Emirates Cup 2011

Today is a day in football terms that I have been looking forward to for a couple of months now. Why that long? Well this is simply when I ordered the tickets for day 1 of this annual pre-season tournament, at allegedly "the best stadium in the country".

Getting to the stadium

Chances to get to the bigger stadiums are few and far between for myself due to two reasons - availability and cost. It was during the early part of May that I had the idea of trying to get tickets and having checked Arsenal's official website it stated they were to go on general sale on the 19th May with tickets reasonably priced (by Arsenal's standards!!!!). My dad Paul agreed with come down to London with me and with tickets ordered it was a case of looking at the transport options that would get us to the stadium. Due to the mass of residents parking schemes around the stadium it was decided to park on the outskirts @ Cockfosters in Hertfordshire and catch the tube direct to the stadium. The Transport for London website is an excellent resource for visitors giving timetables, fares and anything related to visiting this country's capital city. With this in mind I did my research as usual and worked out it would be cheaper to purchase an Oyster Card. This is a plastic smart card that gives cheaper fares and is used instead of paper tickets.

Fare comparison (Cockfosters to Arsenal)

Cash - anytime single: £5

Oyster - £1.40

We decided to make a day of and left Leicester @ 9am which would enable us to have lunch before arriving at the stadium itself. We arrived @ Cockfosters tube station at around 10.45am and this taking into account road works on both the M1 south of Milton Keynes and M25, both of which had 50mph average speed checks in place - remind me to never to drive south along the M1 for the foreseeable future!!! Parking at the station was £1.50 for the day and using the oyster card system was very simple - basically when you enter and leave a station you put the card over a yellow button and it records your journey and deducts the correct total from your account balance. The tube ride took around twenty minutes and we decided to get off @ Finsbury Park and have a walk down to the stadium. This took around ten minutes and to be fair it did not seem the best part of London. Our first aim was to find somewhere to have lunch and on having had a walk round the stadium taking photographs, visiting the club shop we found a small family run cafe called Papaya on Hornsey Road which is a two minute walk from the stadium. 

The Emirates Cup

The competition is a mini four team pre-season tournament that is played over two days in which each team plays two games. The 2011 edition will be the tournaments fifth edition with Arsenal recording three victories and Hamburg one. This year the participants along with Arsenal are Paris St. Germain (who will be participating for the third time) and debutants New York Red Bulls and Boca Juniors from Buenos Aires.

A history on the tournament and a breakdown of the results can be found on both wikipedia and the official Arsenal website.

The Emirates Stadium

The stadium, home to Arsenal Football Club was opened in July 2006 and has a capacity of 60,355. It cost £390 million to build and includes associated infrastructure that went with it. Originally known as Ashburton Grove, it was named the Emirates Stadium following a £100 million 15 year naming rights deal. It is the second largest club football stadium in England and the seventh overall in the UK.

Largest 10 UK stadiums:

1) 90,000: Wembley Stadium [London]

2) 82,000: Twickenham [London]

3) 75,957: Old Trafford [Manchester]

4) 74,500: Millennium Stadium [Cardiff]

5) 67,800: Murrayfield [Edinburgh]

6) 60,832: Celtic Park [Glasgow]

7) 60,355: Emirates Stadium [London]

8) 52,387: St. James' Park [Newcastle-upon-Tyne]

9) 52,063: Hampden Park [Glasgow]

10) 51,082: Ibrox Park [Glasgow]

My first impression of the stadium was simply "wow" - the design of the exterior just (metaphorically speaking) blew me away. Having took it all in we went into the club shop and like all major sporting institutions everything and anything is on sale and is a gold mine for any Arsenal fan. All that was purchased was two postcards (£1 each) and a pin badge for £3. The stadium inside is just as impressive with the concourse of the upper tier being very light (due to large glass panels on the exterior) and had plenty of room. On getting to our seats you get a real sense of the size of the place and the view we had from was excellent. All the seats were padded and there was plenty of leg room which helps when you are over 6' tall like me. There are two large scoreboards in two corners (south east and north west) and the old clock from their previous home Highbury on the south stand.

Food and drink choices inside the stadium is limited and the food is certainly expensive. A breakdown of prices is below: 

Pies - £4

Foot long Hot Dog - £5

16oz soft drink - £2.10

Bottled water - £2.20

Hot drinks - £2

Carlsberg Lager / Tetleys Bitter / Bulmers Cider - £3.90 pint

Smirnoff Ice - £3.90

The club:

To give a club as such as Arsenal justice on here is difficult and in the end all I decided to do list the club's honours and some records.

