, and I am back where I started, Tampere – although I now have time to stroll through this very pleasant town on a Sunny afternoon. It is an extraordinarily mixed town, with a waterway passing through the centre, and mills (somehow not as dark or satanic as those in the north of England) are almost alongside the shops (and of course, the coffee bars). From the centre square, a couple of hundred yards takes you to a quayside, and you can then see the stadium across the water.

The Ratinan stadium is all seated, built up around the track, with cover only over the main side – tickets for the Champions League game were available at €20 and €25, and they had to put special signs on the ticket windows to remind people that there was a charge for the programme €1. This is the biggest league ground in the country, but a crowd of just over 5000 meant more than 10,000 empty seats. A small group of fans from Montenegro gathered to the right hand side of the covered stand. Buducnost Podgorica are the second team from an independent league to represent Montenegro in the Champions League. After the first season of competition, Buducnost finished runners up to Zeta, and followed this with UEFA Cup defeat to Croatians, Hajduk Split. (Zeta, who were runners-up last year, beat Kaunas of Lithuania, and then lost to Rangers in the Champions League). Buducnost have once played in Europe as a representative of Serbia and Montenegro, but this was in the Intertoto Cup. They beat Valetta in the first round, and Deportivo la Coruna in the second leg of the second round – but had lost badly in Spain, so went no further.

For most of this game Tampere United were comfortable; a change from their poor league form which means they are unlikely to claim a third successive title. The club was only formed in 1998 – it was meant to be a combination of two teams, TPV and FC Ilves, but TPV pulled out (they play in the Ykkonen), and FC Ilves still carry on somewhere lower in the pyramid. United took Ives Ykkonen place and won promotion a year later. They have won the title three times, 2001, 2006 and 2007. Last season they reached the final qualifying round of the Champions League before losing to Rosenborg – but were also stopped by Bordeaux missing out on the UEFA Cup’s group stage as well. The victories were over Murata (San Marino) and Levski Sofia
After 51 minutes, the home side led by 2-0, Niemi scoring the opening goal, and then New Zealand international Chris James adding one from the penalty spot. Both players were guilty though as United missed chances to seal the result, and this allowed Buducnost to give themselves a chance with a last goal from Fatos Beciras. In talking to local journalists, (oddly one that came from Sheffield) I said I thought Tampere could win the tie if they took it to their opponents in Montenegro. It appears they did just that, as they scored after only 8 minutes, and ended up with a 1-1 draw – and hence going through on aggregate. The next round is a far more difficult task, against Slovakia champions Petrzalka.

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The World Cup 2010 Timeline.

13/06/2008 by leo.

FIFA made an initial announcement that 204 out of its 208 members had entered their names to compete in the 2010 World Cup. While the draw for the qualifying competition is scheduled for 25th November 2007, some of the Confederations are playing prelimary matches in order to cut the numbers in that draw. Comnebol - the South American Confederation do not have a draw, as all ten teams from the continent play in a standard league format (18 matches each), but this has too start early - on October 13 2007.

The initial announcement meant that the Phillipines, Laos and Brunei were not entered, along with Bhutan - all from Asia. Oddly, when the preliminary draws were released, Bhutan were included (not that this meant much).

One of the points of this Timeline is to record how the numbers were whittled down from this original 205 entrants, to 32 finalists over a period just exceeding two years. The date when each of the 173 that fail to qualify will be recorded, using mathematical certainies, (i.e not the teams last game, but the when the team cann no longer get enough points to reach the next stage). Other important items such as a team qualifying for the next stage will also be recorded.

The record will be kept as a single file - I will delete from the archive each time it is updated and returned to the top of the blog.

Qualifying Formats
Each of the confederations has a different format for its qualification process, decided by the local confederation with the agreement of FIFA. the process ends with two intercontinental play-offs, one between teams from Oceania and Asia, the other between teams from North/Central, and South America.

Oceania
This is agreed to be the weakest confederation. It has 11 members since Australia defected to Asia. The winner of the OFC contest will play in the play-off against an Asian team.

Initially nine of the contenders (Papua New Guinea withdrawing before the start) will play in Samoa as part of the South Pacific Games - this produces three teams for the next stage where they are joined by New Zealand and play in the traditional four team group format, home and away matches.

The top two teams in the group will play a further two-legged match between themselves before the winner gets to play against their Asian opponent.

Asia
Of 46 teams, 43 enter the preliminary draw. A ranking table was drawn up to place them in order. Teams 1 through 5 on the ranking order (Australia, South Korea, Saudia Arabia, Japan and Iran - who not coincidentally played in the last World Cup finals) are exempt to the first group stage. The other 38 are divided into 19 seeds, and 19 non-seeds, and drawn into 19 first round matches. Of the 19 qualifyers, the 11 with the best ranking will go direct to the third round, while the other 8 will play in another four games to reduce the numbers further.

The 20 teams in the group stage will play in four groups of five.
Winners and runners-up will qualify, giving 10 teams then to play in two groups of five.

From the second group stage, the top two in each group head to the World Cup
- the two third placed teams play off with the winner being the Asian team to play against the Oceania qualifyer in the play-off.

South America
The simplest of all the routes - 10 teams play in a home and away round robin tournament (18 matches each). the top four are direct qualifyers for the finals, while the fifth placed team will face North or Central American opposition in a play-off.

North and Central America
35 teams - two (2 legged) knock out rounds will reduce the numbers from 35 to 12. All the teams have to play at least one tie, the top 13 on the rankings are exempt from Round 1.

The twelve teams play in three groups of four
Winners and runners-up qualify for a further group stage - a single group of six teams
The top three from the second stage go directly to the World Cup, the fourth team into a play-off against a South American.

Africa
53 nations - An added complication is that the same tournament is used to decide qualification for the African Cup of Nations in January 2010. this means that South Africa will be the first host country to play in the qualification process - but they will be in the finals, whatever the results.

Five teams will be knocked out in a preliminary knock out stage
The remaining 48 will be arranged in 12 groups of four.
All 12 winners go into the next stage, plus the eight ‘best’ runners-up.

This produces 20 teams which will be made up into 5 groups of four.
The group winners only qualify for the finals

-In the first group stage, matches against South Africa count in deciding who goes through.
-If South Africa makes it to the final 20, then their group will be a three team group for World Cup Qualifying (matches against South Africa will not count), but it will remain as a four team group for African cup qualification.

Europe
53 countries. To be arranged in nine groups, eight will have six teams, while the final one will have just five.

All nine winners qualify
Only eight runners up move on - they play in four knock out play-off matches to complete the 13 European country line up.

The Time Line

25-August-2007The first world cup qualification matches get underway, at the appropraitely named J.S. Blatter Playing Fields in Apia, Samoa. The matches start simultaneously at 15.00 local time, with two more later in the evening. The results of the first two matches are Tahiti 0-1 New Caledonia and Solomon Islands 12-1 American Samoa. Ten teams are arranged in two groups of five teams. Included in the competition is Tuvalu who are not a FIFA member and cannot go beyond this tournament, (they will gain only one point, from a draw with Tahiti, so this is not important). Not included are Papua New Guinea, who by chosing not to compete become the first withdrawal.

25 - August-2007 (or before). Papua New Guinea withdraw. 204 teams left!

31-August-2007. American Samoa eliminated 203 teams left
By losing their first three matches, one goal scored, 34 conceded - American Samoa are the first team eliminated. They will lose their fourth game by 4-0.

1-September-2007. Cook Islands and Tahiti eliminated201 teams left
Both teams are in Group A of the South Pacific games.

