“The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) came into being after a walk in the park. That walk in the park occurred about 30 miles north of the Belorussian city of Brest, as the leaders of the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine formalised the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The alliance, signed on the 8th of December 1991, not only changed the landscape of eastern European politics but precipitated the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup.” Slavic Football Union

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we all know that a good idea instantly becomes better when shared with the World. If you keep a good idea to yourself how can it ever truly blossom? Where would the World be if Thomas Edison had been a selfish fool? Whilst you ponder that question I shall cordially invite you, and any guests that you may wish to bring to join Jamie Cutteridge in an Art Project crossed with a Socrates meet up crossed with a Football Singalong. Intrigued? You better bloody be!” onestepovertoomany

“This isn’t really a book about football. Football is all around it, providing means, motive and opportunity, but this is a book about a group of very strange people. It is an investigation undertaken with a lot of affection, a dose of hostility, and above all an incessant curiosity into their strangeness. What makes them men apart?” Twisted Blood

“‘The Big Match’, directed by Joel Simon, depicts one man’s recollection of a special day in his childhood, and it’s something we can all relate to. The film uses animated archive video footage and photographs to bring this personal story to life. Music was written and performed by the Brian Irvine Ensemble.” In Bed With Maradona

“With the 2010/11 season coming towards an end in England, attentions turn once again to the Nordics for my regular fix of football. Denmark still has a few rounds of matches left although in the Superliga there is only pride to play for after FCK wrapped up the league two weeks ago. That and second spot, which this season sees the Danes steal a Champions League qualifying place from the Scots. With five games to go three teams were still in with a shout including Brøndby, who if anyone could do with a slice of luck it was them.” The Ball Is Round

“We’ve reached 1994 in our 25 years of WSC retrospective. Many reasons were posed for England’s failure to qualify for the World Cup in America that summer. In WSC 93, Simon Kuper proposed that players in England would become more sophisticated – and more successful – if they were encouraged to express themselves more off the pitch” WSC

“Non-league football is often described as a family, and one of its more recurring themes is that certain names have a tendency to turn up over and over again, like half-forgotten uncles at a reunion. Take, for example, Gary Calder. Calder was the chairman of Hornchurch FC when their money suddenly ran out towards the end of 2004 and he pitched up some time after this at Weymouth, as the Chief Executive of the club. Calder arrived at Rushden and Diamonds at the start of December with the father and son team of Steve and Liam Beasant in tow.” twohundredpercent

“Clever footballers seem destined to fail. When Craig Bellamy questioned Roberto Mancini’s tactics at Manchester City last season, he was punished – and rightly so, said the pundit mafia – but what if he was right? What if an eloquent, insightful player did know better than his consistently average manager?” surreal football

“Every Monday I look at my email account with trepidation. Since the first week of the season around 3pm I get that ‘ping’ sound signifying the arrival of the latest excuse from the pen of Avram Grant. Although it is obviously not from Avram, but rather from someone employed in the club to make such trivial facts such as we are bottom of the Premier League with just three games to go seem inconsequential.” The Ball is Round

“The English FA’s website wonders plaintively how players such as Luis Figo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Robinho and Roberto Carlos managed to ‘develop skills that set them apart… What did they do as youngsters that provided them with the basis to becoming some of the world’s best players?’ Reading this you might think that the FA are about to reveal new plans for youth development. But the article continues: ‘If you are interested in the answer then you need to learn more about a game called futsal.’” WSC

“Today is the last day to vote for the Best EPL Blog (qualification round). Since there are so many good Premier League-related blogs to choose from, we decided to have a qualification round for many. Out of these, the top three winners (the polls close at midnight tonight) will enter the final round of voting next week for the Best EPL Blog.” EPL Talk

“What is the fundamental importance of football? The support of its fans. Brendan begins our three piece ‘For Sake of the Game‘ feature with an overview of the predicament modern football finds itself in, before a swift follow up through both sides of the debate later next week.” The Oval Log

“Just as the Champions League has a qualification round to narrow down the field of teams that will compete in the Champions League proper, this year’s EPL Awards has had to do the same in the ‘Best EPL Blog’ category due to the sheer quantity of quality blogs this season.” EPL Talk

“First we take Colchester….then we take Sudbury. Not my words, or those of Leonard Cohen but actually Boudica in AD61 when she attacked the Roman garrison and capital of Britain, raising it to the ground resulting in the centre of power moving down the Roman road to a little settlement called Londinium.” The Ball is Round

“The relegation from and promotion to the Premier League is starting to shape up. Still room for decisions and intrigue but nowhere near as unclear as it was a few weeks ago. First, Premier League relegation. In my opinion the bottom six teams are still in the fight. Those above that could, technically, face trouble based on their points total but it’s tough to imagine all six teams below them doing enough to overtake them. So that leaves us with this setup…” EPL Talk

