Newcastle United in Taiwan

So our team, Riverside Magpies finally have enough Newcastle tops to use in the 6 a side league.  Bringing a little bit of Newcastle to Taipei, and Taiwan.  It feels good to finally 
have the team, all be it for one competition playing in black and white!  Hopefully 
eventually we can afford to get the 11 a side team black and white kits too.  

If anyone else would like to donate any Newcastle tops to our team that would be greatly appreciated, please contact me if you would like to at marky.baobei@gmail.com

The Magpies (MagArmy) end of season!

So in the end we had a mega first season in the CPL.  We managed to claim 6th place 
in the league by murdering most of the teams at the top with an amazing run in to the
season.  Onwards and upwards for the MagArmy!

End of season photo after last game missing some key people!

And I then tried to make this, adding most people I could remember who played for us throughout the season.  If I forgot you and you are offended let me know and I will cut you out of your facebook profile and stick you on ha! 

The MAGARMY (including mini Andre!)

If your interested in joining the MagArmy please contact me.  We will be recruiting again for the new season that will start in February.  

Here: Marky.baobei@gmail.com
Here: https://www.facebook.com/TaipeiRiversideMagpiesFootballClubTaipeiTaiwan

Country Profile - Indonesia

Indonesia

Right from the humble beginnings of our kick abouts until we started the team and playing in competitions our team has had a huge number of players from one country in particular at one time.  This episode of the Magpies blog I am concentrating on Indonesia where we have had no fewer than seven players in our squad.  All at the same time I might add representing the Magpies for Indonesia!!!  The seven players who have played with us are, Big Willy (friendly only) Wilcent and Vincent (twins) Ardi the Warrior, Ryan, Ilman (friendly only) and Kris.  Unfortunately Kris broke his collarbone in the first game vs On Tap Badgers, so we had to beat them, and we also beat them again just for you Kris.

It all started with a man called William Christopher.  He is like the leader of the pack it seemed, and prodded the others into coming (my personal opinion) even though Big Willy (our name for him) didn't look like a leader everyone certainly liked him a lot, and he was a funny guy to be around.  Unfortunately big Willy have now went back to Indonesia, and he is actually a bit of a club legend and might get his own personal blog about him eventually.  I will never forget in our first game when he had a race and couldn't stop and nearly trampled a bench of South Koreans to death as he ran through them and they bench!!!

The big influx of Indonesians really helped us kick start our team, and for this the Magpies will be eternally grateful.

The only player we have left in our team from Indonesia (Kris) picked up a bad injury in our first game vs The Badgers going for a 50/50 ball and broke his collarbone.  He is thoroughly on the mend however and I hope it does not stop him coming back to play with us in the future.  Although I'm sure his missus won't like it too much but we all have that problem!!!

These are the Indonesian MAGPIES!!!

Big Willy

Ryan

Ardi the Warrior!!

Kris

Vincent

Wilcent (Yes Vincent and Wilcent are 2 different people, we had a joke going in the team for a while that because they are twins they share 1 job meaning only 1 of them could make it to a league game!!!!  

Ilman

Current CPL Table, Magpies back up to 8th!!

After our win vs On Tap Badgers we make our charge back up the league, this
will continue by a good smashing of Daan next weekend to maintain our
position of 8th.

Robs Celts got lucky last weekend too as Eagles only rocked up to their game with 8 players!!!  Or I don't think the Celts would of won.  Too bad for us, but we can only care about our own results.

Here is the table:

Taipei Riverside Magpies superb new poster...

Our superb poster that Danny made us, I don't think I would of ever managed to make 
a poster that is of the same quality ever, even with a whole year of trying to make them.  
This is the poster that should still be up in the Brass Monkey...

Poster by Danny

Player Profile - Emre the Turkish Battering Ram!

Emre 

Full Name: Emre Gundogdu
Home City: Bolu, Turkey
Position: Midfield 
Squad Number: 5


Emre is the only player in our team who has been with me on this journey from day 1.  So it seemed only right that he was the first person who gets a player profile.  

