If you played football at primary school, do you recall the first colours you donned to play? My first colours were green and black taken from the school crest. We used to play in a striped shirt with this combination, but we went radical one season when the coach/teacher ordered us the Borussia Monchengladbach shirt … Continue reading i Neroverdi di Sassuolo →

The continuation of tales of yesteryear football takes us all all the way back to June 1988, not just the game itself, but the entire entertaining day out for two relative novices going to games abroad at that time, my longstanding chum Grant and I. This was only my second game in Italy, following Cesena … Continue reading Padova & Calcio →

This week's Covid recollection goes right back to the start, my first ever game abroad at Cesena. In the photo above we were right in the back row, top left of the high curva at the opposite end. "Picture the scene, the final league matches of Italy’s Serie B at the end of the 1986/87 … Continue reading Cesena Spareggio →

I recently discovered some of my early writing, and given this COVID period where football is scarce, I thought I would lift some of these tales from typed paper into the modern world of my blog! We start with one of my earliest games abroad, a remarkable pivotal moment in the history of Vicenza Calcio … Continue reading Vicenza Salvezza →

If Ancona’s first nibble at the Serie A top table had been too short, while then manager Vincenzo Guerini brought in some “stranieri” (foreign players), he did largely stay loyal to the squad that took the club to that historic promotion. Weeks on from the invasion of the pitch at Livorno by 8,000 excited Anconetani … Continue reading My Ancona, Part 4 (2003 to the present day) →

You might think that after four promotions, a Coppa Italia Cup Final, an Anglo Italian Cup and Coppa Italia C Semi Final, as well as the huge play out relegation dodge avoiding the drop into the fourth tier, things might start to settle down for Ancona. After all, despite three relegations thrown into the mix, … Continue reading My Ancona, part 3 (2000-2003) →

Attaching myself to the Ancona cause had been a wonderful thing. In five short years they hadn’t just returned to the second tier for the first time in 37 years, but pushed beyond that previous constraint and nibbled at the top table of Italian football with some of Europe’s greatest club sides. Okay it only … Continue reading My Ancona, part 2 (1993 – 2000) →

I am sure I am not alone in becoming interested in certain clubs courtesy of that bastion of yesteryear, the Subbuteo team catalogue! The 1974 World Cup Final kits were purchased in the flick to kick wobbly base style, but somehow West Germany v The Netherlands (or Holland as we knew them back in the … Continue reading My Ancona, Part 1 (1987-1993) →

This article will act as introduction to a Lombardia Special which will replace the planned Euro 2020 preview for the June edition of Football Weekends to be published at the end of May. Anyone who has been reading Football Weekends for any length of time will know from many of my articles that I love … Continue reading Breathing Life into Lombardia →

  I have had the pleasure of bringing more than a dozen towns, cities and regions of Italy to life for Football Weekends and only once from Serie A when newly promoted SPAL rumbled into the top flight. My world is more the characterful under card of Serie B, C and D, and writing a … Continue reading I, Como →