Crash...

So the first defeat of the blog came in the most annoying circumstances. But I still have a home game to post about before I get to that.

Two weekends ago (oops!) Bohemians hosted Most, the team that got relegated with them and with whom they had shared an epic 2-4 encounter at Most's place late last season, a result that ended their hopes but offered a glimmer of hope to us Kangaroos fans. Alas, it turned out to be false hope and we got relegated too.

And with recent Bohemka form, it is not hard to see why. Against Most, they feel behind early to an easy tap-in and spent the next 70 minutes huffing and puffing. They were hindered by some cyncial Most fouling which unsurprisingly given all the yellow cards that were flying round, resulted in one player being told to do one round about the 75 minute mark. And suddenly Bohemians were flying. Two quick goals and we could start the party.

But we started it too soon and in the dying minutes, Most broke away for 2-2. A definite two points dropped that would have put us back on level terms with league leaders Caslav who dropped their first points of the season with a draw that weekend.

Of course, a week later, and there was no reason for concern. We were away at Vitkovice, miles away in Ostrava, on a Friday night. Six games in and Vitkovice's record read six defeats. Yeah, you can see what's gonna happen here, can't you? Well, you should be able to since I already told you in the first line.

An embarrassing 1-0 defeat to the bottom club which is a big dent in the promotion push and of particular irritation to any Bohemians fans who took a day off work to cross the country to watch it, even if the ticket to the game was only 20Kc (about 66p). Thankfully I am immensely lazy so I wasn't one of them.

This weekend is a home derby that I am particularly unenthralled by - Sparta B at home. I have nothing but contempt for the pointlessness of B teams so I am not exactly jumping with excitement about this one. Still, we desperately need a return to winning ways after three consecutive games (four if you count the cup which I don't think anyone does) without one.

A week is a long time

An opening day win followed by 4 draws is not the greatest start to the season. Yet when you remain unbeaten after the first 5 games, it's not a bad start. The latest draw was home to Bristol City. Nil nils are not known for being great entertainment but this one was actually very good. The least we deserved was a point, after Bothroyd had 2 great chances, but it wasn't to be. Bristol hit the crossbar so it could easily have gone the other way.

This Tuesday we were away to Barnsley and got our 2nd win of the season, 1-0 with a goal from Peter Whittingham. We now sit 6th in the league with 10 points, and noone is talking about us. Thats good, everyone is talking of Wolves, Reading, Birmingham....but not Cardiff. I think a play-off spot is achieveable, especially if Bothroyd can actually get his eye to foot co-ordination back!

The week prior to the Bristol City game started bizarrely with Cardiff's Paul Parry retiring from international football with Wales at the age of 28. For some reason it seems he believes that he isn't valued enough at Wales - a place on the bench against Azerbaijan, and what would've been a starting place against Russia wasn't enough. I don't know who he thinks he is. A few years back he was playing non league football for Hereford - international football a mile away - then he decides he's better than the current Welsh players, and the impressive kids coming through. Well screw you Parry. The arguement got out of hand when John Toshack (Wales) confronted Dave Jones (Cardiff) about comments made to the media about him. Not sure who my money's on to win that fight...

As this is the final season at Ninian Park I have decided to keep every ticket from every game played this season. Luckily I went to the Carling Cup game against MK Dons, so I have every ticket so far. Wales U21 play England U21 at Ninian next month so I will get to go to that too, and then frame all my tickets from the 08/09 season.......yes I'm that sad.

Ledley passing to Commingues - Bristol City game 13th September

You only blog when you're winning...

Apologies for the delay getting this week's post up. I have been busy sorting out moves across the city (alas, no longer will I be able to say Bohemians have the nearest ground to where I lay my head of an evening - that dubious honour will instead fall on Sparta's shoulders) and Matt appears to have been running some kind of mad caper all around Britain that meant he missed Cardiff v Norwich.

Anyway, this weekend, Bohemians lined up against the somewhat lacklustre Sokolov. Having met up with a few fellow Brits I was persuaded to ditch my seat in the rafters of the main tribune for the experience of standing with the real fans behind the goal. I have been there once before, for a game when standing there was the only place I could get tickets. I stood for two cold hours, stretching every sinew in my legs to try and peer over everyone. And our keeper got sent off.