The club were founded in 1886 as Dial Square by workers of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, south-east London. In 1893 they were elected to the Football League and with it changed their name to Woolwich Arsenal. They have been members of the Football League / FA Premier League ever since. Two other league competitions have also been competed in: the United League between 1896 and 1899 and the London League between 1901-1904. 

League champions (13): 1931, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1938, 1948, 1953, 1971, 1989, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2004

FA Cup winners (10): 1930, 1936, 1950, 1971, 1979, 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005

League Cup winners (2): 1987, 1993

Community Shield winners (11 + 1 shared): 1930, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1938, 1948, 1953, 1991 (shared), 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004

European Fairs Cup winners (1): 1970

European Cup-winners Cup winners (1): 1994

Record victory: 12-0 v Loughborough Town (H) 12/03/1900 (FL-2) and v Ashford United (H) 14/10/1893 (FA Cup-1)

Record defeat: 0-8 v Loughborough Town (A) 12/12/1896 (FL-2)

Most appearances: 722 - David O'Leary

Most consecutive appearances: 172 - Tom Parker (03/04/1926 to 26/12/1929)

Top goalscorer: 226 - Thierry Henry

Most goals scored in a game: 7 - Ted Drake (v Aston Villa (a) 14/12/1935)

Record attendance: 73,295 v Sunderland (09/03/1935)

Lowest attendance: 4,554 v Leeds United (05/05/1966)

A full detailed history can be found on the official website by clicking here: history 

The games:

NEW YORK RED BULLS 1-0 PARIS ST. GERMAIN

(2pm kick-off)

This was a fairly slow paced opening game of the afternoon which pitched the mechanical workmanlike Red Bulls against the flair of their Parisian opponents. PSG seemed a class above their opponents in the opening exchanges but were limited to long range efforts from Mathieu Bodmer and Jean-Christophe Bahebeck. New York's main threat came from Jamaican Dane Richards on the right. The PSG offside trap was sprung on 27 minutes when Richards played in Joel Lindpere who curled the ball past Salvatore Sirigu to give the Americans the lead.

The second half saw PSG play some nice football and dominate in terms of possession but they created very few clear cut chances. The only ones of note saw Christophe Jallet curl a free kick onto the roof of the net and a Jeremy Menez shot went inches over the bar. New York seemed content to sit on their one goal advantage and in the end it was a case of job done and looking towards their game against Arsenal today (Sunday 31st).

Match rating: 2 out of 5

ARSENAL 2-2 BOCA JUNIORS

(4.20pm kick-off)

The second game of the afternoon was a lot quicker but also a lot stop-start due to persistent niggly fouls from the Argentinians. England midfielder Jack Wilshere was on the end of most of them. Chances were few and far between but just before the half hour the deadlock was broken. Samir Nasri fed new signing Gervinho down the left and his low cross was turned in at the near post by Robin Van Persie. At the interval Arsene Wenger made five changes and within sixty seconds of the re-start two of them combined to give Arsenal a two goal advantage. Carlos Vela jinked his way past a couple of Boca defenders and despite being fouled fed Aaron Ramsey who lashed the ball past the despairing Augustin Orion in the Boca goal. At times Ramsey looked class and (from an international point of view) wish he was English instead of Welsh!!! Arsenal looked comfortable with Boca offering very little threat. A mistake from Sebastien Squillaci allowed Juan Riquelme to feed Lucas Viatri who lashed the ball past Vito Mannone. Game on. Three minutes later and it was all square as a Carl Jenkinson header was picked up (by who else) Riquelme. He then fed Pablo Mouche who slid the ball past Mannone. The last fifteen minutes saw Boca look the more likely to snatch the winner as Arsenal faded. 

Overall a reasonably entertaining game with a scoreline that looked unlikely after an hour.

Match rating: 2 1/2 out of 5    

Admission: £35

Programme: £5 - excellent with plenty of reading material

Attendance: seemed approximately between 40 - 45,000. Was not full by any means.

Stadium rating: 5*


As the stadium is in a residential area everyone has to arrive and leave by public transport or on foot. We made our way back to Finsbury Park tube station, and just over an hour after the final whistle were back @ Cockfosters and back home in Leicester at 9.15pm. It was an excellent day out at what is now my favourite stadium that I have visited.

