billsportsmaps.com

January 23, 2011

2011 Copa Libertadores, map of the 38 clubs in the competition.

Filed under: Copa Libertadores — admin @ 3:34 pm

2011 Copa Libertadores, all 38 clubs

From BBC/football/blogs, Tim Vickery’s Blog, from 24 Jan., ‘Crunch time for Ronaldo and Corinthians‘.
The map page shows the 38 clubs’ locations on the map. Flanking the map, grouped by their countries, are the clubs’ profile boxes. Each club’s profile box includes…home kit; crest; city location; stadium(s), and capacity; how the club qualified; national professional titles (with year of last title); total Copa Libertadores appearances (and how the club fared in their last Copa Liberrtadores appearance); and Copa Libertadores titles (with year of last title).

Copa Libertadores page at ESPN Soccernet, here.

The Copa Libertadores is South America’s premier international football tournament. It is run by CONMEBOL, and includes clubs from 10 South American nations, plus, since 1998, it has included one CONCACAF country, Mexico (basically because the television money coming from Mexico is so lucrative). The 52nd Copa Libertadores competition, the 2011 Copa Libertadores, begins with First Stage matches on 25, 26, and 27 January. 6 of the 12 teams who must play in the First Stage get eliminated. To be very general about it, First Stage is comprised of non-national champions – each country has it’s own way of selecting their qualifying clubs, and if you are curious, you can go to the Wikipedia page {here}. One innovation that I really wish UEFA would adopt is that the winner of the ‘second-tier’ competition, the Copa Sudamericana, now qualifies for the Copa Libertadores…and that is the Argentine club Independiente (who have won the most Copa Libertadores titles, with 7 {List of Copa Libertadores winners, by club, here}). From ESPN Soccernet, from 25 January, ‘Inderendiente target success‘.

First Stage was introduced in 2005, as the Preliminary Round. The preliminaries became called the First Stage in 2006. Previous to this (in 2004 and 2005) there was no preliminary stage, with 9 groups of 4 in the Group Stage – 36 teams. Before that there were 32 teams – 8 groups of 4 (from 2000 to 2003). Before that there were 20 teams – 5 groups of 4 – which was a set-up that lasted for almost three decades (from 1971 to 1999). The competition originally began in 1960, with a 7 team format, and it’s first title was won by Uruguay’s Peñarol.

The Copa Libertadores presently has 38 clubs from 11 countries participating. Here are the countries, their first season involved, and the total Copa Libertadores titles won by clubs from that country, and the last club to win it from that country…
Argentina, 1960 – 22 Copa Libertadores titles (last in 2009 by Estudiantes de La Plata).
Bolivia, 1960 – 0 titles.
Brazil, 1960 – 14 Copa Libertadores titles (last in 2010 by SC Internacional).
Chile, 1960 – 1 Copa Libertadores title (in 1999, by Colo-Colo).
Colombia, 1960 – 2 Copa Libertadores titles (last in 2007, by Once Caldas).
Paraguay, 1960 – 3 Copa Libertadores titles (last in 2002, by Olimpia).
Uruguay, 1960 – 8 Copa Libertadores titles (last in 1988, by Nacional de Montevideo).
Ecuador, 1961 – 1 Copa Libertadores title (in 2008, by LDU Quito).
Peru, 1962 – 0 titles.
Venezuela, 1964 – 0 titles.
Mexico, 1998 – 0 titles.
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The 16 clubs in the First Stage are all the lowest-seeded clubs from each country, except for Brazil, which, has 2 First Stage clubs. This is to make room for the Cup-Holder…SC Internacional, who won last years’ 2010 Copa Libertadores. The winners of the 6 First Stage ties advance to the Second Stage. On the map page, in the upper right-hand corner are the 6 First Stage match-ups. Below is the same fixtures list, with club crests…

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The Second Stage will begin on 9 February. I will post a map of the Second Stage on 8 February.
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I used this list for all-time Copa Libertadores appearances ‘Copa Libertadores 1960-2010 Club Histories’ at rsssf.com .
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2011 Copa Libertadores‘.

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January 19, 2011

England, Non-League Football: 2010-11 Conference North [a 6th Level league].

Filed under: 2010-11 English Football,Eng-6th level — admin @ 10:09 am

2010-11 Conference North
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Conference North/South tables, fixtures, results (Soccerway.com), here.
The Conference North is one of two leagues that comprise the 6th Level of the English Football Pyramid. The Conference North’s sister league is the Conference South. These two leagues were instituted in 2004-05. Clubs were drawn from the Northern Premier League, the Southern League, and the Isthmian League [those three leagues now make up the 7th Level]. After each season, two promoted clubs go up to the Conference National (5th Level) – the league winner and the winner of the 4-team playoff. Three relegated clubs go down to the 7th Level, to the Northern Premier League Premier Division or the Southern Football League Premier Division (which is composed of clubs from the South West, the South Central, and the Midlands). [Theoretically, a club relegated from the Conference North could go to the Isthmian Football League Premier Division (which is composed of clubs from Greater London and the South East), but there would have be real unusual circumstances for that to happen].

There are 22 clubs in the Conference North, but because of Ilkeston Town’s demise last September, the 2010-11 Conference North season has 21 clubs, and only two clubs will be relegated.
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The map page shows the clubs’ profile boxes placed from top to bottom in the order of the current Conference North table (as of Wednesday, 19 January, 2011). The profile boxes include the club’s home kit badges, nickname, year of formation, stadium and capacity, location, 2009-10 final placement, and all-time highest league placement. Current average attendances and 2009-10 average attendances (from home league matches) are shown at the right of the map.
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Current leaders are phoenix club Nuneaton Town, who hail from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, which is 14 km. (9 mi.) north of Coventry and 31 km. (19 mi.) east of Birmingham. Nuneaton has a population of around 70,000 {2001 figure}. Nuneaton Town FC are heir to another phoenix club, Nuneaton Borough AFC, who had 4 seasons in the Conference (5th Level) from 1999-2000 to 2002-03, and existed from 1937 to 2007. They were wound up in May 2007. Nuneaton Town were then formed in 2008. The club plays at tiny Liberty Way, which has a capacity of 3,800 (with just 300 seated). They wear royal blue and white halves, and still go by the nickname of Boro. Nuneaton won promotion from the Southern Football League Premier Division in 2009-10, and are one of three clubs in Conference North this season that have the chance of winning back-to-back promotions (the other two are talked about in the last paragraph). Nuneaton have been managed by Kevin Wilkin since 2006 (ie, in the last days of Nuneaton Borough, and also as the sole manager of the re-formed Nuneaton Town). Nuneaton Town draw well for this league, pulling in 1,002 per game currently.

[Photo credits - Nuneatontownfc.com, here. I-want-football-2009.blogspot.com, here.]
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Second place, two points back with 3 games in hand, are the Derbyshire club Alfreton Town. Alferton Town FC were formed from the merger of Alfreton Miners Welfare and Alfreton United, in 1959. Alfreton is 20 km. (12 mi.) north of both the cities of Derby and Nottingham, and serves somewhat as a bedroom community of both. It has a population of 22,000. Alfreton Town FC have never had a higher final placement than their current spot. Crowds are up 50% this season, to 746 per game.

[Photo credits - parkin1s at PhotoBucket.com, here. Wherestheteahut.blogspot.com, here. Southport FC fansite at btinternet.com/~portconnection, here.]

Alfreton Town are managed by Nicky Law, who had an extensive career in the lower half of the Football League including captaining Chesterfield to a Division Three playoff final win over Bury at Wembley in 1995. Law has been Alferton’s manager since 2007. Alfreton Town play at North Street, which has a capacity of 3,600 (1,500 seated). That size of stadium is pretty much the norm in the 6th Level. It is one example of how the new gulf between English football levels is no longer between Levels 4 and 5 (the League/Non-League dividing line), but between Levels 5 and 6. Most clubs these days that play in the Conference National (5th Level) play in grounds of 5,000 to 6,000 or larger; while most clubs that play in the Conference North and Conference South play in grounds that are 3,000 to 4,500, with more standing capacity than seated capacity. 15 of the 21 Conference North clubs this season play in grounds that are smaller than 4,500 capacity; and 15 of the 22 Conference South clubs this season have grounds at or smaller than 4,500 capacity.

Another way that Conferences North/South are separated by a wide gulf from the Conference National is that most clubs in the Conference are full-time, and virtually all Conference North/South clubs are part-time. It is pretty much the normal routine these days for clubs that are relegated to Conference North or South to revert to part-time status once they get the drop. Not all clubs conversely go full-time immediately after getting promoted up to the Conference, though, but it usually happens by a couple seasons in.

