21/11/2007 by leo.

With many new owners coming into the English game, either on a strictly for profit plan (such as the American buy-outs of Liverpool and Manchester United) or for who knows what motive (as at Chelsea and Manchester City), the question of who owns football clubs has never been more openly debated. Platini has seen fit to comment on this as well, although he has said nothing specific, just added to a general paranoia against foreigners. The most intriguing change in ownership is that of Blue Square Conference club Ebbsfleet United, (previously known as Gravesend and Northfleet). It has been agreed that a 51% share in the club will be bought by the web site, Myfootballclub.co.uk, when the deal has gone throw, the members of the web site will effectively own the club. However, the intention is not just to have these shareholders appointing the executive as generally happens with limited companies. Instead they will have a say, via on-line polls into every aspect of running the club, including the choice of the team each Saturday. At least 20,000 people have signed up, paying £35 each for the privilege, (with 21% going on administration costs, I think the web site owner is making a small fortune somewhere along the line).

Many of the existing support are not surprisingly suspicious of the deal, while I think the administration probably see this as £500,000 of new money, with an idea that will soon be forgotten, leaving them to run the club much as before. (Ebbsfleet may also be considered a poor choice by some of the people who have bought in – the original aims of the site said a club capable of reaching the Premiership, with Leeds United topping the members poll of clubs to approach).

I cannot guess who this one will work out, but I will keep an eye on it and report back later.

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21/11/2007 by leo.

After the World Cup draw, we wait another week for the next big draw – for the finals of Euro 2008. This will be the end of a big week in European Football, as not only is there another series of games in the Champions League and UEFA cup, but the week will end with UEFA’s Executive committee delivering a verdict on the Platini plan to reform the club competitions. It appears however, that the plan has already been holed below the waterline after last week’s meeting of the European Professional Football Strategy Council. This organisation brings together representatives from UEFA, Clubs, Leagues and Professional footballers, and includes three Englishmen in its sixteen members. Geoff Thompson, (FA Chair/UEFA Vice President), Peter Kenyon (club rep from Chelsea) and David Richards (Premier League chairman). It cannot be co-incident that Platini had threatened to be less than fully supportive of England’s 2018 World Cup bid just before the meeting started.

The piece of the Platini plan that has certainly been lost is the idea of allowing the cup-winners of 16 top countries to play a special qualifying competition with four places in the group stage at stake. However, it may still be possible for individual countries to choose to send cup winners instead of an extra league team into this qualification place. Rumour is that Italy, where the national cup is run by the league may choose to do so, whereas here in England, the FA do not have the power to push the Cup Winners above the fourth place in the league. What Platini will keep is an extension on the number of Champions automatically placed in the group stages. Currently there are 16 places directly allocated (10 Champions and six runners-up), but this will be increased to 22 (13 Champions, six runners-up and three third placed clubs). Platini wanted to separate the qualifying competitions, so as six of the ten qualifying teams had to be champions, the other four being from the Cup-winners section. It will still be an achievement for Platini if he can reserve the six places for Champions.

The UEFA Cup part of the plan was to change from 8 groups of 5 teams with three qualifying from each to 12 groups of 4, two qualifying from each. This is logical and I would expect it to be carried through. In order to provide the extra dates, teams knocked down to the UEFA Cup in the last round of Champions League qualifying will go direct to the group stage.

Platini has been publicly raging against the inequalities of the current system. These are two fold, the Champions League (but not the UEFA Cup) is earning riches that go in the main to those clubs in the group stages. These earnings allow the clubs that make it to this stage to be in a higher financial league than that of their league rivals. This has created an inequality and lack of competitiveness within many leagues, including the best in Europe. The earnings are not equally distributed between the clubs in the Champions League though, and those clubs from the ‘bigger’ countries have a major advantage over the smaller nations based on both national and champions league earnings. I wrote to UEFA and asked what the plan to deal with these inequalities would be. The reply was that they had not decided yet. This is the battle yet to come for Platini. And again the trump cards are all in the hands of those clubs whose wealth may be affected by a Platini victory.

In another move, Platini wrote to the prime ministers of every European state back in the summer, asking for special treatment for the sport in European treaties, (especially the current EU one that is under debate across the continent). There are a few lines about sport in the treaty, and Platini is actually claiming a victory. But those few (almost meaningless) lines fall well short of the standard Platini was asking for. Indeed, Gordon Brown openly said no to Platini within days of the original letter. What UEFA have been asking for is a position for sport that places it separate from other businesses, and allows it to at least negotiate to stand outside certain aspects of company law. The European Union would argue that in fact there are only around five major leagues in Europe (of which the Premiership is one). To not allow all European citizens equal rights to play for clubs in these leagues is a restraint of trade and will not be allowed.

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13/11/2007 by leo.

As we approach the second AGM of the Robins Trust, it is time to take stock of the project. Not surprisingly, that while the project is far from being an unmitigated disaster, it also has not been an overwhelming success. The question in my mind is whether the Trust has failed to live up to its potential due to failings of myself, and my fellow board members, whether other factors have kept us down, or whether my initial imagination of the potential of the trust was wildly unrealistic.

Achievements. As an enthusiastic and fund raising organisation, the trust has been as good as any in the past, there has been the ‘Sporting dinner’, quiz and race nights, regular raffles and the Christmas parties. All those involved were very proud of the achievement of the sponsored cycle ride, while the Sponsorship for youth scheme is still well supported. As a result of this, we have raised enough money to pay over £10,000 for club shares, and added significant amounts to the youth pool and to charities.

Dialogue with the club. One of our aims was to open up a dialogue with the board of the club, especially the chairman to put supporters’ views, etc. We do have dialogue running at all levels, but most of this is to do with our own organisation and how best to raise money. At the start of the season, there was talk of a fans charter to formalise how a supporter with a grievance could take this to the club – constructive talks have been held, and this is being taken forward by Brian Lancaster

Membership Numbers. The membership number is currently around 170 – and is showing a slow decline. This is equivalent to about 5% of the support the through the gate on any particular match day.

To be honest, the trust has done only a little better than other, earlier supporters organisations at Cheltenham. As a group, we do have the ear of the directors, but we can weald no influence, as we cannot truly say that we talk for the bulk of the support. I would have liked the trust to send a message urging caution, to the directors during the week before Keith Downing was appointed manager – but it would have been difficult to get agreement within our board on the wording, and it we could not be certain that the trust board would agree to send such a message – even though I believe our thoughts on the appointment were unanimous

In terms of the trusts other briefs when we started, (as opposed to the old CTISA), we have not yet achieved much – we have not really done anything to improve the clubs standing in the community, nor have we approached the business community in any significant way.

In comparison with other trusts, we are ‘ordinary’. Some trusts boast around 30% of the regular support as membership, and have members of the football club board, but these have almost always come about through a financial crisis at the football club in question. As we have no desire to make a crisis out of any drama here. Most trusts of clubs that have not had to face any crisis appear to be of a similar size to our own (source, Football Governance Research Centre, Birbeck, University of London).

Where do we go from here? It is quite clear that our trust is a critical point. The membership is in decline, and around half our initial board membership has left – without replacement. Several other board members, including myself would like to take a back seat for a while and let others take the lead. I think it would be advantageous if the trust board could take on some of younger blood and organise more events that appeal to the younger sections of the support.

The most likely course over the next few months for the trust is more of the same, with similar types of funding raising events and regular raffles. In this case, I can see the overall membership levels continuing to decline. The fact that the football club appears to already be preparing for relegation at the end of the season means that the general mood will remain one of depression for the foreseeable future, but we do not have the crisis of the type that has galvanised support of other clubs into action.

What I would like to see at some stage is a big push forward by the trust board, with a sudden rise in membership numbers. I still imagine a trust with over 1000 members – a figure that would make us a force to be reckoned with. I think a 1000 member trust would be able to force its way onto the board (not that there would be a great opposition here, so long as it was understood that certain details, like individual employees pay would remain confidential). A 1000 member trust needs a board of around 15-20 members (some could be sub-committees) in order to keep regular events going on – not just in Cheltenham, but in other towns in the area.

