2008: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Non-league shocks

Non-league shocks

Good

Non-league minnows Histon beat former giants of the English First Division and Premier League, Leeds, 1-0 to set up a third round tie against Swansea – see the winning goal here. That’s not the draw they would have hoped for, but it will still be a great experience for the plucky team from Cambridgeshire.

Ronaldo has been voted Euro player of year. After a devastating 42 goals last season and helping Manchester United to the Premier League title and the Champions League, it’s hard to say that he doesn’t deserve it, but there are some who do.

At the Portsmouth vs Blackburn game there were plenty of goals, 5 – always good for the fans and some great performances by substitutes coming off the bench. First, Matt Derbyshire for Blackburn scored a looping header to get Blackburn back into the game with his first touch: he’d only been on the pitch for 30 seconds. He almost took them into the lead as he found the net again, but it was controversially disallowed. However, the last word was to go to another substitute as Sean Davis scored Portsmouth’s winner. The game ended 3-2: an exciting one for the fans and good for the two substitutes.

Bad

It’s been bad for two teams in the north of England for two different reasons. Premier League side Everton are suffering a striker injury crisis after they lost Nigerian Yakubu and Frenchman Louis Saha to long-term injuries in their defeat of Tottenham last weekend. With James Vaughan also out the club only have teenager Anichebe to lead their line.

But Sunderland are suffering a different, more serious, crisis. Roy Keane has gone! A dreadful run of form has seen the Black Cats fall down the table into the relegation zone and poor purchases in the transfer market have put pressure on the former Man United talisman. Obviously the pressure was too much. Bad for Keane.

‘Soccer players held for bloody restaurant brawl’ was the headline in the Shanghai Daily newspaper. After their team Shanghai Shenhua lost a crucial game, two players, Mao Jianqing and Liu Yintao, took out their frustration on a man in a restaurant, beating him with bottles and an ashtray. He was then kicked and had a table thrown on top of him. Apparently, the man had said hello to a girl sitting with the footballers and that was enough to start the assault. Very bad for the players, the club and the Chinese Super League, which has already featured in our bad this season for it’s poor image on and off the field.

Ugly

Ugly for Premier League fans this week as some clubs’ supporters were accused of nasty chanting. Worst of the bunch were the Newcastle fans at the Middlesbrough game who were heard chanting islamaphobic songs towards Middlesbrough’s Egyptian striker Mido. Racist and ugly.

And another fight is my ugly this week. A man died of head injuries after an amateur Sunday league game in the UK. There was a brawl at the end of the game and Stephen Ritchie, died after the attack. One man has been charged with murder and another with assault. Very ugly.

Author
grell

I was born and brought up near Chester in the north west of England. I have always loved playing and talking about sport, especially football!
Google | Facebook | Twitter | Mail | Website

Join the discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.