Euro Blog 5. Czech out Ostrava and the Frydek mistake

08/06/2009 by leo.

Ostrava is not considered, even by those that live there to be on of the most attractive places in the Czech Republic, indeed when I asked about postcards, the reply was along the lines of ‘why?’. It is more of a functioning town than anything else, although with its livelihood in the past dependent on coal mines and a series of heavy industrial plants strung alongside the Ostrava river – and while there never was a Czech Margaret Thatcher forcibly closing down industry, it has declined in the Czech republic, much the same as anywhere else in Europe. Still, it is a sizeable town, and has football teams in both the top two divisions of the Czech League. The advantage to me was simple, as the second division team were at home on Friday, with the top division team, Banik Ostrava playing on Saturday. When I originally planned my fixtures, I even found a fourth level team, within the city scheduled to play on Saturday morning. Getting to Ostrava is easy enough, so long as you start in Vienna. Fortunately, after an afternoon game in Klagenfurt, it is still possible to get to Vienna and stop there for a short night.

The rather odd choice of kick off time for the game at Vitkovice was 4.30 p.m. Even without using floodlights, it would have been possible to kick off two hours later, and anyway, lighting was available. One has to wonder if this was a factor in the relatively low crowd of 520. The pitch is within a running track, which is the surrounded most of the way be at least half a dozen steps of terracing. The main stand fills up the entire length of one side, and has a garish selection of colours and patterns for the seats. The name, Mestsky stadion merely means town stadium. It is quite close to Vitkovice station, and also served by trams from the centre of Ostrava. The admission charge was 40 Czech crowns, and I got a little shock in having to pay 20 more for a programme. Up to this point on the tour, I had received free programmes at games in Germany and Austria, none at all in Croatia and Slovenia. If paying half the admission price was a surprise (it would have worked out level, if I had bought a standing ticket for 20), it is not so bad when put into context - £1.30 to get in, and half that for the programme. Still change from £2

The club was formed as SK Slavoj Vitkovice in 1919, and like many clubs in this area of the world, have known many changes in identity, for example they dropped Slavoj in 1922, then added an extra ‘S’to become SSK Vitkovice a year later. In 1952, they took on the name Banik for 5 years, and then underwent 22 years as TJ VZKG Ostrava, without any obvious mention of Vitkovice. In 1979, they settled on the simple TJ Vitkovice, and this heralded (if not immediately), the most successful period of the club’s history. They won the Czechoslovakian League in 1986, and then reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals two years later. In 1994, they almost disappeared into a merger with Karvina, some 30 km awat, spending one season as FC Karvina-Vitkovice. A year later the clubs split apart (both currently in the second division), and Vitkovice took on the fashionable initials and became FC Vitkovice.

The match, against Fotbal Trinec, started in bright sunshine and the home side took the lead right at the end of the first period. The second period was somewhat different. For a start, it was raining heavily, there was a rumble of thunder in the distance, and with the coming of the storm, there was also wind. This was blowing quite notably down the pitch at kick off, and continued to pick up strength. On the far side from me, a number of advertising boards were free standing and were buffeted and moved by the wind. The away team dugout was blown over (empty at the time). Five minutes in, we were treated to the sight of the ball boys running away, being pursued by an advertising hoarding. Missing the ball boys, the hoarding rushed up the terracing where it smashed itself to pieces against a fence. Those (few anyway) of the crowd that had chosen to stand, had by now headed for the cover of the stand, and it was no surprise that the referee called a halt to proceedings just five minutes into the second half. Fortunately for me, storms pass, and the game restarted after ten minutes, and passed off without further incident, except an equalising goal midway through the period.

Before I had arrived in the Czech Republic, an internet search had found a fourth level team called PORUBA with a Saturday morning kick off in the Ostrava area, but I am still a believer in picking up the national sports papers to check fixtures. In this case, they saved me, but showing the fixture as Friday, (17.00) kick off. The journalist (there was only one) at Vitkovice spent some time on his computer checking this for me, but the change was correct. With the main game at Banik at 3 in the afternoon (normally, 5 is more common), I had limited options to find an additional game, but there was a 10.15 kick off at Frydek-Mistek, which was just 30 minutes by train down the Ostrava river valley. This was one level higher than the first choice, but had the disadvantage that the visitors were the ‘B’ team of Zlin, a first division outfit. I know some groundhoppers refuse to have anything to do with any game involving a reserve team, but I have always accepted them, and just preferred to avoid them when I have the choice. I have even ticked the occasional ground for an all reserve match, but my rules would only accept this one a ground where the reserves and first team do not share.

Back in the hotel, I checked the internet again. My original source still had the local game wrong, but other sites, including the Czech FA’s official one had the Friday night time. Search engines could not find a site for Frydek-Mistek’s football club, but the name of the stadium, Stovky resulted in a point on a map just across the road from the railway station, and next to a few other sports facilities. The train arrived at 09.19; but more importantly, I wanted to leave again at 12.27 to be comfortable on returning to Ostrava. This was ideal. Just before the train pulled up in Frydek-Mistek, I could see the stadium in question; old main stand and overgrown terracing. It was only when I actually walked up, that I found out something was wrong. No one was there, except a few athletes training. The athletes could tell me nothing except that this was not the football ground. After a fruitless look around the other facilities yielded no information, I wandered back to the main road, not even certain whether I wanted to turn left or right. After a couple of minutes, I spotted a taxi, and luckily he spotted me hailing from across the road. He understood I wanted the stadium, but did not appear to know about the football club! His first inclination was to take me back to the stadium I had just walked away from, but when I indicated this was not the right one, he told me there was another (in rapidly improving English, it appeared to me). He then took me through the town and into a residential area on the far side. Here I spotted people sporting blue and white scarves, and hence knew that we had it right. Overall, I spent about ten minutes in the taxi, and my bill was only around £3 – so it did not take much decision making on my part to ask the driver to return to pick me up at 12 noon.

It cost me 20 crowns to enter, and another 5 for the programme. As the programme stall doubled up with a place to bet on the match result, there was a queue for this. Still I managed to get my programme, and have someone searching out a team sheet for me before the game kicked off. Not bad for someone who was completely lost fifteen minutes earlier. The stadium was ideal. No running track, and about six steps of terracing along one side and behind the goal where I entered, plus a main stand that almost completes the other main length. Capacity these days is 5,500. Not a guess, but printed on a photograph of a cup game two years ago when Banik Ostrava lost 2-0 here. Some 30 years ago, near enough 13,000 had somehow squeezed in – as another photo in the corridors inside the stand revealed, from the match against Sparta in their only top division season 1975-6. These photos confirmed that despite my “Mistek” on reading from the internet, this was their stadium, always has been, and as far as the 690 souls at the ground are concerned, always will be.

As for the game, it appeared that Zlin ‘B’, like myself, were slightly disorientated at the start. Had they also had been transported to the wrong ground first? Unlikely, but then a fair coach journey to a 10.15 kick off cannot be good for any team. A ‘B’ team in a league like this has to operate under some constraints, as there cannot be infinite dual registrations or transfers between this team and the ‘A’ side. The result is that it cannot easily include senior players dropped from the first XI, or recovering from injury, but is mainly a development team of youngsters. This was shown by looking down the player’s lists. The oldest visiting player, at 23, was nine months younger than the youngest of the home squad. It took only four minutes for Frydek-Mistek to take the lead, and they added to this once more before half time, and again three minutes into the second half.

If I thought they could run riot from this position, I was wrong. Two minutes later, Zlin were awarded a penalty, put away by forward Martin Bacik. This immediately restored some confidence to the visitors, and changed the face of the game. Bacik scored a second just before the hour mark, and while Zlin were now in command, there were many counter attacking chances for the home side in an open and entertaining game. It was ten minutes to go when Bacik completed his hat-trick in levelling the scores, and chances went missing at both ends in the last period before the referee called an end with the scores still level.