So, I was dubious but I gave it another go. This time, I was stood somewhere where I had a much better view but still found standing for the entire game a chore. I was born lazy and have got lazier as time has progressed and so comfort comes first for me.

Anyway, the game itself was pretty dire. Sokolov were crap and Bohemians were like a kitten playing with a blind mouse. Plenty of pawing, not much clawing and no killer touch. Half time it was 0-0.

Second half, Bohemka came out with a lot more fire in them and you got much more of a feeling that a goal was coming. And with Bohemians playing towards the goal I was stood behind that was a good thing. On the hour, the ball went forward, Skoda held it up, laid it back and someone (*intermission while William hastily opens new window and researches the scorer whose name he missed on account of much cheering and beer-throwing*) Rychlik, who belted one in.

On doing said research I have found out that other key factors about the game was that Snozik, Jan Moravek and Slezak were all injured but good news was that Lukas Hartig the striker who managed to injure his knee in a bar brawl last season, was on the bench. He didn't come on.

Final score Bohemians 1 Sokolov 0. Bohemians are second in the league on goal difference to Caslav.

Later that evening...

Straight from Dolicek I jumped on a tram, met my friend at Muzeum metro, met another friend at a tram stop and we went to watch Viktoria Zizkov at home to Banik Ostrava. Ostrava's fans are known for their passion and rowdiness though also for certain elements of trouble. Sparta v Banik is possibly the most fierce match-up in the Czech Republic.

Whether Ostrava's fans would have been more troublesome had the game not gone entirely their way remains unknown. After 15 minutes a Zizkov defender was sent off for a professional foul and Banik scored from the freekick. For the rest o fthe half Zizkov battered them with some impressive long shots smashing off posts, going just wide or being fumbled by the keeper and turned into the goal by strikers in offside positions. Half time score, 1-0.

In the second half Zizkov could not maintain the pace and ended up losing 3-0. One of the strangest things the Banik fans did was during one song they would all put their arms around each other and while jumping/bobbing up and down, turn their back to the game. It was a very strange spectacle and something I have never seen done before.

Anyway, that's it for this weekend's sport. Next weekend, Bohemians are away at HK Olomouc and I am away at Cesky Krumlov so I will not be able to watch the games I have gambled on.


*William did not throw beer. Other people did.

I'm Still Alive

Ok, I've not been updating this web log as often as William but my hectic life has taken over. I went to see Idlewild - the greatest band ever! - live in Bristol last weekend, from there on to Wrexham to see Wales U21's play well but get beat (they're learning too much from the senior team), back in time to play 5 a side in Cardiff before this weekends events; I'm heading to London for a couple of days, to get home in time to see REM - the greatest band ever! in Cardiff. You may ask how can one person be so busy? I know, it's a hard life. Things seem to happen all at once...for example I only had two holidays booked in January for 2008, only for Cardiff to play their FA Cup Semi and Final (there's the mention) on those weekends! William knows this all too well as one of the holidays was to Prague to see him but I had to change my flights.

Since I last spoke we beat Bournemouth in the cup (sorry William I realised that we actually got to the 3rd round last year and did take it seriously!) and drew away from home to Doncaster. We've gained 3 extra points already from goals in the final 2 minutes of games so that beats last year where we must've lost a load in final minutes. Cardiff play at home tomorrow to the mighty Norwich and I will be missing it due to my London trip. I have sold on my ticket to my brothers mate so at least he will have company. I will hopefully be getting my ticket back in mint condition to keep with all the others from this final season at Ninian Park - and on that note a £3 programme from the Southampton game in being bought for around £8 on eBay right now! Time to cash in I think!

On security

As an aside to the Dukla game, I would like to point out an alarming fact. You are never safe at a football match. You might think the bolt-headed goons at the gate will protect you but the alarming fact is they really are as stupid as they look.

Here is what I base this fact on.

To get to Dukla I had to undertake the following journey: Scuttle straight from work to H&M on Wenceslas Square to buy a lightweight raincoat that any normal person would already have had, having seen the forecast for the day was not that sunny and cheery; then jump on the metro to Hradcanska from where I would catch a bus to the stadium.

It was while waiting for this bus that I felt the first nip of autumn in this summer's evening and reached into my bag for my scarf. And found a small jar of green pesto.

