CD Castellón (Spain)

Club Deportivo Castellón are a lovely little club, who despite being one of Spanish football's perpetual under-achievers, have a loyal and committed fanbase who'd follow the club absolutely anywhere. Based in the town of  Castellón de la Plana, around sixty miles north of Valencia, they were formed in 1992 - although the previous eleven years saw a good number of clubs form and fail in the city under a variety of entertaining appelations the like of Castalia, Gimnástico, Cultural and Cervantes. But by the time that Club Deportivo eventually formed, both the fans and the infrastructure were finally in place to support such a team.

Despite spending most of their history floating about between the third and fourth divisions, they have enjoyed a few small bursts of success that saw them enjoy a season or two in the top flight. A seccussful six season spell in the 1940s saw them finish as high as fourth in 1942 (remember, Spain was neutral in the war in the aftermath of their own terrible civil war, so life went on relatively as normal in this period), and they've found themselves at the top table of Spanish football for a couple of stray seasons in the seventies, eighties and nineties.

However, things haven't been going so well for them lately, as last season they slipped back down to the regional football in the equivilent of the fourth division. They play in the 16,000 capacity all seater Nou Estadi Castalia, a smashing homely ground on the northern outskirts of town.

Perhaps their most famous son is the former Real Madrid midfielder Vicente Del Bosque, who was with them during their golden season in 1973, that also saw them reach the final of the Spanish Cup - only to be beaten by Atlético Bilbao 2-0. You may also know him and the man with the bloodhound features who led Spain to glory in the World Cup in South Africa.

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Clube Atlético Mineiro (Brazil)

Atlético Mineiro hail from the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, the third largest municipal area in the country. Founded in 1908 they are considered one of the grand old dames of Brazilian football. Since their foundation, they have only spent one season outside of whatever the country's top flight happened to consist of in any given season.

They were the first official national champs back in 1971 - the title only starting that late because of the huge distances between the major clubs in this enormous country. On top of that they won the very first running of their state championship, the Minas Gerais State Championship, in 1915, before going on to win it a record 40 times.

Perhaps their most revered player was José Reinaldo de Lima, more popularly known as Reinaldo, or simply, The King. He remains the club's top scorer with an amazing 255 goals over a twelve-year period. In their unbeaten season in 1977 he scored an amazing 1.55 goals per game - a record still to be beaten anywhere in Brazilian football. Despite his success that year, he was forbidden from playing in the championship final that year, as his goal celebration - a raised left fisted salute - was considered to be a political statement by the military government of the time, which contributed to Atlético only finishing in the runner's-up spot - despite having the most successful season ever.

Their Mineirão stadium, built in 1965, is the second largest in the country, after the Maracana, and holds a whopping 75,783 punters, and is pegged to be remodelled for the 2014 World Cup. Their biggest rivalry is with fellow Belo Horizonte club Cruzeiro - also known as The Dark Beast. After almost 500 games played between the two battling sides, Atlético currently has the upper hand, but they are always fiercely contended battles.

Atlético are also known as Galo - or The Roosters - after their team mascot, a giant, muscley chicken beast. Designed in the 1940s by cartoonist Fernando Pierucetti, he chose the bhord because he thought that it summed up their fighting passion, and the fact that, like fighting birds, they never gave up until the final whistle. 

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Udinese Calcio (Italy)

Udinese hail from the city of Udine, in the Friuli region in the far north east of the country, nestling in between the alps and the border with Slovenia. The club was formed in 1896, which not only makes them the second oldest club in Serie A, but they are also thought to be the second oldest club in the whole of Italy, after Genoa CFC, who predate them by some three years. They were formed as part of the Udinese Society of Gymnastics and Fencing, and in their debut year won the Torneo FNGI - an early version of Serie A - although it sadly doesn't count as an official Italian league title.

Their first flood of fame when they were finalists in the very first Coppa Italia in 1922, although this isn't quite the achievement that it would first appears, as all the major clubs had slipped off to play in their own private league that year, leaving the minnows to fight it out among themselves. Their best ever finish in the league was when they narrowly missed out on a historic Scudetto in 1955 when they were pipped at the post by Milan. However despite their good finish they were relegated because of an alledged match fixing irregularity two seasons before. To their credit they bounced straight back up, finishing a creditable fourth in their comeback season.

Quaintly known by their fans as The Little Zebras, they play at the 42,652 capacity multi- sport Stadio Friuli, an unusual ground whose main stand looks like a giant seventies clock radio. It held three of the group matches in the 1990 World Cup - including the terse goalless draw between Spain and Uruguay. 