A slideshow of twenty photos taken of the stadium can be viewed below:

Roade

ROADE 3-0 RUSHDEN & HIGHAM UNITED

Friday 29th July 2011

Pre-season Friendly

Connolly Way (7pm k.o.)

This is a bonus game as with being out all day tomorrow down in London, I didn't even look at any possible fixtures for this evening. It was only a phone call from Kev Zupp on Tuesday who asked I fancied meeting up for this game, and having thought about it and also getting permission from the wife decided to head south into Northamptonshire.

Roade is a village (population 2,304 - 2009 estimate) in south Northamptonshire, located a couple of miles south of junction 15 of the M1 motorway. Northampton is six miles to the north while Milton Keynes is twelve miles to the south. 

club logo (source: official website)

The football club play their home games on Connolly Way which is off Hyde Road in the western side of the village and compete in the Northamptonshire Combination (NC). They joined the premier division of the NC in 2002, from I believe the North Bucks & District League. In the nine years in the NC they have finished in the runners-up position twice, the first in 2003/04 when a three point deduction saw them finish two points behind champions Moulton, and in the second in 2006/07 when they were just one point behind champions Harpole.  

The journey down to Roade is an easy one with the majority of it being on the M1 and the 40 miles journey took around 45 minutes to make.

On arriving at the ground I noticed that the main pitch was out of action tonight and the game would be played on the back pitch. For the record the main pitch is on of the better ones in the NC with it being railed on three sides, permanent brick dugouts in place and a (very) small section of cover which is in the form of an overhang from a storage building. I met Kev and his three (youngest) kids there who arrived with about five minutes to kick-off. Also present in the crowd (!) were a few hoppers, a couple of which I have seen around before. 


The game was a typical pre-season friendly at first with very little between the two teams and to be honest Roade took their chances while Rushden didn't - simple as. The opening goal came was a well taken effort on 21 minutes when lobbed the ball over the keeper from fifteen yards. No further scoring ensued in the opening forty five minutes, and it was not until mid-way through the second half that the home side doubled their advantage. The number 29 was put clean through with only the keeper to beat whom he rounded and finished with aplomb. The third and final goal of the evening came with seventeen minutes remaining with the best of the lot as scored a cracking solo effort as he took on the Rushden defence and finished superbly. The final ten minutes were the best of the game as both Rushden came close to scoring twice, only for the Roade keeper to pull off a couple of good saves, while at the other end Roade had an effort cleared off the line and they themselves forced the visiting keeper to make an excellent save.

Admission: none

Programme: none

Attendance: peaked at around 45

Match rating: 2 out of 5

Sources:

Roade FC (official website)

Northamptonshire Combination (official site)

Roade - wikipedia page

p.s. Will I go back to do a re-visit to see a game on the main pitch? 


Well never is such a strong word but it is doubtful - there are too many places to watch football I have not been and besides I am not a "pitch" hopper.

Carlton Town

CARLTON TOWN 2-0 STAVELEY MINERS WELFARE

Saturday 23rd July 2011

Pre-season friendly

Bill Stokeld Stadium

My second game of the day is a trip to the other side of Nottingham to Carlton. The journey through Nottingham city centre from Beeston took around half an hour and following lunch in a well known ubiquitous fast food joint I arrived with around 20 minutes before kick-off. 

Carlton Town were formed in 1904 as Sneinton FC and spent most of the last century playing in local Nottinghamshire Leagues. In 1995 they were promoted to the Central Midlands League (CML) and in their third season in the CML secured promotion to the Supreme Division with a 3rd place finish. In 2002 the club changed their name to their present and at the end of the season were crowned CML champions for the one and only time. This championship secured promotion to the Northern Counties East League (NCEL) division 1. The division one title was achieved in the 2005/06 and this secured promotion to the premier division. Just one season was spent in the premier division as a 3rd place finish secured promotion to division 1 south of the Northern Premier League. 

The club currently play at the Bill Stokeld Stadium on Stoke Lane. The following information on the ground is taken from Christopher Rooney's Nottinghamshire football website:

"The local council had for many years been planning to build a by-pass on the A610 to take traffic away from the nearby suburb of Gedling. Tragically, the proposed road bulldozed right through the middle of Carlton's main pitch. As a result, the club had to move all of it's facilities a few yards north, including the re-location of their spanking new stand and existing changing rooms, all at their own expense. Carlton moved into the all-new Bill Stokleld Stadium in the summer of 2007. and it's a vast improvement.

