Phoenix / Kimberley MW

Saturday 26th March 2011

Firstly let me say sorry to disappoint folks but there are no reports from the two games I attended today. The reason being is simple enough and that is I could not be bothered as I was more interested in taking photographs.

Phoenix FC 0-0 Kiveton Park

Central Midlands League Premier Division

Pavilion Lane, Brinsworth

The first game in South Yorkshire was the opening gambit of four that were part of this years Central Midlands League "Bonanza" ground hop. This was a 10.15am kick-off which meant an early start for the 75 minute journey northwards on the M1. 

A brief summary of the game...a shocker, truly awful, 90 minutes of dross etc etc. To be fair the Phoenix keeper did pull off a couple of cracking saves in the second half and that was about it.

A slideshow of photos take of the game and stall holders selling their wares etc can be found below:

Admission: £3

Programme: £1

Badge: £3

Team Sheet: 20p

Attendance: 220ish

Match rating: 1 out of 5

Kimberley Miners Welfare 4-1 Linby Colliery Welfare

Notts Senior League Senior Division

Digby Street

Game 2 saw me head south into Nottinghamshire for this 1pm kick-off which was brought forward a couple of hours early due to the Wales - England international. The ground is a tidy affair that is hemmed in on all four sides, one by housing, two by industrial units and the fourth being the A610 dual carriageway. It is also located just a few minutes from the nearby Ikea store.

The game was a reasonable and competitive encounter with the bottom of the table visitors looking dangerous early on. Kimberley scored their opening goal against the run of play and then added a second a minute after Linby and come close to an equaliser. The second half was very scrappy and Linby pulled one back from a corner. It was not until the last five minutes that the home side added two late goals, the first coming from the penalty spot that put a gloss on the score.

A slideshow is below containing some photos of the ground and game:

Admission / programme: none

Attendance: approx 40

Match rating: 2 1/2 out of 5

Tipton Town

TIPTON TOWN 6-1 OADBY TOWN

Saturday 12th March 2011

Midland Football Alliance

Tipton Sports Academy

a slideshow of photos taken of the ground and during the game is below:

Today sees me head west to the Black Country for a rare chance to watch Oadby Town, a team that I have had an affinity to since 1998 when I became their programme editor. This lasted for a few seasons before work and other commitments meant I could not give it the time required. Now days I generally only try and watch Oadby @ grounds that I have not visited before. At the start of the season there were four that fell into this category - Ellesmere Rangers, Malvern Town, Stratford Town and Tipton Town, and my intention was to watch Oadby at all four. Well by the end of September there had already been a spanner in the works with the game at Stratford being midweek, and as regular readers of this blog will know I work nights so was unable to make the trip. Next up was Malvern on December 4th and everything was good to go. Yeah right! Not only was yours truly ill and spent most of the day in bed, it was also postponed due to a frozen pitch. Great 0 out 2 - going well here!!! The game was subsequently rearranged for a midweek date in January which like the Stratford game meant it was a big fat no no. This left Ellesmere and Tipton which were arranged for two Saturday's in March. Once I knew of the dates the fixtures were set in stone and no other alternative fixtures were looked at or even considered.

Tipton itself is a town in the borough of Sandwell in the West Midlands located roughly equi-distance between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. The population is estimated to be around the 47,000 mark. The town is well served by the rail network with direct services to not only Birmingham and Wolverhampton but Coventry and Walsall as well. The journey from my home to Tipton is 51 miles in distance and (traffic permitting) should take around an hour.

Tipton Town were formed in 1948 as Ocker Hill United and played in the Wolverhampton & District Amateur League until 1967 when they were accepted into division 1 of the West Midlands (Regional) League (WML). Also in 1967 they changed their name to the current title and it has remained this way ever since. Since joining the WML they have won a few honours with the first and second coming in the 1983/84 season when they were crowned Division 1 champions and Division 1 Cup winners, and this lead to promotion to the premier division. Seven seasons were spent in the premier division before relegation back to division one in 1991. In 1996 following reorganisation of the WML's lower divisions they were placed in Division 1 South. The 1997/98 season saw them finish in a runners-up position and with it promotion back to the premier division. Two seasons later they won the Premier Division Cup for the first time. Another successful season came during the 2004/05 campaign when they completed a premier division double, lifting both the league title and cup competition. With the league title success came promotion to the Midland Football Alliance (MFA). Tipton have been ever present in the MFA since and last season recorded a best ever finish of 4th place. This season they are currently top of the MFA but are in a battle for the title with Leicestershire side Coalville Town. A notable achievement came before Christmas when they reached the first round proper of the FA Cup for the 1st time, this after progressing through six qualifying rounds in the process. The run came to an end with a 6-0 defeat @ Carlisle United. A breakdown of their FA Cup campaign is below:

