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July 1, 2011

France: final table of 2010-11, with clubs playing in Europe in UEFA competitions for 2011-12 / Plus location of clubs in 2011-12 Ligue 1, with attendance data.

Filed under: Football Stadia,France — admin @ 9:02 pm

France: Ligue Un clubs playing in Europe for 2011-12
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Note: to see my latest map-&-post of Ligue Un, click on the following: category: France.
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This post has 2 charts – one chart, above, that features all 6 clubs from France that qualified for Europe in 2011-12; and the second chart, further on down, which includes a location-map of the 2011-12 Ligue 1 season and attendance data for the 20 clubs.

The chart page, which you can see by clicking on the image above, shows the 6 clubs in France that will play in Europe in 2011-12, including the 2 clubs – Lille OSC and Olympique de Marseille – who have automatically qualified for the lucrative promised land of the UEFA Champions League Group Stage. Lille won their first title in 57 years. And by winning the Coupe de France title, Lille became the 16th French club to win the double. Lille’s Rudi Garcia bucked the stereotype of the ultra-cautious, clean-sheet-obsessed French manager by having Les Dogues play with an attacking style. And so for the second straight year, Lille had the most goals scored in Ligue 1. Featured on the chart page is top scorer in the league, FW Moussa Sow, a Senegalese international, who netted 25 times. There are also photos of 3 other Lille players instrumental in their scoring onslaught…Côte d’Ivoire international FW Gervinho (who scored 14 times and accumulated 10 assists); MF Yohan Cabaye (9 assists); and Belgian international MF Eden Hazard (8 assists) [note: Cabaye was transferred to Newcastle United this off-season]. If I had more room, I would have added a photo of Lille’s goalkeeper Mickaël Landreau, whose shot-stopping ability was crucial to Lille’s title run. The photo of Rudi Garcia (who played for Lille as a midfielder from 1982 to 1988) was taken right after the final whistle had blown after Lille’s final match, in Paris, and Lille had clinched the title with a 2-1 win over PSG.

I have included an architects’ rendering of Lille’s new Grande Stade Lille Métropole, projected for a summer of 2012 opening, as well as a photo of the ongoing construction of the ~50,000-capacity stadium. So after the 2011-12 season, Lille will finally say good riddance to the inadequate and running-track-scarred Stadium Lille-Métropole, which only held 17,700. This, combined with the fact that Lille finally won a national title in the modern era, may signal a bit of a shift in the balance of power in French football…because if Lille can continue their fine form and regularly fill that new stadium, Les Dogues won’t have to sell players like Yohan Cabaye and (possibly) Eden Hazard, and Gervinho – because all that ticket revenue will allow Lille to afford such top-shelf talent.

Below is a graphic depiction of the formation, in 1944, of Olympique Sporting Club Lille Métropole, featuring old club crests – Click below for a larger image…

Old Lille OSC crests from this page at the following site: http://uefaclubs.com

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Below: attendance data from 2010-11, and location-map of clubs in the 2011-12 Ligue 1 – Click below for a larger image…

Photo credits -
Lille… Photo of construction on new stadium (Grande Stade Lille Métropole) from LilleMetropole.fr, here. Architect’s rendering of Grande Stade Lille Métropoe from Info-Stades.fr, here. Background art of architect’s rendering fromSkyscrapercity.com/thread, here. Interior photo of Stadium Lille Métropole from AgoraFoot.fr, here.

Photo of Moussa Sow by Bob Edme/AP via GreenwichTime.com, here. Photo of Gervinho from Goal.com, here. Photo of Yohan Cabaye by Alex Livesey/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio.om, here. Photo of Eden Hazard from RhazesFootballCrazy.blogspot.com, here.

Photo of Rudi Garcia from Getty Images via DayLife.com, here. Photo of new 2011-1 Lille home jersey from FootballFashion.org, here. Aerial photo of Stadium Lille Métropole from http://demeraux.jerome.pagesperso-orange.fr/Topf.html [Collection of Postcards of French football stadiums].

Olympique de Marseille… Photo of main stand at Stade Vélodrome with fans spelling out ‘O-M’ with placards by Fred GLLS at Flickr.com, here. Exterior photo of Stade Vélodrome at night from Football-pictures.net, here. Aerial image of Stade Vélodrome from Projets-architecte-urbanisme.fr, here.

Olympigue Lyon…Photo of Lyon ultras at Stade Gerland from Lyon v. Schalke UEFA CL match [14 Sept. 2010] by S. Guiochon/Le Progres via UltrasSpirit.com, here. Photo of the interior of Stade Gerland from Ticket$football.com, here. Aerial image of Stade Gerland from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Paris Saint-Germain…Photo of PSG ultras Boulogne Boys by ngari.norway at Flickr.com, here. Exterior photo of Parc des Princes by psgmag.net at Flickr.com, here. Aerial photo of Parc des Princes from Bouygues.com, here.

FC Sochaux…Interior photo during a match at Stade Auguste Bonal from fan-de-stade.skyrock.com, here. Interior photo of Stade Auguste Bonal by Arnaud 25 at en.wikipedia.org, here. Aerial photo of Stade Auguste Bonal from Skyscrapercity.com/thread, here.

Rennes…Interior photo of Stadee de la Route de Lorient by Kuso at en.wikipedia.org, here. Exterior ground-level photo of Stade de la Route de Lorient from FussballTempel.net, here. Aerial photo of Stade de la Route de Lorient from Skyscrapercity.com/thread, here.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2010-11 Ligue 1‘.
Thanks to E-F-S site, for attendances.
Thanks to European football Club Logos site at http://uefaclubs.com/html/Lille-OSC.html.
Thanks to Demis.nl, for the base map of France, Demis Web Map Server.

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June 26, 2011

Minor League Baseball: the Midwest League (Class A).

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball: MiLB Class A — admin @ 3:57 pm

Midwest League
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The Midwest League is a Class A minor league baseball league. [Class A is four levels below Major League Baseball, with leagues classified as AAA, AA, and A-Advanced above it.] Despite its lower-minor-league status, the Midwest League as a whole outdraws 4 other leagues above it – the higher-placed leagues the Midwest League outdrew last season were the Mexican League, the Carolina League, the Southern League, and the California League. The Midwest League is one of 2 Class A leagues (the other being the South Atlantic League). The Midwest League now has 16 teams – its ranks were increased by two in the off-season, with the Bowling Green Hot Rods and the Lake County Captains both moving over from the South Atlantic League.

In 2010, the Midwest League averaged 3,787 per game. That made the Midwest League the fifth-highest-drawing minor league.
For the record, here are all the minor leagues’ average attendances for 2010 -
Average attendance of minor leagues in 2010…
International League (AAA) – 6,908 per game.
Pacific Coast League (AAA) – 6,120 per game.
Texas League (AA) – 5,264 per game.
Eastern League (AA) – 4,663 per game.
Midwest League (A) – 3,787 per game.
New York-Penn League (A-Short Season) – 3,490 per game.
South Atlantic League (A) – 3,306 per game.
Carolina League (A-Advanced) – 3,256 per game.
Mexican League (AAA) – 3,232 per game.
Southern League (AA) – 3,188 per game.
Northwest League (A-Short Season) – 2,920 per game.
California League (A-Advanced) – 2,237 per game.
Pioneer League (Rookie) – 2,158 per game.
Appalachian League (Rookie) – 865 per game.
[Arizona League, Gulf Coast League, Dominican Summer League and Venezuela Summer League attendances not available]
[Numbers from Baseball-Reference.com].

The Midwest League was established in 1947, as the Illinois League, a Class D minor league, with six teams from southern Illinois. [At the time, Class D was the lowest level of the minor league system, before re-organization in 1963, and would be equivalent to the Rookie League level of modern Organized Baseball (or the 6th level below MLB).] The six original teams in the Illinois League were from Belleville, Centralia, Marion, Mattoon, Mount Vernon, and West Frankfort (all in the southern half of the state of Illinois). Today, none of those locales have teams in the Midwest League (or any other minor league in Organized Baseball), although some of these franchises still exist, like, for example, the Mattoon, Illinois franchise, which moved to Keokuk, Iowa in 1958; then to Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin in 1963; then to Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1984 – before finally settling in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1993.

The oldest current member of the Midwest League which has remained in the same location is the Clinton LumberKings, who were formed in 1954 as the Clinton Pirates. The Clinton ball club has had affiliations with a dozen MLB franchises, starting with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1954-58), and currently is affiliated with the Seattle Mariners (since 2009). The second-oldest ball club in the modern-day Midwest League which has never left its original location is the Quad Cities River Bandits, who were formed in 1960, as the Quad Cities Braves. [The term Quad Cities is the popularly-used name for the five-city metropolitan area of Davenport, Iowa/Bettendorf, Iowa/Rock Island, Illinois/Moline, Illinois/East Moline, Illinois - and which straddles the Mississippi River in southeastern Iowa/northwest Illinois.] The Quad Cities River Bandits have had affiliations with 7 MLB ball clubs, and are currently, since 2005, the fourth-highest minor league farm team of the nearby St. Louis Cardinals.

