good football photos

[Onket]

They are doing a regular thing on the FSF website-

Love this one of a proper football ground now sadly lost.

http://fsf.org.uk/blog/view/homes-of-football-through-thick-and-thin-swansea-city-1994

 

[bromley]

A career highlight.

 

[JTG]

cunt

 

[JTG]

 

[framed]

 

[Onket]

Who is the chap sucking his belly in?

 

[Clint Iguana]

 

[steeplejack]

Newport County 0, Carl Zeiss Jena 1 (agg 2-3), European Cup Winners Cup quarter final, 1981.

County had won the Welsh cup in 1980 and made the quarter finals of a European competition whilst playing in the old third division. Having battled to a 2-2 draw in East Germany there was some hope of an astonishing progression to the semi finals. Alas, Jena won 1-0 and went on to lose in the final to Dynamo Tblisi.

An estimated 18000 turned up to watch probably the most important game ever played at the old Somerton Park. Ten years later the gates were locked and County were dead, with the new Newport AFC re-starting in the ninth tier of the pyramid and playing 'in exile' at Moreton in Marsh. Happily County are now back in the Football league, playing at the same level as Jena, who are in the regional leagues, one below the 3.Bundesliga, in a unified Germany. Somerton Park disappeared under a rather unremarkable housing estate during the mid 90s.

 

[steeplejack]

East Germany's Jurgen Sparwasser scores the only goal in the only game that ever took place between East and West Germany, in the 1974 World Cup final. It was a well taken finish about twelve minutes from the end and was a considerable humiliation for the West Germans. Sparwasser played for Magdeburg for most of his career and (I think) was mayor of the city for a while; he still turns out occasionally for the Magdeburg legends team.

 

[steeplejack]

Bhutan host Montserrat in "the other final", played on the same day as the world cup final, between the then two weakest nations in the sport. Bhutan won fairly comfortably, but haven't entered a team for the last qualifying sequence for the world cup.

Montserrat have got a bit better since then and have two full professionals in their squad- a guy from Watford and another from port Vale. the rest of the squad features players from the likes of Romulus, Lowestoft Town and Haringey Borough.

 

[steeplejack]

Holly Park, Liverpool, the season after South Liverpool moved out. The ground was the target of sustained vandalism, meaning that South, who where a big non league name in the 70s and 80s, eventually moved out and then folded. The club launched the career of John Aldridge amongst many others. Today they have re formed and play much lower down the pyramid, having been in abeyance for quite a while in the 90s.

 

[steeplejack]

East Fife (yellows) host Kilmarnock in the old Scottish second division at the end of the 1980s or very early 1990s, at the old Bayview Park. Bayview was demolished in 1997 and the Fifers now play in a soulless MFI Flatpack stadium elsewhere in town, also called Bayview.

Today a game woukld not be played in these conditions owing to 'the terrace being too slippy for spectators'.

 

[Onket]

Can't see that last one.

 

[framed]

Who is the chap sucking his belly in?

Bertie Auld, Celtic midfielder from the 'Lisbon Lions' team of 1967.

 

[Fedayn]

Holly Park, Liverpool, the season after South Liverpool moved out. The ground was the target of sustained vandalism, meaning that South, who where a big non league name in the 70s and 80s, eventually moved out and then folded. The club launched the career of John Aldridge amongst many others. Today they have re formed and play much lower down the pyramid, having been in abeyance for quite a while in the 90s.

Jimmy Case was there as well. South Liverpool are a name I can remember as kid as a couple of non-league clubs close the where I lived-Northwich Vics and Witton Albion played them a few times.

I used to pass the ground regularly as a teenager on my way to watch Everton as the ground was right next to Allerton train station. Even that has now changed into a big 'hub' Liverpool South Parkway, the station now occupies the ground that was the old stadium. I can remember on days when they were at home seeing the pre-match hubub that takes place and the groundstaff working on the pitch to get it ready for the coming game.