Median average attendance for the Conference North is currently {19 Jan.} 443 this season; median average attendance for last season (2009-10) was 435 per game. The biggest club in Conference North this season are #1 draw Shropshire phoenix club AFC Telford United, who pull in pretty large crowds for this level…they currently are seeing 1,976 pass the turnstiles each game at the New Bucks Head in Telford {click here and zoom in for a Bing.com/Bird’;s Eye satellite view…you can see that the ground is pretty up-to-date}. The other club that is frankly too big for this level is Lincolnshire club Boston United FC, who played 5 seasons in the League (2002-03 to 2006-07). Boston United are now 3 seasons on from recovering from a two-level-relegation – one relegation from on-field performance and one relegation thanks to Steve Evans and his cooked books. [In 2007, Manager Evans and then-Boston Utd. chairman Pat Milkinson were charged with conspiracy to cheat the public revenue {see this, from BBC.co.uk from June 2007/11th and 12th paragraphs}. Evans is currently practicing his house-of-cards financing at Crawley Town in the Conference, and again, no one knows where the money is coming from. But I digress.] Boston United, who won promotion from the Northern Premier League Premier Division in 09/10, are drawing 1,477 per game this season, and, at fifth place, are in the running for a twice-promoted run. There is one other just-promoted club that could make it back-to-back promotions – Greater Leeds-based Guisely FC, who are in third place currently in Conference North, yet are only drawing at the league median, at 443 per game.
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Thanks to Mike Avery.co.uk, for 2009-10 average attendances, here. Thanks to HarrogateTown.com, for 2010-11 average attendances, here.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Conference North‘.

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January 15, 2011

2010 NCAA Division I Football Rankings – Final AP Poll, Top 10.

Filed under: NCAA Gridiron Football,NCAA/fb->AP top 10 — admin @ 2:49 pm

NCAA Division I Football, AP Poll – Final poll for 2010 season, Top Ten map

‘The Associated Press Top 25 Poll [Final Poll/January 11, 2011]‘ (SI.com).

If you think all the other Division I college football teams that make it to the plethora of Bowl games actually benefit from the pointless Bowl system, then why is it a fact that most Division I college football programs these days end up losing money when they go to Bowl games? Because schools are forced to buy huge blocks of tickets (like 17,000 tickets)…that no one ends up wanting or buying. That is why many of these tickets go on re-sale for next to nothing. Last season, in December, 2009, tickets for the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl game were on sale at Stub Hub.com (to see Kentucky v. Clemson in Nashville, TN) for 19 cents per ticket. And you know, Lexington, KY and Clemson, SC are both relatively near to Nashville, TN, but still there was so little demand for tickets that you could buy one for less than a quarter.

From Sports Illustrated, by Austin Murphy and Dan Wetzel, from November 15, 2010, ‘Does It Matter?‘
[Note: the Sports Illustrated article linked to above has 5 pages. The part about what I just mentioned is on page 3/ Paragraphs 6,7,and 8 - here...

Excerpt from Sportsillustrated.cnn.com, 'Does It Matter?', by Austin Murphy and Dan Wetzel,
"...Very few bowls do, in fact, sell out. Aware of this, their directors require a ticket commitment, which obligates the purchase of thousands of tickets at face value. Schools must then resell those tickets or risk losses that can run into seven figures. Before Internet ticket sites democratized the market, the deal made sense to the participating schools. Now, for all but the biggest games, fans can avoid paying full price—as they must when they go through the school's ticket office. Tickets to the 2009 Music City Bowl were available on StubHub for 19 cents.

The commitment guarantees only one thing: the fattening of the bowls' profit margins. For their appearance in the 2009 Orange Bowl, Virginia Tech and the ACC agreed to purchase 17,500 tickets at $125 per seat, but they could sell only 3,342, according to university documents. The result: a $1.77 million bath for the school, not the bowl.

Ohio State ate $1.01 million in unsold tickets at the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. Smaller bowls do similar damage to schools thrilled by a mere invitation. The euphoria of playing in the postseason quickly wore off for Western Michigan two years ago when the Broncos' athletic department was able to unload only 548 of the 11,000 tickets it was required to purchase by the good folks at the Texas Bowl. Western Michigan's loss of $462,535 (before adding in travel and lodging costs) probably hurt more than its subsequent 38--14 defeat at the hands of Rice." -{end of except}
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The only parties benefitting from the Bowl system are the Bowl Committees themselves. And no one cares about dead-end Bowl games involving teams with more than a couple losses, let alone Bowl games involving teams with .500 records or even losing records.

Meanwhile, if you are a Division I team and you go undefeated, and you are not in the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the PAC-10, the ACC, or the Big East, your shot at a universally-recognized national title is at the mercy of entrenched interests. And they will freeze you out. Utah (a Mountain West team) was frozen out in 2008, when they went 13-0. Boise State (a WAC team) was frozen out when they went 14-0 in 2009. And TCU (a Mountain West team at the time) was frozen out in 2010 when they went 13-0. That's 3 straight seasons that an undefeated team was not allowed to play in the BCS National Championship Game. [It also happened in 2006, when Boise State went 13-0.] But what does winning the BCS National Championship Game get you? It gets you the Mythical National Championship. Because no matter how you spin it, that’s what winning the BCS Championship Game still is. The NCAA does not recognize the title. The media just does.

NCAA Division I Football is probably the only competitive sports organization in the world that has never recognized a champion. The Bowl Championship Series is a third-party organization. Excerpt from the en.wikipedia.org page on Bowl Championship Series : “The NCAA, the governing organization of most collegiate sports, has no official process for determining its FBS (Div. 1-A) champion. Instead, FBS champions are chosen by what the NCAA calls in its official list of champions “selecting organizations”.” Selecting organizations?…a more apt description would be…Organizations set up to make sure only an SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, ACC, or Big East team can ever be called champion, so the NCAA can pass the buck on this, and so the Bowls can continue to make profits on pointless Bowl games.

The BCS was supposed to solve the problem of NCAA Division I not recognizing a Division I football champion, because of the belief that doing so would undermine the established Bowl system. The Internet is instead undermining the Bowl system by democratizing ticket sales. Fans are voting with their wallets, and those 19 cent tickets for the 2009 Music City Bowl speak volumes. Fan apathy might be the thing that brings down the BCS. I await the day when a college football team turns down a Bowl invitation so they don’t lose money. Do you think Western Michigan really wants to lose half a million bucks again, by going to some quasi- Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl game?
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Photo Credits -
Auburn/Jordan-Hare Stadium…College Stadiums at http://www.collegecharlie.com/stadiums.html.
TCU/Amon G. Carter Stadium…Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Oregon/Autzen Stadium…http://tom.nosleep.net/flying.html.
Stanford/Stanford Stadium….Skyscrapercity.com/thread ‘USA – College Football Stadiums’, submitted by westsidebomber here.
Ohio State/Ohio Stadium…College Charlie.com, here.
Oklahoma/Gaylord Family Memorial Stadium at Owen Field…Sharenator.com, here.
Wisconsin/Camp Randall Stadium…Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
LSU/Tiger stadium…http://www.collegecharlie.com/stadiums.html.
Boise State/Bronco Stadium…BroncoSports.com, here.
Alabama/Bryant-Denny Stadium… http://www.rmbama.com/alabama.html.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘NCAA‘.
For the helmet illustrations…Thanks to MG’s Helmets, http://www.mghelmets.com/.

Comments (9)

January 10, 2011

2010-11 UEFA Champions League, Knockout Phase – Round of 16, with match-ups.

Filed under: Denmark,Football Stadia,UEFA Champions League,Ukraine — admin @ 6:14 pm

2010-11 UEFA CL, Round of 16 map

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The UEFA Champions League 2010-11 Knockout Phase, Round of 16 gets underway on 15th and 16th February, with four matches; then resumes a week later for the other four 1st Leg matches. 2nd Leg matches are set for 8th and 9th / 15th and 16th March. If you want to see the 8 match-ups, with club profile boxes and 2 stadia photos for each club, scroll down a bit and click on the 2 dark blue boxes near the end of this post.

