The latest story from our struggling five-a-siders…

This week’s match saw us pitted against “Gumtree FC”, an encounter that would surely be billed as a relegation dogfight if it were broadcast on national TV, which for the record, I think it definitely should have been.

The Juicebox’s position hasn’t changed for many weeks now, what with us holding the whole of the league up on our shoulders. Gumtree FC – who must have found their players through the website – were only three points ahead of us sat in seventh, and although their goal difference was 8 to the better, a victory would have gotten us right back in the mix.

No sooner had we kicked off than we had conceded a quick fire double, we started too slow and paid the ultimate price. 2-0 down and we’d barely even kicked off. I tried to think positive “At least its only two!”, I screamed at my teammates.

David was trying to get out of his tracksuit bottoms to be substituted on, but what for most people is quite a basic manoeuvre, he managed to make look like a challenge equal to climbing Mount Everest. He couldn’t pull them off in time and as a result remained on the bench for a while longer.

He eventually got onto the pitch around the time we managed to go 3-0 down. Catching us on the counter attack with a long-ball and using the no offside rule to their advantage, a lone striker rounded Alex to roll the ball into the net.

Finally, what had seemed like a rather lengthy first half drew to a close. A team talk was in order, and seeing as the armband rotation had fallen on Alex this week, he took it upon himself to get the team motivated, “ch-ch-ch-changes?”. He had somehow managed to combine his love for David Bowie with the idea to makes some substitutions. Genius.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the team to get into the Ziggy Stardust mood with Kilshaw making an exquisite cross-field ball perfectly reach Olly’s feet, who managed to pull out a left footed rocket, bound only for one place. The back of the net. 3-1. We were buzzing.

That buzz was to be short-lived as they struck again. 4-1 down and damn near doomed. This would not do. Again Alex came with words of wisdom. “We could be Heroes! Just for one match!” Lifted by the spirit of Bowie, we played with a bit more grit and determination, and a lot more sparkle. Then Locky scored a solo scorcher, using his silky skills to get the ball past three members of Gumtree FC, before dragging their keeper out of position and sliding the ball into the net. 4-2. Game on.

It wasn’t long before we were back on the attack, this time with Kilshaw searing up the wing. He put a cross into the mixer and Rob stormed in at the front to bundle the ball home. 4-3.

Time wasn’t on our side, in fact time was very much against us – the final whistle blew soon after. A 4-3 loss was not so bad, and if the first half hadn’t counted at all, we would have won 3-1. We were clutching at straws. Maybe next week Bowie will sing the Juicebox onto the field? Or we’ll just lose again?

With all this talk of the new England Away kit, we thought it was about time to jump back into the archive and read up on some of the clubs that Umbro sponsors. This time around, we’ve spread our wings further afield and looked at our friends up north, over on the mainland and across the water.

Rangers

Rangers began life in 1872 following a meeting between Moses and Peter McNeil, Peter Campbell and William McBeath, adopting the name of an English rugby club they had read in a book. The newly founded team would go on to play their first game n the summer of that year in a friendly against Callander F.C. using the pitches on Glasgow Green.

Ranger’s first annual meeting took place in 1873 and by 1876 the club would have their first international player with Moses McNeil representing Scotland in a match against Wales.

Rangers would go on to become one of the ten original members of the Scottish Football League and play their first ever league match and league victory on 16 August 1890 against Heart of Midlothian. After finishing at the top of the league with Dumbarton, a play-off was held to decide who would be crowned champions. The match finished 2–2 and the club would make history by sharing the champion’s title, which is the only time that this has ever happened. Rangers would enter the next century with two league titles and three Scottish Cups in their trophy cabinet.

Athletic Bilbao

In the 1800s Bilbao was the hub of an important industrial area, with iron mines and shipyards and attracted many migrant workers, including miners from the north-east of England and shipyard workers from Sunderland, Southampton and Portsmouth. The workers brought the game of football to the city and in the early 1890s they formed Bilbao Football Club.

Around the same time, Bilbao students who had completed their education in Britain returned to the city and in 1898 they would create the Athletic Club. Both clubs would meet to arrange games to play each other.