EP..Alvechurch (A)...........W 5-0

P...Stratford Town (H).......W 3-1

1Q..Norton United (H)........W 1-0

2Q..Market Drayton Town (H)..W 2-0

3Q..Radcliffe Olympic (A)....D 3-3

r...Radcliffe Olympic (H)....W 2-0

4Q..Sheffield (A)............D 2-2

r...Sheffield (H)............W 2-0

The club play their home games at the Tipton Sports Academy which is a multi-purpose sports complex. It has a capacity of 2,000 of which just over 10% is seating. The venue is also home to Tipton Harriers Athletic Club.

In the end Tipton were convincing winners in front of a disappointing crowd, but for the majority of the first half found life hard going against their Leicestershire opponents. The first twenty minutes was mainly a competitive battle in midfield with Tipton struggling to get any rhythm going. This was due to in no small part to Oadby who gave them very little time and space. Tipton’s first proper sight of goal came on the 18th minute when Oadby keeper Wayne Connolly was fortunate not to concede having made a hash of Jozsef Jakob’s tame effort. Three minutes later and Oadby stunned the hosts by taking the lead. Chris Hollist hit a diagonal ball that found Michael Lucas on the right. The subsequent cross was spilled by Tipton keeper Wes Cox and Sam Taylor bundled the ball home from a couple of yards. Five minutes later and it should have been 0-2 but Taylor, having found himself with only Cox to beat saw his shot well saved. Tipton then punished this miss by equalising on 29 minutes through Ryan Mosedale headed home a cross at the far post. In the final five minutes of the half Tipton scored twice to give a gloss on the proceedings at the interval. Firstly Danny Bragoli’s shot through a crowded Oadby penalty area took a wicked deflection to leave Connolly stranded and secondly Jakob followed up a shot that crashed against the bar to head home from a yard out.

The second half saw Oadby get off to the worst possible start when they conceded a penalty inside a minute. This decision was very harsh in my opinion as firstly it looked like Dan Campbell was offside and secondly he went down under very little contact. Campbell took the penalty himself but it was well saved by Connolly only for it to fall kindly to Jakob who fired home the rebound to make it 4-1. Eight minutes later and Tipton were awarded another penalty following a foul from Paul Pallett who was subsequently sent off. Campbell again took the penalty, Connolly again saved it and again it fell to Jakob, only this time he blasted the ball over the bar. The sending off killed the game and it was surely a case of how many did Tipton want to score. Numerous chances came and went with Jakob being particular guilty and it was only in the last three minutes that Tipton stuck the knife in with two more goals. Jakob completed his hat-trick when he was given too much time and space in the penalty area. He was allowed to bring the ball down, turn and shoot without any Oadby defender near him let alone making a challenge. The final goal of the afternoon came in the final minute when, having broken down the left the ball found its way to Bragoli on the edge of the penalty area who finished with aplomb.

Admission: £5

Programme: £1

Attendance: 60 (head count)

Badge: £3

Coffee: £1

Match rating: 2 ½ out of 5

Official website

Midland Football Alliance website

A final note is that off the field Tipton are a very friendly and welcoming club. Special thanks go to secretary Keith Birch who not only gave me the team line-ups but allowed me pitch side to take my photographs, though I did have to wear a Tipton Town hi-vis vest as punishment!!!!

Germany - part 2

TURU 1880 DUSSELDORF 1-0 RATINGER SP.VGG GERMANIA 04/19

Saturday 5th March 2011

Niederrheinliga [Lower Rhine League]

Stadion an der Feuerbachstraße

Well there was not originally going to be a "part 2" to this trip, but like previously stated in part 1 Gary had found a 3.30pm kick-off at nearby Herne, but this was brought forward by an hour or so which made it impossible for us to get there in time for kick-off. This left us with pretty much with one option and that was to find a decent restaurant and chill out for a couple of hours before our flight home. But again Gary came up trumps with a second game, though this I feel was more out of desperation than anything else!!!! We would have around an hour to make to 50 kilometre journey south to Dusseldorf for a game in the Niederrheinliga (Lower Rhine League) between TuRU 1880 Dusseldorf and Ratinger Sp.Vgg. Germania 04/19 at the 8,000 capacity Stadion an der Feuerbachstraße. This should on paper still give us time to get back to the airport in time for our flight home at 8pm local time.