“There are two very different types of football fan which clash. The first type is a thinker. They are intellectuals. They base their opinions on reason and evidence. They listen to Football Weekly, read Zonal Marking and Run of Play. They follow Iain Macintosh and Swiss Ramble on Twitter. They have read Brilliant Orange and Inverting the Pyramid many times. They stream the Argentine Apertura at 2am on their laptops.” Watching and Thinking

“Bangor City and Napoli are both currently challenging for the championship in their contrasting domestic competitions of the Welsh Premier League and Serie A respectively. While the two clubs appear to have little else in common other than their tradition of playing in blue, their one and only meeting on Welsh soil 49-years-ago has been brought back into the spotlight this week as the ground that hosted that famous Bangor City win is now set to be replaced by a leading supermarket.” In Bed With Maradona

Seaham Red Star
“The sun shone on the Tyne Valley and roared on by their third-highest crowd of the season, Ryton Football Club won their first home game of the season – and their first three points in any competition since a 2-1 win at Sunderland RCA on Tuesday 10th August 2010. Northern League Day really began a few minutes after midday, when 106 fans at Whickham (including Northern League Chairman Mike Amos, George Caulkin of The Times and at least one football blogger, saw Washington’s Joseph Mence put through his own goal. By that stage, the Socrates Ryton football writers had come to the unanimous conclusion that Mordue Brewery’s Riverboat was far and away a better choice of brew than ice-cold Foster’s Lager. Well, the near unanimous conclusion…” northernleagueday

“The Greek fabulist Aesop was attributed to the famous old fable of the hare and the tortoise and a new re-enactment of the story has evolved from the current Principality Welsh Premier League season. The modern-day comparison reached a poignant stage in the story last week when The New Saints overtook, and then extended their lead, over Bangor City at the top of the table without breaking a sweat while their rivals continued to reacted to letting go a one-time sixteen point lead by further losing ground on their consistent professional rivals with yet another defeat.” The Ball is Round

“Sunday 30th April 2006 was a memorable day for Reading fans. With the Championship title already clinched with a hearty sixteen-point cushion, Queen Park Rangers visited Steve Coppell’s peerless champions on the final day of the season. The match was played in a fine spirit and blue and white placards were held across the ground before kick-off.” In Bed With Maradona

“As a football fan it’s highly likely that at some point in your life you’ve collected football cards or stickers. For many of us it will have been Panini stickers, and for today’s kids it’s all about Topps Match Attax. But the addictive combination of football and collecting has been around for more than 120 years, and young Victorian football fans just couldn’t get enough of Baines Football Cards.” In Bed With Maradona

“I’ve worked full time with hundreds of football bloggers for the past two years now and prior to that, another two years part time with a handful of dedicated guys (and girls). So, into my 5th year of football blogging, what have I learned?Well, the first thing is that there are plenty of people who have been doing this for a lot longer than me! But I’ll get to that.” FootballUnited

“Whilst the Premier League now is enjoyed by millions around the world, Norway has always had a unique relationship with the English game. Welcome to IBWM, Michael Moruzzi.” In Bed With Maradona

“Hero – one of the most divisive & debated words in football. With a look at the subject taking in The Stranglers & Michele Platini, here’s Chris King.” In Bed With Maradona

“If you fly into Bratislava and take a number 61 bus from the airport towards the city-centre and railway station, you will pass some of Slovakia’s principle sporting venues. There is the excellent National Tennis Centre, where the likes of Lukáš Lacko and Dominika Cibulková play Davis Cup and Federation Cup matches, and a gleaming new ice-hockey arena, which will stage the final of the 2011 World Championship later this spring. In the same area, within a goal-kick of each other, there are two football grounds. Each is watched over by an impressive quartet of floodlights but each is, to put it mildly, in less than ideal condition.” In Bed With Maradona

“The journey from Stockport was pleasant with football fans mixed in amongst normal travellers. The mood on the train was relaxed; close your eyes and you wouldn’t know there were football fans travelling to watch their team play. This was match day 70 of my season and it stands out as being the first time this season that I’ve been filmed by the police.” Gannin’ Away

“Mark Pitman on what England could learn from their upcoming opponents about dealing with the captaincy.” In Bed With Maradona

“Wolfie Smith…The most lovable revolutionary in history, leader of the Tooting Popular Front. Mitcham. Named after Robert Mitchum in honour of his fine performance in the 1944 film Mr Winkle goes to War. Put them both together and what do you have? A united front, in fact a Tooting & Mitcham United. It is amazing how the longer I write, the more tenuous my introductions can get.” The Balls Is Round

