Dale national football team

New Dale

Nickname(s)	The Dales
Association	Dale Republic Football Association
MFA Code	DAL
MFA World ranking	N/A
Home colors Away colours Third colours

The Dale national football team (sometimes also called the Surrey national football team) represents the Dale Republic in international association football and is controlled by the Dale Republic Football Association, the governing body for football in the Dale Republic. The home ground of the Dale national football team was the Churchill Stadium in the City of St. John's. However, no official home venue has been announced since the reforming of the Dale Republic Football Association. The Dale side is sometimes referred to as The Dales, its nickname.

The Dale national football team's first official international was proposed to be against the Senya national football team and later Ladonia on the 15th July, 2012 as part of the two PoliNation Matches. The second being against the first multimicronational football team to have ever played, the team was called the Microwiki VI Football Team. The event was eventually cancelled due to a lack of communication between teams and difficulty of finding players to fill teams. The Dale national football team has tried multiple times to organise fixtures with no luck in these attempts, by time the Dale national football team and the Dale Football Association ended operations on May 18, 2014 they had failed to hold a single fixture of any description.

History

Formation

The Dale national football team was formed after discussions by the King of the Kingdom of the Dale Empire who eventually became the teams first manager and head of the Dale Football Association, the discussions were over how the Dale Empire was able to expand its culture. The team was officially founded in early August 2011, and the national team was passed over to the Dale Republic after the transfer of the micronation's political system. However, because of the micronations exclusivity as a Surrey based micronation, where other micronations are difficult to compete against has ment that the national team has failed to play an official fixture before the Polination Games were arranged between the Dale Republic and DES Senya.

Post-Dale, Mydalefc and Surrey IFA

Following the collapse of the Dale Republic the national team went inactive, not officially dissolved. The nostalgia of the Dale national football team was considered as the legacy of the Dale Republic and the biggest success story of the Dale Republic, despite it never playing a fixture in real life. In early March 2013, the Dale national football team officially inspired the beginning of Mydalefc, a new organisation with the intention of starting a new Woking based league football club. Soon before the final disestablishment of the Republic of New Dale was the establishment of the Surrey Independent Football Association, or SIFA, whose goal as an indirect successor of the Dale national football team was to create a Surrey representative football team and join the non-FIFA umbrella organisation of ConIFA and have its competitive debut in the 2015 edition of the European Championship.

Reformation

The Dale Football Association was reformed for a second time under a new name, the Dale Republic Football Association and with it effectively the Dale national football team was as well, although with no team to play for the Dale Republic, the team itself is still considered inactive.

Team kit

Team Colours and Crest

The home colours of the Dale national football team were originally based on the previous flag of the Dale Republic, with each colour being represented on one item of the kit, shirt, shorts and socks. While the current home kit reverts to these colours after previously being a full blue kit. The goalkeeper wears a orange and black kit home kit. The away kit is a red shirt with white short and blue socks with the goalkeeper having a white and black away kit. The crest of the Dale national football team was originally based on the crest of Woking Football Club, but is now based on the logo of the Dale Football Association and Dale Football Club.

Sponsorship and Kit Manufacturer

While the team has no official sponsor it is considered to be sponsored by Dale companies such as Visit Woking and Woking Defence Systems. However, none of these are official and are not endorsed by the Dale National Football Team but there is considered to be its intent to have an official sponsor in time for the 2013 MFA World Cup should the team decide to take part in the competition. The Teams first kit was split for main manufacturer with Puma and Sondico both being the primary manufacturers of the teams kit. Puma is the current the chosen kit manufacturer for outfield players exclusively without and Sondico kit. Togasport us used to supply goalkeeper kits.

Period	Kit manufacturer	Shirt sponsor
2011 - 2012	Puma / Sondico	none
2014	Togasports / Nike

Home Stadium

Churchill Stadium

Churchill stadium was the official name used by the Dale National Team of what is called more locally as the cage for its fenced walls, the Dale national team uses the pitch for all of its Home matches and was originally located within England until it was within the Dale Republic during the political reform. The original pitch for the dale team was Goldsworth stadium a location within the dale empire's Goldsworth park Lake Region until the Churchill Stadium was decided to be better for matches.

Training Pitches

The Dale national football team also uses two other pitches from training and also low cost matches. These are Goldsworth Grounds, located in the community of Goldsworth Park and The St. John's Lye, located in the City of St. John's. These grounds are the primary training areas of the Dale national football team and are a reserve match pitch for short notice and low cost games. Both grounds have a high standing capacity because there isan't any fences to restrict capacity. Both pitches are close enough to the Churchill Stadium to be within walking distance, allowing the team to play up to as little as 10 minutes before a game.

Opposition/Rivals

Woking/England Representatives

The Woking is a football team mainly consisting of players from the Dale Republic / Woking borough, but sometimes players from other areas are invited to play. Woking is a joint Dale-English football team designed to assist the Dale Republic in training for the Polination Matches. The team is filled by both Dale and English nationals and is open to everyone who live in or around the Dale Republic. The team has no head coach and instead the team captain will normally take the role. The Woking play only unofficial training games against the Dale national football team. Because of this, no governing body in the sport officially recognises the team and each incarnation of the team aren't generally seen as a continuation of each other. Because the Woking team is only used for training matches and neither team has to wear their full team kit, the teams only play with shirts, this means for matches the Woking team only wears white colour shirts.

Rukora

Main article: Dale-Rukora football matches

The Dale and Rukora national football teams are minor sporting rivals who have played each other since mid 2012, to date the Republic of New Dale and Federal Republic of Rukora have only played 1 virtual match and no real world match yet a football rivalry quickly developed on the basis that the two micronations are the only ones to exist in Surrey. Their first encounter was a virtual match in the group stages of the 2012 MicroWiki Cup where they were both in Group B, the Dale Republic beat Rukora 2-1 after goals after a second half goal from D Sherman gave the Dale Republic the lead needed to win after Rukora equalised just before half time.

Senya

The Dale and Senyen national football teams are minor sporting rivals who have tried on several occasions to organize fixtures, the latest having been planned planned for late october/ early november 2012. The two teams have only played each other in virtual football.

Virtual Football

Main article: Dale national virtual football team

Since August 2011, the Dale Empire, followed by the Dale Republic, has also participated in virtual football competitions. The Dale national virtual football team has taken part in 2 competitions, the 2011 VSML Season coming fourth in the preliminary round and 2012 MicroWiki Cup where they were defeated in the round of 16. The first Dale national virtual football team for a FIFA video game was in FIFA 14 and was created by Dale Gaming Interactive for the 2015 MFA World Cup addon.