In 1902 the two clubs formed a combined team known as Club Vizcaya. They would compete in and win the Copa Del Ray by defeating FC Barcelona, a success that lead to the merger of the two clubs and the renaming of the club to Athletic Club de Bilbao.

Universitario

Originally formed by students and professors of the National University of San Marcos on August 7, 1924, the club was created to play in a small league called Federación Universitaria, arranging tournaments between students and the faculty departments of the university. As it grew in popularity the league would gain official status and joined the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF).

In 1928, the club entered Peru’s Primera División and would shock opposing and supporting fans that year by finishing as runners-up. A year later the club would win its first tournament and become Peru’s champions.

In 1931 the club would be forced to change its name by José Antonio Encinas, the head of the university. The club changed its name to Universitario de Deportes and held onto the symbolic “U” in their name.

The 1980s were a cruel period, and for this writer it was an era of badly fitting school uniforms and a bowl-cut hair do. But today I was laughing my arse off at this range of Umbro casual wear made for Chelsea fans, that were recently unearthed in a shady corner of the Internet. In its day, the clobber modelled by these cheesy catalogue models was ahead of it’s time, but like most things from the 80s, (Pat Sharpe’s hair, Timmy Mallett) it hasn’t aged well.

In fact, this lot look like they’re in a terrible TV sit-com, probably called ‘Blue is the Colour’ and shown on 1980s BSkyB. You just can’t get authentic licensed team cardigans anymore, can you?

A week of international friendlies wouldn’t normally be the most exciting seven days in football, but with only 100 days left to the World Cup, and with plenty of questions still remaining about what players will be travelling to South Africa this summer, there was plenty of intrigue in this week’s action. A blog dedicated to this summer’s tournament, Kwaitoball take a look at all of this week’s friendlies in this brief but succint post. Not so sure about the idea that Wes Brown had a bad game though!

Of course, any thoughts on this summer’s action will also be considering a World Cup song for England. Here at Umbro, we’ll probably be looking at this nearer the time, but Football & Music have entered the fray with a competition to find their favourite. They’re going to be posting potential England anthems on their site on a regular basis, with the audience invited to vote for their favourite to progress to a later round. You can check out the first two candidates – ‘God Save The Team’ and ‘From England With Love’ – on the site now.

One story that was a little overshadowed by the friendlies and other stories this week was the untimely passing of Macclesfield manager Keith Alexander. When Saturday Comes, always a publication that sees the real sport underneath all the soap opera-style nonsense, offered a typically insightful obituary on a man who was tremendously well-respected throughout football. You can read it here.

As the BBC’s man of the lower leagues, Paul Fletcher can always be relied on to provide some insight into life outside the Premier League, and his latest look at League One is an interesting one. Here, he takes a closer look at the teams pushing for promotion, with a focus on in-form Southampton as they push for a play-off place. Having started the season with a 10 point penalty, it would be amazing if Southampton started next season in the same league as their old rivals Portsmouth.

Finally this week, we return to the World Cup, or rather using the fact that it’s now less than 100 days away as an excuse to ramp up the excitement. Who Ate All The Pies are using the occasion to showcase 100 fantastic pictures from past tournaments. You can check out Parts 1 and 2 here, and keep your eyes peeled for later instalments.

Random Thoughts Experienced During The Carling Cup Final, Handily Compiled In A Line Graph

So, we reach the end of another week in football, and we’ve had plenty going on in the FA Cup, European matches and the league, but what’s the biggest story in the game this week? Well, it’s got to be the massive news that Fergie has banned young players from wearing multi-coloured boots (thanks to Off The Post). Whether the United manager wants to stop them getting too big for those yellow and turquoise boots, or he’s just tired of trying to keep up with who is wearing what, it seems like quite a decent suggestion. We’re obviously not against coloured boots, but you’ve got to do them justice, otherwise you’re just a target for the terrace chants!

