Kazakhstan’s MK Dons stuck in the sidings

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Flying can evoke painful memories.

Waking up at an ungodly hour to drive to Luton Airport for family holidays in Benidorm. Departure lounges ruled by rampant kids wielding beeping Game Boys. Disingenuously smiling stewardesses issuing plastic meals. Mobs of vacuous northern lads hoovering lager.

Good luck if you're taking the eight-hour flight for England's World Cup qualifier in Almaty â a 7,000-mile round-trip.

Being a blog of class, NMTB prefers to travel by train â which would no doubt be met with approval from Lokomotiv Astana, KazakhstanâÂÂs answer to the MK Dons.

The Kazakh Premier League â unsurprisingly not quite as lucrative as its English counterpart â has undergone a period of austerity during the global recession. Three clubs withdrew before the new season started in March.


"Go to Moscow. Then it's just as far again"

Except Lokomotiv werenâÂÂt accompanied by a cat. (TheyâÂÂre not allowed on trains).

It was 12 years ago that the vaulting aspirations of the countryâÂÂs president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, prompted him to up sticks and transport KazakhstanâÂÂs capital from Almaty to Astana via scores of trains in a Herculean effort to create Central AsiaâÂÂs pre-eminent city.

Lokomotiv are hoping their similar one-way ticket will terminate in them becoming KazakhstanâÂÂs top football club. They want to emulate the success of NazabayevâÂÂs creation; his (new) capital is a spectacular city.

Sadly for Lokomotiv, railway backers Temir Zholy wonâÂÂt cough up the same amount as that ploughed into sprucing up Astana - reputed to be ã10 billion. That'd buy a lot of players.


"...and we'll have an Argos over there"

Even to those who have watched Kazakh league football, it's an unfamiliar Premier League this year.

ThatâÂÂs 14 teams in 14 different cities across Kazakhstan, which happens to be the worldâÂÂs ninth-largest country. Hardly ideal, although it helps if your club's sponsored by the railways.

Lokomotiv's relocation means that there's no top-flight representative from Almaty. ItâÂÂs the first time KazakhstanâÂÂs largest city has been without a top-flight team since the leagueâÂÂs inauguration in 1992.

Because there was a significant flaw in LokomotivâÂÂs Astana reinvention: they had nowhere to play.

They'd arranged to move into the new national stadium planned as the next grandiloquent monument on the cityâÂÂs skyline.

But itâÂÂs still under construction, so they mooted the idea of a return to Almaty, tail between the legs, to begin the season 600 miles away.

It also means that the sprightly new capital won't play host to England, but the English FA can hardly complain about a fiasco surrounding a new national stadium.

So Wayne Rooney & Co. will face Bernt StorkâÂÂs men at Megasport DepotâÂÂs former stadium in Almaty.

Instead, Lokomotiv took up temporary residence at FK AstanaâÂÂs stadium.

At least they've had better luck in the transfer market. Kazakh transfer coups have been few and far between, so the signing of the former Russian internationals Andrei Tikhonov and Yegor Titov - both former Spartak Moscow captains - has generated hitherto unparalleled interest in the Premier League.


Titov: "To Astana! Er, Almaty! Wherever!"

TheyâÂÂve paved the way for Lokomotiv to make an impressive start; 10 games into the season they have amassed 24 points, one behind leaders and pre-season favourites Aktobe.

You may not have heard the last of Lokomotiv. TheyâÂÂll be competing in the Europa League next season, by which time their new home will be ready.

London to Brussels, then on to Cologne; switch to the daily Moscow service followed by a Trans-Siberian adventure to Yekaterinburg, where thereâÂÂs another transfer at Petropavlovsk to catch a train to Almaty.

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