The third and fourth-oldest teams in the Midwest League which have remained in the same location are two Iowa-based ball clubs – the Burlington Bees and the Cedar Rapids Kernals. Both these teams joined the Midwest League in 1962 from the Three-I League [Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa League] which had just disbanded in January, 1962. Actually, in terms of actual ball club longevity regardless of league, these teams are the oldest in the current Midwest League because the present-day Burlington ball club was formed in 1947, and the present-day Cedar Rapids ball club was formed 2 years later in 1949. Burlington has been affiliated with 13 MLB franchises, but were Independent prior to joining the Midwest League in 1962, when they had a one-year affiliation with the Pittsburgh Pirates, followed by a 12-year affiliation with the Kansas City Athletics/Oakland Athletics. As of this season [2011], the Burlington Bees are back within the Oakland Athletics’ farm system. The Burlington Bees had the lowest average attendance in the Midwest League in 2010, drawing just 971 per game to their rather out-of-date ballpark. Granted, Burlington is a pretty small municipality that frankly has no business calling itself a “city” (as its Wikipedia page does), seeing as how it has a population of around 26,800 {2000 figure}. I don’t know what the situation is with the Bees, but it would not surprise me in the least if this team is the next Midwest League ball club to move to greener pastures. By comparison, the Cedar Rapids Kernals don’t have near the problems drawing fans that Burlington does, due to its size {~255,000 metro-area population in Cedar Rapids} and a relatively new ballpark (opened in 2002), but still, Cedar Rapids drew only 12th-best in the Midwest League in 2010, averaging 2,585 per game.

The fact is, aside from Kane County, all the best-drawing teams in the Midwest League are in the Eastern Division, which means teams from locations outside the original Iowa/Illinois/Wisconsin region of the Midwest League; and, including Kane County, all the best-drawing teams are from locations that the Midwest League expanded into in the last 20 years. In other words, the reason the Midwest League has such good attendance numbers in relation to its relatively lower-minor-league level is that, with a few exceptions (like Burlington and Clinton), the league and its franchises have opted to relocate to municipalities which offered a larger fan base, and in doing so, the teams were able to secure new stadiums in those locales. One example is the aforementioned Fort Wayne Tin Caps (the nickname is a Johnny Appleseed reference), who drew third-best in the league last season, pulling in 5,735 per game. Other examples can be seen in the Dayton Dragons, the Kane County Cougars, the West Michigan Whitecaps, the Lansing Lugnuts, the Lake Country Captains (located east of Cleveland), and the Great Lakes Loons (located in central Michigan). None of these teams existed 20 years ago, and the impressively-drawing Dayton Dragons are just 11 years old, while the Lake Country Captains and the Great Lakes Loons teams are just 9 and 7 years old, respectively. These teams have nice new ballparks and draw very well, all drawing over 4,000 per game last season.

The highest-drawing ball club in the Midwest League is the Dayton Dragons. Dayton drew 8,535 per game in 2010, which was the 5th-highest average attendance in all of minor league baseball last season (!). {See this list (from BallparkDigest.com) of all minor league teams’ attendances from 2010.} The Kane County Cougars, of Geneva, Illinois drew second-best in the Midwest League in 2010, with an average attendance of 6,244 per game. The Kane County Cougars are within the loosely-defined area known as Chicagoland, and are 34 miles west of the city center of Chicago.

As I have mentioned in earlier posts on minor leagues recently, a trend with minor league farm teams is for the parent-club Major League team to place one or more of their minor league teams relatively close to where the big league team plays – and no better example of this can be seen than in the Dayton Dragons’ case. Because Dayton is just 49 miles north of Cincinnati. The prevailing wisdom in the era that spanned from after World War II right up to the early 1990s was that minor league teams couldn’t survive when placed less than 60 miles or so from a Major League team. The few exceptions to this rule-of-thumb were with San Jose, California; with Toledo, Ohio; with Pawtucket (ie, Providence, Rhode Island); and with Reading, Pennsylvania – all four of which were/are less than 50 miles from San Francisco, Detroit, Boston and Philadelphia, respectively. Dayton, Ohio is a good example of how this thinking has changed. Dayton is a pretty large city {Dayton metro-area population is currently around 841,000}. But Dayton did not have a minor league baseball team for almost half a century! Between the years 1952 and 1999, there was no baseball team in Dayton {see this, from Baseball-Reference.com}. It’s impossible to prove whether the people who ran baseball back then were right about this “zone of exclusion”, as it were. Because back in the 1960s and the 1970s and the 1980s, it wasn’t so expensive to see Major League Baseball games, so the lesser prices that a theoretical minor league team would charge in a near-to-an-MLB-team market like Dayton might not make a difference to the average fan there. But these days, with the high cost of attending Major League Baseball games (especially when factoring in the price gouging that goes on with parking fees and the price of concessions in MLB venues), it makes economic sense for, say, a family of 4 from Dayton, Ohio, to not make that expensive trip to down the road to Cincinnati to see a Cincinnati Reds game, but stay right in Dayton, and see the Dayton Dragons, featuring some future Cincinnati Reds prospects. And all for about one-fourth of the cost, at least. With the case of the Kane County Cougars, well, despite the fact that the team is not affiliated with either of the Chicago MLB teams 35 miles or so to the east the Cougars still draw over 6,000 per game. The fact of the matter is that attending minor league baseball games is a fun, relaxing and very affordable recreational activity. And now in many more areas of the United States, people who live within easy driving distance of a Big League ball club have the option of going out to a ball game without spending an arm and a leg.

From the Midwest League page the of MiLB site, ‘History [of the Midwest League]‘.

Photo credits -
Bowling Green Hot Rods/Bowling Green Ballpark…photo from RaysProspects.com, here.
Dayton Dragons/Fifth Third Field 9Dayton)…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Fort Wayne Tin Caps/Parkview Field…photo from In.gov/visitindiana/blog, here.
Great Lakes Loons/Dow Diamond…photo from the Great Lakes Loons’ page at MiLB site, here.
Lake County Captains…Aerial image fron Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Lansing lugnuts/Cooley Law School Stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
South Bend silver Hawks/Stanley Covaleski Regional Stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
West Michigan Whitecaps/Fifth Third Ballpark (Grand Rapids)…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Beloit Snappers/Harry C. Pohlman Field…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Burlington Bees/Community Field…Photo from LittleBallparks.com, here.
Cedar Rapids Kernals/Veteran’s Memorial Stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Clinton LumberKings/Alliant Energy Field…Aerial photo by Michael J. Kearney, at en.wikipedia.org, here.
Kane County Cougars/Elfstrom Stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Peoria Chiefs/O’Brien Field…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Quad Cities River Bandits/Modern Woodmen Park…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Wisconsin Timber Rattlers/Time Warner Cable Field at Fox Cities Stadium…Photo from this April, 2009 article at OnMilwaukee.com, by Andrew Wagner, ‘Deal with Brewers paying off for Timber Rattlers‘.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Midwest League‘.
Thanks to David Kronheim at NumberTamer.com. Attendance figures from NumberTamer.com/ -Numbertamer.com’s Minor League Baseball – 2010 attendance analysis [pdf] (Note, league attendances begin on page 28 of the 60 page pdf.)

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June 18, 2011

England: final table of 2010-11 Premier League, with clubs playing in Europe in UEFA Competitions for 2011-12 / Plus, map with locations of clubs in 2011-12 Premier League, with attendance data.

Filed under: 2011-12 English Football,Eng>Premier League (Eng-1st Level),Football Stadia — admin @ 5:00 pm

Below: final table of 2011-12 Premier League, featuring the 8 clubs that qualified for Europe in the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League and in the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League…

Final table of 2010-11 Premier League featuring English clubs playing in Europe in 2011-12
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On this post, there is a chart, which you can see by clicking on the image at the top of this post, as well as a list of attendance data and a location-map, which you can see by clicking on the image 10 paragraphs down…

From DailyMail.co.uk, 2011-12 Premier League fixtures in a club-by-club guide, {click here}.
‘2011-12 UEFA Champions League‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
‘2011-12 UEFA Europa League‘.

The chart page shows the 2010-11 Premier League final table, with the 8 English clubs playing in European competitions for 2011-12 featured. For 2010-11 Premier League champions Manchester United, I have included photos of 4 key players – top scorer in the league Dimitar Berbatov, first-season sensation Javier Hernandez (who had 13 goals), Wayne Rooney (shown scoring his bicycle-kick goal that won the Manchester derby), and Premier League Player of the Year Nemanja Vidic. If I had more room, I would have shown a photo of Nani {his page at en.wikipedia.org, here}., whose 9 goals and league-leading 14 assists contributed to Man U’s title-run. There was another player on Manchester United who was in the leaders of assists, and that was Wayne Rooney who had 11 assists along with his 10 goals. Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is shown in a photo just as the final whistle blew at Blackburn and Manchester United had clinched their 19th English title, which surpassed the 18 titles won by Liverpool, and makes Manchester United the all-time most-titled club in England.

The top three clubs – Manchester United, Chelsea, and Manchester City – have automatically qualified for the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League Group Stage.

The 4th place finisher, Arsenal, must get through a Play-off round tie to advance to the much-coveted and highly lucrative Champions League Group Stage. The draw for the 2011-12 UEFA CL Play-off round will be on 5th August. As instituted last season, all the teams who have qualified for the UEFA Champions League Play-off round will be split into 2 sections…one section for champions and one for non-champions. Each match-up will thus comprise one team from the champions section versus one team from the non-champions section. The Non-champions section will be seeded. As it stands now, Arsenal is in the set of seeded teams, along with Bayern Munich, Lyon, and Villarreal, with Udinese as-yet un-seeded. Here is en.wikipedia’s page on the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League, set at the Play-off round procedure, and the Group Stage set-up {click here}.