3-September-2007. Samoa and Tonga eliminated199 teams left
Two teams from Group B, including the host of these games, make their exit.

5-September-2007. New Caledonia and Fiji reached Oceania group stage
The two teams, both from Group A beat the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu repectively to reach the South Pacific final and the enter the next round of the World Cup

6-September-2007. São Tomé e Príncipe and the Central African Republic from Africa and Guam from Asia withdraw 196 teams left
The two African teams were due to meet each other, resulting in a reshuffle of the African knock out round - Swaziland and The Seychelles are given byes to the first group stage. Dijibouti and Somalia now meet each other, but in a single match in Dijibouti.
Indonesia are the team drawn against Guam, so they now have a bye and will wait to see if they have to play Round 2.

7-September-2007. Vanuatu progress, Solomon Islands eliminated195 teams left.
Vanuatu beat Solomon Islands 2-0 in the South Pacific third/fourth play-off
New Caledonia, who finished group A behind Fiji on goal difference, beat Fiji by 1-0 to claim the local title.

15-September-2007. Bhutan withdraw194 teams left
In a less than surprising development, Bhutan decide to withdraw, Kuwait are the lucky team to get a bye - and their seeding places them directly into the group stage in Asia.

8-October-2007.Asian Qualifying gets underway.
There are 17 two legged ties left after Guam and Bhutan had withdrawn, 8 take place on this date, the last one will be played on 22-October. All second legs are to be completed by the 28th

13-October-2007African Qualifying gets underway
Madagascar beats Comoros 6-2 - second leg next month

13-October-2007South American Qualifying gets underway
Five matches this weekemd, five more in midweek, another two rounds of games in November.

15-October-2007. Thailand progress. Macau eliminated193 teams left
Having won the first leg 6-1, the first tie to complete is a formality for Thailand, who end up as 13-2 aggregate winners.

26-October-2007. Afghanistan eliminated192 teams remain
Most of the matches are on Sunday, but as they are to use the same stadium as Tajikistan will use on Sunday (the security situation in Afghanistan not being such that even Syria want to play there), the Afghan match is two days earlier. 2-1 to Syria on the day, 5-1 on aggregate.

28-October-2007. 12 teams beaten in Asian second legs 180 teams remain

Iraq 0-0 Pakistan (aggregate 7-0)

Tajikistan 5-0 Bangladesh (6-1) - after a scoreless first half, a hat-trick by Khakimov made the difference

Nepal 0-2 Oman (0-4)

Hong Kong 8-1 Timor-Leste (East Timor) (11-3) - seen by just 1500

Maldives 2-0 Yemen (2-3)

Myanmar 0-4 China (0-11) (played in Kuala Lumpur, and in the heat and humidity of mid-afternoon, where only 200 turned out to watch)

Chinese Taipai 0-2 Uzbekistan (0-11) - decided by two goals in the final 10 minutes, in front of under 1000

Turkmenistan 4-1 Cambodia (5-1) Cambodia scored first, levelling the agregate scores, but eventually losing

UAE 5-0 Vietnam (6-0)

Qatar 5-0 Sri Lanka (6-0)

Malaysia 0-0 Bahrain (1-4)

Jordan 2-0 Kyrgyzstan (2-2) pens 6-5 - the last of the matches, and the closest. A goal in each half levelled the aggregate score. Kyrgyzstan had a man sent off in injury time of extra time and then lost the penalty shoot out.

Three matches scheduled for this date seem to have not been played.
India v Lebanon is now scheduled for Monday 29th.
The match between North Korea and Mongolia was not completed - more news on this to follow when I find out something
Palestine did not turn up for the second leg in Singapore, after losing 4-0 at home.

29-October-2007 The end for Mongolia and Palestine 178 teams remain

More than 24 hours after the match should have completed, FIFA put a result of North Korea 5-1 Mongolia on their site. No details have been posted. this gives the Koreans a 9-2 aggregate victory, but leaves one thinking that the full story here has yet to come out.

In Singapore, it is more straight forward - the Palestine team did not attend. Singapore expect the result to be awarded at 3-0. The reason for Palestine not attending is not clear, but this is not a new thing for them. They missed a game (also in Singapore) in the last Asian Cup qulaification process.

The remaining unplayed game, in India was off due to a Waterlogged pitch and is now scheduled for 30-October.

30-October-2007 India pay the penalty for Red Card 177 teams remaining.
India were trying to come back from a 4-1 defeat in the Lebanon, and made a good start, leading 1-0 at half time. But the 72nd minute proved too much for them, with the Indian keeper getting sent off, while Mohamad Ghaddar scored from the penalty sport. Ghaddar scored againto put the Lebanon ahead, and a late Baichung Bhutia equaliser was never going to save the tie for the Indians

16-November-2007 Djibouti Score a narrow win 176 teams remaining
Ahead of the weekends other matches, which will see four Asian and two African second legs, Djibouti have beaten Somalia 1-0 to gain themselves a place in the main draw next week

17-November-2007. Another six bite the dust in Asia and Africa. 170 teams into next weeks draw
Africa first - Madagascar took a 6-2 lead into their match at Comoros, and finished the job with another win (4-0), to take the tie 10-2 on agrregate. No goals in Guinnau-Bissau, so Sierra Leone go through thanks to their 1-0 home win a month ago.

In Asia, Tajikistan was up first, and scored in the first minute against Singapore, Noh Alam Shah balanced the scores before the break and with no further goals added, Singapore went through by virtue of a 2-0 home win.

Sarayoot Chaikamdee, who had scored for Thailand in Yemen, scored another in the home match to give his team a single goal win, meaning they progress 2-1 on aggregate.

A hat-trick for Zaid Sha’abo as Syria demolish Indonesia by 7-0. Sha’abo also scored one in Inodonesia, and the aggregate score ends up as 11-1.

Finally, Turkmenistan secured a 3-0 home win against Hong Kong, which was also the aggregate score.

Two matches were played in Oceania - New Zealand winning their second away match, 2-1 in Vanuatu. The home side scored first, but Shane Smeltz levelled the scores and David Mulligan got the winner in injury time. Fiji were pulled back from 2-0 up to be held 3-3 by New Caledonia.

In South America, Argentina beat Bolivia 3-0 to maintain their 100% record. Paraguay are second after a 5-1 win over Ecuador, while Brazil (1-1 in Peru) and Colombia (1-0 at home to Venezeula) are also unbeaten.

25-March-2008 Eritrea withdraw from African Qualifers

169 teams remain

Eritrea, from Group 11 in Africa and due to play Togo, Zambia and Swaziland have announced their withdrawal from the tournament.

26-March-2008 Caribbean and Central America First Round - First nine out of CONCACAF 160 teams remain

There were also matches in February, these were first legs in CONCACAF and the first of six match series in the Asian groups, so this is the biggest week until things hot up in June.

In Asia, it was a week of surprise results. Japan lost 1-0 in Bahrain, Asian champions Iraq went down 2-0 in Qatar and Saudi Arabia by 3-0 in Uzbekistan. Iran, 2-0 up within four minutes were held 2-2 by Kuwait, their second draw in two games. Two matches were played in China, the North-South Korean derby having been switched to Shanghai after the two countries could not agree over showing flags and playing of national anthems. The South Korean Flag and Anthem is not permitted in the North, and the South insisted that FIFA rules (that the flag is displayed and the Anthem played) were kept to. The game ended 0-0, which as both teams had one their openers, looks like a good score for both. In Kumming, China and Australia also drew 0-0, with China having the better of the game, and missing a late penalty. The Aussies will be the happiest with this result, while China - also held in their opening game against Iraq in Dubai will be more nervous.