You shouldn't miss the ground, as there's one road in and one road out - well sort of. A controversial decision was made by the local council to only allow access to Stoke Lane from the new by-pass into Stoke Lane. this has affectively sealing off the north side of Stoke Lane, with only buses allowed through only (there are traffic lights in force that only turn green for buses to continue through to Burton Road.). The major problem is that all of the potential fanbase for Carlton is to the north of the stadium, thus no passing traffic equals no passing punters. A crazy decision by a council who are supposedly meant to be supporting the local community."

Carlton were supposed to be playing Leicestershire side Barwell but I was told on arrival that they had pulled out due to not being able to raise a team!!! Seriously. Staveley stepped in at short notice as they themselves were without a game. The game was no better than the first game at lunchtime though for the most part both teams were more interested in kicking each other than playing football. Both referees (one used for each half) struggled to get the players to calm down and  if this was a competitive game then quite a few cards would have been shown. Why the game was like this is a strange one as from what I can gather their is no history between the two sides. A friendly that was too competitive for it's own good!!! As I was walking around the ground during the first half I came across Malc Storer for the second time in two days. This followed our first meeting at Pinxton last night. Malc and his mate Kev are fellow bloggers and their's can be found here: On The Road 2011-2012. 

The only goals of the game came in the second half - the first after 46 minutes when Massiah McDonald cut into the penalty area from the right and laid the ball off to Rob Gill who slotted the ball past the keeper. Carlton's second (and final) goal of the afternoon came on 73 minutes when Ryan Goward smashed home a shot from outside the penalty area that gave the Staveley keeper no chance. With tempers at boiling point the referee called a halt to proceedings a couple of minutes early - a wise decision in my book.

Admission: £5

Programme: none

Attendance: between 50 and 60

p.s.

A weekend that saw me attend three games and eleven goals that helps increase the total to my charity donation. (click on the link at the top of the blog for more details).

A slideshow of photos taken of the ground and came can be viewed below:

Trent Vale Road

RADFORD 0-4 BILBOROUGH PELICAN

Saturday 23rd July 2011

Pre-season Friendly

Trent Vale Road, Beeston (12noon kick-off)

After my original plan of Barnsley v Feynenoord fell by the wayside about ten days ago it was a case a looking for alternative arrangements for today. A few choices stood out and I had decided on the way home from Pinxton last night to head south to Biggleswade for their friendly against Wealdstone. Having checked the weather report rain was forecast in the Biggleswade area during the afternoon, so decided to stay local and take in a "double". The first part is at the old Siemens ground in Beeston which is to the west of Nottingham city centre. I don't know whether any club uses Trent Vale Road at present but it has been home to the now defunct Notts Senior League (NSL) side Siemens FC and current NSL side Boots Athletic. Boots now share the facilities at the Rolls Royce Sports & Social Club in Hucknall with fellow NSL side Hucknall Rolls Leisure.

The venue is a large sports ground that consists of three football pitches, cricket pitch and tennis courts. The one that Siemens and Boots used is furthest away from the clubhouse. The area around the ground consists of residential housing, allotments, a caravan park and the Beeston Marina. Today the sports ground was a hive of activity with games on all three pitches with slightly different kick-off times, with this game being played on the right hand (westerly) pitch. There is nothing to distinguish the three pitches from each other with all of them having no dugouts and none of them were roped or railed. To be honest it is not somewhere I would have chosen to go if it was my only match today, with the only benefit it being another new venue I have seen football at. 

I have no idea why Radford are playing this friendly here (away from their normal home in Nottingham itself), and also kicking off early. Whatever the reason it gives me the chance to visit two new venues either side of Nottingham. The second of which is the Bill Stokeld Stadium, home of Northern Premier League side Carlton Town.