It would be expected that a larger trust would have a larger influence on the community. I could see the Trust, and hence the football club playing a larger part in other events in the town. This is a festival town, with a series of festivals; literature, music, cricket and racing – there is no reason why the football club cannot be part of these festivals, and that the trust should be the key link.

The biggest change in trust activity though, would be with the business community. And it is to forge these links that we need to first have a sizable group. When we first started, we negotiated an agreement with McDonalds for our members to buy cheap meals from the High Street branch. I believe this is still valid, but I do not know if anyone takes advantage of it. It is poorly advertised at our end, and I suspect at their end as well. I wanted to see this as the first of a number of links, but I cannot go up to a shop or restaurant and try to negotiate a discount for our feeble membership numbers. I want to see ways of the trust presenting benefits for its members within the town and the surrounding areas, but at the same time building up the profile of the football club within these establishments. I want the whole town to feel that the Football club belongs to them

The trust started at just the wrong time for me, personally. I had been unemployed for a couple of months prior to start up, but I have been in near continuous employment since, and my employment has continually been over 100 miles from the football ground. I have my dreams of how a football trust could run for the benefit of all, and where the town pulled together to support the club – rather than asking the nearest single rich person to subsidise it.

But, if I am being truthful, I know these are just dreams and here in Cheltenham, apathy will continue to rule.

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11/11/2007 by leo.

The first mention I can find of Cheltenham Town in the FA Cup results was for the 1914-5 tournament. However, this was the shortest lived of all cup runs – with no result recorded, and both ourselves and our opponents, Trowbridge Town managing to get disqualified without reaching the next round.

In this article, most of our matches are in either the Extra Preliminary Round (XP) or the Preliminary Round (P) – there were then a number of further qualifying rounds (1Q, 2Q, etc) before the first round proper.

With war intervening, it was not until 1919 that Cheltenham finally got a result on the board – not a particularly inspiring result, being as it was a 4-0 defeat at Chippenham Town. For the next decade or so, entry to the cup was patchy, results even more so. In 1920, we got through XP after a 2-2 draw with Melksham & Avon United, due to our opponents being disqualified, but then lost in PR at home to Trowbridge by 3-1. The following season we fell to XP defeat at home to Devizes, while in 1922-3 – the season of the first Wembley final, we were missing from the competition. This may have been because we had just entered the newly formed Gloucestershire Northern Senior League, which had finally brought organised football to this area. Up to this point, teams in the area played in a number of local leagues, such as the Cheltenham league. Each league had a limited number of teams, but many clubs competed in more than one league, leading to frequent chaos with the fixtures.

We were back at XP in 1925, when Union Jack (Bristol) continued our run of defeats, the score was 3-6, so maybe it was not a surprise we gave 1926 a miss – returning in ‘27 to lose the XP 3-5 at home to Warminster. Still, our league form was improving – as we became the dominant team in the league for the next few years, although we recorded only one title, compared to four runners-up positions. But although 1928-9 was the championship year for Cheltenham, it was a double disappointment in the cup, as we were drawn away to play Gloucester, and still lost, this time 2-1 (XP) – Gloucester went out 1-0 at Spencer Moulton, two weeks later. The next two seasons went by without Cheltenham entering the FA Cup. Finally, on 5 September 1931, at the start of our last season in the Northern Senior League, we went to J.S. Fry & Company, at the chocolate company’s grounds in Keynsham and won an FA Cup (XP) match – not only that, we won it 5-0. This only kept us in the competition for two weeks, after which we travelled to Kingswood and lost 2-0, but it was a start.

In 1932, we moved into the Birmingham Combination, a professional league requiring far more travelling. We had a successful first season, finishing 3rd behind Redditch and Birmingham ‘A’, while our reserves replaced the first team in the Northern Senior and won the title. Perhaps in view of the greater commitment to league games, we did not enter the FA Cup. As it was, this was the final season in which we did not enter. The following season, we started the league campaign with a 3-0 home win against Atherstone, but then lost midweek at Aggborough in the Worcestershire Senior Cup. The second Saturday of the season brought Mount Hill Enterprise to Whaddon Road for an FA Cup game (XP). We won 2-0 with goals from Horace Payne and George Knight. Two weeks later, it was down to Bristol to play St. Phillips Athletic, and a Reg Smith goal gave us a draw and a home replay (which was played the following Wednesday, late afternoon – no floodlights then). Smith got a hat-trick as we won 5-0. So it was into 1Q, when Western League side Street came to Whaddon Road and lost 4-0. Then to Pennydarren Park, to play Merthyr Town. The former football league club, now playing in the Southern League had drawn with QPR in the previous season’s first round – Roy Hill and Harold Yarwood scored a brace apiece as we won 4-2. It turned out to be the Welsh team’s last ever FA Cup match – they folded at the end of the season. Another Southern League club in Wales in 3Q – Llanelly, (they changed the name to Llanelli in 1960). A 2-2 draw in Wales (George Knight, Horace Payne) led to 3000 people at Whaddon Road on a Wednesday afternoon, (1st November, so kick off surely could not be later then around 3pm). Despite Harold Yarwood’s goal, the Welshmen won 2-1.

But that was not the end of it – the FA found out that Llanelly had played ineligible players in both matches, so Calne and Harris United made the trip to Cheltenham in 4Q. Calne were a relatively minor team, (playing below Western League level at that time) and had reached this round with a series of relatively local home wins, beating Devizes 3-0, Frome Town 5-2, Radstock 2-1, and Clandown 3-1. On the 11th November they met their match, with 5000 in Whaddon Road to see Harold Yarwood score four times, George Knight and Roy Hill two each, George Blackburn and Fred Hazard one each, as Cheltenham marched into the competition proper with a 10-1 win.

Serious stuff now, even if it was a home match against non-league opposition. Barnet had won the Athenian League in both 1931 and 32, and were to reach the semi-final of the Amateur Cup in the following spring. Such a reputation seems to have been lost on Cheltenham, as Payne (2), Knight (2) and Yarwood led us to a 5-1 win, and then the longest trip imaginable – to play Third Division (North) club Carlisle at Brunton Park. If the majority of the 7347 crowd expected to see Carlisle win, then they were wrong, Cheltenham went home with a 2-1 victory, Reg Smith and a Bradley own goal doing the trick. So a club that had only win in 7 previous FA Cup attempts, now had 7 wins in one. All good things come to an end, though and Blackpool, relegated from Division One the following season came not to Whaddon Road, but the larger Athletic grounds, 10,389 came to watch, and Horace Payne who had scored the first FA Cup goal of the campaign also got the last, with Blackpool winning 3-1.

The following season was to be the last with our first team in the Birmingham Combination, before we moved on to 50 years in the Southern League, we played only one more FA Cup game, and again lost at home. This time, at 4Q our opponents were Barry, and we lost 4-2.

Early data from Tony Brown and www.thefa.com – post 1932 data courtesy of Keith Iles and Roger Knapp.

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11/11/2007 by leo.

There are few places where the line between Sports and Politics is more blurred than in the republic of Ireland. At the centre of this is the Gaelic Athletic Association. The association was formed in 1884, roughly the same time as the different sports organisations were being organised in the rest of Britain, (all Ireland being under British rule at the time), with the specific purpose of promoting games of Irish origin. The original intention was to re-establish an ancient sports event, the Tailteann Games and if this had stayed the main focus, Gaelic games would have become singular atheltics events, a cross between the common international athletics meetings and the highland games. However, the focus was soon changed to the two major Irish field sports, Football and Hurling, (Gaelic Rounders is also promoted, this is a sport much closer to the American baseball than the British rounders games you may remember from schooldays). As with sports in Britain, prior to organisation, there were a number of variants of any sport, with the rules changing from institution to institution. By laying down a common set of rules, it became possible for the games to move beyond single communities and for competitions to take place between different counties. Naturally, other areas of progress in the last 19th century also helped this progress – the development of transportation (the railways and better roads) to enable the teams to meet, and the changes to working hours bought about by the industrial revolution.