After two matches, Uzbekistan and Bahrain are the only teams with six points, while Thailand, Turkmenistan and Lebanon have suffered two defeats.

In CONCACAF, the first round is to knock out 11 countries by use of two legged ties. However, three of the ties have been reduced to single leg, and the match between the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands involves two matches, both this week, and both in the Bahamas. The first leg finished 1-1. The closest of all ties was in Bayamon, where Peurto Rico won by a single goal, scored in extra time - this one of the three single leg matches and one must wonder what would have happened if the Dominican Republic had played their home game. Another single leg match was played in Grenada, where Blackburn’s Jason Roberts scored the first two of nine goals, seeing them through to play Costa Rica in June. The final single leg match, Montserat against Suriname was played on a neutral venue in Trinidad, Suriname winning 7-1.

In other matches, St. Lucia overturned a 2-1 first leg deficit to go through and meet Guatemala, while Barbados’ 1-0 home win gives them a match against the USA in the next round. Antigua and Barbuda were already 3-0 up from their away leg, and added one more goal to defeat Aruba and earn a tie against Cuba. Belize’s 3-1 win over St. Kitts and Nevis in the first leg proved to be enough - they drew 1-1 in the second leg and now face Mexico. Anguilla, who had lost 12-0 in El Salvador, switched their return tie to Washington DC, going down by 4-0. Finally, Netherlands Antilles beat Nicaragua for the second time (3-0 aggregate) to claim a tie against Haiti in the next round.

This leaves two matches to be played this weeked. The British Virgin Islands will play again in the Bahamas in their second match, and the Cayman Islands will play Bermuda - in both cases the first legs finished 1-1.

30-March-2008 Bahamas and Bermuda through - British Virgin Isles and Cayman out

158 teams remain

In the Bahamas, the second leg of the tie against Britsih Virgin Islands finished as the first did, level, thanks to two late goals by Anadale Williams. However, despite the two matches both being played in Nassau, the second leg was technically the Virgin Islands home match, and therefore with this match being 2-2, while the first was 1-1; it is the Virgin Islands who drop out on away goals.

It was true away goals that did for the Cayman Islanders. They may have been satisfied with a 1-1 draw in Bermuda, but in their home game they were quickly 3-0 down to two goals from Devaun Degraff and on eby Kwame Steede. The Cayman Islands pulled one back through a Marshall Forbes penalty but went down 3-1

07-June-2008 First Casualties in Asia Groups

156 Teams Remain

The five groups for the current round of Asian Games means that 10 teams will exit this world cup on Monday 22nd.

After four matches in each group, two of these ten are known, as Turkmenistan and Lebanon can say goodbye to their chances of qualifying. So far, only one team (Uzbekistan) is certain to appear in the next stage.

14-June-2008. Six more Asians teams out on day of decision - Puerto Rico fall

149 teams remain.

A big decision day in Asia, as all but two groups are settled - in Group 1, Iraq’s win in China sees the end of Chinese dreams for another four years, Asutralia won in Qatar and are through, while Iraq and Qatar will play for the final place

Japan won in Thailand, while Bahrain and Oman draw, but this means Thailand and Oman are out, Japan and Bahrain continue, as do both North and South Korea from group 3. Jordan who lost 2-0 in Pyongyang join Turkmenistan in being knocked out.

Uzbekistan won their fifth successive match in group 5, Saudi Arabia’s fouth win, in Singapore means they have also qualified. Singapore join Lebanon in going out.

Kuwait are the final team to lose out on the day, losing 3-2 at home to UAE. Iran are the only qualifyer from the group, thanks to a 2-0 win in Syria. Syria and UAE will have to settle their differences next week, with the odds strongly favouring the UAE.

Matches carry on this week around the world, except Europe, but the only decisive one was in Puerto Rico, where the home team, 4-0 down from the first leg, drew 2-2 with Honduras. Most of the other matches in CONCACAF are on the first leg of two

18-June-2008 Unlucky 13 for Bahamas - 148 teams remain.

Not that you can really count it unlucky - Bahamas lose their two legged tie against Jamaica by 7-0 and 6-0 (13-0 on aggregate) and bow out

20-June-2008. Canada get the better of St. Vincent and Grenadines 147 teams reamain
A 4-1 win in Montreal, aggregate 7-1 sees Canada take their expected place in te next round

21-June-2008. CONCACAF loses three more, Vanuatu and Seychelles stop dreaming 142 teams remain
For the three CONCACAF matches, see East Fork’s post above
Vanuatu, who drew at home to New Caledoniaa, lose the return match, and can no longer qualify.
Syechelles become the first African side to be sure of losing in the group stage, suffering their fourth defeat, 4-1 in Burkina Faso.

22-June-2008. Last two decisions in Asia, Doors close fo five more Africans, Six to go out in CONCACAF. 128 teams remain
Asia - Syria go out despite winning 3-1 in UAE, while Iraq, whose ‘home’ game is also played within the UAE lose 1-0 to Qatar and are out.
Africa - In group 1, neither Mauritius (1 point) or Tanzania (2 points) can qualify. The same fate also applies to Niger, Mauritania, and Djibouti, all of whom have lost four out of four
CONCACAF -
USA win 1-0 in Barbados - perfectly good, as it seals a 9-0 aggregate win.
Trinidad & Tobago 2-0 Bermuda (T & T 3-2) Stern John gets the clinching goal in the 69th minute.
Cuba 4-0 Antigua & Barbuda (Cuba 8-3)
Guyana 1-2 Suriname (Suriname 3-1)
Netherlands Antilles 0-1 Haiti (Haiti 1-0) An 81st minute own goal sends Haiti to the next stage!
El Salvador 3-1 Panama (El Salvador 3-2) Trailing 2-0 on aggregate, El Salvador nets 3 goals in the final 20 minutes to eliminate the canaleros!

28-June-2008 Lesotho lose postponed qualifyer and chance of going through 127 teams remain

In the match postponed from 31 May, Gabon beat Lesotho 2-0 with two goals from Angers striker Fabrice do Marcolino. This keeps Gabon in the contest but its the fourth defeat for Lesotho, ending their chances of going through.

Posted in WC 2010 Timeline | No Comments »

The 6-5 Principle.

01/06/2008 by leo.

FIFA have chosen to oppose the European Union, but to take a populist stance with the 6+5 formula that would provide minimum quotas for Englishmen in the English Leagues, but will this really improve the England team, or may it make us look better, by making the opposition worse?

The FIFA statement makes it look like a great step forward, with the resolution voted for by an overwhelming 155 to 5 of delegates at the FIFA congress. However, the proposal had already been neutered by UEFA’s insistence that the wording was just one of negotiation. The resolution requests that “the Presidents of FIFA and UEFA to continue to explore … all possible means within the limits of the law to ensure that these crucial sporting objectives be achieved”. Anyway with 201 associations at the Congress, (seven did not turn up), 41 must have abstained. The voting record – exactly who voted against, or just abstained would have been interesting.

English football is very much in the mind of the people who are promoting the plan, Franz Beckenbauer said that “Everyone regrets that England will not take part in Euro 2008”, while Blatter said “This is a subject close to my heart. I want to protect the national teams and prevent leagues having only a small number of clubs with any chance of winning the title”. To be honest, it is an idea that has a general popularity with fans as well. Reading comments sent in to the BBC’s web site, the majority are in favour of rules to increase the number of Englishmen on view in the Premiership. Statistics (also provided by the BBC) point out the degree of the problem – just over one in three of all players who appeared in the Premiership are actually English, while on average, only 72 of the 220 starters on any given Saturday are English. To look at this from the other direction, 41 of the 368 registered players for Euro 2008 play in England, only Germany (58) and Spain (42) have more, and they of course are both in the finals.