The taxi driver was good, arriving at the ground just before the match finished and then waiting for me. He tried to persuade me to let him drive me into Ostrava, but I turned it down, as “I already had a train ticket” I do not use the excuse that the charge would be more than money I have in my pocket, as no doubt I would be offered a trip, via the cashpoiint. As it was, there were fans with Banik Ostrava fans getting on the train with me. I therefore followed them when they exited the train and wandered into Ostrava centre. When they all entered a cavernous pub, it was only polite to follow. But after a pint, I was suffering from my nerves again – about 90 minutes to kick off; I did not know quite how to get to the ground from here, (the road outside the pub being open to trams only, and I did know that no tram went to the ground, only trolleybuses). Also the supporters in the pub already had tickets, and I did not! So I walk out into the brightness outside. It may be 1.30 on a Saturday aftenoon, but Ostrava city centre is near deserted; it is not hard to understand why – the shops all close at midday, and there is just nothing to see or do, except, of course drink and go to the football.

It may have been by chance, but I found the trolley to the ground quickly, it cost 160 crowns, (about £5) for a good seat, and another 20 for the programme. To get there, one needs to cross the river from the city centre, and start climbing the hill. Bazaly stadium is built into the hill with the banks of open seating on the far side from where I entered using this natural slope. There is no track, but still the ends of the stadium are curves, not square and the number of rows reduces as one goes down the hill and around. On the low side, there is a stand the full length of the side, The blue seats opposite me, had the letters FCB picked out, which I felt was dreams above their station, as there was no ‘O’ added. The club was formed in 1922, as SK Slezska Ostrava – Slezska being a Czech reference to the region of Silesia, also seen as Slaski on some Polish club names. Indeed, the club has a ‘twin’ club in GKS Katowice, in Polish Silesia, and some supporters wear scarves showing both names. The name Banik was added in 1952, and has been with them ever since. For one season, 1994-5, the club was named as Banik Ostrava Tango. If they had to lose the blue and white colours for this, then they were well and truly “Tangoed”.

The clubs heydays were in the late seventies, early eighties, when they won the old Czechoslovakian
league title three times, going onto the European Cup quarter finals in 1981, (they have also reached the semi-finals of Cup-Winners Cup). There has been a recent revival in fortunes, with the Czech title won in 2004, and a cup win a year later. The recent run has not brought any international success, with the Champions League qualifier resulting in a heavy defeat against Bayer Leverkusen, and then further indignity when dropping to the UEFA Cup, losing to Middlesbrough. This season, Spartak Moscow saw them out of the UEFA cup at the first hurdle.

As it happened, the visitors, Sigma Olomouc had by far the better of the first half, and I was surprised that it finished scoreless. Banik opened the scoring just before the hour mark, and with Sigma not able to convert their chances, it looked like staying like this until very late in the game. Sigma then had a little luck, when a powerfully shot free kick from Tarcisco Pereira (not a name that sounds Czech), was deflected into the net by home defender Tomas Marek.

And so my three match sojourn into the Czech republic ends in three draws. I am glad to meet two other English hoppers coming through from the game at Karvina when there train passes Ostrava, this gives company for a two hour wait to change trains at Brno before we all head up to Berlin the next day.

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Euro Blog 4. Midweek Mediocracy

08/06/2009 by leo.

After leaving Zagreb, my midweek selection of matches did not do so well in terms of football quality. Possibly it is because I was looking more at relegation issues than promotion. My first stop was Austria’s second city, Graz. Graz is a very pleasant city, and in the warmth of spring sunshine, I had a good afternoon wandering around and then sitting outside a restaurant for a meal and some beer. However, I allowed myself to be fooled by the heat, and not to think that weather can change. Quickly. I travelled out to Gratkorn, a ten minute ride on the local train. The station serves two villages, Gratkorn and Gratwein, separated by a river – and I had a half hour walk to the stadium. It is not really a present place, with a large chemical concern filling most of the land mass of the place. The football ground is the main road, next door to said chemical works. Although there was a little uncovered spectator accommodation on the far side, the main facility is a modern stand that runs about two thirds of the length of one side. The lowest level of seats is raised will above pitch level, so views are good. The stand can probably hold about twice the 650 attendance for my game. As seems to be common in this region, there is a wide pathway at the top, with food and drink distribution points, and plenty of room to stand around. The admission price for a second division Austrian game was 10 Euro, while the programme was free.

When I arrived, it was still warm, and they were still watering the artificial pitch. I don’t know much about artificial pitches but judging on the evidence of Salzburg on Saturday and the Gratkorn, they need lots of water. And then the heavens opened, and in this part of the world, the heavens really do open. Clearly there was no need to keep the pitch watering system on, while the view to the mountains was lost in the dark, except the occasional flash of lightning and crash of thunder. The storm started around 30 minutes before kick off, and lasted well into the first half, by which time pools of water had begun to form on the playing surface. Few referees in England would have carried on, but while Austrian footballers fall to the ground at the touch of a feather, they appear to have no fear of drowning, and I was the only one worried that the match might not be completed.

Gratkorn are in their second season in the Austrian second division, and look as if they will be safe for another season. The visitors, Grödig, a small village just outside Salzburg, were promoted last year and are now third from bottom – a relegation position but with a chance of escaping before the game started. For a team in this sort of position, one might expect some sort of effort to win against one of the teams that could be drawn into the relegation zone. Not Grödig – they had shown optimism, combined with ability and a bit of luck when I saw them at the start of the season. Then they played two up front, and beat Admira, who look like finishing second in the table. Now with eight of the eleven starters still in place, they lacked in adventure and ability, played only one forward, even after going a goal down. It was only poor finishing, (and frequently, a failure to attempt a pass) that stopped Gratkorn by winning more than a single goal, scored from the penalty spot just before half time. Both the current bottom two in the league have been told that there is no point in escaping relegation as strict licensing regulations in Austria, (mainly financial , the majority of the Football League’s 72 clubs would fail), means they are to be relegated anyway . Grödig’s hopes of staying up seem to depend on being more financially stable than club’s bidding for promotion, and nothing to do with actual football. For the record, the rain eased off in the second half, and appeared to be almost stopped at the end of the game – but this was just to fool me. By the time I arrived at the station I was a sodden mess, soaked to the skin.

For Wednesday, my destination was Ptuj in Slovenia. It was chosen not because of the importance of the match, but the relative ease in getting in and out of the town. As it was, I probably still could have done better, as staying in Maribor was an option. Ptuj is a very pretty town, built above the river Drava, with a pleasant old centre, and a castle on the hill. It is the sort of place where tourists travelling by road should stop, enjoy the views, take a view photos, (maybe visit the castle) and have a coffee at one of the many cafes dotted around. Or perhaps an ice-cream, I do not recall any town having such a high proportion of ice-cafes, per head of population. Arriving by train is less pleasant. You exit a near deserted railway station without a map and without a signpost even to point to the centre. There is a bus station across the road which is a little better – still no map, but at least someone is there to direct you into town. It is only a short walk, and it does not take long to get to the tourist office (pick up a map) and your hotel. The hotel has an ice-cafe out front but no restaurant, as you discover later when looking for something to eat. And that is the point of Ptuj – it has been designed to be visited, with plenty of ways to while away the afternoon, but it has a limited number of over-priced hotels, and even less over-priced restaurants.

