Obscure football clubs you keep an eye out for.

[Old Gregg]

Montreal Impact

Lived in Montreal for a year in 2001 so I try to keep up to date with whatever goes down there. Great place to live and visit, soccer is pretty big there as well (competing of course with gridiron, baseball and of course hockey)..

Montreal Impact (French: Impact de Montréal) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1992, the team plays in the North American Soccer League (NASL), the second tier of the American Soccer Pyramid.

The team plays its home games at Saputo Stadium, where they have played since 2008. The team's colors are blue and white. Their current head coach is Marc Dos Santos.

The Impact also operate an academy called Montreal Impact Academy, which began play in the Canadian Soccer League in 2009. They also used to operate an indoor team (of the same name) in the NPSL (at the Bell Centre, then at Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard) with many of the same players, from 1997–1998 to 1999–2000.

On May 7, 2010, Impact owner Joey Saputo was granted a Major League Soccer expansion franchise set to begin play in Saputo Stadium in 2012.[1] Although, in a legal sense, the Montreal MLS expansion team will be an entirely separate legal entity, the new team will carry the Impact name and maintain the team's legacy in the new league.

http://www.montrealimpact.com/index.aspx?language=EN

[Old Gregg]

Ross County FC

I have ancestral links to Ross County (far north of Scotland) and the Staggies are therefore one of the OCIKAEOF.

Went on a fantastic cup run last year, including beating Celtic, only to lose to Dundee Utd in the final.

Ross County Football Club are a Scottish professional football team from the town of Dingwall, Ross and Cromarty. Founded in 1929 they currently compete in the Scottish Football League First Division and play their home matches at Victoria Park. Prior to the 1994–95 season they played in the Highland Football League, a competition they won three times. They have also won the Scottish Second Division, Third Division and Challenge Cup, once each. In 2010, they produced a remarkable run to reach the Scottish Cup Final. Nicknamed The Staggies, County's home colours are dark blue and white. They are currently managed by Jimmy Calderwood.

http://www.rosscountyfootballclub.co.uk/home.aspx

[blahblah]

Well since you asked, I give you the team with the World's worst mascot......

V-VAREN NAGASAKI

It's the team representing the home prefecture of my better half so I've been following them for a few years. It's been hard work as their lack of facilities and cash makes it very difficult for them to meet the infrastructure and corporate structure required for entry to J2; regardless of how well they play. Fortunately they are in the habit of choking at the end of the season so the question doesn't raise its head too often.

V-Varen Nagasaki is a Japanese football club based in the city of Nagasaki. It will compete in the Japan Football League beginning in the 2009 season.

The club was formed in 1985 as Ariake F.C. in Shimabara. In 2004 it merged with nearby Kunimi F.C., made up of students from the nearby high school in Kunimi. In 2005 they adopted the name V-Varen Nagasaki, the first V standing for "Victory" and Varen being Dutch for "to sail", owing to Nagasaki's heritage as port of call of Dutch traders during the sakoku period in the Tokugawa shogunate (see Dejima).

Since 2006 they had been contending for the Kyushu League Championship and a place in the Japan Football League, but they only won it in November 2008, as second place in the All Japan Regional Football Promotion League Series.

In January 2009, they applied for J. League Associate Membership and their application was accepted at the J. League board meeting in February

[Old Gregg]

Tafea FC

Winners of the Premia Divisen in Vanuatu 16 consecutive times from 1994 - 2009, until Amicale FC won last season. Regular competitors in the O-League.

They represent the southern province where I will be doing fieldwork later this year.. but sadly play all their games in Port Vila, hopefully I'll be able to get to a couple though.

[Old Gregg]

Well since you asked, I give you the team with the World's worst mascot......

WTF is that? A dude.. wearing a hat made out of a giant bird.. with antlers?

[blahblah]

Tafea FC

I think I've them play, against Marist Brothers in Honiara.

[Old Gregg]

Oh, and the Ghanaian football leagues, home to (among many other gloriously named teams) Essienimpong Cape-Coast Mysterious Dwarfs, Eleven Wise, Moonlight, Roving Rovers, Windy Professionals, Fair Point FC, Pure Joy Stars, Soccer Learners, Bright Future FC, and of course SC Adelaide..

[blahblah]

Well since you asked, I give you the team with the World's worst mascot......

WTF is that? A dude.. wearing a hat made out of a giant bird.. with antlers?

hahahha.... Steelinho and I had a discussion about this on the old site. Basically we came to the conclusion that this guy had snuck off, knocked off an unsuspecting oshidori (duck), delved out it's head to make a helmet and then killed a wandering deer, skun it and used the scalp as a hoodie.

In short the mascot is a homicidal trophy wearing maniac.

[Steelinho]

FC Ube Yahhh-Man




Right in the South-West corner of Honshu, Japan, lies Ube, a small industrial town in the Yamaguchi prefecture. Within Ube is one of the rising stars of Japanese football: FC Ube Yahhh-Man.




Entering the Chugoku League in 2007, Yahhh-Man have settled into a mid-table groove and, as the nice guys they are, don't want to embarrass their league opponents by walking through the season undefeated. That's not to say they don't take the sport serious. In fact, they're very serious and very proud of their club.




They also have their own vending machine:

[Agostinho]

Tafea FC

Winners of the Premia Divisen in Vanuatu 16 consecutive times from 1994 - 2009, until Amicale FC won last season. Regular competitors in the O-League.

They represent the southern province where I will be doing fieldwork later this year.. but sadly play all their games in Port Vila, hopefully I'll be able to get to a couple though.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I was staying near the stadium they play in when i was there a few years back.

Incidentally, it's immediately next door to Port Villa's prison from which a couple of weeks before I was there, every single prisoner escaped.

[Steelinho]

Incidentally, it's immediately next door to Port Villa's prison from which a couple of weeks before I was there, every single prisoner escaped.

That would've been quite the welcoming party.

[Old Gregg]

Niiiice..

When I was there Tafea had just had an O-League match against Lautoka FC of Fiji called off due to fan riot/pitch invasion/referee assault. From the talk around town that was a highly irregular sort of thing to happen though.

[Agostinho]

Loving FC Ube Yahhh-man.

My recently favourite African club would have to be Miscellaneous FC, who have not too long ago gained entrance into the Botswanan Premier League. Difficult to find much information on them, but with a team name like that what else do you need?

They join a league with such other clubs as Botswana Meat Commission, Extension Gunners, Killer Giants and Black Peril which lets be honest all sound more like 70s funnk bands than football clubs.

[Old Gregg]

Botswana Meat Commission FC even have a great Wiki page.

They are very good at soccer, however due to a serious injury to their best player Andrew Mitchell...Who is Scottish!...

PS.. Totally keen to start a band called Botswana Meat Commission

[flavze]

Tottenham FC, they play in England and don't win much.