The 6+5 plan means that in any domestic league match, a minimum of 6 of the players that start the game must be qualified to play for the country in which the club is domiciled, (i.e English, for clubs in the English League, except Cardiff and Swansea which are domiciled in Wales, and so would have to field 6 Welshmen). Ideally FIFA would phase this in with a minimum of 4 qualified players in 2010-11, and 5 the season after. Now, naturally this would not create much of a stir outside Europe as most national leagues already run with more stringent regulations in place. The only exception that immediately comes to my mind is the S-League in Singapore. While most teams are limited in the number of foreigners they field, they have three clubs that are associated to other countries, and none of these play any Singaporeans at all, but have squads that are 100% Japanese (Albirex Niigata), Korean (Korean Super Reds) or Chinese (Dalian).

Within the European Union, though, the situation is clear. Any player who is a citizen of the EU has a right to sign for and play for any club within the Union. Also a rule that discriminates the choice of one citizen over another is not permitted. Naturally there is nothing to prevent a rule being placed that at least 6 players in the starting line-up are EU citizens.

There is another string to the European Argument. There are clearly around five leagues within Europe that have a big financial advantage over all the others; these leagues provide most of the finalists for European club competitions. An international player who wants to prove himself among the best wants to play in one of these five leagues. Indeed the lack of good competitive play in his home league means that the player practically has to leave his home country in order to gain the experience required. On the way to Euro 2008, England were beaten by Croatia – only one out of their squad of 23 plays in the Croatian League, while three play in England.

Apart from England, concern over the number of nationals in their own league expands to Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands – but despite the money on offer, the situation is nowhere near so acute in either Italy or Spain. So is the problem for the English Leagues really due to the foreigners coming in, or is it due to the lack of Englishmen coming through the training regimes? The quota system suggested by FIFA may well help England do better against the likes of Croatia – but this may not mean the English team is any better – only that we restrict the chances for the Croats, and make their team worse.

Posted in The European Game, Political Footballs | No Comments »

The Search for the Next Game

26/05/2008 by leo.

In the first and third week of my tour, I had mid-week fixture lists to enjoy, giving me a choice of fixtures, even if in many cases they were only second division matches in the country’s concerned. The middle week was different, though – the appearance of a bank holiday on the Monday concentrated the fixtures onto that date. This left me with the choice of either missing out on my hope to see a match on every day for the validity of my 22 day rail pass, (which would have allowed me to head further afield, for a single game), or to pick up those matches I could find from the re-arrangements after postponements. For example, if I had chosen to miss Tuesday and Thursday, my Wednesday match could have been in Belgrade.

Having rejected this plan, I dropped my levels, seeing a match in the Swiss 2.Liga Inter-regional (4th level) on the Tuesday, and a Landesliga (5th level) game in Germany on the Wednesday. Now the fifth level of the English pyramid is the Football Conference – with highly developed minimum ground standards and average crowds well above the thousand mark. But England is not like the rest of Europe (or the world). We have more professional clubs, and more clubs with regular crowds over 1000 than anywhere else. Only the Italians come close. Germany has two regional divisions at its third level, nine oberliga at level 4, and no less than 27 (called either Verbandsliga or Landesliga) at level 5. This means that far from being an equivalent to the Conference, the teams are more in line with lower division Southern League, or even Hellenic League football.

My fixture was in a place called Grebenstein, which research had shown to be deep in the very centre of Germany. In fact, quite easy to get to from Basel – the fast and comfortale ICE train speeds me as far as Kassel, and then a local regional tram deals with the last 18 km. The regional tram was a new one on me – it turned out to work as a normal tram around the streets of Kassel, and then transfer to the railway tracks for the longer out of town journeys. I tried to walk around the town in Kassel for a while before transferring out – this proved impossible after a week or more of good weather, the temperatures in this part of Germany had risen to 32°C in the middle of the afternoon. So melting after just a short walk, I bought an ice-cream and found the tram. As it was, I think I should have made the transfer earlier, as Grebenstein did not turn out to be a dead residential suburb, but a small village full of half-timbered houses; more rewarding to the eye than Kassel’s modern but dull centre.
As is often the case, the railway station and football ground are both on the edges of the village – one at each end, but this is a small place, fifteen minutes comfortably takes me from one to the other. The Sauertalstadion has been built (or more accurately dug) from a hillside on the edge of the town. It is a standard bowl shaped ground, but with grassed sides too steep to be used as terraces. A path, about 2 metres wide has been cut all around the ground, at a level height apart from at the bottom end of the ground, where it follows the natural slope down to pitch level. The entrance level is a little higher again, and at this point too there has been levelling out to provide the essential buildings, dressing rooms and bar. A flight of steps take the players and officials down to the pitch. On a warm spring evening, with the shadows lengthening over the pitch, there can be few more pleasant locations to sit, enjoy a beer and watch a game. The game itself is nothing special, both teams are away from the action zones of the league table. For the record, the match in the Landesliga Hessen Nord, and the away team VfL Eiterfeld beat the home, TuSpo Grebenstein by two goals to nil.

After the game, the regional tram takes me back into Kassel, another local train to Gottingen, and then an overnight one through to Vienna. Sometime in the middle of the night, Paul and Kevin who I had last seen a week ago in Switzerland (Gossau) boarded the train on their travels away from an East German game. We only meet as we get off the train, and transfer to the local trains taking us south of the Austrian capital to Mattersburg.

If we had wanted to go to the main football stadium in Mattersburg, then none would be easier to find. Mattersburg has two railway stations, Mattersburg Nord and Mattersburg, and the ground is settled below the viaduct that holds the tracks between the two stations. Of course, life is never quite this simple, but I will get to that later.

In fact, the first priority on arriving at the town is to find somewhere to stay. Arriving at the station around 10 in the morning without a plan – or even a map to find the town. Finding the town is the easy bit – one picks on the only landmark (except the football ground floodlights) and heads in the direction of the church spire. To find out if there is a hotel once we arrive is more difficult. With nothing immediately visible and no signs, Kevin takes the novel step of asking a local. He gets some indistinct directions, and we in fact have to ask again before we found the town’s only hotel. As it happened, the Florianihof was a pleasant and reasonable hotel, at a reasonable rate – and providing one service one does not always find even in the best quality of hotels.

As I mentioned, life is never too simple – Mattersburg have reached the top division of Austrian football, and their league season was over before we arrived in the town. Anyway, I had been to the stadium to see them lose 2-1 to Austria Wien in 2005. The plan on this occasion was to see Mattersburg Amateur – the reserve team – playing in the Regionalliga West. The match was not at Mattersburg, but in a village called Hirm, about 8km away. We had confirmed there was a bus to the village although it would have meant arriving two hours before kick-off, but we also knew there was no bus back.

