News: The New Football Pools Fanzine Awards

We're kicking off the new year with a search to find the best Football Fanzines of 2007/2008.

New Football Pools Fanzine Awards

Do you have a favourite fanzine, writer or blog that you think deserves a pat on the back?

The New Football Pools Fanzine Awards 2007/2008 are designed to recognise and reward the wordsmiths telling the unofficial story of the beautiful game, to celebrate the passion, talent, creativity and dedication of the people who make up the media of the fans - the fanzines.

You can nominate fanzines, blogs, editors and writers for 9 different categories up until Friday 1st February, then decide who gets shortlisted for final the judging.

There are a lot of great sites out there, with some great people running them. A lot of hard work goes in so please get involved and help show your appreciation! Click here to take part.

And as a thank you for taking part our sponsors The New Football Pools would like to offer you a Free Play on the new Weekly Predictor Football Game, Premier 10. Click here for more details.

Many thanks for your support

The FFC Team

News: Free FA Cup Coach Travel

FA Cup Sponsor E.ON is offering free coach travel with National Express for away fans heading to FA Cup Third Round matches.

The offer will provide coach travel for fans at each of the 32 away Third Round fixtures in order to reduce the environmental impact of The FA Cup.

By logging onto www.carbonfootyprint.com, fans can pledge leave their car at home and travel by coach for free.

The free coach travel offer forms part of E.ON’s Carbonfootyprint.com campaign, which aims to offset the 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by The FA Cup in order to make the competition carbon neutral. Carbon emissions are calculated for every match in every round of The FA Cup (including replays) and include the operational emissions from all participating clubs, the television emissions from viewers watching matches at home and the travel emissions produced by home and away fans.

Hull City fans face the longest journey in Round Three with a 677 mile round trip to Plymouth Argyle. If 50 City fans travel in a coach together it is estimated that they will save over 4 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to powering a house for the entire football season.

The partnership with National Express will run across every round of The FA Cup through to The Final in May. By encouraging fans to travel to matches together in a coach, rather than driving in a car, fans can make a significant difference to competition’s carbon emissions.

Going by coach is the most environmentally friendly form of transport, emitting just 29g of CO2 on a per passenger kilometre basis (gCO2/pass.km) compared to trains and cars. If just one coach is filled with fans at every game rather than traveling by car, over 56 tonnes of CO2 would be saved, the equivalent to boiling over 1 million kettles for your half time cuppa.

Mike Thompson, Head of Sponsorship & Events at E.ON said: "With thousands of fans traveling to FA Cup games every round, it is no surprise that travel has the biggest environmental impact. By providing free coaches to away games this round and for every round until The Final, we hope that fans will travel to the game together rather than by car, and reduce their carbon footprint.”

Paul Bunting, Chief Executive, National Express, added: “We are delighted to be working with E.ON to make it easier for football fans to reduce their carbon foot print when travelling to support their team during the FA Cup... and this brilliant campaign will help people understand that changing travel habits from cars to public transport is the single best way they can help the environment”.

By logging onto www.carbonfootyprint.com, fans can also find out about car sharing schemes in their area and choose from over 30 different energy saving pledges, such as fitting energy efficient light bulbs, walking to a game or watching the match together at a pub with friends.