It’s that time of year again when, looking back it seems the English Premier League finished ages ago as the transfer market starts to heat up and British clubs are scattered around the globe appearing in various pre-season tournaments. The new 2011/12 English and Scottish football seasons are only a few weeks away now and before I know it I will be pawing over the weekly results both in our domestic leagues and beyond.
So it’s a good time to give you a heads up about a new website that is about to launch which will bring you a scores and results service covering all of the major British and European leagues and tournaments, including the Premier League, English Football League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, and the Champions League.
As well as following favourite domestic clubs in the Premier League and Championship, I also follow the trials and tribulations of my non-league hometown team, formerly Gravesend & Northfleet now known as Ebbsfleet, as well as favourite European teams of which I have personal favourites in each of the top European leagues.
These passive allegiances stem from my childhood when the only European football to be shown on British television was on Wednesday nights on the sadly missed Sportsnight programme. My memories are full of exciting European football matches when I was allowed to stay up way past my bedtime to watch great teams with world class players and cool looking football kits to match.
Johan Cruyff and Ajax, Franz Beckenbauer and Bayern Munich and wonderful sounding teams like Dukla Prague, Panathinaikos and Borussia Monchengladbach!
I recall Leeds United losing 1-0 in a ill-tempered game to AC Milan in the 1973 Cup Winners Cup final just four days after losing 1-0 to Sunderland in the FA Cup final; Nottm Forest beating the Swedish part-timeers Malmo in 1979 with a Trevor Francis header and retaining the European Cup by beating Hamburg in 1980; and West Ham losing to Anderlecht of Belgium in the 1976 Cup Winners Cup.
I remember the glory days of Saint Etienne in the French League and how Real Madrid played in a similar all-white kit to Leeds United (only to recently read that Don Revie changed the home kit to mimic the Spanish giants on becoming manager of Leeds United in 1961!).
I also have a passive favouritism for teams with cool kits, choosing Celtic over Rangers not for any political or religious reasons but because I thought green and whites hoops looked cooler than a regular blue shirt. I also preferred the black & blue stripes of Inter Milan to the red & black stripes of AC Milan.
So even before European football was made available on satellite tv, my interest in football spread further than the English leagues. The English Premier League is often cited by critics and players alike to currently be the best league in the world. But I still lookout for scores and results from the Spanish La Liga and Italy’s Serie A.
The Football Scores website will be a great source for all this information and will also include international tournaments, such as the European Championships, international friendly matches, international qualifiers and the World Cup. The website is called FootballScores.com and it launches this month.
