INTO THE FALCONS' NEST

It's time Sam and his boys stood up and were counted (or at least accounted for) as England slip quietly into another round of international qualifications for a tournament we know we don't have a chance of winning but we all live in hope. By the time the World Cup Finals come round in 2018 we shall no longer have the motivation of "it's been 50 years since 1966".

What ever, Sam is our new hope and he has control of yet another English "Golden Generation". This week the Lions are heading towards the Falcons of Slovakia (Slovenski Sokoli) a nation only recently freed from the shackles of Czechoslovakia. Of course this freedom meant therefore they are only "half a country".

The Slovaks first official match was against Germany in 1939 in Bratislava resulting in a remarkable 2-0 victory. Here are the chaps ready for action.

After the War, the country was subsumed into Czechoslovakia and played no football as an independent state, though Slovakians made a major contribution to the Czechoslovakian side (8 players out of 11) that won the 1976 European Championships.

So Sam's boys are heading to play a World Cup 2018 Qualifying tie at the 20,000 capacity Stadio Antona Malatinskeho. This is named after the legendry Anton Malatinsky, a player and manager of the national side. He died in 1992 but made his name for Spartak Trnava, turning out 6 times for Slovakia and 10 times for the Czechoslovakian team. Legendry, well apparently enough to have a stadium named after him?

Their previous national stadium has artificial turf so is not acceptable in FIFA competitions.

Remember that we found the Falcons (and Martin Skrtl) difficult to break down in France (0-0) this Summer and they beat Russia, losing to Wales. Reaching the knock out phase somehow, the Falcons lost 3-0 to the efficient German side.

England also has the added hurdles of Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuanian and Malta to jump by the end of March 2017, before we head off to Russia!  

Where is Slovakia?

                       

ANTONIO TOOTING ALONG

Once a swimming pool attendant, with a Jamaican background Michail was dragged out of Tottenham's academy as a junior by his mum to do his GCSEs. Michail Antonio is making news just as Jamie Vardy did last season. He was part of Tooting and Mitcham's Junior Club from 12 years old and played his first senior game against Hendon in 2007 at 17. He scored on his debut. From 2008 he spent four years at Reading, played at Tooting again, went to Cheltenham, Southampton, Colchester and Sheffield Wednesday in 2014, was player of the season at Nottingham Forest in 2015 and then joined West Ham United for whom he has played 31 times, making over 280 appearances so far. His total transfers mount up to £8.5 million. I hope T&M FC benefit from his "sell ons".

Tooting and Mitcham FC, located in Morden South London was formed after the uniting of Tooting FC (1887) and Mitcham Wanderers (1912) in 1932. Two major FA Cup runs may be remembered by us oldies; the 1959 entertainment of Nottingham Forest when they lost 0-3 in a replay back at Forest after a 2-2 draw on a frozen pitch. Prior to that they had beaten bother Sutton United and Horsham (two of my old teams!), then beaten Bournemouth in Round One and Northampton in Round Two.

In 1975-6 they eventually lost to Bradford City in a 4th Round tie. Various other honours may be recorded on their boards of honour, especially those linked to the local leagues and Surrey County Cup Finals.

KERALA IS STACKED

With the transfer deadline creeping upon there are always foreign players migrating into our leagues and a few of ours heading in the other direction, but "that way" traffic is not so common. Taking the plunge and joining a foreign club seems unattractive to our lads.

One player who has chosen to go abroad is Graham Stack...who? He is an English born Irish international footballer, a goalkeeper, who has played 7 times for the ROI U21s.

OK not a legend then, but he has a fascinating story which started with him being part of the Arsenal "Invincibles" of 2003-4 appearing for the Gunners a handful of times in their League Cup assault which ended in the semi-final, losing to Middlesbrough. 

Between then and 2009 Stack went on loan and played for Beveren (24 matches) in Belgium where he was attacked on a pitch and he responded by punching one of the assailants. This did not go down very well. He was at Millwall (26) (nothing to do with his punching ability), Reading, Leeds, Wolves, Plymouth, Blackpool finally getting some stability at Hibernian (56 games) and then Barnet for 125 games, winning the Conference Premier in 2015.

