Category Archives: Non league football

Who wants to win the cup anyway?

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Saturday’s horrific home defeat to Cheltenham was a mortal blow for Dagenham & Redbridge as well as their fans.  However, like falling off a bike it is best to get straight back on it, and so our very own Brian Parish focused on the distraction of an Essex Senior Cup game against a team three levels below the Daggers.  Surely nothing could go wrong?  Could it?

Whilst Saturday will take some time to get over, thankfully, we have another game to play almost straight away. That though is not to lessen the challenge we face tonight. While Canvey Island may be a few divisions below us, we know precisely how difficult it can be to get a result here, having visited on more than one occasion in the conference, and prior to that, in the Isthmian League.

Although it is just the Essex Senior Cup, this is a chance for some who have experienced the non-league days, to re-visit those memorable days gone by. A chance to go to places that we have yet to visit, or even just the chance to “change ends” at half time is generally a good enough reason to turn up for these games. Plus in a season that is going from bad to worse, we’ll take anything that is going our way. And as it’s been ten years since we actually won the county cup, if we can get to the final, we’ll certainly take it.

For the first few years of the twenty-first century, Canvey Island and Grays Athletic were leading the way from Essex, and both looked set fair for a long stay in the top flight of non-league football. Grays even went as far as to reach the conference play offs, but ultimately, both clubs fell from the conference. Grays were relegated a couple of years ago, sold off their ground, and are currently ground sharing with East Thurrock United. Continue reading →

Saturday Night, Sunday Mong Kok – A football adventure in Hong Kong

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Doncaster Rovers fan Glen Wilson went to Hong Kong.  Silly question whether we wanted him to watch a game or three really isn’t it?

Sunday 22 January 2012

Tweet from Steve: “Are you watching any football over there? Chance to see Kezman.”

Thursday 26 January 2012

I get my chance to see Mateja Kezman. He’s live on Hong Kong’s NOW TV. His South China side have just lost their Asian Challenge Cup 3rd place play-off 3-1 on penalties to China’s Guangzhou. Kezman, having humped the deciding penalty high into the night sky and off down Caroline Hill Road, now stands on the halfway line. Wearing an ‘I Heart Hong Kong’ t-shirt, pausing to allow for Cantonese translation by a television presenter in a garish lime green jacket, and with a consoling red furry arm around him from the tournament mascot the former European Golden Boot winner duly announces his retirement from football, age 32. I’m sure he always envisaged it would end this way.

Saturday 28 January 2012
“Can I go through here to get to the football match?” I ask.

“Football match? …Football? …Hong Kong FC versus Tai Chung?”

“Yes”

“Ah yes, through reception, down corridor and turn right at the end for stadium. And can I ask you please turn your phone off before going in sir. Club rules.”

That exchange alone should illustrate how HKFC stand apart from the rest of Hong Kong football. But if further proof were needed I was talking to the doorman. By some distance the oldest club in Hong Kong, HKFC played their first Rugby match in February 1886, their first football match a month later. A Private Members Club with predominantly ‘Western’ membership HKFC has a last bastion of the Empire feel about it; as a comment on one of their YouTube videos succinctly puts it “Hong Kong FC?! Where are the Chinese players?!” Continue reading →

Twenty one days of pain and frustration

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Twenty one days ago the sun was shining. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as Lewes kicked off against Canvey Island. Twenty four hours later I landed in Los Angeles to temperatures that would have had The Sun trumpeting as “Phew, what a scorcher” and “It’s hotter than Greece”. During the next week I worked with the sun shining all day, with my walk to the office along the empty beach in Santa Monica. Bliss, you may say and I would agree. Yet you mortals back in England were suffering freezing temperatures and tonnes of the white stuff. And of course that mean a serious lack of football.

Being purely selfish I was glad when the whole country called off their games the following weekend. Lewes’s game at Wingate & Finchley was postponed whilst I travelled east from California to New York. I cheered. Wingate is one of only two grounds I haven’t been to in the league so a re-arranged midweek fixture suited me perfectly. Seven days later and I was back in the UK but the after effects of the coldest February on record in many places in England again decimated the fixture list (and our plans for a game). What did this mean? Well, on the positive side, Lewes had gone unbeaten during February. On the pessimistic side, it would mean their last league win was 7 weeks ago when they beat Hastings United. Continue reading →

No brotherly love for Zambia

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Last Saturday I hopped on a train from New York Penn Station along my very good friends @lugepravda and @Luciejallen. Seventy minutes later and fifty dollars lighter we alighted at Philadelphia 30th street Amtrack station. We were here on a whistle-stop tour of the sights, starting with the famous Rocky steps at the Museum of Art. From this vantage point you can see downtown Philly at the far end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. This tree-lined boulevard runs for around a mile in a straight line to JFK Plaza. On either side are the flags of the various nations of the world. As we approached the end of the boulevard we found United Kingdom, which irked us as there had been no English flag yet the Scottish flag flew proudly and not far in the distance we could see the Welsh dragon looking down on us.

Now correct me if I am wrong here but there seemed to be some inaccuracies in the list. We all know that many Americans have yet to travel further than their own state yet alone across its borders, but after the United Kingdom came Uruguay, then Vietnam, Yemen and finally bizarrely Israel. Hang on what happened to Zambia? Zimbabwe to an extent I could understand. I’m not getting all political here but many countries foreign policy of “if we pretend they don’t exist, nothing bad will happen” means they ignore the Mugabe regime, and it seemed that is exactly what Philadelphia had done. Continue reading →

Romeo has nothing on me

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Like most married men, Valentines Day’s arrival every year in a pain in the arse. Surely we do enough to show our love to our wives/girlfriends (and husbands/boyfriends – let’s not forget many women are fans of TBIR too) without having to go overboard on one particular day. So I am about to shatter a myth which will have you re-assessing your thoughts on the 14th February. It transpires that when the Shaftesbury Memorial Monument was built in 1893 to commemorate the work of politician, philanthropist and all round good egg Lord Shaftesbury in Piccadilly Circus it is not that of Eros sitting a-top the structure firing his arrow of love but of his identical twin Anteros. You see Eros was the sad lonely lovelorn character, whilst his brother was the God of Requited Love. He is the one with the bow, firing his love arrows at people in need of some TLC or happy endings, whilst Eros was banished to Lillywhites.

If Greek mythology is your bag then you will know that Anteros, with Eros, was one of a host of winged love gods called the Erotes, the ever-youthful winged gods of love, usually depicted as winged boys in the company of Aphrodite or her attendant goddesses. Good work if you could get it, flying around as an ancient porn baron if you please. If it is not, let’s talk about Leek Town.

Leek and Valentine’s Day – two odd bedfellows. Or are they? Some eighteen years ago, The Current Mrs Fuller and I headed off on our first ever holiday, destination Leek. When I say holiday, of course I mean a weekend away. These were the days before I knew what a ground hopper was, let alone whether anywhere I went had a team and CMF was still a young and innocent schoolgirl. What attracted me to her you may wonder? Apart from the fact I never had to ask her to dress up as a schoolgirl, it was her A-reg Ford Fiesta. Did we have some adventures in that car I can tell you. But on this trip we stayed in a farm house just outside Leek, with the snow fluttering down outside. I had set a high romantic bar for years to come. The weekend ended with my bravado of trying to drive her car through a ford despite warnings that it wasn’t suitable. Of course it wasn’t and a two hour delay whilst I found a farmer with a tractor didn’t exactly fill our room with love that evening. Continue reading →