Cardiff City FA Cup Final Songs

The FA Cup Final song is one of my favourite FA Cup traditions, Chas and Dave's effort in 81 being a personal favourite of mine. Unfortunately it is something that has fallen by the wayside in recent years but thankfully followers of Cardiff City have thrown themselves into it.

BLUEBIRDS FLYING HIGH (5/10)
The official song, Bluebirds Flying High, is sung by ex-Fame Academy, Eurovision entrant James Fox. It's very middle of the road, innoffesive stuff. Describing the quality of Tony Capaldi's long throw and Enckelman's ability at saving "spot kicks". The most cringeworthy moment in the song comes near the beginning where Fox sings "at the helm is Peter Ridsdale". Singing about a football chairman is always wrong, but I suspect it was the best way for James Fox to convince the club (i.e. Peter Ridsdale) to endorse the song as the official song - it was Fox who approached Cardiff City with the song. The most interesting part of the video is City fullback Kevin McNaughton dressed in a Dangermouse suit, something I am yet to get to the bottom of.

DO THE AYATOLLAH (2/10)
A week or so later a few Cardiff City fans created a musical monstrosity in "Do the Ayatollah" - is a song based on the dance floor hit "Do the Macarena". (The ayatollah is wonderfully described on wikipedia as "Performing the Ayatollah is done by having both hands flat pointing towards each other raised above your head and repeatedly moving them up and down in a patting motion".) It is as bad as it sounds and it only gets worse when you watch the video. Being a huge fan of rather poor jokes I do like the 1927 (just before half past seven) gag at the start but it goes downhill after the Call to Prayer. Awful. Although, in fairness it is only meant to be a bit of fun and not taken too seriously. However, they have massacred a perfectly bad song!

CARDIFF CITY SUPERSTARS (9/10)
Sitting head and shoulders above "Bluebirds Flying High" and "Do the Ayatollah" is the excellent "Cardiff City Superstar" by Helen Love and a few members of the Super Furry Animals. A previous version of this song (written to the music of 70s kids TV show Banana Splits) was written a decade or so ago. I like this, the lyrics are far more fan-centric than the other two songs and include the excellent lines: "Alan Green and the BBC, we're the team you didn't want to see" and "Ninian Park will always be my home, not the IKEA stadium across the road".

It also has the marvellous line "Directors leave and players go.", something that James Fox would do well to remember after featuring Publicity Pete in his song.

North Korea 1966: World Cup Qualification

Most football fans with any interest in the World Cup knows all about North Korea's amazing run during the 1966 World Cup. They were the first Asian side to make it to the quarter finals of he competition and beat Italy by a goal to nil on the way there. However, what is less well known is their qualification campaign.

For the 1966 competition FIFA decided that only one nation would go forward from Africa, Asia & Oceania. The 16 African nations were understandibly upset by this so withdrew from the tournament en masse, as did the South Koreans.

This left North Korea and Australia as the only two entrants and with Australia not recognizing North Korea as a country a neutral venue of Phnom Penh in Cambodia was decided upon.

The Australian team was largely made up of Brits, with only one of the side actually born in Australia. The Australian sides only competition in these years came against touring sides from Europe or infrequent matches against amateur sides in Australia. This World Cup qualifier in Cambodia was their first international match in 6 years.

And it showed. The North Koreans ran out 6-1 winners in front of 60,000 spectators. Pak Seung Jin scored two, Han Bong Jin also scored twice with the other goals coming from On Seung Hwi and Pak Do Ik (the man who would in the finals score the winner against the Italians).

The second leg, played three days later in the same city, was a formality with the Koreans winning by three goals to one. The Australians, comprehensively beaten, had to wait until 1974 before they finally made the last stages of the World Cup Finals.

The North Koreans travelled to England as rank outsiders and shocked the world with a creditable draw against Chile and a remarkable win against Italy. Unfortuantely the dream ended in the quarter finals as despite going three goals up in twenty five minutes the Eusebio inspired Portugese fought back to win an enthralling match 5-3.

North Korea (like England!) have failed to emulate their 1966 successes but they are finally on the road to recovery with some very good performances at youth and full international level.

NORTH KOREA QUALIFICATION CAMPAIGNS
1970 - Withdrew, refused to play Israel.
1974 - Failed to win preliminary group, finishing behind Iran and Syria.
1978 - Withdrew.
1982 - Despite winning preliminary group and knocking out Japan, North Korea knocked out by China 4-2 (aet)
1986 - Failed to win preliminary group, finishing behind Japan.
1990 - Reached final round but finished bottom of the final group (last six countries)
1994 - Reached final round but again disappointingly finished bottom of final group (last six countries)
1998 - Did Not Enter
2002 - Did Not Enter
2006 - Won preliminary group but lost out in second stage to Iran and Japan.
2010 - Currently second in the second group stage after beating Jordan away and gaining a creditable draw against South Korea.

Slough Town FC

Slough Town ended their season today with relegation. A 1-0 loss at Fleet Town secured their fate and they join the (also relegated) Newport Isle of Wight in the 9th tier of English football (or at least I think it is, working out the pyramid that far down is quite difficult).


In the 97/98 season Slough Town finished in 8th in the Conference table, ahead of Yeovil Town (now of League One), they held this year's cup finalists Cardiff City to a 1-1 draw at Wexham Park and only narrowly lost at Ninian Park in the replay.

Those days are long gone for the Rebels. A series of financial calamities and the closure of their Wexham Park ground (that now lies in ruins) has led them to play in Windsor and now Beaconsfield. The town of Slough is almost certainly the largest town in the UK without a football side in its environs.

Despite all of the bad news of this season there have been some positives. Three of Slough's squad were involved in World Cup qualifiers (see here) and there has been quite a lot of talk about the club moving back to the town.