In 2016 he set off to India and joined the Kerala Blasters FC who were founded in 2014 and play in the Indian Super League. Sachin Tendulkar is one of the owners of ther club which is located in Kochi, supported by an average gate of 47,000+ crowds. Kochi, known as the "Queen of the Arabian Sea" is located on the south west coast of the Indian peninsular in the state of Kerala. It is a very important port once based on the spice trade but now one of the major growth cities in India.

British players associated with the Blasters club include Wally Downes (once very much part of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang)), Steve Coppell (manager), Terry Phelan, Michael Chopra and Stack is the goalkeeping coach. So he is amongst friends!

NOT MUCH OF A KNEES UP

Not for the feint hearted, the Shaun Barker recovery story shown here reveals the grim return from a shattering injury to the few minutes he got at the end of the Burton Albion v Derby County "derby" on Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTdef6LNG-c

Barker's career began at Rotherham in 2002 and for four years he played with the Millers 133 times. He then went to Blackpool under the "Oyston's" regime and spent three years there appearing in 149 matches. Derby came next in 2009 and in 105 games he played through till he had issues with a knee injury. He had knee surgery to solve the problem but later on the 22nd March 2012 a collision against Nottingham Forest with goalkeeper Frank Fielding and colleague Marcus Tudgay, resulted in a "suspect broken leg". This looked like a dislocated knee cap but finally turned out to be a ruptured medial ligament, damaged anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments and various other horrors that made his leg look as though it was "hanging off the knee joint".

Spending three and a half hour in surgery, with 8 weeks in a brace followed, working for 6 hours a day on the KneehabXP to strengthen his quads. Unable to return to playing fitness, the once Rams captain eventually left Derby County in May 2015 at 33 years old, signing on for Burton Albion under old boss Nigel Clough, who of cojurse had been "sacked" by the Derby board.

On the same day, the 26th of August, he made his short debut against Derby in a 1-0 win at the Pirelli Stadium. Coming on to the pitch at the end of the fixture, it was over four years since last playing competitively. He hopes this is a new start to the rest of his career.

During his recovery he set up his own blog and charity aimed at helping people in the city of Derby.
http://theshaunbarkerfoundation.co.uk/

IT'S A GRIM BUS RIDE HOME TO CLEETHORPES

The joy of living in the Pennines is having the broad choice of many matches on a Saturday afternoon to visit. I could have gone to Huddersfield for a 1-0 win, or  Oakwell to witness 4 goals for the home side, the local Hepworth United reserves were a mile away, but I went to Penistone Church for their Northern Counties East league game against Grimsby Borough, a long way for the opposition to come for a 9-5 beating! But at least they can reminisce on the way home about being part of some historic aggregate score and analyse why they got hammered. Four penalties shared between the teams helped the total number of goals rise but it was a fascinating match and well worth the £3 concessions' entry.

Grimsby Borough FC, the Wildernesse Boys, was founded in 2003, from the local Lord Tennyson pub gathering in Louth and shares the brand new council run Bradley Football Development Centre with Cleethorpes Town FC, a very impressive set up.

You really need a map of the local area to get a feel for what's where, but it is near Grimsby Town FC who of course, as a League club, were renowned for not playing in a place named Grimsby, but are located in Cleethorpes, but you knew that.

After spending a season in the Lincolnshire League which they won, they then took the Central Midlands League by storm. But ground conditions prevented their promotion initially until they ground shared with Brigg Town. In July 2012, having moved to the BFDC, a local derby with Grimsby Town took place and the "professionals" won 12-3.

By the way Borough's first game at the BFDC was against Scarborough Athletic in a NECLeague Cup tie, which Borough lost 3-4 having been 3-0 up. So the club is use to playing around with a large numbers of goals, particularly giving them away.