It is worth noting, considering the directions the organisation took within 30 years of being founded, that one of the GAA’s founding fathers was a capped International at Rugby, and a member of the Royal irish Constabulary, while another became the father of a cabinet member in theBritish government. As the question of Irish identity became one of nationalism and independence, so the GAA quickly became an organisation that not only shunned British sports, but actually legislated against them. The organisation was always unashamedly Catholic in nature, but would never prohibit members of other demoniations or religions from participating. Most games, anyway were played on Sundays, which has always ruled out the participation of those protestants who took their religion seriously.

As early as 1886, the rules of the GAA banned members of the British military and the British Police forces in Ireland from taking part in Gaelic sports, a ban that was not lifted until 2001 – and then only with much controversy in Ireland. Another rule banned GAA players from particpating in, or even watching other sports (this was lifted in 1971), while the ban on GAA premises being used for non-Gaelic sports lasted much longer. The words non-Gaelic really meant British, as the headquarters of Gaelic sport, Croke Park was used for a Boxing match in 1972 (Mohamed Ali won) and two American football matches in 1996 and 1997.

The worst of all events at the stadium took place on 21st November 1920. On the morning of that day, a series of attacks by members of the Irish Republican movement, killed 14 British Intelligence Officers around the city of Dublin. That afternoon, a football match was taking place at Croke Park between Dublin and Tipperary. Members of the British Army’s Auxiliary division entered the ground and shot indiscriminately into the crowd. Thirteen spectators, and the captain of the Tipperary team, Michael Hogan were killed.

The Croke Park of today is somewhat different to stadium of 1920. It was essentially rebuilt in the 1990s. The stadium today has three sides of a uniform, three tiered stand. These are everything that you would expect of a modern stadium. The upper and lower tiers present unhindered views of the pitch. Sandwiched between these are the VIP areas, business lounges, and the like.

Sitting uncomfortably against this modern and concrete edifice sits Hill 16. A low slung area, which can still be used as a standing area for the Gaelic games. While most of the stadium sits under arching roofs, Hill 16 is open to the elements. While I was there, this area was converted to seating, and one small section of it was used by the away fans.

Much of the cash for the modernisation of the stadium came from the public purse; so of course is the money for the rebuilding of the Landsdowne Road Stadium, the home of Rugby and more recently football in the Republic. The FA of Ireland has now given up its plans to have a big and expensive stadium of its own, and will go along with sharing Landsdowne Road for the foreseeable future. There is still a considerable volume of opinion that would not rebuild the old ground, currently a heap of rubble on the ground, and move all sports into Croke Park permanently – but that requires the same type of logic as would have been required to make Twickenham into London’s main stadium for all sports. (And do not forget that in addition to Twickenham and Wembley, an improbably expensive Olympic stadium is currently about to be built within five miles of Arsenal’s new Ashburton Grove facility, and yet both Spurs and West Ham are talking of starting fresh ventures of their own).

It has taken a lot of political effort to get other sports into Croke Park. It was only a few years ago that the GAA voted against lifting the ban, and hence put an end to a proposed Celtic bid (Ireland, Scotland and maybe Wales) for a European Championship. Now a mixture of Government money, and a sum of over £1 million per match has persuaded the doors to open for other sports. Still the agreement is only a temporary one – the GAA have only agreed to five Rugby matches (two seasons worth of six nations championship matches), and four Football games (now all completed in the current run of qualification of Euro 2008). In fact, two more six nations series, and most of not all of the qualification for the next World Cup will have to take place before the new Landsdowne Road is ready. Assuming they accept these matches, there is a chance they could be offered the chance to play a major European club final in the city as well.

On arriving at the stadium, a few things surprised me. One is the fact that GAA pitches are significantly larger than those for Soccer and Rugby, so the playing area is marked out on the middle of the green with a very wide expanse of green all around. Secondly the lower tier of seats are arranged not a direct rake, but a gently concave one. The lowest seats are down close to pitch level, but some 20 yards from the action. They also go into the corners, some 20 beyond the goal lines. The front rows of the lower tier are also far forward of the leading edge of the roof, so if it was a wet night, (as it happens, it wasn’t), the spectators here would know about it.

In a stadium like this, where the best views, (apart from the VIPs and corporate areas) were to be had from the upper tier, or at least the upper reaches of the lower tier, I suppose I should not have been surprised to find that only two price ranges existed, and by buying the more expensive tickets, I seemed to have been given the worst view in the house, (two rows back, lower tier and well behind the goal line). Fortunately, the ground was far from full – but this was the only time I have ever ‘sneaked’ into the cheaper seats!

As for the match, it was better than I expected. The opposition, Cyprus may be one of the lesser teams of Europe, but they came to the match to win, and played the ball around in a controlled and confident manner. The Irish on the other hand, played a game of hoof and hope, and rarely held onto possession for more than a couple of kicks. Cyprus really deserved to win, and went ahead with just over ten minutes to go. The Irish did fight until the end, and gained the equaliser in injury time. Even so, the crowd was making their displeasure known, and manager Steve Staunton took the blame for the result (part of a series that left them well short of qualification), and was sacked before the week was out.

Posted in The European Game, Political Footballs | 1 Comment »

25/10/2007 by leo.

About 9 Metres Below Sea-Level

Flevoland is the newest province of the Netherlands, indeed it is literally one of the newest lands anywhere. The decision to seal off the Zuiderzee was only taken after floods in the Netherlands in 1916. The dike that created the enclosure was finished in the 1930s, but it was not until the late 50s that the water levels were lowered enough to allow new lands to be settled. Situated well below sea level, the terrain of Flevoland is flat and unexciting. The dominating feature being the wind turbines that delineate the dikes between the land and the lake, and also appear to be growing randomly across what is the world’s biggest man-made island. The biggest city on the island is Almere, which has grown from having a population of 47 in 1975 to now house over 165,000 people, the eighth biggest city in the country.

The town planners for Almere started with a blank sheet of paper, and devised a system of keeping roads, bus ways and cycle lanes separate. Sadly, this was their only achievement, and the buildings placed between these through routes fail to show any use of imagination. The city fathers however did show some imagination when they decided the city should have a sports club that would compete in ‘all’ sports. Hence the rather ambitious name of Omniworld. Over the years, though most of the sports have been dropped. The football team, after several years of trying, and reaching the top level of the amateur game was accepted into the professional league last season. This meant a very quick build to bring the stadium up to standard, the stadium has been morphed from a very basic facility named after the Netherlands most famous athlete (Fanny Blankers-Koen) to become the far more eloquent Mitsibushi Fork Lift Stadium. The name is clearly appropriate as most of the parts could easily of been put into position using Fork Lift trucks. Three sides have basic tin covered stands, two (along the length of one side and behind a goal) given over to seats, while the third is given over the standing. Behind the goal where we entered the ground, there were to buildings, - one was a club room where anyone could get a beer or a coffee, while the other newer building was given over to the corporate guests, with dressing rooms on the lower floor.

The playing surface was one of the new third generation artificial surfaces. These play a lot better than the original plastic pitches, but the bounce is ensured by a layer of black dust which is embedded with the plastic. This brings up a slightly disturbing view, somewhat akin to a splash of water whenever ball or player makes a heavy contact with the ground. Contrary to popular opinion, artificial surfaces do not always guarantee the match being played. What was scheduled to be the first ever professional game on the ground, just over a year ago was postponed because the referee had deemed that too much water lay on the surface. That match would have been against BV Veendam, who by chance were also the opposition for my visit. Omniworld, in their second season are still to set the world of professional football alight. Veendam on the other hand have a tendency to be among the leaders in the lower division of Netherlands football, frequently making it into the play-offs, but almost by design not going further. (They have only ever spent three seasons in the top division, and each of these ended in relegation). As for the game itself, it was quite an entertaining affair with plenty of chances at both ends – but no one was capable of converting the chances into actual goals. Officially, the crowd was given as 2236 – I felt this was the first piece of imagination I had seen on the Flevoland, but it would be more charitable to put the figures down to the number of ticket holders who did not fancy the ground on a damp Friday.