Teams that play at home for the 2nd Leg Leg were seeded higher for for the draw by winning their groups in the Group Stage. The biggest surprise in that category are Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk, who finished ahead of Arsenal in their group. This is the first time Shakhtar Donetsk have made it to the Round of 16 in the Champions League. Shakhtar come from the heavily industrialized Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, from the city of Donetsk, which is a grim city built on coal mining and heavy industry, offering little in the way of the things considered to be tourist attractions. In fact, enlarging the amount of total hotel rooms in the city is one of the most pressing issues facing Donetsk when the city hosts some of the matches for UEFA Euro 2012 (which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland in June 2012). Shakhtar Donetsk are owned by Ukraine’s wealthiest citizen, Rinat Ahkmetov, who began his rise as an oligarch in the banking sector in Donetsk in the first half of the 1990s, when newly independent Ukraine was freeing itself from the grip of Russian imperialism and setting up a system of private enterprise. Akhmetov is an ethnic Tatar/ Ukraine-born son of a Donbass coal miner, and is 42 years old. In 2000, Akhmetov founded Systems Capital Management (SCM Holdings), which has stakes in metals, coal mining, power generation, banking, insurance, real estate, telecommunications, and media. Assets of the company, 100% owned by Akhmetov, have been recently disclosed as $18 billion {SCM.com.ua/Key Financial Indicators [to 2009]‘. Akhmetov has devoted considerable sums in turning Shakhtar Donetsk from a small cup-specialist club with no national titles to a force in Ukraine and now Europe. Their futuristic new Donbass Arena (cap. 51,504) is testament to this. Shakhtar are pulling in around 33,000 per game this season in domestic home league matches, and are running away with the Ukrainian Premier League title again (they have won 4 of the last 6 Ukrainian titles). Akhmetov has undertaken this by making sure players he lured to eastern Ukraine are treated like royalty – it is common knowledge these days among football players that Shakhtar Donetsk’s facilities and infrastructure are on par with the most elite clubs in Western Europe. Shakhtar Donetsk are managed by the Romanian Mircea Lucescu, who has also coached in Turkey (winning titles for Galatasaray in 2002, and Besiktas in 2003), and in Italy (with Internazionale in 1998-99). Lucescu has managed Shakhtar since 2004. For the past few seasons, Shakhtar has been fielding around 3 to 5 Brazilians in their starting lineups in most matches. By way of example, when Shakhtar Donetsk beat Werder Bremen in Istanbul to win the 2008-09 UEFA Cup title, Shakhtar started 5 Brazilians (including goal scorers Luz Adriano and Jadson), 3 Ukrainians, 1 Croat (captain and DF Dario Srna), 1 Romanian (DF Razvan Rat), and 1 Pole (Mariusz Lewandowski). Luz Adriano, Jadson, Srna, and Rat still figure prominently in Shakhtar’s current configuration.

The crucial match which propelled Shakhtar Donetsk to the Round of 16 this season was the 3 November, 2010 match in Ukraine which saw a 2-1 defeat of Arsenal in the Donbass Arena before 51,153. This had come two weeks after Arsenal had humiliated Shakhtar by a 5-1 score at the Emirates Stadium in North London. In the 3 November match, goals for Shakhtar were scored by western Ukraine-born DF Dmitro Chygrynskiy in the 28th minute (following a 10th minute Arsenal goal by Theo Walcott), and a 58th minute winner by former Arsenal player, the Croatian international/Brazilian-born Eduardo, who looks to be recovered from his devastating leg injury in early 2008. From uefa.com, 3 Nov. 2010, ‘Eduardo strike sinks former club Arsenal’.

Shakhtar Donetsk have drawn AS Roma for the Round of 16. They will meet for the 1st Leg on 16 February at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. 2nd Leg is for 8 March in Donetsk.
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Of the 16 clubs still alive in the 2010-11 Champions League, the biggest surprise overall is the qualification of FC Copenhagen (in Danish, FC Kobenhavn). This is the first appearance in the Round of 16 for a club from Denmark. Like quite a few other football clubs in Denmark in recent history, FC Copenhagen was the result of a merger. In this case, it was between two historically successful but stagnating clubs from the country’s capital city, KB and B 1903. The two clubs had not won a Danish title between them for 12 years running when they merged; and immediately after the merger FC Copenhagen won the 1993 Danish title. KB (Kjobenhavns Boldklub) won 15 Danish titles, including the first in 1913, and most recently in 1980. B 1903 (Boldklubben 1903) won 7 national titles, their last in 1976. FC Copenhagen are the highest-drawing Danish club, and can draw in the 20,000 per game range (their peak has been 23.7 K in 2006-07).The club’s home is Parken, which is also the primary venue for the Denmark national football team. FC Copenhagen are coached by the Norwegian Stale Solbakken, who has been at the helm since 2006. Their goal scoring threats are Porto Alegre, Brazil-born FW César Santin, Senegalese FW Dame N’Doye, and Danish winger/supporting striker and former Ajax/Chelsea/Birmingham City/Atlético Madrid/VfB Stuttgart player Jesper Gronkjaer (age 33).

FC Copenhagen have drawn Chelsea for the Round of 16, with the 1st Leg on 22 February in Copenhagen, and the 2nd Leg on 16 March in West London. Judging by Chelsea’s recent form, Copenhagen can be seen as having a fighting chance of advancing. After all, FC Copenhagen beat Manchester United in the CL Group Stage in 2006-07, and Chelsea can’t beat bottom-of-the-table clubs like Wolverhampton Wanderers these days.
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Last season I posted a map of this round of the competition in December, 2009, right after the draw was held. I decided to hold off a little this season. The CL Knockout Phase still will not be starting for 36 days, but on the Sunday (13 Feb.) before the matches begin on 15 and 16 February, I will re-post the 3 gifs here (the map and the 2 match-ups pages), along with a map of the 2010-11 UEFA Europa League Round of 32 (which will begin on Thursday, 17 February).
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From Backpage Football.com, from 6 January, ‘Champions League – Reason to be excited‘, by Ger McCarthey.
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The following gif shows the 8 clubs involved in the first two match days of the 2010-11 Champions League Round of 16, on 15 and 16 February…
AC Milan v. Tottenham Hotspur
Valencia v. Schalke 04
Arsenal v. Barcelona
AS Roma v. Shakhtar Donetsk
Click on box below…

The next gif shows the 8 clubs involved in the second set of match days, on 22 and 23 February…
Lyon v. Real Madrid
FC Copenhagen v. Chelsea
Internazionale v. Bayern Munich
Marseille v. Manchester United
Click on box below…

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Photo Credits -
AC Milan/San Siro…Dankuna.com, here. RossoneriBlog.com, here.

Tottenham/White Hart Lane…Jazza5 at en.wikipedia.org, here. Daily Mail.co.uk, here.

Valencia/Mestella…A Life In Valencia.com, here. z6.invisionfree.com/Ultras Tlfosi, here.

Schalke 04/Veltins-Arena…VioletaS_gr at Flickr.com, here. ArenaPark.Gelsenkirchen.de, here.

Arsenal/Emirates Stadium…ByrneGroup.co.uk,/Projects, ‘Emirates stadium – Scope of Work [6-photo slideshow]‘, here. DailyMail.co.uk, here.

Barcelona/Camp Nou…kammourewa at Photobucket.com, here. Bing.com/maps Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.

AS Roma/Stadio Olimpico…Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here. ASRomaAlive.com, here.

Shakhtar Donetsk/Donbass Arena…Elparadiso19 at en.wikipedia.org (link is to a Donbass Arena gallery, here). Ultras.org.ua, 2010 Shakhtar gallery, here.

Lyon/Stade de Gerland…Bing.com/maps Bird’s Eye satellite view, here. Chasseurdestades.com/France, here.

Real Madrid/Bernebéu…FCB Transfers.blogspot.com, here. Real Madrid Videos, here.

FC Copenhagen/Parken…Virtual Tourist.com, here. MTU.edu, here.

Chelsea/Stamford Bridge…cyberdees at Flickr.com, here. Eco Compact City.org, here.

Internazionale/San Siro…zerozerofootball.com/San Siro (gallery, 30 photos), here. oscar federico bodini at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Curva (stadia)/Italy‘.

Bayern Munich/Allianz Arena…Karl Leidorf at Leidorf.blogspot.com, here. Maximillian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), at en.wikipedioa.org, here.

Marseille/Stade Vélodrome… Projets-Architecte-Urbanisme.fr. fredGLLS at Flickr.com, here.

Manchester United/Old Trafford… ManUtd24.com, ‘Nervous Glazers tell ManUtd players not to wear Green and Gold!’. ManUtdPics.com , (Manchester United/Old Trafford photo).