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp might not have wanted the bother of it (and the possible damage to league-form that comes with a Europa League run), but 5th place finisher Tottenham Hotspur will be playing in Europe this season. Spurs are in the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League Play-off round {a link to that information is 6 paragraphs down). Harry says he’ll play youngsters, so we’ll see how that goes.

8th place finisher Fulham is back in Europe two seasons after their brilliant 2009-10 Europa League campaign, where they went all the way to the final (losing 2-1 to Atlético Madrid in AET). That Europa League run saw the West London-based Cottagers – an unassuming club with no major titles, less than 2 dozen seasons in top flight football, and a ground that cannot be expanded past its current capacity of 25,700 – take the scalps of some pretty big clubs in Europe, including Juventus, Hamburg, Wolfsburg, and Shakhtar Donetsk. Fulham qualified for Europe then by a 7th place league position in 2008-09. This time, Fulham gets in as the highest-ranked team from the Fair Play table not yet qualified for any European competition (which is another way of saying that Fulham were one of the least-penalized teams in 2010-11). Fulham will enter the first qualifying round of the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League. That means a late June/early July two-legged-tie. Fulham will play the Faroese club NSÍ Runavík. The 1st Leg will be on 30 June, in Runavík, Faroe Islands, with the 2nd Leg on 7 July at Craven Cottage. {Europa League First qualifying round, all match-ups {en,wikipedia.org)}.

13th place finisher and 2010-11 FA Cup finalist Stoke City qualified for European play by inheriting Manchester City’s spot as FA Cup winner. Stoke will play in a Europa League Third qualifying round tie. The draw for the Europa League Third qualifying round [incl. Stoke City] is set for 15 July, and the 1st Leg of the match-ups are to be played on 28 July…here is how the teams to be playing in the third and final qualifying round are shaping up – {‘2011-12 Europa League Play-off round}’. Stoke City played in Europe in 1972 and 1974 {see this {‘Stoke City FC in Europe’)} (from en.wikipedia.org).

Finally, the just-relegated Birmingham City will play in the Europa League Play-off round. The Blues definitely had a mixed-bag of a season, seeing as how they won just their second ‘significant’ title ever – beating Arsenal 2-1 to claim the 2010-11 Football League Cup title…only to fall through the trap-door of relegation on the final day of the Premier League season. In the middle of the Blues’ season, a riot was had. This from the BBC article linked below… ‘Sadly, thousands of Birmingham supporters chose to celebrate the win by charging the length of the field to taunt their Villa counterparts, sparking a predictably angry reaction, with police forced to move in as flares were thrown.’ This occurred in a 5th round League Cup match in January . So I am saying bad karma might have contributed to Birmingham City getting the drop.

For Birmingham City, this will be the fifth time the club has played in Europe, but not since the days of the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, last in 1961 {see this (‘Birmingham City FC in Europe’)} (from en.wikipedia.org).

The draw for the Europa League Play-off round [incl. Birmingham City and Tottenham] is set for 5 August, and the 1st Leg of the match-ups are to be played on 18 August…here are how the teams involved are shaping up – {‘2011-12 Europa League Play-off round‘}
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Below: attendance data from 2010-11, and location-map of clubs in the 2011-12 Premier League…

On the map page, 2010-11 average attendance (from home league matches) is shown for the 20 clubs which will be playing in the 2011-12 Premier League. Percent capacity and percentage change from 2009-10 average attendance is also shown. The map shows locations of the 20 clubs.

Photo credits on chart page -
Manchester United…Statues of Bobby Charlton, George Best, and Denis Law from Getty Images via news.BBC.co.uk, here. MUFC fans in green and gold photo from Getty Images via DailyMail.co.uk, here. Interior photo of Old Trafford from CNNconsumernews.com, here. Aerial photo of Trafford and Old Trafford from http://thesoccerwallpaper.com/theatre-of-dream-stadium/.

Photo of Dimitar Berbatov by Alex Livesey at Getty images Europe via Zimbio.com, here. Photo of Javier Hernandez by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio.com, here. Photo of Wayne Rooney from Football-news.org.uk, here. Photo of Nemanja Vidic by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio.com, here.

Photo of Alex Ferguson after Blackburn victory in May 2011 from Goal.com, here. Photo of new Manchester United 2011-12 home jersey – from Transatsports.com, here..

Chelsea…Photo of part of West Stand and part of Matthew Harding Stand by travelbadge R-in-circle s.com at Panoramio.com, here. Photo of Chelsea fans in the Matthew Harding Stand by cyberdees at Flickr.com, here. Exterior photo of Stamford Bridge with hotels in foreground from Ted’s Premier League Blog/Aerial photos of Premier League Stadiums [2009] (scroll three-quarters of the way down the page for photos).

Manchester City…Photo of moment’s silence for Malcolm Allison from PA via YesMakeItNow.blogspot.com, here. Interior photo of City of Manchester Stadium (aka Eastlands) from Football-Wallpapers.org, here. Aerial photo from TheSun.co.uk, here.

Arsenal…Photo of fans with Arsenal flags at Emirates Stadium by World of Good at Flickr.com, here. Exterior, gound-level photo of Emirates Stadium by Lumjaguaari at en.wikipedia.org, here.Exterior aerial photo of Emirates Stadium from ByrneGroup.co.uk, here.

Tottenham Hotspur…Photo of fans with flags at White Hart Lane from FootballQS.com, here. Interior photo of White Hart Lane from Soccerway.com, here. Aerial photo of White Hart Lane by Captain Snaps at Flickr.com, here; Captain Snaps’s photostream at Flickr.com.

Fulham…Photo of interior of Craven Cottage from EPLtalk.com [unattributed], here. Photo of cottage [rear of building] and entrances at Craven Cottage from Into A Far Country blog (frozenheads.net), here. Aerial image of Craven Cottage [facing east] from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Stoke City… Photo of Stoke City fans at FA Cup 6th round tie at Britannia Stadium from PA via uk.eurosport.yahoo.com, here. Photo of West Stand at Britannia Stadium from PremierFootballBooks.co.uk, here. Photo of Sir Stanley Matthews statue outside Britannia Stadium by tothe92.co.uk at Flickr.com, here. Aerial image of Britannia Stadium from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Birmingham City…Video image of the December 2010 St.Andrews’ Carling Cup riot from Sky News via DailyMail.co.uk, here. Photo of interior of St. Andrews by pinder22 at Flickr.com, here. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view [view facing west], here.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Premier League‘.
Thanks to E-F-S site for attendance figures.

Thanks to Jeremy at Albion Road.com. Albion Road site can be found in my Blogroll here at ‘Football Club Guide’. This summer, Albion Road is featuring these Clubs playing in Europe charts that I have been putting together. France’s Ligue Un is coming up next in this series (Ligue 1 2010-11 Top of the table/clubs playing in Europe to posted here on Saturday 2 July.

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June 13, 2011

Minor League Baseball: the Eastern League.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball: MiLB Double-A — admin @ 7:04 am

Eastern League (baseball)

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The Eastern League, established in 1923, is one of 3 Double-A minor leagues in Organized Baseball. Double-A is two steps below Major League Baseball. {You can see my map of all 3 Double-A minor leagues, with 2010 attendances and all 30 teams’ MLB affiliations, in this post, here.}. The Eastern League was historically centered in New York and Pennsylvania, and by the 1930s, the league had expanded it’s range to include teams from cities in New Jersey and Connecticut. The present-day Eastern League has teams in 9 states – in the Northeast, in Pennsylvania [with 4 teams], New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and Maryland); plus one team in in Ohio; and one team in Virginia.

For it’s first 15 season. the Eastern League was originally known as the New York-Pennsylvania League. [That name has actually been used for 3 different minor leagues, starting with the New York-Pennsylvania League (I) that existed for just one season in 1891; while the current New York-Pennsylvania League (III) is almost universally known as the New York-Penn League and is a Class A-Short Season League.]

The charter members in 1923 of the league that the present-day Eastern League evolved from – the New York-Pennsylvania League (II) – were ball clubs from Binghamton, NY; Elmira, NY; Scranton, PA; Wilkes-Barre; PA; Williamsport, PA; and York, PA. A team from Harrisburg, PA entered the league the following season of 1924. Binghamton and Harrisburg have (different) ball clubs in the present-day Eastern League. The longest-running current team in the Eastern League is the Reading (Pennsylvania) Phillies, who began playing in the league in 1967. Reading also is the team in the Eastern League with the longest-running continuous affiliation with the same Major League team, the Philadelphia Phillies. 2011 will be the 45th-straight season of the Philadelphia/Reading partnership. This 45-year run is tied with one other MLB/minor league partnership for the longest currently in Organized Baseball – the other being between the Class A Florida State League ball club the Lakeland Tigers and the Detroit Tigers.

