Pukka Pies for goalposts - a Football League/ National League thread

[Wentworth Smith]

Chelsea in the cup. Nice earner and if we win we're champions of Europe.

[JarrowMonkey]

Did you all remember to put your team's home ground in your number? I nearly forgot.

What's the furthest journey? I did Carlisle v Gillingham twice although it's a bit of a cheat as stayed at friend's who lived in Carlisle at the time. Burnley away on a Tuesday night was probably the most knackering there and back one I've done.

Hartlepool (or Carlisle) fans can probably beat that.

Longest for me is Torquay / Exeter, but one Derby match against Darlow, think it was 2000, the same day as the last match at old Wembley i think when keegan walked after getting beat by Germany, I left my gaff in South London on the Friday evening about 10pm  drove back, got into my uncles house in Hartlepool and realised id left my ticket, with it being an all ticket match, jumped back in the motor and drove back to South London to get it, drove back and arrived back in Hartlepool about midday after having a kip at Donny services, was well worth it as we beat them

http://www.inthemadcrowd.co.uk/UI/Match.aspx?oid=3922

Just checked AA route planner, a round trip of 550 miles

[JarrowMonkey]

Nice one

Blackpool at home for us, can't remember the decent tie we had, probably Leeds who were on a downwards spiral when we played them in the 3rd round in 1979, cheeky fuckers refused to use the changing rooms, left and went back to the hotel to do so, then came back

[The Culture Bunker]

Had to have a proper think at the (current) league grounds I've been too. Not too many:

Old Trafford, Brunton Park, Brisbane Road, Turf Moor, Etihad Stadium, St Andrews, Holker Street* (Barrow), whatever Bolton's place up at Horwich is called now, Meadow Lane, City Ground, Portman Road, the Riverside, Ewood Park, Deepdale, Bloomfield Road, Goodison Park.

Former league grounds: Borough Park (Workington), Gigg Lane**, Edgeley Park (Stockport), Recreation Ground (Aldershot), Twerton Park (Bath - Bristol Rovers played there for a while), the hockey stadium MK Dons used before their stadium was built, Upton Park, Burnden Park.

I have to point out in the name of disclosure that I went to a fair few of these places in the context of a previous job, rather than to see matches. And I wonder what the longest trip (in terms of time and/or miles) between two teams in league history is? Workington vs Exeter?

*when they were a non-league team.
** when they were a league team.

[Dead Soon]

And I wonder what the longest trip (in terms of time and/or miles) between two teams in league history is? Workington vs Exeter?

Newcastle vs Plymouth isn't it? Worthwhile mention for Carlisle vs Plymouth, which was the famous 'Jimmy Glass' fixture in '99.

[The Culture Bunker]

Newcastle vs Plymouth isn't it? Worthwhile mention for Carlisle vs Plymouth, which was the famous 'Jimmy Glass' fixture in '99.

I think that might be as "the crow flies", but I suspect the trip to Workington - by either road or rail - would be longer.

[Inspector Norse]

Pfft, spare a thought for fans of Baltika Kaliningrad and Luch Vladivostok, who until the latter's relegation a couple of years ago had a 12,000-mile round trip for away games.

[The Culture Bunker]

Pfft, spare a thought for fans of Baltika Kaliningrad and Luch Vladivostok, who until the latter's relegation a couple of years ago had a 12,000-mile round trip for away games.

But on the plus side, after all that, you're not in Workington.

[monkfromhavana]

Pfft, spare a thought for fans of Baltika Kaliningrad and Luch Vladivostok, who until the latter's relegation a couple of years ago had a 12,000-mile round trip for away games.

Imagine the 3rd round of the French cup where Calais get pulled out of "le chapeau" and you're drawn away against Magenta of New Caledonia. Just the 20,500 mile round trip. Hope they retain the "magic of the cup" by having replays at the other teams ground.

[Ted-Maul]

But on the plus side, after all that, you're not in Workington.

I still want to go to Workington but our last 2 visits there have been on tuesday nights so F that. We play them at home on Saturday funnily enough but it's gonna be cold so F that.

Thought they were nailed on for promotion at the start of the season but they've slipped up a couple of times and Marine are running away with it at the moment. Apparently the budgets for those two teams are massive compared to most in the division with Workington having to shell out extra for travel expenses to get their players over for home games.

Imagine the 3rd round of the French cup where Calais get pulled out of "le chapeau" and you're drawn away against Magenta of New Caledonia.

