Showing articles from the year 2012
Clear filterThe next meeting of the Football Supporters’ Federation’s Yorkshire Division will take place on Sunday 23rd September at Futsal UK in Leeds (Unit 25, Millshaw Park, LS11 0LU). The meeting will start at noon – click here for directions via Google Maps.
The Football Supporters’ Federation’s Southern Division and Yorkshire Division will both hold meetings on Sunday 23rd September – in different places, obviously! The southerners will be heading to Gillingham for a meeting which includes a discussion on Supporter Liaison Officers while the northerners will meet in Leeds at the Futsal Arena, giving them a chance for a kickabout.
At Football Supporters’ Federation meetings it isn’t unusual for us to have lively discussions on the nature of matchday chanting. These debates often mirror the online chat found on fans’ forums and in social media. What one fan finds offensive, another finds acceptable or even funny. It’s rare for every last person at an FSF meeting to agree on what is or isn’t acceptable – it’s a debate that’s had at stadiums and pubs across the country.
We’ve all seen totally unacceptable scenes of coins or other missiles being thrown at officials or players. Even so, we’ve seen nothing quite like this before, the action comes from Iran. A player wanders over and casually tosses aside a projectile thrown by someone in the crowd and things take a turn for the decidedly hairy. A second or two later and there could have been a genuinely horrific scene.
In a report published today the cross-party Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CCMS) says that football authorities at all levels of the game, supporters’ and players’ groups need to take responsibility for pro-actively tackling all forms of discrimination, including racism, but it is the FA that must take the lead and set a strong example for others to follow.
Down to Denmark’s second division where Frem trail Skjold Birkerod 1-0 as the game heads into injury time. Frem throw the kitchen sink at it and keeper Jakob Kohler goes forward for a corner – and guess who pops up with a stunning overhead kick to equalise? Eat your heart out Jimmy Glass. (Hat-tip to Daniel Shepherd for the link.)
15th April 1989 is a day in English football history that will never be forgotten. The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s newly-released report into that day’s events is so damning that it has prompted an apology by David Cameron at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The PM said that families had suffered a “double injustice” in the “failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the indefensible wait to get to the truth”.
Fans of the England national team have been praised by British police for their conduct at last Friday’s World Cup 2014 qualifying match in Chisinau, Moldova.
Now we’ve seen a few long-range goals by keepers down the years – Tim Howard and Paul Robinson come to mind – but this might be the first 80 yarder from a keeper where he looks like he actually means it. The action comes from Swiss amateur side Dardania Lausanne and keeper Dominique Niederhause.
Wales play Serbia at the Karadjordje Stadium in Novi Sad on Tuesday 11th September 2012. The match is a World Cup 2014 qualifier and the volunteers at FSF Cymru have produced their usual away fans’ guide. If you have any problems in Serbia contact them on the FSF helpline number +447905 861848.
Every month FSF members meet with their clubs, football authorities, or outside institutions such as the police or local safety advisory groups, to try and get a better deal for fans. Some of these meetings are covered in FSF news stories, like the recent meeting with Liverpool City Council regarding away ticket allocations, but not every meeting can be covered in that depth.
Sunderland AFC’s safety manager Paul Weir is the latest in a growing list of the game’s senior figures to back safe standing. In an interview with fanzine A Love Supreme Weir backed the key tenet of the Football Supporters’ Federation’s argument – that fans should have the choice to sit or stand in safety.
Udinese missed out on the money-spinning group stage of the Champions League on Tuesday after winger Pablo Armero managed to fall flat on his face while going clean through on goal. SC Braga grabbed an equaliser and the game went to pens whereby Udinese’s Maicosuel decided that the best tactic in the shootout would be a Panenka-esque chip down the middle. What could possibly go wrong?
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, himself a noted goalkeeping expert (probably), making one mistake may be considered unfortunate, but making two in quick succession just looks like carelessness. Quite what he would have made of SV Ried ‘keeper Thomas Gebauer we don’t know, but his double-howler in his side’s game against PSV is already a front-runner in the funniest goal in the season award.
More than 4,000 supporters from 130 different clubs completed the FSF’s 2012 National Fans’ Survey, and nine out of every 10 of them think ticket prices are too high. 73 per cent of respondents strongly agreed that season ticket prices are too high and 19 per cent agreed slightly. Three out of every 100 disagreed and thought prices were not too high.
The Football Supporters’ Federation is very pleased to support Non-League Day which takes place on Saturday 13th October. NLD is a celebration of football outside of the 92 league sides and gives fans of those clubs the opportunity to experience football at a level they might not be familiar with. NLD helps promote hundreds of clubs across the country, many of which are volunteer run and valuable community assets.
The Guardian’s David Conn is essential reading for fans who wish to dig a little deeper and understand the often murky business of football finance. David is also the author of The Football Business: Fair Game in the ’90s? (1998) and The Beautiful Game? Searching the Soul of Football (2005) and has been named the FSF’s Football Writer of the Year on three different occasions.
We know more than most that football fans are prone to getting a little bit wound up and exaggerating everything. Any reasonable goal from outside the box is a ‘goal of the season contender’ or the new ‘greatest goal of all time’, and so we’re naturally a bit wary about putting superlatives on things.
His playing days might be behind him but David Platt, now Manchester City’s assistant manager, proves he’s still got ‘it’ with a spectacular overhead kick in pre-season training – and it gets a deserved round of applause from Pablo Zabaleta and Sergio Aguero. Is it just us, or does that bring back memories of Italia 90? Watch Platt’s spectacular training goal here AND that goal against Belgium, below…
