The Swiss 36 No. 13 La Blancherie - SR Delémont

SR Delémont v BSC Old Boys

Our first journey to a Swiss third -flight ground took us to the Canton of Jura and the town of Delémont.   The Swiss 3rd flight, Erste Liga Promotion as it is called, is having its inaugural season.  Five sides relegated from the Challenge league have been joined by 11 teams promoted from various regional leagues to form the third national league in Switzerland.

We took the train over to the French bit of Switzerland not knowing quite where the stadium was.  Out of the station we came, and started peering at one of those town-maps looking for something vaguely stadium-like.  As we were looking, a yellow and black clad gentleman asked if we were looking for the football ground.  He then gave us directions.  Unfortunately, he gave us the directions in French and my French is embarrassingly bad but with his pointing we got the gist.  Friendly!  Good start.

La Blancherie from the Flyover

The stadium actually turned out to be about a 10 minute walk away, just on the edge of town.  We paused on the flyover.  We had a good view of the pitch, and probably were no further away than fans who pay silly money to sit at the back of the Emirates stadium.  Could we just stay here?

Absolutely not!  This is simply outside of the spirit of our tour.

Heading towards the ground, and we had our normal debate about how we were going to get our "orange juice" inside.  It was complicated this time, but we just about managed to get all the orange juice enhancer shared between two plastic cups and a burger king cup.  There was just about enough orange juice to take the edge off the enhancer.  The plastic cups were carefully stashed in the side-pockets of my rucksack and with my innocent looking, Burger King Coke, we headed for the stadium.

A friendly bunch of kids gave us a program.  Its actually a leaflet but its free and has the team information and we bought our tickets, using our atrocious French.  The lady on the ticket desk responded with vastly better German and in we went.  No security whatsoever.  After all the skill and guile we'd applied, I was kinda disappointed!

Points Time

Getting There

7 / 10.  It's easy to get to Delémont as there are regular trains from Basel.  The town map just outside the station is very clear so I'm confident we would have found the stadium.  After 5 minutes walking in  the right direction, you see the floodlights so no real problem at all.

Friendliness

10 / 10.  See what happens when you start to visit the smaller clubs!  

First of all, we have the helpful fan doing his best to explain how to get to the ground.  No issues getting in and in the ground it got better. 

As ever, we wanted our mini-pennants, but we couldn't see a club shop.  So we asked (remember, we do not speak the language) and were pointed to a gentleman who spoke German.  This guy went into the offices and brought back two lovely pennants and some stickers.  He wanted 10 Sfr for the lot.   Wow!  

At half time, the local fans chatted with us about our tour and it was thoroughly enjoyable.  The lad who had directed us to the stadium wanted to buy me a beer.  I insisted on getting him one and we were invited back for Delémont's cup clash with Super-League Lausanne.

Clear 10 / 10 and we are going to do our best with that game against Lausanne.

View

View: Sadly poor from behind the goal

6 /10.   Absolutely fine at the sides of the ground, but sadly, due to it being an athletics stadium, behind the goals its a dead loss.

Safety

8/10.  Security was non existent but it would also have been completely unnecessary.  I just hope they get it right when the larger teams visit.  No fences for me to get upset about and the terraces were fine in terms of height.

Atmosphere

4 / 10.  Very tough.  There were just 480 spectators in the 5263 capacity stadium so it was never going to be a surround-sound roar.  

Refreshments

7 / 10.  Sausages again but it was nice to see them barbecued.  Sadly, the Veal Bratwurst that I tried was very mushy (they are normally, quite mushy, but this was very mushy).  The beer was Heineken which is also something that we should hold against them!

Pluses.  There looked to be some nice wines available.  At 25 SFr a bottle, it wasn't that badly priced either if you consider restaurant prices.

Overall

42 / 60


The Match

 A first comment I'll make is how well Swiss ball-boys manage the multi-ball system.  I know its not rocket science but I've seen lads older than this kid mess it up enough times in England.