It's been a long day and i'm tired but this whole page/cup is fucking nuts and makes no sense... it starts at round 7!?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%9322_Coupe_de_France

[buttgammon]

It's been a long day and i'm tired but this whole page/cup is fucking nuts and makes no sense... it starts at round 7!?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%9322_Coupe_de_France

As I understand it, the first six rounds are largely regionalised and include teams from lower down the pyramid, a bit like the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup. The teams from overseas territories are drawn against teams who have declared themselves available to travel overseas, so this presumably minimises the risk of teams finding themselves struggling with the practical or financial side of having to travel long distances.

[The Culture Bunker]

I still want to go to Workington but our last 2 visits there have been on tuesday nights so F that. We play them at home on Saturday funnily enough but it's gonna be cold so F that.

Thought they were nailed on for promotion at the start of the season but they've slipped up a couple of times and Marine are running away with it at the moment. Apparently the budgets for those two teams are massive compared to most in the division with Workington having to shell out extra for travel expenses to get their players over for home games

I grew up in nearby Whitehaven and as rugby league wasn't my bag, watching the Reds was the best I could manage for my live sport fix. Back then, they still had a fair few part-timers who held down steady work at Sellafield or (just about) at the steel works, alongside any recent rejects from Carlisle's reserve ranks. Then you'd get oddities like Paul Stewart and Derek Mountfield turning up for a season - plus I can say I saw Grant Holt and Glenn Murray play in the North West Counties League long before they were Premier League goal getters.

Good luck making it up there at some point - there's frequent talk of them and the rugby team moving to some new place way out of town, which would be a shame. The stadium itself is fascinating in that when you see it, you'll struggle to believe over 20,000 squeezed in to see Man United play there in the cup just a weeks before the Munich disaster. Just a shame the cool old floodlights have long gone - I gather they're playing Bootle up there tonight, have to say I wouldn't fancy going out to face the blast from the Irish Sea so kudos to the hardy souls who do.

[Kankurette]

Luongo's gone and got himself sent off, the berk. At least he gets an early Christmas.

[Inspector Norse]

What's the experience at games like in Sweden? I don't feel like I've ever seen much about Scandinavian football from the european fooball groundhopper types apart from photos of those grounds carved out of tiny islands in the faeros. I walked past IFK Goteborg's ground once, but that was in winter so no game in the offing.

The biggest clubs have smallish but passionate and noisy followings, and attendances aren't that high - Malmö are the most successful team and tend to get 17,000 or so in a stadium that seats in the low 20Ks; Hammarby and AIK get the most fans, the former getting around 24-25,000 most weeks in a 30,000-seater stadium and the latter getting around the same in the 50,000-seater national stadium.

If you go to a Hammarby game then there's always a great atmosphere: the hardcore fans congregate in their thousands behind the goal singing and jumping and waving their flags the whole game. They make a tremendous noise, even more so when the place is full. Like with a lot of other things in Sweden, I sometimes get the impression they're just copying what they've seen people in other countries do, though they certainly put a lot into it. There's a video somewhere of a pissed-up Alexander Skarsgård leading the celebrations after Hammarby won promotion a few years ago.

Djurgården share Hammarby's stadium but have smaller attendances, even though they're more historically successful; the stadium is, though, in Hammarby's working-class south Stockholm heartland, and Djurgården are the bourgeois team from the northeast. Other teams like IFK Gothenburg also tend to fill or nearly fill their stadiums but they're small by British standards, most of them only seat 10-15,000.

The big teams have some hooligan issues. I've never really noticed anything myself at games, but I know which pubs the Hammarby ones go in. AIK are supposedly the worst.

I get the impression that there is a clearer divide than in the UK between people who go to games and people who don't - a lot of the people at matches here are the hardcore regulars, there are fewer of the people who go now and again. Stadiums will only really fill up properly for derbies, and otherwise you'll not often see many in the away end - a few games I've been to, you could literally count the away fans on your fingers. And outsider the top teams, there's much less interest: the fourth Stockholm team, Brommapojkarna, only had about 900 in at their little ground when I went to see them play Malmö a few years ago, though they've got one of the biggest and most productive youth setups in Sweden and there were loads of fun things for kids to do at the ground (penalty competitions etc).

Once you get north of Uppsala there's less football because it's too cold. The third tier is split into north and south and the fourth tier is in several regional groups. I've seen Hudiksvall, who play at that level, and it's very much an old-blokes-and-dogs-on-the-touchline affair.

