Author Archive

The Flags of Urawa Reds, AFC Champions League Semi-Final

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 4th, 2007 • Category: Video, World Football Culture

I would not like to take a penalty in front of Urawa Reds’ supporters at their Saitama stadium, myself. Watch this shootout from an Asian Champions League semi-final against South Korea’s Seongnam Ilhwa last week, and marvel at the spectacle of the giant flags. It’s really no surprise they won, is it?

(By the way, we’ll [...]



Arsenal Versus Man Utd: A Billion Viewers, Television and Football Today

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 4th, 2007 • Category: World Football Culture

I’ve read in too many places that one billion people watched yesterday’s 2-2 draw between Arsenal and Manchester United. Whilst that’s probably nonsense (nobody ever cites where that figure comes from), it’s fitting that in London’s Observer today, James Robinson offers us a long overview of the shift in sport brought about by the power [...]



Ultras Video — Red Star

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 4th, 2007 • Category: Video

Yesterday, we took a look at Vojvodina Vozdovac fans in the Serbian Cup Final against the more well known Red Star. Today we take a peek at who they were up against — some of the most intense fans in Europe, as this greatest hits video shows. Please, for your own aural health, mute the [...]



Who Should Host the 2018 World Cup?

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 3rd, 2007 • Category: Politics and Economics

With 2014 now in the bag for Brazil (fingers crossed, anyway), thoughts turn to 2018. With FIFA removing the system of rotating the World Cup around the confederations, the next contest will be far more fierce than the procession for 2014. Only countries from Africa and South America (as the last two host continents) will [...]



Ultras Video — Vojvodina Vozdovac

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 3rd, 2007 • Category: Video

You might well never have heard of Serbia’s Vojvodina Vozdovac, who surprisingly appeared in the first ever Serbian Cup final against Red Star this year. And they lost 2-0 to the much better known team.
Still, their 2000 fans — particularly the “Red Firm 1989″ group — had a hell of a day out, as this [...]



Arsenal Supporters Protest Usmanov

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 2nd, 2007 • Category: Politics and Economics

The various takeovers at Premiership clubs have ellicited vastly differing responses from fans over the years, for factors too diverse to go into here.
Tomorrow, Arsenal take on Manchester United in the match of the season so far. United fans famously stood up to the takeover by Malcolm Glazer, and the big fixture is being [...]



Celtic Fan Gets Community Service

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 2nd, 2007 • Category: News & Notes

We here at Pitch Invasion have a solemn duty to report on actual pitch invaders, a duty we usually shirk. Remember the idiotic Celtic fan who ran at Milan’s Dida last month, causing the goalkeeper to reveal he was an equally idiotic person? As well as being banned for life, he’s now got 120 [...]



Tradition and Rivalry in. . .MLS?

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 2nd, 2007 • Category: American soccer, World Football Culture

I was at a bar full of Fire fans last night, watching my Chicago Fire beat DC United 3-2 on aggregate in the first round of the MLS Cup Playoffs. It was a thrilling and agonising game for both sets of fans, the Fire almost blowing a 3-0 aggregate lead, with DC’s late equaliser ruled [...]



Photo Daily | November 2 | Halftime in Frankfurt

By Thomas Dunmore • Nov 2nd, 2007 • Category: Photography

Photo credit: amaedel on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool.