Some football-based comedy

I was looking through the internet for football related comedy, here’s what I found.

Partridge

The Fast Show

Monty Python

Billy Connolly

Only an Excuse

Rikki Fulton

Stanley Baxter

It’s not even on for a year like!!

You can tell the world cup is nearly a year away, articles like the one below have started appearing in the media. (This one come from today’s Telegraph).

Disputes and delays cast doubt on Brazil’s preparations for the 2014 World Cup

Fresh, pristine turf, carefully grown at a country farm in Brazil, awaits England on the pitch at Sunday’s friendly against Brazil.

Cultivated, trimmed and then replanted in rolls at the redeveloped Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, the playing field brought new life to the historic ground ahead of the 2014 World Cup.

Yet the events of earlier this week – including a surprise court injunction that threatened Sunday’s fixture, if only for a few hours – have exposed the disarray surrounding Brazil’s preparations to host the tournament.

Blamed on an administrative failure to deliver the necessary safety reports, the judge’s temporary suspension shone a light on the unwieldy Brazilian bureaucracy that poses a major challenge to organisers.

“At the end of the day, the game will happen because there’s always a way for everything in Brazil. But it’s a shame that this happened because of the incompetence and corruption of our directors and politicians,” José Inacio Werneck, a respected Brazilian columnist, said.

And the £286 million Maracanã is just one example of the problems that can ensue. When Sao Paulo’s stadium delayed the installation of 20,000 temporary seats because of loan problems with Brazil’s development bank BNDES, Fifa secretary general Jérôme Valcke indicated World Cup matches could be moved up until tickets went on sale on August 20.

“We cannot have a stadium ready only in May, June,” Valcke told Brazilian newspaper Jornal Nacional. “If I say March is okay, what about the other cities? And who can promise that March will not turn into April or May?”

Six of the 12 World Cup stadiums – including the Maracanã – will have a dry run in a fortnight at the Confederations Cup before ironing out any problems in the year before the 2014 competition.

“Out of the six Confederations Cup stadiums, only two were delivered within the initially agreed timings so we need to do better,” a Fifa Local Organising Committee (LOC) source said.

The LOC said it expected the biggest area of concern to be transport, which will remain largely untested because the majority of fans at the Confederations Cup will be Brazilian residents.

Asked about the biggest worry, LOC spokesman Saint-Clair Milesi said: “Airport arrivals, transportation and access for the fans. For the World Cup, we are expecting a much bigger influx of international visitors. A lot of it will be based on which team will be playing in which city.

“American, Mexican and English fans are traditionally big supporters, who travel to support their team, but we have to wait until we know who has qualified.”

There have been disputes and delays to the new light rail vehicle system in another host city, Cuiaba, while in the north-eastern settlement of Natal, mobility projects had to be abandoned and redesigned because of a shortage of time.

Accommodation is also a concern with a shortage of hotels in Rio de Janeiro and Recife, according to the Brazilian Association of Hotel Industries (ABIH).

This week, workers at Rio’s Gloria Hotel, which is due to open before the World Cup, told Jornal do Brasil that the renovations were falling well behind.

Meanwhile in Salvador, another host city, matters at the Arena Fonte Nova were even more pressing. Just over three weeks before it was due to host its first Confederations Cup game, part of the roof collapsed.

Fifa faced further embarrassment in Fortaleza on the first day of ticket collections for the Confederations Cup when printing problems prevented some fans from receiving their tickets.

Instead, they were given a handwritten note of assurance signed by Craig Dalziel, from Fifa’s ticketing company MATCH.

Footballer-turned-politician Romario criticised the failings and said Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff should be “ashamed” after publicly saying Brazil would organise the best World Cup of all time.

“It is clear that the host cities of the FIFA Confederations Cup are not ready,” he said. “It fills us with shame. Worse, it exposes internationally our fragility at organising very important football events.”

With such teething problems, the December 23 deadline for the delivery of World Cup stadiums and infrastructure is likely to be strictly enforced to enable a proper testing period.

“We are very much focused on the Confederations Cup but as of the last report, everything was on schedule and everything looks to be on schedule,” Mr Milesi added.

A nation holds its breath.

The keen eyed media watchers amongst will realise that this story isn’t actually new, it’s been a media staple for the last couple of years.

– Last September the BBC asked “Is Brazil ready to host the 2014 World Cup?”

– In March 2012 The Observer told us that “Brazil’s World Cup planning hits problems – on and off the pitch.”

– In June 2011 The Guardian told us that “Jérôme Valcke attacks Brazil’s ‘slow’ preparations for 2014 World Cup.”