The match wasn't bad although it was characterized by the lack of ability to cut through defences you often see at lower levels.

Decent enough though with the home side always the stronger. Early on, Delémont pressed and eventually Badara Sene burst through into the 6 yard box forcing the Old Boys 'keeper to bravely save at his feet.  The best moment of the half came when Delémont broke up an Old Boys break and attacked themselves.  A shot from 30 yards plus from Tomi Saarelma brought a great save from Florian Stocker.  Other than that, much probing by Delémont, but little from the visitors.

More of the same in the second half.  Sene was played in perfectly with the goal at his mercy but scooped it high over the bar,.  but on 55 minutes, he made a mends, powerfully heading home a corner.

If Delémont were dominating up to now, it was only going to get worse for the Old Boys.  A horribly late challenge by Claudio Zenger resulted in his dismissal.  From now on it was chance after chance for Delémont but they only managed one more goal.  On 71 minutes a good run from Enès Morina was spotted and the striker made no mistake with his one-on-one with Stocker.  Delémont pressed for the third goal their dominance deserved but it was not to be.

Notts County v Doncaster Rovers

          NOTTS COUNTY

 - V - 

DONCASTER ROVERS

Rovers and the Magpies are no strangers over recent seasons despite not being in the same league since 1998.  We have met at Meadow Lane in the League cup in 2008 (1:0 to County) and  2009 (0:1).  Last season saw the Magpies visit the Keepmoat for a 3rd round FA Cup tie and win 0 : 2.  

This season, its close between the two sides.  County are a point ahead in the league with Rovers having a game in hand.  The Win / Draw / Loss statistics are similar, County having drawn the one more game they have played.  Form-wise, Rovers are better over the last 8 games, with 3 more points than County, but Rovers are the away side...then again Rovers having been performing better away from home this season.

Draw anyone?

NOTTS COUNTY

I've never had an issue with us creating chances and scoring goals,  We are always an attacking threat, but we have to make sure we keep the back door shut - Keith Curle

County have to make sure they keep the back door shut?  Well, read on to the Rovers section.  I would suggest it needs to be locked and bolted the way the Rovers have been sneakily getting goals of late.

So how leaky is this defence?

Well, having atched the 20 minutes of extended highlights against Bournemouth I'd say in that match, it was a cauldron.

Mistakes were the order of the day.  Without getting into the goals just yet, I saw crosses dropped by the 'keeper;  bargain give-aways in midfield resulting in efforts on goal and the 'keeper missing a cross/shot that rolled through the 6 yard box in a manner so tempting for strikers that it had me almost jumping at my monitor.

Campbell-Ryce - a Handfull.

The three that Bournemouth did score included a penalty.  The other two were poor goals to concede.  The first was a route one ball that hauled the Magpie's shorts down due to a completely unmarked striker who was found with a clever back-heel; the second was something the creative amongst us may call a shot, that crept its way between two defenders and the 'keeper at his near post.

At the other end, and Jamal Campbell-Ryce caught my eye.  He's a potential handful with plenty of pace and skill.  

Notts County as a whole looked good on the break in particular.  Up front and whilst I wouldn't say there's no skill, I would say that there isn't too much compromise either.  Keith Curle's options up front include François Zoko, Yoann Arquin, Enoch Showunmi and  Lee Hughes, all of whom are big powerful players.  It could be a bruising afternoon for the Doncaster centre-backs.

DONCASTER ROVERS

We didn’t play well but we ground out a result - Tommy Spurr

Spurr - Ever Present

That comment from Spurr about sums up Rovers over the last two games.  Against Brentford, Uwe Rosler was left speechless at how his side left the Keepmoat with nothing and Ronnie Moore's reaction was also one of shock.  Both managers spoke of long throws and lumping it in the box.  Both managers bemoaned how with with massive possession advantages they had got nothing from Doncaster.

