Jakub in Sheffield

What is a 21 year old Slovak doing in Sheffield? Working with the oldest club in the world

[jakubinsheffield]

Goodbye Sheffield FC!

Very sadly, today is officially my last day at The World’s First. I would like to say big thank you to everyone who I had a chance to meet: Everyone at Sheffield FC- our Chairman Rich Tims, Dominic Field, Bob Dyson and everybody else that is helping The Club as much as they could. Big thanks also goes to our German friends Robert, Florian and others. Not to mention our partners, mostly Hummel and Thornbridge. Hummel is a new addition to our team with great potential in the future. As you could read earlier, I was staying at one of Thornbridge’s pub, The Greystones. They really have one of the best ales that I could ever taste. I also want to thank to all our fans in Sheffield, rest of UK and globally. Without you, The Club could never reach the importance we have today.

  In addition to meeting many very friendly and helpful people, my stay with Sheffield FC was a great learning experience and I am thankful to The Club for giving me the opportunity to learn how an important club in the history of football works. And being a part of such respectable and noble club was a great honor.

  Thank you and I hope I will have a chance to be part of this great club again sometimes.

[jakubinsheffield]

[jakubinsheffield]

Only Few Days Before the Derby

Saturday is getting closer and closer. From training with the first team I know that our players are looking forward to this event as much as every other staff is. I had the pleasure to communicate and reserve tickets to around 50 Nürnberg fans that will be coming from friendly match of their team against Leeds. It will be exciting to see these men and women, fans of Bundesliga team, come to home of football and enjoy the atmosphere of two oldest football clubs in the world play. It is great to see that our World’s First Derby can spark such interest among people from all nations.

In the meanwhile, I bought a top hat and a bowtie for this special event. Combined with everything else that I already have, I am sure I will be one of the most authentic looking people there. So come to Home of Football on Sunday, dress up in Ladies and Gentlemen style and enjoy a full day of fun.

[jakubinsheffield]

[jakubinsheffield]

World's First Derby

I want to apologize for not updating my blog for a few days, but I hope you will accept my reason: I became an uncle. I went home for a few days to see my little nephew Teo while I am relatively close to Slovakia. As you know, I study in United States and I won’t go home until Christmas so I don’t have too many opportunities to see him.

Anyway, back to football business. As I am sure you know by now, the main event for me here at Sheffield FC is the World’s First Derby. For me, it is a great way how to gain a hands-on experience with organizing a relatively massive event given our resources. We are hoping to attract 750-1000 fans that afternoon, much more than at our other games. On top of that, we are working with dozens of media representatives and many other parties involved- food, music, etc. But all this hard work now will be worth it when we will see mass of people enjoying our event, watching football and listening to music, associated with tasty food and great pint. In the meanwhile, we will be trying to attract as many people as possible using posters and flyers. We will even be spreading word in Sheffield streets dressed in 1857 attire soon.

[jakubinsheffield]

Posters and flyers for The World's First Derby

[jakubinsheffield]

Training with the First Team

I finally had a chance to take some pictures during the training. Two trainings in, I have to admit this is one of the more intense preseasons I’ve experienced. My body is really sore and my legs are really heavy. Combined with me biking everywhere, I am really getting into shape. I will be leaving Sheffield for a few days for family reasons and then The Club plays a few friendlies so I will be training with the team until the next Thursday. By then my body should fully regenerate so I can get sore all over again J   Hopefully by the time I will have a preseason with the team I play for, I will be in a good enough shape that I will not feel like this again. But I feel quite privileged that I have this opportunity and being able to connect with The Club on so many levels. With the World’s First Derby coming closer and closer, everybody at SFC, from Chairman Rich all the way to players, are getting excited to have a great day full of football, music and fun. I hope I will see you all there!

[jakubinsheffield]

Training with Sheffield FC first team

[jakubinsheffield]

Sheffield- The Home of Football

First of all, I want to apologize for forgetting to bring my camera to the training with the first team, but the next one is tomorrow and I promise I will take some pictures this time!

