Groundhopping24

 With Christmas leaving just as quickly as it arrived, we now encompass that nether zone in which nobody knows what the actual day of the week it is. As such, it's essentially the last chance to get a taste of some football before an empty January fixture calendar rears its welcome head, as far as saving money goes at least.  Though Czech and Slovak football does make a return around the end of January, I've nothing pencilled in until a long weekend in Liege for a mid-February week off. Of course I'll be watching Standard Liege against Union Saint Gilloise in what will be my first taste of Belgian football, and indeed Belgium. As well as this, I'm hoping to visit Plovdiv over the Easter break, and ultimately, get out to one or two countries in Central Asia in the summer.  I'll save the reflections on 2025 for the actual final blog of the calendar year (or more likely the first blog of 2026) which will follow my trip to Cardiff tomorrow, but it's always nice to l...

With the winter break for Central Europe fast approaching, as well as a fairly strong desire to save money for the Christmas period, this weekend would see my last Czech game of the calendar year, as Hradec Králové play host to high-flying Jablonec.  There will still be a couple more blogs before the year ends. I'll be attending Slovan Bratislava v Hacken in the Europa Conference League, followed by a cheap flight back to Luton the next morning. There will undoubtedly be at least one Stevenage blog of some variety in the wake of all three games I'll manage to see, and potentially a blog on a Welsh league game if I'm able to do a couple of nights in Cardiff for Stevenage's fixture there at the end of December.  In any case, it was my  fourth attempt at trying to get to a game in HK. The first instance was at the end of the 2023/24 season, with HK set to host Teplice for the final involving mid-table group teams - an ultimately pointless game, but a chance to check out a ...

 When you think of football in Prague, it's likely the first name that pops into your head is that of either Sparta or Slavia. Those of a more hipster distinction may think of the likes of Dukla, Bohemians, or  Viktoria Žižkov. But of course beyond these five relatively big dogs is a whole world of footballing history in the Czech capital. Beyond the B teams (and rather farcically, the one C team in Slavia Prague C), the third tier A division has four Prague teams - Loko, Admira, Aritma, and Motorlet. For today's blog, we'll be visiting Admira, with the aim of visiting the others at some undefined point in the future. Though an early start would likely have me questioning my sanity, there was an end goal in that I'd be visiting friends in Prague, and hopefully seeing the Optical Illusion Museum I'd been meaning to visit for a while. As for the football, Admira are enjoying the better season of the two sides up in sixth, though promotion is highly unlikely for either...

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...