That story has been battling for column space with the week’s other big story – Burnley defender Clarke Carlisle appearing on Countdown. Not just appearing on the show, but winning quite comfortably – cue the jokes about his away form being better than Burnleys, etc. It was so exciting, The Guardian decided to do a live blog on the action here. There’s more to Carlisle than just a way with words however – this interview with him from last year reveals what a fascinating character he is.

Of course, there’s plenty of big action this weekend, with the first silverwear of the season to be won on Sunday. The Carling Cup final between Villa and United should be an interesting match, with both teams capable of winning. Football Corner offer a nice summary of the match here, while the more partisan fan can catch up on The Vila Blog or The Republik Of Mancunia for the latest on their particular team.

There have been bigger stories in football this week of course, particularly amongst those teams struggling for money. Clubs owing money is, of course, nothing new, but the idea of player’s image rights certainly is. What exactly do they involve? When Saturday Comes offer an interesting insight into exactly what they are, and how lucrative they can be, in this article here.

Finally, we’re going to return to the silly rather than the serious I’m afraid. Ever wanted to see Arsenal players wearing daft wigs? Yes? Well, thanks to Kickette, you can do if you take a look here then.

As they head towards the end of their debut season, will our hardy bunch of five-a-siders find some form? Here’s their latest report from pitchside…

“Going into this week’s match, Howard’s Juicebox lay in the unenviable position of tenth, and considering that our league only has ten teams in it, things could not be much worse. I guess we should be grateful that we lack the multi-million pound debt that seems to be stifling a few other clubs around the country, but still bottom of the table is pretty bad.

All things considered, the only direction we could move was up. With four games left there did actually remain a chance, albeit a small one, that we could win the league. We would need to start hitting double figures in every match and hope for other results to go our way. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Too bad no one in our team is called Will.

The day before we had enjoyed our first team social, well half the team had anyway. We went to the pub and watched some footy together, unsurprising then, that the same half of the team were still nursing hangovers before the match.

The match kicked off and was fairly flat for the opening proceedings, but at least I was a lot calmer than in last week’s match. My first touch of the ball was just plain embarrassing. Locky passed me the ball with a fair bit of pace, but even a fair bit of pace doesn’t really justify me falling flat on my bum.

Jack took a corner, low and directly to the front post, their keeper routinely collected the ball and then broke swiftly. I tried in vain to get back, but I was chasing shadows, it was Captain Kilshaw against two men, and they used it to their advantage. The shot wasn’t much special, but it seems hard to lay the blame with Alex when he is so often found keeping us in games. 1-0 down, but there was still plenty to play for.

Thinking about it, missing a sitter is never an enjoyable experience, but sometimes it can be worse than others. When you are 1-0 down, it’s just not pretty. You get a genuine chance to get your team back into the game and you mess it all up. This is how it went down: Jack hit a trademark thunderbolt and the keeper could only manage the parry. The parry fell directly to me. Sadly, the ball fell to my weaker left foot. I took a stab at it and watched as it sailed a couple yards wide. A look of relief spread across the faces of the opposition, whilst a look of disbelief spread across the faces of the Juicebox. Sorry lads.

Then a chance presented itself, a chance for me to redeem myself, a chance for me to look my teammates in the eyes again. I took a sublime first touch, and there I was, one on one with their keeper. Smash! Straight at his legs, the ball rebounded to David, I called for the ball, it came into me and I fed through Jack. I would have bet my house on him scoring, so its a good thing I rent my place. Jack fluffed it and I felt a mixture of sadness and joy. Sadness that we had again failed to score, but happiness that I wasn’t the only one guilty of messing up.

Halftime came and David consoled me with kind words, but somehow ‘you did well to get into the right positions’ wasn’t making me feel any better.

Into the second half, and another chance came and went as Jack fizzed a ball across the box and Locky was just inches away form making a connection. They broke quickly from the resulting corner and buried the ball in Alex’s net, doubling their advantage. We were losing 2-0 and it was painful. As the final whistle blew we all knew we hadn’t done enough, and I apologised to the rest of the Juicebox for missing two golden opportunities.

