Alcohol To Be Consumed In Your Seat / Ipswich Trial Plans

Many years ago, after England had crushed Germany 5-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, me and my Father went to watch a second division match between FC Koln and Alemannia Aachen. Stood on the terraces at this football match, people drunk beer, ate hot dogs and had a good time. I vividly recall two men near the front wearing England shirt and bare in mind this wasn’t long after England’s crushing victory over Germany, I expected them to attract a little unwanted attention. Read more

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Craig in Championship, England, League One, League Two, Premiership Leave a comment

Bradford Spring Another Cup Shock

Good morning.

Like a WW1 veteran, I endured horrific flashbacks last night. I didn’t watch the match between Bradford City and Aston Villa, as the pain of going there to see Arsenal lose is still all too fresh. “That” Gervinho miss, Francis Coquelin hitting the post, Thomas Vermaelen scoring the equaliser in the last minute of normal time, Santi Cazorla hitting the crossbar and finally, Vermaelen hitting the post in a penalty shoot-out to send Bradford through to the semi-finals. Read more

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Craig in Arsenal, Aston Villa, Capital One Cup, League Two Leave a comment

Scunthorpe Appoint Laws / Player Carries On With Burnt Nipple / Luis Suarez

Out with the old and in with the older at Scunthorpe.

Morning.

Okay, it’s a bit of a mixed bag in today’s news. Not often does a League Two player make a headline on here for playing a match with a burned nipple, but there you go. In case you want to add more action to the game check out this sports betting site.

We’ll come back to the burnt nipple story as we start with Scunthorpe United re-hiring Brian Laws as Scunthorpe United manager, his third spell with the club (many forget a short period where he left the club on ‘gardening leave’), after Alan Knill was sacked for a poor run of results with the Iron. Knill was having an absolute shocker at Glanford Park and since replacing Ian Baraclough at the helm, did little to turn around their fortune from leading League One side to relegation fodder. Something needed to change and Scunthorpe have made that change, fair enough, but is going back to Laws a step backwards? Read more

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Craig in England, League One, League Two Leave a comment

I Miss Domestic Football / Boa Morte Joins Chesterfield / Dzeko Fights For City Spot

There you go, I said it, “I miss domestic football”. I know it’s our country we’re talking about, but doesn’t everyone just do a little *sigh* every single time the international break comes calling? England v San Marino is nearly as appealing as running around a bramble bush in the nude.

So, what’s in the very little football news this morning? My favourite is of Luis Boa Morte signing on a deal to the end of January for Chesterfield Town. Age 35, Boa Morte had won 28 caps at international level for Portugal and has made more than 300 starts in English football. The Portuguese midfielder joined Arsenal from Sporting Lisbon, where he spent two seasons at Highbury, which in fairness, were decidely average, before he jumped ship to join Southampton for another two seasons, where he made only seven starts, (seventeen appearances in total) scoring one goal.

For the 2000-01, Boa Morte joined Fulham on a season-long loan, making 46 appearances in all competitions, scoring 21 goals, his best goal return in his career to that season. That was enough to convince Jean Tigana to spend money bringing Boa Morte to Fulham on a permanent basis. Until 2007, Boa Morte figured as an important player, making 204 appearances in total, scoring 33 more goals.

After a successful spell at Fulham, it unravelled for Boa Morte at the sinking ship that was West Ham United. Signed for £5 million, Boa Morte was only released at the end of last season, proving to be a massive, expensive flop.

Now at Chesterfield, we’ve seen plenty of examples down the years of players that have joined a lower league club, only to disappear out of the game a few months later. It’s hard to see Boa Morte recapturing any kind of good form, especially since it was last seen back in 2007.

Finally for today, I’ll finish with Edin Dzeko, who told The S*n that he wants to stay at Manchester City and fight for his place on the pitch, having grown frustrated with life on the bench.

Signed from Wolfsburg, having ripped apart the Bundesliga, Dzeko has struggled for lengthy runs in the team. When Roberto Mancini signed him, I did think it was a fantastic signing and I still think he could be, but only if Manchester City play to his strengths when he’s on the pitch. Dzeko is a ‘rhythm striker’, who needs a good run of games to find form, with which the goals start coming in torrents. Due to City not playing to his strengths, it’s easy for Dzeko to have an ineffectual game, before finding himself dropped to the bench for the next match.

Simply put, Dzeko does not necessarily suit the style City play to, with all the intricacies around the penalty area and so on. Technically, yes, Dzeko is good, but it’s not his strength. His strong suit is winning aerial battles, receiving crosses and so on. Dzeko doesn’t get that at Manchester City, so it can be very easy for him to have a bad game amongst two good ones and that’s why he’s on the bench every other week.