Throughout it’s first 10 seasons, the New York-Pennsylvania League (II) was a Class B league (equivalent to the fourth level below the Major Leagues). In 1933, it was upgraded 2 levels (by-passing the A-1 level), to a Class A league. In 1938, when the Scranton ball club moved to Hartford, CT, the league changed it’s name to the Eastern League (III). [The "(III)" is there because there was a minor league called the Eastern League (I) that existed in the Nineteenth century from 1884 to 1886 (it merged with two other leagues to form the precursor-league to the present-day Triple-A league the International League). The second Eastern League (II) was what the International League was called between 1892 and 1911.]

The modern-era Eastern League moved up a level and became a Double-A level league in 1963, when Organized Baseball did an overhaul of it’s league-level classifications. The Double-A Eastern League of 1963 was a 6-team circuit comprised of these ball clubs (with MLB affiliations noted)…Binghamton Triplets (Kansas City A’s), Charleston [West Virginia] Indians (Cleveland Indians), Elmira Pioneers (Baltimore Orioles), Reading Red Sox (Boston Red Sox), Springfield [Massachusetts] Giants (San Francisco Giants), York [Pennsylvania] White Roses (Washington Senators).

From 1958 to 1993, the Eastern League fluctuated from 6 to 8 teams. In 1994, the modern-day Eastern League began when the league expanded to 10 teams and 2 divisions, with the addition of new ball clubs in Portland, ME and New Haven, CT. New Haven lost their team when the franchise moved to Manchester, NH in 2004. The most recent shift saw the Norwich, CT team move to Richmond, VA in 2010. That team, the Richmond Flying Squirrels, led the Eastern League in attendance in their debut season last year, drawing 6,626 per game.

Besides Richmond, the Eastern League features several other teams that draw above 5,000 per game these days – the Reading Phillies, the Portland Sea Dogs, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the New Britain Rock Cats, and the Trenton Thunder. Another good-drawing ball club in the Eastern League, particularly for the small size of it’s municipality, is the Altoona Curve. Altoona, Pennsylvania only has a metro-area population of 126,000, yet the Altoona Curve is able to draw over 4,000 per game. Granted, Altoona’s Blair County Ballpark {Bing.com/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here} is next door to an amusement park (Lakemont Park), and you can see the roller coaster that looms behind right field, but it is pretty impressive for a town smaller than 150,000 to regularly draw over 4,000 per game for minor league baseball.

As a whole, the Eastern League averaged 4,663 per game last season.

Click on image below for list of Eastern League statistics – 2009 average attendances; 2010 average attendances; teams’ metro areas and metro area populations; age of teams and length of time the team has had their current MLB-affiliation; and Eastern League titles…

Photo credits -
Binghamton Mets/NYSEG Stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
New Britain Rock Cats/New Britain Stadium…Aerial image from bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
New Hampshire Fisher Cats/Northeast Delta Dental Stadium…photo by David Sailors/Corbis, at Flickr.com, here.
Portland Sea Dogs/Hadlock Field…photo from http://www.projectballpark.org/boston/hadlock.html.
Reading Phillies/First Energy stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Trenton Thunder/Mercer County Waterfront Park…photo from SwinglePrints.com.

Akron Aeros/Canal Park…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Altoona Curve/Blair County Ballpark…Photo from Baseballparks.com, here.
Bowie Baysox/Prince George’s Stadium…photo from LittleBallparks.com.
Erie SeaWolves/Jerry Uht Park…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Harrisburg Senators/Metro Bank Park…Aerial image from bing.com/maps/Bird’s eye satellite view, here.
Richmond Flying Squirrels/The Diamond…Aerial image from bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Eastern League (baseball)‘.
Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com, ‘Eastern League (AA) Encyclopedia and History‘.

Attendances from NumberTamer.com, [ NumberTamer.com ] pdf, ‘2010 Minor League Analysis / 2010 Minor League Att‘ [attendances by league begin at page 29 in the pdf].
Thanks to the Biz of Baseball site, for 2009 attendances, here.

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com, here, for Eastern League total attendance numbers.
Thanks to the MiLB/Eastern League site, for this article, .’History – Eastern League History (1923-Present)‘

Comments (2)

June 6, 2011

Germany: final table of 2010-11, with clubs playing in Europe in UEFA competitions for 2011-12 / Plus, map with locations of clubs in 2011-12 Bundesliga, with attendance data.

Filed under: Football Stadia,Germany — admin @ 5:17 pm

Top of the table -2010-11 Bundesliga/German clubs playing in Europe for 2011-12

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From When Saturday Comes.co.uk, by John van Laer, from 6 June 2011, ‘A good year for the underdog in the Bundesliga‘.
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This post is part of a new category I have started up…it will be listed in my Categories section under ‘UEFA-Clubs that qualified for Europe’. There is a chart page with illustrations, and on another page there is a map with attendance data.

Basically the chart page shows the final table of the league, with all clubs who have qualified for UEFA European competitions featured. In other words, the charts will feature all the clubs from the given country who have qualified for Europe – in either the UEFA Champions League Group Stage (in this case, 1st and 2nd place finishers in the 2010-11 Bundesliga – Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen)…or the UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds (in this case, Bayern Munich)…or the UEFA Europa League qualifying rounds (in this case, Hannover 96 and Mainz, plus Schalke 04). Usually that will literally mean the clubs that finished at the top of the standings, but in the case here, FC Schalke 04 will be playing in Europe despite finishing 14th in the league, because Schalke won the DFB-Pokal title (ie, the German Cup title).
2011-12 UEFA Champions League, Round and draw dates {here (en.wikipedia.org}.
2011-12 UEFA Europa League, Round and draw dates {here}.

On the right-hand side of the chart page are stadia photos and club information for all the clubs who have qualified for Europe. The title winner gets twice the space for photos, and I have included the three Borussia Dortmund players who accumulated the most goals and assists.- Parguayan national Lucas Barrios, and two young German midfielderrs who racked up a decent amount of goals and assists last season, Mario Götze and Kevin Großkreutz. If I had more pixel-space I would have shown more Dortmund players who were key to the club’s surprise championship, like the Japanese striker Shinji Kagawa, and the German-born Turkish international and midfield wizard Nuri Şahin. I did include a photo of the Dortmund manager, Jürgen Klopp, showing off the silverware. Plus I stumbled across Dortmund’s snazzy new 2011-12 home jersey, so I tossed that in too.

One note about Dortmund’s manager Jürgen Klopp…before getting the Dortmund job, he made his name bringing Mainz up to the Bundesliga (for the first time) 6 seasons ago…and now Mainz has continued to punch above their weight after Klopp’s departure (in 2008), with the small club from Rhineland-Palatinate having qualified via league placement for Europe for the first time (Mainz have been in Europe before – getting a UEFA Cup qualifying spot in 2005-06, via the Fair Play draw). And Mainz are about to move into a new, ~33,000-capacity ground, so Mainz supporters are living the dream right now. I included a photo of the new ground, the Coface Arena, under construction. It is scheduled to open in July – {here is a Skyscrapercity.com thread with more photos}.
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The second gif, below, shows the locations of the 18 clubs in the 2011–12 Fußball-Bundesliga season {which will begin on the weekend of 5th to 7th August, see this}. Listed are these 18 clubs’ 2010-11 average attendances, their 2010-11 percent capacity, and their percentage change in average attendance versus the previous season. The two promoted clubs, Hertha Berlin and FC Augsburg, are included in the list. [Note - Borussia Mönchengladbach beat VfL Bochum in the promotion/relegation play-off, so there are only 2 clubs promoted to Bundesliga for the second straight year].

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I will make posts like this for the 5 biggest leagues in Europe. Coming up soon, in addition to Germany’s Bundesliga, there will be Top of the table charts for England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, and France’s Ligue Un.
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Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2011–12 Fußball-Bundesliga‘.
Thanks to Demis.nl, for the base map of Germany, Demis Web Map Server.
Thanks to E-F-S site, for attendance figures.
Thanks to IconArchive.com for the Champions League icon.
Thanks to Dale for the idea {here, comment #5}.

Photo credits on chart page -
Dortmund… Photo of full south stand (Die Südtribüne) from FootballWallpapers.tv, here. Photo of Dortmund fans in stands with banners from Bundesliga.de, article on English fans of Dortmund, ‘ “We’ve always had a soft spot for Dortmund” ‘. Photo of yellow pylon by Mdortmund at en.wikipedia.org, here.
Lucas Barrios photo from Getty Images via UEFA.com, here. Mario Götze photo from BVB.de, here. Kevin Großkreutz photo from forums.soccerfansnetwork.com, here. Jürgen Klopp photo from digibet.info.com, here.
New 2011-12 Dortmund jersey image from BVB09shop.de, here. Aerial photo of Signal Iduna Park from SpainTicketBureau.com, here.

Leverkusen…Aerial photo of BayArena from nrw-tourism.com. Exterior photo of BayArena by H005 at en.wikipedia.org, here. Photo of Leverkusen fans with banners from Spox.com,here.

Bayern…Photo of Bayern fans with banners from Getty Images via Telegraph.co.uk, here. Close-up photo of exterior lighted panels of Alianz Arena by Marco Döhr at Panoramio.com. Exterior photo of Allianz Arena from MIMOA.eu [free architecture guide], here.

Hannover 96…Photo of Hannover fans with scarves by Maabpaa at Flickr.com, here. Photo of interior of AWD-Arena by hack man at flickr.com, here.Aerial photo of AWD-Arena from this site: http://www.lasan-hienvuong.com/Tuc%20Cau/Images/.

