BSK Borča v Vojvodina

The Calm Before The Storm 

BSK Borča 0-4 Vojvodina (26:11:11)

It's the morning of The Eternal Derby in Belgrade. Before living and breathing that dream fixture, Ken Morton and friends took in a match in relatively serene surroundings...

The Luton Ibis is far from glamorous but the prospect of a big European derby made it slightly easier to rise from my slumber. It was 05:30 and myself and EFW newbie Chris Sobey smartly made our way to Luton airport for our Wizz Air flight to the Nikola Tesla airport in Belgrade. I had travelled down from Aberdeen the night before and our heads were still slightly dull following quite a few beers in the hotel bar. But we were off to see the ‘Eternal Derby’ between Red Star Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade; no better hangover cure I thought.

We entered the airport and our excitement was turned to nervousness as we saw the queue of around 500 people waiting to go through security at the airport; the result being a 45 minute wait and then a quick dash to the departure gate. Sweating, due to the sprint to gate 18, as we took our seats we were greeted by a very attractive stewardesses. As we took off I explained to Chris what he was about to experience and the current situation around the Grobari where infighting had led to a split. I explained that there was a risk of trouble and the city was on high alert. All this talking meant thirsty throats and we necked a few beers before touching down on Serbian soil.

Hello operator, could you get me Kenny Legg and Danny Last on the line please. We need to arrange two plane tickets to Belgrade. Quick. Sharp. 

We were greeted by a low-lying fog, which was to be prevalent throughout our trip. Sometimes it is difficult not to pre-judge, but I suppose it added to the mystique of this previous war torn country. We met Gannin’ Away’s Andy Hudson on board the waiting shuttle bus that whisked us off to Slavija Square in the centre of the city. Wow…it was cold and damp, and you would think I would be used to it living in Aberdeen! Chris and I were staying at a hotel close to both stadiums called the Villa Senjak so we decided to meet Andy later. Passing bombed out buildings, cracked pavements and old Fiat cars we finally made it and agreed to meet up later to travel back into the centre.

Andy had arranged tickets for the game through his Serbian contact so the venue to meet was the Three Carrots Irish pub. 2 derby tickets, 13 plus pints, 6 shots and 2 kebabs later, myself and Chris stumbled around the fog-strewn streets at 4am trying to remember where the hotel was. The high alcohol intake wasn’t intentional, but sitting in the back room of a bar with both Red Star and Partizan fans, we found that as soon as our beers were almost finished, another would magically appear on the table in front of us, joined by a shot.

Waking up, face down eating my pillow, I wondered if the morning fog outside was ticker than the one inside my head, but I didn’t have much time to think as we were off to the Three Carrots to meet Andy and his Serbian contact Nenad for midday. We all jumped into a taxi to the first game of the day…BSK Borča were at home to Vojvodina. Our taxi took us to a small suburb of Belgrade and the 3000 capacity Borča Stadion to be exact. BSK were formed in 1937 and are traditionally a lower league team but won promotion to the Serbian Superliga in 2009. Vojvodina, on the other hand, are a more experienced team having been regular competitors in European competitions. The stadium consists of two uncovered terraces running length side of the pitch, an open end behind one goal, a fire engine in the corner and a complex that consists of clubrooms and restaurant behind the other goal.

We're BSK Borča, we do what we want...

We were slightly late for kick off and missed the first goal but it soon became clear that the home side were severely lacking in skill and Vojvodina unsurprisingly added another before half time. Hair of the dog or a rest from the biting cold? You decide but a break from standing on ice by having a pint and a pizza in the adjoining restaurant at half time made us all feel a bit more energetic. Upon reaching the terraces again for the second half, delayed because the electricity was too weak to quickly cook the pizza, we saw the game was now 4-0 to Vojvodina! I’ve never been to a game with four goals and missed three before so that’s a first for me – yet Chris missed all four. The remainder of the game was spent watching the Ultras of Borča (10 adults and 15 kids) enthusiastically sing such well known hits like BORČA CHAMPIONS, BORČA CHAMPIONS or the classic SIT DOWN IF YOU LOVE BORČA! Their efforts was pale in comparison to the slightly larger and noisier away support who bounced relentlessly up and down in true Balkans style.

13 pints and 6 shots please bartender

Ken Morton is site editor of http://www.mvv-schotland.com/ which as well as documenting his love for MVV Maastricht also covers Project 50 – Ken’s attempt to visit each of the top 50 derbies in world football. He can be found on Twitter at @mvvschotland

Tomorrow on EFW: Andy Hudson on Crvena Zvezda v Partizan Belgrade. Expect fireworks.

Gamba Osaka v Vegalta Sendai

The Japanese Newcastle

Gamba Osaka 1-0 Vegalta Sendai (26:11:11)

Newcastle United fan Michael Hudson travels to Osaka to see the Japanese version of... Newcastle United...

There are two ways of getting from Nagoya to Osaka by train. The Shinkansen takes just under an hour and will set you back the best part of sixty quid each way; a combination of local and rapid trains is more than twice as long, half the price and perfectly timed to allow you to read at least halfway through the Blizzard while sitting next to a bloke in a gauze face mask whose head keeps falling against your right shoulder. Like the recent Manchester derby, there wasn’t any contest.

My meticulously planned timetable almost goes awry when I’m late leaving my flat, the ten-minute sprint to the station bringing on a sweat which at least ensures the neighbouring seat stays empty until we’re halfway to Kyoto. I go straight through the ancient capital then jump on the wrong train when I change in Osaka and end up travelling half the way back. It’s just turned half past twelve by the time I get to the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park, home of Gamba Osaka’s ageing Banpaku Stadium, and the first person I see as I get off the monorail is Ben Mabley, Blizzard contributor, Gamba ultra and my host for the day.  “Welcome to Osaka,” he says, buying the first of many Suntory Premium Malts.

As we drink, we talk J.League, the Glazers, Twitter, Takashi Usami (the 19-year-old midfielder currently on loan at Bayern Munich), Gamba’s proposed new stadium – called, tentatively I hope, the Field of Smile - and Akira Nishino, whose contract the club declined to renew after a decade in charge, one J.League title, three domestic cups and an Asian Champions League. We separate at kick off when Ben goes to join the ultras in the sold-out home end and I mix in (if you can ever use that phrase when you’re the only person in five hundred not wearing a yellow shirt) with the Vegalta Sendai fans at the opposite side of the pitch.  Smoke bombs explode above the blue and black Gamba flags as the Vegalta support – led by a man with a megaphone and Unity Japan t-shirt – run through a repertoire including songs to the tune of Twisted Sister’s ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ by The Ramones and ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’.

Howay The ガンバ大阪

With two games left and Gamba four points behind leaders Kashiwa Reysol, the home side are unsurprisingly nervy, even after South Korean striker Lee Keun-ho heads them into a 22nd minute lead. Fortunately, most of Vegalta’s chances fall to Shingo Akimine, whose efforts at goal land as wide of the mark as an editorial in the Daily Mail.  At the final whistle, with Kashiwa dropping two points at home to Cerezo Osaka, both sets of players line up to bow to the crowd, Nishino takes to the pitch, and I slip out to meet Ben back at the bar.  After staying back to help the other ultras to tidy up the stand, he arrives twenty minutes later and introduces me as a Newcastle fan. “Newcastle?” an English-speaker asks excitedly, stretching the first syllable like a pair of knee-length socks. "A lot of Gamba fans think of themselves as the Japanese Newcastle," Ben explains. "As cities, they have a very similar relationship to the rest of the country and the same kind of accents." “Newcastle played here in 1996,” another of the ultras tells me. “Ferdinand, Asprilla…they were pissed off that the crowd wasn’t very big but our football culture wasn't developed at the time and most Japanese fans only knew Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. Now everyone knows of Newcastle as one of the biggest clubs." I’m starting to like Gamba Osaka by this point. I really, really am.

Erm.... answers on a postcard please

Back off Napoli

I like them even more a couple of hours and a subway ride later when Ben and I are the only foreigners at the Gamba ultras’ end of season party.  All-you-can-drink-and-eat for £25, and this being Japan there’s a longer queue for the buffet than the beer. “We’ll be back lots,” Ben tells the barman in Japanese as the singing kicks off in the centre of the room. I load up a paper plate with spaghetti, Vienna sausage and pizza slices, chug another Suntory beer and shake hands about twenty times with a fan whose only words of English are ‘Michael’, ‘Newcastle’ and, in what’s clearly a dig at the pink shirts of city rivals Cerezo Osaka, ‘Pig fuckers’. Or that’s what I kept telling myself, anyway. Ben winds up translating as the ultras quiz me on the “Tyne-Wear derby” and English fan culture. “English fans look very excited,” someone says. “Well, sometimes,” I reply, thinking the afternoon’s atmosphere was far louder than in most Premier League grounds, St James’ Park included.  The night ends on Ben’s sofa, convenience store cans to hand, watching Newcastle United grab a draw at Old Trafford. It’s better than we managed in Osaka – in 1996 they stuffed us 3-1.