The football ground is at the bottom of the hill, just across the railway line from the town – it is easy to walk to, and if I had not elected to stay, I could easily been at the station within 15 minutes of the game’s end. The Slovenian League has ten team in its top division, with each team playing the others four times, a total of 36 games. The bottom side is relegated, with the next in a play off. The daily sports paper conveniently gives league tables for each quarter. At the three-quarters mark, Ptuj were rock bottom – six points behind Primorje (the visitors of the day). They had picked up only one point in the nine matches of the third quarter. The last quarter was a different matter – Ptuj had suddenly made a clean sweep and one seven in a row! The match I was watching was therefore a chance for the home side to make certain of their place in the top flight, and all but condemn Promorje to the drop. This was enough to attract 1200 into the stadium (either called Mestni (=town) or Drava (after the local river) stadion). This is a good crowd in Slovenia. When I went to Gorica a few years back, and they needed to win to claim the title, less than 1000 watched. The stadium is two sided, with a covered stand on one side, and banks of yellow plastic seats opposite. Most of the crowd were in the covered seats. No programmes issued, but no problem in picking up a copy of the team sheet. The game was a disappointment, especially for the home fans, as the only goal was scored just before half time by the visitors’ Mirko Zaja. It is a result that gives them some hope of survival, and clearly threatens to derail Ptuj’s recovery.

For the third of the series of mid-week games it was Thursday in Klagenfurt. I do not know much about Klagenfurt, and I did not spend much time there. I can say, that on a bank holiday Thursday, there is not a lot happening. My arrival was delayed by the efficiency of Austrian railways. I had checked my train with a travel office, and been told that despite engineering works, I would make a connection. I asked again as we transferred from train to bus – no problem, I am told. Still, at the next station, I find not only have I missed my fast train (getting to Klagenfurt two hours before kick off), but also the slow one (this was four minutes after the fast train, and on the departure board when we arrived at the station, but left before it was possible to get to it. With half an hour before the next slow train, I tried to make a complaint. The Austrian railway officials were having none of it. There is another train within 30 minutes. Why should they care. Anyway, you are not allowed to make a complaint. As I wander away, I am stopped by an elderly lady who had overheard the conversation. Actually, its all a lie,she says. You can complain to Austrian railways, but they don’t like you to know. She gave me a card with the contact details! I am surprised the British railway companies have not cottoned on to this idea – reduce the number of complaints by refusing to tell people how to complain. Anyway I arrive in Klagenfurt less than an hour before kick off, and this is not even a town where everything is centralised. I need one bus to the centre, another to the stadium.

The stadium name,like so many these days is open to interpretation. I know many people, especially among those ground hoppers who went to the old stadium and will no go again, (same site) as the Worthersee stadion. During the European championships, it may well have been referred as the Klagenfurt EM-Stadion, the club has now branded I as the Hypo-Group Arena (that’s one that just trips off the ground), but I noticed that on internal signage, and also outside the offices, it has also become Sportpark Klagenfurt. Inside, it looks vaguely familiar. It is a two tier stadium, the lower tied being of concrete construction, while the upper section, which appears to have been built as an independent, unconnected unit, is all steel. The upper tier does not continue on the west side of the stadium, where VIP facilities are built up, accessed from the lower section. It is clearly a near direct copy of the stadium in Salzburg. There are three major differences though – the pitch is at the same level as the land outside, while Salzburg’s pitch is lower. Klagenfurt is still grass, and the roof rises gently towards the middle of the East side, allowing more seats above the half way line. From the outside, the roofing, which curves down to form a cladding for the upper tier is very different to that of Salzburg. At Salzburg, the roof is level and almost disconnected from the stands below.

While the stadium was built for the European championships, a slightly surprising choice considering that the larger city of Graz already had a near new stadium of its own, (which was known as the Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadion until the city fathers argued with their former favourite son, now governor of California over the use of the death penalty in the American state); the football club itself was a political statement to fill the stadium. Before re-building, the Wortherseestadion was home to FC Kärnten – a club that has been struggling for some time both on and off the field. The old club were moved (supposedly temporarily) while the rebuilding work took place. They never returned, and at the end of last season, they were relegated out of the second division into the amateur regional leagues. Of course, you can not just magic up a top division team out of nowhere, not even in Austria. The solution was found over 200 km away in the small suburb of Pasching. The football club there had risen from true amateurism at the fifth level of the Austrian pyramid, to actually playing in Europe. This was achieved mainly thanks to the financial contribution from an investment company – and the club had become FC Superfund. Still it cannot be a surprise to find out the club was unsustainable in this form, except by continuing funding from above – and so they moved, lock, stock and league position to Klagenfurt. For the fans of Pasching, their reserves became the new first team, and they were back in the amateur levels. I doubt if many new fans stayed. Under the title, Austria Kärnten survive in the top flight, although they are short of looking like European candidates. The victims in this game of musical football grounds are the tax payers in Pasching, as they have paid for a stadium to be built up for what is once again a local amateur club.

Admission cost between 12 and 24 Euro, the upper tier was not used, the match programme was an unusual affair, unfolding from a small size into a single large sheet. A standard A4 sheet of paper would have been achieved by unfolding 3 ‘pages’, but the programme actually had 5. The game was not memorable, and in a week between seeing it, and writing notes, I have indeed forgotten most of it. It did however have a twist at the end. SV Ried were behind at half time, and deservedly levelled the scores with 15 minutes to go. Then in injury time, they took advantage of a brief hesitation by the home defence and squeezed in a winner. The result keeps Ried’s slight chances of European football open – Sturm Graz will go to Ried on the final day, needing to avoid a three goal defeat to qualify

Post-report note – on the final day of the season, Ried did indeed score three goals to beat Sturm Graz, but as this was a comeback in the last 20 minutes from 2-0 down, it was not enough to give Ried a European place. On the same day, the Champion, Salzburg, were humbled by a 4-1 hone defeat to Altach, already relegated in last place.

Post-report note 2 - On 8th June, a tribunal gave a licence to Regionalliga West leaders Dornbirn. Dornbirn needs a point from their last game to ensure the title, which will lead to Grödig being relegated.

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Euro Blog 3 - Zagreb

22/05/2009 by leo.

Zagreb was always intended to be one of the highlights of my trip, the three matches that came before were merely matches at new grounds – in each case I had visited the country and even the city before. Zagreb was not just a new city, but also my first time in Croatia. From Salzburg, it is a relatively easy journey – if anything one that is not long enough, (seven hours on an overnight train, starting at 01.30). I had decided to book a sleeper for 30 Euro, and struck lucky in getting the three berth compartment to myself. Certainly better value for accommodation than the city itself, where a single room in the three star Central hotel was 527 HK per night – more than 70 Euro. And as I keep having to remind myself, in this day and age 70 Euro is a lot more than £60, not the £50 I had come to expect!

Zagreb does have one of the best outlooks when coming out of the station and looking towards the city centre. Two wide thorough fairs are separated by a swathe of greenery punctuated by statues, fountains, and a museum. To either side of this parkland, the buildings are of uniform height and style, the style being that which was popular in those parts where the Austro-Hungarian empire held sway for the second half of the 19th century. A town planner’s dream, the lower town is built to a plan – and the 20th century has not been allowed to turn it into a nightmare. The upper town, which starts a climb uphill is older, but most of the city is of pleasing 19th century design.

The same cannot be said of the city’s two football clubs and their stadiums. Taking the smaller one, NK Zagreb first. The initials NK tell us nothing except that this is a football club and are attached at the start of most club names in the country. NK play at the Stadion u Kranjcevicevoj -which may be a mouthful, but it also helpfully the street address. The floodlights could be seen close to the railway as my train arrived, and trams from the station would have provided an alternative to the 20 minutes walk. The first set of gates when you arrive tell you that it is the home of Zagreb Ragbi Klub. With a 3G artificial surface in place, I wonder if the Rugby players wear slightly more in protective clothing than for a muddy field at home? As well as Football and Rugby, the stadium is also used for cycling and a banked concrete track runs all around. There is terracing all along one side, curving towards the ends, but then ending suddenly. The piecemeal construction of the site is shown by the fact that the lowest steps of terracing are below the cycle track. A large seated stand takes up most of the length of the West side, and this is where the 12 HK (about £1.50) gave me access.