Mainz…Photo of new stadium (Coface Arena) under construction from coface-arena.de, here. Interior photo of Stadion am Bruchweg from DieBundesligaUK.wordpress.com, here. Aerial photo of Stadion am Bruchweg from StadiDelMundo.blogspot.com, here.

Schalke 04…Photo of Schalke fans with banners at Veltins-Arena from Skyscrapercity.com thread, here. Interior photo of Veltins-arena from StadionWelt.de, here. Aerial photo of Veltins-Arena from official site of the facility, http://arenapark.gelsenkirchen.de/Umfeld/default.asp

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May 30, 2011

Wales, 2 maps – Welsh football clubs in the English football league system (6 clubs) / Plus, 2011-12 Welsh Premier League.

Filed under: Wales — admin @ 7:24 pm

Please note: there is a more-recent post on Wales that I have done (Wales national football team/2016 Euros Qualifiers/November 2015)…
click on the following…
Wales national team – starting line-up (Best XI) from match which clinched their qualification for the 2016 Euros in France. (Wales starting squad from 10 October 2015, Bosnia 2-0 Wales [match-day which saw Wales automatically qualify for the 2016 UEFA Euros tournament].) 17 players + coach are profiled.
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Photo credits – Photo of dawn mists at Rhossili Bay, Gower Peninsula, Swansea from WelshWales.co.uk . Panoramic view of Swansea by Slawomir Purzycki at Panoramio.com . Clifton Hill in Swansea photo by by Slawomir Purzycki at Panoramio.com, here . Swansea Castle and BT Tower photo by Slawomir Purzycki at Panoramio.com . Brandy Cove photo from Wallpaperstravel.com .
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Welsh football clubs that play in English leagues

Note – On the map page (which you can see by clicking on the image above). are the locations of the 6 Welsh football clubs in the English football league system. Their club crests there are sized to reflect 2010-11 average attendance (of home league matches). At the right on the map page are profile boxes of the 6 clubs, which include club info, 2010-11 kits, and photos of their football grounds. [Note: for each club, the lists of seasons spent in each Level have been updated to include the 2011-12 season which will begin in August.]

Welsh Football Clubs in English Leagues

There are 6 Welsh football clubs in English football leagues. 1 Welsh club has just won promotion to the Premier League for the 2011-12 season – Swansea City AFC.
From Guardian.co.uk, from 30 May 2011, by Kevin McCarra, ‘Swansea reach Premier League thanks to Scott Sinclair hat-trick‘.
From EPLtalk.com, by The Gaffer, from 31 May 2011, ‘Swansea City Breathe Much-Needed New Life Into the Premier League‘.
From Pitch Invasion.net, from 31 May 2011, by Tom Dunmore, ‘Wales In The English Premier League: A Potted History Of A Cross-Border Anomaly‘.

This is the first time a Welsh club has made it into the Premier League [ie, since 1992-93], and the first time since 1982 that a Welsh club has been in the English top flight (that was when Swansea City ended their sole two-season spell in the old English First Division).

1 Welsh club is in the Football League, in the League Championship [the 2nd Level] -Cardiff City FC.

The other 4 Welsh clubs playing in English leagues are in Non-League football…2 are in the Conference National [the 5th Level] – Newport County AFC and Wrexham FC.
One is now in the Conference North [a 6th Level league] – the just-promoted Colwyn Bay FC.
And one is now in the Western Football League Division One [a 9th Level league] – the just-promoted Methyr Town FC.

The reason for Welsh football clubs being in the English football leagues, and not in a Welsh league, goes back to the late Nineteenth Century, when it was far easier for, say, clubs from southern Wales to travel to play clubs in southern England and the Midlands than it was to travel to the northern half of Wales, because of the lack of prominent road and rail infrastructure between North and South Wales. So a Welsh league concept never caught on back then. The main reason why there is a Welsh football league system today has to do with FIFA. From en.wikipedia.org/Welsh Premier League page…
…{excerpt} ‘The league was formed in October 1991 by Alun Evans, Secretary General of the Football Association of Wales (FAW), as he believed that the Welsh international football team was under threat from FIFA. Wales, along with the other three home nations (England, Northern Ireland and Scotland), had a permanent seat on the International Football Association Board (IFAB) and it was thought that many FIFA members were resentful of this and pressing for the four nations to unite into one combined side for the whole of the United Kingdom.
The new league was formed for the 1992-93 season. At the time, Wales was almost unique in world football in that despite the FAW being a FIFA member it did not organise a national league. Traditionally, the strongest teams in Wales had always played in the English leagues. Aberdare Athletic, Cardiff City, Merthyr Town, Newport County, Swansea City and Wrexham have all been members of the Football League.” {end of excerpt}

This led to a dispute between the Football Association of Wales and the Non-League football clubs from Wales that wished to remain in English league system.

The Football Association of Wales did not attempt to coerce the 3 professional clubs then in Wales who played in the English Football League – Cardiff City, Swamsea City, and Wrexham – into joining the new League of Wales. But they did insist that the the amateur Welsh clubs playing in English Non-League football join the new Welsh league system. 8 of those Welsh clubs in English Non-League football did not wish to join the new League of Wales…Bangor City, Barry Town, Caernarfon Town, Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport County, Newtown and Rhyl. They were dubbed the ‘Irate Eight’. 3 eventually changed their stance and joined the League of Wales. Those clubs were Bangor City, Newtown, and Rhyl. The other 5 were forced to play their home matches for the 1992-93 season across the border in English venues, and became known as the Exiles [which is in fact the nickname now of Newport County, and that word appears on their crest]. For 3 seasons, North Wales club Colwyn Bay played their home matches 83 km. (51 miles) away, at Northwich Victoria’s ground in Cheshire (located south-west of of Greater Manchester). Newport County played way over in northeast Gloucestershire, in Moreton-in-Marsh, which is 214 km. (116 miles) away from Newport, South Wales.

Barry Town joined the League of Wales a year later, for the 1993-94 season, while the other 4 exiled clubs – Caernarfon, Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil, and Newport County – again played their home matches in English football grounds. After a third season of this (1994-95), a court ruling in 1995 allowed the four still-exiled clubs to return to their Welsh football grounds. But Caernarfon instead chose to join the League of Wales. That left Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil (now called Merthyr Town after being re-formed in 2010) and Newport County as Welsh members of English Non-League football leagues. Those 3 clubs, along with Cardiff City, Swansea City, and Wrexham, make up the half-dozen Welsh football clubs which to this day play in English football leagues.

From TwoHundredPercent.net, from 23 July 2010, by Rob, ‘Diagnosis: Merthyr‘.

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The 2011-12 Welsh Premier League

Click on the image below, for a map of the 2011-12 Welsh Premier League, with 2010-11 average attendances, and list of title winners…

Welsh Premier League 2011-12

The Welsh Premier League
The League of Wales began play in 1992-93. In 2002-03, the name of the league was changed to the Welsh Premier League. For sponsorship reasons, the league is officially known as the Principality Building Society Welsh Premier Football League. Originally there were 18 teams in the league. There are now 12 teams, following a re-vamping after the 2009-10 season. Most of the league’s clubs field part-time professional squads (the two full-time professional teams in the Welsh Premier League [as of 2011-12] are Neath FC and The New Saints). One club is promoted from and relegated to the two feeder leagues…one covering South Wales (and which is called the Welsh Football League), and one covering North Wales (which is called the Cymru Alliance).

Current champion is North Wales-based Bangor City FC. This is Bangor City’s 3rd Welsh title. Bangor City also had the highest average attendance in league matches, drawing 754 per game to their Farrar Road Stadium, in Bangor. Bangor, in the ceremonial county of Gwynedd, has a population of around 21,700 {2008 estimate}. Despite being the club with the largest fan base in the Welsh football league system, Bangor City’s squad are part-time professionals.

The most-titled club in the Welsh league system is currently in the second tier – the South Wales club Barry Town, who last won the Welsh championship in 2003, but were relegated the following season while under financial duress. Barry Town have won 7 Welsh titles. Barry Town even had a spell in the third division, but have been in the second tier since 2008-09, and were in a relegation battle in 2010-11, finishing in 13th, one spot above the drop in the Welsh Football League Division One.

The second-most titled club in the Welsh league system are The New Saints, who were previously known as TNS (full name – Total Network Solutions Llansantffraid FC). The New Saints/TNS have won 5 Welsh titles, most recently in 2010. The club had merged with Oswestry Town FC in 2003, and in 2006 they shed the sponsorship part of their name. Now known as The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club, the club represents two towns that straddle the border between Montgomeryshire, Wales and Shropshire, England. The club actually plays in England, in Oswestry, Shropshire at Park Hall. The New Saints are one of the few full-time professional clubs in the Welsh league system [note: the only other club I could find that currently lists itself as full-time professional is Neath FC].