You can follow Michael Hudson and European Football Weekends on Twitter

Michael is the editor of The Accidental Groundhopper 

Barney Ronay interview

Barney's Version

Armed with some rubbish questions from EFW and some gems of her own, Lizzy Ammon clicked the heels of her favourite pair of red shoes together three times before marching off to meet Guardian sports journalist Barney Ronay...

Thanks for taking time away from Guardian Towers to talk to us. There are probably quite a few people reading this that would like to enter the world of football journalism. What advice would you give them? Erm. If you mean paid football journalism then good luck. It is, like everywhere else, a shrinking sector. I still think the traditional way is the best: find something you can do that editors will want, and which makes you stand out. Traditionally a good way of doing this was simply going abroad and knowing all there is to know about whatever’s going on in South America, or Narnia or Syldavia.

For others getting on a freelance match report list, doing entry-level production shifts in the office and getting a foot in the door that way. Alternatively perfecting a skill: being better than anyone else at tactical analysis, or funnier than anyone else, or more thorough. This is the real way to get into it now: by doing something of your own to that standard on the web and making it brilliant and unignorable.

I got into journalism by starting my own writing website called The Pitch. It was crap, mind, but no one else was doing it back in the day so that didn’t really matter. In fact I have a theory I was the first person ever to do it like that. You are all my children.

This is a bit of a hot topic in the twitter and blogospheres at the moment - Should aspiring journalists be prepared to have their work published without getting paid in order to get their old size nines in the door? Yes. It’s also the only way in many other professions. It’s the same in the law these days. You’ve got to be willing to be exploited for a bit. There is a grand tradition of getting a foot in the door by hawking yourself out. Believe me, paid newspaper journalists are just as alarmed by people writing for free. Many feel they’re going to be put out of a job by the endlessly fecund part-timerism of the blogosphere.

Do you read any football or cricket blogs? Some sometimes. People are very talented. There is a lot of good stuff out there. And also a lot of crap, but even that has its charms.

You've written a book or two - any plans for another? Yes. I’m putting together something at the moment. It’s a love letter to a grand vanishing sporting institution, and a stalkerish fan-boy meditation on one of the great wasted talents of our age. It may or may not be any good.

Moving seamlessly onto the England football team, just as expectations were scrapping on the barrel of the ocean they go and beat the world champions. They're now a shoe-in for Euro 2012 aren't they? England have a terrible record at Euros outside this country. I think they will be unable to string together successive performances like that one against Spain. Everything is against them at these summer tournaments: southern European style weather, the patient rhythms of international football, hard pitches, inexperience of our home-bound players of living abroad for weeks at a time. They aren’t ever quite good enough to overcome these inbuilt disadvantages. And that’s it really. No great mystery there.

But if they did go on and win it, are you the type that would paint your face and run naked into the fountain at Trafalgar Square whilst beating your chest? No. I would be pleased for all those terribly honest and well-intentioned  - and maligned - coaches who work in our football at lower levels.

But what kind of message would it send out if England did win anything? Neglect your youth systems! Have a centralised money-driven super league! Countries who look after their players tend to win these things.

If I loved the system  - if it could be made to resemble a little more the self-sustaining German one – and England then won something that would certainly be worth cheering.

Does the prospect of Team GB playing football at the Olympics quicken the Ronay pulse? No. Football should not be at the Olympics. No professional sport should be. In fact no team sport should be there. Eight gold medals for each of the eight guys in a boat? Come off it. They should all share one. No way one eighth of a boat should get the same as Usain Bolt. By my calculations, on the one gold per boat system, Steve Redgrave currently has about 2.5 goal medals. Fewer than Bradley Wiggins, which sounds about right. Having said that I did love the 1996 Olympic football competition, which I watched on TV in Brazil. Nigeria. What a team.

I'm guessing you'll be sent to cover some weird and wonderful events at the Olympics. Are you up for penning 1800 words on the equestrian qualifying heats? Are you looking forward to the Olympics?  Are we (London) going to put on a decent show or will we embarrass ourselves as I cynically predicted when we were awarded the games? It will be all right. Don’t forget: it’s only two weeks. Go on holiday and you’ll miss it. Plus there are far worse things going on these days than, say, Boris Johnson setting fire to his hair with the Olympic torch. I think everyone has calmed down a bit about the Games. As Stringer Bell might say, it is what it is.