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2010-11 UEFA Champions League‘.
Thanks to E-F-S site, for attendance figures from 2009-10, and for Shakhtar Donetsk current attendance figures. Thanks to ESPN Soccernet for most of the current attendance figures. Thanks to Soccerway.com for FC Copenhagen current attendance figures {Danish Super Liga at Soccerway.com}

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January 3, 2011

2010-11 FA Cup, Third Round Proper.

Filed under: 2010-11 FA Cup — admin @ 3:32 pm

2010-11 FA Cup Third Round

BBC Sport/football/FA Cup, here.

2010-11 FA Cup Third Round Proper…The 5 biggest upsets…
#1, Stevenage 3-1 Newcastle United. League Two’s Stevenage, a club that is spending it’s first-ever season in the Football League, defeated the Premier League’s Newcastle United. In terms of current league tables, Stevenage are three levels and 75 places lower than Newcastle. Stevenage are just the 13th club from the 4th Level or from Non-League to defeat a 1st Level club in the FA Cup since 1980, and are only the third club to do this since the Premier League was formed in 1992-93..
From Guardian.co.uk/football, by Paul Doyle, ‘Peter Winn seals famous victory for Stevenage over Newcastle‘.
From TVGolo.com, ‘Stevenage 3-1 Newcastle (FA Cup) [video highlights, 1:39]‘.

#2 biggest upset…Crawley Town 2-1 Derby County (3 levels and 61 places separate the two clubs). Crawley Town are the only Non-League club still alive in the competition. [The club are in second place in the Conference National, 3 points behind AFC Wimbledon (with 3 games in hand).] from Guardian.co.uk/football, Monday 10 January 22:16 GMT, by Dominic Fifield, ‘Crawley Town beat Derby County to keep non-league flag flying in FA Cup‘.
From 101 Great Goals.com, ‘Remember Sergio Torres: Crawley keep the magic of the FA Cup alive dumping Derby‘ [video highlights from all 3 goals].

#3 biggest upset…Sunderland 1-2 Notts County (2 levels and 54 places separate the two clubs). ‘Lee Hughes seals Notts County win at Sunderland in FA Cup third round‘, by Lance Harvey at Guardian.co.uk/football.

#4 biggest upset…Burton Albion 2-1 Middlesbrough (2 levels and 47 places separate the two clubs). ‘Burton Albion 2-1 Middlesbrough‘, from BBC.co.uk/FA Cup.

#5 biggest upset…Norwich City 0-1 Leyton Orient (1 level and 40 places separate the two clubs). ‘Norwich 0-1 Leyton Orient‘, from BBC.co.uk/FA Cup.

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As usual with this category of map, fixtures are on the far right of the map page; locations of clubs, with their crests, are on the map and within the map segments flanking the main map; and current average attendances (from domestic home league matches) are listed on the far left. Also on the left is each club’s percent change versus 2009-10 average attendance.

The FA Cup Third Round is when clubs from the top two levels of English Football, the Premier League and the Football League Championship, enter the competition. That accounts for 44 teams. The other 20 teams come from lower levels, in this case as far down the pyramid as the 6th Level (Dover Athletic; more on them below). Due to the inclement weather this winter in Britain, there are 65 clubs on the map, not 64 clubs, because one Second Round tie, Lincon City v. Hereford United, has been postponed 3 times due to a frozen pitch at the Imps’ Sincil Bank. That Second Round replay is now scheduled for when the bulk of the matches this round are being played – at 2 pm GMT on Saturday. The winner of Lincon/Hereford is then scheduled to play in Buckinghamshire on Tuesday the 11th, versus Wycombe Wanderers.
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Here are the matches scheduled for television…
United Kingdom…The FA Cup on TV (The FA.com).
Sat. 8 Jan…
12:45 pm GMT, Arsenal v. Leeds United (ITV1).
5:30 pm GMT, Stevenage v. Newcastle United (ESPN/UK).
Sun., 9 Jan…
1:30 pm GMT, Manchester United v. Liverpool (ITV1).
4 pm GMT, Leicester City v. Manchester City (ESPN/UK).
Mon. 10 Jan…
8 pm GMT, Crawley Town v. Derby County (ESPN/UK).

USA and Canada…
foxsoccer.com/fsc
foxsoccer.com/fs+
Sat. Jan. 8…
7:45 am, Arsenal v. Leeds United (Fox Soccer Plus).
9:30 am ET, FA Cup Preview Show (Fox Soccer Channel).
10 am ET, Sheffield United v. Aston Villa (Fox Soccer Channel).
10 am ET, Scunthorpe United v. Everton (Fox Soccer Plus).
12:30 pm ET, Stevenage v. Newcastle United (Fox Soccer Channel).
Sun. Jan. 9…
8:30 am ET, Manchester United v. Liverpool (Fox Soccer Channel).
11 am ET, Leicester City v. Manchester City (Fox Soccer Channel).
Mon. Jan. 10…
2:30 pm ET, Crawley Town v. Derby County (Fox Soccer Plus).
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Fom The Guardian.co.uk/football, ‘FA Cup third-round preview: five potential upsets to look out for‘, by Rob Bagchi.
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Dover Athletic are the lowest-placed club still alive in the FA Cup this season. The coastal Kent club are in the 6th Level, in the Conference South. The Whites aim to make it two promotions in three seasons, and are currently in the playoff places, in 4th place. They’re unbeaten in their last 5 matches, which includes a 7-2 trouncing of Thurrock on Sunday the 2nd of January. Dover’s manager is Martin Hayes, whose playing career included 102 matches and 26 goals for Arsenal (1983-90). Dover Athletic have sizable support for a club two rungs below the Football League, and in fact Dover Athletic were in the Conference National (which is the 5th Level) for nine seasons, from 1993-94 to 2001-02. Dover are currently drawing 1,013 per game to their Perry’s Crabble Athletic Ground in River, Kent (the ground is just across the border from the town of Dover; Perry’s are a car dealership).

In the 2010-11 FA Cup First Round, Dover beat Gillingham away, 2-nil. That match-up was significant in two ways – first, it was a Kent derby. Second, it was a grudge match for Dover, as Gillingham had wrested away Dover’s then-manager, Andy Hessenthaler, over the summer break, and to rub salt into the wound, Hessenthaler then lured two of the Dover staff over to the Gills. On 6 November, Dover dispatched the two-levels-higher Gillingham before 7,475 at Priestfield (which included 2,300 Dover supporters). Then in the Second Round, on 27 November, Dover hosted another League Two club, Aldershot Town, and they beat the Shots 2-0. 4,123 filled the Crabble Athletic Ground for the match. That match was televised, so Dover made a bit of cash on that, too. Both goals v. Aldershot were scored by Adam Birchall, who is attracting the attention of clubs in higher divisions. He had played 104 games for League Two’s Barnet from 2006 to 2009, and it’s likely he will end up back in the 4th Level soon. Adam Birchall was born in Maidstone, Kent, and is a Wales U-21 international. Birchall currently is the second-highest scorer in the Conference South – he has netted 13 league goals (Braintree Town’s Sean Marks has 14 league goals). Birchall also has 11 cup goals in 6 matches in the FA Cup this season (five rounds’ worth of matches plus one replay). That’s insane. Birchall has been crucial to the Whites’ First and Second Round victories – netting the first goal in the Gillingham match – a 30-yard screamer in the 18th minute; and scoring both goals (one from the penalty spot) versus Aldershot. The photo on the left directly below the stadium image shows Birchall seconds before he scored that strike against Gillingham. The photo on the right, there, shows Luke l’Anson right as he was about to score on the parried rebound from a shot by teammate Harry Baker, in the 28th minute.

Here is Dover Athletic’s page at Pyramid Passion.co.uk…Dover Athetic FC/Crabble Athletic Ground.

Below is a satellite view image of the Crabble Athletic Ground, plus photos from the 2 matches (all photos from Doverathletic.com).

Dover Athletic have their work cut out for them in the Third Round, as they must travel up to West Yorkshire to face 3rd Level club Huddersfield Town, who sit 6th in League One.
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Thanks to the FA Cup silversmiths, Thomas Lyte Silver, for the photo of the FA Cup trophy, here.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, 2010-11 FA Cup/Third Round Proper. Thanks to Bobby McMahon at SoccerReporetExtra, here (via @OptaJoe) for the Stevenage/FA Cup stat. Thanks to ESPN Soccernet for attendance figures – here… 1st Level/Premier League ; 2nd Level/Championship ; 3rd Level/League One ; 4th Level/League Two ; 5th Level/Conference National.