Despite the fact Dzeko has won Manchester City’s ‘player of the month’ award for August and September this season, he still isn’t a regular fixture in the starting line-up. Clearly, the Bosnian striker can score goals in abundance when provided the service, but do they tinker with their system slightly to suit Dzeko, or go with what won them the Premier League title last season? I see Mancini opting for the latter, and rumours intensifying over Dzeko’s departure the closer we draw to the end of the season.

Right, that’s about all I can muster for today.

See you tomorrow.

Follow @J4goalpostsblog

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Craig in England, League Two, Premiership Leave a comment

St George’s Park Opens

Morning.

There’s nothing quite like the interlull to cast a shroud over all football news. Seriously, it’s Tuesday and the biggest news we have is of Ashley Cole not receiving a ban for his “Bunch of tw*ts” regarding the FA. In what other line of work in the entire world do you call a governing body a bunch of tw*ts and get away with it by merely saying, “sorry”? It’s a joke, Cole should have been banned, instead a simple apology suffices.

Sadly, Cole striving to become the most deluded football player to have ever lived has overshadowed the opening of St. George’s Park, England’s brand new, £100 million football centre which as of today, will be officially open. Based near Burton upon Trent, St George’s Park will be a training base for England teams and a centre of excellence dedicated to increasing the number of top quality coaches and managers. In addition, the FA is also implementing changes in youth football that include smaller pitches and goals, a change that is long overdue. There also new ‘youth modules’ created to aid younsters’ development. Read more

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Craig in Championship, England, League One, League Two, Premiership Leave a comment

Hillsborough Files Reopened

South Yorkshire Police are reopening investigations into their conduct over the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. The force is considering referring itself to to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) following Wednesday’s release of the Hillsborough report which showed officers changed their statements in order to try and pin the blame of the crush on Liverpool fans, rather than admit to their own inadequacies.

195 of these police officers who made amendments to their statements still work for South Yorkshire Police, it was confirmed yesterday. Read more

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Craig in Championship, England, League One, League Two, Premiership 1 Comment

The Hillsborough Disaster – 96 Souls Layed To Rest As Report Reveals All

Leppings Lane End Tunnel.

Morning.

Twenty-three years too late, the families of the ninety-six people who died on 15th April, 1989, have closure on the events which saw the deaths of their loved ones. Finally, ninety-six souls can rest after the Hillsborough report was released yesterday, and it makes for harrowing reading.

The Hillsborough disaster could have been avoided. One month before the FA Cup Semi-Final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool, South Yorkshire Police replaced their experienced match commander, Chief Superintendent Brian Mole, with the inexperienced David Duckenfield. That decision was ridiculed at the time and the rationale behind the decision wasn’t explained. Why, just one month away from an FA Cup Semi-Final involving two big clubs, especially one as big as Liverpool, would you replace your most experienced match commander with someone who has so little experience? Read more

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Craig in Championship, England, League One, League Two, Premiership Leave a comment

Football Is Back! So Why Am I Not Excited?!

Why, oh why do I not have these levels of motivation? For football, anyway.

Morning all!

Today it’s going to be a failry short one, as happens when I realise there’s nothing to talk about other than transfers and match reports, but that’s Craig’s forte. I don’t like to intrude, and I prefer to talk about other stuff. Mainly because I’m pretty sure you don’t want to read the same stuff twice, and secondly I prefer to go off the beaten track a bit, it’s more fun. Although thinking about it, this lack of ideas seems to be becoming a little more regular, so maybe I need to start intruding? Or just thinking harder. I’ll try the latter; it’s less boring for everyone involved. Read more

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Rob in Championship, England, League One, League Two, Premiership Leave a comment

Save Wembley For The Big Occasions

Good morning!

I’m going to dive straight into this topic, as I can’t think up a snappy introduction to this morning’s article, which is a massive shame. Normally I like to write something pretty irrelevant to the main body of the article… Oh look, I’m being irrelevant as we speak!

I’ll leave the comedic writing to Rob in future, that was awful…

Anyway, recently, Chesterfield Town and Swindon Town made it to the final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, setting up a Wembley date which on Sunday, Chesterfield won 2-0 on the day, thanks to an owl goal and a late Craig Westcarr strike.

Personally, I think the initial idea of having such a tournament as the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy is fantastic. Open to the forty-eight clubs emanating from League One and League Two, the tournament is divided into a Northen and Southern category, before the two regions come together in the later rounds. The JPT offers fans of teams from League One and Two the opportunity to enjoy a cup run and with lowly teams being knocked out of the big domestic tournaments early on, it does offer a little more excitement.

Whilst I think the staging of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy is a wonderful idea, the stadium used for the final itself, Wembley, is a poor choice.