Dusseldorf is the capital of the North Rhine Westfalia region and is an important business and financial centre. It is the seventh largest city in Germany with a population of over 585,000 inhabitants. The city lies at the centre of the Lower Rhine basin on the river delta where the Dussel flows into the Rhine. Every July over four million people visit the city's largest "Largest Fair on the Rhine" funfair. 



city flag (Source: Wikipedia)

The main football club in the city is Fortuna Dusseldorf who play at the Esprit Arena which has a capacity of 54,500. A lot more information on Dusseldorf can be found on a detailed page on Wikipedia which can be accessed by clicking here.

There is very little on the club on the internet, but from what I can gather the club are a merger of various sports clubs in the early part of the 20th century. Firstly on May 10th 1905 Düsseldorf Fußball Klub Union was formed through a merger of three clubs: Vorwärts Düsseldorf, Borussia Düsseldorf and Fußball Club Britannia Düsseldorf. In 1911 they changed their name to Düsseldorfer Sport Club Union. Finally another merger occured in 1919 with two more clubs Verein für Rasensport Düsseldorf and Friedrichstädter Turnverein 1880 to give us the club that is known today.

Official website

Wikipedia page 

club logo (source: official website)

Turu currently find themselves at the top of the table with 42 points from their 18 games played with RW Oberhausen and KFC Uerdingen just two points adrift. Their opponents from nearby Ratingen sit in 4th place, 8 points adrift.

The top 4 (as at 28/02/2011):

1. TURU.............18 13 3 2 35 14 42
2. RW Oberhausen....20 12 4 4 51 24 40
3. KFC Uerdingen....18 12 4 2 45 20 40
4. Ratinger.........19  9 7 3 37 25 34

Statue outside the stadium





Programme cover

Following an easy get away from Bochum we hit road works which slowed us down on the way to Dusseldorf. With kick-off approaching we went past the ground but it was on the wrong side of a dual carriageway, but a risky / required u-turn at a set of lights from Gary enabled us to make kick-off. We parked on the pavement on Auf'm Hennekamp with the locals. As they say "when in Rome". Ticket prices for adults are either €9 for grandstand seating or €6 for general admission. With sitting down for most of the day, whether it be in a car, on a plane or in the stadium @ Bochum we opted for the cheaper of the two options with the match day programme given away free on entry. Immediately to the right of the entrance is a lean-to type shelter that is home to the food and drink stalls. The club did have some merchandise for sale from a portable trailer which included the usual football affair - scarves, hats, shirts etc. There is one main stand along the near side which covers about two thirds the length of the pitch with terracing either side. Along the far side is more terracing that runs along the whole length with Dusseldorf Volksgarten railway station behind the perimeter, while there is nothing behind both goals.

The game was more entertaining than the first, though as anyone who had read the report will know this would have been nigh on impossible. Both teams went forward at every opportunity though neither keeper was particularly tested. In the opening couple of minutes the home side thought they should have had a penalty kick but the referee waved away their protests. I had an excellent view of it and thought Dusseldorf were hard done by. Ratinger's best chance of the half came on 32 minutes when, following a mistake in the home defence Daniel Rehag shot from a tight angle instead of pulling the ball back to better placed team mates. Around the hour mark Dusseldorf were awarded a penalty when a ball over the visiting defence resulted in Miguel Lopez-Torres being fouled. Torres stepped up but the penalty and resulting follow-up was saved by the Ratinger keeper. The only goal of the game came two minutes later when an excellent through ball split the visiting defence and Marko Nikolic finished superbly with a 1st time shot into the bottom corner. Both sides continued to push forward but with no reward and the referee blew his whistle some after some five minutes of stoppage time.

Admission: €6
Programme: Free
Attendance: between 350 and 400 (guesstimate)
Match rating: 2 1/2 out of 5
Beer: €3
Coffee: €2
Bratwurst sausage: €2

A slideshow of the photos taken of the ground and game can be found below:


A trouble free journey then followed to the airport and after Gary handed in the hire car keys we had no issue going through the security checks before getting on the plane. The plan was pretty full and despite only taking around an hour, it was not the best due to a combination of 1) us being tired; 2) irritating kids who are also tired and 3) the cabin crew (who I know are only doing their job) trying to sell you something every five minutes! We landed at 8pm and it took us the best part of an hour to get to the car, the majority of which was stood in a que waiting to go through passport control. Welcome to the United Kingdom :( The drive home was an easy and stress free drive and we arrived back in Leicester some 19 hours after leaving home.