Comments (5)

December 28, 2010

NCAA Basketball: The Big East Conference – Conference map, with venues, capacities, and 2009-10 average attendances; and teams’ Big East titles and NCAA Tournament histories.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball,NCAA/bk->Big East — admin @ 2:37 pm

Big East basketball 2011

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The map on the map page shows the locations of the schools in the Big East Basketball Conference, as well as the teams’ venue locations (if different than the school location). Three teams have dual venues – one basketball venue on campus, plus a larger basketball venue in a nearby city…those 3 teams are Connecticut (Storrs, CT/Hartford, CT), St. John’s (Queens, NYC, NY/Manhattan, NYC, NY), and Villanova (Villanova, PA/Philadelphia, PA). Two teams play not in the the school’s location, but in an adjacent municipality – DePaul (who are from Chicago, IL, but play in Rosemont, IL), and Seton Hall (whoi are from South Orange, NJ, but play in Newark, NJ). One team, Georgetown, has an on-campus venue (McDonough Arena, capacity 2,5000 – {see this photo (Sports Illustrated.com)} that is basically too small to stage games on a regular basis, and in recent seasons has hosted one game a season. But this season it won’t be hosting a game. I included it in Georgetown’s profile box, but put in a picture of their main venue, the Verizon Center. [It's a shame the McDonough is so small...if it had a capacity of a couple thousand more, it would be a viable venue for more games. I understand the atmosphere there is fantastic. And the problem for Georgetown is that the Verizon Arena is too big - it holds 20,173, and Georgetown averaged 12,040 (granted, that one game in 2009-10 at the McDonough, which drew 2,400, pulled down Georgetown's average attendance a little bit). Playing to six to eight thousand empty seats on a regular basis is not a very ideal situation.]

On the far left of the map page is a table that shows the 2009-10 final standings for Big East Basketball; the winner of the 2010 Big East Tournament (West Virginia); the 5 Big East teams that were in the final AP Basketball Poll, and their rankings; and the 8 teams that qualified for the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament, as well as which round they exited in. Again, West Virginia went the furthest, making it to the Final Four, where they lost to the eventual 2010 champions, Duke. Good job to the Mountaineers, and to coach Bob Huggins, who, after revamping the Kansas State program (2006-07), has further rebuilt his reputation after those sordid final days of his Cincinnati stint (ca. 2005, which involved a very public DUI conviction and a protracted contract squabble with the school’s top brass). Huggins, an alumni of West Virginia University, looks to be building a solid program in Morgantown…which will result in only strengthening the already powerful juggernaut that is Big East Basketball. An example of the giant shadow that Big East basketball casts on the sport can be seen in the fact that 8 of the top 20 teams in the all-time list of most appearances in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament come from the Big East…
March Madness all-time appearances list, click on the following…‘NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament bids by school’(en.wikipedi.org)
Big East teams in the All-time top 20 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances list -
#5 Louisville,with 36 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#8 Syracuse, w/ 33 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
9 [tied] Villanova, w/ 30 NCAA Basketball Tournament 30 appearances.
#9 [tied] Notre Dame, w/ 30 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#12 [tied] Connecticut, w/ 28 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#12 [tied] Marquette, w/ 28 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#19 [tied] Georgetown, w/26 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#19 [tied] St. John’s, w/ 26 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.

Below that table are 2009-10 Big East Basketball teams’ average attendances and percent capacities. Big East Basketball features some very high-drawing teams, and last season 2 teams – Syracuse and Louisville – were among the top 3 highest drawing NCAA basketball teams in the country (Kentucky drew the highest). 14 of the 16 teams in the Big East were among the top 100 drawing college basketball teams. ’2010 National College Basketball Attendance, [2009-10]‘, from the NCAA.org site, here (pdf file).

One other element to the map is the inclusion of future Big East member TCU [Texas Christian University]. The TCU Horned Frogs will join all Big East sports, including basketball, in 2012.
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At the right of the map are profile boxes of all 16 current teams in Big East Basketball. Included are…full name of school; location of main campus, basketball venue(s) (and location if different); year of the school’s establishment; year of the establishment of the school’s varsity basketball team; undergraduate enrollment; Big East Tournament titles (and year of last title); seasons spent in Big East Basketball (and season the school joined the conference, and from where); NCAA Basketball Tournament titles (and year of last title); NCAA Final Four appearances (and year of last Final Four appearance), and total number of NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances (and year of last appearance). Plus I squeezed in each team’s coach, and years he has spent coaching there. Then there is a shot of the interior of the team’s venue (or in the case of those 3 dual-venue-teams, their campus venue), and above the photo, the team’s 2009-10 average attendance is listed. Finally, I had room for just one jersey per team, so I chose the most colorful one…not very, ahem, professional of me, I know, but if I did it by the book and just put in photos of each team’s home whites, it would look a lot more boring, and would not give you a sense of each team’s color scheme. At any rate, many teams do not even offer their white jerseys for sale on the internet, or if they do, I couldn’t find them. In fact, two teams seem to not sell basketball jerseys at all…Providence and Rutgers. I had to assemble an image of these two teams’ jerseys. So anyway, the jerseys all ended up being the teams’ away jerseys, with the exception of Marquette, who feature here their alternate away jersey (a snazzy light blue jersey), and Georgetown, who famously play in home greys. An interesting fact I learned while making this map is that the Georgetown Hoya’s colors were created by the members of their first sports team, the rowing team, in 1876…it was to honor both the Union and Confederate armies – with the Prussian Blue of the Union troops’ gear, and the Cadet Grey of the Confederate troops’ gear {see this}. By the way, some of these jerseys are last season’s version, but what I put there was the most recent that I could find. One final point…those aren’t empty orange seats in the Syracuse Orange/Carrier Dome photo – that’s around 25,000-plus students and fans in orange shirts. Go ‘Cuse!
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Photo credits-
Cincinnati…gobearcats.com/Fifth Third Arena photo gallery, here. Jersey at gobearcats.com.
Connecticut…Dinur Blum at Flickr.com, here. Jersey at Football Fanatics.com.
DePaul…depaulbluedemons.com/Allstate Arena. Jersey at depaulbluedemons.com, here.
Georgetown…Verizon Center photo by Anna Creech [aka eclecticlibrairian] at Flickr.com, here. Jersey, at collegebasketballstore.com, here.
Louisville…KFC Yum! (man what a ridiculous name for a stadium) Arena, from AP, at SI Live.com, here (‘Goodbye Freedom Hall, hello KFC Yum! Center for Louisville basketball’). Jersey, at collegebasketballstore.com, here.
Marquette…Bradley Center photo from Replay Photos.com, here. Jersey from FootballFanatics.com, here.
Pittsburgh…Petersen Events Center photo by crazypaco at en.wikipedia.org, here. Jersey at shoppittpanthers.com, here.

Providence…Dunkin’ Donuts Center photo, Getty Images at Rivals.Yahoo.com, here. Jersey, note: no Providence Friars jerseys available on the internet, therefore I assembled one, thanks to this site (Logosportswear).
Rutgers…Rutgers’ Athletic Center photo, from scarletknights.com. Jersey not available on the internet, and was assembled thanks to this site (Logosportswear).
St. John’s…Carnesecca Arena photo, at redstorm.com/inside athletics/facilities, here. Jersey, at FootballFanatics.com, here.
Seton Hall…Prudential Center photo, from shupirates.com/facilities, here. Jersey, at shupirates.com/store, here.
South Florida…J. Meric at bullsheaven.com; Jersey at bullsheaven.com.
Notre Dame…Joyce Center photo at und.com/facilities, here. Jersey, at und.com/store/cstv.com, here.
Syracuse…Carrier Dome photo from Section 247 Sports Blog.com, here. Jersey, at CBS Sports.com, here.
Villanova…The Pavillion photo, posted by jicharles at ChampionshipSubdivision.com/forums, here. Jersey, at FootballFanatics.com, here.
West Virginia…WVU Coliseum photo from msnsportsnet.com/facilities, here. Jersey, at CNY Discounts.com, here.
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Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Big East Conference‘.

Thanks to Duane Frank (a Notre Dame supporter/ @BigDuaneFrank on Twitter), and the fellas at CollegeHoops.net, including Charles Seymour Jr. (@CollegeHoopers on Twitter), for tweeting {here} about my last college basketball post. CollegeHoops.net can be found on my blogroll.

Thanks to Jeremy at AlbionRoad.com, for info on Georgetown.

Comments (11)

December 20, 2010

England: Football League Championship, 2010-11 – Stadia map.

