Day: January 17, 2011

Leyton FC’s Unfathomable Past, Unsustainable Present & Uncertain Future

Posted by | Jan 17, 2011 | |

The easy option would be to say that the resignation of Leyton FC from Division One North of the Ryman League brings to an end the story of London’s second-oldest senior football club, but nothing in the history of this particular club has ever been as straightforward as we might expect it to be. The story of this particular club (or the several that have played under its name) is an extraordinary story that has taken in four reformations, a trip to the High Court over a dispute regarding the right to claim the club’s expansive history and a VAT fraud case that imprisoned the club’s chairman. What is not in doubt is that the original Leyton FC was founded in 1868. Crisis of some sort or other seems to have been a recurring theme of the history of the club, with it having been disbanded in the late 1890s, 1911 and 1914, but it was the incarnation that played in the Athenian League from the 1920s on that hit the purple patch in the clubs history, winning the league in 1929 and the FA Amateur Cup in 1927 and 1928. After another briefly successful period in the mid-1960s – they won the Athenian League again in 1966 and 1967 – they merged with the Jewish club Wingate FC, and played as Leyton-Wingate until 1992 before merging again, this...

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Doha, Dundee and David Goodwillie: some updates

Posted by | Jan 17, 2011 | |

So I’ve been out the loop for a couple of weeks or so, not so much that I haven’t been able to enjoy a few weeks of sometimes wonderful sport, but enough that I’d lost track a bit of some of the surrounding stories. So while my sleep patterns return to normal after the Ashes (how great was that?) and I’m mostly loved up with football due to Raith being back on top of the league, I look through the news stories again to find a few surprises, so much that’s same old, same old, and a few things that were all too depressingly predictable. Since we’ve already mentioned the cricket, I’ll start with that. I’ve been following the Pakistan spot-fixing affair – and its surrounding media circus – with some interest following its first airing during the summer, and as anyone interested will have seen, their ICC hearing was held in Doha last week. None of the three cricketers involved were able to offer any meaningful explanation of how someone had been able to promise the exact timings of their no-balls beforehand, and while young Mohammad Amir was given a slightly easier ride, it became apparent that in cross-questioning that Salman Butt and Mohammed Asif were offering different explanation, such as those explanations were. The hearing, slightly surprisingly, deferred their verdict until next month. As far as I’m...

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Non-League Videos Of The Week

Posted by | Jan 17, 2011 | |

After a couple of weeks off, we’re bringing back our weekly round-up of non-league videos. Yesterday saw the Third Round of the FA Trophy, and our first two matches come from that competition, kicking off with AFC Wimbledon’s match against Woking. Wimbledon dropped two points against Luton Town during the week and were looking to regain a little momentum. Woking may be a division below Wimbledon, but they have won the FA Trophy three times and took Brighton & Hove Albion to a penalty-shoot-out in the First Round of the FA Cup. The second match, meanwhile, is the match between Ashford Town (Middlesex) of the Zamaretto League Division One Central and Dartford of the Blue Square South, a match which saw one of the biggest crowds in recent years at Ashford’s Short Lane. Our second two matches are both league matches. Sutton United are comfortably clear at the top of the Ryman League Premier Division, and they were at home at the weekend against Concord Rangers, who are one of the many sides chasing the play-off positions for a place in the Blue Square South. Our final match takes us to the First Division of the Combined Counties League and the match between Warlingham and the league leaders, Farnham Town. It’s a match that is well worth ten minutes of your time. As ever, our thanks go to those...

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