Skip to main content

A new chapter in the Pride of Vallekas...

You might think that this is the second iteration of this blog.

But, in a way, it isn't. During the second half of the 2014-15 season, I watched all the Rayo games and uploaded match reports to a Facebook page called the Pride of Vallekas. I then impulsively deleted that page, thinking I would never write again.

Moral of the story: this is, in an informal sense, the third iteration of this blog. And never, ever, delete things.

Umm....I'm deleting things. Again.

I started writing about football in September 2015. Back Page Football were kind enough to allow me to contribute - and it propelled me to write about twice or thrice a month. It provided me with a platform to write for BarcaBlaugranes and VillarrealUSA, two blogs under SBNation, and guest post on many others.

However, as I've said many times before, a lack of writing towards the end of 2016 frustrated me, and the mandate to write everyday was born impulsively on a Thursday morning more than a year ago. At the time, I said that I wanted to write about Rayo Vallecano. I wanted to write about its history, its famous players and its struggles. I wanted to write about the football and the board, the politics and the fans, the players and the coaches. And I wanted to give my take on the day-to-day coverage.

Before, I had focused on writing a finished article. Now, I was focusing on writing. A lot. And very often. And looking back over the last year, it seemed like things were going smoothly. But a couple of things happened that made me rethink.

Last July, in the First Qualifying Round of the Europa League, Welsh side Bala Town faced Liechtenstein-based club Vaduz. Now that would ordinarily not get much attention even from someone as obsessed with the obscure as me, but Bala Town had contacted me about an old piece I had done about the peculiarities of Vaduz, a Liechtenstein-based team playing in the Swiss league, and asked me if they could feature it in their match day program. And they did - and I was proud of that.



But it was directly at odds with the experiment. The daily blog experiment was very good at getting something out every day. But it would be hard for me to pull out a piece at random and say it was of a quality that I could be proud of. And I've come to realize that that's who I am - I would rather stay up all night to make a piece better than just publish anything. It's too easy just stating a half-hearted opinion and calling it a post - and much harder to write something that is well researched and well edited.

I'm not saying I want my pieces to go in magazines and programs. I'm saying I want my articles to be at that standard - and a daily blog is at odds with that. In fact, I did the math and about 40% of posts on this blog don't pass that test. That's actually not that bad - on average that means that 2 in 5 posts were, at least in my opinion, good articles. I'll take that.

You would have noticed that I haven't published since January - a combination of reasons, partly technical issues with the blog itself, have meant that it is time to retire this experiment, and create a new chapter.

And it starts today, in August, before the start of Rayo's latest foray into La Liga. In the meantime, I will be uploading all the match reports as part of the Rayo Report series that was abandoned in November over the course of the next season. Moreover, I will be deleting the posts that aren't up to the mark, and in the coming months I will be rewriting and re-uploading them.

So yeah. I'm deleting things. Again.

But I have some exciting plans for the blog coming up. Spanish football is a fantastic topic for a blog, but material dries up quickly - and so stay tuned for an expansion in the topics this blog focuses on. Football in different countries. And different sports. And geography, book reviews, politics...anything that is worth writing about and interests me.

Moreover, I do want to focus on writing on other blogs too, so make sure to follow this blog, and me, on Twitter. (@prideofvallekas, and @Vallecanos1924).

Other than that, stay tuned for tomorrow's first post in this new chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When three teams offered a 19-year-old an eight year contract (11th October, 2017)

Just how many players can you name who have the following descrption: He is a striker of great quality, and was a great promise of Spanish football, but his bad luck and some injuries denied him the opportunity to recover - he has never played more than one season in the same team. This is the story of a player - a technically and physically excellent striker - who made mistakes and suffered injuries very young and never really recovered. Born in Santa Eulàlia de Ronçana, Barcelona, Iván Peñaranda started his youth career at Granollers. His real formation, however, was in the lower categories of Barcelona, ​​in which he stayed for seven years (1991-98). Playing alongside Xavi Hernández, Gabri and Carles Puyol. He was considered as one of the young players with a huge future within the club. In the summer of 1998, he angered Barcelona by using "change of residence" as an excuse to sign for Mallorca B (he would move there along with his family), where he would play alongs

Non-league Incider: St Helens Town 3-0 Atherton Laburnum Rovers

Last game: 8th August: Dulwich Hamlet 2-1 East Thurrock United The previous day, I was blown away by my first ever football match experience. Dulwich Hamlet impressed me, but what impressed me more was the journey. The travel to the stadium was just as enjoyable as the football itself. I had caught the groundhopping bug. There were no games scheduled for the 9th of August. There was one, near Wigan, and all I had booked earlier was a refundable bus ticket from Manchester Airport leaving at quarter past midnight. I should have refunded it. This was a mistake. This whole day was a mistake. I was only slightly hungover from the previous night, but that was nothing compared to this feeling of loss - I couldn't handle the fact that there was a game happening. And I wasn't too far away. Just three hours and a bit. They'll fly by , I thought. I was in autopilot. Something within me made me get up, grab a bag, and get out the door. This wasn't me. I wasn't trave

Francisco Pérez Pérez - the actual oldest player to have played in Spain (1st November, 2017)

I've always wanted to ask a football player: how much do you love your club? If you see your club go down, what are you willing to put on the line to see them go back up? The notion that "players will come and players will go, but the fans are the club" is one that is sadly true in what has become a money-filled sport. The story of a player sacrificing money and success for his club? That story is rare. That story is beautiful. This is that story. This is the story of a player who loved his club. His local club. It'll be a long time if and when someone beats his record. Francisco Pérez Pérez, also known as Chico, currently holds the record for being the oldest player to play in the Segunda B - 43 years and 93 days is the figure. That's a figure that second place Diego Rodríguez Fernández (41 years and 324 days) falls short of by a year and 134 days. I should also point out that the top 3 list for oldest players to play in any of the top three tier