On Sunday, 49,000 fans of both Chesterfield and Swindon Town descended on Wembley, with a fair amount of fans from both sets of support not even Town fans. This isn’t a stab in the dark, as I actually live in the Chesterfield area and I know countless people who went down to Wembley as falsetto Chesterfield fans.

With Wembley far away from being sold out and numbers distorted by a following of plastic fans, it has to be asked whether a smaller stadium should be used for such a trophy? Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, would geographically offer more of a focal point as a ‘half-way’ house for Northern and Southern clubs and would have created more of a fight for tickets, rewarding those who regularly go to Chesterfield and Swindon matches first and if that didn’t sell out, then by all means, let it go to general sale. As it was, tickets for Sunday’s final were as common as pig manure. They were so common, that I know of a twenty-year old lad who has donned a Mansfield Town shirt all his life, only to turn up at Sunday’s match in the guise of a Chesterfield Town fan. Both clubs are fierce rivals to each other and it’s gross to think that a season ticket holder at Chesterfield’s B2Net Stadium would have been sat next to a Mansfield Town fan on a day out on Sunday.

Manchester City’s 47,805 capacity stadium would have the greater potential to have sold out and would reward the true fans of both clubs. Would a fake Chesterfield fan really want a day out at the Etihad Stadium? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice stadium, I’ve always enjoyed my visits there on an away day, but it wouldn’t mean the same to a fake fan as it would to a Chesterfield fan. A fake fan just wants to experience Wembley, whereas a Chesterfield fan genuinely wants to see their team lift a trophy.

With the use of Wembley for this tournament, the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final risks becoming an exhibition match for opportunists, and our national stadium is at risk of becoming a show-pony. When people say ‘Wembley’, I think of the FA Cup Final, last season’s Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona and the Carling Cup Final. Those matches sell out and millions around the world tune in to view such events.

To reiterate, I really believe that the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy is a fantastic tournament, I’m a big fan of allowing clubs from the lower two leagues their own tournament. However I do not think Wembley is an appropriate stadium, it’s too big a venue for what is an incredibly small tournament.

Now for the revelation: I have been to a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final, played between Scunthorpe United and Luton Town, where Luton emerged victorious, 3-2 in extra time through Claude Gnakpa’s last-gasp lob over Joe Murphy.

Now, I didn’t have the same level of morality now as I did back when I was seventeen, otherwise I’d have refused the trip to Wembley. In the days building up to the match however, it seemed apparent that Grimsby Town fans couldn’t stop laughing at bragging Scunthorpe United fans who just a few years previous had mocked Grimsby for reaching a ‘nothing’ final. You see, it’s not even held in great prestigue by those competing for it, so why does it suddenly become so ‘big’ towards the end. Every club wants to stay in the FA Cup, yet the JPT has rules where a club has to field a select amount of first-team players.

My Dad, being a Scunthorpe United fan had asked me if I wanted to go and I said ‘yes’. I was seventeen, why wouldn’t I? As an Arsenal fan, it gave me an excuse to watch Henri Lansbury for the afternoon, who was on loan to Scunthorpe from Arsenal at the time. I wasn’t particularly excited to be there, and Scunthorpe didn’t sell out their allocation.

There was an instance earlier in the season where Sheffield Wednesday didn’t want to play a full-strength team for the JPT, but had to field key first-team players as part of the rules. Gary Megson, the then-Sheffield Wednesday manage, found a way round this by substituting his big players within a few minutes of the match starting. If teams respect this tournament in such a manner, is it really such a prestigious tournament to be in, do clubs really want it?

Low TV audiences, a half-empty national stadium and falsetto fans of the competing teams make for a sham of a final, a disrespect to a 90,000-seater stadium.

The final crippling blow on this subject is that whilst Scunthorpe didn’t sell out their allocation, I believe Chesterfield didn’t either? It really is pathetic we hold this tournament’s final within Wembley. If this continues, Wembley loses it’s identity. Peterborough United won promotion to the Championship at Old Trafford after it had been moved from Wembley to Manchester United’s stadium. That day would have been just as special for Peterborough had it been at Wembley.

That’s your lot from me today, see you in the comments…

Follow @J4goalpostsblog

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Craig in England, League One, League Two Leave a comment

The True Value Of Hulk / El Clasico / Saving Darlington

Good morning!

To say we call ourselves a half decent football website here is something that may need pulling up under the Trade Descriptions Act. Why? I forgot El Clasico was on. Yes, that’s right, I who considers one’s self to have a great football brain, neglected one of the world’s biggest football matches was on TV.

Don’t worry, I did eventually figure out it was on when I saw the ‘trends’ on Twitter and saw ‘El Clasico’ on there, but what a mistake, my bad! Anyway, more on that alice-band fest later…

This morning we start with Hulk. No, not that green, angry man from the Marvel comics, I mean Hulk as in the FC Porto striker, the olive-skinned angry man who wears blue.