Having bought my ticket, the jobsworth on the nearest gate would not let me pass, but sent me back to another gate. At the other gate, there was no special check or security, and I was allowed to pass without problem. Both gates led to exactly the same area inside the ground. Within the ground were two (one at each end) restaurants/bars that appeared to be completely independent to the football club and stadium. While I took the opportunity to obtain a beer from the first of these, I was left to wonder whether I could have saved my money by saying I wanted to come in to the restaurant instead of the football. There was no further check on my ticket when accessing the stand. The official crowd for the match was 300, and the match played on a hot afternoon was not very good. Croatia Sesvete needed to win to stand a chance of avoiding a last place finish. The nearest they came was a foul about ten minutes from the end. The referee pointed to the spot, but his assistant remained unmoved – and the referee was persuaded to listen to the protests of the home players, but not to change his mind again when the visitors started protesting. The free kick was, of course, wasted and the final score was 0-0.

All is not lost for the visitors though – the Craotian league will expand next season from 12 teams (33 matches) to 16 teams (30 matches). The top four from the second division will all be promoted, taking much of the interest out of a very tight race – while Sesvete will play-off against the fifth placed team. The change in format does not meet with universal approval among fans of the league – the new teams are unlikely to bring much in the way of quality, crowds or stadia to the division, while they will further dilute to pool of talent in a country where the best have already left.

The four-thirty kick off time at NK Zagreb (and the rest of the division) does not make a great deal of sense in terms of kicking off during the heat of the afternoon. Even without floodlights, matches could easily kick off 90 or 120 minutes later. Where it does help though, is for groundhoppers trying to get to the televised game later in the evening. This kicked off at eight O’clock, and a direct tram allowed me to arrive around seven. First order was to confirm the result at Hujduk Split. Split were second in the league, and had won their game. This meant that Dinamo Zagreb also needed to win if they were to claim the title with this game, (there are still two more later games should they fail – while if Spilt had lost, then Dinamo could celebrate the title before even playing).

Dinamo play at the Stadion Maksimir, named after the large area of parkland that starts across the road. It has four large stands, but the only cover provided is by the overhand where upper tiers stand above the lower ones. The stadium once had an athletics track, but only a very careful athlete would try it now. The surface is torn where the “dug-outs” have been dragged across it too many times, the North stand has been built with an overhang over two lanes, and one of the floodlight pylons is on a concrete block that overlaps a lane. The north stand, as mentioned, is square to the pitch and must have been erected after the track fell into disuse, while at the southern end, the stands curve around. There are also two tier stands on both long sides – none of he sides join up.

The newspaper for the morning showed a vast mass of people around the ground the previous afternoon, collecting their tickets. I was worried this could mean a sell out, but I was assured that the main reason for the crowd was tickets were being given away free and that I need not worry about the possibility of a sell out. Indeed, when I arrived, I managed to obtain a ticket for the west side, marked 80 HK (about £10), but given away free. Even at this price, the stadium was a long way from being full – the official crowd was given as 27,000 while the stadium is listed as capable of holding 39.000. The game was as far as it could be, a predictable affair. Dinamo Zagreb started off at 100 km/hour – rather a pleasant change considering the low pace of most games on the tour – and practically demanded an early goal. They got it in unsurprising circumstances – a player who appeared offside to me, was fouled just inside the area and went to ground as if under the gravitation pull of Jupiter. The referee was not going to waste the chance to let the home side have their way and the penalty was given. I signalled incredulously to my neighbour that surely it was offside. Yes, of course, but that is the way. Although I never got to see a replay, so my opinion is unchanged, my neighbour soon got a text from someone watching on TV, saying it was actually on-side – and it was a clean tackle.

With the lead gained, the home side settled down somewhat, playing some good football at times, while Slaven Belupo created a few chances of their own. A second goal was added early in the second period, and Dinamo rode through to the end – not even unsettled when their goalkeeper came rushing out of the box in the 66th minute to chop down a Belupo attacker and pick up a red card. With a large crowd in evidence, we were treated to a good deal of chanting throughout the game. The north stand crowd are clearly the youngest and noisiest, although they managed to get responses from the other stands as well. Dinamo play in blue, so the banners styled these fans as “Bad Blue Boys”, or BBB for short. A favourite, if simple chant, is for the BBB to chant “Dinamo” and for the other stands to respond with “Zagreb”.

Talking to my neighbour in the stand, it appears that crowds of 5000 are more normal at the Maksimir, and it can only be filled for occasional big internationals (England played their) and European ties. Dinamo have dominated the league in recent years (fourth successive title, and 11th since independence from Yugoslavia in 1991), but they have not reached the Champions League group stages, since the year 2000 (getting draws against both Manchester United and Marseille). It is generally felt that the changes to the champions league qualifying structure should help teams like Dinamo Zagreb, who have tended to lose out to the non-Champion teams (Arsenal and Werder Bremen are recent teams that put them out). It seems there has already been some speculation over who might come up against Dinamo, knowing the seeding rules, with significant speculation as to whether they can end up playing Partizan Belgrade.

With the match one, the celebrations started. There was a brief flash of fireworks, and stadium was covered with smoke. I never saw the trophy actually presented, but I did see it during the lap of honour, as an open topped bus paraded around the ground, doing yet more damage to the running track. The bus was pained blue, but looked remarkably like a London Routemaster. The entrance platform was on the left – the wrong side for the local roads, so I assume it had come from Britain, it was only a ridge on the bonnet that looked different from the London bus, and it had the familiar triangle at the top of the grill, (I was too far away to see if the manufacturers initials, though).

Later, I walked away from the ground, as the road outside was closed and their were no trams for a while. There are many bars in this part of town, and many fans had parked themselves outside. I picked a likely looking bar and ordered a drink. I chose well, as some of the other drinkers spoke good English (my Croat being rather rusty). Again the possibility of a match against Partizan came up. So did the possibility of a few fights between the fans if this was the case. The fans I was talking to were clearly looking forward to this, (although in my experience, those that talk about the fight are rarely the fighters themselves). Legend now has it that the start point of the Serbia-Croatia war in 1991 was a football match between Dinamo and Red Star Belgrade – and it is still Red Star that is the most hated team in Dinamo’s books.

While I am sure the war would have happened with or without the football game, it is true that in a closed society, such as Tito’s Yugoslavia, football matches are one of the few places where the crowd can utter a cry, with at least some level of safety. Even in the new democratic Croatia (eager to join Europe) there was still whistling around the ground when the announcer informed the crowd that the mayor of Zagreb had been re-elected that day. I pointed out that many of the crowd must of voted for him, (the person sitting next to me at the game said he had), but booing politicians seems to be the done thing for football crowds. The fans at the pub also explained how the club is almost always at war with the authorities. They managed to keep a badge with the Croatian chequers pattern on it, even when the flag as such was banned in Yugoslavia, but then were told by the Croatian authorities to change their name as “Dinamo” was Yugoslavian, or worse still, Serb. After eight years as Croatia Zagreb, fans pressure forced the change back.

While the fans (who were barely old enough to have been there) harked back to the Yugoslav league and the rivalries with teams from Belgrade and Sarajevo, no one I spoke to wanted to return, even for football to the old days. The main rival for Dinamo these days is Hadjuk Split – their main rival for the title most of the time. Apparently they even have a soft spot for city rivals NK Zagreb, whose 2002 win was the only time the title has not been won by either Split or Dinamo, I assume NK were preferred by Dinamo fans to second placed Split.

The city’s third club, Lokomotiva who play in the second division have been used as a nursery club by Dinamo where they could farm out some younger players. This arrangement will have to stop, as Loko are one of the new members of the expanded top division next season.

The talking did not go on long into the night. The trouble with Sunday night football is that most people have to work the next day, and by midnight the bar was becoming deserted. A quick enquiry said that while the trams were not about to stop, I might struggle to get directly back to my hotel. Just after midnight, the last of my new friends spotted his tram home and made a run for the stop. Knowing that one was not going my way, I just waited for the next one in roughly the right direction and ended up walking for the last ten minutes back to my hotel.

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Euro Blog 2 - Salzburg : Red Bull as the new cultural icon?

20/05/2009 by leo.