It’s all “Preparations for the 2014 World Cup are in disarray and the national team is coming under fire for not performing” this and “Will Brazil’s airport infrastructure be able to cope?” that. There must be a rule that states every article has to be a countdown to oblivion “……………. It is ONLY TWO YEARS until Brazil hosts the 2014 Fifa World Cup. But is the country ready?” ……………….. With JUST ONE YEAR to go until the start of the FIFA World Cup in 2014“.

Will Brazil be ready? Will they? WILL THEY? It’s just too stressful!!!

Why are they always so worried that sporting events “won’t deliver” –  e.g.”London 2012: A year to go and all is well?” – Why are the media harassing us like this? When did a hole in a roof become a major problem?;

“One section of the stadium roof, which is made from a special canvas membrane, collapsed under the weight of accumulated rain water. The local management organisation, FNP(Fonte Nova Participacoes), who are responsible for the arena claimed ‘human error’ during routine checks just a day earlier were to blame for the tear in the roof material. But in this city in the tropics where it’s heaviest precipitation occurs during the months when the tournament takes place, this structural failure represented a PR disaster on the eve of the Confederations Cup for which the Arena Fonte Nova is scheduled to host three matches from June 20^th, including the blue riband game of the group stage between Brazil and Italy on June 22^nd.”

Things like holes in roofs used to be known as teething troubles now they’re called “PR disasters”. The media’s forensic attention of the sometimes misses the correct view. Stadia not being ready is not the real problem, the overblown nature of contemporary sporting events is the real problem;

“It’s a no-brainer that a country like Brazil deserves the World Cup, but we are seeing an attempt to host an event to showcase a country that is not real,” said Juca Kfouri, a prominent journalist. “There is too much emphasis on stadiums and too little focus on the legacy for the cities involved. I am against a World Cup that builds huge arenas where there is barely professional football.”

Which is something the BBC article tells us;

“Some of the stadiums may have limited long-term financial viability – especially true of those in Cuiaba and Manaus, with Brasilia and Natal also dubious, according to Brazilian financial newspaper BrazilEconomico. Now it appears much of thee money used on stadium work is coming from the public purse – as are the infrastructure improvements in 12 cities.”

Why are people so anxious? If people are going to Brazil to watch the world cup they will love it anyway because it’s Brazil and there will be plenty to do and see. If people aren’t going they will see a shiny version of a football tournament with lots of clean seats, smiling faces and attractive women in revealing clothing. The only way we’ll find out about problems is if the media tell us that about them to provide content for the 24 hr news media “……….and this only proves what they said 5 years ago!!!!!!!!!!!”. I can imagine Alan Green moaning about the “scandalous standard of polystyrene cups” as I type.

Why are the media worried about the stadia? There’s still a year to go and you’re bound to have a few teething problems with massive buildings like stadia. Besides as long as it looks good for a month who’ll know that they nearly didn’t finish 18 months in advance.

Before football was the most important thing ever things were a bit more relaxed. They used to get on with things without multi-national fuss. For example temporary sections in stadia have been built for major sporting events, Sydney’s Olympic Stadium and Charleroi being two of the better known examples.

Charleroi during Euro 2000

Charleroi after Euro 2000

Things were definitely more relaxed in the past. In the 1962 world cup they hadn’t even finished the main stadium fully. (See from 3 minutes 45 to 4 minutes 45 in this video of the official 1962 world cup film)

Why can’t things be as relaxed now?

A scarf for your soul? Part 7

Even though there’s an excellent article on this issue from 200% I thought I’d carry on with my series.

Cynics tell us that democracy is a sham because our voices are never truly heard. Well, it turns out they’re wrong, the events of yesterday prove that democracy does work!!!

2013/14 ST HOLDERS TO SELECT HOME SHORTS

“Cardiff City Football Club on  Wednesday May 29^th launched the first images of the 2013/14 home kit,  which featured two shades of red, the darker of which was carried in the  shorts.

The decision had been made as  a means to help visually distinguish the club in the Premier League, while  continuing the theme of our successful 2012/13 Championship winning season.

The resulting response carried  across social media quickly indicated that a large number of supporters were  unhappy with the choice of colour concerning the shorts. For that we apologise.

As a club, we would today like  to address this issue by giving all 2013/14 Season Ticket holders held on our  email database a vote on varied shorts options for next season.

Although this will not result  in every single season ticket holder voting, the size of the email based survey,  reaching over 12,000 Cardiff City fans will give a clear indication as to the  majority view.*

Voting,  based on the image below, starts today via email and will last until 2pm, Friday  May 31^st, from which we will  publish details of the winning option. We will then liaise with Puma to get the  shorts put into production as quickly as possible.

Please note that all  votes will be fully verified against our database. All duplicates will be  discarded, while multiple votes will result in all votes for that person being  deleted.

Thank you all for your  cooperation in this matter.

 One city, one  community, one club. #WeAreCardiffCity

 *  Please note that it is not possible to run telephone voting or personal callers  to the ticket office.

