The Ugly Face of the Beautiful Game
The opening weekend of the Premier League season provides the annual Year Zero for fans of top flight clubs. Restored by a summer free of football, thousands of supporters donned their sparkling new replica shirts and made pilgrimages to stadiums home and away, filled with the hope that their new million pound idols might be […]
Read More Fight The Power: Can Fan Action Force Change in Football?On the 29th March 2019, the United Kingdom is (currently) scheduled to exit the European Union. To celebrate forty-six years of peacetime and prosperity in Europe, this season we’ll be profiling the footballing history of each remaining member of the EU, looking at some of their most iconic matches and the players that have left […]
Read More Love Letters to the European Union: October, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)“Of course it was a slow death. Kaiserslautern is knocked down. But getting back on its feet can be a nice thing to do.” Martin Bader, FC Kaiserslautern Sporting Director It was a moment as inevitable as it was heartbreaking. As referee Guido Winkmann sharply exhaled into his whistle to signal the end of the game, […]
Read More Sympathy For The Devils: The Sorry Decline of FC Kaiserslautern.Hamburger Sport-Verein and FC St Pauli renew their fierce rivalry this weekend in the first Hamburg Derby since 2011. The two sides have only met nineteen times since the Bundesliga was established in 1963, thanks to the difference in both’s long-term fortunes. So long considered the rich, successful and brash older sibling of the city, […]
Read More Hamburger Hop: The Long-Awaited Return of the Hamburg Derby.Last week, Premier League clubs voted against the introduction of Video Assistant Referees to the league, instead preferring to observe another season of the system being used in the domestic cup competitions in order to make an educated decision as to whether to implement VAR in the future. With the new technology coming under severe […]
Read More The Story So VAR…With many Premier League teams enjoying a fortnight off from domestic duty thanks to the double header of the FA Cup Quarter-Finals and International Break, it offers a chance to reflect on the recent announcement that the FA are considering introducing a winter break into the English game in the 2019/20 season. With the rest […]
Read More When The Winter Breaks“Nur nach Hause, nur nach Hause, Nur nach Hause gehn wir nicht!” The full force of the Hertha ultras standing on the Ostkurve of the Olympiastadion could be heard well outside the confines of the historic ground. I should know because, having arrived in plenty of time for my first taste of a live German […]
Read More A Day Out At…Hertha BerlinMonday night’s 2-1 victory over RB Leipzig, staged amid fan protests against Bundesliga games being moved to Monday for broadcasting purposes, saw Eintracht Frankfurt leapfrog their opponents and jump into third place in the Bundesliga for the first time this season. The hard fought victory against a fellow Champions League chasing competitor offered further proof […]
Read More In Frankfurt I Heard Ein Zwei DreiEach month we’re sending our abhorrent Eurosceptic correspondent to a scout a different league on the continent, and asking him to fashion the stream of liquid excrement that spews forth from his word-hole into something resembling a report. This month, it’s the Bundesliga. Sorry, lads. “ Five Eurovisions and one World Cup, doo dar, […]
Read More Vile Barrage’s Eurotrip – Episode 3: GermanyThis summer clubs in the Premier League spunked a record £1.4bn in the transfer market as Uncle Rupert’s magic money tree, fed on the tears of working class football fans earning below the living wage, pumped enormous BACS transfer shaped fruit into the bank accounts of top level football club owners across the country. As […]
Read More The Kids are Alle Recht