In the grey dawn of a dull Saturday morning, Flevoland continued to look bleak, but then so did the rest of the low country as we drove on to Groningen, where we booked into a hotel, and the 100 extra kilometres across the German border to Emden. Arriving only 45 minutes before kick off, I had to forgo seeing the delights of this port, and head straight to the ground. I was already too late to buy a seat ticket. With high fencing on all sides, my eight Euro standing ticket left me out in the rain, as the terrace along one side of the ground was the only one that has reasonable views. I did repair to the covered standing behind the goal for a period of the first half as a further shower threatened to more than dampen my hair. The views from this low standing area behind a fence were poor, and inevitably, while I was sheltering at one end of the pitch, the only goal of the game was scored at the other. Played on an almost waterlogged surface, the game almost certainly would not have started in England.

Back to Groningen, and pleased to find that the long queues through the road works had now evaporated, we arrived at the ground in good time. Groningen moved away from a traditional ground in a built up area about 18 months ago. The new ground is part of a renovation scheme for a derelict docks and industrial area just south of the centre, and conveniently close to the motorways. There are a number of new office blocks in the area, resplendent in shiny glass and steel. By contrast, the ground appears to be an amorphous blob of grey concrete, speckled with porthole windows. As the building also housing a number of other businesses, a health club, a Chinese restaurant and a supermarket among others, there is no shape to remind one that this is a football ground. The only real sign an outsider gets is floodlight gantries which appear to be somewhere in the middle of the block. I thought it appropriate the name of the stadium, the Euroborg reflected that of Star Trek’s Borg – an enemy without shape or personality (and clearly also without 7 of 9 – the Euroborg certainly is not sexy).

The casual visitor to the Eredivisie (it translates as Premier Division) in the Netherlands has a problem. A few years ago, the problems of hooliganism in the country got to the stage where the government decided to introduce a membership scheme, “club cards”, and to refuse entry to anyone without a card. It is a sledgehammer to crack a nut approach, as everyone knows that the problem is limited to five clubs, (Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV, den Haag and Utrecht), with the need perhaps for some extra security for matches of special local interest, such as the Fresian ‘derby’ when Groningen play Heerenveen. Despite the relatively small size of the country, away fans for most clubs are short of numbers. Still, hooliganism has been reduced.

In the meantime, so many new grounds have been built, that the league is unrecognisable (around half the Eredivisie play on grounds less than a decade old). Surprisingly, there has been a boost in the numbers of people watching games, even though it appears to me that the Dutch ideals of total football have died, and with the best of the countries players now abroad, the domestic league exists on crumbs and foreign imports. Buoyed by the new ground, and the rise in support, almost all tickets at Groningen, (and many other Netherlands clubs) are now given to season ticket holders. A small area is for away fans, and this area is divided into two pens. An tickets made available to the casual visitor are in this area, and are not confirmed until three days before the game. At Groningen, these are available on the day at the stadium, or in advance (for two days only) at a nationwide ticket service (run in conjunction with the national lottery). At the ground, one would need some ID, but a foreign passport would do in lieu of the club card. The club will not give out any useful information about ticket availability in advance, nor will they reserve tickets for visitors. Still, you should be confident of getting a ticket if the opposition is not one of the critical teams above. The locals do not queue for them.

I actually cheated though – and applied in advance for press accreditation. Inside the stadium has two tiers of seats around the pitch, with the lower tier going down to around pitch level, on the side were we entered, the upper tier was entirely replaced by executive boxes. We ourselves had the use of a plush lounge which was shared with a number of categories of fan, and we were provided with free coffee and cake before the game. Our view was from near the top of the lower tier, with the executive boxes up above us. Above us, the roofs of the stand did not come out anywhere near the full width of the stand. On a blustery wet day (and we had chosen such a day), almost all the lower tier seats and their occupants were to get wet. This type of detail in a new ground always surprises me. I only had to look up when I entered to realise that the risk of the lower seats getting rained on was high – one does not need a fully roofed stadium to prevent this – a further 5 yards of extended roof would have protected most of the crowd. Many clubs have added this in semi-transparent plastic to reduce the effect the shadows so caused will have on the pitch. Despite having as much rain in Groningen, as there had been in Emden, the pitch was in excellent condition. The game however was not. Sparta Rotterdam played Sander Westervald in goal, and then arranged the defence to try and stop the ball getting anywhere near him – three centre backs, two wing backs (neither of whom pushed forward much), and a defensive midfielder to shield the backs. Only one forward, but that seemed a luxury as they never got the ball that far upfield. Groningen struggled to break down the resistance, but managed a single goal early in the second half. The goal did not change things on the pitch much though, as Sparta continued their resolute defence of a 1-0 defeat.

The tour finished on Sunday with an Oberliga game in the Westfalen region. The match was chosen mainly on the strength of its distance from both Groningen and from Weeze airport. The Oberliga are level four of the German pyramid system and are supposedly nine equal leagues – each currently promoting one team per season to each the Regionalliga. With the creation of the 3rd Bundesliga and three Regionalliga for next season, most of the Oberliga will be promoting four teams at the end of this season. Below this level, things get more complex, for while most Oberliga will remain as they are, those from Westfalen and Nordrhein are to combine, to form a single Oberliga. Meanwhile, the biggest geographical Oberliga (Nord) will disband, meaning that the five leagues that feed to it at present will be the new fifth level. Already there is some disparity between the strength of the Oberliga, and these changes are going to make the differences at fifth level much more pronounced.

Anyway, back to my tour – and to Erkenschwick, a former mining town on the edge of the Ruhr industrial area. The town itself is clean and neat, nothing to get excited about, while not have the depressed feel of some of Britain’s former mining towns. A mining museum reminds the visitor of the towns former status, while a mixture of light industry and accommodation as a dormitory town for bigger centres not far away gives the town its current existence. The football club has seen better days, and has a stadium to prove it – a large bowl with steps of terracing all around a running track with a stand providing cover and seating all along one side. In the days before the National League was formed, Erkenschwick were frequently in the top level of regional football, and in more recent times they have spent three seasons in the second division of the Bundesliga. But the last time they were at this elevated level was in 1981, and since then there has been a gradual decline in the club. A crowd of 600 – good for this level is dwarfed by the size of the ground. Oddly, there is very little in the way of access to the main bowl – the dressing rooms are outside the area, and we approach from a public car park and then across two training pitches, (one plastic, with a junior game in progress, one red gra). The bars are also outside the ground, but the locals are very hospitable, and curious as to why three English football fans should descend on the game. Admission is €8 and the programme is an extra 50 cents. We drink with the locals at the outside bar until they have set up things inside, so we watch them carrying crates of beer, rolls and sausages to provide refreshment to those inside. Later, I will, of course, be partaking of a Bratwurst. It would not be German football without one.

I think the game goes down as unmemorable – typing this piece several weeks later, I remember little of the actual match, and more of the people we talked to (a local journalist, and an Englishman who married and settled in the area), than of the games itself. It remained scoreless in the first half, so the crucial point was the home side bringing on substitute Martin Setzke in the 55th minute. Setzke’s first action was to put his side ahead, but two minutes later, the game was level again. It Was Setzke again who was supersub when Erkenschwick scored the winner with 15 minutes to go. As the home side tried to increase their advantage (and they looked worthy of it), the visitors, Weidenbruck started to lose their shape and composure, and this led to them losing a player, sent off for foul language – as the game was already into injury time, it did not effect our result.