Danny, the owner of this site, says I’m allowed to ask you a couple of cricket related questions. So

a) What is the best match you’ve ever seen live? Er. England v West indies Test at Lords in I think 2000 was pretty amazing. Cork’s match. For knockabout fun there was a Sunday league match at the Oval between Surrey and Hampshire in about the same year where Surrey scored over 400, I dropped an Adam Hollioake six in the Bedser stand, the young KP went berserk for Hants for a bit, everyone was drunk and sunburned  and it was just one of those days. Also, seeing the Waugh era Aussies really close up for three very hot days from the edge of the rope round the Parks in Oxford was pretty special. The next year the Windies came and I played football with Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. Curtly was very good.

b) Do you enjoy covering county cricket?  What’s your view on the domestic one day competition – should it be 50 overs – like the old days? I love county cricket. There often is nothing better. And of course it should be 50 overs. What on earth are we playing 40 for? It is insanely perverse.

So, EFW are offering you free tickets (but not really) for either the front row of the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Barcelona in the Allianz Arena or the front row of the pavilion on the first day of the next Ashes test at Lords. Which would you like? Come on. Lord’s.  No offence, the Champions League final, but you happen every year.

This is the European Football Weekends website so I probably out to ask you about Europe, football and weekends. But I know nothing about any of them so this will have to do as a question:  Have you ever been on a European Football Weekend? I’ve been to quite a few matches in Europe, and yes often at weekends. I really enjoyed being in Vienna for three weeks at the last Euros. That was wonderful. Best memory of the tournament was watching Spain three times and seeing them get better and better. There was a beautiful moment in Innsbruck when a thunder storm passed over the Alps while David Villa was scoring a hat trick against Russia. Aye. It were proper champion.

Are you one for collecting sporting memorabilia and if so what's your most treasured item? No. Not my thing at all. I have loads of good bits and bobs including a signed David villa Barcelona shirt I was given but have ended up wearing to go running in. It’s been washed loads of times and the signature still won’t come out which is a bit embarrassing.

What's your favourite football ground? The Valley. Friendly. Urban. Childhood memories

And the worst? Birmingham. Sorry. I just always have a nightmare there. Press box is freezing and depressing

You pop up on the Guardian's Football Weekly now and again. Have you done any other broadcasting, TV or radio? I helped write a film called From the Ashes about Ian Botham. I’m on TV now and then – those talking head shows, or a news channel in search of a bit of blah. I used to be on the radio all the time but then the BBC stopped paying £35 a go so like a wretched mercenary hack I gave up doing it. I did Chelsea TV Paperview the other day. It was quite good but I was so late I doubt I’ll be asked back.

Is Alan Hansen worth his 40 grand a week on Match of the Day? Of course not. I quite like him. He’s a good pundit. But nobody should be paid that amount of money to do anything. It’s pointless and debauched. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. That’s what I say.

Richardson, Glendenning, Wilson and Ronay could do that job for a fraction of the price, no? I’m not sure the BBC could stretch to Barry’s remuneration. But James Richardson should be hosting football on the BBC without a doubt because he is the best.

And now for the hard hitting stuff:


EFW readers are a classy discerning lot. Can you recommend to them a book, a wine and a piece of music or album to download…..


Book: Aldous Huxley Antic Hay (brilliantly funny).

Wine: Any of those nice £15-ish New Zealand French grape rip-offs.

Music: whatever. I’ve spent all day today listening to the Pogues. So The Pogues.

And your favourite Ginsters Pasty to go with those?  Iain Macintosh thought long and hard about this question. It’s an important matter. I do like the standard football-issue chicken balti pie, that slightly rubbery pastry melting into the hot sweet sauce. The only other fast foot I can recommend is the McDonalds basic cheeseburger. That is an absolute design classic. Tiny cubed onions, salty gherkin, mustard-ketchup mix, sugary bun to balance the salt sting. It is an unexpected treat.

Thanks for your time Barney - just some quickfire predictions before you start researching the equestrian:


Champions League winners? -  Real Madrid


Euro 2012 winners? - Germany


Women's javelin gold medallist at the London Olympics? – Some big lass with tight pants on

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You can follow Barney Ronay, Lizzy Ammon and European Football Weekends on Twitter

Barney is the author of The Manager and Any Chance Of A Game. He also bears a canny resemblance to the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, so he does. 

Like this? Lizzy also interviewed Iain Macintosh for EFW