Donny shouldn't be winning.  They have a small squad on which injuries are starting to take a toll.  They are maintaining less than 40% possession.  They are managing just 8 shots per game.  They are certainly not playing good football.  But they are also unbeaten in their last 5 outings with 4 wins and a draw.

So how is it happening?

First of all there is the foundation of a very solid back line.  How solid they are is easily visible in the match stats.  Against Tranmere, 21 corners were faced without any of them resulting in a goal; against Brentford, despite 72% of possession, the league's leading shooters could only manage 8 shots and from open play, Rovers have conceded just 4 goals this season.

Then there is a ruthless efficiency up front.  Rovers do not create enough chances.  Just 8 shots  per game should not get a team up to 6th place in the league.   But the major threats of Chris Brown, David Cotterill, Iain Hume and Billy Paynter are all scoring with more than 1 shot in 5.  Paynter in particular is proving a deadly marksman with 1 shot in 3 hitting the back of the net.

Can it keep going?  Well, I don't think that way so much.  I think more of what would happen if more opportunities could be created, especially for these four players.

Rovers have added to their squad this week with Sammy Clingan coming in on an initial two month contract.  Its good news.  The midfield is the only area of the side that can be said not to be performing.  More competition in there can only help correct this issue.

Prediction

I think the Magpies will be the toughest test for Rovers so far this season.  1:1 with Billy Paynter continuing his scoring run.

Rovers v Bees

DONCASTER ROVERS

 - V - 

BRENTFORD

Do you ever wonder why you bother with football sometimes?  For me these last weeks have been a case in point.

First of all for the second week running, a few brainless pillocks who tag along with the Rovers traveling support embarrass the club by not being able to behave themselves at a football match.  We then get treated to the spectacle of a nation who appear to have a larger minority of brainless pillocks treating the youngsters of England's U21s to a hate-fest.  The country's FA shows how much they intend to do about racism in their national game by denying everything and blaming the main victim of the hatred.

Surely the football authorities will do something about this?  I mean, they give you every confidence by the way they manage a seemingly straight-forward matter of terrible weather causing a postponement.  What an absolute farce.  A pitch that is so obviously unplayable that even the ITV football team are able to instantly call the postponement correctly is inspected not once but twice by a referee.  Between the inspections the weather worsened, the roof of the stadium wasn't closed (irony of ironies, they couldn't close it because it was raining too much!) and nobody, apart from two body-surfing fans did anything to change the condition of the pitch.  Why were there pitch inspections?  To buy time to allow people who cannot decide between plain or pin-striped suits to make decisions.  These are the people who run our game.

So why do we bother?   Because if we didn't bother. THEY WIN.  The brainless pillocks win by keeping us good people away and the people who run the game think what they are doing is good enough.  Its not, so keep writing on forums, writing blogs and telling them that their paying customers aren't happy.  

You never know, if we do this, we may get more of the only action of the Poland v England farce that made me smile about football again.  The FA covered extra costs and ticket prices of the 1200 or so England fans able to stay in Poland to watch the postponed game.  Well done FA for realising who the customers are.

DONCASTER ROVERS

I think last week's Rovers performance kinda set the footballing tone for the week.  Against opposition that, on paper, seemed weaker, we did enough...just.

We’ve only conceded three goals from open play all season.  - Dean Saunders

That's a really encouraging stat from Dean and of course, during Saturday's match, we only conceded from the penalty spot.  Saunders described the penalty decision as "terrible".  I'm not so sure.

Shelton Martis and Paul Quinn were both holding Steve Howard as the throw came in.  Its true that you see the similar holding on every corner or long throw into the box.  But it is, strictly speaking, against the rules of the game.  All that is needed is a striker of Howard's experience to make it look as if he is being impeded slightly more than he is impeding and you have a ref making "terrible" decisions.  For me, it was a 50/50 decision and Rovers were on the wrong end of it.

