Sunday marks the first match outside of Tampere in our competitive season. With just a 15 km (10 miles) distance from Tampere to Pirkkala, it is not a particularly long trip, but nevertheless the supporters will be arriving by a charter bus, which gives an entirely different feel to the day than taking carpools and public transit. And indeed, it looks like close to 40 seats have been sold on the bus, so this will be a good size away crowd. The second team of the local PJK has probably not seen something like this in a while.

The draw for the fourth round of Finnish Regions’ Cup was made yesterday, and it could not have been much better for TamU-K. Once again we got a home match, and the opponent Lohikosken Pallokerho (LPK) plays just one division higher than we do. It wont be an easy match, but we could have done much worse in the draw.

We played our best match of the season on Saturday, and that was good for the first ever competitive victory over a team from a higher division in TamU-K’s short history. The result in sunny Kaukajärvi was a 1-0 (0-0) victory over LeKi with a 70th minute goal scored by Timo Kauppinen.

Today our season makes a shift as we play our first competitive match of the season at our second home field Kaukajärvi. Last time we played there competitively, the result was 14-1, but nothing of the sort can be expected this time. The occasion is the Finnish Regions’ Cup third round match against LeKi-futis, a team that plays one division above us in Nelonen.

Today the club announced that the

third round Finnish Regions’ Cup match against LeKi-futis will be played on the upcoming Saturday at 4 pm sharp in place of the league fixture against TaPa. A new date for the TaPa match was not yet announced, but it will probably go deep into the summer.

Last night Tahmelan Vesa showed what a disgrace to football they are. They had problems getting a team together for the Vitonen fixture against TamU-K, and the way they decided to deal with it is the most dismaying display of disrespect to football that I have ever witnessed first hand.

Our next match is a rematch of our promotion final last fall. The opponent Tahmelan Vesa (TahVe) obviously did not initially get promoted, but as usually happens, a few other teams folded, and thereby a spot in Vitonen opened up for them as well. They have started their season with a victory over JanPa and losses against FC Rellu and ViiPV. If they had promotion in their hopes coming into the season, it looks like they have been given a harsh reality check on just how tough of a league Vitonen is these days.

A disallowed goal, a missed penalty, a Geoff Hurst style ball bouncing from the underside of the cross bar to the goal line and out, questionable calls from the referee, and a dominating second half show by Anssi Saiha in the middle. Those are some of the elements of the football drama that we go to experience on Saturday night in the TamU-K match against OldSchool, ending in a 4-1 victory for the boys in blue.

The season has started almost perfectly, and I have the sense that I might not be the only one who has at times had a dangerous feeling of their feet leaving the solid ground. Therefore I’m going to start this match preview by a simple reminder: so far in Vitonen we have won a team that had had almost no preseason training (Lammin Veto) and a team that is one of the strongest candidates for relegation (FC Rellu). The real tests are still to come.

Today was a big day in the history of the club. The second team TamU-K /2 played their first match, and with that the growth of the club has been set in motion in a concrete way. The result was a perfect 3-0 victory, but that is not what made the day special, although it certainly made it even better.