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15/10/2007 by leo.

Michel Platini was elected as UEFA President back in January, and it has taken him until the summer to make clear how he plans to revamp Europe’s club competitions. However, as the base premise of the plan had been part of his election campaign, his opponents have had time to prepare their opposition. While the plans look at first glance to be designed to please football supporters – the opposition comes from the big clubs, and it has not taken long for them to get their big guns out and shoot at Platini’s ideas.

Platini has started with one consideration, there is a lot of money in UEFA’s competitions at the moment and it is getting distributed very unevenly, with a small number of clubs from a small number of leagues getting the lions share. Even within the two UEFA competitions, the numbers are uneven – the 32 clubs in the UEFA Champions league last season shared €580 million rather unevenly between them. In UEFA’s second competition, the UEFA Cup, 40 teams made the group stage, but under €35 million was paid out. Even the big money was in no way evenly divided – over 20% was delivered to the four English clubs. Chelsea claimed €34.6 million despite being knocked out at the semi-final stage, a little more than Liverpool, and more than anyone except the Champions, Milan. By comparison, Levski Sofia, playing in the group with Chelsea got a mere €5.5 million.

The first phase of the Platini plan is to open up the Champions League to more actual champions – only 14 countries are represented in the Champions League group stage this season, and only 12 champions (the runners up have got through from Romania and the Czech Republic), 12 more are runners-up, 5 third placed teams, and four 4th placed sides. Under the Platini plan, most countries have one less place – although as a bribe to some, these are guaranteed. So Platini wants to guarantee 22 places without qualification, giving the top three countries 3 places (but no qualification match) instead of four places, with two facing qualification. Countries 4-6 have two direct places (as now) but lose the third chance via qualification. A further 7 champions get direct entry (although one of these can be the Champions League winners). Currently only three of these get direct qualification, but runners-up enter the qualifying competition down to the 15th ranked country. For a country like Scotland (current rank, 11th), this may be good for the Champions, who are excused the potentially awkward qualification match – but not for the runners-up, whose route to the group stage is removed. Under the Platini plan, all the remaining countries would play their champions in qualifying matches, with six of them (out of about 40) getting a place in the group stage. The more controversial move was a secondary qualifying competition for the cup winners of the top 16 countries – four cup winners would eventually reach the group stage. It is this part of the plan that has generated most criticism, and it makes on wonder what on earth possessed Platini to include it. Only one member association has even brought up the possibility of entering a Cup winner in the Champions league – England. Even then the FA had a milder suggestion – that the FA Cup winners could play the fourth of the Champions League qualifiers, with the winner entering the Champions League (at the 3Q stage) and the loser dropping to the UEFA Cup. There is no reason for UEFA to object to this, if formally requested by the FA – after all they already allow the Netherlands to play a series of play-offs at the end of the season which means any team finishing 2nd to 5th can get the second Champions League place (the country only has two).
The final plank of Platini’s re-arrangement of the competitions was to extend the group stage of the UEFA Cup from 40 teams to 48; this means re-arranging the groups from the current 8 groups of five teams, to a 12 groups of four – with only the top two going through from each. Currently with three going through from five teams groups, it is easy to feel that a club does not have to do well to get through. Platini has not stated how the qualification for the groups would look, but the most likely format is one where the total number of European teams for each country would be unchanged, no team is expected to reach the UEFA Cup group without at least one qualifying tie, but teams knocked out of the final round of Champions League qualifications (6 League champions and four cup winners) would not face any more matches.

Immediately Platini had started to propose his plans, the protests started. With so much money behind the current format of the Champions League; UEFA have found that the have created a beast which is not easily killed, or even tamed. The biggest opponents of the new plan are those who see themselves as missing out as their places in the Champions league get given to ‘smaller’ clubs.

The secret in the plan, certainly as far as the public is concerned, and maybe to the clubs themselves is how Platini intends to redistribute the money. UEFA has done terrifically well in selling the Champions League, and in doing so they have created a money pot from which over €600 million is delivered each season. The success of the Champions League, however had accentuated the position of the UEFA Cup as a secondary competition – only €35 million being distributed from this pot. Platini’s plan is almost certainly to take some of the money from the rich and pass it to the relatively poor – and if he has any sense, he will start to tie the two competitions together, so as the sponsors are supporting European Club football, rather than just the Champions League.

In England, four teams picked up €20 million or more from the Champions League last season, Spurs collected €4 million from their UEFA cup run, Blackburn €380,000 and Newcastle €450,000. This gives the big four a tremendous advantage over the rest of the league in financial terms – lesser payments to the big four, and higher ones to the rest (including the ‘solidarity’ payments to Premiership clubs not in European competition) would help to return the competitive edge that the league has lost in recent years. Across Europe, the share of the market pool given to English and Italian clubs was about 20% each, German, Spanish and French clubs also take large shares, leaving a pittance for countries like Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania and Russia. A more even distribution across Europe would help the leagues in these countries to compete. The argument could then be that stronger local leagues would keep more local star players through higher wages. The flood of cheap foreign players to the big leagues would at least be partly stemmed, and local players would have to step up to the fore in their place. And so by taking money away from the big clubs in England and distributing it instead to small clubs in England, and clubs in the smaller European Leagues, Platini could actually help the English National team!

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07/10/2007 by leo.

Note - this is the long version of my first European trip of the season. If any programme editors, etc wish to use it they can apply their own editing, or contact me at leo@leohoenig.com for a 1600 word version. I also have a few more photos that can be used.

My first trip into Europe for the season, and it is familiar territory as I fly Ryanair in and out of Germany, do battle with the Autobahn and rush across the borders to get my double fixtures in. So, not for the first time, I am rushing around Stansted Airport around six on a Friday morning. The comfort zone is only reached when you have passed through the queues for check-in, security and a cup of coffee, and are on board the plane. Finally a chance to pick up on some of the night’s lost sleep.

My flight takes me to Baden Airpark. The nearest airport to my destination with a cheap fare, but still some 350 km to go. The German motorway system is renowned for being the open road, and without speed limit. The reality is somewhat different. The age of many of the Autobahns means that repairs are constantly needed, while even the major roads were built with just two lanes in each direction. As a result, there is currently an enormous amount of resource being poured into updating the network, and it is almost impossible to go any distance without having to go through either a resurfacing project, or a major road-widening scheme. Still, unlike in England, actual queues when approaching the works are quite rare (and on this trip almost all heading in the opposite direction to me). It still remains a fact, though – that queues apart, I can drive at a faster average speed on the English motorway – even keeping to the speed limits, then the German one.

My first port of call was Ingolstadt, historically an important crossing point on the Danube, between Munich and Nurnberg. The town bristles with imposing buildings, and an improbable amount of church spires fighting for attention. With parkland next to the river as well, the town is a pleasant place to spend one’s afternoon, and after hours on the Autobahn, I was glad to have a couple of hours to look around. Near the cathedral is a gatehouse of some antiquity, and if you wander through, then the football stadium is about 100 yards further up on your right.

The stadium is as basic was one can get. The pitch sits inside a running track, (slightly unusual at this level). The main stand runs less than half the length of one side, and has only five rows of seats, a total of 400 places. Not surprisingly, all the tickets were sold out before I arrived at the ground. There is no cover for any of the standing areas. These consist of banks of terraces each side of the stand – also about five steps, and a slightly higher bank on the far side which goes most of the length of the pitch. Away fans, (and there were few of these on a Friday night), have to content themselves with the curve behind one goal – a few though had chanced their luck for a better view and were standing near me to one side of the stand. The opposite goal is entirely undeveloped, and is closed to spectators. The crowd was 2320, and most of the good view points in the home areas were taken. One could squeeze more in where I was standing – and on the far sides, where the front rows (view blocked by fencing) were unused. But even knowing the away end was nearly empty, I would not like to be there if the crowd ever approaches the quoted capacity of 10,000. At the end of this season, the Regionalliga will stop being the third level of football in Germany, and a new Third Bundesliga will be created. The objective for clubs such as Ingolstadt, and the visitors, Sportfreund Siegen – is to finish in the top ten and qualify for the new league. With nine points each from five games, both sides had made a good start to the campaign. We were treated to an entertaining game with plenty of attacking football from both sides. Siegen were using a 4-5-1 formation with the apparent intention of defending for a draw, but conceding early in each half, they had to attack for the draw, which they did. Ingolstadt always played as if they knew that one goal leads were not enough – and so it was proved with equalisers conceded in both halves.

