MAGPIES fans will not be treated to European football at the Avenue Stadium this season – but Dorchester has been featured on a Russian Premier League side’s website.

Russian Premier League giants Rubin Kazan featured an image of High East Street, along with the headline ‘Ruby Location: Dorchester’ after speaking to county town resident Mathew Burt, pictured.

The former teacher recently set up an English language Russian football blog – and was shocked when the Russian giants contacted him for an interview.

“I was really surprised on Friday to be contacted by someone from the Rubin Kazan website wanting to ask me a few questions and to be put on their site” he said.

“I’m not sure how he picked up on it as it was only started a week earlier. He was quite surprised that there was somebody writing about the Russian Premier League.

“I’m pretty sure not many Russians would know where Dorchester is.”

Mathew is hoping interest in Russian football will grow ahead of the World Cup in 2018 – when the Kazan Arena will be a host venue.

‘Tatarstantsi’ have won the Russian Premier League twice and also triumphed in the Russian Cup in 2012.

Matthew said: “I’ve had a few articles published on a few websites, but I started the blog on Russian football for a number of reasons. I wanted to get my work out there to be seen and noticed. I wanted to choose a league and country that was interesting and didn’t already have lots of competing sites.

“I am starting to learn Russian and also with the next World Cup in Russia, interest will build over the next four years. I didn’t know what interest it would generate, but there does seem to be a little following starting.”