Reminder: 1st Annual MASSIVE Australian Blues weekend!

Just a reminder about the upcoming Sydney Blues weekend, which will take in the Liverpool game on Sunday 21 February, as well as the 5-a-side tournament. Originally posted on 7 November.

We have already had interest from as far and wide as Perth and Melbourne, so to confirm your interest in either of the events, please contact us via one of the many ways at the top of the site.

Our interstate friends are more than welcome to join the squad too.

Supporter's Club 5-a-side Tournament Details
Date: Sunday 21 February
Time: 10:00am
Location: Harbord Bowling Club, near Manly
Cost: $180 per squad, so around $20 each

Hope you’ve been practising your darts for the Pub Comp and don’t forget the banjo!

Please find attached information with regards to the Supporters Club Australia 5-A-Side competition organised by TNT Magazine and LoveFootball.

Whilst it’s 5-A-Side squad numbers can be up to 12, plenty of games will be played so a good idea to get a good squad number, a rolling sub system will operate.

The Event will be held on Sunday 21st Venue and we'd love to see Man City there, Clubs are already signing up and it's sure to be a great day.

The competition venue will be the Harbord Bowling Club on the Northern Beaches, it has bar facilities aswell as food available etc so ideal for teams bringing supporters along, venue for after competition presentation to be confirmed – we have moved from our previous venue due to the demand and this will enable us to use more pitches.

Again we will be using synthetic surfaces so all good from a weather perspective.

The cost will remain the same at just $180 per squad, this includes venue hire, officials, insurance etc so great value for money, anyone requiring an invoice on the day please advise and I’ll bring it along.

Also on the day we have allocated a pitch for a junior coaching event, Love Football’s qualified coaches will be on hand to ensure any children taking part have a great time, cost will kept to a minimum for this and will advise asap what this will be.

Look forward to hearing from you soon and of course to registering your team, information will also be available via www.footyfansdownunder.com

Any questions or queries please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Regards,
Lee.

Sydney Blues v Liverpool Live Screening Details
Date: Sunday 21 February
Time: Midnight, for a 2am kick-off.
Location: Cheers Sports Bar, George Street.
Cost: Nil

Dear City Fans,

Whilst I realise I’m writing to you at a time when our hearts are heavy with the Carling Cup defeat I hope what you read cheers you somewhat.

I’ve had great response to the original letter sent out regarding the 1st Annual MCFC Australian Supporter’s meeting. We have a large contingent of Perth based fans flying in for the match and people coming from Victoria and across NSW.

Hopefully everyone has found accommodation, but if you are stuck please let me know and we will assist at our end as much as possible.

Please continue to spread the word and take note that the game has been moved to Sunday night (our time) in order to give Liverpool a chance to appear on TV against one of the big four. This may mean altering some of your travel arrangements or changing your plans for the Sunday night.

We will be watching the match in Cheers Bar on George St, so this restricts the event to over 18s.

Please bring any flags, banners and of course, your city shirts as we hope to turn the place Blue! Cheers is a Liverpool supporters pub and whilst we have an uneasy alliance with them most days, match days mean all bets are off. It would be great for them to turn up and see City have overrun the place!

For the other events such as the bowling and sightseeing, no money is required currently as we will all be able to pay on the day. I am currently looking into having some shirts printed up to celebrate the weekend and am just gauging interest from people at the moment. As we all know it takes numbers to make things like this happen so let me know if you would be interested.

Sorry to anyone if I’ve missed your calls or emails recently as I’ve not long got back from the States (where I met some awesome Blues) but am now fully focused on making this weekend the best it can be!

Your browser may not support display of this image. Please pass this letter on to anyone who may have missed the original, and let them know the weekend of the 19th of February, Sydney is the place to be if you’re a Blue!

Looking forward to seeing you all,
Brendan Smith.

After speaking to Gerard from Cheers, we may be able to attract sponsorship for this day, whether it be subsidies or beer. We'll let you know.