So we wandered off to the stadium, to find the football club offices and see if they could help out three stray Englishmen. Not surprisingly, there was no transport laid on for supporters, but they did say they would try and find someone to help us. Then the lady we were talking to had a brainwave. Are you staying at the Florianihof, she asked? Yes, we replied. Well, then – ask the manager of the hotel, Herr Bandat, as he is a regular supporter and goes to most of the matches.
And so, we returned to the hotel, ready for our lunch, (the Florianihof puts on a very good value buffet lunch), and asked to speak to the manager. Sure enough he was intending to see the game and could give us a lift there. And he would talk to some of his friends and find us a lift back as well. As it happened, he made the return journey with us himself, going out of his way as he could not find anyone else to make the journey. This is certainly service that you tend not to get with the best five star hotel.
Demonstrating an independent spirit, and more energy than us oldies, Paul and myself, Kevin walked out to Hirm, while I was more than happy to accept the lift. With around 300 people watching the match, the Alfred Wiesinger Sportanlage in Hirm was an ideal setting, whereas the big stadium in Mattersburg would have dwarfed the crowd. There is a covered stand along most of one long side, and flat standing in front of the clubhouse behind one goal. On the other two sides, there is no room for spectator accommodation. The visiting team was St. Polten, a team I had seen play at home in the top division of Austrian football nearly 20 years before. They have had a number of years outside the professional levels having fallen bankrupt, but are now on their way back, and led the Regionalliga Ost going into the match. Although Mattersburg scored both first and last in the game, for most of the 90 minutes, St. Polten were just too strong for them. The final score was 4-2 in favour of the visitors.

The next day, Paul and Kevin were up early, and had left the hotel before I started on breakfast – heading for somewhere at the far end of Austria again, (I think). We arranged to meet again on Sunday morning in Budapest! I had elected to make the short journey to Vienna and to see another team that I had seen grace the top division (away) near enough 20 years ago. This club was First Vienna – although the name (in English, never German) could just as easily be First Austria as they claim to be the country’s oldest club. As I left the hotel, I met with Herr Bandat again, and he presented me with a bottle of local wine as a memento of my visit. Thanks again sir - you are a gentleman and a football fan!

In 1990, I had seen First play away in a Vienna derby at Rapid Wien. Rapid and Austria Wien have been the top clubs in the capital and country ever since. First have dropped two divisions, so this was again football in the Regionalliga Ost. Rapid’s amateur side also play in this division, and now hire the ground from First. When both teams are scheduled to play at home, they play a double header with Rapid Amateur starting at 5.30, First Vienna two hours later. A €9 ticket allows one to see two matches, while the small A5 programme covers First’s game only.

The ground at Hohe Warte must be almost as old as the club. Out in a northern suburb of the city, one side of the ground is a vast hillside, now almost completely overgrown, but with just enough sign to show that once it was completely covered with terracing. The nearest equivalent in England would have been the valley, but Hohe Warte is taller. This one side of the ground must have once been able to hold at least 20,000 people. Nowadays, only a small part of the lower terrace is being used, and rather than renovate the old terrace, a new terrace has been build using steel scaffolding and aluminium coverings. Opposite the large slope is a quite modern stand, while the curves behind each goal were hardly used.

In both matches, the Vienna based side were among those in the chasing pack behind St. Polten, although they did not harbour any hope of promotion this season. The visitors Schwechat in the first game, and Zwettl afterwards were both near the bottom of the table. In fact if both were to win their matches, then Mattersburg would be dumped into the relegation zone. I had discussed this the night before at the Mattersburg match. Having not been in the top division for long, they are only just developing their Amateur side. It was a very young team, more youth then reserve, but they were desperate to keep at this level, where they think there is more chance of the players developing that are suitable for the first team.

As it happened both matches were comfortable 2-0 home wins, leaving both the top and bottom ends of the table unchanged. Both the Vienna sides played some good football at times, but neither could manage to dominate the game in the way that St. Polten had the night before. Stan turned up, returning from London, midway through the first game. It had always been his intention to see the second game (i.e the First game) only. Afterwards Stan disappeared in search of an overnight train, while I headed to a hotel, which was to allow me reasonable access to Hungary the next day.

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Halle, and back to Switzerland

21/05/2008 by leo.

Please excuse the shortage of photos. They take time to download, but I will try to add some next week.

Sunday was again heavy on the mileage, even if I had dealt with a lot of the problem Saturday evening. I stayed overnight in Dresden, which required five hours on the rails after the match at Brno. The only reason for this was that it seemed to be the most convenient stopover point. In the old East Germany, the sun sets early in winter, and this leads to 1.30 kick offs soon before and after the winter break. In May, of course, there is far more latitude to choose the kick off time, but some teams including Hallescher FC, choose to stick to the early kick off. I arrange to arrive by midday, to give myself a short amount of time to see the city before the game. I know I have a choice of trains later, (Frankfurt having been chosen as the next break point), and so can return to the centre.

Halle is a seat of learning, and the birthplace of Handel. Its centre has been preserved as historic monuments, but I have just arrived from Brno, and by comparison, it is the same but smaller. One of the major monuments is cloaked for repairs, and a fair is set up crowding the central square. Walking just off the main square past the cathedral is a small square that was the setting for one of the first anti-communist uprisings of the 1950s. It seems a pity to me that this is not better commemorated. The tourist office seemed surprised when I asked about the football stadium; they found me directions to it, although it is not in the area covered by the tourist maps. This is a pity, because in itself it is a gem – a splendid example of either fascist or communist architecture, (in stadium terms, they tend to be similar), wrapped up in red stone. I suspect it was build after the communists came to the area – the six statues outside the main gateway are of workers and certainly appear to be communist style, (although one, in what must be a nod to Halle’s status, appeared to be an academic). Sadly, the ticket windows cut into the old walls are no longer in use, and the same steel cages that protect almost every ground in Germany have been build around the entrances.

Inside, it is a typical bowl. The steps are not as steep as Brno, and the whole place is on a smaller scale, and there are no shortages of recently added fencing. Plastic seats have only been added to a central section on one side, and the main area, including the covered zones. The cover anyway also appears to have been a later addition. Unusually, this is on the North side of the ground, and as a compensation, and extra shade has been hung from the front edge, to keep at least some of the best seats in the shade.

The game was in one of the nine Oberliga that currently make up the fourth level of German football. With the new national third division being formed next season, and only three regional leagues at the new level 4, the most important thing for the Oberliga teams is to try and see if they can qualify for the new leagues. Hallescher lead their division (Oberliga Nord Ost, Staffel Sud – or North East League, Southern Group – which reminds me of some of the English non-League divisions). The visitors for day, Germania Helberstadt are just off the pace, but would certainly come back into the competition if they could win this game.

As it is, Hallescher take the lead in only the second minute, but then hang back and try to absorb pressure. This is not a successful tactic, and Halberstatdt equalise half way through the half, and continue to attack to the break. In the second half, we again see the home side take an early lead, but this time they do not give away chances so easily. Still they appear incabale of adding to the lead, even when a long distance shot is handled on the line by the Halberstadt captain. The resultant penalty was saved, but the red card given to the visiting player was probably the deciding factor in keeping the scores unchanged (at 2-1) to the end.

From Halle, it was on to Basel, a Swiss city with borders to Germany and France – a cathedral overlooking the Rhine, and a completely different definition to me of ‘reasonably priced hotel’. I had to pick on a cheap hotel instead – about £60 per night. I think I’m glad now that I’ve not got Euro 2008 tickets. Seriously, what I got for my money was quite reasonable, and the local authorities throw in free local transport for anyone who books a hotel, (they also charge a local tourist tax). It did not take me long to get onto the local transport. In all, I used two trams and a trolleybus to get from the hotel to the Rankhof stadion. A journey of less than 15 minutes, including a full minute waiting for a connection!