3 clubs – Aberystwyth Town, Bangor City and Newtown – have played in all 19 seasons of the League of Wales/Welsh Premier League. 3 other founding members – Afan Lido, Llanelli and Porthmadog – are in the Welsh Premier League currently [2011-12], after being relegated and then promoted back. Afan Lido was the promoted club for 2010-11. Afan Lido FC is one of two clubs currently in the Welsh Premier League that come from the South Wales town of Port Talbot, the other being Port Talbot Town FC [Port Talbot is the home-town of 3 brilliant actors - Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, and Michael Sheen, and has a population of around 35,000.]. Afan Lido won promotion as the highest-placed club in 2nd Level Wales that had successfully applied for promotion, after finishing in 2nd place in the South Wales-based Welsh Football League. The first place club in the 10/11 WFL, Bryntirion Athletic, did not apply for promotion at the start of the season, so they could not gain promotion; meanwhile, none of the top finishers in the North Wales-based Cymru Alliance had applied for promotion. In Wales, it is usually stadium infrastructure deficiencies which prevent clubs from applying for promotion; or which causes clubs to be denied for promotion. Basic financial problems within a club can also result in relegation, as was the case in 2010, with the relegation of the club with the second-largest fan base in the Welsh league system, the two-time Welsh champion Rhyl FC. Two seasons ago Rhyl, as reigning champions, had finished in 4th but were denied a license for the 2010-11 season and thus sent down to the Cymru Alliance, because their finances were a mess {see this, from BBC.co.uk, from May, 2010, ‘Rhyl FC’s Welsh Premier appeal fails FAW test‘}.

The Welsh Premier League is currently ranked by the UEFA Coefficient for leagues {see this} at 46th out of 53 national leagues in Europe [ranking as of May, 2011], which puts Wales league football, strength-wise, between Estonia and Armenia.

From the DailyPost.co.uk, fro 26 March 2010, by Dave Jones, ‘Welsh Premier League attendances are a concern‘.

From Two Hundred Percent.com, from 27 Aug.2011 and 7 Sept.2011, by Neil Mace, ‘Dipping a Toe Into the Welsh Premier League‘.
‘A Welsh Premier League Odyssey, part two [Port Talbot]‘.
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Photo credits on main map page -

Colwyn Bay/Llanelian Road…Photo of Llanelan Road ground with hill in background by Matthew Wilkinson at Flickr.com, here. Photo with cows on hillside by Matthew Wilkinson at Flickr.com, here. Aerial photo from ColwynBayFC.co.uk, here.

Wrexham/Racecourse Ground… Interior photo from WikiStadiums.org, here. Photo of Mold Road Stand with The Kop (terrace) in foreground from Soccerway.com, here. Aerial image of Racecourse Ground from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Merthyr Town/Penydarren Park …Photo from behind goal by Foo-med at en.wikipedia.org, here. Main Stand photo from Tims92 site, ‘Merthyr Tydfil – Penydarren Park‘. Aerial image from Bing.com/map/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Swansea City AFC/Liberty Stadium…Exterior photo of Liberty Stadium from 100 Football Grounds Club, http://100groundsclub.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-matchday-242-liberty-stadium.html. Tims92, ‘Swansea City – Liberty Stadium‘. InterestingPhoto.com. Close-up photo of stands from Fullflow.com, here. Aerial image of Liberty Stadium from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Newport County/Newport Stadium… Photo with running track in foreground from Photobucket.com [link was broken/I took a screenshot of the Google search page]. Photo taken during an Exiles match by Owain Vaughn at en.wikiedia.org, here. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Cardiff City/Cardiff City Stadium…Interior photo with crowd by Phil Tucker at Flickr.com, Phil Tucker’s photostream @ flickr.com. Interior photo of empty stadium from Cardiff Blues.com, Cardiff Blues and Cardiff City FC sign stadium contract. Exterior photo from Cardiff City FC.co.uk, Cardiff City Stadium. Aerial photo from Colorcoat-online, Cardiff City Stadium, project summary/gallery.
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Photo credits on Welsh Premier League map page -
Aerial image of Bangor city’s Farrar Road ground from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Main Stand photo from WelshPremier.com site, ‘Farrar Road’s days are numbered‘ (12 May 2011). Rooftop photo of Farrar Road ground from TheOnlinemail.co.uk, here.

Thanks to Soccerway.com, for attendance figures (League and Conference clubs).
Thanks to King’s Lynn Town FC Supporters Trust site TheLinnets.co.uk, for Colwyn Bay attendance figure, ‘Average Attendance – Evo-Stick Premier Division‘.
Thanks to the Toolstation Western Football League site, for Merthyr Town attendance figure, ‘Toolstation Western Football League – First Division Attendance Statistics‘.
Thanks to the Zamaretto League [Southern Football League] site, for 2009-10 Merthyr Tydil attendance figure, ‘[Zamaretto League] Premier Division Attendances 2009-2010‘.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Football in Wales‘.
Thanks to unofficial Welsh premier League site, Welsh-Premier.com/League History.
Thanks to Demis.nl, for the base maps, Demis Web Map Server.

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May 25, 2011

Minor League Baseball: the Texas League.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball: MiLB Double-A — admin @ 7:21 am

Click on image below for 2011 Texas League map, with team profiles including ballpark photos

Texas League (baseball)

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The Texas League is one of 3 Double-A (AA) minor leagues in Organized Baseball. Double-A is two steps below Major League Baseball. {You can see my map of all 3 Double-A minor leagues, with 2010 attendances and all 30 teams’ MLB affiliations, here.} Of the 3 leagues, the Texas League draws the highest these days. The Texas League pulled in an average of 5,264 per game in 2010.

Click on image below for chart of Texas League teams, with metro populations, teams’ average attendances the last 2 seasons, teams’ MLB affiliations (including tenure), and Texas League titles –

The Texas League (II) has played continuously since 1902, except for 3 years off during World War II (1943-45), making this season, 2011, the Texas League’s 107th season. The oldest current ball club in the Texas League that has played continuously in the same metro area is the Arkansas Travelers, of Little Rock, AR, who have been a minor league ball club since 1963 (starting out with a 3-year stint in the Triple-A PCL), and have been in the Texas League since 1966, making 2011 the ball club’s 46th straight season in the Texas League [Note: before this, there was a Little Rock Travellers in the now-defunct Southern Association from 1901-09; 1915-58;1960-61 - see this, 'Little Rock, Arkansa Teams History' at Baseball-Reference.com, here]. Another team, the Midland (Texas) RockHounds, have now played 40 straight seasons in the league. Midland also have the longest current affiliation with an MLB team (the Oakland A’s) – 13 years.

The first incarnation of the Texas League was established in 1888, and played 5 seasons, up to 1892. A decade later, in 1902, the Texas League (II) was re-formed as a D-class minor league, with 6 teams (all teams with no MLB affiliations [ie, were Independents])…Corsicana Oil Citys, Dallas Giants, Fort Worth Panthers, Paris Eisenfelder’s Homeseekers, Sherman-Denison Students/Texarkana Casketmakers, Waco Tigers. By 1911, the Texas League was a Class B level league [~equivalent to the Class-A Short Season level today, 5 levels below the Majors]. In 1921, the Texas League became a Class A level league. In 1936, the Texas League moved up another level, becoming a Class A1 league. And in its first season back after WWII, in 1946, the Texas League became a Class AA level league. The teams in the Texas League that first season at Class AA in 1946 were (with MLB affiliation)…Beaumont Exporters (New York Yankees), Dallas Rebels (Detroit Tigers), Fort Worth Cats (Brooklyn Dodgers), Houston Buffaloes (St. Louis Cardinals), Oklahoma City Indians (Cleveland Indians), San Antonio Missions (St. Louis Browns), Shreveport Sports (Chiicago White Sox), Tulsa Oilers (Chicago Cubs).
From the Baseball-Reference.com, ‘Texas League (AA) Encyclopedia and History‘.

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On the map page
On the map page each team’s location is shown with a dot and the team’s home ball cap logo. At the right of the map page, each team’s home cap logo is also shown in larger size in the team’s profile box. The profile boxes include a photo of the team’s ballpark, the team’s year of establishment and their year of joining the Texas League. 2010 home regular season average attendance is also listed along with ballpark capacity, and the year the ballpark opened. Finally, the profile boxes include each team’s Major League Baseball parent-club, and the length of time the team has been part of that MLB team’s farm system.

The list of 8 teams’ 2010 average attendances is below the map. 2010 attendance figures from NumberTamer.com/ -Numbertamer.com’s Minor League Baseball – 2010 attendance analysis [pdf] (Note, league attendances begin on page 28 of the 60 page pdf.)
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Map page photo credits -
Arkansas Travellers/Dickey-Stephens Park…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Northwest Arkansas Naturals/Arvest Ballpark…Photo from Skyscrapercity.com thread, ‘Little Ballparks‘.
Springfield Cardinals/Hammons Field…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Tulsa Drillers/ONEOK Field…Photo by Tom Gilbert at Tulsa World via NewsOK.com, here.

Corpus Christie Hooks/Whataburger Park…Photo from mysite.verizon.net/CharlieBallparks, ‘A Tasty Burger, a Tasty Field‘.
Frisco RoughRiders/Dr. Pepper Ballpark…Photo from Skyscrapercity.com thread, ‘Little Ballparks‘.
Midland RockHounds/Citibank Ballpark image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
San Antonio Missions/Nelson W. Wolff Municipal Stadium…Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Texas League‘.
2009 attendance figures from BizOfBaseball.com/Minor League attendance database, here.
Thanks to NumberTamer.com…2010 attendance figures from NumberTamer.com/ -Numbertamer.com’s Minor League Baseball – 2010 attendance analysis [pdf] (Note, league attendances begin on page 28 of the 60 page pdf.)