Hope to see as many Blues from acrross the country as we can!

Robinho out on loan

Confirmed on the Official Site. He will play for Santos until the end of the season.

The Club can confirm that it has reached agreement with Santos for Robinho to join them on a six-month loan. The agreement takes immediate effect and ends on August 4.

Santos will assume all of the player's contract terms, including wages and bonuses. Robinho will travel to Brazil on Sunday to begin his loan period.

As I said earlier, there is no doubt he has been a disappointment this season. After scoring 15 goals in his opening season (and even that was perceived to be a failure according to most experts), he has only contributed one this season, in his last match against Scunthorpe.

Again, in fairness, it was his signing that started the ball rolling. That showed the world's players that City are an attractive prospect (if only for the wages). So we owe him thanks for that, at least.

Robinho's £32.5million transfer fee was always used as a stick to beat him with, and after every shot of target or unsuccessful dribble the vultures would circle.

But a loan to Santos is ridiculously unambitious by Robinho. If you can't motivate yourself to play well for two of the biggest clubs in the world (Manchester City and Real Madrid), then you have a big, big problem.

He really has no ticker whatsoever, so despite irregular flashes of brilliance, Robinho was hardly value for money.

A real shame.

Carling Cup Derby Day at Cheers (Second Leg)

Absolutely massive turnout for the Carling Cup semi, all things considered (and that thing is the 7am kick-off). I've never seen so many people in there at that time of the day. We comfortably outnumbered the Rags (having said that, it's pretty hard to tell as they don't wear colours... the Irish accent is a dead giveaway though).

A lot of new faces... hopefully we can see you again in the future, starting with Portsmouth at midnight on Sunday.

Fantastic group shot (hi-res). What a bunch of champions.

Gavinho and Rohan exchange beard maintenance tips (this is not a joke).

Sydney is blue.

The Blues quite easily outdo the Rags in both quantity and volume.

FA Cup Round 5 Draw

It's Stoke City at home.

This will be a good test, as they played some decent football (really) on the way to a 3-1 defeat of Arsenal. But with the Gunners, the Rags, Liverpool, and Everton all out of the FA Cup, we have a great opportunity to go deep into this competition as well. Domestic cup double? Why not!

The tie will be played on February 13 or 14.

The full draw is as follows:

Southampton v Portsmouth
Reading v West Bromwich Albion
Fulham v Notts County or Wigan Athletic
Chelsea v Cardiff City
Bolton Wanderers v Tottenham Hotspur or Leeds United
Derby County v Birmingham City
Manchester City v Stoke City
Wolverhampton Wanderers or Crystal Palace v Aston Villa

Song For A Future Generation?

We've recently been tinkering with the blog and introducing a few changes... but this next one is likely to be one of the biggest.

When we discussed the idea of setting up the blog, it was simply designed to act as a tool to connect and introduce other Manchester City fans in Sydney (and to a lesser extent, all around the country). Originally, there was not going to be a large focus on news or match reports, as there are other blogs out there that do it much better than here.

Analysing the visits to the site reveals that the amount of people who find the blog from North America and the United Kingdom is about two-thirds of the number that visit from here in Australia. We do have a lot of visitors from overseas, and using the name Sydney Blues in somewhat insular. We are also going to grant access to those fans in Melbourne and Brisbane so they can also post their news.

Very shortly the official name of the blog will change to Lesson In Pride. This was chosen for a number of reasons, predominately because it features in one of our best songs, but also because as any City fan in Australia can attest, following the Blues from 10000 miles away surrounded by Rag glory hunters really is a lesson in pride.

One of the main frustrations is that the blog name, the twitter account, and the domain name (mcfcaus) don't match. As a result, the address of the blog will eventually move to lessoninpride.blogspot.com, with a look to our own domain. The content and layout will stay exactly the same... just renamed. The focus is still very much on events in Sydney, with a smattering of news from back in England. This won't change.

If you have any questions or concerns, get in touch with us in the usual ways. It'd be good to hear your feedback.