Iain Hume - On the mark for Canada

But something that is good about the Rovers so far this season is their ability to come back.  In fact, so far we have the equal fifth best record on this statistic.

Against Hartlepool, it was Captain Fantastic himself, Rob Jones who crashed home a header after being pushed forward as a makeshift striker.  Another piece of good news, only one yellow card in this game, for Shelton Martis who allowed himself to be wound up by Howard.

Into this one and Rovers will welcome back Iain Hume, who scored for Canada during the week.  Unfortunately, the goal will be the only happy memory he brings back from his latest international appearance as Canada were on the wrong end of an 8:1 thumping in Honduras. 

BRENTFORD 

If the stats are anything to go by, Brentford should provide good entertainment at the Keepmoat on Saturday.  The Bees have taken an average of 14.33 shots per game, two more than the next highest team in the division.  At the other end, only 5 teams have had fewer shots taken against them (one of them being Doncaster).  So Uwe Rosler's philosophy would appear to be "attack is the best form of defence".

Watching their last three lots of league highlights and you see straight away why the Bees make so many chances.  Rovers will be subjected to an onslaught of pace, which if I'm honest, is the only form of attack that they may find troublesome.  

When they win possession, Brentford are always looking to get the ball forwards quickly, not so much through the long ball, but through a whole host of players who are obviously more than happy to run with the ball.  

Its great stuff to watch and very effective.  It would of course be more effective if Brentford were better at converting their many opportunities.  Only 23% of those shots end up in the net.  Compare with Donny who make 37% of their goal attempts count.  Combine Donny's accuracy and Brentford's gung-ho running and it would be "move over Tranmere, Donnyford are coming through!"

At the other end my advice to Donny would be "what is good for the goose..."  Run at Brentford - they looked shaky when Shrewsbury did this.  Press the defenders too, from what I saw, there are mistakes  just waiting to be forced out of the back 5.

To an extent, the stats show this too.  Brentford don't have many shots taken against them, mainly because of the policy of setting up camp in the opponents half.  But when shots do get taken at them, they tend to be on target more often than not.  True, they are far from the  worst at conceding goals, but I don't think many teams have had much chance to really press them.

Prediction  

Entertainment all the way in this one.  Donny will edge it 3 : 2, with Hume getting on the score sheet.  

The Swiss 36 No. 12 Rheinpark Stadion - FC Vaduz

FC Vaduz  v  FC Winterthur

The Rheinpark Stadion - Very much in the distance

The day before this match, we were walking back towards Winterthur station when a voice yelled "Hey!  English!".  

We turned around and saw that none other than Winterthur centre-forward, Patrick Bengondo had stopped his car in the middle of the road to say hello.  He asked us if we were going to the match and we confirmed.  So that was us...committed!

The next day saw driving wind and rain for the trip to Liechtenstein.

Now, I've been to Vaduz before and enjoyed the experience.  As you would imagine, Liechtenstein is quite like Switzerland, only even cleaner!  Anyway, the last visit certinaly wasn't unpleasant and I was quite looking forward to this trip.

The last time I was in Vaduz, I drove there but this time public transport was the order of the day.  The first thing I noticed was that on a Sunday, I couldn't find any train and bus combinations that were going to get us to Vaduz at a reasonable time before kick-off.  That's an unusual thing in Switzerland but then again, its NOT Switzerland is it?  So we took the FC Winterthur-faithfulls' recommendations on how to get to the Rheinpark Stadion.

Three trains later and we were at Sevelen, a small town not far from the Liechtenstein border with a group of about 20 or so Winterthur fans.  We jumped off the train into the rain for the walk to the stadium.  

Jazzy Electronic sign

Say what?  walk?  It was along a fairly major and featureless road and it took us across a motorway and over the Rhein into Liechtenstein. In the weather we had, not very pleasant.  There are mountains around there, of course, you just couldn't see them that well.  35 minutes later and, my word, was this a professional outfit we were visiting?  A very jazzy electronic signing announcing the game to everyone heading that way.  Somehow, I think the sign is for when the likes of England or Germany visit, as Rheinpark is also of course the national stadium of Liechtenstein. 