The third day, and third stop on my tour sees me in Salzburg. Trips such as this are never 100% plain sailing, and I come across my first problem while on the train. I have managed to mislay the European-UK plug converter. This may not come across as the most serious loss in the history of these voyages (I have lost my computer once, while another hopper of my acquaintance has managed to lose not one, but four interrail train tickets in a single act of tidying up). Still it is an item that needs to be replaced as all my favourite “boy’s toys” (computer, mobile phone, camera) depend on recharging their batteries. The shops near the station do not yield a solution, but I am told to head for the out of town centre, called Europark – a centre that requites a 30 minute tram ride may have been an inconvenience, except that it is only a couple of stops further on the same tram, to the stadium. The time taken, though meant that I had to abandon my original plan of seeing two games at the stadium. The match between Salzburg and LASK was preceded by a reserve game against Wiener Neustadt, in the Erste Liga (strictly translated that means first division, but as is the fashion these days, first division is of course the second level). By the time I entered the ground, Neustadt were 5-0 up (with ten minutes to play) and had won the title, meaning next season they will return to play Salzburg’s first team.

The stadium is known by a confusion of different names, the oldest of which is Wals-Siezenheim Stadion, after the area in which it was built. Maps of Salzburg, though refer to it as the Euro-stadion, as does the bus timetable. The football club itself would have you call the place the Red Bull Arena. It is a curious site, in that the two stages of construction are clearly shown. The lower tier has concrete steps, and a grey stone exterior – most of the seats are lower than the surrounding ground level, so the stadium must have been literally dug out of the ground. The stands are square to the pitch, with little to interrupt the sight lines, and two areas that allow standing rather than seats, (in the centre behind one goal, for the home fans, and a corner at the opposite end for the away ones). The upper tier is a steel lattice work construction, and appears to have been dumped, literally onto the existing stadium. I guess this is not far from the truth, as it was added a few years after the initial construction, to increase the size to that required for the last European championships. The upper tier does not continue on the West side, where executive boxes and a smaller upper section already existed, and hence the stand appears to come to a dead end. The roof is at the same level all around. From the outside, the newer constructions are more obvious, if only due to the creation of steel staircases rising around the stadium, like giant pillboxes, connected only by a bridge to the actual venue. The pitch, incidentally is 3G artificial and played quite well. It was heavily watered between the two games.

On a city that exists now as a tourist trap, dependent on its culture and history; it is strange that Red Bull has tried hard to eliminate all signs of historical culture from the football club. They actually tried to incorporate the date of their take over (2005) into the name of the club - the Austrian FA would not allow that,although they have no qualms about Austria Salzburg becoming Red Bull Salzburg. I guess this is better than many – it actually keeps the town name. The purple in the strip has been replaced by red and white despite some supporters objections. Not that there is no compensation for the supporters, not only does the day’s victory leave the side on the cusp of retaining the championship, but the fact that a single sponsor is subsidising the budget makes the shirts relatively clean. The Red Bull logo is on the front of the Salzburg shirts, and the wording “Red Bull” on the backs. By comparison, the LASK shirts had five logos on the front, two on the back and one on each sleeve – two more logos are added front and back of the shorts, and not forgetting the socks. This is the way of the majority of clubs in Austria, forced to accept whatever they can for small donations towards the costs. Others accept complete loss of name to a sponsor, hence in recent years we have had two different internet betting sites as football clubs, and Superfund, which first took over Pasching, as FC Superfund, and now with Pasching having sold their licence to Karnten, Superfund fund Kapfenburg, under the title KSV Superfund.

On the field, mid-table LASK put up more resistance than may have been expected, but gave away too many free kicks around the 25 yard mark. Three such kicks in the first 13 minutes saw first a narrow miss, than a good save, and finally a goal. A second was added just after the half hour, when the keeper appeared to misjudge a downward header. Surprisingly, Salzburg could not add to this, and actually conceded a goal to a distant shot with just over 15 minutes to go. This did not turn out to be a rallying call to either side, and the game seemed to tire itself out.

While Salzburg will retain their title and achieve their domestic aim, many fans may feel that the sponsors promised much more from the takeover. Trappatoni is certainly not going to turn up as coach, and the certainly show no signs of being able to achieve success in Europe.

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Eurotour Blog 2009. Part 1. Bavaria.

16/05/2009 by leo.

Euro Blog Summer 2009.

Like so many European trips, I am starting in the middle of the night. Leave home at 1.30 – park the car half an hour later and wait for the London coach. Change coaches at Victoria at 4.00 and arrive at Stansted at five. Still two hours to get through the airport before departure. Memmingen is a new route for Ryanair, and it has not caught on yet – there are only 20 on the plane. As well as myself, there are two other groundhoppers, heading independently for the same destination.

Being a small airport, we are not held up at Memmingen – even collecting my bag does not take long. A local bus takes us to town (Memmingen is trying to be a cheap alternative to Munich, so there is also a coach heading that way), where we transfer to the railway system. I lose my travelling companions a couple of stops down the line, as they have s specific pub to frequent. I am meeting with four other hoppers, who have already been travelling for the last week. When I get to Ingolstadt, it is 13.00 German time, and the others shout to me from a bridge over the line as I get out of the train. A hotel has been booked, a short walk away and I am in after 11 hours of travelling.

Ingolstadt is an old Bavarian town on the river Danube, loads of historic buildings within the city,and this is a good place to find something to eat and drink before the game. Until recently, it had two football teams, both of which reached their peak at the end of the 1970s, when they each had two seasons in the second division, with a city derby at this level in 79-80. By the early part of this Millennium were struggling in the Bayernliga, (then the fourth level of German football, but now the fifth) and the football section of ESV Ingolstadt (E for Eisenbahn as in railway) was bankrupt. In 2004, the two teams merged to form FC Ingolstadt 04. Unusually for a German football team, the date part of the name refers to the date of the merger, rather than claiming depths of history that do not exist. Both sports clubs, MTV and ESV continue in other sports. At first, they took the stadium formerly used by MTV Ingolstadt – this was quit a small stadium, just outside one of the city gates. The only cover was over a few seats, while the terracing was limited in quantity and height. Two years after the merger, they won the Bayernliga and joined the Regionalliga Sud. While playing at the MTV stadion, works were going on to improve the ESV-Stadion, and at the beginning of this season the club moved across the town to the re-braned TUJA-Stadion. This was just in time, as Ingolstadt won promotion to the second division of the Bundesliga. The refurbished stadium is still not one of the best, and this is still intended as a temporary solution. In 2010, they intend to open the Audi Stadion, a completely new 15,000 stadium, and for the first time protecting the majority of the crowd from the rain. If this happens, it may make Ingolstadt fairly unique in having three genuine home grounds in just four seasons!

The current stadium is conveniently situated close to the railway station, and is basically two sided. There is nothing behind one goal, while behind the other is a new two storey VIP centre. The upper storey has direct access to a couple of hundred well elevated seats, while the guests in the lower section were seen streaming out (just after kick off) to take up places in the main stand. This side of the ground is all seated, but only the main section has cover while a lack of elevation combined with fences, and various media activities pitch side meant few of the other seats had a good sight line.

The opposite side of the ground is terracing on fresh concrete steps. As with most grounds at this level in Germany, the views from the lower levels are hindered by massive fencing, and a fan I spoke to who decided to stand complained that the terraces did not give good enough elevation to allow for good views.

As for the game, Ingolstadt have struggled all season, and with three games left, needed all nine points to stand a chance of avoiding relegation. Most of the play suggested there were intending to have a serious go at it – but as soon as they got within sight of the goal, they seemed mesmerised by the whiteness of the posts and crossbar, and unwilling to put the ball close to this structure. So Ingolstadt dominated possession, and were ahead 10-2 on the corner count (the well delivered corner count stayed level at 0-0 throughout). Finally, with five minutes to go, St. Pauli broke from defence, and suddenly four players were bearing down on the home goalkeeper – remembering not to get offside, a single pass was all that was needed to present Alexander Ludwig with an easy goal.