On the Saturday morning, I retraced my steps most of the way, then headed west of Karlsruhe into the wine growing region of Pfalz. The small town of Hauenstein lies nestled below the hills and vineyards. Its football ground is typical for a fourth level team, with no cover at all, but some steep steps on one side to provide good viewing positions. All the rest of the ground is just level with a path. Behind one goal is a clubhouse, on two levels, while the most important and popular feature is a canteen supplying wurst and bier to the hungry masses. (Well, the 200 or Actually, the attendance was only around 200). The problem for German football, which next summer’s re-organisation will do something to face – is that a little club such as Hauenstein, whose league games do not take them more than 100 km from home - are only one good season away from having to travel half the country in the Regionalliga. Next season’s new Regionalliga will be at level four, and will only cover a third of the country. It is unlikely that either Hauenstein, or Engers, who were the visitors for the day will make the grade, (the top four are promoted to the new leagues). Instead they will stay with their Oberliga, which will drop from being level 4 to level 5 of the German pyramid. I feel this is football that would not look out of place in the Southern League, at a venue that still needs to add covered accommodation and floodlights to join the Hellenic. Very little needs to be said about the game itself, which ended up as a 1-0 home win.

After that, I headed further west. The advantage I now had was I was now away from all major population centres in the country, so although I was on a motorway of much the same standards as before, it was now clear and I was able to put my foot down. Appropriately, I thought – the border crossing into Luxembourg at Schengen is marked only by a signpost. After 40 km, which took me clear across the southern end of Luxembourg, I arrived in Petange. The ground sits on the edge of town – and has only one feature of note – a grandstand for about 300 people. The difference between the top division in Luxembourg and the third division in Germany was clearly shown by the fact that here the stand was nowhere near full. It was also a stand meant more to be admired from the outside than actually used. Its height above the ground, and the pyramid shapes of the roof make it look good – but with the few rows of seating arranged so as there is a path through the middle (used as the only covered standing), the number of railings needed to keep things safe, plus the pillars holding up the roof meant that less than half the seats have good views. The rest of the ground is just flat standing, although an area is set out to sell beer and bratwurst with a few tables and benches.

Petange has never been a big team, but have managed one European campaign, in which they drew the home match, but lost 4-1 overall to Allianssi of Finland. The visitors, FC Differdange 03 are a merger of two clubs from the town. Red Boys were a force way back in the thirties, but also won the championship in 1979, but they had dropped to the second division before merging with a third division side and climbin back a level. Red Boys have played in Europe on ten occasions, but never won a tie. They did win the first league of their only Champions Cup tie, against Omonia Nicosia by 2-1, but lost 6-1 in Cyprus. Their most notable result was a 0-0 draw with Ajax – but the return defeat at 14-0 remains a European record. (In 1971, Chelsea scored 13 at home to another Luxembourg team, Jeunnesse Hautcharage and won 21-0 on aggregate).

The football was poor, and unfortunately poor in all the wrong ways. With a quite enthusiastic crowd of just over seven hundred in the ground (including a small number for the visitors, Differdange, who had made the 5 km journey for this local derby), the footballers demonstrated a series of different ways to lose the ball. Both sides had gone for defensive formations, so while their forward players attacked eagerly, and the ball swung from end to end – none of the attacks looked vaguely like threatening the goalmouth. Differdenge, who had marginally the better of the game, had a habit of delivering a long ball to a free man on the far side, who would then hit the ball as hard as he could, in any direction except towards the target! Petange preferred not to risk losing the ball to a bad pass, so they made no passes at all and instead found their players continually crowded off the ball, as they tried to find the way through the mass of defenders. And so we had a game bereft of more than a few moments of either skill or entertainment, settled by a single scrambled goal helped in by the goalkeeper. This allowed the visiting fans to return home happy.

So that was Saturday, a fourth level German game in the afternoon, followed by the Luxembourg League in the evening. What to do on the Sunday? Well, much the same, although with no suitable fourth level club playing in the right part of Germany, I had to select fifth level instead. Generally, though Morbach was quite similar to Hauenstein. The Alfons-Jakob Stadion sits on the edge of a small town in a wine growing region. One side of the ground has a number of steep steps, and with the rest of the grounds surrounds being just a path. Again we have a two story club house, with a bar above and dressing rooms below, although this one is better positioned along the touch line, so a terrace outside the bar would provide some viewing under cover should the circumstances demand it. Morbach were promoted to this level at the end of last season, and are looking more than comfortable in their new surrounds. They dominated the early parts of the game, but lacked the touch that was needed to beat the visitors, SG Langenhahn/Rothenbach who were playing a very cautious 5-4-1 formation. Fortunately, on the bench they had Eloy Campos – a flair player who brightened up the attack as soon as he came on, providing the opportunity for leading goalscorer Timo Rosner to score three minutes later, and then adding the second goal, five minutes from time. The crowd was a little better than the previous day, with 300 present, and I felt it was thoroughly worth the €4 admission fee. The club could well get itself into position for another promotion, in which case its proximity to Ryanair’s Hahn Airport hub could see it becoming popular with travelling groundhoppers.

My Luxembourg league match was at Grevenmacher, only just across the border from Germany. An athletics event in the afternoon had led to the fixture being changed from the standard afternoon kick off to early evening. The ground was similar to that of Petange, in so far as it consisted of a single main stand, while the rest of the pitch surrounds (around an athletics track) were level standing. The main difference was that it is somewhat larger, and the stand while being blander in appearance, was far more suited to a crowd. The setting is quite attractive, with the ground quite a distance up the side of the hill above the Mosel river. This means the heavy industry along the river cannot be seen, but instead on gets a clear view to the vineyards on the hills the other side of the river (and hence incidentally in Germany) The crowd was a fraction under 800 and they were given a treat of a game, with both sides adopting attacking formations and going at their opponents from the start. Within 10 minutes both had opened their own accounts, and were fighting hard for the lead.

Grevenmacher established themselves as regular challengers for the title in the 1990s, when the leading club in Luxembourg were Jeunnesse Esch (the visitors for my match). They have now played in Europe 9 times, but have beaten KR Reykjavik, HJK Helsinki and Anorthosis Famagusta all at home, but always lost out on aggregate. In 2003, they won the title for the first (and so far only time), and added the Luxembourg cup as well. The visitors, Jeunnesse Each were the country’s leading team in the country for a long while, but of their 27 championships, they have managed only one (2004) since the millennium. They have featured in Europe on 30 occasions, 19 times in the top competition, and have won two ties.

Even though the league cannot be better than semi-professional, none of the teams involved are made up entirely of Luxembourgers. A variety of other players either cross the borders to play in this league, or maybe are already in the Grand Duchy for other reasons. While the neighbours (French, German and Belgium) make up the biggest part of the mix, there are a number of East Europeans, a smattering of South Americans, and Differdange appear to have more than a fair share of Portuguese.