A Better View of Rheinpark Stadium

Now it would be silly to have a Wembley as the national stadium of Liechtenstein.  Wembley would actually seat the entire population of the principality twice over.  The capacity is 7789  so its by no means a colosseum. 

No problems at all buying tickets on the day (15 SFr each, very fair) or getting into the stadium.  Security correctly saw fit to take custody of our umbrellas as they do not allow Wallies with Brollies.  Besides, there were plenty of covered places from where to watch the game.

Points Time.

Getting There

2 / 10.  The longest walk so far and not a particularly pleasant one especially in the wind and the rain (no, I didn't deduct points for the weather).  It was also a shame that the route to the stadium did not take us through Vaduz.  It would have been nice to see the place.

Friendliness

8 / 10.  I don't think I spoke to a Vaduzian (I will call them Vaduzians, it makes them sound like they feature in Star Trek) other than staff or ball boys at the ground but those who I did talk too were fine.  Always courteous and polite even when telling us off!

Safety

Rheinpark Stadion

9 / 10.  Not a nasty fence or net in sight.  The stadium is mostly seated and the stewards had no problem with people standing in the seated area.

View

9 / 10.  No matter what the attendance, I couldn't see how you would fail to have a decent view in this ground.  No nets or fences in the way, no pillars.  It's fine.  

Whats this empty area all about?

So why the lost point.  Well its a minor issue and I think its some kind of safety ruling.  Mrs. Duck and I are "standers".  We also like to be right next to the action if possible.  Somewhat bizarrely, on three sides of the ground they haven't bothered with terracing or seats at the lower levels.   

Now Mrs. Duck and I wanted to let our team know we were there, so we stood in this area right on the fence.  The local steward insisted we went up the steps into the seated area.  Why?  I can only guess that they were worried about our getting a football in the face.  

Anyway, they were very polite about asking us to go into the stand....and its their rules.  But it has cost them two points so he who laughs last...!

Atmosphere

3 / 10.  Vaduzians!  I was disappointed so here's a tip for next time.  There's a ball-boy who stands to the right of the goal in the photo above.  Have a chat with him about getting behind your team and engaging in banter with opposition fans.  We got into a bit of a banter-battle with him but I decided to give it up.  In a banter-battler with an 11-year old, there can be only one winner and that wouldn't be me.  I settled for shaking his hand at the end of the game.

The 150 or so Winterthur fans were as noisy and colourful as ever.

Refreshments

4 / 10.  Not good.  The sausages we had were OK but the burger was very dry.  That was about that for the selection available.  

Overall

35 / 60

Redeeming Feature

Difficult to find one to be honest.

The Match

Matched the weather I'm afraid.  Winterthur lost by a single goal to nil and were probably lucky to get away with that!  Vaduz always had the upper hand and Winterthur never really got into their game.

At the start Winterthur were allowing far too much space in front of their defence and Vaduz nearly made them pay early on with a long range lob that fortunately cleared the goal with Leite, uncharacteristically in completely the wrong place.  

That video represents the first time I saw the goal, and its not nice viewing.  At the time, I was answering a call of nature and admiring the absolutely spotless toilets when suddenly I was hit by goal-music piped into the toilets.  Vaduz - please see the point on atmosphere.  Your fans should not need music to tell them when to cheer.  This is something Americans need, not us cultured Europeans.  Oh, and PLEASE tell me what piping the music into the toilet is going to achieve, apart from an embarrassing drip or two (I didn't but I hope you understand the point).

Anyway, the video shows Vladan Milosovic strolling through the left hand side of the Winterthur defence before crossing for Stefan Iten to unfortunately play into his own net.  16 minutes, 1 : 0.