Well anyway, now you’re over that confusing issue, Hulk’s agent, Teodoro Fonseca, has claimed the £83 million buy-out clause in the Brazilian’s striker’s contract represents ‘good value’, so he told Radio Renascenca. Fonseca, in more detail, claimed that ‘One hundred million Euros is not such a high figure. Every European club knows that the money spent on him would be compensated by his talent’.

Rather than faint at claims of ‘one hundred million euros not being such a high figure’, let us see just what we’d be buying in securing the services of Hulk, you know, if we were all managers with that much to spend.

2008/09 Statistics.

Goals: 8
Assists:1

2009/10 Statistics.

Goals: 8
Assists: 5

2010/11 Statistics.

Goals: 23
Assists: 4

2011/12 Statistics.

Goals: 11
Assists: 1

Total.

Goals: 50
Assists: 11

Once again, my crude maths equations come under the spotlight as I make that just over £1.3 million for every goal and assist to which Hulk has contributed.

If you value that as good value for money, I’ll be damned. If we at J4G Towers can figure out that Hulk isn’t really value for money at all, I’m quite sure there will be managers spitting their morning coffee out over their desk.

Now getting back to my opening paragraph, where I just figured out that El Clasico was on, all thanks to Twitter!

Mourinho pulled off a few shocks, starting Pepe in midfield, Hamit Altintop at right-back and starting with Gonzalo Higuain, as well as giving Ricardo Carvalho his first start since September. For me, it was no real shock, as it was clear Mourinho had sent a different team out set to stifle Barcelona. Starting with three defensive midfielders (Lass Diarra, Xabi Alonso and Pepe) is always risky when playing at the Bernabeu in front of their own fans and no doubt Marca will be out in force tomorrow, calling Mourinho negative, but did he really have any other choice? Aside from the fact I’d have swapped Higuain for Callejon and and Pepe for Ozil, you can’t really fault Mourinho for his tactics.

A stat was reeled off on Sky Sports Two by the commentary team that there had been twelve meetings between Barcelona and Real Madrid whilst Mourinho and Guardiola have been in charge of their respective clubs, all culminating in just one, paultry win for Mourinho and the thirteenth meeting last night ensured Mourinho was only staying on one.

Predictably, Madrid started the stronger. I noted at one point that it looked as if eleven Captain America’s (carrying on a recurring Marvel theme in this post) were beating up eleven nerdy scientists who had no answer for brawn. Benzema paid tribute to that when he wrong footed Xavi in central midfield to make space for a Barcelona-splitting pass to Ronaldo on the left wing. With Dani Alves so far up the pitch he may as well have been in my living room, Ronaldo had all the time in the world to pick his spot, right between Pinto’s legs!

After half time however, there was only one winner. Carlos Puyol scored in the 49th minute with a diving header and then Eric Abidal scored in the 79th minute to ensure Barcelona had scored via two unlikely suspects.

Despite pressing as usual, Real Madrid still have no answer available to them as to why they can’t topple Barcelona. My theory is that Barcelona’s unwavering belief in their game gives them such a psychological edge over teams, Real Madrid in particular, meaning that despite Madrid’s best efforts, they still cannot bury them and after so long of pressing and pressing, Madrid eventually lose focus and resort to foul play. Need I point you in the direction of a certain Pepe? Who by the way, was disgraceful last night, a real scum bag of a player. I’d rather read philsophical books with Joey Barton than have Pepe round my house for dinner.

Now finally, I must press on to an issue close to the heart of every football fan. We’ve all had financial worries at our respective clubs, some more serious than others. In some instances, these financial issues become so bad a club can be lost to history. Remember that Scarborough team who so valianty played Chelsea not so long ago in the FA Cup Third Round? You do? Well they’re history, a club no more and we can’t let this happen. As football fans, we can’t allow clubs to just disappear.

Football means the world to us all, it gives us a bond. Friendships can be made via the topic of football, we share our greatest moments with loved one thanks to the game, not to mention those heart breaking moments we’d rather have abolished to the memory banks, dropped in a bank vault and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Those moments are precious, football is precious and fans should never have those moments taken away from them. Darlington Football Club are the latest to suffer the threat of anonymity, abolishment to the history books and we cannot let it happen.

Now on borrowed time, Darlington need all the help they can get, so visit their website by clicking here. Even by giving a tenner, you’re helping keep alive a football heritage for future generations to enjoy. Visit their website, give your support and help save Darlington Football Club!

Follow @SaveDarlo

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Craig in Championship, England, League One, League Two, Premiership Leave a comment

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