The two teams play one division apart with Radford playing in the East Midlands Counties League and Bilborough Pelican re-joining the Central Midlands League in the summer after a spell in the NSL. As you can gather there was no admission charge nor was a programme issued. The game was pretty poor compared to last nights excellent game @ Pinxton and I did wonder what I was doing here watching this. Pelican looked the better side though it wasn't until the latter stages of the half when Danny Blanchard scored their opening goal on 39 minutes. A minute later and Pelican were 2 up when a ball across the face of the Radford goal from Blanchard allowed a team mate to score from a narrow angle. The second half was a case of how many Pelican wanted to score and in the end they got just two - the first was a thunderous thirty yard belter and the second was an overhead scissor kick. Obviously friendlies don't mean a lot, but on this performance it would appear to be a season of struggle for Radford while I expect Pelican to finish in the top six of the CML Southern Division.

A lovely drive now followed across to the other side of Nottingham for game two of the afternoon. 

Early season schedule

With the pre-season friendlies now kicking in below is a summary of my early season plans. Like everything else with me this is subject to change and is meant as nothing more than a brief outline of possible options.


Saturday 6th August
AFC Wulfrunians v Pegasus Juniors
Darlaston Town v Bustleholme
Willington v Rowsley '86


Saturday 13th August
Derby Rolls Royce Leisure v Allenton United
Brocton v Cadbury Athletic
Ampthill Town v Sun Postal Sports


Saturday 20th August
Bath City v Barrow


Saturday 27th August
Houghton Rangers v Glenfield Town
Eynesbury Rovers v Olney Town
Belper United v Real United

Game off

BARNSLEY v FEYENOORD

Saturday 23rd July 2011

The above fixture has now been cancelled due to the thug element that follows the Dutch side. This was what I read in yesterday's Sun at work. A bit pissed off now as I was looking forward to to seeing one of the famous names in Dutch football in action. 

When I got home I checked the Barnsley FC website and there is no mention of this at all. All I could find was that they are now playing Grimsby Town instead - great. NOT.

I have e-mailed the club itself asking for a refund as I have no interest in watching a friendly against Grimsby Town. Whether they oblige is another matter and is a case of watch this space as it were and will post any update later this afternoon after I have had some kip following a busy night shift. 

On a positive note the tickets for the Emirates Cup came in the post yesterday - let's hope the the local police don't decide to cancel it due to the Boca Juniors' Ultras!!!!!


Edit: Barnsley did reply to my e-mail and have refunded the money in full. Now I will be looking for another fixture to attend.

Season opener

HOUGHTON RANGERS 1-2 OADBY TOWN XI

Saturday 9th July 2011

Pre-season Friendly

Gipsy Lane, Leicester (4pm kick-off)

My opening post of the new season is going to be a relatively short one. This fixture was one that had been changed several times over the past few days that I am somewhat surprised it went ahead at all!! Originally it was to be a 3pm ko at Houghton's home ground on Weir Lane, but a couple of days ago I read that it had changed to a 4pm ko @ St Patricks FC (Leicester & District League) on Gipsy Lane due to cricket. Another change then ensued - it was to be played @ 1pm on Manor Road in Oadby. On arriving at Oadby Town FC just after mid-day I was told that it had been put back to the original change due to Houghton not being able to make the 1pm ko time. If anyone is still following this well done!!! Then to cap it all of we (myself, Kev Zupp and his young son Daniel) arrived at St. Patricks FC to find plenty of people around but no goals or any sign of a football match taking place. After a few minutes wondering we noticed some players walk through a gap in the hedge towards us, and we headed to where they came from and found that the game had already started on a seperate sports ground. I knew about this sports ground but had no idea how you got into it as there is no road access. The only other form of access is through a gap in the fencing from Gipsy Lane itself. Will I be classing this as a new venue? Well after thinking about it and looking at Google maps I decided I would - my hobby, my rules :-)))

The game saw Oadby field two different teams in each half as they begin life in the East Midlands Counties League following relegation from the Midland Football Alliance. They are also have a new manager in the form of former Coalville Town boss Lee Harriman. The first half was slow to get started but became quite competitve and reasonably entertaining. After creating a few half chances Oadby were caught out on 36 mins when Houghton took the lead. This lasted just five minutes when Kelvin Philips hit an unstoppable free kick past the motionless Houghton keeper Jimmy Greasley. Greasley himself had pulled off a couple of decent saves prior to this and is probably the best keeper in the Leicester & District League. The second half saw a more younger looking Oadby side appear and had less quality about it. Both sides created a handful of chances but it was Oadby who got the winner with a last minute goal.

Admission / programme: none

Match rating: 1 1/5 out of 5

I also have two more contributors to my fund raising for Loros this season, making it at present 85p per goal seen. So after one game this stands at £2.55.