The event I want to mention today is The Home of Football Festival, which took place at The World’s Oldest Football Ground on 26th of June. The Face that Sheffield is the birthplace of football is undeniable but surprisingly, not many people, even from Sheffield, know about it. We, Sheffield FC, are the World’s First Football Club, and Hallam FC, also a Sheffield side who we play in World’s First Derby, is based on The World’s Oldest Football Ground. This event aimed to remind everybody of the birthplace of our beautiful game. The highlights of the event were two games, one by girls and one by boys teams played under rules of 1858. The organizers were successful in inviting former referee Uriah Rennie who was definitely more than qualified to ref the games. It was fascinating to see how the game was played by its inventors more than 150 years ago, imagine our founding fathers run around the pitch kicking and catching the ball or scoring a rouge. It is scored when attacking team kicks the ball within 4 yards away from goal and then touch it down by hand. Reports from this event made it to national media, including BBC and news at 10 on ITV. It is great to know that event major national and international media recognize how amazing of a story is being a birthplace of the beautiful game and how entertaining it is to see young men and women play using rules of 1858.

[jakubinsheffield]

[jakubinsheffield]

Training with the team

I am about to explore one of the great perks of working for The Club- I will be joining Sheffield FC first team for the preseason starting this Saturday. I've played youth football at the highest level both in Slovakia and USA and I'm currently playing for my university in States.The preseason at my school starts on the 16th of August and since I only have one season left, I would like to be as prepared as possible- and I can't think of better preparation than with The World's First. As I've mentioned in a blog before, I use bicycle to go places. I've been trying to find a convenient public transportation connection to the field since I might get really tired if I bike there, practice and bike back after- I might not get out of the bed the next morning. But the more I try to find a good bus connection, the more likely  it seems that I'll just bike there, should be around 4 miles.

I will try to take some pictures on Saturday and put them up!

[jakubinsheffield]

Me and Rich

When it comes to day to day operations of Sheffield FC, our chairman Richard Tims is irreplaceable. Besides Rich being my boss, I had the chance to become friends with him and his six year old son Freddy. Sometimes when Rich and I have a meeting after we pick Freddy from school, he just comes with us and plays outside or with his gaming console. Our close cooperation with Thornbridge must be a blessing to Rich, he loves their beers and ales so much and often goes for one after work. Even meetings tend to go better over a pint. His most important skill in his position in my opinion is his energy and credibility when he starts talking about our history, our club Sheffield FC and where the future will take us. He is very convincing and nobody can talk about The Club with more passion and love. Listening to him makes you want to do everything you can to help The Club reach its ambitious goals and become the ultimate grass roots football club. And rest assured, while I can, I will do everything to make sure that I have a positive impact on The World’s First. And on the World’s First Derby that we’ll play on July 27th.

[jakubinsheffield]

[jakubinsheffield]

Life outside Sheffield FC

Today, I would like to share with you more from my life in Sheffield outside of the Sheffield FC. As I mentioned before, I use bicycle to go places. Car wasn’t an option for me so my choices were trying to borrow a bike or take buses everywhere. Since I love biking, I’m still a football player and used to work as a bicycle courier before, I wanted to find a place where I could rent a bike. Fortunately, my colleague  and friend from Sheffield FC Dom asked her sister if he could borrow her spare bicycle and he gave me his. At that time I knew him for maybe 24 hours but I soon learned that this friendly and supportive atmosphere is just how things work at the Club. I live in The Greystones pub, operated by local brewery and a sponsor of Sheffield FC, Thornbridge. And let me tell you, living in a pub is a dream come true for a young person like me. Whenever a feel like getting a pint, all I have to do is walk downstairs. We have concerts multiple times a week so great live music is also only few stairs away. So whenever you are around and feel like having a pint or even talk to me, stop by and write on the wall of my facebook page, Jakub in Sheffield or tag me in your tweet @jakubinsheffiel and I will gladly meet you there.

[jakubinsheffield]

The Greystones, my home for another two months.

[jakubinsheffield]

Horse Race Night

Everyone who is following our club knows that our veterans are currently in Milan playing at San Siro. Most of you don’t know that last Friday, May 31st, Bob Dyson, a director here at the Club, was organizing a Horse Race Night. The purpose of this event was to fundraise for the upcoming trip to Italy. And it couldn’t be more successful. Solid attendance (honestly, I expected some fans and families of the players traveling and that’s all, and I was quite shocked how many people showed up from all age groups), great food, I even tried the legendary English meat and potato pie and mushy peas for the first time in my life with condiments that I didn’t even know exist, such as mint sauce which tasted just like a toothpaste. Just as almost everybody there even I tried my luck and bet on horses in few of the races but I wasn’t successful. And so after two beers, interesting dinner and a good feeling that I donated few pounds to our veterans and their incredible trip, I biked home. Since I don’t have a car here, the borrowed bicycle is the only way I get around. Somehow, I didn’t get lost.

[jakubinsheffield]

Race Night