IL GRANDE TORINO

As always I am looking for inspiration for this blog and this morning, while chatting to a house guest about Italy, she is a fluent speaker and so is her husband, inevitably I turned the conversation to CALCIO and eventually into crowd control and graffitti. I mentioned the rivalry between Pisa and Livorno and the resultant scrawlings on walls all over the beautiful leaning tower city. Her interest was based on an experience trying to drive through an Italian city when the local football crowd was "turning out". Not a valuable experience.

She went onto mention Milan and the conversation quickly swung round to the 1949 Superga air disaster. On the 5th May, an Italian Airlines' Fiat 212, flying back from Lisbon after a friendly match against Benfica, carrying all the Milan team and officials got lost in fog and had a dodgy altimeter. The outcome was a crash landing into the retaining wall of the Basilica Superga which took the lives of all the players and many of the officials-31 in total. This will explian how influential the team was in World football.
https://fiveinmidfield.com/2011/05/04/gone-but-not-forgotten-%E2%80%93-il-grande-torino-and-the-tragedy-of-superga/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEuhGNtfJrw  This video gives a good coverage of the event and the losses.

The Torino team was a leading member of Serie A and had won five consecutive league titles in the 1940s and the Double. The Grande Torino was obliterated along with the heart of the Azzurri, the Italian national side. When the Italian FA sent its national squad to the Brazil World Cup in 1950, they went by boat!

Founded in the late 19th Century, the Torino club was made up from Swiss and English locals. The club ran Football and Cricket teams and by 1889 another club, Nobili Torino, was formed. In 1891 the two eventually merged to create Internazionale Torino. FC Torinese was set up in 1894 and in 1900 there was a handful of clubs leading to the National Championship which included in December 1906 the Foot-ball Club Torino. The rivalry at the time between Torino (very much an old school club) and Juventus (who were professionals) remains as strong today as it was when all this developing.

While football was developing popularity, the traditional game of Pallone dwindled (see also pallupugno). If you want to find out more about this game that involves a sort of "gloved" hand (actually a wooden cyclinder) and either an inflated ball or a very hard rubber ball, played a bit like real tennis or Fives, then have a look at this link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallone

YOUR SHIRTS NUMBERED

August 25th 1928 when Sheffield Wednesday beat Arsenal 3-2 on the opening day of the new season, the crowd saw the two teams run out on to the pitch with numbers on their backs. They were numbered 1-22. At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea and Swansea Town (as the club was then called) did the same. Chelsea won 4-0, wearing black numbers on a white patch. All clubs were told to stop doing this with immediate effect by the FA and League but Herbert Chapman was not happy with this "waste" so he had his reserves wear the numbered kit.

Chelsea then toured South America introducing the numbered kit to their opponents who nicknamed Chelsea as "Los Numerados".

Numbering gradually crept into the game and in the 1933 FA Cup Final Everton players wore 1-11 and Manchester City 12-22. (note there were no subs). Everton won 3-0. See left.

A week later (6th May) the "Toffees" wore the same kit in the league game v Wolves, but it was not until 1939 that the Leafue management Committee eventually voted in the official wearing of numbers. The war got in the way so by 1946/7 numbers were used for the first time by all clubs (although "cost" of providing new numbered kits was a problem and spoil the colours!).

England's first venture into numbered shirts on the 17 April 1937 in a loss to Scotland at Hampden Park Glasgow.

FIFA did not insist on numbers on World Cup shirts until 1954.

Retiring shirt numbers became a bit of a trend but inevitably a club could end up with "no sensible numbers" to use. However Maradona's shirt for Napoli number 10 was hung up for good, as was Baggio's 10 at Brescia, Maldini's 3 at AC Milan and for Chelsea (to complete the circle) Zola's 25. Understandable.

Some shirt numbers given to modern day players have been totally inappropriate especially when legends such as Pele, Stanley Matthews, Bobby Moore and Johnny White (yes the 1960'sSpurs player) might have had their numbers welded onto their backs. Can you number them?

Oops.