“On March 25th 1889 nineteen clubs from across the north east of England met in the Three Tuns Hotel in Durham City. The meeting had been organised by Charles Craven, a goalkeeper with Darlington FC, who duly took their place as one of the ten founding members of the Northern League. What is now renowned as the world’s second oldest surviving football league got underway on September 7th, Darlington travelling to Newcastle East End in the first round of fixtures. Darlington St Augustine’s won the inaugural title with twenty-six points, edging Newcastle West End on goal difference. A team called Middlesbrough finished sixth that season, just ahead of South Bank.” In Bed With Maradona

“Despite an alpine outlook, football remains the most popular sport in Sweden. Most of the focus is on the Allsvenskan, the top flight which runs from Spring until late Autumn, with the winter months being dominated by coverage of the English Premier League. Stuart Fuller tells us all about life in the Swedish lower leagues.” The Seventy Two

“Who’d be a top level referee? Abuse from players, fans & managers, constantly in the spotlight & every decision subject to trial by television. Here’s Jon Allison.” In Bed With Maradona

“This past Monday, a day after Stoke City qualified for the FA Cup semifinals, the morning headlines suggested that the team was set to travel to Wembley for the first time in 39 years. That figure is incorrect. In 2000, the Potters played at the old Wembley Stadium in the Auto Windscreens Shield Final, where they beat Bristol City 2-1.” ESPN

“It’s a slightly different time for our non-league videos of the week, and this week we’re focussing on clubs that are owned by their supporters again. First up is the match from the Evostik League Premier Division between FC United of Manchester and Worksop Town. A couple of months ago, we could have been forgiven for thinking that FC United’s league season was grinding to a halt, but they have won seven of their last nine matches and now have an excellent chance of making the play-offs at the end of the season. Their opposition, Worksop Town, are in mid-table but with several games in hand on the teams above them will surely not have given up on their ambitions of making the play-offs either.” twohundredpercent

“The year is 1975. By the banks of the Tyne in Dunston, newly absorbed into the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, an 8-year-old boy by the name of Paul Gascoigne dreams of emulating fellow local lad and future Gol TV commentator Ray Hudson, then a 20-year-old midfielder for Newcastle United. Brian Johnson, born in Dunston in 1947 and better known nowadays as the lead singer of AC/DC, is touring with the band Geordie and the Masters of Rock album they released the previous year. The Dunston staithes, first constructed in 1893 and the largest wooden structure to be found anywhere in Europe, are still being used to load coal from nearby coalfields into ships on the River Tyne, and workers at the Her Majesty’s Stationery Office have just entered their own team, called Whickham Sports FC, in the Newcastle City Amateur League.” The Accidental Groundhopper

“I’m biased, of course, but I reckon that this place is a bit special. Packed with believers and full of noise, illuminated by floodlights and bursting with passion, it’s a thrilling place to be on a matchday. But even empty and silent on a cold winter’s morning like this one, St James’ Park retains a special ambience and splendour that make it deserving of its place in the hearts of the Toon Army and at the heart of this great city.” Stuff by Paul Brown

“Childhood is seemingly the defining factor in what position someone ends up spending the majority of their life playing the beautiful game in. The sprinter on the wing, the disciplinarian in the middle and the big lad will play at the back. These are formulaic standards that characterize most people’s earliest associations with football. For some people though there is a hole in this and it’s referee shaped.” In Bed With Mardona

“Last month Deloitte published the latest edition of the Football Money League, their annual ranking of European clubs by revenue. Once again, the Premier League featured prominently with seven English clubs listed in the top 20, though the two highest earning clubs were still the Spanish giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona. On the face of it, this was yet another demonstration of the Premier League’s ability to generate revenue, while defying the effects of the economic recession.” The Swiss Ramble

“Below are MOTD video highlights for all the EPL matches on March 5, 2011. The full edition of MOTD can be viewed here.” The 90th Minute

“It is easy to be disillusioned with modern football. In a game where clubs are willing to trade their heritage for a new flat-pack stadium and some supporters burn replica shirts when their star striker moves to another Premier League club, football has departed from its origins and core roots. It is only when you analyse how the game has evolved since the 1800’s, though, that you realise that it has been inevitable for several decades.” In Bed With Mardona

“This morning’s non-league videos of the week come from the Blue Square Bet Premier. Last weekend saw the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy, which involved a number of clubs from the fifth division, all of which left clubs that had already been eliminated from that particular competition to get on with the important job of accumulating points in the league.” twohundredpercent

Kicking it old, old school with a brutal game of Pasuckuakohowog.
“There are times when undersoil heating might just not be enough. Domm Norris doesn’t want to see an ancient game forgotten.” In Bed With Maradona

“Below are MOTD video highlights for all the EPL matches on February 27, 2011. The full edition of MOTD can be viewed here.” The 90th minute