It was one of the Portuguese, Bruno Ribeiro who had scored for Differdange, while at Grevenmacher, a German (with a Turkish name) opened the scoring for the team on the German border, while the team from the French border equalised by way of a Frenchman. Still it was a local that put Grevenmacher ahead again for the break. The same player concluded the scoring seven minutes from time, but only after another German had increased the home side’s lead, and an Italian had pulled a goal back!
A couple of years ago, there was speculation that a Luxembourg side would be allowed to join the Belgium league – staring in the second division. As with the speculation over Scottish sides joining the football league, the details (especially what happens in the case of relegation) have never been properly worked through. Unlike the Scottish example, there is no proof that a Luxembourg team could pull the crowds in. Where any sort of changes would leave the European competitions remains to be seen, although Luxembourg may point to Wales and say that teams from the league that is left should remain in competition through the league, and also point to Liechtenstein in the hope of keeping the side playing in Belgium in sight of a place, should they win the cup. (The Liechtenstein team remains unique as it is the only team in Europe that represents a country other than the one it plays league football in, Welsh teams in England, along with AC San Marino appear not to play in their home domestic cups). Until something changes Luxembourg appears destined to remain a backwater among footballing countries.

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04/10/2007 by leo.

Tuesday. I left my office an hour earlier than normal, and drove for three and a half hours. I arrived at Port Vale only a few minutes before kick off. I watched the game, which Cheltenham started OK, were unlucky with the referee’s decision for the first goal, then declined sharply in the second half. After the match, I had a two hour plus drive home. As it happened, a blockage on the motorway added an extra 30 minutes to the time. And yet I am not complaining about this. My friends do not think they are mad – in fact many of them envy me because I can leave the office an hour early and drive for over three hours to see the game, while they cannot.

At the end of the game, I was of course unhappy with the performance. I wondered if the manager had picked the best XI from the available players, and I was frustrated that I could not follow his logic on substitutions, (I could see that it failed to work). Looking forward, I expected the manager to motivate the team and move us forward by Saturday, (he has done so often in the past), and I hoped that the much hyped fresh player could be brought in on loan (although I was cynical about that – knowing our record of signing players has been poor).

But critical as I may have been, I did not boo or call for the manager’s head. The other supporters at the game were the same – unhappy about the game just played, yes – but still supportive of the manager and expecting him to try and change things around by Saturday.

And then the news comes in – the manager has left our club, to be announced as manager of Carlisle United in the morning.

A year ago, our manager signed a five-year contract to manage the club. Yes, five years, not 14 months. The contract was signed when the manager’s star was rising – we had just been promoted and other clubs (including, incidentally, Carlisle) were interested in taking him on. His assistant, Keith Downing followed on his coat tails and signed for three years. The new contracts meant big increases in salary, along with securing some of our players on longer term deals, there was little in the way of new arrivals.

Despite losing two of our best players during the transfer window, Ward pulled off what appeared to be a minor miracle and kept the team in League-1. In the summer, we sold our top striker, lost two players to rivals on Bosman transfers, and released two of our more experienced, well paid players on the basis that age and injury was now against them. The replacement players were somewhat less inspiring.

Throughout his tenancy of the manager’s seat, Ward has shown an ability to bring on young players. The three that left for fees all went for considerably more than the initial transfer fees on arrival. The two that went on Bosman transfers both left because they could now earn more with other clubs in the division.

Several of the new players to arrive were young and untried – but as these are exactly the sort of players who have come good under Ward in the past, we accepted them into our ranks. Indeed it looks as if our defence has been strengthened more by players coming through from our youth and reserve set up, then by signing more experienced players.

This was the project the manager had signed up for, a five-year project to sign and bring through youngsters. To bring out the best from these players and use them to establish our position in this division. Relegation was a possibility, but the project would carry on, and this young team would see us challenging to return to League-1.It was a project that I, and other regular fans of an admittedly small club could believe in.

By giving the manager a five-year contract, the club had shown a belief in the manager that has never before been shown to a manager of Cheltenham Town. That is reflected in the fact that the sums required to pay off the manager would be so great, the club would not be able to afford to sack him. That meant that there could be no knee-jerk panic reaction should relegation threaten. It was the manager’s job to lead the team, and if this took us into a wilderness, then it would be his job to lead us out again.

But this works both ways, if the club is committed to the manager, then the manager must be committed to the club. To just up and leave at the first sign of difficulties is a betrayal of the worst sort. By leaving on the back of two poor results, our manager has left us again close to the relegation door. He has left us with a pool of young players still learning, but now without their tutor. He has left us his assistant manager, they may have arrived as a package, and renewed contracts as a package, but they are a package no more. Everything is the way Ward wanted this club to run – but Ward is now to run Carlisle instead

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18/09/2007 by leo.

Still four more matches to report upon in the final week of my Asian tour. The first of these was Johor FC in Malaysia. As I explained in the Singapore piece, Malaysian football used to be entirely an competition between states. Malaysia is made up of 12 states, plus the city of Kuala Lumpur, which in a similar way to Washington in the USA is federal territory and not actually part of any state. 10 of the states are in Peninsula or Western Malaysia – between the Thai border and Singapore, whereas the two largest ones form the northern part of the Island of Borneo. The rest of Borneo is part of Indonesia, with the exception of the small sultanate of Brunei.

Until 1994, all of the states competed in the Malaysian League, while qualification for the prestigious Malaysia Cup was dependent on position in the league position. The actual format of the league tended to vary from season to season, changing every time the national team failed in international competition, with different formats for competition (in one or two divisions), or different numbers of foreign players allowed. The numbers in the league were normally 15 or 16 with the 12 states and Kuala Lumpur joined by Brunei, Singapore and on occasion by the Malaysian Armed Forces.

The rest of the set up was more similar to the County cricket system in England, than to our football competitions. If you consider the state FA’s as local equivalents of county associations – each then runs competitions for clubs within its region. In addition, there was a national cup (with very little publicity) for the same clubs, and a small number of them would compete in the Malaysian FA Cup (which is not the same as the Malaysia Cup) with the state teams. Within this framework, it should be noted that few if any of the club teams represent towns or villages, even though every town and village is sure to have its own football field. Instead most of the teams, especially the successful ones are named after companies. I have only been to a few matches in the local leagues, all in the Selangor League back in 1996. The first of these was on a town stadium, in Kajang – a sizeable town some 30 km south of Kuala Lumpur. The stadium was somewhat untidy, showing a lack of maintenance over the years, but was still a decent stadium. The home team for the match, however was not a representative of the town, but “Public Bank FC”. The match was played in late afternoon, trying to avoid the worst heat from earlier in the day, but having to complete before all light is lost soon after sunset. The ground is in a town centre, near a mosque, and the call to prayer at sunset was clearly audible. This remains the only match I have ever seen with an interruption for a “prayer-break”.

After Singapore left the Malaysian League in 1994 due to the corruption scandal, they carried on for a while with a single division of 15 teams, but in Malaysia, the pattern has always been to change things around every few years. Basically, every time they lose in qualifying for Continental or World Cups. The alternatives are to either increase or decrease the number of foreigners allowed, or to re-organise the league. During the late nineties, the introduction of a professional league was the big thing, (after the team’s failure at this year’s Asian cup, one of the letters to the paper said they would be better reverting to an amateur league), but when they decided they again wanted a two division league, they needed more teams, so from 1998, some of the club teams gradually entered the leagues. One of the first of these was Johor FC – which is connected to a company called the Johor Corporation (JCorp for short). For a while the shared the stadium with Johor state, in the city of Johor Bahru – meaning that we had two teams, called Johor and Johor FC sharing a ground in Johor Bahru. If this was not confusing enough, another club team called Pasir Gudang later joined the league, playing at a stadium owned by JCorp. For 2007, Pasir Gudang merged with the Johor state team and play in Johor Bahru – as Johor Pasir Gudang, while Johor FC play now play in Pasir Gudang. Apparently the locals are not confused. I am confused enough that while I knew the two towns were about 30 km apart, I could not work out whether Pasir Gudang was East or West of JB. At least some things are simple – when I looked the place up on the internet, I found only one hotel – the sketch map provided showed it in the vicinity of the football stadium, so I booked a room. I then took a bus from Singapore to JB – a wonderful journey as one has to get off the bus twice, to pass through Malaysia and Singapore border control. The second time you have to take your luggage with you. Arriving in JB, I found the bus out went from a different bus station about 5 km away. With the local taxi drivers somewhat reluctant to tell me how to get to the other bus station, I ended taking a taxi across to my hotel (Pasir Gudang turned out to be East of JB).

