February 3, 2010 • 8:40 pm 0
Quick note to say that Soccer Pro, my preferred US online soccer store, are currently running a contest to win your favourite team’s jersey every year for the next ten years. Works out to be about $800 worth of shirt, so not a bad deal at all…
It’s a sweepstake for US residents only, but there’s no questions to answer – so all you need to do to win is basically enter and be lucky. Worth a shot! Oh and they give you a $10 off coupon just for entering. Sweet.
January 19, 2010 • 9:35 pm 0
I first encountered the Homeless World Cup when I was flicking through Netflix’s list of films you could watch instantly and found “Kicking It”, a documentary that followed the stories of many homeless participants from around the world. It seemed like a great idea and I’ve kept up to date with the cause since then.
From their website:
The Homeless World Cup is an annual, international football tournament, uniting teams of people who are homeless and excluded to take a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their country and change their lives forever. It has triggered and supports grass roots football projects in over 70 nations working with over 30,000 homeless and excluded people throughout the year.
In 2010, the tournament will be held in Rio De Janiero, Brazil and in 2011, in Paris, France. To raise money to put on the event, all year round people are out running marathons and you can get involved now by visiting the Homeless World Cup website. Whether you run yourself or donate to someone who is doing one of the marathons, you know your money or time is going to a worthy cause.
Filed under: Homeless World Cup , Homeless World Cup
January 17, 2010 • 3:10 pm 0
Spotted this on my travels today and thought I’d share in case there are any Fulham, Burnley or Neutral fans reading. VoucherCodes has a printable voucher available until 3rd February that will give you a ticket to Fulham v Burnley at Craven Cottage on 9th February 2010, for 50% off.
That’s about £15 and Fulham are playing pretty well of late, so not a bad chance to see some Premier League football for a fraction of the usual cost. For full disclosure: I do not make a cut for linking to this, I’m just passing it on.
Filed under: 2009/10 Season , burnley, fulham, premier league, vouchercodes
January 2, 2010 • 8:44 pm 1
There’s something about the FA Cup as a tournament. Maybe it’s the fact that there are fairytale stories like non-league Chasetown aiming to be giant killers (as giant as Cardiff City ever were) or Barnsley dumping both Liverpool and Chelsea out of the competition on their march to the semi-final of last year’s cup, where they were thwarted by… hang on a minute, Cardiff City. Didn’t Cardiff ruin Reading’s best ever FA Cup run too, back in 1927? Cardiff City: FA Cup Party Poopers.
Anyway, while the FA Cup starts back in the Summer, it’s the entrance of the “big” clubs in the Third Round that generally sparks FA Cup season, the first notable fixtures of the calendar year. Today we saw our beloved Reading, faltering in the league and without a permanent manager, take on Liverpool, faltering in the league and out of the Champions League. The game took place at an uncharacteristically full Madejski Stadium under the watchful eyes of the nation by way of ITV and online at itv.com. Over the pond, TV coverage came from Setanta US and rumour has it at least 1 Reading Fan other than myself watched it here.
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Filed under: 2009/10 Season, FA Cup, Reading FC , adam federici, FA Cup, jobi mcanuff, liverpool, readingfc, sigurdsson, simon church
January 2, 2010 • 7:10 pm 0
A happy new year to all of you from Match of the Dave. To kick off 2010, here’s a review of Reusch’s Raptor Pro Goalkeeper gloves.
I’ve been playing in goal since I was knee high to a grasshopper. In fact, I tell a lie – I was a little taller than that, which is why my 6 year old self was entrusted with the position between the sticks at the local park by the older boys who would let anyone play if it meant they didn’t have to be in goal. A penalty was conceded and, scared of the force the 12+ year old who was taking it might possess in his shot, I turned and started to run away. In so doing, I inadvertently blocked the shot and was hailed as a saviour. I was hooked.
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Filed under: Reviews , gloves, goalkeeper, reusch, review, soccerpro
December 20, 2009 • 11:06 am 0
Continuing the series on Match of the Dave following the fortunes of former Reading FC players for their new clubs.
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Filed under: Former Royals , aston villa, dave kitson, kevin doyle, leroy lita, marcus hahnemann, nicky forster, nicky shorey, readingfc, stephen hunt, steve sidwell
December 19, 2009 • 10:28 pm 2
After a severely disappointing start to the season from a team that over the summer was being tipped for a play-off spot by most pundits, Reading manager Brendan Rodgers paid the price for the Royals precarious league position on Wednesday 16th December when he left the club “by mutual consent”: or in other words, was fired.
As a Reading fan myself, I was not alone in wondering if Rodgers was up to the job. Too often, the manager is the easy target when things are going south, fast – but as fans, we don’t see the whole story with what goes on behind the scenes and can easily be misplaced in laying the blame.
In light of this, I’ve put together a comparison of the performance in the first 6 months of recent Reading managers, over the past 10 or so years.
Filed under: Articles, Reading FC , alan pardew, brendan rodgers, reading, readingfc, steve coppell, tommy burns
December 16, 2009 • 3:49 pm 0
The cities and stadiums that will host the 2018 World Cup if England are successful in their bid have been announced and I’ve mapped them on a Google Map:
There are several “proposed” stadiums included in the bid, noted below in italics. These have been mapped according to their approximate proposed locations.
Filed under: World Cup, World Cup 2018 , 2018, bid cities, England, World Cup
December 13, 2009 • 10:48 pm 1
In the lead up to the best fixture on the Football calendar, Match of the Dave takes a look at each of the World Cup 2010 groups in detail. Over the coming weeks, each group will be covered – just one part of our build up to South Africa next June.
Filed under: World Cup, World Cup 2010 , france, group a, Mexico, south africa, uruguay, World Cup, World Cup 2010
December 12, 2009 • 12:37 pm 1
Continuing the series on Match of the Dave following the fortunes of former Reading FC players for their new clubs.
Filed under: Former Royals