 

[steeplejack]

(sorry about paranoid watermarking but...)

A view of New Brighton's Tower Grounds either in their penultimate, or last Football league season (1949/50 or 1950/51).

League football in New Brighton was rather cursed. The original team, New Brighton Tower, were a franchise designed to build up the leisure portfolio in a popular Victorian seaside resort, in the late nineteenth century. The club quickly ran out of money and disappeared in 1901. The next New Brighton were in the Football League from 1923-51 and were largely spectacularly unsuccessful, although local derbies with Tranmere Rovers, five miles down the road in Birkenhead, were keenly enjoyed by fans on the Wirral. The club played at Sandheys Park on Rake Lane between the wars, but this park was demolished by a Luftwaffe bomb in 1940 and the penniless club was obliged to return to the Tower Ground in 1945. Years of grinding struggle and financial seizure finally took their toll and the club failed re-election in 1951, replaced by Workington.

After that the club continued to drop like a stone. New Brighton's Tower had been dismantled due to neglect and rust in 1918, but the base of the tower remained a music venue until it burned down in the late 1960s (the Beatles played a huge number of times there). The Tower grounds largely fell into ruin and the area of the football ground disappeared under a housing estate in the mid 70s. By this stage New Brighton were barely viable, homeless and playing in a dismal Cheshire league in a public park, in front of no fans. The remaining directors gave up in 1983 having failed even to raise a club committee.

New Brighton re-formed ten years later and bounced about the West Cheshire league again, playing amateur giants like Upton AAA and Maghull. But...yes...you've guessed it, they folded in 2012 due to lack of interest and an inability to replace the outgoing committee. Only a youth team is left, playing in a public park in Harrison Drive, next to the beach and the Mersey. This season they take to the park in the West Cheshire league youth division, and thus are the lowest ranked of any of the former Football league clubs.

Enough doom and gloom in today's photos, I'll find some more ones of "success" tomorrow.

 

[steeplejack]

Stuart Barlow of Tranmere Rovers is mobbed by Prenton Park scarfers after the astonishing FA Cup tie against Glenn Hoddle's Southampton. 0-3 down and seemingly out early on, Rovers rallied to win 4-3 on a muddy pitch, thanks to a Rideout hat trick.

This was during season 2000 / 1, see the highlights here- it's well worth it, as one of the best FA Cup ties of all time.

 

[gabi]

 

[Onket]

Pic not coming up, gabi.

 

[gabi]

Hmm, is for me. You wouldn't like it anyway though

 

[Onket]

We (Swindon) had a Xara kit about that time, too. Still got the shirt at home.

 

[Onket]

Hmm, is for me. You wouldn't like it anyway though

Just says 'image hosted by tripod'.

 

[steeplejack]

 

[gabi]

Why are quoted piccies feathered now?

 

[pppPenguin]

East Germany's Jurgen Sparwasser scores the only goal in the only game that ever took place between East and West Germany, in the 1974 World Cup final. It was a well taken finish about twelve minutes from the end and was a considerable humiliation for the West Germans. Sparwasser played for Magdeburg for most of his career and (I think) was mayor of the city for a while; he still turns out occasionally for the Magdeburg legends team.

West Germany played Holland in the 1974 world cup final.

 

[steeplejack]

finals, pedant.

 

[Sprocket.]

A great F.A cup final for the neutrals 1971 Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool.

 

[steeplejack]

Colwyn Bay player-manager Frank Sinclair plays against Boston United in Conference North. The former Chelsea defender engineered a remarkable escape from relegation for Bay last year and seems to be assembling an early 2000s Premiership all stars side, featuring Ade Akinbiyi and Pascal Chimbonda.

 

[steeplejack]

Orkney (red) beat Shetland (blue) 3-1 in Kirkwall last July, their first win in the annual challenge since 2004.

 

[Sprocket.]

This is what it's all about.