Let's learn about obscure teams!

[LoveCity]

This is a semi-serious challenge to anyone and I hope someone takes up the challenge! Find an obscure team from anywhere and tell us about one or more of the players. Wikipedia is the easiest road to finding out some stuff. This is a good way to learn about some of the smaller leagues in world football. I've always had an interest in the smaller leagues and watching us play some tiny clubs in the Europa this season and seasons passed has been fun.

I'll start. If anyone else wants to contribute that would be fun, if not maybe I'll update it myself if anyone finds it amusing. :P

Víkingur Gøta

Víkingur play in the Faroe Islands Premier League. Our club's only brush with this league of late was playing Streymur in the Europa League a few years ago. Víkingur is the result of a club merger in 2008 and they have already tasted European football, qualifying for the Europa League second qualifying phase this season. Unfortunately and quite predictably they were hammered by our potential (but unlikely after Kiev thrashed them yesterday) next round opponents Beskitas 7-0 on aggregate.

They have at least two Faroe Island internationals in their side, including Erling Jacobsen who is considered one of the best young Faroe players. They lost one of their key men, Atli Gregersen, to the mighty Ross County in the Scottish First Division (second tier) at the start of the 2010 season.

Even a league as small as the Faroe Islands Premier League has plenty of foreign imports and like just about everywhere else you'll find Brazilians there. Víkingur, though, lack a Brazilian player but do have Hungarian keeper Géza Turi, Serbian defender Nenad Stankovic, and Ivory Coast midfielder Evrard Blé in their squad.

They are managed by Jógvan Martin Olsen, who had an unremarkable career but has managed the Faroe Islands national team. Last season this Gøta-based outfit finished exactly mid-table in 5th so will remain in the top tier of Faroese football for the 2011 season which begins next month.

Víkingur play at the 2,000 capacity Serpugerði Stadium which you can see below. Imagine a Europa away day there!

Finally, some clips of the club's biggest match in its history so far, the 4-0 home drubbing to Beskitas at the stadium above.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWsMOD_F0E[/youtube]

 

[benCTID]

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.crawleytownfc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.crawleytownfc.com/</a>

 

[MCFC BOB]

FC Barcelona B team.

Barcelona's reserve team, founded on 1 August 1934 as Societat Esportiva Industrial Espanya, the club was originally the sports club of the factory with the same name. The club shirt featured blue and white vertical stripes. The company was owned by the family of Josep Antoni de Albert who was briefly president of FC Barcelona in 1943. During Alberts’ presidency the club, now known as Club Deportivo Espanya Industrial, became the FC Barcelona reserve team and began to play their home games at Les Corts.

Initially the club played in the local regional leagues but in 1950 they were promoted to the Tercera División and by 1952 they had been promoted to the Segunda División. In 1953 they finished as runners-up in both the Segunda División, Group I and the subsequent promotion play-off but because they were a nursery club of FC Barcelona, they were unable to move up a division.

Mini Estadi.

<br /><br />-- February 18th, 2011, 6:49 pm --<br /><br />Blyth Spartans A.F.C.

Blyth Spartans A.F.C. are a semi-professional football club who play in the Conference North, and are based in the town of Blyth, Northumberland, England. They are often the most Northerly team in whichever league or cup they are playing in. They are managed by former Hartlepool United and Darlington manager Mick Tait.

They were founded by Mr. Fred Stoker in September 1899, who was the club's first secretary before forming a practice as a distinguished physician in London’s Harley Street. He thought it appropriate to name the team after the Greek Spartan army in the hope that the players would give their all as they went into "battle" on the field of play.



And their ground:

 

[Oohvonkyvonky]

Phu Tho Province XI (formed 1956 in Phu Tho - Eastern Province)
Think they were formed by ex British army general Cpt Mike Hocismall after he settled there when the gorilla fighting at Humagwa finished in 1953. He put together a team of "foriegn legion" associates.(see below)

Ground: Chemnitz Arena

Manager: Vasilis Papageorgopoulos

GK - Cibernético
RB - Şebnem Kimyacıoğlu
LB - Artur Pappenheim
CB - Afa
CB - Sika
RM - Giuseppe Pedretti
LM - Urbano Lazzaro
CM - Fabrizio Gollin
CM - Saddam Hussien

ATT - Naitō Toyomasa
ATT - Tim Buzaglo

SUBS
1 - Cristian Sanavia
2 - Dardo Caballero

 

[LoveCity]

CM - Saddam Hussien

So that's where he ended up.

Interesting posts, glad to see some contributions. :)

 

[City Raider]

FC Lahti was founded in 1996 when two time-honoured archrival clubs from Lahti - FC Kuusysi and Reipas Lahti (Founded in Viipuri and moved to Lahti due to Viipuri left to USSR in 1947) - decided to end their time in Finnish top-football and create a new club to make people of Lahti proud. Also the reserve club FC Pallo-Lahti was formed, but it was closed down after a couple of seasons due to economic difficulties. Both Reipas and Kuusysi controlled the junior section of the club.

FC Lahti played its first season, 1997, in the southern group of Ykkönen, the second tier of Finnish football. It finished second in the first half of the split league format type league system, but was placed third in the final half behind FC Haka and PK-35 which were promoted to Veikkausliiga. The next season, 1998, was victorious and FC Lahti finally gained promotion to the highest tier until relegating at the end of the season 2010.