Emre is a tall tank of a centre midfielder, absolutely like a battering ram, he is not the fastest but once he picks up some speed he is impossible to stop, and is like a freight train smashing through anything in the way.  I don't mean he is slow by the way either.  Just not like shit off a stick.

He is around 6ft 2 or 6ft 3 and is a big physical presence in the heart of our team, when he cannot make it to the games his presence is sorely missed.  Like a true captain of the team (well vice captain) he is willing to play anywhere he is needed even if he cannot play in that position well.  What Emre said about his playing style and where he is from "Bolu is famous for its large mountain, in the winter with the snow it is impossible to pass like my playing style"

So show your love for our Turkish Battering Ram, and the only other member who has been a part of this group from the very first session.  He is certainly loved by the team mainly because of his friendly nature and aggressive playing style, Emre man the Magpies love you ha! (sounds a bit soppy there) 

Emre in action for the Magpies vs Animals

View from the Opposition - Formosa Celts

This weeks view from the opposition comes from Rob Iwanicki of Formosa Celts.  Magpies want to give out a big thank you to him for answering our questions, even the ones about contested decisions.  Here are the answers:

In the first half of the season we managed to get a 2-1 win, but this time around the Celts beat us 3-0. What do you think was the difference in the two games?

I wasn't palying in the first game (I was in Europe) so it's impossible for me to answer this question.

We have been registering a lot of new players as people are coming and going all the time, and we currently don't have enough people who are here long term yet, do you think this is effecting our performance considering we have picked up good results mixed with terrible ones?

I think it's normal that you not gonna pick up good results if you permanently change the team. Good players don't make a good team. People need to get used to each other running ways, the way of passing or defending. You guys pick up lot of students, but that's not the way how to run a social club in Taipei. 1. Students have not money - thus can't got to a sponsor very often, 2. They come and go and it's difficult to maintain the same level of skills in a team for the whole season You need a core of 10 players, who live here and are committed to the club and fill it with another 10 temporarily students. On the other hand, the other teams never know what team they will play against - you got a surprise advantage on your site.

Who do you think we're the stand out players in our team? (If any?)

You got a good team and if you keep them together for a while, you will win some games. I think you are a team who fights for the 7th place, with the Celts and Daan, but not really able to get more.

We had two headers hit against the bar, but apart from this we really struggled to threaten the Celts during the game, do you think if any of the headers went in, instead of hitting the bar the game would of changed? or The result would of been the same?

Definitely - if the header in the second half went in, it's 1:2 and you know that then everything could happen, especially you would get a push and we would be getting nervous.

Where do you predict Magpies and Celts will finish at the end of the CPL season?

I think Celts will finish above MAgpies as we have the easier schedule left, we got Daan, Shane, BS (Black Stars) and Lions and you Carnegies, Lions, Eagles (place 1,2 and 4) and Daan. You will get trouble to win these games, on the other hand you drew the Animals - you never know

Our team clearly thought you dived in the match. Do you agree with the opinion our team has that you dived? What are your thoughts on this matter?

I partially disagree with it. The ref gave 2 fouls on my in this game as I can remember. After the first foul, you tall centre back came to me an said sorry for hitting me in the face - if someone hits you in the face you can go down, can't you? If not, then it was a dive. Second foul was obvious, someone hit my food from behind and I tripped. You need to remember that I am 40 and my balance is not one of a 20 years old. I don't think there were more fouls given on me.

One of your goals, the second or third I don't remember which was from a cross on the right hand side of the pitch, and our keeper came out to get it. There were a lot of players around, and from the side and what our players said it looked like our keeper got dragged towards our post and pulled away from his own goal, resulting in an easy tap in for one of the Celts players. What was your view on this incident during the game?

No idea, I crossed the ball and was too far away from the action to judge - too many players around the keeper for me to see it. However, if you talking about the second goal, your keeper had plenty of time to avoid the tap of our player, he should use his knee while going in the air. Your game depend a lot of Matteo, I saw 2-3 phenomenal saves by him against Badgers.

Top, Formosa Celts squad, Rob is in the back row 4th from the right (this photo is a little old now but its the only one I could find, below Magpies in action vs the Celts, pitcture is from the first round of the season.