For the rest of the half, the Vaduzians looked like doubling their lead more than Winti looked like equalizing and Christian Leite pulled off a couple of saves that are much more characteristic of him.

The second half and it really should have been two nil.  Tripodi crossed for Hasler to shoot from around the penalty spot and I think Leite did not know too much about the hand that got in the ball's way.  Tripodi had a chance himself to make the score sheet but was denied by a great tackle from Savvas Exouzidis.

Winterthur's best moment?  a speculative effort from Kuzmanovic that brought a reasonable save.

Poor from Winterthur.  And now I had that bloody walk back to the station.

Hartlepool v Rovers

HARTLEPOOL UNITED

 - V - 

DONCASTER ROVERS

Again, relegation puts Rovers up against familiar opponents in the form of Hartlepool.  In fact there are only three teams we have played more often the Hartlepool.  Of those three, Darlington and Lincoln will not be opponents again for some time so only Rochdale can realistically increase their tally of games against the Rovers in the forseeable future, if they get promoted.

The records between the two clubs show Hartlepool do well at Victoria Park, while Donny do even better in South Yorkshire.So in total, Rovers are narrowly ahead. with 35 wins to 30 with 27 draws.  Plenty of history and plenty of respect between two proper football clubs.

HARTLEPOOL UNITED

Tuesday evening saw Hartlepool's involvement in the JPT come to an end with a penalty shoot-out defeat to Bradford.  The result added to what has so far been a tough season for the Monkey Hangers and Neale Cooper is starting to sound a bit forlorn.

We’re in a very hard place at the moment and we have to fight our way out of it, - Neale Cooper

Maybde I'm being a pessimist in my interpretation of that interview, but I see Cooper starting to clutch at straws.  He's dropped a numer of senior players in a bid to change things and now he's looking to his leaders to pull the team up by its bootstraps.  I'm sure Neale will keep going as long as he is allowed, but as I continued reading that article, I got the feeling I was reading comments of a manager hoping things will change rather than those of a manager who knows how to change them.

So what is going wrong at Victoria Park?

Against Crewe, the first thing that I wondered was whether the Hartepool's right back's absence was authorized or not.  I figured not, because had it been, surely he would have been replaced. Times number I saw Crewe's attackers pick up the ball in loads of space where a right back should have been on duty.  Surely a goal was going to come from that flank?

It didn't, it came from another rather telling failing.  Closing-down at the edge of the area just wasn't happening and sure enough, as a result they succumbed to a long range effort.  The second goal Hartlepool conceded came from a set-piece but that's not the issue for me,  The whole team looked tackle-shy, even when they bundled in the opener, I got no feeling of full commitment from Hartlepool.

In their previous match against the Blades, Hartlepool were much better, in the end being unlucky not to get a point.  Going forwards, I liked the look of Andy Monkhouse and Tony Sweeney.  The pair of them worked very hard to make chances for each other, although once in front of the goal, they did look inept.  It took a striker, Steve Howard to show them how it was done, when he power-headed home for the 'Pools equalizer. 

In the first half, the man Rovers' fans love to hate, Dave Kitson had given the Blades the lead with a similarly emphatic header but Hartlepool were certainly reasonble and would have won a point had Kevin Gallagher not broken their hearts a couple of minutes from time.  And why did he score it?  Because the right back had gone missing.

DONCASTER ROVERS

Jordan Ball after 10 seconds and 1 goal in senior football

Tuesday wasn't a bad day for Jordan Ball.  His loan spell was ended at Belper Town due to his not featuring much for the Evo-Stik South league outfit.  So he comes back to Doncaster and is given a chance off the bench.  10 Seconds later and the young striker has his first senior goal.

Dean Saunders joked that it will be all downhill for him from now on.  "Start as you mean to go on" is what I say, Jordan.