The St. Pauli fans were mainly penned into one section of terracing, and managed to maintain a consistent level of singing and chanting throughout. Considering the distance involved for a Thursday night game, of no importance to them, and shown live on TV, one cannot help but be impressed by this. Amazingly, the chanting was all in praise of their own. I don’t think I heard I heard any swearing, or bad-mouthing of the hosts during the game, (sadly a couple of individuals walking past us on the road back to our hotel did not keep this up).

For Ingolstadt, it will be Division three of the Bundesliga next season, still national football and a level higher than a year ago.

From ingolstadt, it takes about two hours heading North by train to Hof. Hof is a pleasant town, if not so well steeped in historical buildings as Ingolstadt – the tourist office certainly does their bit to sell the place, giving out a leaflet on the history, and directing the visitor to such sights as a Teddy Bear museum and a sign-post park. For one that often gets confused by the sign posting in foreign cities, the entrance to the sign post park – a mixture of town entrances, road signs, along with a couple of spoofs and a few adverts for bands seemed overtly difficult – so I crossed the road and carried on walking towards Grune Au.

This stadium shows its age, but wears it proudly. On three sides are steps of terracing, mainly in good condition, and providing good viewing at least from the top steps. An old stand with rows of wooden seating fills most of the far side to the entrance. On the entrance side, newer developments have not been allowed to interfere with the old terraces, but have been added behind it. Firstly there is a VIP section, on the top floor of the building that includes offices and the changing rooms, adding a few rows of covered seats – then next to this is a a tall and modern new stand, looking somewhat incongruous with its height, and being offset from a central position towards the town end. It does provide good viewing though.

The club have also benefited from a recent merger – they were 1. FC Bayern Hof until 2005 when they merged with SpVgg Hof and became SpVgg Bayern Hof. They have played as high as the second level of German football, but were not even in the Bayernliga in 2005. They returned to this level last season, just keeping their place at the end of the season. This time around, they have finished safely above mid-table, but did not challenge for promotion

The visitors, SpVgg Weiden are one of the up and coming smaller teams. They came into the game needing only a point to tie up the Bayernliga title, and a promotion to the Regionalliga Sud (level 4). Only the champions get promoted. In a generally uneventful and low paced first half, Weiden gained a 1-0 lead, but did not provide much to talk about. The game suddenly burst into life midway through the second half, with a sudden burst of three goals. Almost immediately after the visitors went 2-0 up, Bayen Hof pulled one back from the penalty spot – and this was quickly followed by a very well worked third goal for Weiden. A fourth was added late on, again a good passing move with two players repeatedly passing to each other until it looked as if the chance was lost – but fortunately a third player came in to strike the loose ball.

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Bulgaria Blog 1. Sofia and Mezdra.

02/04/2009 by leo.

If I had been looking for any warmth and sunshine for my first trip of 2009, then I should have chosen better than Bulgaria. While spring seems to be creeping into England, cold winds and wintery weather means one still needs warm clothing for this trip.

Still, midweek football fixture lists in Bulgaria are unusual, and the coincidence of a set of fixtures, and being free from commitments at work . At least one bargain airline flies to Bulgaria from the UK, but the fares offered by BA and Bulgaria Air are competitive. I chose to fly out BA (sampling the delights of Terminal 5, Heathrow for the first time) and return with the Bulgarian airline – arriving slightly earlier back to Heathrow and making transferring to an evening game that much easier.

The journey out was straight forward. Terminal five, as it turns out is just another average airport terminal, consisting of shops, restaurants, and places where aeroplanes park. Our plane did not find a parking space, though, and we had to be bussed out to it. A three and a half hour flight meant it was long enough for BA to give out a reasonable meal, rather than just a filled roll, but I failed to consider checking in by computer, losing any chance of a window seat.

Contrary to what at least one friend had told me, the taxis in Sofia are not a complete rip off, most of those we tried to use happily worked to the meter. There are a few bad ones though, and they tend to congregate outside the railway station, where one offered to take us to the city centre for 15 lev (£7.50) when the metered figure would be just 3 Lev. As it was at least 2pm by the time we had cleared customs, and the day’s match kicked off at 3.30, we decided to head straight to the stadium – our driver did manage to get ‘confused’, trying to take us to the Vassil Levski Stadium, rather than Georgi Asparuhov Stadium where Levski actually play. The Vassil Levski stadium is the national stadium, but is also always the venue for the ‘derby’ matches between Levski and CSKA.

Not surprisingly for a midweek afternoon match, the crowd was not massive, but then large crowds are not a feature of Bulgarian football.

Tickets for the main stand cost 4 Lev (about £2) and those that made it into the ground, choose either this area, or one block behind the goal, with spectators elsewhere being very thin on the ground. The security presence was large though, and unlike on my previous visit to Bulgaria, they were all full scale jobsworths, not allowing me out of my own section to take photos or collect a team sheet. I struck lucky with the latter, collecting one from a radio reporter on my side of the ground. As for pictures, I got this – it is not possible to see the wording on the seats, but it again says Levski, except in this case, in Cyrillic script.

If you look closely enough, you can just see some of the effect of bolting plastic seats onto concrete that is not in the best of condition. Almost every seat in the section has a notable lean forward, making them feel quite strange to sit on. The row of flagstones nearest the wall conceal a drain – or more to the point, they do not conceal it, with some stones missing, allowing the unsuspecting visitor to fall into the hole. Several Bulgarian grounds have been closed for periods this season, as work has been done to bring them in line with new licensing regulations. This one, with its uneven seats and crumbling paths was one that benefitted from staging some of the games that had to be moved!

As for the game, it was open and quite entertaining; the majority of the Bulgarian national team have left the country and are spread out across Europe (three in England) and even the World (one in Japan), but two of the remainder, Zhivkov Milanov and goalkeeper Georgi Petkov were playing for the home team. Both teams had a fair sprinkling of incoming players, including a Macedonian each, a Moroccan playing for the home side, Marcio Nuno of Portugal for the away side and a fair sprinkling of Brazilians. One of these, Lucio Wagner of Levski has been in Bulgaria long enough to become a citizen and had played for the Bulgarian side. For Chernomorets, the Bulgarian answer to Michael Platini appears to be the Brazilian Michel Platini Mesquita, who played the loan striker role. Prior to playing in Bulgaria, he was with Brazilain third division side Araguaina and had also played in Hong Kong.

One refreshing aspect was that despite a formation with just one player up front, the visitors, Chernomorets Burgas did not set out merely to frustrate the league leaders with the hope of grabbing a point, but attacked freely, especially in the early part of the game. It was just before half time when Levski went ahead – but their fans were then silenced early in the second half, when Bozhilov’s short range header levelled the scores. Levski regained the lead around the hour mark, and after a series of substitutions meant all the original goal scorers had left the pitch, it was left to a substitute, and another Brazilian, ze Soares to complete the scoring a few minutes before the end.

With CSKA also winning their game 3-1, Levski retained their single point lead over their city rivals for the title.

It was only after the game that we got into Sofia, the Lion hotel providing reasonable accommodation at a convenient ten minute walk from the railway and bus stations. It took about half an hour to find our way to the central cathedral, and then down a small side street to the Pri Kmeta, (in English, it would be the Mayor’s pub), which is the only microbrewery I have heard of in Bulgaria. Paul (who travelled with me this week) and myself particularly liked the Red beer, while the food is reasonably priced and generally edible.

The following day we travelled up to Mezdra – our reasoning was that of the two matches available to us Lokomotiv Mezdra against Minyor Pernik (at 15.30) and Litex Lovech against Pirin Blagoevgrad in the evening – this would be the easier to visit, and would also make the next leg of our journey easier a

s well. We were to find ourselves with a similar choice on the final day of the tour, as the two away teams from this day, Minyor Pernik and Pirin Blagoevgrad, were both at home at 15.30.