In 1980 they won the Mitropa Cup - a strange tournament for European teams who topped their local second tiers, but found themselves embroiled in a betting scandal six years later and were docked points that saw them relegated once more.

Notable former players include Dino Zoff, Zico, Oliver Bierhoff, Asamoah Gyan, Vincenzo Iaquinta and Sulley Muntari, and Liverpool's new boss Roy Hodgson once briefly warmed the manager's bench. Recent years have seen them work their way up the table to be consistent European torunament contenders, so let's hope that after a long and varied history they're not too far from winning their first spot of proper silverware some time soon.

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ES Sétif (Algeria)

Entente Sportive de Sétif are based in the North East Algerian city of Sétif. One of the coldest areas in the country, it sits among mountains at over 1000 metres above sea level.They are one of the most successful clubs in Algerian Football league history.

The club was formed in 1958 by Ali Benaouda and Ali Layass, although they were briefly known as both Entente Pétroliers de Sétifienne and Entente Plastique de Sétifienne in the seventies and eighties, before changing back to their more historic name in the 1990s. 

They've won the national title four times - the most recent being in 2009, and the Algerian Cup on seven occasions. They have also won the African Cup of Champions, the Arab Champions League, the North African Cup of Champions, and are the only Algerian club to have ever won the Afro-Asian Club Championship. They made history with their Cup of Champions win as they were the only non-top flight club ever to lift the trophy.

Originally playing in green and white, they switched to the famous black and white stripes in memorial of the Sétif Massacre on May 8th 1945 - one day after VE Day. After initial rioting killed 103 French settlers, French reprisals saw the estimated deaths of anything up to 45000 Algerian - an event that the French government has only recently apologised for.

The club go by the rather regal nickname of The Black Eagles, and play at the 30,000 capacity Stade 8 Mai 1945 - once again commemorating the sad events of the uprising.



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Club Libertad (Paraguay)

Club Libertad are from the Tuyucuá district of Paraguay's capital Asuncion, and are considered to be the thrid biggest team in the country, after the perpetual champions Olimpia and Cerro Porteño. This is a title hotly disputed by their fierce local rivals Club Guaraní, who despite claiming a bigger fanbase than Libertad, have won considerably fewer titles.

The year the club formed, 1905, was a politically turbulent time in Paraguay, and a group of revolutionaries sailed into Asuncion to take down the ruling Colorado Party. These young men were from the Liberal Party, and their ship was named Libertad (or Freedom in English). This event so impressed Juan Manuel Sosa Escalada that he decided to form a sports club and name it after the revolutionary's ship.

They play at the cosy and leafy Estadio Dr. Nicolás Léoz, a 10,000 capacity ground on the banks of the river named after a former club president who is now the president of the South American Football Federation.

In total they have won 14 national league titles - the last in 2008, when they won their fourth title in a row - a feat only achieved by one other club - Olympia - in all Paraguayan footballing history. The club are such an institution that their brief relegation to the second tier in 1998 was considered a huge shock - one akin to a club like Everton dropping a league. Over the years they have made regular appearances in both the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana - getting as far as the semi finals in the senior tournament in both 1977 and 2007.


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R Charleroi SC (Belgium)

Royal Charleroi Sporting Club hail, unsurprisingly, from Charleroi, the largest city in Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia. Known familiarly as The Zebras, they first formed in 1904, as a more humble Charleroi Sporting Club, and were only awarded their Royal prefix a little after their promotion to the second division in the late 1920s. They finally ascended to the top flight in 1947. In the early days they had a fierce rivalry with the city's Royal Olympic Club, who at the time were the more successful of the pair - although those roles have reversed in recent years.

They spent the next sixty years being a bit of a yo-yo club, finishing as high as second in 1969, but dropping back down a level two years later. This was until 1985, when they most recently worked their way to the top flight, and have stayed there ever since.

Their only major honour was as Second division champions in 1947, but also been losing finalists in the Belgian Cup a couple of times too. They've even had a couple of modest runs in Europe, reaching the UEFA Cup twice, and having a few good runs in the Intertoto in the 1990s, where they once gave Wimbledon a 3-0 drubbing.

Notable former players include Belgian caps Philippe Albert, Enzo Scifo, and Leo Van Der Elst, former QPR and Millwall star Gary Waddock, Nigerian international Victor Ikpeba, a surprising amount of Iranian internationals and even dear old Laurie Cunningham - although he only played a single game before he departed for an ill-fated stint at Wimbledon.