I think tomorrow’s game presents us with a very good chance to go there and produce a decent performance and pick up the three points - David Syers

Confidence from David Syers ahead of Donny's trip to the North East.  Syers is happy with the start he's made for the Rovers, and well he should be.  At Bradford, he was bench-warming at best.  From there, he's moved to being ever.present in the Rovers' midfield and arguablythe most consistent performer.  Apparently, he was signed on the advice of John Ryan's solicitor (or someone like that).  Who need scouts! - he's been an excellent signing.

Prediction

Difficult as I've seen both sides of Hartlepool and know that Donny can also be guilty of a no-show.  But Donny are strong away from home and I expect them to be too good for Pool.  2 : 0 to the Rovers with Kyle Bennett scoring.

The Swiss 36 No. 11 Stade Tourbillion - FC Sion

FC Sion  v  FC Zürich

Sion's two Castles.  Do they mean Sion must fight everyone?

For our penultimate review of a Swiss Super League stadium, we made the long journey to Sion for a visit to a team that, in my opinion does remarkably well.  Sion is the 20th largest city in Switzerland with a population of just 27600 and so is the smallest city with representation in the Super League.  To put that more into context, the next smallest city represented in the Super League is Thun with 40000 inhabitants although 95000 are declared in the Thun agglomeration.  If the agglomerations are taken into account, St. Gallen has the next smallest target population in the Super League with 70000.

What I'm making a mess of saying is that the city of Sion has far less people in the area to attract to the football stadium.  In Premier League terms (though absolutely no other) they could be twinned with Wigan.  But they don't perform like Wigan.  They have two league titles and 12 Swiss cup wins to their name, the last being in 2011. 

They are no strangers to controversy.  In 2008, they signed Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadarey.  Unfortunately, there was a dispute regarding the ending of his previous playing contract and Sion were accused and found guilty of fielding a player who was registered for another club.  As a result, they were banned for two years from registering players.  Sion appealed but the verdict and sentence were upheld, becoming effective in the winter transfer window of 2010/11.

Now things really got complicated.  Sion sued UEFA and the Swiss Football league in the Swiss courts.  In the course of these civil actions, the SFL had provisionally allowed the registration of 6 players in the summer of 2011 to comply with the ongoing legal process.  At least some of these players were fielded in Sion's Europa League tie with Celtic, which they won, 3:1 on aggregate.  Celtic appealed the result on the grounds that Sion had fielded ineligible players and UEFA ruled for the Scottish club.  Sion were forced to forfeit the tie, a decision that they naturally took to the Court of arbitration in Sport (CAS). They lost again and so took CAS to the Swiss civil court.

By this time, everyone was thoroughly fed up with Sion's courtroom antics and UEFA got tough.   They and FIFA threatened to suspend all Swiss teams including the national team from international competition unless Sion were appropriately punished by the SFA for their continued rules violations.  Although originally reluctant to do this due to pending civil actions against them, the SFA eventually succumbed to the considerable pressure and Sion were deducted 36 league points (3 points for every game where an ineligible player was fielded).  

As a result, they finished last season in 9th place but maintained Super League status by beating FC Aarau in a play-off game (I really wish they hadn't done that - the reasons for which will become apparent in a future article).

Is this the end of the Sion saga?  I certainly hope so!

Looks alright - at first sight!

Back to our day, and its was quite a journey down to Sion but, as ever on trains that connected uncannily.  At Sion and Mrs. Duck demonstrated her opinion of the place by throwing her Coke all over MacDonalds.  

We then had a 20 minute not unpleasant walk to a stadium that looked quite good.  From the outside, whilst its not beautiful, it does show more character than St. Jakobspark or Stade de Suisse.  

Are they trying to keep people out or in?

As we got closer, I began to get less keen.  The height of the fences around the stadium started to give me my first feelings of trepidation.

But no problem in purchasing tickets and at 25 SFr for a standing ticket, quite reasonable for the Super League.  Security was very thorough but polite.  It is the only stadium so far where I have been asked to empty my rucksack.