Luckily the door to the January transfer window slammed shut last week, otherwise I would probably have been cast aside for fresh blood or sent on loan in a lower league, well if there was a lower league. With three games left to play, we have only three points to our name. Something has to give.”

The name Garrincha probably isn’t as well known amongst modern football fans as it should be – this is, after all, a player regarded as Brazil’s second greatest ever, who played a massive part in his country’s World Cup victories in 1958 and 1962. A giant on the pitch – he’s seen as simply the greatest dribbler of the ball ever seen – Garrincha is also famous for his wild, off the field antics. It’s no surprise then that his story has inspired a number of books and films in his homeland, with Garrincha – Estrela Solitaria the latest movie to make a big mark over in Brazil.

That film has come to our attention here at Umbro mainly thanks to the soundtrack, a jazzy samba collection that’s currently working as a great musical accompaniment to our work as we move out of winter and start to look towards summer – and the World Cup. The very kind folks at Far Out Recordings, the Brazilian music specialists who are releasing the record over here, have allowed us to stream a song from the album exclusively here on the Umbro blog. You can listen to ‘Abertura’, the opening track from the album which has been put together by jazz artist Leo Gandelman, on the link below. If you like it, you can find out more over at the Far Out website, as well as details on more samba-fuelled releases that they’ve also got planned. They’re also planning on screening Garrincha – Estrela Solitaria here in the UK later this year, so keep your eyes on their site if you’d like to see the film and learn more about this somewhat overlooked footballing icon.

01 Abertura

It’s been another busy week in football, with the return of the Champions League, the FA Cup fifth round and a host of league matches meaning that, whatever level of football you watch, there’s something to talk about. Whatever team or league you follow, this recently-published list of the top 50 highest paid players that we spotted on Soccer Lens should make interesting reading. Not simply for the old ‘how can you get paid that much for kicking a ball about’ argument, but more for who exactly gets paid what in relation to their status in the game – there’s some surprisingly run-of-the-mill players in there amongst the superstars.

It’s all a sharp contrast to another type of list, such as this blog published on This Is Pop! They’re not a big footballing site, but this piece detailing the British clubs which have been forced to go into administration through a series of maps, graphs and straight-talking statistics, is one of the clearest and most insightful examinations of football’s finances we’ve seen. Reading these two stories side by side, you could think they were talking about two different worlds, and in a way, they are.

Football is about more than finances though – fun also plays a big part. Although another f-word could be used to describe this story – fashion faux-pas perhaps? A gallery of Manchester United’s best and worst kits featured on Sport.co.uk, somehow featuring Umbro’s designs in the latter category. Including goalkeeper’s shirts, notorious for their weird and wonderful design, is a little sneaky, although we have to admit they are pretty terrible!

Another thing that’s great fun in football is a cliché – and is there a bigger cliché in football than “it’s harder to play against 10 men than 11″? Formation expert and The Guardian’s resident go-to man for this sort of tactical query, Jonathan Wilson, takes a deep look at the idea that teams are becoming better at playing with less men in this blog, which also provides plenty of advice for any budding managers who are stuck with being a man down when the red mist descends on their temperamental winger.

Finally this week, another fun post, this time over at Off The Post. Ahead of their Europa League tie at Fulham, it was reported that Shakhtar Donetsk’s players were turned away from Harrods as they were wearing team tracksuits. Of course, who owns Harrods? Fulham’s chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed. Chairman aren’t supposed to get involved in team affairs, but you’ve got to admit that this is a novel way of doing it!

It’s a couple of weeks since we last caught up with Howard’s Juicebox, the five-a-side team we’ve been tracking as they struggle with their first season. So has their luck improved? Here’s our man in the camp, Chuck WB, to tell us…

“I sat on the 20.18 train to Hackney Wick, precariously cradling a rather large cardboard box. Contrary to what you would probably like to believe, I was actually carrying a box that had our fresh new kits inside. I say fresh, well seven of them definitely were fresh. There is a small chance that one of them had been worn a fair bit over the previous week, not because I’d played any football in it, no, just because I’d shown it off to my housemates, and any visitors, including the postman, every day.

