World Footy News

A small group of enthusiasts are hoping to found Russia's first footy club, based in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The current project is led by Paul Kube, who first came to Krasnoyarsk in 2007, but on that occasion was only in Russia for a year and wasn't able to get footy going beyond some kick-to-kick.

Since returning to Russia last year, he's been more successful. "We returned as a family in May of 2010, but spent the Summer settling in, and since we didn't know many people I did not start anything then either."

"But this year is the beginning of something. I have been running very informal clinics for about a month now. This has mostly been with locals and neighbours at the school soccer field. I have just persisted in inviting people every week and the numbers are slowly growing."

Kube's fledgling squad held their first training match last weekend. Although there was only a small number of players in attendance, the experience of getting a game underway has seen the members keen to grow their numbers and get some regular games happening in future. "It's still very early days here, and we will have to see if it takes off," Kube says.

For anyone who reads Russian, Paul received a write-up on a local blog here.