The journey to Mezdra is only about 90 minutes on a “fast” train, which clatters around as it follows the valley of the Iskar river. For a total journey under 100 km, the word fast seems misplaced.

Immediately on our arrival, we spied the football ground, to the right as the train approached the town – the town itself was to the left with no sign of a way to cross either the railway, or the river! It turned out that although the ground was within 200 yards of the station, we would have best part of a mile to cover to find a bridging point. First we took the chance (but not for long) to look at the town – the name apparently means “empty and deserted place” and so it was until the railway arrived. The population was under 100 in 1897, but is now 13,000. A clear demonstration of just how ugly a town can spring up, if you have a railway junction, and little else to start with . The centre of the town is a gray and lifeless square (ok, the weather was very cold, it may be better in the summer), with an anonymous block on one side apparently providing the town’s only hotel and restaurant. We went in their first to ask for a map. There was no one there.

To one end of the town, a pretty orthodox church provides the only ’site’, while the road from the church to the centre has a wide green central reservation, filled with inexplicable sculptures. We ended in a small café back in the square where we could shelter from the biting wind.

Around two o’clock, we discovered the home fans had gathered in another café, by the station – and we then followed in their wake (about 100 of them) as they made their way to the stadium with a police escort. It all seems a little over the top (considering the small crowds), with the away fans arriving later, being escorted in and never allowed contact with the home ones – but there is a recent history of crowd trouble in Bulgaria, and several clubs have had their grounds closed for short periods.

The football team won promotion to the top flight for the first time this season, and are performing well enough to finish mid-table this time around. The stadium consists of an open shelf of seating on one side, making use of the natural hill side. As at Levski, the seats have an uneven feel, having been bolted onto crumbling concrete. The away fans are securely penned into an enclosure behind the goal, while the only cover is a small building that contained the dressing rooms, a small VIP area, and a press stand. Having paid 5 Lev to enter, I approached the press area to get the team lists (this time in Cyrillic, whereas Levski had only provided them in Latin characters). I could have watched from there, but in the end choose the main stand, as the viewing angles were better.

Several of the teams in Bulgaria are called Lokomotiv, and all seem to share some common heritage from this, the badge of the Mezdra team is almost exactly the same as that for Lokomotiv Sofia, with a steam train and red and black stripes showing. Both Mezdra, and Lokomotive Stara Zagora who we were to see on Saturday play in Red and Black stripes. The club has now defected from the railways, and is owned by the road transport company Nadin. It is their money that has transformed the club and brought them up to the top division.

The team has selected several Portuguese imports, plus two Serbs, including Sasa Simonovic who was to score twice. The squad list also mentions a Chilean, who we did not see, and a Greek national, who was a second half substitute.

 

Home Fans Side –Mezdra

                            Away End – Mezdra

As with the previous day, the home side was to triumph by three goals to one, Minyor Pernik did attempt to play football and contributed to the match, but they were never good enough to challenge the home side, who are looking established with a position above mid-table in their first season at this level. We saw a crowd figure of just 250 for the game, but thought that Pernik brought at least that number themselves, (as they were bussed straight to the away end, we were uncertain if they had been made to pay). Our estimate put the crowd around the 1000 mark. It is difficult to be certain how accurate we were, but with wildly varying different figures on news and internet sources, I feel we are as accurate as any guess.

Returning to the town after the game, we went into the hotel restaurant, a large and truly cold dining hall. Although the meal itself was reasonable, and reasonably priced we were pleased to get out of such an unwelcoming place. No one else had chosen to eat there while we were there, and it is difficult to imagine someone doing so by choice, but as far as we could see, this was the only option in town to sit down and eat, the only other options being a few locally styled take-aways offering fare that was frightening to even look at.

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Outre Mer Teams in Coupe de France

27/11/2008 by leo.

Imagine, coming half way around the World to play football – and yet the game when play is on a cold, wet night and watched by just 700 people. I know some people who take pride in seeing their team play home and away, but the Outre Mer (overseas) teams in the French Cup are a test for anyone. For the supporters of A.S. Tefana, their journey from the island of Tahiti involved changes at Los Angeles and Paris, before winding up at Strasbourg airport in the Alsace – about 30 km from their final destination of Colmar. The home club, Sport Reunis Colmar play in CFA, France’s amateur and regionalised fourth division, where crowds of around 100 are the norm. Like many clubs at this level in France, they play on a municipal stadium, which provides them with the facilities of one good stand, whereas a simple path runs around the rest of the pitch. Colmar is better for football than many of these, insofar as it at least does not have to share the facility with a running track.

The French have long integrated the few remains of empire in ways that would shock and unnerve the British. Some of their remaining overseas territories are actually part of the European Union (which therefore includes Reunion, in the Indian ocean, and French Guiana – which is part of the South American mainland). To the best of my knowledge, the participation of these teams in the main French cup started in the 1961-2 season, when CS Moulien, from Guadeloupe visited Dieppe, and were beaten 3-2. For the next two seasons, Guadeloupe were missing, but teams from Martinique entered, while in 1964, both Guadeloupe and Reunion had a team through. A couple of years were missing, but basically Outre Mer clubs have had an increasing presence in the Coupe de France ever since.

1974 marked a breakthrough when Golden Star of Martinique, with home advantage, defeated mainlanders US Melun (in a replay, both games in Martinique), and then travelled to France and lost 8-0 to Nice. It was the first Outre Mer victory, and the first time an Outre Mer club got to compete against a top division side. The following season, CA Saint-Dennis scored a 2-1 win over Libourne in Reunion, losing to Guingamp in the next round. To date, 35 mainland teams have lost to the Outre Mer rivals, with Martinique (11) and Reunion (10) leading the way. Last season, records were broken when no less than three clubs from the Outre Mer won through. These were CS Moulien (Guadeloupe) who beat Pacy-sur-Eure on a penalty shoot-out, Samaritaine (Martinique) who won at Les Sables D’Olonne, and CSCC (Guiana) whose also won on penalties, on the island of Corsica, where they beat Bastia CA (an amateur team, not the professional club from the same town). All three went out in the next round.

The draw guarantees that any Outre Mer team that plays in two rounds, will have one match in mainland France, and one on their own territory. The choice of mainland clubs is limited in these first two rounds, as the mainland clubs can choose not to be included in the international section of the draw, (not surprisingly, with the possibility of trips to the Caribbean or Tahiti in the draw, there has always been a reasonable take up). After these two rounds are completed, the first division teams enter the cup, and I believe the draw is then open. Only two of the Outre Mer teams have won two ties in a season. The first being Gelder Kourou of Guiana who ended up losing a two legged match to Nantes, by 11-0 (aggregate), while in 1994-5, St-Louisienne (of Reunion) won through to entertain first division Cannes, before going down 2-0.

And so to Colmar, where 700 people were at the Colmar Stadium, (the English spelling is used here!). They were comfortably fitted into the single concrete stand, which probably holds around a thousand. Colmar, who had won promotion last season, entered the match as third in their CFA Group, with seven wins and three draws from 12 games, but only 11 goals scored. Their defence (8 conceded) is best in the division. AS Tefana came as leaders of the Polynesian League, with 8 wins out of 8. Tefana come from the town of Faaa, not far from the capital of Tahiti island. The name is reference to the stylised bow and arrow on their badge. Apparently on Tahiti, archery is a sacred sport, limited to the higher born, and only used for ceremonial reasons, never in warfare.

As with the grounds of most teams of this (and lower) levels of French football, the stadium is owned by the municipality, and shows very little sign connecting it to the football club in question. There is no club room or VIP accommodation, and the sale of food and souvenirs are from tables that the club have brought with them to the ground. The souvenirs are scarves commemorating Colmar’s last good run in the Coupe de France, three seasons ago. On that occasion, Colmar (who were then a level below their current status) won through into the last 64 (when the first division teams enter), only to draw St. Louis Neuweg (still a division below them); after winning that, they achieved a magnificent 1-0 win over AS Monaco, before losing out to another first division side, Rennes. Also available (free) was an A4 single sheet programme, printed on one side only and without any player details for the away team. I saw one for a previous game, so this is apparently a regular issue.

