Special Offer on PUB Membership!

The annoying TV adverts have started, children are already making their parents reach for the bottle due to the incessant nagging and you can't walk in to a shop without hearing that song by Slade. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the festive season is upon us (almost) and we at the Penya Union Blaugrana are decked out in special red and blue Santa outfits to do our bit this Crimbo by offering all you interested readers a special deal on membership to the UK's biggest and most active official FC Barcelona supporters' club.

From the 1st of December, not only will you be able to wrestle with your advent calendar as the door in front of the chocolate refuses to open but you'll also be able to bag yourself the very best gift this Christmas; membership of the Penya Union Blaurgrana for the rest of this year and the whole of the next for just £25. Annual membership is usually set at £20 with membership running until 31st March so basically we're offering the rest of 2007/08's membership for just a fiver when you sign up for 2008/09.

Those who sign up from December will receive instant access to all of the PUB's membership privileges including ticket offers and voting on how the Penya is run as well as exclusive access to the Penya members' travel forum where we organise our biggest and best meetings.

We are also pleased to announce that there is a very small number of our limited edition inaugural pin badges on sale for a lower price of £3, so get something sharp and dangerous to play with this Christmas that tells the world that you're a part of the UK's top Barça Penya.



Visca el Barça i Visca la PUB!

Copa del Qué?

Have you ever been sitting in a restaurant, chatting with your woman, family, friend etc only for your pleasant evening to be constantly interrupted by a screaming child? If you have then you know how aggravating it is when all you want to do is concentrate on the conversation in hand. The Copa del Rei is a screaming child, one with dribble pouring out of its mouth and nothing in particular to scream about. International football meanwhile is an even bigger screaming child which is liable to throw something across the room and knock out the person you're speaking to, ruining your evening altogether.

The meaning of this metaphor? We are in a week where having faced the ignominy of the Getafe defeat all we really want to do is settle down to watch the next round of la liga and hope Frank and the boys can turn things around. Instead we are confronted with very annoying distractions in the shape of a cup competition whose worth is questionable and is devalued by a ludicrous format which sees the likes of ourselves and madrid have to play two matches to knock out semi-professional cloggers from the Segunda B and another chance for the FIFA virus to strike down one of our players as they go jetting round the world once more to play for their countries.

In last night's Copa del Rei match Barça held off a spirited CD Alcoyano side scoring an early goal through Thierry Henry in a first half where the Catalans failed to dispel any of the doubts surrounding their away displays. The second half was an improvement after Bojan Krkic replaced Henry and Barça created far more chances with shots hitting the woodwork three times. The goals, however, didn't arrive until Alcoyano started to lose their discipline. A foul on Bojan saw a 2nd yellow for Alcoyano's Bauxali and gave Eidur Gudjohnsen the opportunity to score from the penalty spot which he duly did at the second attempt. Carrion was then sent off for a very poor challenge on Bojan after he had earlier taken out Barça's other starlet Giovani who left the field on a stretcher. Bojan himself added a third in injury time to put a gloss on the scoreline for Barça which they probably didn't deserve.

With a meaningless 2nd leg to come which will be played out in front of a near empty Camp Nou Barça can now start to think ahead to the round of 16 of the Copa and a possible tie with a bigger side. There are many larger fish to fry before that stage which will arrive in mid-January with Frank set to face the music in crunch ties away at Lyon in the Champions League and away to Barcelona's second side in the league at the start of December.

Bon voyage to all of our travelling stars and fingers crossed that they all return in one piece before we can get back to some form of normality a week on Saturday against Recreativo.

The Morning After: Jornada 12

Well, the long and the short of it is that as footballing weekends go, that was about as dismal as they come for Barça. The curse of the orange shirt struck again as we lost 2-0 to Getafe with a gutless display of nothingness whilst Reial Madrid continue to rub our noses in it by playing sexy futbol. Robinho put in an impressive display as Mallorca repeated their feat of last season's final round by getting our hopes up only for Madrid to snatch the three points that now see them 4 points ahead of Barça. To cap it all off Vila-real won to move into 2nd place and leave Barça in 3rd.

A defeat is something that we as football fans can take, in fact we would readily accept a string of defeats were they fire and brimstone affairs chock full of sexy futbol and heart and passion from the boys in blaugrana, only that's not what we're getting right now. What happens when Barça go away from home is that the team really doesn't turn up. Millions of people from around the globe tune in to see Barça play and are then confronted with a display which is limper than a 3 day old wet lettuce leaf. At the Camp Nou the fans are treated to great football, assured displays and more often than not, victory. It seems, however, that once the team get on the plane and head off to various parts of Spain that there is no plan B from the management when teams come at us a little more and stop us from playing our usual game. We lack the movement from the forwards and midfielders and most crucially we lack the speed of passing to open teams up. In short, we're bloody average once we leave home. So average in fact that we draw 0-0 with Rangers, lose to Getafe and can't beat struggling Valladolid. Now that's average!

The view of many now is that Frank's time is running out, indeed a defeat in our next away game against fellow Catalans Espanyol may just bring the curtain down on an illustrious era at the Camp Nou for Rijkaard. The home form is papering over the cracks of the problems this team really has in terms of character and commitment because that is what is tested during away games and that is what we don't appear to have.

Welcome to the PUB's blog

Whether you're a PUB member, a visiting Barça fan or a random visitor, welcome to the official blog of Penya Union Blaugrana, the largest official supporters' club of FC Barcelona in the UK. So far we number 44 members and we are growing all the time; not such a bad effort in just 9 months!

As well as being a supporters' group who meet up for Barça games in Barcelona and the UK we also have a flourishing website with all our latest news and a web forum via which our members communicate and debate all things Barça. If you live in the UK and have a passion for FC Barcelona then come along to the forum, ask a few questions and see if the PUB may just be the thing to enhance your experiences as a cule.

This blog will be giving all the news on the Penya Union Blaugrana's expeditions and plans along with taking a no-nonsense look at what is happening at Can Barça from day to day. I hope you will all or maybe both, continue to read and enjoy!

Visca el Barça i Visca la Penya Union Blaugrana!