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Here's a collection of the notes I make every other week in Exeter City's matchday programme. I combine my experiences as a City fan with what is going on in the game over here. The Grecian was recently voted the best publication in Coca Cola League Two by Programme Monthly magazine, roll on the new season for the League One award...

Rice to Seaborne, to Seaborne Rice

February 23rd 2010 17:49
The biggest comparison to be drawn between the game in South America and football in the English lower leagues is a lack of prime.

No offence to the magnificent servants of Exeter City down the years but history as well as our recent success with youth development shows that our best players move on.

This runs true over here as well as year after year the cream floats across the Atlantic and washes up in the Champions League.

Give these hotshots a few years however and invariably they will end up back where they started, or at least very close it.

Some lads, such as Roberto Carlos or Martin Phillips, get their GPS a little confused while they’re away and end returning to the wrong the club.


Brazil’s thumping free-kick taker made his name back home with Palmeiras in São Paulo before he was brought over to Europe. After a glittering career he has now landed back in São Paulo but this time with Corinthians where he plays alongside Ronaldo in a team of geriat-ticos.

Others miss their target completely when the start out on the rocky road to retirement. In this category I would put Mark Chamberlain. Surely we had no right to sign the mercurial winger but there he was, in the red and white and doing the business.

Every silky run was followed by the murmur across The Cowshed, “That lad used to play for England.” When he had actually managed to get a cross in the reply would come, “Should have got more caps.” If the cross didn’t materialise the reply would tend to be less complimentary.

Of course goalscorers are always welcome home and when the opportunity to resign Darren Rowbotham came along the move was a custom fit for both club and player. The buzz of “Dazza’s coming home!” must have been on par with when fans of Flamengo heard the news that Adriano was resigning.


Last year Adriano goal’s led his hometown club to the Brazilian title just in the same way that Rowbotham’s goals in that second spell kept us away from the dropzone.

In the same way a top striker is fondly remember so are the midfield generals. It is they who dictate the play and decide the pulse of the team. There have been few who could get the pulse racing quite like Danny Bailey and his greased thighs.

In the Championship he was everywhere, after that he literally was everywhere as his Wikipedia page has him down as playing for about 400 clubs after he left us 1990. In that mighty list however there is a considerable chunk of time spent back playing at The Park. It was during this time I swear he scored a bullet header from 30 yards into the St James Road End after a hapless keeper had made a hash of a clearance.

I’ve tried discussing the return of Danny with some Boca Juniors fans over here and while they like to draw comparisons with Juan Román Riquelme I have to tell them its just not the same.

Why put up with some languid mope who will turn it on for a couple of moments of magic every match when you can have a grizzled ball of energy pumping away for 90 minutes.

Honourable mention of course for Sir Scott of Hiley, would have like to have seen more from Chris Vinnicombe though. See you soon Seaborne

Up the City!
Tim
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Shooting Stars in Latin America

February 23rd 2010 17:47
For the Carlisle game I wrote about the added dangers of watching football in Latin America compared with attending a game in Europe. In the days following Richard Offiong’s late winner stark differences for footballers in the two regions also became apparent.

In a trendy nightspot in Mexico City the Paraguayan international Salvador Cabañas was gunned down. Three months before the Club America striker was critically injured Fernando Cáceres was shot in the head in Buenos Aires. As an astute defender Cáceres had represented Argentina in the 1994 World Cup.

It was after USA 94 that the football world was rocked when Colombian defender Andrés Escobar was shot dead by a disgruntled fan.

It had been a decent couple of years for Salvador Cabañas prior to the awful event. After being an unused substitute at the 2006 World Cup in Germany the striker was set for a starting role in South Africa later this year.

Cabañas finished Paraguay’s latest World Cup qualifying series as his country’s leading goalscorer. The forward’s goals and performances were an integral part of La Albirroja picking up a record 33 points and booking their place at the World Cup with two games to spare.

This year’s World Cup is now the last thing on Cabañas’ mind as he fights for his life in hospital.

Cabañas was enjoying a night out with his wife in Bar Bar, a trendy hangout in Mexico City. It was during a trip to the toilets that the Paraguayan international was shot.

Attention is focused on two suspects who were filmed on the bar’s security camera leaving the toilets where Cabañas was shot. The suspects departed the scene in a car without number plates.

The two suspects have been identified as businessman José J Balderas Garza, nicknamed El Modelo, and his bodyguard. Balderas Garza is known to be a regular at Bar Bar along with many of Mexico’s most famous footballers and celebrities.

Balderas Garza is said to own 10 luxury cars and four homes, the businessman is from a region of northern Mexico well known for its drug lords. The shooting is believed to have followed a conversation between Balderas Garza and Cabañas where the footballer was criticised for not scoring enough goals for his club.

After the shooting for Cabañas underwent a six hour operation which was successful in stopping his internal bleeding. The bullet remains lodged in his brain however as doctors fear removing it could lead to a deterioration in Cabañas’ condition.

Cabañas recovery so far have amazed the doctors, the statistic for people dying from such injuries stands at about 80 per cent. Another of the lucky 20 per cent is former Argentine international Fernando Cáceres.

In January this year Cáceres was released after three months in hospital, he has lost the use of one eye and the bullet remains lodged in his head but it was the best result anyone could have wished for.

The ordeals of Cabañas and Cáceres are sure to stay with them for the rest of their lives. One footballer who did not escape a shooting with his life was Colombian defender Andrés Escobar.