The Rankhof may be the ultimate in municipal stadiums. There has to be some beauty in the sterile symmetry of the concrete blocks that make up the stadium, a symmetry that is broken as soon as the first member of the crowd enters. Naturally, in a stadium that worships the right angle, there are no curves anywhere, and all four sides sit square to the pitch. On three sides, we have around seven steps of concrete terracing made up from large concrete blocks. Smaller blocks provide steps. The final side has a stand built well above ground level. In fact the path at the front of stand sits level with the highest step on the other three sides. This allows a bridges to connect between them, although each had a gate that stayed locked shut. The stand was similar is scale to the terraces, while the space underneath provides places where food and drink can be provided. The dressing rooms themselves are a level underground. On a hot, sunny day, the area under the stands provides the only shade from the sun, for those who have not bought seat tickets, and there was a brisk sale of Bratwurst, beer and even ice-cream. Onto the roof of the stand, naturally a cantilever, efficiently styled in concrete, the single word “RANKHOF” is displayed in large red letters, reminiscent of the almost identical signage used airside, at so many international airports.

Entrance, to spoil the symmetry of the stadium cost 15 CHF (about £7.50), an A4 sized programme was free. One felt that scoring goals would be a travesty, an imperfection, and for a long time it appeared that the teams felt the same way, meandering through 85 minutes that brought new meaning to meaningless. But then, in a shock move the home side Concordia Basel actually scored a goal. This certainly took the visitors, Shaffhausen by surprise and the only response they could think of was to allow Concordia a second goal, just as the game entered injury time.

A match that kicks off at 4 p.m. on a Swiss Bank Holiday does not have to be the end of my day though. I was not quite so lucky with the trolleybus and tram connection – I only rode two this time, but spent longer waiting than riding, still this was comfortably early enough to catch my train, and with two further changes arrive in Wohlen (on time, of course) at 19.42.
The trouble with arriving in a quite strange town, just 18 minutes before kick off, is that one does not know exactly which way to turn, so one has to turn to a taxi driver. I spent about 2 minutes in the taxi, and he built up a metered fee of 15 CHF (£7.50). I then had to pay another 18 CHF to get into the game. Programmes were free, but there were none left! (Fortunately, when I started to ask around, I managed to find one). I had been to Wohlen before, and they then played on a pitch on the edge of town, next to farmer’s fields and with a small wooden stand. They now play on a pitch on the edge of town, next to farmer’s fields, but with a large concrete stand. I had been told it was a completely new ground, but to be honest, I could easily have been made to believe it was the same one with a rebuilt stand. When I got back to the station later, I did manage to locate the two on the map there, not much over a kilometre apart. Incidentally, the walk back took not much over 15 minutes!
Apart from the modern stand, which is the main feature of the new ground, Niedermatte at Wohlen has one step of terracing around most of the ground. Typically, there are food and drink vendors on both sides of the ground, but it is otherwise generally featureless. The away team was Gossau, who I had seen at home the previous week. Having seen them play defensive on their own pitch, I was surprised to see them play a more open game here, while despite their higher league position, Wohlen looked nervous and unconvincing, they kept their own defensive positions up even though they were a goal down midway through the first half. This was an own goal, and may be the only way that Gossau could hit the target, but over the period of ninety minutes they were the better side, and should have achieved a bigger win. Speaking to a journalist who was covering Gossau, I was told this was typical of the team, who had picked up more points on their travels than at home.

My third match on this trip to Switzerland, (which meant for the first time on tour, I stayed in a hotel two nights in a row – pity it was the most expensive I had stopped at) was for a match in what is called 2. Liga Inter-regional. The structure of football in Switzerland has to some extent remained unchanged for quite some time. Ever since I have started watching Swiss football, the professional league has been divided into two divisions, if the numbers in each have changed. When I started watching there were 24 professional teams, while this season there are 28 in divisions of 10 and 18. Next season, the lower division (Challenge league) will lose two teams in number, and the professional ranks will be 26. Within this, there is a big difference in class and scale between the two divisions. The next league down, which is certainly semi-professional consists of three regional divisions, and is called 1. Liga (first league). Some of the professionals run U-21/reserve teams at this and lower levels. Despite three divisions at this level, play-offs are always required, as I have never known more than two places to be available. Most of the grounds are relatively basic by English non-league standards, and it is only the big end of season matches that can draw big crowds, around two to three hundred being typical the rest of the time. The next level down has five divisions, and is known as second league inter-regional. Clearly sometime in the past, this has been interposed between the 1. Liga and the leagues run by the regional associations, as all of these have 2. Liga as their top level.

So a 2. Liga Inter-Regional game, between Belfaux, a small village outside Fribourg, and Breitenrain, a suburb of Bern. I have chosen the match because it is the only fixture I could find – this mid-week being used only the re-arrangement of a small number of postponed games. It is not a bad choice though – as Breitenrain come into the match just two points behind the league leaders, so a win would take them to the top. Belfaux is a small village, centered on an improbably large church. It has two railway stations, CFF on the main Swiss Railways line, and Village on a small independent line. The CFF station, at 15 minutes is the longer walk from the ground, which is reached by simply dropping down the hill until the village stops. A small lane takes you to the sports fields – strangely on one side of the lane is the main pitch, reached by a bridge over a small river, and guarded by ticket sellers. (The match programme, which is free, was originally produced for the postponed game, but comes with a sheet of paper giving updated league tables). On the other side of the lane is the club house, bar and another floodlit pitch. It is clear why this is not the pitch of preference – it is very much undersize, but I wonder at what level in England a club would be allowed to operate with players crossing the road to the pitch?

Not surprisingly, the ground consists of nothing more than a pitch with a rail around it. Hard standing is limited to an area near the entrance. The ground is not even enclosed. There is another small road bridging the river by one goal, going up to a farm, and there is nothing to stop people parking here, and entering the ground on this side. With Breitenrain needing to win the game to go top of the league, I was expecting them to provide a formation to attack the home side and put them under pressure from the start. On the contrary, it was a safety first performance, abetted by cynical diving, players feigning injury and general poor sportsmanship. Whereas I can understand in the professional game, the pressure for results means that this sort of play can be almost necessary, but this is an amateur game – the objective is more for the enjoyment of the players than the spectators, and I cannot believe that players enjoy being harsh and cynical in their play. Anyway, the team clearly had the ability to win the game by fair means, but ended up doing so in a way that left a foul taste in the mouth and which could win no friends. In the end, the Bern team won 1-0 with a long distance second half shot that took a deflection. They celebrated the win as if they had win the European Champions League. I did not feel the desire to applaud, but instead returned to the trains, where for a while I had the chance to speak to a Swiss based groundhopper, who seemed to feel the same about the game – except that he thought this was par for the course in the country.

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Vocklabruck and Brno

15/05/2008 by leo.

For the fourth match of my tour, on the Friday, it is a return to Austria, with a simple but quite lengthy journey from St. Gallen. Paul and Kevin, who had been with me at Gossau made a shorter trip along the same line, while the Wolves fans, Peter and Stan were coming up to meet them with a complex overnight journey from the south of Switzerland. All four had a further overnight to come, to get them into the Czech Republic, whereas I choose my matches to give myself more day time travelling, and the luxury of a bed for the night.

There is another reason why the others shunned my choice of match, despite the fact that the home side are liable to be promoted to the Austrian League next season. This is the opposition, Austria Kärnten Amatuer are the reserve team of a team in the Austrian top division, and some groundhoppers will not watch reserve football under any circumstances. The trouble one finds with reserve football is that a team may suddenly become weaker, (or on occasion stronger) due to the demands of the first team. I certainly accept that reserve teams can be an unbalancing factor on a league, with uneven results if they can field a much stronger squad one week than the next – and I would prefer it if the leagues themselves stopped them from competing, creating separate reserve competitions instead. But once a team is in a league, I will not deny myself a match just because they are the away team. I even allow myself an occasional match where a reserve side is at home, although I have a strict rule that a new ground cannot be ticked for reserve team football, unless it does not share with the first team (or exceptionally, when watching a double header, with the first team game to follow immediately after the reserve match).

