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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: Leicester City

The Shocker

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by laurencereade in S

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

9-0, Ali Dia, Ayoze Perez, Ben Chilwell, Jamie Vardy, Leicester City, Premier League, Ryan Bertrand, Southampton, St Mary's, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha

Friday 25th October 2019 ko 20.00

FA Premier League

SOUTHAMPTON 0 

Bertrand sent off 10 (serious foul play) (VAR)

LEICESTER CITY 9 (Chilwell 10 Tielemans 18 Perez 19 39 57 Vardy 45 55 90p Maddison 85)

Att 28,762

Entry – Complimentary

Programme £4

Back in Albania I was sat in the cable car heading down from Mount Dajti and was speaking to one of our guides Ditmar. He has the advantage of being a footballer, playing in the 3rd tier of the Albanian League for Mirdita so I attempted to explain groundhopping to him. The mechanics aren’t difficult to explain, watch a football match in as many places as possible, but the philosophical side is always a little more difficult. Why would someone set out to visit 5 Albanian grounds with only one being top flight? I explained it as being the type of person that likes to see what’s round the next corner.

But where are the limits he asked? For me there are very few, as long as its 11-a-side I’m happy, which does tend to throw people a little. It did with Ditmar, so he asked where I was heading next. I half smiled, half winced. “Southampton” I said, I’m not convinced he still understands completely just how far down the pecking order I watch. Part of me wished I’d said something in the Southampton & District League!

Continue reading →

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Patterns

16 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by laurencereade in S

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Tags

Football, groundhop, Landore, Leicester City, Premier U18 League, Swansea, Swansea City, Trevor Peake, Wales

Saturday 14th April 2018 ko 11.00

FA Premier U18 League

SWANSEA CITY 0

LEICESTER CITY 0

Att 113 @ Landore Training Centre

Entry FREE

Teamsheet FREE

With the Welsh Spring Hop almost completely rejigged we left our hotel at Carmarthen a little earlier than usual. With the loss of the Carmarthenshire League’s fixtures I found myself feeling a pang of regret as the coach turned left out of the hotel and headed towards Pont Abraham and the M4. I remembered our 4 year stint in the Ceredigion League where we turned right and headed north; I don’t remember a club on those hops who didn’t host beautifully. It’s a shame we’ve completed the league and there’s no new grounds to visit. But that’s in the past sadly, and there was a trip to Swansea City’s training ground to ponder. Continue reading →

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The Short Goodbye

31 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by laurencereade in T

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Football, Leicester City, London, New Stadium, Premier League, Premier League 2, Spurs, Tottenham Hotspur, White Hart Lane

Thursday 4th May 2017 ko 19.00

Premier League 2-Division 1

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 (Edwards 88)

LEICESTER CITY 4 (Barnes 22 79 Gordon 76 87)

Att 2,226

Entry £5

Programme FREE

Tottenham High Road will never quite be the same will it? I’ll leave others to debate whether Spurs’ new stadium is a new ground or a rebuild, save for to comment that the new stadium overlaps pretty much the entirety of the old North Stand. Because this evening was about plenty of things, but not pedantry.  Continue reading →

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Oft in Short Supply

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by laurencereade in L

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Academy, Ayelstone, Daniel Wilks, dario gradi, FA Premier, james thornhill, Leicester City, Louis Tambini, Matt Robinson, Middlesex Road, passive aggression, Rob Paratore, Sports, Team, Watford, Youth

Friday 13th April 2012 ko 2.00pm

FA Premier Academy League Group C

LEICESTER CITY 2 (Paratore 37 Tambini 71)

WATFORD 0

Att 52 (h/c)

@ The Training Centre, Middlesex Road, Aylestone, Leicester

Entry FREE

No Programme/Team Sheet

Soup 80p

For a side in the second tier of adult football and the top one of U18’s the Leicester City Training facility is surprisingly low-key. There’s a large clubhouse which is out-of-bounds to spectators, 4 pitches, and a car park. The only clues to the money sloshing around in the top echelons of the game was the well-tended flower beds, and the helicopter parked at the far end. Perhaps that was there as an implication to the young players.

There were in fact two games taking place, both with Watford as the opposition. Lee and I parked behind the U16’s game which was annoying, as in the midst of a hail storm we’d have been perfectly happy to have watched from the car. Thankfully the weather soon abated and we strolled over to the U18’s pitch. It was simple enough to get the lineups and we settled down to watch the game.

As far as I know there are only two sides in the FA Premier Academy League never to have fielded a side in the adult Premier League, those being Crewe and the MK Dons. The first being recognition of Dario Gradi’s excellent Youth Policy at Gresty Road, the other being Dons, er, purchase of Wimbledon’s league position.

This fixture saw two Championship sides battle it out, and out first observation was the sheer number of foreign players on show. Surely the point of an academy side is to bring on HOME GROWN players? The second was how referee James Thornhill seemed to be controlling the game by a policy of passive aggression. Sadly it became all too clear why he was approaching the game in this manner. That’s because the players were hell-bent on contesting each and every decision. If ever a game was summed up by the phrase “Act like children and I’ll treat you like children,” this was it!

A nice interchange of passes between Rob Parratore and Matt Robinson saw the former do well to fire home to open the scoring, but the game soon got bogged down in dissent, and petty fouls. It would have stayed 1-0 but for an injury to visiting goalkeeper Daniel Wilks. With no specialist keeper on the bench he soldiered on to complete the fixture, but with an injured leg, he was powerless to prevent Louis Tambini’s scrambled effort from trickling over the line with three-quarters of the game gone.

Not great, and I did notice that former Northampton, Bristol Rovers and Oxford United manager Ian Atkins made his excuses and left at half time. He’d learned everything he needed to at that point. Sadly, so had everyone else, in a game where only one participant had shown any great common sense, the referee, who amazingly had managed to avoid booking anyone. Such things are oft in short supply.





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  • Damage In The Box Chris Powell’s travels across the UK and Europe. The artist must frequently seen in the pub 0
  • FA Cup Factfile Phil Annets on all things to do with the World’s greatest cup competition 10
  • Football Club History Database Want to know where a club finished in what league and in what year? Richard Rundle’s site is a veritable goldmine! 0
  • Football Hopper “Fast” Eddie McGeown’s erudite perambulations around the nation’s football grounds 0
  • Gibbo's 92 As Atherton Colleries’ programme editor puts it, ” The best trips are random, unplanned and spontaneous.” 0
  • Groundhopping.se Per-Gunnar Nilsson’s trips around his native Sweden, and into Europe 0
  • Grounds for concern The late Mishi Morath’s picture blog. Obviously no longer updated but still a wonderful archive. 0
  • Kate Shrewsday. A thousand thousand stories Not about football, but beautiful writing, Kate can make words dance. 0
  • Modus Hopper Random Graham Yapp’s travels 0
  • Swedish Football History & Statistics Mats Nyström’s curates this site, which does exactly what you’d expect 0
  • The 100 Grounds Club Shaun Smith’s groundhopping football blog. The original internet ground logging website. 0
  • The Football Traveller The bible for every groundhopper. Non-League fixtures magazine delivered weekly. Published and edited by Chris Bedford 0
  • The Intinerant Football Watcher Peter finds the grounds other hoppers cannot reach. Top bloke too! 0
  • The66POW Rob Waite’s travels 0

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