Chonburi FC In The Guardian: 2007-2009

Three more times Chonburi have featured in The Knowledge column of the Guardian newspaper.

13/1/2010 
"Barcelona have currently gone a season and a half without losing by more than one goal in all competitions," notes Ignacio Prado. "What is the longest streak of this kind?"

My team, Chonburi FC who play in the Thai Premier League, went from 1st September, 2007 until 4th April, 2009 without losing by more than a one goal margin in league games.

That is a total of 48 matches and covers three seasons. We lost 1-3 against Bangkok University with 15 games left to play in the 2007 season. We then played a full season in 2008 when we only lost one game - 0-1 against BEC Tero - before losing the fourth match of the 2009 season 1-3 at home against Bangkok Glass.

In fact, during this period, our overall record was P48 W27 D18 L3 and we didn't even win the league in 2008, we finished second.

20/1/2011
"Most teams believe that playing at home is an advantage but at the time of writing, Scunthorpe have gained 18 points out of a total of 23 away from home, that's 78%," notes Richard J Arguile. "What is the record percentage of total points gained away from home for a professional team? For example, Bury in 2006-07 managed 31 away points out of 50 for 62%."

When my club Chonburi FC won the Thailand Premier League in 2007, our away record read: P15 W12 D2 L1 F32 A1 Pts38

Thirty eight points from a possible forty five, that's a whopping 84.4%. And it will surely take some beating.

8/3/2016
“When Edinburgh City hosted Livingston last week, Livingston, formerly Meadowbank Thistle, headed back for a competitive game at their former home ground, now Edinburgh City’s home stadium. Is this a unique circumstance?” asks Ian Smith.

Dale Farrington mails in with a Thai example. “In the Thai leagues, there are plenty of examples of clubs moving and then returning ‘home’ for an away fixture,” he begins. “My club – Chonburi FC – have done it and also the reverse (playing away first and then returning to a ground for a home game).

At the start of the 2011 season, we moved into our new (and current) home, Chonburi Stadium. During the course of that campaign, we revisited the IPE Stadium (our home in 2009 and 2010) for away matches against Navy and Pattaya Utd, who were ground sharing. I’ve also seen us play home and away games against Thai Port and PEA at the same ground, but they were both there before us – Port in 2006 and PEA in 2007.

However, the events of the 2008 season trump all that. Midway through the year we were evicted from our then home – Chonburi Municipal Stadium – and were forced to return to one of our previous stadiums, Princess Srindhorn in SriRacha – which was also being used by our local rivals Bangphra.

Three months after the move, we had an away fixture against … you’ve guessed it … Bangphra. Therefore, that year, we played an away game at our current home ground, which was also our former home stadium. Beat that.”