Morecambe 1 - 0 Cheltenham Town
League Two: 21st November 2009
No win in over two months and only the existence of more abysmal teams than Cheltenham keep them out of the relegation zone. Evidently they were the poorer of two poor sides this afternoon going down to a goal from a player allowed to run half the length of the pitch without let or hindrance. Click to continue reading...

NB. Turn your phone off before attending Ipswich press conference Roy Keane's latest press conference proved to be rich pickings for the journos in attendance. Not only was he very outspoken in his criticism of the Republic of Ireland's protests over Thierry Henry's handball, he also took the opportunity to petrify some of the hacks. Click to continue reading...

Man City's Joleon Lescott and his chica headed out to catch the Beyonce show at the Manchester Evening News Arena.

Also in attendance were Wayne, his brother, and wifey Coleen Rooney.

We're all over Coleen's fringe and so over Joleon's denim.

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Man City's Joleon Lescott and his chica headed out to catch the Beyonce show at the Manchester Evening News Arena.

Also in attendance were Wayne, his brother, and wifey Coleen Rooney, Steven Gerrard and family and Lisa Carrick.

We're all over Coleen's fringe and so over Joleon's denim.

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From SBJ, via FootieBusiness:

Although three teams (Dallas, Kansas City and San Jose), didn't provide numbers, the rest of the franchises did report their rates of renewal for 2010. Not surprisingly, Seattle and TFC lead the pack with more than 90% renewal rates. Perhaps also not surprisingly, New England trails the pack as the only reporting team below 50% at a dismal 30%.

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Will football come home to England for the 2018 World Cup? We explore this topic as well as look back at the weekend's UEFA World Cup Qualifying playoffs and discuss the potential impact of Ireland's elimination on US/UKÂ TV viewership and traveling supporter attendance to South Africa with Soccerex Business Development Director, Misha Sher.

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Major League Soccer conducted the annual State of the League on Monday, this time by conference call. Garber defended the current playoff structure. "We felt like we got it right this year," Garber said. Calling the games 'exciting,' Garber pointed to attendance as proof that this year's playoff structure worked. Click to continue reading...

As you can see from the highlights, the US MNT's 1-0 loss to Slovakia wasn't pretty, but they hung in there, got some good chances, and only allowed a goal on a questionable penalty kick (also, good job spelling Marek Hamsik's name wrong, USsoccer.com).

There really isn't too much you can say about this match.

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In a match from Argentina's Liga Regional de San Francisco between Sociedad Sportiva Devoto and Rivadavia de Rio Primero, the referee showed a red card to a Rio Primero defender for his goal-saving handball in a way that was either very nice or very creepy, depending on how you look at it.

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Guingamp pulled off a shock result by beating FC Nantes 2-0 away from home.

Nantes we favorites to win the game as Guingamp were struggling in the relegation places ahead of the match and Nantes were set to regain a promotion place.

Christian Bassila gave EAG the lead in the 32nd minute, heading home an Alharbi El Jadeyaoui corner, Gilmar then sealed the victory in the 72nd minute when he headed Guingamp into a 2-0 lead.

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Defender Fabian Kling scored the winning goal in the 40th minute as the Fort Lewis College men's soccer team won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament 3-1 against Metropolitan State College on Sunday in Durango.

Kling booted home a corner kick by Tom Settle as the Skyhawks took a 2-1 lead just before halftime.

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The playoff numbers look like this...

5 year comparison Conference Semifinals 1st Leg  Avg +/- Home Teams  2005  12,147 NA  Chicago  NY  Colorado  Los Angeles  2006  9,533  -21.52%  Chicago  NY  Colorado  Chivas USA  2007  14,245  49. Click to continue reading...

The 2009 MLS regular season saw overall average attendance drop to an average of 16,037. Down from last years 16,459. It did, though, see a new record for attendance set by the expansion Seattle Sounders FC, who averaged 30,897 over the course of the season. Here are the averages of all the teams in the league this year. Click to continue reading...

Torquay United 3 - 1 Cheltenham TownFA Cup 1st round Saturday 7th November
The reds took another 3-1 thrashing at the hands of Torquay. I was not present to experience the pain of Lee Ridley's dismissal by Mr. Sheldrake in the 19th minute. I assume this was the same Mr. Sheldrake who officiated at the first home match of the season where Cheltenham recorded their only home win so far. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle boss Chris Hughton was just delighted with his team's professional win at St. James' Park this afternoon, in front of  a good Geordie crowd of  43,067, the second biggest attendance of the day in England. Andy Carroll 4th goal this season Newcastle won fairly comfortably with goals from Gutierrez, Carroll and Simpson, before Dean Keates [. Click to continue reading...

Perhaps not remembering what happened to Duane the last time someone wanted to move the Columbus Crew, Jason Davis over at MatchFit USA decides he wants to take a crack at getting rid of the team everyone loves to hate now that they win a lot.

Last night, only 10,109 could be bothered to watch the men in yellow go down to Real Salt Lake.

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With an average attendance of 48,750 last season, Newcastle United are the 18th best supported team in Europe. In England only Manchester United, who top the whole league, and Arsenal manage to beat Newcastle's average attendance, although Celtic managed 9th and Rangers managed 16th. Given the mess we were in last season and the fact that there [. Click to continue reading...

I turn my back for one minute and Creepy Jose Romero turns into a 14-year-old dick. On Houston selling lots of tickets for the weekend:

No Sounders FC practice today, but thanks to the Dynamo press crew that really does a nice job, I've learned that Houston's home field is down to upper level end zone and sideline seats.

