Monday 27 April 2009

Happy Birthday to... Us!

One year ago today I posted our very first article, our 1-0 home victory against FC Tokyo.
Our first home victory of 2008

The game was our eighth of the season, up to which we'd lost four, drawn two and won only once. This year so far we've won fully TWICE as much, drawn three and lost only two. It's not been a great start to 2009, but compared to last year, we've won nearly twice the number of points, despite being way below top form. You have to look on the bright side!

Wednesday sees us face a wholly unconvincing Urawa side whose current 1st place has come off the back of four narrow 1-0 victories. These have come against such J1 power houses as JEF (away), Kyoto and Oita (both home). We have nothing to fear, and with over 30000 tickets sold and warm clear weather forecast, Ecopa will be a world away from the rain and wind of last Saturday.

This match is fitting, as it also happens to come just over five years after my S-Pulse debut. April 14th 2004 I made my lonely way up to Nihondaira to witness a cracking 4-3 affair between us and Urawa. A paltry 8354 were there to watch; light years away from more recent match ups between us, which generally sell out.

Well, here's to many more years of the UK Ultras fanzine. It's grown and taken on a life of it's own in the last 12 months, and as I once promised a friend, I'd stay in Japan and keep this blog going until I see S-Pulse lift the J. League title. We may be here a while!
Thanks for reading!

2 comments:

Fuz said...

Psssht. You're staying in Japan anyway.

Barry said...

Hmmm... dunno about that. But let's win the league first, then I can worry about that sort of thing!