Filed under: 2010-11 English Football,Eng-2nd Level/Champ'ship,Engl. Promotion Candidates,Football Stadia — admin @ 3:05 pm

Please note: to see my most recent map-and-post of the English 2nd division, click on the following: category: Eng-2nd level/Championship.
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League Championship Stadia map

Football League Championship table, here (Soccerway.com).
The map page, as is usual with this category of map, shows an aerial or exterior shot of each club’s stadium. Included in each club’s profile box are club info…the year the club was established, location, name of their football ground and it’s capacity, major domestic titles, and seasons spent at this level. ['This level', in this case of course means the 2nd Level of English Football.] At the far right on the map page are the clubs’ locations on the map, and below that are 2009-10 attendance figures (average attendance of home league matches). Also listed is percent change in attendance from 2008-09.
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Queens Park Rangers have held the lead since late August, but have now lost two straight matches. They were QPR’s first two defeats of the season, and came a week ago against mid-table Watford, and last weekend, versus Leeds United. There were 29,426 at Elland Road Saturday to see Leeds beat QPR 2-0 (on a brace by 23-year old Ivorian MF Max Gradel), which is a darn good turnout for United, especially when one considers the horrible weather that had descended upon Britain that day. Leeds are now unbeaten in 9 league matches (6 wins and 3 draws), their last defeat was at home versus Cardiff City. Few would have thought Leeds would be in such a good position come Christmas, after that 4-0 drubbing at the hands of the Bluebirds in mid-October. The following article explains what has happened since (basically manager Simon Grayson has got the midfielders and forwards to better support the defenders)…from The Guardian.co.uk/Football League blog, 20 December, 2010, by Richard Rae, ‘Great expectations as Leeds begin to see good times‘.

Clubs have played from 20 to 22 matches at this point in the season. QPR leads with 41 points (and a league-best +22 goal difference) and have a game in hand on second-place Leeds, who are at 38 points. Third are Cardiff City (also with a game in hand) at 37 points/+13 goal difference. The Bluebird’s fellow Welsh club and hated rivals Swansea City sit fourth at 37 points/+9 goal difference. Rounding out the playoff spots are the Canaries of Norwich City in 5th place, at 36 points; and the Sky Blues of Coventry City, who sit sixth and who are at 34 points. Coventry City are perhaps the biggest surprise of the top 6. Coventry are managed by Aidy Boothroyd, who got the job after his strong performance managing League One’s Colchester United to 5th place last season. His reputation was as a purveyor of ugly Route 1 football…hoof it up and smash and grab a goal. That’s how he got Watford into the Premier League 6 seasons ago. This reputation seems to be changing a bit, as he has Coventry City playing a more flowing game.

Back to Leeds United. The squad is playing with assurance under Simon Grayson, and features 3 players that look to have bright futures: Argentinian FW Luciano Becchio, hometown talent MF Jonny Howson, and Glasgow-born (but strangely overlooked as a Scotland international) MF/FW Robert Snodgrass. I think Leeds are going up. If you asked me a week ago, I must confess that my one lock for promotion would be Neil Warnock’s QPR, but that midweek, 3-nil home loss to Watford puts the Hoops in a less flattering light. The criticism about QPR is that if their mercurial wunderkind Adel Taarabt is not ‘on’, the team is not nearly the threat as when the Moroccan midfielder is on all cylinders. At any rate, QPR are a lot easier for the neutral observer to pull for, now that the egregious Flavio Briatore is gone from the QPR ownership ranks. Do you think it’s any coincidence that the now-three-years-on-’richest club in the world’-QPR finally got it’s on-field act together only once that imperious, bimbo groping, micro managing, blue-tinted-sunglasses-wearing, Formula 1 race-fixing sack of lard was forced to step down as chairman and drop his share in the club? There were ten managerial changes in less than 2 1/2 years at Loftus Road when Briatore was running the show.
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Here are current average attendances…note: click on ‘Attendance’ which is above the league table, on the far right click here {Soccerway.com}. Cardiff City are the one club in the second tier this season that has seen a significant, more-than-two-thousand-per-game attendance increase…the Bluebirds are pulling in 23,150 this season, which is 2,433 better than last season, when they finished 4th. Of course this increase can be attributed mostly to the fact that this is the first full season that the Bluebirds are playing in their new ground. But Cardiff are doing well, and might finally have it in them to become the first Welsh club to play in the Premier League. Those capacity crowds will certainly energize the Bluebirds in their promotion campaign. The second-best numerical attendance increase is by QPR, who are drawing 1,547 more per game this season than last season. They still are only filling the bandbox that is Loftus Road to just 78% capacity, though, at 14,896 per game.

Last season only one second level club drew higher than Derby County – the en route-to-promotion Newcastle United. Currently, Derby County are the highest-drawing club in the Championship, only this season they are actually decent. They feature one of the league’s top scorers in Kris Commons, a Mansfield, Nottinghamshire-born Scottish international, who has 12 league goals. [That tally is currently second best, behind Cardiff's Jay Bothroyd...photos of the top 8 goal leaders can be seen below.] The funny thing is attendance is down by 3,059 per game at Pride Park, despite the fact that the Rams were in the playoff places prior to their current 4-game losing slump (yet are still just 4 points off the playoff places). The Derby v. Nottingham Forest match has yet to be played, though, so that will fill the place up and push up that average gate.

As Yorkshire’s biggest club, the just-promoted Leeds United would be expected to see attendance increases, and Leeds has the third biggest numerical attendance increase in the league this season, up 1,139 per game. They are drawing the second best in the league this season, currently seeing an average of 25,957 pass their turnstiles. Third best drawing club are perennial capacity-fillers Norwich City. I think they could add 5,000 seats to Carrow Road and the Canaries would still be playing to an above 90% capacity. Rounding out the top five best drawing clubs this season are the aforementioned Cardiff City, then Leicester City. No, I am not going to talk about the charmed Swedish lothario who runs the Foxes these days (well I guess I just did). Incidentally, Leicester’s gates are down, but that can be explained by the fact that their gates were up last season because they had just won promotion, and this season they started out horribly.
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Leading scorers in the League Championship…
[Note: Below are leading scorers as of 25th December, 2010/Current leading scorers can be seen here (BBC)]

Photo credits for leading scorers- Yahoo Sport/PA images; Ross Kinniard/Getty Images at zimbio.com; SkySports.com; BBC/Getty Images. PA at DailyMail.co.uk; unattributed; ThisIsNottinghamshire.co.uk; Independant.co.uk.

Photo credits for map page…
Thanks to the Daily Mail.co.uk (Bristol City/Ashton Gate photo, here).

Thanks to Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view [set at Swansea City/Liberty Stadium, here].

Thanks to Colorcoat-online.com (Cardiff city/Cardiff city Stadium photo, here ).

Thanks to Noostairz at Skyscrapercity.com, in the Preston/Deepdale Redvelopment Thread ~May, 2008, for the Preston North End/Deepdale photo, here.

Thanks to Rob Dannatt at WorldStadia.com, for the Doncaster Rovers/Keepmoat Stadium photo, here.

Thanks to Premier Football Books.co.uk (Scunthorpe United/Glanford Park photo, here).

Thanks to the Norwich online newspaper The Pinkun.com (Norwich City/Carrow Road photo [wallpaper, second from bottom, here].

Thanks to SouthBank at the Skyscrapercity.com thread ‘Favorite Small Stadium (-20,000)’, here (Millwall/The Den photo, here).
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Thanks to the E-F-S site, for attendance figures.
Thanks to Historical Football Kits site for the kits, historicalkits.co.uk.

Comments (9)

December 14, 2010

Turkey: 2010-11 Süper Lig – Stadia map.

Filed under: Football Stadia,Turkey — admin @ 7:55 am

Turkey 2010-11 stadia

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The map page shows stadia and club information for the 18 clubs in the 2010-11 Süper Lig. Reigning Turkish champions are Bursaspor, and 2009-2010 Turkiye Kupasi winners and cup holders are Trabzonspor. At the upper right on the map page is the all-time professional titles list for Turkey. Tied for first place, with 17 titles, are Istanbul’s Galatasaray (last title won in 2008) and Fenerbahçe (last title won in 2007); third with 13 titles are Istanbul’s Besiktas (last title won in 2009); fourth are Trabzon-based Trabzonspor, with 6 titles (last title won in 1984); fifth are Bursa-based Bursaspor.