Germany - part 1

VFL BOCHUM 1848 1-1 KARLSRUHER SC
Saturday 5th March 2011
2-Bundesliga
rewirpowerStadion

Today is a first for me with a day trip on the continent to watch football. It all started between Christmas and the New Year when I was messing about on Ryanair's website to see how much a flight would cost between Stansted and Weeze in north west Germany. A price of £30 return (including taxes and charges) was quoted and I mentioned this to Gary and we both booked our flights separately for the first Saturday in March. Gary is a regular traveller to Germany and has visited numerous grounds in the country so was able to point me in the right direction to a couple of excellent websites:

1) Fussball.de and 2) Euro Plan Online. We knew that both Duisburg and Bochum would be at home this weekend but would have to wait until the fixtures were confirmed to see if either would be playing on the Saturday. Once Bochum was confirmed for the Saturday (1pm kick-off) Gary booked the tickets (25 Euros) for us and we would collect them from the stadium before the game. He then found a second game seven miles away in Herne for a 3.30pm kick-off between Westfalia Herne and Duisburg II, but with less than a week before we were to fly out the fixture had been changed to a 3pm kick-off which put a spanner in the works. Not to be outdone Gary's knowledge of German football came to the fore and came up with another fixture for us to attend before our flight home that evening. More of this later.

An early start on Saturday morning saw us depart Leicester at 4.15am for the 105 mile journey to London Stansted Airport which takes around 90 minutes to complete. Nearly the entire route is on the motorway network (M1 and M11) and the A14 dual carriageway. The flight to Weeze takes around an hour and an a half with it landing at 10am local time.

Bochum is a city (population around 375,000) located in the Nordrhein-Westfalen region of Germany. The region itself, usually shortened to NRW is the most heavily populated (approximately 18 million), westerly and economically powerful. It was formed in 1946 by a merger of the Rhine Province and Province of Westfalia. These were two territories of the Free State of Prussia. A year later in 1947 the Free State of Lippe was incorporated into the region. It has a land area of 13,158 square miles and shares a border with both Belgium and the Netherlands. Dusseldorf is the capital, Cologne the largest city, while other notable cities include Bonn, Dortmund and Essen.

NRW Flag

map showing location of NRW

Bochum itself dates from the 9th century when Charlemagne set up a royal court at the junction of two important trade routes. It's first offical mention was in 1041 by the name of Cofbuokheim in a document of the archbishops of Cologne. In 1321 it was granted a town charter by Count Englebert II von der Marck, but until the coal mining and steel industries emerged in the Ruhr area it remained insignificant. A more detailed history can be found on the Wikipedia page by clicking here.

Bochum coat of arms

To be honest I had only heard of Bochum due to its football team and would not have been able to pinpoint it on a map, but it doesn't take long to find quite a bit of information about the town on the internet. From what I have seen and read it does seem a place worth visiting with numerous tourist attractions. These include the City Hall, Railway Museum, Altes Brauhaus Rietkotter (Old Reitkotter Brewing House) and the German Mining Museum. A pfd file on tourism in Bochum (taken from http://www.bochum.de/) can be downloaded here: Discover Bochum. As previously stated we are only here for a few hours so did not have time to have a look round but it is somewhere that I will certainly consider visiting sometime in the future.

VfL Bochum is one of the oldest sporting organisations in Germany and they claim a founding date of 26th July 1848, when an article in the Markischer Sprecher newspaper called for the creation of a gymnastics club. It (the Turnverein zu Bochum) was formally established in the 18th February 1849. For political reasons the club was banned on 28th December 1852, but re-emerged on the 19th June 1860. In May 1904 the club was reorganised as Turnverein zu Bochum, gegründet 1848, with a football section not being added until 31st January 1911. After World War 1 the club merged with Spiel und Sport 08 Bochum to form the Turn-und Sportverein Bochum 1848. A split occured on the 1st February 1924 when the gymnastics section broke away from the other sporting departments under the name of Bochumer Turnverein.

The present day VfL Bochum as is known today was created on the 14th April 1938 when the Nazi regime forced Bochumer Turnverein to merge with Turn-und Sport Bochum 1908 and Sportverein Germania Vörwarts Bochum 1906. Today the sports club has around 5,000 members with the football section accounting for nearly half. Other sports include athletics, basketball, gymnastics and handball.