This is a problem. Clearly any security man is going to take a dim view of me taking a small glass bottle filled with a slightly pungent green goo (you will notice how even in my diet I lean towards Bohemians green over any of that red shit) into the stadium.

But the problem arose because my local supermarket, Billa (in fact any Billa in Prague probably) has this somewhat oppressive tactic of making you BUY carrier bags, something that I, as a scatterbrain who didn't grow up under an oppressive regime, finds hard to adjust to. So, I usually end up stuffing as many of my purchases as I can into my bag, my pockets, my hood or down my trousers and carrying the rest.

Obviously when unpacking the items the night before, I had somehow overlooked the jar of pesto.

I didn't want to just throw it away. I mean, it was only 29Kc, but it had taken me four months to find the little hidden away bit on the shelf where Billa hid the green pesto, as it was. I decided to go for it. I secretly imagined myself, enraged in a fit of pique and throwing my jar of pesto onto the pitch and concussing a Dukla superstar.

Luckily, my manbag has two pouches and previous forays into football matches have taught me the knuckleheads only ever check the main one. So I shifted the jar into the smaller pouch.

In the queue for my ticket, I watched my particular knucklehead closely. He had a cap, a shiny earring and a bored expression. Regulations permitted him from the pat down on the women and all the blokes were carrying nothing more threatening than a camera phone. There wasn't even a slight chance of a ruckus for him tonight. Bohemians fans, notoriously are the only ones in Prague who smoke weed. Fuck do they wanna fight for? They are all about having a good time. So to stumble on a nerdish-looking fool clearly looking for some pesto-related trouble would have made his evening.

There was every chance he might dip his hand in my bag for a quick rummage and feel the glass bottle through the lining. It was a tense moment.

I spread 'em and let him pat me all over before he nodded at the bag. I unzipped and showed him the contents. One address book (cos I really am unable to keep everyone's details in my phone), one camera and one iPod. Oh, and an asthma inhaler. Yeah, this wheezy geek's not gonna be any bother.

And so, my potentially lethal bottle of green pesto came into and out of the stadium with me.

Security, eh? I could've killed someone with that.

The comedy stylings of Dukla Prague...

The goal that no-one scored in (inevitably the one I was sat nearer to)with (l-r) the top of Hotel Crowne Plaza, a floodlightand the TV tower in the background

Having seen what I have seen tonight, I imagine that when the fixture list for this season was announced, Bohemians' players' eyes saw Dukla Prague away in August and thought thank fuck we don't have to go up there in the winter. Of course, they weren't to know that despite being preceded by more than a week of glorious sunshine and 30 degree C temperatures, by the time the game itself came round, the rain and cold would have come in. Up there, on the side of a mountain with the stadium openly facing over most of Prague (I felt that if someone punted the ball out of the ground, some poor sap of a ball boy would be chasing it as far as Zizkov), it felt like a night in late October.

But I do love the away games. A chance to sniff out some other part of Prague (cos as of yet, I haven't gone to an away game outside the city) and a chance to see some new ground, especially if it is one perched on the side of a hill, with sub zero climates all year round and that exotic foreign feeling you rarely get these days, unless your country is persistently drawn into a group with Azerbaijan. One of the major attractions at Dukla was their scoreboard with their awesome early-90s Nintendo graphics (see pic right, as Bohemians made a substitution)

But I was especially excited to go to Dukla Prague. They are of course famous, among many things, for this song

But also, they are the most successful team in Czechoslovak history though hated by most of the population here. They won the league 11 times, the cup nine times and had many European adventures including beating Manchester United (back in the days when they were a team you could respect) 1-0 at the same ground I went to tonight. They lost the second leg at Old Trafford though.

The hatred stems from the fact that it was originally the Army team and strongly affiliated with Communism. The name Dukla itself comes from a hill in Slovakia which oversaw a major battle in World War Two when the advancing Red Army, aided by many Czech and Slovak soldiers, made significant gains on the Nazis. The name Dukla in the Czech Republic has the same connotation that CSKA has in Russia and Legia has in Poland.

Dukla Prague dominated because they forced the best players to either sign long term contracts or play for the B side in the third or fourth tier.