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May 18, 2011

Brazil: 2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A.

Filed under: Brazil — admin @ 10:54 pm

Brasilerão 2011

The 2011 Brasileiro season starts on the weekend of Saturday 21 May and Sunday 22 May, 2011. Brazil – 2011 Serie A, fixtures, results, table (Soccerway.com).

Reigning champions are Rio de Janeiro’s Fluminense, who went from relegation-threatened to title winners in the space of just 12 months. The player most instrumental in Fluminense winning the championship was diminutive Argentinian midfielder Dario Conca, who netted 9 times in league matches, and had a league-leading 18 assists. From Pitaco do Gringo’s Brazilian football site, from December 6, 2010, by Jon Cotteril, ‘Fluminense crowned Brasileiro champions 2010‘.

Photo from oglobo.globo.com.
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Clubs promoted from Série B to Série A for 2011 are: Coritiba [from Curitiba], Figueirense [from Florianópolis], Bahia [from Salvador], and América [from Belo Horizonte].
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The only Brazilian club still alive in the 2011 Copa Libertadores is Santos (who qualified as winners of the 2010 Copa do Brasil). Four Brazilian clubs bowed out of the Copa Libertadores on the same evening (of 4th May) {see this article by Tim Vickery at his blog at bbc.co.uk, ‘Copa exits may prompt Brazil tactics re-think‘.} Santos won their 1st Leg in the 2011 Copa Libertadores Quarterfinals 1-0 away to Once Caldas of Colombia. In the 2nd Leg, Santos advanced to the Semifinals with a 1-1 draw, late on Wednesday the 18th, in Santos São Paulo state. Neymar scored Santos’ goal. In the Semifinals, Santos will play the winner of the Jaguares de Chiapas v. Cerro Porteño tie {2011 Copa Libertadores Knockoput Stages Bracket (en.wikipedia.org}.
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From In Bed With Maradonna site, by Jack Lang, ‘The IBWM Guide to the 2011 Campeonato Brasileiro‘.

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Below…The three top-drawing clubs in 2010 Brasileiro – Corinthians, Ceará, and Fluminense…
Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, est. 1910. 4 Campeonato Série A titles (2005). Highest attendance in Brazil in 2010: 27,542 per game…

Photo credits – Maatheeoos at Loucporticorinthians.com. Skyscrapercity.com/thread, here, via JucaMartins.com.
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Ceará Sport Club [Fortaleza], est. 1914. 2nd highest attendance in Brazil in 2010: 23,514 per game…

Photo credits – Claudiocruzlima.blogspot.com. dariofontanelle at panoramio.com [via Soccerway.com].
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Fluminense Football Club [Rio de Janeiro], est. 1902. 2 Campeonato Série A titles (2010). 3rd highest attendance in Brazil in 2010: 21,646 per game…

Photo credits – Sidneyrezende.com. Futbolita.com/Fluminense.

On the far right of the map are average attendance figures from last season. Corinthians led the 2010 Campeonato Série A in attendance, with 27,542 per game. Second best was the just-promoted northeast club Ceará, from Fortaleza, Ceará state, who drew 23,514 per game, an impressive figure for a club that has no major trophies. That 20,000+ figure for Ceará was not a just-promoted-fluke, because the club drew 21,200 per game in 2009, in the second division. The third-highest-drawing team for 2010 were champions Fluminense, who, along with Flamengo, were forced to play most of their home matches across the city of Rio de Janeiro, at Botofogo’s Engenhão (Botofogo rents from this municipal stadium from the city), because of the massive renovation and upgrade project currently being undertaken at Maracanã, in order for that giant venue to be suitable for hosting 2014 FIFA Wotld Cup matches. Speaking of Flamengo, they had a massive attendance drop because of the aforementioned difficulties for their fan base in getting cross-town to Engenhão, plus they were terrible last season, and were actually in threat of relegation for a while (they finished in 14th place). Flamengo’s gates dropped about -20,000 per game, from 40,036 per game in 2009, to just 19,965 per game in 2010. Another club that had been at or near the top of the attendance rankings in the last couple of seasons, Atlético Mineiro [Belo Horizonte], also saw their gates drop off significantly – down around -25,000 per game (from 38,761 per game in 2009, to 13,515 per game in 2010), and they also did poorly, finishing in 13th place after a 7th place finish in 2009.

Corinthians, boasting the highest attendance, had a good regular season, finishing third. But thanks to Internacional’s 2010 Copa Libertadores championship (and thus Inter’s automatic qualification for the 2011 Copa Libetadores Second Stage), Corinthians were pushed down to the 2011 Copa Libertadores First Stage (which is essentially a preliminary round before the group stage). And there, Corinthians flamed out, failing to score a single goal versus unheralded Deportes Tolima of Colombia. As this is Cruzeiro’s Centenary year, it was a pretty bad turn of events, and the predictable response from certain fan elements resulted in vandalism at the club’s training ground. Also, it was Ronaldo’s swan song, as he has now retired.

Speaking of Brazilian greats who have returned from Europe back home to Brazil to finish out their careers, Ronadinho has joined Flamengo. The 31-year old Porto Alegre-born free kick specialist and playmaker got his pro start with Grêmio from 1998-2001, before a 5 million Euros transfer to Paris Saint-Germain, where he played from 2001 to 2003. In 2003, a 32.5 million Euros transfer saw him move to FC Barcelona, where he basically became one of the planet’s best footballers circa 2003 to 2006 (winning the Ballon d’Or in 2003-04 and in 2005-06). Ronaldinho scored 70 goals in 145 league matches for Barça, but by 2008, a hard partying lifestyle and the onset of an on-field complacency saw him fall out of favor with the Barça management, and he was sent to AC Milan, where he remained from 2008 to 2011. Fans of Flamengo hope Ronaldinho still has enough left in him to propel the most-supported club in Brazil back to the top of the attendance ranks, and back to the top of the table.

Another Brazilian great in the twilight of his career will be returning to Brazil in August – Juninho (Pernambucano), aged 36, the free kick wizard who helped guide Lyon to 7 straight Ligue 1 titles in France (from 2001-02 to 2007-08). Juninho has left the Qatari club Al Garafa to return to the Rio de Janeiro club where he first made his name…Vasco da Gama. From SI.com, by Tim Vickery, from 4 May 2011, ‘Vasco da Gama legend Juninho returns to Brazil for nominal wages‘.

It has really become trend for a certain category of Brazilian footballer to return to play again in Brazil, and that is the player who, while a veteran, is not by any means in the swan-song stage of his career – more in the 29-to-33-years-old range. Examples of this can be seen with the 30-year old Luis Fabiano (who has left Sevilla in Spain for São Paulo FC), the 33-year old Deco (who left Chelsea for Fluminense last August), and the 29-year old Elano (who left Galatasaray in Turkey for Santos FC). The strong economy of Brazil in recent years is part of the reason for this type of influx. Just being back within the welcoming embrace of the Brazilian culture is another reason. And playing in the Copa Libertadores is another (and in late March Deco scored the winning goal for Fluminense, in a crucial Copa Libertadores match versus Club América). Here is an article from the Caught Offside site, by Tom Webber, from 24 March, 2011, ‘Why Are So Many Brazilian Players Moving Back To Brazil‘.

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Thanks to Demis.nl, for the base map of Brazil, Demis Web Map Sever.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A‘.
Thanks to BolanoArea,com, for attendance figures, here.
Thanks to Soccerway.com, for Brazilian Série B (2nd division) attendances, here.
Thanks to Jack Lang, for his great preview of the 2011 Brasieiro. Here is one of Jack’s two blogs, Snap. Kaká and Pop!.
Thanks to Jon Cotteril, at Pitaco do Gringo site, for info, and for featuring my 2010 Brasileiro map on his site last year – http://pitacodogringo.wordpress.com/ .

Comments (4)

May 12, 2011

League Championship, 2010-11 season: the 2 automatically-promoted clubs, and the 4 play-off clubs.

Filed under: 2010-11 English Football,Eng-2nd Level/Champ'ship,Football Stadia — admin @ 7:00 am

2010-11 Football League Championship, Top of the Table

2011 Football League Championship Play-off Final – at Wembley Stadium in London, on Monday 30 May, Swansea City v. Reading, 3pm GMT/10am ET.
From Guardian.co.uk, on Wed. 18 May 2011, by Smon Burnton,’Reading possess the crucial ingredient for play-off final – form…Brendan Rodgers’ Swansea have enjoyed the double over Reading this season but the best stat belongs to his rivals‘.

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Other 2011 English football promoted club(s)/play-off clubs maps …
6th Level/2011 Conference North – map posted Thursday, 28 April, at 12midnight GMT/7pm ET. – {click for post on Conference North}.
6th Level/2011 Conference South – map posted Sunday, 30 April, at 12noon GMT/7am ET. – { click for post on Conference South }.
5th Level/2011 Conference National – map posted Tuesday, 3 May, at 12midnight GMT/7pm ET. -{ click for post on Conference National }.
4th Level/2011 Football League Two – map posted Saturday, 7 May, at 7pm GMT/2pm ET. – { click for post on Football League Two }.
3rd Level/2011 Football League One – map posted Monday, 8 May, at 12midnight GMT/7pm ET. – ( a click for post on Football League One }.
2nd Level/2011 Football League Championship – map posted Thursday, 10 May, at 12noon GMT/7am ET.