Vöcklabruck is a small town between Salzburg and Linz, it is simple enough to get there, as it is on the main line through north Austria, although not all trains stop there. After arriving at the station, I walked into the town, which rather unsurprisingly was reached by crossing a bridge over the river Vöckla! The town is pleasant but small with the central area running between two entrance towers. These would date back to the town being a market centre in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now it is the sort of place where tourists might stop for an hour or two, and so it has plenty of bars and restaurants in the centre. I took the time to eat there after the match.

The football ground is outside the centre and the opposite end of town to the station, but this is not a problem – the distance could comfortably walked in 20 minutes. It is a multi-sports stadium belonging to the municipality. It has a running track, with a pathway all the way around, always raised somewhere above ground level. This is relatively narrow behind the southern goal and on the Eastern side, (where a sports hall would prevent any further development). The northern side has a series of club buildings, with fried sausages, coffee and sandwiches, and course, Beer. The main development is a stand on the West side. While several people watch the game from the areas where the bars are, there is another beer seller in the stand for those who prefer to sit down, and find it too far to walk back. The official crowd figure given for the match is 500 – which fills most of the seats. The club sits proudly at the head of the Regionalliga Mitte table, and has been given the licence required to take its place in the professional ranks next season. A small group of younger fans were creating a little noise and showing their banners. One of which had a stylised footballer made out of a dollar sign, within the traditional road sign, a circle with a single line through it, (international for not allowed, or at least not wanted). I asked them about this, and they explained they were protesting the damage caused by the money coming into football. The example given was Red Bull Salzburg, where the owner of Red Bull – one of Austria’s richest men is putting in far more than the average sponsorship. But so far, this effort has failed to give the team a competitive advantage, with the 2007 title, being the only one in three years of sponsorship so far. Far more worrying is the name changes that can lead to the fan unsure of who to support. It has long been accepted that sponsors names are attached within club names, Vöcklabruck are actually 1 FC RFE Vöcklabruck, but more recently the sponsors have managed to obliterate the town name. At Parndorf, the team from Schwanenstadt was officially known as SCS Bet-at-home.com, The biggest of all these was the small township of Pasching, just outside Linz. In a period of about six years, they went from the fifth level to a place in Europe, but then lost their name and became Superfund FC. When the controversial Jorg Haider, regional president in Kärnten, wanted a top division club to fill the newly rebuilt Wörtherseestadion (Euro 2008 venue), he did not go back to Kärnten FC, who had been pushed out of the stadion while it was being rebuilt, and had been relegated in the meantime. So instead he looked to the top league clubs. After making overtures to the Graz club GAK, (finding the debts there to be too big – the club was wound up and took their reserve team’s place in the regionalliga), he came to agreement with Superfund, and moved the whole club some 200 km south. I imagine this came as some shock to the authorities in Pasching, who spent a lot to build up the stadium, only to find the club back where it started the fifth level (Pasching also repaced theie own reserve side). The new club for Kärnten are now known as Austria Kärnten. Kärnten FC, who had used the Wörthersee stadion before rebuilding remain at the small Fischl stadion and only just escaped a further drop this season.

The visitors at Vöcklabruck for my regionalliga game, Austria Kärnten Amateur, are connected to the top division side. I do not know their provenance before this season, but I can say they put up precious little in resistance to Vöcklbruck’s promotion challenge. Two goals in the first half hour showed the home sides determination to please their own crowd. Kärnten then pressed the self destruct button and managed to collect two red cards before the break. Not surprisingly, it was even more easy going in the second half, with a final score of 6-0.

Arriving in Brno the next day, it is easy to receive a bad first impression of the place. The area around the station is nothing except a series of seedy fast food restaurants, and 24 hour herna bars. (A herna bar is basically a gambling club, which features mainly electronic fruit machines). However, this is just at street level, you just have to raise your head to see that the buildings above them are on a massive scale. Walk away from the station and into the city, and you come across one of the best examples of late Hapsburg era cities anywhere in Europe. I had been to Brno before, but had little time to see the centre and walked straight out to the cold gray concrete Bobu Centrum, where a football stadium exists next to theatre and cinema in a multi-leisure complex, that unfortunately just looks ugly. In the 19th century, when Brno was the fastest expanding city in the region, due to the industrial revolution, it was known as the ‘Czech Manchester’. The Bobu centrum could be called the ‘Czech Arndale’.
At that time, the club was known as Bobu Brno, but having moved on, they have dropped the name and become 1. FC Brno. The new ground (more likely it is an older ground, also used before they went to Bobu), is further away from the centre, and I was pleased to find a bus that could deliver me to the door.

Three sides of the stadium are a typical bowl with some quite steep steps, and concrete, (unusually for older grounds in Eastern Europe), in good condition. Plastic seats cover most of the areas in use by the public, with only those in the away enclosure forced to sit on bare concrete. There are big fences all around in front of the pitch, with the result, that the front five rows of seats are avoided.

The exception is the modern covered west stand, with has only about seven rows of seats, and which is the only covered part of the ground. The front row is at least two metres above pitch level, so viewing is good from all seats, although barriers at the front must mean the back seats are best.

Brno need points from the game in their bid to make it to the UEFA Cup. Their bid was boosted by a win at leaders Sparta Prague a week earlier. The team Brno need to overhaul to reach Europe, Banik Ostrava, were co-incidentally away to Sparta at the same time as our game. The away side, Slovan Liberec do not need the points – they have already made it to European competition, regardless of the result of the following week’s Czech cup final, as their opponents, (yes, Sparta again) are certainly in the Champions League, whether they finish the season as champions or runners-up. The home fans had a nice take on this, unveiling a poster to say it was the league, not the cup that mattered – but I wondered if this was just poor sportsmanship, as Brno had fallen in the semi-finals – to Liberec.

Anyway, despite the need to win the game, Brno struggled in the first half to create any clear cut chances, except for one header which went just wide. Liberec certainly did not seem to be distracted by the coming cup final, with more chances coming their way at the end of the first half, and in the early second half, and Filip Dort lobbed the ball onto the cross bar on 53 minutes. With the news at half time being that Ostrava were winning in Prague, Brno needed something to keep their hopes alive, and it came in the form of a rash challenge by Jiri Bilek. I did not get a clear view of the alleged foul, but there was little complaint from the away fans, and Petr Pavlik stepped up to score the penalty. Being ahead seemed to galvanise the home team, and they took control, although their finishing was woeful. They came close again when Tomas Dosek hit the cross bar in the 78th minute. This was Dosek’s last significant action, as he was replaced by Libor Balaz, who himself had time to claim two clear chances. The first, from the right side was blasted over, but as the 90th minute was reached, and from the left side, he found the target to give Brno a 2-0 win. Unfortunately, Ostrava repeated Brno’s achievement and won at Sparta, so Brno enter the last day of the season with goal difference between them and Europe, and Sparta have been overhauled by city rivals Slavia

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Interblock and Gossau

11/05/2008 by leo.

From Vienna, I take a morning train, and for the next six hours it winds its way south through Austria and into Slovenia, fetching up at the capital Ljubljana six hours later. Convenient train scheduling means that the rest of the party, who had spent the previous evening watching Bad Aussee arrived just thirteen minutes ahead of me. There then follows the routine for a town where we are not staying. Before leaving the station, most of the luggage must go into storage, and a quick check is made on the departing trains for later.

