Groundhopping24

Through the mill - the beautiful Retz windmill  One of many advantages to living in Brno is being within range of three or four national borders. The likes of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, and even sometimes Germany are no more than a few hours away. With that in mind, and a fairly limited football schedule given the international break, I decided to take the hop over the border at Znojmo to third tier Retz of Austria. It always struck me as worth visiting given its proximity to Brno in terms of Austrian clubs outside of Vienna - as far as I could tell it was among the closest, with Austrian clubs between Brno and Vienna seemingly few and far between. Following a promotion from the fourth tier last season, Retz are enduring a fairly wretched time of things, with just the one win to their name all season, and also coming off the back of five successive defeats for the second time this season already.  Their opponents Sportunion Mauer from Vienna are already 13 points bett...

Views for days...  Don't be misled by the blog's title to believe Tišnov are inherently a bad side - the amateur in question is quite literally included in their name,  Amatérský fotbalový klub Tišnov . That said, Tišnov are yet to pull up any trees in the fifth tier since their promotion in 2024, with the club currently sitting in 12th, five points clear of the drop zone. Over the last ten games, Tišnov have won only two of them - a 3-2 win at Olympia Ráječko, and a thumping 6-0 at home to basement dwelling Moravská Slavia Brno. In fact, their only other win came on the opening day - a 3-1 home win over Slovan Rosice, who themselves endured a terrible start to life in the fifth tier before getting their act together. Despite having been founded as early as 1912, Tišnov hardly boast an illustrious history, essentially floating between the lower echelons of the regional leagues. Since Czech independence in 1993, they spent twelve years in the 7th tier before promotion in 2...

Arguably the best place to watch a game in Brno!  A couple of week's ago, I had a look at just how sizable the jump from the fifth to the fourth tier was, at least in terms of the South Moravian region. One of said teams in that discussion was Tatran Bohunice, who were one of two teams in the last five years to make the jump to the third tier. Based in the eastern part of the city, Tatran's stay in the third tier was all too brief, as they dropped immediately back to the fourth tier in 2024. Prior to the weekend, however, Bohunice were in an excellent position, with only Artis Brno B ahead of them by a couple of points. Having won a midweek game in hand against Pelhřimov 1-0, it's looking like a three-horse race between Artis, Bohunice and Znojmo for promotion to the third tier, although there are a few teams lurking on the outside who could put a run of form together and trouble the top three.  Looking at goals scored in Divize D, Artis B have scored a staggering 36 in 1...

A very rainy Milennium Bridge. Montenegro - well, where to even begin? The turbulence as the plane from Krakow landed at Podgorica Airport should have perhaps been a sign of things to come. Or perhaps the rickety lift up to the sixth floor of the apartment building I'd be staying for the next three days. In any case, it was clear to me that even on arrival, keeping this break short was a wise idea. Don't get me wrong, some parts of Podgorica have a certain charm, and I'd certainly be interested in one day visiting the coastal resorts of Montenegro, but I can safely say I've had better trips. Saturday night was the night to adjust after a long day of travel, so the trip began in earnest on the Sunday. The weather was absolutely ungodly, so I tried to time my venture into the city centre to be in between the gargantuan showers to little avail.  Some rainy glimpses of the national stadium, and home of Buducnost. I did manage to stop off for some amazing Currywurst (that tr...

During coverage of the World Cup in 2006, I recall Gary Lineker asking a question of Ian Wright; are you a fan of S&M? Given that they were covering a game involving Serbia & Montenegro, my 11 year old brain couldn't work out what was so funny - they gave a respectable account of themselves in a tough group featuring Argentina, the Netherlands, and Ivory Coast if I remember correctly. It's only now looking back at the quote that I recognise the double meaning. That said, I still have no idea what the other meaning stands for specifically, but in any case, the M gained independence from S fairly soon after this tournament in 2006, with 2006-07 naturally marking the start of the Montenegrin football league. In the almost two decades since the formation of the league, Montenegro still languishes near the bottom of the UEFA coefficient, with only five nations ranking lower - North Macedonia, Georgia Wales, Gibraltar, and San Marino. To date, no club from Montenegro has mana...

Sparta Brno Having won promotion from the South Moravian fifth tier last season, it would be fair to say Sparta Brno have adapted reasonably well so far. In many ways, it's fortunate that they occupy one of the six fourth tier divisions in which only there's only one relegation place - Divize D. For whatever reason, only D and E have one relegation spot, which thankfully for Sparta is occupied by a seemingly hapless Havlíčkův Brod who are already seven points adrift without a win going into the weekend's action. But before I go into another return visit to Sparta Brno a year on from my last, I thought it might be interesting to look into how all the previous victors of the JMKP (the South Moravian fifth tier) have made the step up. Just how great is the step up from the fifth to the fourth tier in Czech football? The class of the JMKP - where are they now? 2024/25: Sparta Brno We'll start with the runaway winners of last season's JMKP, and the focus of today's b...