The stadium was indeed, no more than a ten-minute walk from the hotel. I passed a small shopping centre and the bus station – but apart from that the place seemed to have nothing to offer. The roads were wide, but near to empty, I could spot some industrial sites in the distance but little else. The stadium at Pasir Gudang is sandwiched between two high stands of concrete steps. The centre section on one side has a high roof, with a couple of radio commentary boxes at the top. Behind one goal is a large, manual scoreboard, while spectators behind the goals can make use of small sections of rather high wooden benches. The game itself was truly entertaining, with the visitors, Sarawak trying hard to escape their fate at the bottom of the table, but finding Johor FC too good for them. The final score was 3-1 in Johor’s favour.

The following morning, and from Pasir Gudang’s bus station, I made the five hour journey up to Kuala Lumpur and from there, a day later onwards to Brunei. The flight was with Air Asia, the biggest of the budget airlines which have spouted up across Asia since deregulation. You may recognise the name – it will displayed on the kit of the referee and his assistants at today’s game. Air Asia are also a sponsor of Manchester United. This is one of the biggest problems for Asian football – it is considered more productive to sponsor English football than to put money into the local games – even though the increasing demands of the Premiership to consume money, means that only subscription channels show the matches in most countries.

Brunei took its independence from the UK later than Singapore and Malaysia, in 1984 and has never espoused democracy. Instead the Sultan is an absolute monarch. It has been a sultanate with the same family ruling for over 500 years. Indeed 500 years ago, the territory covered by the Sultanate included the entire island of Borneo, plus parts of what is now the Philippines. Over the years, different countries and the European empires sliced away at this territory, and what was left became a British protectorate in 1888 to avoid the risk of disappearing absolutely. The country has a population of around 380,000 and is a rich and prosperous country, thanks mainly to oil. It must leave many of those no longer in the sultanate envious of what they may have been part of. The Sultan himself was for a period, considered to be the richest man in the world, but a bad investments (mainly by the Sultan’s brother, who was accused of embezzling £8 billion from the country – although the charges were later dropped) have decreased that. The wealth does spread around the country, with free education and a health service, plus no income or corporation tax. As a result, certain things such as taxis and hotels are not cheap, and I was travelling with a German hopper on limited resources. The last bus into town from the airport left before our flight arrived, and so we hitched a lift to save the taxi fare. The friendliness of the locals was shown by the fact that our efforts to hitch lifts were always successful, and that people would go out of their way to drop us off where we wanted to go. As it happened, the visit coincided with the end of the Sultan’s birthday celebrations, (61 years old), which run for 5 weeks each year. The festivities were on the padang (a local word for the equivalent of a village common). Centre pieces appeared to consist of a tug of war contest, fireworks and a parade of floats all sponsored by either companies or government departments.

The city of the main town was very busy for these festivities, especially on match day – and in advance we were treated to a special performance of the FA of Malaysia’s competence. The match was scheduled as Saturday 8.45 as part of the last day of the Malaysian League season. About a week before the match, we noticed the date had changed to Sunday on the official fixtures – this turned out to be in response to a Brunei request to switch it away from the celebrations. On calling the Malay FA, we were told 4.15 on Saturday, before the main evening celebrations in Brunei, but by the time we arrived the match was back in the evening. Although listed at 8.15 in the local paper, it actually kicked off at 8.45 – the same time as the match in neighbouring Sarawak, as the winner of the title was between the two away teams, Kedah playing in Brunei, and Perak.

Brunei’s football team is Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota Football Club. Not surprisingly this is generally abrieviated to DPMM.. The name of the football club is one of the titles conferred upon the crown prince of Brunei, Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah. Under the club name, the team was formed in 1994, with the Prince himself in goal. They played in local competition until 2005, when they took over the mantle of being Brunei’s team in the Malaysian League. Much of the support just refers to the team as Brunei, but the change has brought new life to the club, as they have moved from being mid-table in the Malay second division, winning promotion last season, and finishing in third place this time. As a Brunei team, naturally Brunei born players, who would be foreigners elsewhere in the league are not counted as such, and their one Malay player alos does not count as a foreigner. They have three true foriegners, signed from Korea, Chile and Croatia

We arrived at the stadium around an hour before the expected kick off, and found the ground almost deserted – but by the time the match actually started, there were about 5000 people in the stadium,. The normal crowds are between 7 and 10,000 – which is around 2-3% of the population of the country. This actually makes Brunei one of the world’s football hotspots. Less than 1% of the population of England watch the game during a typical weekend. Only Monaco, where the average crowd of 13,000 equates to 40% of the population clearly has a greater support in these terms than Brunei – but then much of Monaco’s support comes from France, whereas few people travel from Malaysia to watch Brunei. The ground is a large bowl with a running track, and cover over one side only. Kedah, knew they had to win the game in order to take the Malaysian title, and started out looking as if they were determined to overpower Brunei, despite the home team’s third place in the league. It was no surprise that Kedah went ahead in the 14th minute. However, after that, DPMM made a substitution, and reorganised the formation, and they were the dominant team for the rest of the game. It was only by good fortune that Kedah managed to hold on to win the game and the title. Two weeks ago, Kedah added the prestigious Malaysia Cup title to their honours for the season, beating Perak with 77,000 watching at Bukit Jalil. (That is more than four times as many as turned up there for Malaysia’s Asian Cup games).

From Brunei, I flew directly back to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. In a change from the crowds on the budget airlines, I went on a near empty Brunei Airlines flight. From HCMC, I was able to arrange to see two matches in the Vietnamese League, one in each of the first and second division. Both were about an hour’s drive from the city, but I spoiled myself and rather than trying to sort out local transportation (there would have been bus services), I allowed the tour booking office to arrange transportation for me (car and driver) at US$50 for each game. The Tuesday match in the second division was a 3.30 kick off, as there were no floodlights. While this restricts the attendance, the league’s website shows similar crowds to the 1000 in the ground for my game on the previous Saturday. On a hot and sunny afternoon, I saw Dong Nai beat Quang Nam by three goals to two, in a really enjoyable game. The ground was fully enclosed with cover on one side only, and mainly concrete stands. The first division ground was similar in style, but much bigger in size. While Dong Nai would not hold 10,000 comfortably, Binh Duong frequently attract 20,000 to the Go Dau stadium. The figure for the previous Sunday against Da Nang (second in the league) had been 18,000 – but on a Wednesday, and with the game starting in heavy rain, my match was watched by only half that figure. Still the covered stand was crowded as the fans tried to avoid the worst of the weather. It took a long while for Binh Duong to assert their superiority over the visitors, with the opening goal coming from a penalty after 67 minutes. In the end Binh Duong were comfortable 2-0 winners, and since my trip, they have maintained form, so they will go into tomorrow’s final round of games already assured of the title. Good to see several hundred away fans in the ground, especially considering that by road or rail, the journey would have taken in excess of 24 hours!

It appears that local football is in quite a healthy state in Vietnam, despite the problems the league has had in recent years. Back in July, nine people, including a FIFA ranked referee were found guilty of fixing games in the 2005 season, with allegations suggesting games have been fixed since the current professional league started in 2001. However, with jail terms of up to seven years for this latest scandal, there now seems to be a feeling that the league is now clean. The results of the national team, in being the only one of four Asian cup hosts to reach the quarter finals is being seen as a success. The only remaining cloud on the horizon was that despite heavy security presence at both the games I saw (and no signs of trouble), there has again been incidents of crowd violence this season, although none as bad as when a linesmen was seriously injured by a rock thrown from the stands at Long An last season.

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