On a sunny afternoon, the city is a pleasant place to spend a few hours, although getting six people to a single plan of action would be impossible. Some would like to sit idly in places, to have a drink and watch the world pass them by. Others are determined to be the world passing by, and to see as much of the town as can be possible in the short time available. One member of the party is staying overnight, and disappears quickly in the direction of a cheapish hotel. Some others (which would have included myself, if I had not left the envelope back at home) had old Slovenian money, which could only be changed at a single bank in town. Even though the tourist office said this would be closed, we still stopped to check.

As it is, we have only three hours in the city before the start of our game, so after about 90 minutes walking around the city, we are strolling out towards the stadium. The stadium is between two converging railway lines that meet, just at the city end of the ground – the maps say we have to walk well past the stadium and then come back again, but in fact, there are several paths across the tracks, and only motor traffic has to go the long way.

The stadium, marked simply as Sportni Park on the map is also known as ZSD or ZSD-ZAD stadium. It is a straight forward athletics track with most of the facilities built into the main stand. This is raised well above pitch level, so views are generally good. There are a few rows of uncovered seats on the far side, but with plenty of room for everyone (and then some) in the stand, these are sparsely populated. Around the stadium there are a number of small clubhouses, for different purposes. For example, a tennis club has facilities are the land narrows for the railway, and a small clubhouse. We find one belonging to FC Ljubljana, where we get into conversation with Alois Krapez, the president of the club that actually owns the stadium. Once they would have played at a higher level, but as with many clubs, they have had financial problems, and changed their name from the Slovenian form, where NK means football club, to the English.
NK Interblock, the home team for the game rents the stadium from FCL, Interblock were formed after the main team in the capital, Olimpja went bankrupt in 2005 (and the clubs other team, the one now known as FC Ljubljana were relegated for financial reason). The owner of the Interblock company, Jose Pecenik, known as the “king of roulette” choose to keep football running in the capital. He bought out Factor (which is also a sponsor’s name) which was then a second division club and has seen them through to a stage where they are challenging for a place in European competition. According to our hosts from FCL, only 4% of the budget for Slovenian league football comes from TV contracts and sponsorship, while at most clubs only 2% would come from gate receipts. The portion from gate receipts is even less at Interblock, as tickets are in fact free. This means the vast majority of a club’s expenditure is directly funded by the owner. With an annual budget of €2 million, Interblock is reputed to have the highest budget in the league. For comparison, this is similar to the turnover of a club such as Cheltenham Town, whose budget is reputed to be the lowest in League-1. Meeting and talking to officials of small clubs is always a highlight of any tour, as it gives a valuable insight into the operation of football. The conversation was helped on its way be a local Slovenian dark beer, which was referred to as Slovenian Guinness. This was clearly a stout, and had a strong and pleasant taste but was less heavy than the Irish original. We said out goodbyes and entered the stand to watch the game.

Around the ground, the wire fencing is covered by a series of ‘shirts’ showing the current Interblock squad, plus the name of the team and there well known red and black ‘pentagram’ badge. There are about four wire panels without a cover, and it appeared that each one had a single spectator behind it, gaining a free view. This seemed strange to us – who needs to gain a free view, when tickets are in fact, free? The badge, with its similarity to an occult symbol has led to the club’s rivals referring to them as “The devil’s club”.

If this should have been a highlight of the trip, with both sides looking for a place in Europe, then it was disappointing. Despite, or maybe because of the visitors taking the lead early in the game, it never reached the heights. With so little coming from their earlier endeavours, it came as a surprise to us when Interblock equalised with just ten minutes to go. This did lead to an interesting finish, as the home team could suddenly see a chance of victory. However, it was clear that Koper had been playing within themselves in defending a lead, and in injury time, it was the Interblock defence that was found wanting, and Koper went away with a 2-1 victory

With the exception of Hutch, who was staying, we had just over 90 minutes after the match, before our train left. For once the group is unanimous – food was the order of the day. Sometimes finding the correct time to eat can be a problem on these trips – for example in France, where most matches kick off around 8 p.m., the period 8-10 in the evening are the central business hours for restaurants, and in smaller towns, there is a limit to what you can get earlier or later. A kick off at five o’clock, may not be the best for the crowds to reach after working, but does mean all the restaurants are open at the game’s end.

Then onto the train – five of us in a six couchette compartment for a near twelve hour journey. The conductor took one look at us, and decided to move the other occupant, an elderly woman, to the empty compartment next door. Preparations (only one person can make up the bed at a time in the narrow compartment) take a while, and the area starts to smell of sweaty men’s socks. It takes a while after the train gets away for the air conditioning to bring some comfort to proceedings, but eventually some sleep is to be had. Generally, I do best, as I am the only one who is not to be woken by my snoring – but I still never sleep well in transit, and I have a tendency to wake each time the train stops for a while.

We end up in Zurich, where we find some small breakfast, (for some large price, we are in Switzerland now) and then break the group into two. The Wolves fans are heading south to Locarno, whereas the rest of us take the short journey east to St. Gallen. This is a relatively small town, but with a very attractive old centre. The baroque cathedral dates back to the 18th century, and is impressive both inside and out – although it did appear that one of its best features was the lawn outside, as the city was otherwise devoid of green space in its centre. Around the cathedral, many half timbered houses date back to the same period, when the town was wealthy from the textile trade.

St. Gallen’s Football Club won the Swiss League in 2000, but this was very much a one-off, with the bigger city clubs having returned to the fore since. A new stadium well out away from the town is to be opened this summer, but the club risks playing in front of tiny crowds in the second division (known in Switzerland as the Challenge League, the top division being the Super League). It was a neighbouring Challenge league team we had come to see – Gossau is eight minutes down the line from St. Gallen. We took a twenty minute walk around the town and confirmed that as far as seeing the sights are concerned, this is twenty minutes too long.

The football ground is also easy to find. Exit the station at the southern side, and cross the road, (it’s not a big road). The majority of one side has been built up with about half a dozen wooden steps – about three quarters of the stepped area is covered by the simplest of wood and corrugated steel covers (with support pillars in the front), while the seating area takes up about half the zone. There are also a few steps of terracing without cover on the opposite side, and another similar area, this time fenced in behind the goal furthest from the railway – this being the away enclosure. The visitors, Lausanne-Sport brought about 30 fans with them, while the total crowd was given in the following days papers as 800. (There is some doubt among my compatriots about the counting which meat this healthy looking crowd was apparently only 100 more than the sparse one at Interblock. Interblock may have their reasons for reporting a relatively high crowd, and as tickets are free, they do not need to tie crowd figures to gate receipts. Gossau benefit from the fact that small crowds look better in compact stadia, and I think their 800 may be correct.

As for the game, it never got into second gear. Despite league positions that mean both teams are fairly certain to stay in the Challenge League next season, (either side would guarantee their place with a win), they both played a defensive game showing more fear of losing than hope to win. It was not until after the break that we really saw some effort from the two teams to win the game. Lausanne took the lead with a long shot that took everyone by surprise, while the home team’s equaliser, seven minutes later was from the penalty spot – and that too took us by surprise.

So after three matches in different countries, the tour has yet to take off in footballing terms. It seems that defensive formations and tactics are ruling the roost. The next match will see me alone again in Austria – but will the football pick up?

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The Lore of the Eurotour

08/05/2008 by leo.

There are a number of factors that make May an ideal time of year for groundhoppers to set out on European tours. First and foremost among these is the fa