In the premier division Lahti hasn't yet achieved as much as Kuusysi and Reipas did. In 2007 Lahti won the Finnish League Cup. In 2008 FC Lahti was third in the Veikkausliiga final table and took a place for Uefa Europa League qualification rounds season 2009.

The reason I'm interested - I played for them

 

[manc73]

Deportivo Wanka

Deportivo Wanka

Full name Club Deportivo Wanka
Nickname(s) "Los Verdes"
Founded 1996
Ground Estadio Huancayo,
Huancayo
(Capacity: 15,000)
Chairman Alfonso Miranda
League Copa Perú
2008 Eliminated in Regional Stage

Home colours

Deportivo Wanka


Deportivo Wanka is a Peruvian football club, based in the city of Huancayo in the Peruvian Andes. It was founded in 1996 and is named after the Wankas people who formerly inhabited the area and after whom the city of Huancayo is named.[1] The current Deportivo Wanka is merged with Deportivo Pesquero of Chimbote but its home city is still Huancayo. They play their home games at Estadio Huancayo. Their last First Division participation was in 2004. They protested against their relegation and were suspended from participating in any football tournament.

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportivo_Wanka?wasRedirected=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportiv ... ected=true</a>





Show References
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[pee dubya]

Desperately trying to remember the names of some the clubs i managed in the epic FM challenge we did, but my brain has erased the pain.

 

[lloydie]

I still have no idea about the why they have an English name, either the original or this one....

Go Ahead Eagles is a football club from Deventer, the Netherlands, currently playing in the Jupiler League, which is the second highest professional football league in the Netherlands. The club's home base is called De Adelaarshorst (literally translated the Eagles Nest). This stadium was opened in 1920. To date, the club has won no major trophies in professional football, although they have produced several international players over the years, such as Marc Overmars, Paul Bosvelt, Jan Kromkamp, Victor Sikora and Demy de Zeeuw, whilst providing Henk Ten Cate with his first taste of management. Also Go Ahead managed to play in the European Cup Winners tournament once (against Celtic Glasgow in 1965) as runner-up of the previous dutch cupfinal (won by Feyenoord Rotterdam). GA Eagles also played several times in the Intertoto Cup torunament.

A brief club history
The footballclub Go Ahead Eagles was founded in Deventer in 1902 initially as Be Quick. However, soon they had to change name (orders from the Dutch Football Association), and Go Ahead was chosen as the new clubname. As an amateur footballclub Go Ahead reached the national top. Apart from a lot of regional (Eastern) championships Go Ahead became national champion in the Netherlands four times, in the years 1917, 1922, 1930 and 1933.

 

[bluemanc]

Manchester Central.
Manchester Central were a short lived professional football club based in Manchester.

The team was formed in 1928 by Manchester City FC Director, John Ayrton and the owner of Belle Vue, John Iles. Ayrton created Manchester Central because he felt East Manchester needed a League side. City had moved out of the area in 1923, but had initially considered moving to Belle Vue.

The club played at the Belle Vue Athletics stadium, more commonly known as the Speedway Stadium. One of the coaches was Billy Meredith, the Welsh international and former Manchester City and Manchester United player. Their manager was James McMahon.

The club joined the Lancashire Combination in its first year finishing seventh in the twenty team competition. This led to an immediate application to join the Football League for the 1929–30 season; this bid failed.

The 1929–30 season, the club finished as runners up in the Combination and the reserves played in the Cheshire County League, the only other reserve teams in that league being from Football League clubs. After a successful season another application for League status was made and failed again.

The 1930–31 season was less successful finishing seventh in the Combination and the reserves bottom. A further application for League status failed with Chester gaining membership. This led to withdrawal from the Combination and focus solely on the Cheshire County League. After Wigan Borough had to resign from the Football League in October 1931, Central applied to take their place. This was initially accepted by the leaders of Division Three (North), but a formal complaint was made jointly by First Division Manchester City and Second Division Manchester United.[4] They believed that a third Manchester side would seriously damage Manchester United, who were struggling for support and finance. The Football League backed the existing Manchester League sides and Central were denied. The Manchester clubs, in particular United, received significantly bad media coverage as a result and this act damaged their image and support further.

At the end of the season Central resigned from the Cheshire County League and became defunct, realising their ambitions would be unfulfilled.

Central were an ambitious side and attracted many significant crowds, such as 8,500 for the visit of Wrexham during 1929–30.[6] They also signed international players, such as Welsh international Bert Gray.

It is widely believed that Manchester Central was considered as a new name for Newton Heath in 1902 but there is no factual evidence from the period to suggest this is true – all comments come from later histories while detailed records and media reports from the period make no reference whatsoever to this idea. In fact it seems highly improbable as Manchester Central was already the name of another soccer side competing in the Manchester region during the 1890s. This first Manchester Central played at Alexandra Park and ceased to exist around the turn of the century. The directors of Newton Heath would not have selected that name for fear of confusion.

Due to this myth about the Central name being almost chosen by Newton Heath when they reformed as Manchester United, the name Manchester Central was considered as a name for F.C. United of Manchester.
How sad is that,that's wiki but possibly all of that is Gary James's work.