Before joining the Bundlesliga in 1971 the club played in various regional and local leagues, winning the Regionalliga West title twice in 1969/70 and 1970/71. From the mid-nineties they have consistently been a yo-yo side gaining promotion or being relegated eleven times between the Bundesliga and 2-Bundesliga. A breakdown of leagues competed in between 1939 and 1971 is listed below:

1939-45 Gauliga Westfalen
1945-49 Landesliga
1949-53 2-Oberliga West
1953-55 Oberliga West
1955/56 2-Oberliga West
1956-61 Oberliga West
1961-63 2 Oberliga West
1963-65 Verbandesliga Westfalen
1965-71 Regionalliga West

Their home is the Rhurstadion, which is also known as the rewirpowerStadion due to a sponsorship agreement that ends this year. It was originally opened in 1911 and had a capacity of over 50,000, but this was reduced after various modifications. The stadium was rebuilt between 1976 and 1979 and currently has a capacity of 31,328. The opening game after the building work was completed was against SG Wattenscheid 09 on the 21st July 1979. Ticket prices for adults vary between €11 (terracing) and €35 for the most expensive seats. 

Stadium exterior

Bochum fans

Karlsruhe fans celebrating their goal

This season Bochum currently sit in 3rd place after twenty-four rounds of matches and are only four points behind table toppers Hertha Berlin. Karlsruhe meanwhile are at the other end of the table finding themselves in 16th place and in a fight to avoid relegation to 3-Bundesliga.

There were no problems in getting to Bochum and we arrived with around two hours to kick-off. Parking the hire car was also a breeze as we parked adjacent to an Aldi store near the stadium for free. An added bonus with it being ideal to make a quick exit to get to our second game. On the other side of the road to the Aldi store was a small cafe / pastry shop in which we had a small lunch for €5 which consisted of a cheese cob, hard boiled egg, coffee, orange juice and a cake. Exellent value and it was no wonder they were doing a roaring trade. A short walk was then made to the stadium itself in which we firstly collected the tickets before walking round the perimeter taking some photos. The annoyance occured when I was entering the stadium itself as the security did not like my slr camera and I had to leave it at a security office and collect it after the game. To be honest I found this very jobsworth as there it nothing on Bochum's website that states that cameras (of any kind) are not allowed in the ground. As a note they did not stop Gary even though he was holding his camera like me and once at our seats the security or police did care that photographs we being taken - the police did not even mind him taking a photo of them!!! The stadium is enclosed on all four sides with the majority of the home fans standing on terracing behind the far goal, which was unsurprisingly full. We were in a section that had a few fans of both clubs which were outnumered by police, though probably being next to the terracing which held the Karlsruhe fans had something to do with it.

The game in a nutshell was a shocker. Considering Bochum are going for promotion they were very negative in their tactics. What I am going to write is to make a bad game sound good so do not be fooled. The opening chance came on 50 seconds when an Alexsander Iashvili shot flashed across the Bochum goal which would have given the visitors a perfect start. Bochum took time to get going and their best chance of the whole 1st period came on 16 minutes when two shots (from Umit Korkmaz and Giovanni Federico) crashed against the frame of the goal in the space of five second of each other. Two half chances in the final five minutes of the 1st half came to Bochum, but the first was saved by the Karlsruhe keeper and the second was over the crossbar by some distance.

At half time we asked ourselves if the 2nd half would be as bad as the 1st. Well for the majority of it yes. It was the visitors who were the better side for the better part of it and they who looked like to open the scoring. When they did it was in some style through Nigerian Macauley Chrisantus who hit an unstoppable shot past Andreas Luthe in the Bochum goal on 78 minutes. This finally woke Bochum from their slumber and they equalised with five minutes from time. A free kick was awarded some thirty yards out and North Korean international Chong Tese left the Karlsruhe keeper Kristian Nicht stranded with a piledriver of a strike.

Despite being only half full the atmosphere was much better than for example 30,000 in the Walkers Stadium (Leicester City FC). This is without doubt due to the sections of terracing. The Karlsruhe fans never stopped singing for the whole ninety minutes who (I believe) like most German clubs have someone who orchestrates the singing and does not watch the game.

Admission: €25
Programme: €1 
Badge: €3.75
Attendance: 14,684
Match rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 (mainly due to quality of the two goals)

A quick exit was had and we made our way to the car for game two in Dusseldorf. More in part 2 later.

A few more photos of the ground can be found here: VFLB