On Sunday, 16 May 2010, for the fist time in 26 years, a football club from outside Istanbul won the Turkish championship. Bursaspor, known as the Green Crocodiles, are from Bursa, which is about 15 km. south of the Sea of Marmara in north-western Anatolia. Bursa is the fourth-largest city in Turkey, with a population of around 1.8 million {2008 census figures}. Bursaspor were formed in 1963 and first made it into the Turkish first division in 1967-68. Although Burasaspor have spent 42 seasons in the first division, they had never really challenged for the title. Before last season, Bursaspor’s best finish was in 1979-80, when they finished in 4th place, 6 points behind winners Trabzonspor. In fact, Bursaspor were recently relegated, in 2003-04 (they won promotion back to Süper Lig two seasons later, in 2005-06). The fallout from that relegation is still felt in the Turkish football scene, as it created a bitter rivalry between Bursaspor and Besiktas…that is explained in this recent article from the brilliant site European Football Weekends: ‘Turkish eye of the storm, Besiktas 1-0 Bursaspo (05:11:10)‘, by Ulas Gürsat.

Bursaspor has become a club that is able to develop good talent while operating on a budget which is a fraction of those of the Big 3 (of Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, and Besiktas). Last season, Bursaspor had a budget of around just 5.5 million pounds, versus Fenerbahce’s 65-million pound budget, and Galatasaray’s 41-million pound outlay. The Green Crocodiles squad plays open attacking football under young (41 yrs. old) manager Ertugrul Saglam, who resurrected his career after his stint managing his old club Besiktas in 2007-08, which included a tepid 3rd-place league finish and an embarrassing 8-0 loss to Liverpool in the 2007-08 Champions League Group Stage. Bursaspor had no standout leading scorer in their title run in 2009-10, instead fielding 4 players (shown below) who scored 7 or 8 league goals. And they were able to succeed without their talismanic young phenom, the supporting striker Sercan Yildrim, who was injured for over half of the campaign. Perhaps the other most promising player in the squad is LW/MF Ozan Ípek…’Ozan Ipek – A Turkish box-to-box midfielder with a big future‘, (IMS Scoutng.com).

On the last day of the 2009-10 season, Bursaspor squeaked in for the title, by one point, after they beat Besiktas 2-1, while Fenerbahçe only managed to draw 1-1 with Trabzonspor. Fenerbahçe fans at the Sükrü Saracoglu stadium in Istanbul actually thought their club was set to win the title after the stadium announcer gave the wrong score for the match at Bursa. I bet there were a lot of Galatasaray fans that got a good laugh out of that screw-up. Here is an article from 17th May, from the National Turk.com site, ‘Fenerbahce crushed as Bursa declared Champions of Turkey’.

photo credits – Turkcell.net for the Bursa Atatürk Stadyumu photo, here.
Bursaspor.org. Medyaspor.com. ManUtd.com. Shaun Botterill/Getty images at Zimbio.com [CL match of Bursa v. Manchester United]. Futbolistan.com. National Turk.com, article ‘ Fenerbahce crushed as Bursa declared Champions of Turkey’ (17 May , 2010)‘.
Teksas.org [Bursaspor fansite].
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Census-defined regions of Turkey, see this.

‘List of cities in Turkey [note: by city population only (no metropolitan-area population included]‘ from en.wikipedia.org.
On the chart below, 2008 census figures are used, and all cities with Turkish top-flight representation are listed in bold…

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This season, there could very well be another champion from outside Istanbul, as Trabzonspor lead by 5 points, with Bursaspor in second place. The north-eastern Anatolian club Trabzonspor come from the pretty small Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon {which has a city population of around 220,000}. 6-time champions Trabzonspor had their glory days in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the club has not won the title since 1984. It’s starting to look like only 2 of the Big 3 will have a chance for the crown, because Galatasaray are imploding (winning only 1 of their last 6 matches), and they sit 10th, 19 points off the pace. Fenerbahçe sit third, 9 points back. Central Anatolian club Kayserispor are in fourth, 10 points back. Besiktas are fifth, 12 points behind.
Turkish Süper Lig table, here (Soccerway.com).

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Photo credits – internetspor.com. yorumla.net.

Süper Lig will begin its 5-week-long winter break after the matches scheduled for the weekend of 17 to 19 December. The competition will then be at exactly the half-way point, with clubs having played 17 matches. Play will resume starting on 22 January, 2011.

Note: Galatasaray have not yet begun playing in their just-completed, new, 52,000-seat stadium. It looks like they will begin playing there sometime in late January or early Februaury, 2010. Here is a recent thread (posts from the first week in December, and with lots of photos) from Skyscrapercity.com, ‘ISTANBUL – Turk Telecom Arena (52,695)‘.

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Thanks to Mehmet Demircan at World Soccer, June 2010 issue. WorldSoccer.com.
Photo credits
Thanks to the Gaziantepsor official site, for the photo of their stadium, here (Gaziantep Kamil Ocak Stayumu gallery).

Thanks to Kamil Saim, for his photo of the Kader Has Stadium, which is the new municipal stadium in Kayseri, in Central Anatolia. The term municipal stadium doesn’t do this impressive structure justice here. Kamil Saim at Flickr.com.

Thanks to Konyaspor official site, for the photo of their stadium, here (Konya Attatürk Stadi gallery).

Thanks to leopold at Photobucket.com, for the photo of the new Maradan Sports Complex in Atalya, here.

Thanks to Milliyet.com.tr, for the photo of Bucaspor’s Yeni Buca Stadi, here.

Thanks to Fussball Tempel.net, for the Manisa 19 Mayis Stadi photo, here (gallery).

Thanks to Swatreco at the Skyscrapercity.com thread ‘Stadiums in Turkey,’for the Ankara 19 Mayis Stadi photo, here (40% down the page).

Thanks to Turkcell.net (this article), for the Bursa Atatürk Stadyumu photo, here.

Thanks to Nerdennereye.com, for the Sivas 4 Eylül Stadyumu photo, here (Sivas photo gallery).

Thanks to Karabuksporluyuz.com/forum, and contributor bahattinsenturk, for the photo of Yenişehir Stadyumu, here.

Thanks to TFF.org, for the photo of the recently renovated Hüseyin Avmi Aker Stadyumu – Trabzonspor/Hüseyín Avní Aker Stadyumyu.

Thanks to blackbir/dk, for his photo of Istanbul’s Atatürk Olímpíyat Stadi, here (at Flickr.com). Blackbir/dk’s photostream, here.

Thanks to adamsik, for the photo of Kasimpasa’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadi, here.

Thanks to Explore Istanbul.com, for the photo of Besiktas’ Ínönü Stadyumu, here.

Thanks to Skyscrapercity.com contributor www.sercan.de, for the photo (via Flickr.com) of Galatasaray’s Ali Sami Yen Stadi, here. The thread is here, ‘Stadium Aerials’…the page linked to starts with 3 photos of Fenerbahce’s Sükrü Saracoglü Stadi, then 3 photos of Besiktas’ Inönü Stadyumu, then the Galatasaray photo.

Thanks to ZeroZeroFootball.com, for the nighttime photo of Fenerbahçe’s Sükrü Saracoglu Stadyumu, here…[Note: the photo is credited to the WowTurkey.com site, but I could not find the original there. The following links are to the WowTurkey site’s ‘Fenerbahçe Sükrü Saracoglu Stadyumu’ thread, here, with lots of pages full of stadium photos, including shorts from a few years back when the stadium had only 3 sides re-built (~pp.6-9, here), and shots of the exterior lighting display (pp.17-18, here).

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Süper Lig‘.

Comments (5)

December 7, 2010

NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – The top 100 drawing teams, 2009-10 season (home games, regular season).

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball,NCAA/bk-attendance map: 2010, 2014 — admin @ 5:17 pm

Please note: I have made a more recent College Basketball Attendance Map; click on the following link, NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – map of the top 100 drawing teams, 2013-14 season (home games, regular season): #1 Syracuse; #2 Kentucky; #3 Louisville.
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NCAA basketball, top 100-drawing teams, 2009-10
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‘2010 College Basketball Attendance‘, [pdf] from NCAA.org.
At the top of the map page are the top eleven drawing teams (all teams which drew over 15,000 per game last season). Included are the teams’ home arenas, and their capacities. Three of these 11 teams played to full capacity…Attendance leaders the Kentucky Wildcats, who played to 102.6% capacity, drawing 24,111 per game to the 23,500-capacity Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY {metro population, around 463,000}. The 6th-highest-drawing Wisconsin Badgers played to 100% capacity at the 17,230-capacity Kohl Center in Madison, WI {metro population, around 561,000). And the ninth-highest-drawing Kansas Jayhawks played to 100.8% capacity at the 16,300-capacity Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, KA {metro population, around 116,000}.