There have been other football related deaths and numerous kidnapping cases in Latin America. John Terry may currently be resenting the microscope which footballers come under in England. In this part of the world the problems can be a little more troublesome than a week of bad headlines.

Up the City!
Tim
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Safety in numbers

February 23rd 2010 17:44
After catching the Leeds score while stuck in the Atacama Desert I was bursting to have butcher’s at Exeweb and get the full story behind the monumental victory.

I was more than a little taken aback to see the top three threads on The Word on Well Street talking about a crush in the away end. It seems a group of stubborn fans refused to leave their perch behind the goal.

The video on YouTube of fans being helped over the advertising hoardings brought to mind some of the worse scenes ever to be witnessed in the English game.

Bradford, Heysel and Hillsborough put safety squarely as the number one concern at football grounds in England. The trio of catastrophes will always be mentioned when there is even the slightest threat to the wellbeing of a football crowd in England.

The Taylor Report reshaped the experience of watching football in England. Despite being a firm fan of standing I can see how the rules and regulations make watching football a far more inclusive and safe pursuit.

In 1968 Argentina suffered its own disaster to rank with any of the tragedies the English game had suffered. On a day in late June the country’s two biggest clubs met to contest El Superclasico. A scoreless draw between River Plate and Boca Juniors threatened to render the game as instantly forgettable. A crush at the final whistle however meant the game would live on in the memory of those present for a lifetime.

71 football fans lost their lives that day, the average age of the supporters was just 20.

With the country being under a military dictatorship at the time no public investigation was carried out. The only change that was made to the stadium was purely cosmetic. The tragedy occurred at La Puerta 12 (Gate 12) and after the deaths the name was changed to La Puerta L.

“In Argentina, we live in a society with little memory. They changed the numbers into letters so that people don’t think about La Puerta 12 or remember that 71 people that died there.” Pablo Tesoriere, an Argentine film-maker who produced the documentary La Puerta 12, says.

The testimonies of the survivors, witnesses and officials have so far failed to nailed the definite cause of the events. Theories range from someone forgetting to open the gate, turnstiles blocking the exit, police pushing people back into the stadium and also the official line of too many fans rushing to leave at the same time.

Pablo Tesoriere highlights what he sees as the main difference between the events at River Plate’s El Monumental stadium and those which took place at Hillsborough.

“After the similar tragedy in England, there was a full investigation. They changed the policies for entering and exiting the stadiums and the system of police control at matches. Measures were taken so that this would never happen again.” Tesoriere explains.

If you go along to River Plate’s El Monumental this season you will find things have changed very little in the years following the deaths of 71 football fans.

“If you go to watch a game at River today, you will live the same scenario when you leave the stadium. The crush, exiting in darkness, the problems with the police. It’s practically the same and it’s pure luck that we haven’t had another tragedy.” Tesoriere adds.

In was only for the 40th anniversary of the tragedy that a memorial plaque was eventually placed on the site.

Up the City!
Tim
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Come Back To What You Know

February 23rd 2010 17:37
As a City fan I am sure you are well aware that supporting a football club is no bed of roses and we all have our fair share of heartaches along the way.

Earlier this month Estudiantes de La Plata of Argentina headed off to Abu Dhabi to take part in the Club World Cup. They secured their passage to the competition by winning this year’s edition of the Copa Libertadores


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Fred Binney and Susanna Dress The Nation

December 19th 2009 21:07
When Pep Guardiola took over at Barcelona he inherited a team undoubtedly already on the up. However he recognised changes could still be made to make the Catalonian outfit an even slicker unit than it already was.

Already a firm fans favourite down at Camp Nou for his playing days as an intelligent midfielder he implemented his new strategy for the club which could yield the club’s sixth trophy in a year in Abu Dhabi today


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Here’s a hypothetical quandary for you all which could well happen in the not so distance future. It’s the last game of the 2010/11 League One season and City host Southend United at The Park. A win will see us miss out on the play-offs but could still give us our highest ever finish since 1980.

The thing is Southend sit one place above the drop zone and a win for The Shrimpers will guarantee their place in the league next season. The club a point behind Southend and occupying 21st place in League One is none other than our old friends Plymouth Argyle. The City tutored talents of Mackie and Sawyer are long gone and if Southend beat us on the last day those plucky Pilgrims head back to the basement division


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Ships that pass in the night

November 27th 2009 19:00
At the grubby end of the A38 a lot is made about some boat that set sail from the docks down there and ended up in a place called America. The football club of that city delight in taking their nickname from that voyage, designing their moustachioed mascot around the trip and even have a stand bearing the name of the boat I believe.

Well bully for them but back in the brighter lights of Devon we have a journey in our annuls which simply blows their tale out of the water


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Another crunch game at The Park today and another chance to get the behind the lads.

I am constricted to listening in on the radio this season but it seems to me that the atmosphere in the ground has been a little subdued of late


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Next Friday sees The Three Amigos roll into The Park for an evening of fun and games with a side order of Argentine chilli.

I thought I´d use my space in The Grecian this week to fill you in on how Pitón and Dios came to the fore in their homeland and the general perception of the duo round these parts


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When two tribes go to war

October 8th 2009 20:51
A week ago I wrote how Paul Tisdale and his management team have far greater expectations of what City can achieve in the near future than I do.

So what am I after this season? An overdue run in the Cup? No. A sniff around the playoffs come the end of the season? Not even


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