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From Guardian.co.uk/football, from Press Association on Saturday, 7 May, ‘
QPR crowned champions and promoted after escaping points deduction
• FA punish QPR with £875,000 fine
• London club escape points deduction‘.

From Guardian.co.uk/football, from 3 May 2011, by Barney Ronay, ‘Paul Lambert one step ahead as he steers Norwich to Premier League‘.

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Final 2010-11 Football League Championship table (Soccerway.com).

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Top Scorers -Leading scorers in 2010-11 Football League Championship -

Photo credits – Danny Graham photo from London Evening standard site (thisislondon.co.uk), ‘here‘. Shane Long photo from GetReading.co.uk. Grant Holt photo from Football365.com, here. Lucciano Becchio photo by PA via DailyMail.co.uk, here. Scott Sinclair photo by John Walton/EMPICS Sport/guardian.co.uk, here. Max Gradel photo from uk.eurosport.yahoo.com, here. Adel Taarabt photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images Europe/zimbio.com, here. Jay Bothroyd photo by Action Images from telegraph.co.uk, here [from article 'The 10 best footballers in the Coca Cola Championship in pictures'].
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Photo credits on map page -
QPR/Loftus Road…Exterior photo of Loftus Road from FussballInLondon.de, here. Interior photo by ynysforgan_jack at Flickr.com, here. Interior photo of main stand from AwayGrounds.com, here. Aerial image of Loftus Road from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Norwich City/Carrow Road…Mskau at Panoramio.com, here. AwayGrounds.com/Championship Grounds. ColonelBlinker.blogspot.com.

Swansea City AFC/Liberty Stadium…Exterior photo of Liberty Stadium from 100 Football Grounds Club, http://100groundsclub.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-matchday-242-liberty-stadium.html. Tims92, ‘Swansea City – Liberty Stadium‘. InterestingPhoto.com. Aeral image of liberty stadium from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Reading/Madejski Stadium… Exterior photo by LeamDavid at Fickr.com, here. East Stand photo by Shaun at 100GroundsClub.blogspot.com, ‘My Matcday – 150 Madejski Stadium‘, via Picasaweb.google.com, here. North Stand photo [from final home match in promotion season of 2005-06] by Jason Platt at Panoramio.com, here. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye S\satellite view, here.

Nottingham Forest/City Ground… Aerial photo of Notts County and Nottingham Forest grounds from BBC/Nottingham, Aerial photographs of Nottingham. Photo of irregular-shaped roof of Main Stand from Inderendent Yeovil Town fansite Ciderspace.co.uk, Ciderspace-the independant Yeovil Town FC website. Photo of City Ground exterior from across the Trent River by NffcChris at en.wikipedia.org, City Ground by NffcChris. Aerial image of City ground from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Thanks to Historical Football kits for the kit illustrations, http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Football League Championship‘.
Thanks to FootballGroundGuide.com, for stadium capacities.
Thanks to Soccerway.com, for attendance figures.

Comments (5)

May 9, 2011

League One, 2010-11 season. The 2 automatically-promoted clubs, and the 4 play-off clubs.

Filed under: 2010-11 English Football,Eng-3rd Level/League One,Football Stadia — admin @ 4:59 pm

2010-11 Football League One, Top of the Table

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League One Play-off Final at Old Trafford in Greater Manchester on Sunday, 29 May 2011 – Huddersfield Town 0-3 Peterborough United. Peterborough United win promotion the the 2011-12 Football League Championship (their second time promoted to the 2nd Level in 3 seasons), attendance 48,410.
From Guardian.co.uk, by Louise Taylor, ‘Three second-half goals see promoted Peterborough past Huddersfield‘.
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2010-11 Football League One final table (Soccerway.com).
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Brighton & Hove Albion FC, managed by the Uruguayan Gus Poyet, ran away with the title. The Seagulls could not have timed their storybook season any better, because the club will be moving in to their fantastic new stadium in August. Falmer Stadium (aka American Express Community Stadium) looks a bit like Huddersfield Town’s Galpharm Stadium (as well as Bolton’s Reebok Stadium). Falmer will seat 22,374, and has the capability to be expanded to around 30,000. Brighton, and their fans, had to endure two seasons of playing over an hour’s travel time away, in Gillingham, Kent in the late 1990s, followed by 12 seasons in the purgatory of the running track-scarred Withdean Stadium, an inadequate facility that only had a capacity of around 8,000. But that is now in the past, and Brighton & Hove Albion look to have a good future. The Seagulls have historically spent the most time in the third tier that they are now leaving, with 51 seasons in the 3rd Level. Brighton has spent 14 seasons previously in the 2nd Level, most recently for a 2-season spell from 2004 to 2006. Brighton has only played 4 seasons in the first division, from 1979-80 to 1982-83, with a 13th place finish in 1982 being the Seagulls’ highest league placement. When Brighton were in the First Division, they drew 24,745 in 79/80; 18,984 in 80/81; 18,244 in 81/82; and 14,662 in their relegation season of 82/83. It remains to be seen if Brighton can still draw in the 20,000-range, but I feel that if Brighton can make it through next season by avoiding the drop, they will be in a good position to cultivate a fan base that can regularly fill the 23,000-capacity Falmer Stadium. Brighton’s metro area is 12th largest in Britain {see this,’List of urban areas in the United Kingdom‘, from en.wikipedia.org}.

The other automatically-promoted club from League One to the League Championship are another club from the south coast of England, Southampton FC. Southampton returns to the second tier after 2 seasons in the wilderness of the third tier, which is a level that Saints supporters would have thought the club had outgrown. Because prior to their 2 seasons in the 3rd Level, Southampton had a 4-season spell in the 2nd Level, and prior to that, the club spent 23 consecutive seasons in the top flight. Southampton spent from 1978-79 to 2004-05 in the First Division/Premier League.Southampton’s highest league placement was in 2nd place in the First Division in 1983-84, while their best finish in the last 20 years was in 8th place in the 2002-03 Premier League. Southampton has an FA Cup title – they won the FA Cup in 1976, when the club was in the Second Division (they are one of only 8 teams to have ever won the FA Cup while not in the top flight. {see this, ‘FA Cup/Winners from outside the top flight‘, from en.wikipedia.org}). Southampton, who averaged 22,161 per game this season (up 5.6% from 09/10) have a pretty decent-sized fan base, and can come pretty close to filling their 32,689-seat St. Mary’s Stadium on a regular basis when the team is playing well, and even when they are not. For example, they drew 30,680 per game when they finished in 8th in the Premier League in 2002-03. And they were drawing almost exactly that figure (30,610 per game) when they got relegated from the Premier League on the last day of the 2004-05 season. Southampton fans must be pretty optimistic, because they have a solid manager, ex-Scunthorpe physio and ex-Scunthorpe manager Nigel Adkins, who took over in September 2010, and got the Saints first in to the play-off places by November 2010, and then into 2nd place on New Year’s Day. The club effectively clinched automatic promotion with 2 games to spare on 2nd May, 2011 (because their lead with 2 games to play was 6 points and a goal difference of over 15 more than the third place team). Adkins’ Saints broke the club record for clean sheets, with 20 out of 46 clean sheets this season. The other reason Southampton supporters will be looking forward to their return to the second tier is that this time, their arch-enemies, the nearby Portsmouth FC, are also in the second division, so the South Coast derby will resume next season. Portsmouth and Southamprton played in the FA Cup in 2009-10, but besides that there hasn’t been a regular league South Coast derby match since 2005.
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Photo credits on the map page -
Brighton…Withdean Stadium photos by Colin Smith at en.wikipedia.org, here. Falmer Stadium under construction, July, 2010, by Tescoid at en.wikipedia.org, here. Aerial photo from England.Brighton.blogspot.com, here.

Southampton…Exterior photo of St. May’s Stadium by Marcsfc at Flickr.com, here. Interior photo from Urban75.og/blog. Aerial view from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Huddersfield Town…Interior photo of the Galpahrm Stadium from Sky Sports.com, Huddersfield Town. Extreior night-time photo of the Galpharm by Matthew Ashton at The Guardian, “Huddersfield’s community stadium dream sours in ownership wrangle [6 May, 2009]“. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Peterborough United…Photo of London Road Terrace by ynysforgan_jack at Flickr.com, here. Photo of Norwich and Peterborough South Stand from ExtremeGroundhopping.blogspot.com, here/new address at ExtremeGroundhopping.woedpress.com, here. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Milton Keynes Dons…Exterior photo of Stadium mk from Rowecord structural Engineering site, RoweCord.com. Interior photo from SportyDesktops.com. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Bournemouth… Photo of Main Stand at Dean Court from Tims92.webs.com, here. Photo of parts of the three stands at Dean Court from DATM.info (Huddersfield Town fansite), here. Aerial image of Dean Court from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Huddersfield Town…Interior photo of Galpharm Stadium from SkySports.com/Huddersfield Town page. Exterior photo of Galpharm Stadium at night, by Matthew Ashton/EMPICS Sport, at guardian.co.uk, here. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

Thanks to HistoricalFootballKits.co.uk, for the kit illustrationa, ‘Npower League One 2010-11‘.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Football League One‘.
Thanks to Soccerway, for for attendances.

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