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.

First competitive game, and first Mags goal!..

Our first ever match as a team came against Taipei United.  

Magpies vs Taipei United

We arranged this friendly match to see how our kick about people would perform in an actual game.  We played quite well, admittedly against not the strongest opposition.  

We rocked up, and played well considering it was our first ever actual game as a so called team, more like a rabble in the process of forming a team from a kick about group.

We played in white for our friendlies, and looked like a rag tag outfit.  Back to the game, we did well.  We won a corner, Luke pinged the corned into the box, and their was a massive scramble in the box.  Big Ryan got his toe punt on it, and it flew in the back of the net, cue mass celebration.  

After we had played for 90 minutes Taipei United couldn't believe they were losing to such a rabble that doesn't even have a kit, and decided they wanted to play until either it got too dark or they scored more goals than us.

In the end the game ended 1-0 (in normal time) and then 1-1 when it got too dark to play any more with Taipei United claiming it was still possible to play!!!  

Top - Ryan with a mighty toe poke, bottom - Celebrating our first ever goal!

Match Report - Magpies v Badgers

We started the game missing a lot of key players and needed other players to step
up to the plate, and manage to put in a performance to keep our spine solid.  We started
off well putting pressure on the badgers defence. 

They held out well for a little while, but then new Magpies superstar Javi broke past them,
and walloped a peach of a goal over the keeper and in cue mass celebrations as we were looking to end our 4 game win less streak.  

We only managed to control the game for a little bit after this mind you, as the Badgers pressing, commitment to the cause and work rate really didn't give us much time on the ball and always kept us having to play quickly which at times we struggled to do, because the Badgers were doing all the pressing very well.  Yes they are a physical side, and put tackles in, some are late, some are not.  Football is a contact sport and some teams in this league need to learn that.  

We coped with this quite well for a decent period of the game, then the Badgers got a free kick that was not really that much of a free kick (how many times can you say that about free kicks in this league) and then Fred from the Badgers stepped up and curled a peach of a free kick right into the top corner of our goal.  He could not of got it any further into the corner.  Great free kick, this put the Badgers back into the game.

Before this goal we did actually have a perfectly good goal ruled out, as the offside decision was utterly appalling.  Their defence passed it to each other, Mag superstar Javi sprinted past the first defender, got the ball of the second defender then scored!  The ref and linesman decided to give it offside!  Awful!  We are coming to learn to deal with how awful the referees are and are a lot calmer about it which is a good thing.

Things seemed to be getting a bit tense for both teams then something magical happened.  We scored from a corner!  Michel pinged in a good cross from the corner, and Eivind popped up at the back post to smash it in.  We were back in business this was it, we were 2-1 up and could kick on from here.

Well not likely.  Like Newcastle back home nothing for the Magpies of Taipei is simple, the Badgers won a corner, it came across they won the header, cue mass scramble, and then BOOOM it ends up in our goal!  Oh Oh!  Now we're in the shit because they was not much time to get back in the game!  We popped on some more strikers to chase that god damn third goal.  It was looking less and less likely, and then Michel played the ball through to superstar Javi, to run onto it he steamed past Geordie in the Badgers defence who did his best to grapple him down, by neck, shirt, head, whichever way possible.  He did try with all his Geordie super powers, but Javi wriggled away from him and placed it past the keeper with the last kick of the game a superb ending to a pretty even game.  Was tough on the Badgers, and they are improving a lot.  They will cause more teams problems for sure and add more teams to the list they have beaten not just Daan!.

Classic Magpie Moment!!

If you were, or were not there when we made the long trip down to
Kaohsuing for the winter island wide tournament, we all decided to go out and party like bosses on the Saturday night, to erm celebrate our superb (ahem...) performance from Saturday afternoon, and Jeffy going into a blind panic
thinking he had lost his fellow Belizian started running around the club
screaming, WHERE'S HUGO!!!!  WHERE'S HUGO!!!!
Cue, mass hysterics from the rest of us at Jeffys blind panic!!

Club LEGEND #1 - Stefan!

What can be said about Stefan, the catchphrase I'm from Geneva is forever in printed 
upon the whole football club now.  We should all claim we are from Geneva because of Stefan!  A mainstay in our team from the beginning, until he left for the most polluted cities 
in the mainland!  His words not ours!  

His last game vs Daan was actually a comical performance, after him having one hell of a leaving bash, and turning up looking totally drunk never mind hungover!  I even had to call him and ask where he was to play at a 2.15 game!  He arrived like a boss by taxi, looking like he arrived from the club.

There was a moment in the game where the ball was crossed over and he ducked.  The headache was already banging away on the head like a sledgehammer, something planting your noggin on a ball wasn't gonna improve so he gave it a miss.  Daan went on and scored.

Later on in the game, he made a superb professional foul to keep us in the game, seeing as he was the last man he was sent off, and that meant he could not play any games before he left.  A sad way to go out, but legend status had been confirmed!

We got him a t-shirt made when he left Taiwan as he was one of us original 7 members of the team.  

The t-shirt had "I'M FROM GENEVA" on the back, and "I WANNA BE A MAGPIE RANGER, ONLY LIVE FOR SEX AND DANGER!!!" on the front!

Here are the photos:

Back - "I'm from Geneva"

Front, "I wanna be a magpie ranger, only live for sex and danger!"

Our first league scorer!

Our first ever league game in the CPL people expected us to be absolutely smashed,
or as Pardiola would say, a good raping!  This man had other ideas as he thumped in a 
penalty within 4 minutes and unfortunately smashed the bar too.  His name is Fred, and is 
from France. Later in the season, in a dreadful match involving our team, he broke his ribs 
for the cause too, what a man!!!! 

This is Fred:

This is not our team kit!  Don't worry

The after goal scoring look!!

New Magpies Team Blog!!!

Hello everyone, I will use this page as the blog for our team, this way I can use this for
the team only and my personal blog for my own sheeeet.

I hope you will be all OK with this, I will put all sorts of stuff on here regarding the team
(I hope there are no complaints) 

Anyway here are a few squad photos.!!  From the beginning of our time and existence, to the high level days of 7th in the CPL, BOOOM, BOOOM, BOOOOOOM!  

Top - our first tournament in Kaohsuing.  Middle - Team photo at CPL match in Fuhe, Yonghe.  Stefans last game with Magpie Ranger t-shirt, Bottom - CPL match at Dajia park, Neihu.  Nicholas last game with the Mags.