There were only three other teams in the list of 100 highest attendances that played to 100% capacity last season…Michigan State, Duke, and Gonzaga. The Michigan State Spartans have now played to 100-percent-capacity at their 14,797-capacity Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan for 10 consecutive seasons (since 2000, which was when the Spartans won the second of their 2 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament titles). The 2010 champions Duke Blue Devils once again filled their 9,314-capacity Cameron Indoor Stadium for all their home games, which put them at 53rd-highest-drawing. The perennial March Madness overachievers the Gonzaga Bulldogs are from Spokane, in eastern Washington state, near the Idaho panhandle. They play in a smart and compact 6,000-seat arena called the McCarthey Athletic Center {see this page with interior and exterior shots (Garco Construction Inc. site)}. They were tied for 90th-highest-drawing last season. You just know that arena is an asset for the ‘Zags, because those sell-out crowds make it pretty tough for the visitors. There were a couple teams that drew just below 100% capacity…the 41st-highest-drawing team, south-east Kansas’ Wichita State Shockers (who played to 97.7% capacity), and the Cincinnati, Ohio-based power the Xavier Musketeers, who were the 44th-highest-drawing team last season (playing to 98.8% capacity).
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The circles on the map are all centered on the team’s home arena. They are meant to measure the team’s average crowd size, not the area of the team’s fan base. For example, the part of the big red Louisville Cardinals’ circle that swings north into the state of Indiana is not meant to say that folks from that part of Indiana support Louisville…there is certainly a higher percentage of Indiana Hoosiers fans there (except, probably, for the people that live directly across the Ohio River from the city of Louisville, in and around Clarksville, Indiana, which is part of the Greater Louisville metro area). But I decided to stick to circles radiating out equally, instead of making arbitrary oblong circular blobs that conformed to state boundaries. Besides coastal teams, there was only one instance where I had to put the team’s circle outside the team’s point on the map, and that was in another part of the college-basketball-mad Ohio River Valley, in Cincinnati…because the Xavier Musketeers and the Cincinnati Bearcats both play there. So I moved the Cincinnati Bearcats’ circle off the continental US land mass, and connected it with a line to the city, so that both team’s circles could be properly seen. Another instance where two team’s circles were super-imposed was in the state of North Carolina…the 5th highest-drawing, Chapel Hill-based North Carolina Tar Heels are just 11 miles (18 km.) west of Durham, where the aforementioned Duke Blue Devils play. In this case, Duke’s circle was small enough that it fit into the Tar Heel’s circle, so both could be viewed without moving one circle off its point on the map.

Btw, if you are wondering why there is no team from the state of Massachusetts on the map, well, UMass’ glory days are gone (they only draw around 3,900 these days), Boston College had a poor season (15-16 record), and they drew just 5,317 per game last season, meaning they just missed being in the top 100, and Holy Cross just doesn’t draw so well (less than 2,200). And, over on the west coast, what about USC ? That’s another instance of an off-year resulting in poor crowds. USC were 16-14, and only drew 5,016 per game. UCLA also does not draw so well. For the all-time most successful men’s college basketball program (11 titles, last in 1995), UCLA’s 8,081 per game last season is nothing other than an embarrassment. The jaded LA sports fan can’t be bothered.

Here are the 5 teams that just missed being on the map (#s 101-105)…Boston College, who averaged 5,317 per game; Weber State [Ogden, Utah], who averaged 5,310 per game; Wright State [Dayton, Ohio], who averaged 5,277 per game; Rutgers [Piscataway, New Jersey], who averaged 5,236 per game; Rhode Island [Kingston, RI], who averaged 5,227 per game.

You can see all Division I teams’ average attendances, with teams listed alphabetically, at the bottom of the pdf {again, here}.

Thanks to CBS Sports/College BK, here.
Thanks to Sports-Logos-Screensavers.com, for some of the logos, here.

Comments (15)

December 1, 2010

Scotland, 2010-11 Scottish Premier League – Stadia map.

Filed under: Football Stadia,Scotland — admin @ 10:01 am

Scotland, 2010-11

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Scottish council areas are listed for each club’s home city or town. Scottish Council areas map, here. ‘List of towns and cities in Scotland by population‘ (en.wikipedia.org). This next map shows populations densities in Scotland, here. You can see the heavy concentration of population in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the Central Belt that connects the two cities. 8 of the 12 clubs in the 2010-11 Scottish Premier League are from this belt, and around 20 of the 24 highest-drawing clubs in Scotland are in the belt {see my map from last season, here, which shows all clubs (24) that drew over 1,000 per game in 2008-09)

Attendances on the map page are for home league matches, 2009-10 season. Attendance was down at 9 of the 12 clubs last season, with only then-promoted St. Johnstone seeing a significant upswing (from 3,516 to 4,717 per game). Kilmarnock saw a modest +4.6% gate increase (of 245 per game), to 5,972, but that’s still well below their past-decade high of 9,422 per game in 1999-2000. This season {2010-11 attendances at E-F-S site, here}, Celtic is currently seeing around a 4,400 per game turnstile increase, to 49,000 or so per game, but still far below their modern era high of 59,353 per game, in 2000-01. All through the decade of the 2000s, Celtic was outdrawing Rangers, often by a 10,000 per game margin. But in the latter half of the 1990s, Rangers were drawing around 49,000 to Celtic’s 48,000. So last season was the first time since the late 1990s that Rangers outdrew Celtic. The basic reason is Rangers’ 2 straight Scottish titles, and Celtic’s two consecutive seasons without a major title. Hibernian has an exciting and improving squad (but are faltering this season, in the bottom half of the table), and have a new stand (the East Stand), and gates have increased. Hibs are pulling in around 13,000 per game this season, which is around 1,200 higher than their 2009-10 gate figures. Inverness Caley Thistle, promoted back this season, for their sixth season in the Scottish top flight, have seen crowds at 5,000, and that is equal to their best (which was 5,061 per game in their second season in the first tier and their first full season in their renovated stadium). Their Caledonian Stadium is right on the shore of the Moray Firth, and seats just over 7,000. Inverness are one of four clubs in the Scottish Premier League with a ground smaller than 10,000 capacity, and one of 8 clubs in the league with a ground smaller than 20,000. And when you factor in the giant capacities of Celtic Park (cap. 60,832) and Ibrox (cap. 51,082), and the crowds that the two Old Firm clubs pull in, you can see why the Scottish Premier League is one of the most lopsided and competitively unbalanced football leagues in the world. In the 1980s, there was hope that Dundee United (1983 title) and Aberdeen could break the monopoly of the Old Firm (until Alex Ferguson left Aberdeen to manage Manchester United, after he had led Aberdeen to a European Cup Winners’ Cup title in 1983, then back-to-back Scottish titles in 1984 and 1985); and in the early 2000s, Hearts looked like they could muscle in (until their owner went nuts, doing things like firing George Burley after he had Hearts start the 2005-06 season with 8 straight wins). These days no one talks of who could have even a ghost of a chance to wrest the title from Rangers or Celtic. It’s been 25 seasons straight that the title has been in the hands of the Old Firm, and the fact that Rangers or Celtic will win the title is a done deal from the get-go. And crowds are way down compared to a decade ago. Last season, the Scottish Premier League averaged, as a whole, 13,920 per game. In 1999-2000, the Scottish Premier League averaged 17,901 per game. That’s a drop-off of 3,981 per game.
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Thanks to Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, (set at Inverness Caley Thistle’s Caledonian Stadium, here).

Thanks to Perthshire Picture Agency, www.ppapix.co.uk, for St. Johstone/McDiarmid Park photo, here.

Thanks to Hibs fan Disco Dave Barlow for the Hearts/Tynecastle aerial photo, here.
Disco Dave Barlow’s photostream at Flickr.com, here.

Thanks to MJM Architect, for the St. Mirren/St. Mirren Park photo, here.

Thanks to www.Glasgow2014.com, for this stunning, giant photo of Celtic Park [it might take a little while to download], here.

Thanks to Football-Pictures.net, for the photo of Rangers’ Ibrox, here.

The next photo came from a site I couldn’t access (I did a screen shot of the Google Image search page for ‘fir park stadium motherwell’), 24th image, here.

Thanks to RSSSF.com, for all-time table in Scotland, here.

Thanks to E-F-S site, for attendance figures, here.

Thanks to Demis.nl, for the base map. Demis Web Map Server.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, 2010-11 Scottish Premier League.

Comments (3)

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