AS Tefana.

It was a cold night, but at least the intermittent drizzle did not turn to snow until later into the night. The game started quite openly, with the away side creating a couple of good chances, but as the match continued, so the home side gained control. Despite this, their keeper had few saves to make, instead the home forwards, and especially Pape Dieye, kept hitting the ball wide or over. Almost inevitably, the game went into extra time, and it was then that Pape Dieye finally found his mark, to give Colmar the lead. Colmar continued to attack and be wasteful, although they at least tested Samin in the Tefana goal. A useful warm up for the goal keeper, as with four minutes to play, substitute Petillon levelled the scores. Tefana took the first penalty scoring to the keeper’s right (I think they all went in on that side), while Colmar’s first hit the post. When the eighth penalty was reached, Tefana lead 4-2, and as Samin punched away Grossjean’s attempt, the Polynesians were through. There were a good number of Polynesian supporters in the crowd, although most were from the immigrant community already in France. Indeed, in the past, many of the cup matches have been played in or around Paris, where a good ethnic crowd can be found from any of the territories, and travel is easier for teams flying into Paris. This seems to have now been abandoned in favour of home grounds, (I certainly prefer this). I did speak to some Polynesians who had made the journey in support of their team, wrapped up against weather which is never found in Tahiti. Still, they were rather pleased to get a result.

For the second match of the weekend, I had less than one hour’s drive to St. Louis Neuweg. This is a busy suburb of a large city – the odd thing being that the suburb is still in France, but its city, Basel is in Switzerland. You head down the main street, and at the end of the border post between the two countries. Turn left just before the border and you are at the Stade de la Frontiere. This is another municipal stadium with a single stand – and in this case there is a running track as well. The home team, having also been promoted last season, are in CFA2, still one division below Colmar, while the visitors, SS St. Jeanne D’Arc are from La Port, Reunion. They only won the right to make the visit a week ago, and this is obviously worth making a song and dance about. To prove this, when I arrived at the stadium I found supporters of the visitors making a song and dance, playing their drums and generally enjoying themselves. Again, the majority of the away support, numbering well over 100, is from the immigrant community living in France. They are not necessarily local, I spoke to a family who had travelled from Toulouse for the game – which is certainly not within a comfortable day’s drive. It was interesting to note that a lot of the visitors had scarves or hats with the away team’s name on, even though none were on sale at the ground.

Unfortunately, while the fans were resplendent in club colours of purple and white, the complications of the cup keeps the teams from wearing these colours. For the French cup, clubs must wear shirts bearing the cup sponsors, and not the same ones as per league matches. The sponsors will provide these shirts, but only in a limited range of colours. The visiting supporters kept up a rhythm and drumbeat throughout the game, which made it a bit like an African cup game in miniature. The football, by comparison was no great shakes – both sides limiting themselves to a single forward and little in the way of excitement in the first half. St. Louis changed their single striker at half time, and in the early part of the second half, it really looked as if they could take the game, but the balance moved back when Jeanne d’Arc followed suit and changed their striker, (incidentally, the only white player in their starting XI). It was a second substitution, coming on in midfield who had the greatest effect, scoring with just seven minutes to play.

Stade de la Frontiere

The Alsace is an interesting area, in so far is it is in France, but much of the population speaks German as well. The history of St. Louis Neuweg says that they played initially in German football, when they were formed in 1924, although the Alsace was French at the time. Colmar dates back to about 1920, but I do not know in which league they played their early football. Both played in the first Championship d’Alsace in 1930/1, but not the same division – Colmar were champions, and with a generous benefactor, turned professional playing in the second division. Under German occupation during the war, St. Louis played in German football as VfL Neuweg. I do not know if Colmar joined the German Leagues. Colmar returned to the professional French League after the war, and in 1948 reached the semi-finals of the Coupe de France, and won promotion as runners-up of the second division. They had only one division in the top flight, withdrawing after finishing in mid-table following the death of the chairman/benefactor, Joseph Lehmann. At the time, they played at the Stade de Francs, which was demolished in 2000, and the derby against Strasbourg in the first division attracted the record crowd of 11,990. The record at the current Colmar Stadium was 5400 against AS Monaco – but with only 1300 seats, I would not like to have been there

For the evening, I left the Alsace for neighbouring Lorraine, heading up into the Vosges hills in increasingly bad weather. About 15 km before I reached my destination, Raon L’Etape, I passed by the slightly bigger town of St. Die – who were to provide the opposition for the evening’s local derby. The home side had spent a number of seasons in the National semi-professional third division, but unfortunately, the opening of an impressive new stand this season sees the team back in the CFA (French Amateur Championship, the regional fourth level, which also includes Colmar). This was on the far side as I looked across the snow covered pitch on arrival, and as it is quite tall, must provide over 2000 seats. On the entrance side, is a small wooden stand, with only a couple of hundred seats, but probably more than sufficient for the clubs current status. Alongside this was a long clubhouse, which reminded me of Belgium grounds, with a league ladder on one wall, and coupons on sale for food and drinks – as the bar does not take cash. Both stands are well raised above ground level, which helps in viewing, as although there is no track here, there is a wide path all around the pitch. Admission was 8 Euro (for a seat), one could stand for 6, with no elevation, and no protection from the snow. A small programme was given away free – it looks like a regular issue. Once again the effect of the sponsors on the team colours came into play, Raon L’Etape would normally play in blue, while St. Die are red, but for this game, the home team were in Red, and the visitors in yellow. A good crowd was present, around 500 – a sign, I would think of a local derby and a cup match. The teams have not met for a while in the league, as even now St. Die is a division below their hosts.

We started with a snow covered pitch, and only the lines cleared. Surprisingly, the normal white ball was in use at the start, but this was soon replaced by an orange one. Unfortunately, this ball picked up snow whenever it rolled across the pitch, and slowed down dramatically. Neither team found this conducive to good play, but it soon became clear that the home team were a class above their opponents. It was just that they did not have wherewithal to prove this. Time after time, they seemed to fumble the ball in front of the goal allowing the otherwise floundering defence to catch up. Half time was extended for another bout of snow clearing. Over a dozen stewards cleared the snow, and all the lines were remarked. The snow was cleared completely in both penalty areas, but in a cheeky effort to gain advantage, so were the wings level with the penalty area, for the direction Raon was attacking only. Not surprisingly, the referee was not going to accept this, and a further delay ensued as he demanded equality at the other end. One could argue that this effort was not fully required – as if you looked out to the pitch as half time started, you would see not a single footfall to disturb the snow of the left wing, where St Die were supposed to be attacking.

The game got underway again, after a half time exceeding 30 minutes, and with all the snow clearing making little difference. The home side continued to get into good positions, but failing to place a shot. One cross from the left hit the post hard shifting a cloud of snow that had settled on the framework and netting – but it was just a misplaced cross. With ten minutes to go, we finally had a breakthrough, and it was a simple one, the winger moved down the right, and crossed to the unmarked striker about 15 yards out, who simply slotted the ball home. That should not have been the end of the scoring, but it appeared almost that the home side did not want to embarrass their neighbours with a bigger win.

Inside the Clubhouse at Raon

Checking the results after the weekend, it turned out that the two victories I had seen were the only ones achieved by the Outre Mer teams during the weekend. As I already mentioned, both were guaranteed to play at home in the next round on 13/14 December. Jeanne D’Arc will play Feignies, while Arras will visit Tahiti. For Feignies, it will be their second successive encounter with the Outre Mer, as they beat Evolucas Lamentin of Guadeloupe in the last round. Both clubs are from Northern France, and play in the same group of CFA2, where Feignies are currently 2^nd, and Arras are 4^th.

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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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