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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Hark back to 2006. It was the first season at The Grove and despite many more tickets being on sale on a match-by-match basis, many gooners couldn't get a ticket to watch their club in the plush new stadium. It was nigh on impossible for Red members to get a ticket.
In those times, we couldn't buy a home draw in the Carling cup. Click to continue reading...

The Finnish newspapers have been full of talk about Veikkausliiga's apparent 'crisis' in the last few weeks. Domestic football in Finland has long suffered from poor facilities, low attendances, players leaving for richer foreign leagues, but these problems have become more prominent recently, and the football media has not been slow to point out the difficulties.

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Should I stay or should I go?

Since the start of the Premier League clubs have spent over £2.5 billion on upgrading their stadiums. English clubs make more from gate receipts then any of their European counterparts.

Although attendances are still very good, with the exception of the 3 promoted clubs and money bags Manchester City they are actually slightly down from last season.

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HJK v IFK Mariehamn, Wednesday 6:30pm

This is, somewhat surprisingly, a top of the table clash. IFK have already beaten last season's champions, drawn with one of the favourites for this season, and had a regulation win over wooden spoon-chasers KuPS. This puts them level on points with HJK, who dropped their two points at home to draw specialists TPS.

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Ari Hjelm has been with Tampere United throughout their ten-year history, first as an assistant to Harri Kampman and then from 2001 as head coach. He has won three championships, and it is a common refrain in Tampere that he is primarily responsible for the club's success, and that he is the best coach in the country.

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HJK 2 TPS 2

Highlights

Pasi Rautiainen's haircut garnered a lot of headlines when he unveiled it at the Veikkausliiga media event on the eve of the season. The formerly wild-haired TPS coach claimed that his new, clean-cut image was the result of a marital diktat after his wife finally snapped at her husband's barber-aversion.

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HJK 2 TPS 2

Highlights

Pasi Rautiainen's haircut garnered a lot of headlines when he unveiled it at the Veikkausliiga media event on the eve of the season. The formerly wild-haired TPS coach claimed that his new, clean-cut image was the result of a marital diktat after his wife finally snapped at her husband's barber-aversion.

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Veikkausliiga announced their hoped-for attendance figures yesterday, and they seem to be grounded in as much reality as the budgets. Clubs are hoping for an increase in their attendances that may be difficult to achieve with current facilities, as well as the cold, hard fact that most clubs will be unsuccessful in most seasons.

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Veikkausliiga announced their hoped-for attendance figures yesterday, and they seem to be grounded in as much reality as the budgets. Clubs are hoping for an increase in their attendances that may be difficult to achieve with current facilities, as well as the cold, hard fact that most clubs will be unsuccessful in most seasons.

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Veikkausliiga announced their hoped-for attendance figures yesterday, and they seem to be grounded in as much reality as the budgets. Clubs are hoping for an increase in their attendances that may be difficult to achieve with current facilities, as well as the cold, hard fact that most clubs will be unsuccessful in most seasons.

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As this opening round of Veikkausliiga has been decimated by pitch related postponements, this preview is dedicated to the two men who have actually done quite a lot to get playable pitches in Finland. Harkimo was instrumental in the construction of Finnair Stadium in Töölö, before selling his stake in the ground andwinding up Jokerit's football club, while Håkans played a similar role in the construction of Veritas Stadium in Kupittaa.

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As this opening round of Veikkausliiga has been decimated by pitch related postponements, this preview is dedicated to the two men who have actually done quite a lot to get playable pitches in Finland. Harkimo was instrumental in the construction of Finnair Stadium in Töölö, before selling his stake in the ground andwinding up Jokerit's football club, while Håkans played a similar role in the construction of Veritas Stadium in Kupittaa.

Click to continue reading...

As this opening round of Veikkausliiga has been decimated by pitch related postponements, this preview is dedicated to the two men who have actually done quite a lot to get playable pitches in Finland. Harkimo was instrumental in the construction of Finnair Stadium in Töölö, before selling his stake in the ground andwinding up Jokerit's football club, while Håkans played a similar role in the construction of Veritas Stadium in Kupittaa.

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Anyone who knows anyone who supports one of the top-4 teams in this country will have undoubtedly heard time and time again just how frustrating it is not being able to get a match ticket. You see, for plenty of Premier League clubs the demand far outweighs the supply, and so they have to set up ridiculously complicated ‘supporter reward' schemes, where they measure how ‘big' a fan you are and only allow you to buy tickets accordingly.

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The biggest disappointment this year has been HJK Helsinki. They started with high hopes, big signings, and a fluent attacking style, but things have fallen apart for them since the 3-2 win over Inter that seemed to renew their title hopes back in August. Their strategy - big money signings combined with the cream of [. Click to continue reading...

Stuart Baxter said that the Israel game would be a dress rehearsal for the Germany match in September, and he was pretty relieved that it went as well as it did. The high spot was Veli Lampi's full debut, as the former TPS right back looked solid and put in some excellent crosses including the [...] Click to continue reading...

KuPS - HJK 3-2 VPS - FC KooTeePee 1-1 MyPa - RoPS 1-0 FC Honka - TPS 2-2 TamU - FC Haka 1-1 FC Inter - FC Lahti 1-0 IFK Mariehamn - FF Jaro CANCELLED Inter have signed a great deal with the football gods. They won FC Lahti in front of over 8000 people willing to see Jari Litmanen in action, [...] Click to continue reading...

Ilkka Mäkelä had hoped for 5-6,000, but in the end the attendance for Jari Litmanen's return was 4,163. Seasoned football-watchers were unsurprised about that, given the history of football in Lahti. One told me that "hardly anybody in Lahti supports FC Lahti. The real clubs there are Kuusysi and Reipas. Click to continue reading...

FC Lahti have announced that the legendary #10, Jari Litmanen, is a new addition to their squad. He has been training with the team for a few weeks now and it was quite natural that he decided to bring this season to its conclusion playing for Lahti. "He has been training very well with us, and [...] Click to continue reading...

No, it's not over yet. The last game of round 13 will be played on Wednesday as TPS host VPS. (It is quite interesting, by the way, that even though Veikkausliiga are trying to avoid scheduling games on so many days, the completion of round 13 has taken five days). VPS are occupying the 8th position in [. Click to continue reading...

RoPS built their convincing 4-0 win against KuPS on some excellent finishing at the offensive end. Chileshe Chibwe netted twice to give RoPS a 2-0 lead and the job was finished by Mika Nurmela and Juha Majava in the second half. Chibwe scored his first in the 6th with an excellent header and bagged another [. Click to continue reading...

TamU lost yesterday, but the stats show a decent performance. The result sent MyPa to the top of the league, and kept TamU down in  lower mid-table. They will almost certainly have to rely on the cup to get into Europe this year, and they have a tough Quarter Final draw: FC Haka – TP-47 FC Honka [. Click to continue reading...

I read with interest the comments of Simon Corney (click here) and his dissatisfaction at the average attendance for 2007/08 season was 5,327 (16% down) which has cost the club an estimated £345,000 loss in revenue.
As a man with a young family it is difficult to justify a spend of £20 per match (and lets be honest with peripheral spending on car parking, food etc. Click to continue reading...