Of course, once the revolution came, clubs like Sparta were able to get major sponsorship deals and their Communist past meant Dukla were unable to get the same kind of deals. It disintegrated temporarily, then merged with Pribam for a while before finally muscling with Dejvice. According to Wikipedia, two of the key players to have played for Dukla during the 1990s were Pavel Nedved and Karel Rada. I am sure you will have heard of the first and if you haven't heard of the second, you obviously didn't read my last match report as far in as half time.

Anyway, all this preamble is a means of disguising the fact that although I was at the game tonight, I found it very difficult to tell who was who for most of it because the Dukla tribune is far from the pitch, with an athletics track and long jump sand pit inbetween. Nice view though. From my seat I could see the Hotel Crowne Plaza and the TV tower in the distance.

What I am aware of was the following;

* After five minutes, I fully anticipated the game to end 0-0. As has been previously documented, our only two goals this season have come from the opposition and we have looked horrendously inadequate up front.

* So it goes to show how good I am at reading the game, when I tell you Milan Skoda put us 1-0 up after eight minutes...

* Quickly followed by a flowing counter attack, belted into the bottom corner by Jan Moravec after 14 minutes...

* And a third, a 25-yard free kick from the edge of the area, by Adam Lukas after 20 minutes.

Yes, we were all on cloud nine. Bohemians 3-0 up after 20 minutes. My companion, a lifelong Bohemians fan who can remember the really good days (when they were champions in 1982-3 season), the super-sweet days (beating Ipswich 2-0 at home, even if they had lost the first leg 3-0) and the miserable days of more recent history, commented that he hadn't seen such a Bohemians rout for quite a while.

And then, the game went a bit quiet. In fact it was quite dull for the rest of the first half.

And Bohemians clearly came out in the second half thinking the game was won and proceeded to get mullered for the next 20 minutes. Dukla squandered chance after chance. A good save low down by second-choice goalkeeper Jiri Havranek (Snozik got injured in training this week but should be back to face Sokolov next weekend) saw the ball palmed to an oncoming Dukla striker with an open net but an acute angle. He managed to smack the ball against the crossbar.

On 62 minutes came possibly my favourite moment I have ever seen at a live game (fighting with seeing Giggs' first goal for Wales and Earnie scoring for Norwich at Ninian Park). Dukla on the attack, the ball goes loose a Bohemians player is clearly dragged down trying to clear the ball. The prat of a referee gives the freekick to Dukla. It was absolutely inconceivable what he saw to possibly do that.

Dukla's big men pile forward into the box as their number 17 prepares to whip it in. Right at point of contact 17 slips over and knees the ball about three yards. From that point on, Dukla seemed to forget the rules. They gave up possession for a foul throw (I mean seriously, what kind of professional footballer can't take a throw-in?), they took a goal-kick that didn't leave the penalty area and then looked utterly baffled as to why they'd been whistled, and another throw-in spun out of the player's hands and high into the air.

On 75 minutes however, they managed to concoct a proper first - the first goal against Bohemians this season. Though it was scruffy, a few missed headers, the ball eventually fell kindly in the box and the forward hefted it in off the bar.

Final score: Dukla 1 Bohemians 3. And despite having 2,500 fans to follow back to the metro, I followed the ten going to some random car-park and managed to get myself temporarily lost in the wilderness of Prague 6 just as it began to rain.

Luckily, I spotted the looming square tower of the Hotel Crowne Plaza and redirected to find my way back to Dejvicka metro station. Which is on the green line and was packed with green Bohemians shirts, singing and raucously banging drums. I would have loved to see some tourists (Dejvicka is the nearest metro stop to the airport) arrive in the middle of that lot...

Cherries pop my bet!

Damn Bournemouth. I put a treble bet on tonight that Derby and Lincoln would go to extra time (they did), that MK Dons would dump Norwich out (they did) and that Bournemouth would beat Cardiff.

Jonas assured me the latter would happen cos Cardiff were allegedly going to field a weaker team. Damn it. I should've just gone for a double...

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Amusing post script to above post.

When William logged onto his Skybet account (other online gambling accounts are available) he found that he didn't put the solitary treble bet on, as he had originally thought, but instead put down a patent.

For those not sure of gambling terms, a patent is a sequence of seven bets based around three games, three singles, three doubles and a treble. Having got two singles plus a double right, the returns were actually quite handsome.

Let this be a lesson. Gambling while a bit pissed can pay dividends.