They play at the Stade du Pays de Charleroi, a curious 24,891-capacity ground with towering wedge-shaped stands that was the site of England's embarassing defeat to Romania in the 2000 European Championship group stages.

The club is currently owned by Iranian Businessman Abbas Bayat, a soft drinks tycoon, who has given a pair of his nephews jobs at the club.

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Little Lost Turkeys

You all had a little preview of this post in Phoebe's birthday post. Thanks so much for all your wishes and compliments on my little faunlet. But I want to ask:

Why does amazing bird stuff keep happening to me? I have enough to do keeping up with the birds that get into trouble on our 80 acres, not to mention the five calls a day from people all over the state wondering what to do with theirs.

I don't think it's a coinkydink.

I think birds know where to come when they're in trouble, that's what I think.

They wandered into the yard at dawn on June 22. They were peeping, a strident peep-PEEP PEEP? that sounded a lot like a tufted titmouse's spring song, but unvarying, insistent. I couldn't identify nor place the sound, and it bothered me until about ten AM. It circled and circled the yard, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. I didn't have time to chase it down.

I was busy--about 15 people were here for a field trip, a special visit to Indigo Hill, right on the heels of our trip out West. We'd been home from our two week trip for only a day and a half, and I'd done ten loads of laundry and hung them all out, and Bill had mowed and weedwhacked and the kids had helped with the laundry and raked the hay on the lawn. Thank the Lord I'd cleaned the house before we left, telling it to stay nice while we were gone. And I was showing 15 people around the gardens and bonsai collection and Bill was setting out to try to show them a Kentucky warbler when he called back to me and said, "Here's what's been peeping." And these two little wild turkeys not five days old came stepping out of a trumpetvine tangle, calling and calling, and they wandered, wide eyed, toward us.

Arrrggghhh. You don't want little lost turkeys wandering up to you. Because then they become your problem.
They couldn't find Mom; they'd been trying all morning and here it was noon and they were tired and hot so they settled for the nearest big slow- moving things they could find. This instinct to follow in young galliniformes is very strong. Although they pick up their own food from hatching day on, their lives depend on staying close to their mothers. Mom knows what to do when danger threatens; Mom's there to shield them from sun, rain and hail; she shows them good things to eat and where to drink, and she takes them up in the trees to roost under her wings at night.


Of course I began to worry about them the moment I laid eyes on them; I was magnetically pulled to help them. We let them wander around the yard for another two hours while we entertained, but all the while I was brooding about what I could do for them. So when the time came for our guests to leave I explained that I wouldn't be accompanying them down Newell's Run as I'd planned. I had turkeys to tend. I needed to find their mama. Being birdwatchers, they understood. We all have our priorities.

I Xeroxed some county road maps and sent them on their way with thanks for their understanding. They left with a real sense for what a rehabilitator's life is like--it can turn on a dime and usually does when you least expect it. When you're wired the way I am, suddenly being presented with a wild thing in need is kind of like getting a flat tire. Driving on isn't an option.

Before the group left, I recruited a few volunteers and when the turkeys headed out into the open lawn we sprinted to cut them off. I nabbed one as it zigzagged wildly, then huddled by my shoe (awww!) and the other darted into the rose hedge (rats!) where it took a few more minutes and some thorny abuse to my arms before my fingers finally closed around its downy little body.

I put them in a pet carrier with a dish of water and some chick starter, which they ignored. Oh, crap. Now what? They were peeping and peeping...So we waved everybody good bye and I donned my field clothes and set out for a two-hour walk around our property with the pet carrier under my arm, two shrilling baby turkeys inside it. I figured if I couldn't find their mom, she might find us by the loud location calls. I took my very best turkey hunting dog, Chet Baker, and told him that if he found a turkeh he was not to chase it but to wait quietly by me. He said he would. He walked just in front of me, quiet as a mouse, watching and sniffing, staying close and alert. Good boy, Chet.

A good dog is a joy, a gift, a blessing.

But after two hours all Chet and I had found was two cast turkey feathers, shining bronze in the green. The forest was silent. I was soaked with sweat and branded right through my long pants with stinging nettle welts. Note to self: Columbia "Titanium" zip-off pants are useless in the forest. You might as well be in hotpants. You might as well not wear any pants. Just waltz out there naked. They're too thin to stop stinging nettles. They might stop a halt, feeble or newborn mosquito. But maybe not.

I came back exhausted and thoroughly overheated, with two very hungry and tired little turkeys that were all my problem. Now I had to figure out what to feed them; what to DO with them. To be continued...