[Yussef Dent]

We used to have Workington and Gretna in our league, Workington being the longest trip. Our then manager always insisted on pre-match meals near the ground before long away journeys so you'd be setting off at about 6.30am for the coach. Gretna was such a bizarre place. They had a relatively competitive side, as in not in any danger of being relegated but not troubling the higher echelons of the division, but clearly wanted out of the English pyramid (I think they even changed to a tartan kit in one season, could have been their last one?) and had applied to get into the Scottish leagues several times. There couldn't have been any more than 70 people there and they had the cheapest bar I've ever seen in football, this was twenty years ago but it was something like £1.20 a pint tops. It pissed it down and was really cold so we spent the entire second half in there as it had a view of the pitch. Despite constantly wanting to leave the NPL they were actually quite a welcoming club and were wished well by other clubs in their new venture. However, their entire success under the ownership of the eccentric Brooks Mileson was built on sand foundations. They've since had a phoenix club set up and are now known as Gretna 2008, but are back playing in front of sparse crowds in the Lowland League.

[TrenterPercenter]

Thought this classic might be well received here (NSFW - swears innit);

[Herbert Ashe]

swedish football stuff

interesting stuff, thanks!

_{got nothing to add, used to be nice when we had karma for posts like this...}

[monkfromhavana]

What's the standard of Swedish football like? Feels a bit like the Scottish Premier League in that there are a few decent clubs with alright players, but then there's a whole heap of abject foreigners doing really well. Thinking more of English players who've made careers there like Jamie Hopcutt, James Keene, Curtis Edwards etc who would probably be Conference level in the UK.

[Inspector Norse]

Yeah, like the Scottish Prem a bit - we've seen Malmö beat the Old Firm in recent Champions League seasons, and the other best teams are probably decent Championship level - but it drops off quite a bit below that.

There are a lot of African and South American journeymen doing the rounds alongside the Swedes who were never good enough to make it abroad and the odd aging international who's moved back to settle at home with his family. Anyone who's shown they're any good by about 22 goes to the Eredivisie or Bundesliga 2 or Russian Prem to try and make it.
There's not enough money to attract any real stars, though Marek Hamsik turned up at Gothenburg recently before realising he'd made a terrible mistake and buggering off to Turkey.

[Brian Freeze]

Bloody hell Oldham. Still time to nick a winner. 5-5 with 10 minutes to play.

[Kankurette]

Who says lower division football is boring?

Wednesday 2 paeds 0. I'll forgive Dele-Bashiru for being a philistine and putting his milk in his tea first. Also BPF turned into a tank again.

[finnquark]

Absolutely battered Bromley and lost 1-0, with some typicallly embarrassing finishing from us, including a miss over the bar from quite literally a yard out. Apologies to Hat FM and any other Bromley Cabbers, but they're one of the most boring, shithouse sides I've ever seen. Typical conference side, with 2 or 3 technical players, 8 cloggers and a keeper who timewasted even at 0-0. Effective, yes, but ultimately futile and dull. I'd love them to go up, if only to avoid seeing them play again.

[Kankurette]

The defence at Oldham and Forest Green must be absolute AIDS to ship that amount of goals.

[Inspector Norse]

The defence at Oldham certainly is, Forest Green are top of the league though so no idea what they were up to - even Hallam Hope scored.

As long as nobody in my household gets the 'vid in the next week then we'll be in England for Christmas and going to the Boxing Day game against Scunthorpe; if there's that level of entertainment on show then it'll be enjoyable regardless of the result or ownership situation (a lot of fans still staying away in protest, but I don't see what that'll achieve). It'll be my first game for three years but given my remarkable record of not having attended a single victory since 1 January 2007, and the team's generally dreadul form, I'm not expecting much.

[Kankurette]

Scunthorpe are also dreadful. You may be lucky.

[Brian Freeze]

Are tickets at Boundary Park on sale again then? I thought he'd stopped selling them and was only letting season ticket holders in?

[Inspector Norse]

You can certainly buy tickets on the club website at the moment, though they don't bother updating the homepage with info... they're definitely fiddling attendance figures, though, counting anyone who's ever considered buying a season ticket and their dog.

[Hat FM]

Absolutely battered Bromley and lost 1-0, with some typicallly embarrassing finishing from us, including a miss over the bar from quite literally a yard out. Apologies to Hat FM and any other Bromley Cabbers, but they're one of the most boring, shithouse sides I've ever seen. Typical conference side, with 2 or 3 technical players, 8 cloggers and a keeper who timewasted even at 0-0. Effective, yes, but ultimately futile and dull. I'd love them to go up, if only to avoid seeing them play again.

haha no offence taken. i think we are quite inconsistent and can have days like this but can also have days when we look quite good. as you allude to, i spose that is what you get when you play a fair few of the teams in the national league. not sure if there were many bromley fans there? i saw there was a bus leaving at 8:30!

[Kankurette]

And Wednesday continue to be cursed. Looks like there's been an outbreak of the 'rona in the squad.

[Wentworth Smith]

Happening all over. Chesterfield have pulled out of the FA Trophy citing Covid in a blatant case of 'we never wanted to be in this competition anyway'.