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This week the teams of the United Soccer League First Division were meeting in Beaverton, OR talking about the upcoming 2010 season under new owners, NuRock. One of the most interesting reports coming out of this meeting is talking about a possible hiatus for the USL Second Division. There are some facts to bring that truth out.

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Some pretty pedestrian stuff so far this week, perhaps everyone still in shock after our thrashing on Saturday. First of all a surprising statistic has been released: Bolton's attendances rose last season by 8%, one of only two clubs to see a rise in attendance. I don't know if you noticed but last season (and more so this current season) the Reebok has been looking strikingly empty.

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The first round of MLS playoffs (aka MLS Conference Semi-finals)Â always spurs heated discussion about its playoff format as well as the League's two conference structure.

Let's take an overview of various playoff format options and League structures for Major League Soccer. There should be three objectives to a playoff format and League Structure:

1) Crown a worthy champion

2) Entertain the fans

3) Maximize revenue for the teams and League

No matter what playoff format is used or what tweaks are made to improve it, a percentage of fans will criticize it and offer other imperfect solutions.

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Representatives from Manchester United and Liverpool lead a list of twelve Premier League clubs who are expected to watch QPR wonderkid Raheem Sterling in action this week.
Sterling has been picked for the England Under-16 side to play Northern Ireland in the Victory Shield on Thursday.
Scouts from United and Liverpool were in attendance at a QPR Under-18 match over the weekend to have another look at the striker. Click to continue reading...

Hajduk Split have had a terrible start to the season in Croatia, especially by their elite standards, sitting 14 points behind leaders Dinamo Zagreb after 12 games up until this weekend. Fan anger though with no reports of any incidents or threats prompted police to step-up security during training and at matches this week.

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Bath City played a scoreless draw with Bromley on Saturday, and I was not there to see it. It was the first home match of the season I have missed (except for one pre-season friendly). You might wonder what possibly could have kept me away from Twerton Park at such a critical juncture in City's season. Click to continue reading...

Guingamp suffered a 3-0 defeat away at Laval last night, a result that sees them drop into the relegation zone for the first time this season.

Guingamp went behind in the 34th minute, Steve Haguy opening the scoring for the Tangos (1-0, 34 mins).

The game reamined 1-0 until the 81st minute when EAG cracked and conceeded 2 late goals.

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HOWDY guys.
FP used to hate Saturday's when he was working at one of the major supermarkets (doesn't matter which one, they as bad as each other).
But now Saturday's are a day for a bit of R and R.
This has nothing to do with Glory, but sharing is caring, right?
Anywho, Glory take on Melbourne Victory tomorrow, and with game-day so close there's quite a bit going on. Click to continue reading...

Don't you just love it when you begin something and think you are close to finishing when you realize you are better off starting all over again? I've had that happen here with what I thought was going to be a new look for this place. I had spent a couple weeks on a new design when I just basically hit a wall with it and couldn't get myself to go any further with it.

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No surprise there, then: in a tanking economy where even the nation's most popular league, the NFL, has had trouble selling tickets and Major League Baseball's attendance fell 6.9%, it's not a shock to learn that as Soccer America reports, MLS' attendance fell overall by 2.9% in the regular season just concluded, falling from 16,460 in 2008 to 16,037.

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Major League Soccer's regular season wrapped up yesterday and here are the final attendance figures:

Team G Total Avg Med Hi Lo Change Seattle 15 463,455 30,897 32,404 33,108 28,548 NA Los Angeles 15 306,240 20,416 19,718 27,000 16,649 -21.5% Toronto 15 305,167 20,344 20,384 20,902 19,843 1. Click to continue reading...

After years in coaching in Spain and now England, it seems Fabio Capello has turned on his Italian compatriots...or at least is now far enough away to not fear a violent attack from the ultras. At an seminar organized by the Italian FA about the state of calcio, Capello is quoted as saying:

"It's the ultras who give the orders in Italy.

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Newcastle had the 3rd highest crowd over the weekend in England. The visit of Doncaster Rovers attracted 43,949 to St. James' Park Newcastle's crowd of 43,949 on Saturday was beaten only by Manchester City's attendance of 44,906 against Fulham (2-2) on Saturday and Liverpool's attendance of 44,188 yesterday, when the mighty Manchester United  were the [. Click to continue reading...

The final regular season numbers look like this...

5 year comparison  Final Week YTD   Avg  +/-  GP  Avg  +/-  GP  2005  18,417   6  15,108   192  2006  20,277  10.10%  6  15,504  2.62%  192  2007  20,575  1. Click to continue reading...

Port Vale 1 - 1 Cheltenham Town
I wonder if Robbie Williams was there? A Port Vale fan - does he bank roll the club?
Apparently Cheltenham could have gone in 3-0 down at half time. They rallied and dominated towards the end of the second half. Pook's goal was a scorcher but Bird and Hammond had good chances which were not put away. Click to continue reading...

Guingamp suffered their third straight away defeat at the hands of FC Metz last night.

Guingamp started the game brightly creating 3 good chances in the first half but Giresse, Soumah and Diallo were all unable to take their chances.

At half-time the game remained 0-0, Guingamp's failure to take their chances would once again come back to hurt them.

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Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson finally lost patience with Gareth Southgate after sacking him following Tuesday night 2-0 victory over Derby County.

"The long term future of the club was a key decision in replacing Southgate. One good result wasn't going to change that decision,"
"We had a strategy for Gareth's replacement.

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