I arrived at Olly’s house and quickly split a Double Decker Duo with Alex, which has now become a weekly thing, each week we alternate who buys it. I like to think of it as a team bonding exercise, admittedly a rather poor one. Kilshaw, Alex, Olly and I all bundled into a car and headed towards Rob and David’s. Usually we go straight to the pitch, but this time we were taking a detour. Why? I hear you scream at your computer screens. For the Howard’s Juicebox kit-launch of course!

We turned up at theirs expecting all the usual press; The Guardian, Four Four Two and, because our kit was ground-breakingly dashing, possibly Vogue. To our shock nobody was there, they must have got the wrong night, their loss.

We all got changed into our kits and jogged down to Haggerston Park, the full squad in unison. We must have looked like a team from the future as we made the trip, I imagine that both the traffic and the pedestrians came to a halt in a mass of stares, such is the beauty of our kit design, but none of us really know, that’s the level of focus that the Juicebox is operating on these days.

We warmed up with some light stretching and a spot of casual passing. This was about the time I pulled the secret weapon from my bag, the captain’s armband. Without even taking a moment to consider everyone else’s opinion, I put it on, I would be captain on this cold winter’s eve and there would be no debate. So I led “my” team onto the pitch with a sense of pride. The starting line-up consisted of Jack, Kilshaw, Rob, Alex and myself. With Locky, David and Olly on the sidelines.

Tonight’s opposition would be “Joe Cole’s Bedtime Stories”, I would love to make a joke, but when I play for a team called “Howard’s Juicebox” who am I to talk? The whistle blew and we kicked off, Jack played the ball to my feet and I was ever so slightly nudged off the ball, losing possession in the process. This would not do. I stormed back into the player’s path and gave new meaning to the expression “shoulder to shoulder”. The ref blew for a foul, which in hindsight was probably the right decision.

After a couple more touches on the ball I soon realised that my shins were causing me extreme agony. Lesson learned: don’t spend 3 hours playing football on concrete the day before a match. Such was the pain that I quickly rolled off the pitch and onto the bench. Obviously the team needed a leader more than I realised because we quickly let a goal in, I was beginning to understand how much Steven Gerrard and I have in common.

The play remained stifled and nothing seemed to be working. I stood on the sidelines and things weren’t looking great, so I got vocal. After a couple of chants that the referee might have found a little degrading, I got threatened with the sin-bin and soon piped down. I needed to get out there to really make a difference. David rolled off and I rolled on.

The lack of energy was affecting my play and my feet were heavy. I went in late in our own box, but the ref let it slide, “Joe Cole’s Bedtime Stories” were too busy complaining to notice us blitzing it up the field and Jack smashing the ball in the back of the net. I’m rarely on the wrong side of injustice, but I’m not going to lie, goals taste sweet however they come. What tastes less sweet however, is when you concede only seconds after you have scored. Considering the nature of our goal, I suppose thats what they refer to in the business as karma.

In the second half things went from bad to worse, at least on a personal level. If earlier I had reminded (if only myself) of a certain captain Steven Gerrard, going by the second half performance I was much closer to Vinnie Jones in his Wimbledon days. I should have been arrested. My tackling was atrocious. We went on to concede again, with us leaving Alex helpless and the same trickster finishing off his hat-trick in fine style.

Apart from that the second half was fairly short on chances, most likely due to my incessant fouling constantly breaking up the play. Now I’m not a violent person by nature, I’m generally considered quite passive and would be terriffed to get in a fight, even if I was a professional boxer. But the blood was rushing and the responsibility could only have been that of the weight of the captain’s armband resting on my right bicep. Frodo had his ring and I had my armband. The fires of Mordor burned in us both.

The final whistle blew and I pulled off the captain’s armband and was taken over by a huge cloud of shame. Shaking the opposition’s hands after the match I was too embarrassed to even look them in the eyes

We organized to meet for our first social (watching football at the pub) for the coming Sunday. I made it clear to everyone that armband was going on rotation, so the burden could be shared amongst the team. And just like that Howard’s Juicebox disappeared into the night.”