Gambrinus Liga

Most leagues in Europe have only a few powerhouse clubs who dominate the league. The Czech Republic is no exception with Slavia and Sparta from the capital city Prague dominating the league since its inception in 1993. Since then only Slovan Liberec and Banik Ostrava have broken up this dominance.

And this season with only five games to go the Championship title in the Czech Republic has yet to be decided. The usual suspects Sparta and Slavia are currently 1st and 2nd in the table with only a handful of matches left.

Sparta currently sit atop of the division having played a game more than Slavia. Sparta are the most successful club in Czech footballing history having won the Czech league ten times and the Czechoslovakian title on twenty four occasions. (They have also won the Mitropa Cup three times, only Vasas Budapest of Hungary have won more) They have only ever once been outside the top flight, this occured in 1975, it's a subject they obviously don't like to talk about as their official website talks about the "black year" and the reason for their relegation "due to a number of circumstances".

Both Sparta and Slavia look like they will qualify for the Champions League. Sparta were knocked out in the qualifying round by Arsenal, a club that Sparta share an interesting trait. In 1906 a Sparta director made a trip to England, he liked Arsenal's redcurrant kit so much that he brought some shirts back to Prague. Since that day Sparta have worn the colour and made it their own. (Arsenal later changed to red shirts with white sleeves, although they did bring back the redcurrant kit for their last season at Highbury).

Slavia are currently three points behind their city rivals with a game in hand. Prague's second club play in red and white halves, the red symbolising the heart and the white the fair play of the Olympic ideal. They are currently in the progress of moving ground to the delightfully named "Eden" stadium. Some idiots reported that Slavia would be playing Oxford United in the first game in their new ground - despite reports supporting this - it turns out it that Slavia's first opponents will actually be Oxford University - Slavia's first ever match was against Oxford Uni back in 1899.

Battling it out for third place, the UEFA Cup spot, are Brno, FK Teplice and Banik Ostrava. All three have experience in European competition. Brno made the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup in the 79/80 season, FK Telpice knocked out Kaiserslauten and Feyenoord in the 03/04 compeition while Banik Ostrava's Cup Winners Cup semi final in the late 70s is as far as any Czech club has ever gone in European competition.

FC Brno fans taunt Slovan Liberec...

Currently lying in mid-table place are Mlada Boleslav who, like a lot of teams who played behind the iron curtain, have undergone many name changes in their history. In the 1960s they were known as the Skoda Mlada Boleslav (the town contains a Skoda Museum), but even more bizarrely they were known as "Aston Villa Mlada Boleslav" for almost thirty years. Their official site mentions the name change but frustratingly never actually explains it.

Onto the sides battling for relegation and we come across Bohemians Prague (currently known as Bohemians 1905). They are probably the third most successful side in the capital and have one of the most lovely badges in world football. A kangaroo. A club tour of Australia in 1927 led to the adoption of the kangaroo as club badge and mascot, they were even given two kangaroos - both of which were donated to Prague zoo. For the strangely interested you can even buy kangaroo soft toys in their club shop. It's marvellous, but perhaps far too cute.

To give a British slant on the Czech top flight there is an odd story of Byron Webster. A 21 year old footballer born in Leeds who currently plays for SIAD Most (a club situated 70km north of Prague). With the globalisation of football continuing at pace we perhaps shouldn't be surprised, however I can't help but think that we in the UK have got the better end of the deal, losing the battling qualities of the "ex-York City star defender/midfielder" but gaining the Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky....

Welsh Premier Chairmen vote for two divisions

The much rumoured split of the Welsh Premier League will happen at the start of the 2010/2011 season. This will match the Scottish Premier Division with clubs playing each other four times (twice at home and twice away). The idea being that the better players will eventually drift to the top division improving the overall quality of the league, hopefully improving the performances of the Welsh clubs in Europe. [The Welsh Premier teams are also looking to move to a summer league which again could help performances in Europe]

I feel this is a positive move. I've always been sceptical of a Welsh league that doesn't feature any clubs from the three biggest cities in Wales (Cardiff, Swansea & Newport) being able to maintain an 18 team league. As a Cardiff City fan I'd love to see the league clubs and the exiled non-league sides get more involved in Welsh football but unfortuantely I don't see any way this could be possible currently.

A couple of ways the Welsh clubs playing in the English system could get more involved are as follows... Cardiff City don't have a reserve side - something that I feel hasn't been helpful at all to the development of fringe players such as Darcy Blake - so Cardiff could create a reserve side and field it in the Welsh League setup. However, I'm not sure how welcome the Welsh Premier clubs would make Cardiff City Reserves. It would surely devalue the competition somewhat to have a reserve sides in a Welsh Premier Division, I also don't think UEFA would be particularly impressed and European qualification for these reserve sides would simply be impossible.

The only other alternative is to set up clubs in the bigger cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport and parachute them into the Welsh Premier Division. This thought is almost too terrible to contemplate and stinks of franchising. However, I do feel that Cardiff City and Swansea City may have the support/finances to run a side each in the Welsh league system that is totally separate from their "full" side.

I feel that getting the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport involved in the Welsh Premier League is important to make the league more popular, but we have to be careful not to let the league lose any of its soul. Parachuting clubs into the Premier isn't fair, entering reserve sides into the league devalues the competition and Cardiff City, Swansea City and Newport County will never play in the League of Wales.

Anyway, overall, I feel that the 10 club top division is a positive move. For the record the current clubs who would qualify for the "elite" division are: Llanelli, The New Saints, Rhyl, Port Talbot, Bangor City, Carmarthen Town, Neath Athletic, Haverfordwest County, Welshpool Town and Aberystwyth Town. It would leave Caernarfon Town, once of the English pyramid, in the second flight of Welsh football.