I did this and my emergency corkscrew was confiscated and I was informed where it could be collected after the game.

I'm in two minds about this confiscation.  On the one hand, the corkscrew has a blade for foil-cutting so could be classed as a knife.  Fair confiscation.  On the other hand, the corkscrew has also been discovered as I have boarded planes in the past and was not confiscated.  Anyway, it cost 5 Francs and I couldn't be bothered to argue about it or retrieve it.

Go into the stadium and it looks like a great place to watch football.  And then it hits you!

Points time.

Getting There

4 / 10.  No problem on the train but in Sion, it wasn't clear how to get to the stadium.  We ended up following fans, which of course works fine, but a little help wouldn't go amiss.

Friendliness 

8 / 10. Nice people wherever we went.  The local fans seemed interested in our Swiss 36 quest and this was the first stadium where a fan said "well welcome to the Tourbillion".  Security, although thorough, weren't in any way rude or overly officious.  

Nice Touch - Topping the high fence barbed wire

Safety

2 / 10.  What a shame!  The terrace height is fine but for me, more crush barriers are needed.  But the real issue is the fences.

At both ends, they are topped with barbed-wire just to make sure nobody can escape a crush on the terraces should they have to do so.  Again, no fences around the posh seats down the sides.  There is a bit of a moat at the sides, but its massively better than the fences.  

I bet they didn't empty their rucksacks

Then close to full time, in a stadium that looks to have a fair bit of wood in the structure, the Züri fans did this.  

Nice!  Please remember that Sion are a team capable of challenging for European competition places.  Without their huge points deduction last season, they would have finished second.

I saw an article on a Swiss magazine program stating that the Kanton of Zürich were adopting a zero tolerance attitude to flares in stadia (which are, incidentally very precisely banned by law).  So where do the SFA and other cantons stand on this point?

View

6 / 10.  Weakened only by the obvious issue of having to be so far up the terrace to see past those fences.  Fine from where I stood on the day.

Make some noise!

Atmosphere

9 / 10.  Loved it!  Fan-cheerleaders with megaphones encouraging the Sion fans plus an intelligently used big screen scoreboard worked well.  

Apart from being prats with flares, well done to Zürich too for playing their part.

Refreshments

1 / 10.  Bloody rubbish.  Where I was, there was only one food stall offering hot-dogs and other sausages.  The poor guy in there deserves an award as he was ridiculously overworked.  So I didn't sample the quality of the food as I gave up, returning to the terrace having already missed the first goal of the second half due to Sion's incompetence in staffing their stadium adequately.  Yes, I was pissed!

Cold drinks seemed only available in 33cl.  The beer was Calendar, which is an improvement on Feldshitschen.  The water was sparkling.  More bitching from Mrs. Duck!

Now that is beautiful!

Overall

30 / 60.

Redeeming Feature

Look at that home shirt!  For some reason I find it exceedingly attractive and wonder why a certain national side doesn't have such good taste!

I'd nearly give them an extra 10 for that.  Nearly but not quite!

The Match

Really good, in fact probably the best I've seen on the tour so far.  

Sion raced to a two goal lead in the first half.  Former Rangers' star Kyle Lafferty headed home Die Serey's cross after just 7 minutes to give Sion the lead.  The advantage was doubled on 26 minutes as  Manset found Xavier Magairaz who fired home.  Zürich had their chances going forwards, but were naive to say the least at the back.  Sion were taking full advantage.

While I was attempting to sample the Hot Dogs, Zürich pulled one back.  No idea what the goal was like but it was scored by Mario Gavranovic.  Now we had a game!  Züri pressed for the rest of the game with Sion reduced to countering.  The ending was very predictable.  On 94 minutes a corner was played into the middle of the Sion area and Jorge Teixeira headed in unchallenged.  Zürich went wild.  Sion's heads went in their hands!