Here was the choice;

What, no blue option Vinny bach?

A few hours later we had our answer!!!

The votes  have been tallied and verified for the 2013/14 home kit shorts following our  email to over twelve thousand season ticket holders on the Cardiff City  database.

From the votes  received, the clear favourite was option four, with many of our voting  Season Ticket holders opting to retain the black shorts from our memorable  Championship winning season.

It’s a  decision that Tan Sri Vincent Tan and all at the club fully supports, and we  will next instruct Puma to work on supplying the shorts as soon as possible.  Once again, we thank all supporters who took the time to vote.

Pre-order your 2013/14  shirt now – CLICK HERE

I hope you didn’t click the last two words as I’m not hawking the bloody kits.

Do you remember Harry Lime’s famous conversation with Holly on the Prater ferris wheel? Well the suckers and the mugs are out there. You see them on twitter;

@sam james – Yes no red/purple shorts in Cardiff‘s new home kit now back to black! #lovethat

@Marc Belli – Impressive politics by Cardiff City to retract on kit. Consultation after original posting. Back to black shorts I hope!!!

‏@themidfieldview – Vincent Tan listens to Cardiff City fans I’m shocked. But that two tone red was awful looking, black shorts a safe option. #cardiffcity

You see them on the Cardiff City Mad Messageboard

On the Holier than thou ‘fans’ thread.

– Bigbluebird typed “A bit like the clowns who think they’re better than a fellow fans who have reluctantly accepted the change.”

– FugPugly typed “Continuing to support your club is not the same as bending over backwards……………..Some people just want to go and watch Cardiff City, they don’t really give a shit about all of this crap.  It’s not the same as gobbling Tan’s sticky white love piss you know.”

On the “Black shorts’ thread

– Trudders typed “I thought that was the worst part of the kit.  What a hideous design, and now we have the two-tone shirt with black shorts.  The lines on the shirt collar are just so random, there’s no need for them at all!!……………….Was really hoping they wouldn’t go with that Puma template (having seen Wolves etc), but now I find myself hoping the dark red on the collar turns black…………………I’ll buy the blue kit if it’s a different template, but will be so upset if that has the same silly lines.

On the “So the colour of the shorts matters -Really???’ thread

– Puteulanus Pennipotenti typed “Having reluctantly accepted red shirts 12 months ago the furore over a weird shade of red shorts is a bit odd. Surely even those who are going to buy a new Premier League red shirt are not going to buy the shorts as well unless you are a junior bluebird and they dont care anyway…………….If this is now the biggest bug bear with the club then things must be good…………..Yes the kit is vile but just don’t buy it.”

You see them in the media at large;

“As far as I am concerned, the club, and Vincent Tan in particular, could have used the turnaround to their benefit and satisfied thousands of disgruntled fans by making the shorts of the home kit blue.

Tan would still have his ‘lucky red’ top and we, the lifeblood of the club, would have had a small but meaningful compromise with blue shorts.”

Why do I care more about this issue than some Cardiff fans?

A scarf for your soul?, Part 6*

*Disclaimer: If you read the When Saturday Comes message board, or use twitter, parts of this post may look plagarised. They’re not. I assure that I came up with the ideas independently, honestly yer honour it’s the truth I tells ya.

Yesterday Cardiff City released pictures of their new kit;

A lot of twitter users didn’t like the two-tone colour scheme, you know as if there’s something intrinsically wrong with tone-tone colour schemes. Well there’s nothing wrong with two-tone colour schemes, a fact that SV Hamburg prove with this lovely ensemble from a few seasons ago.

While two tone colour schemes are often great, they only become great in the right circumstances. Cardiff’s two-tone colour scheme is  a different matter. I think my friend Phil said it best when he tweeted.

“This kit is an absolute insult to the memory of Cardiff City, the Bluebirds.”

The marketing spiel put it somewhat differently.

As promised, here’s the first look at the 2013/14 Cardiff City kit as supplied by Puma, ready for our Premier League campaign in August.

The kit can be seen, modeled by members of Cardiff City’s senior, Ladies, DS Active and Futsal teams, led by ‘City skipper Mark Hudson and forming part of our all-inclusive ethos at the club. As supporters, players, staff, whoever we are, we are one City, one community, one club. #WeAreCardiffCity

The unique, classic and stylish looking kit can be pre-ordered from Friday May 31st through our official Superstore website, with deliveries set to be processed in time for your holidays in July.

The club decided to maximise on the Puma King design and adopt a two-tone red home kit this season, helping us stand out in the Premier League crowd. The two Puma King stripes reflect the fans loyalty to the club, which is appreciated by all.

We hope you all enjoy the results and look forward to seeing you all wearing your new shirt – with quite a few optional sleeve badges we think – as the season gets underway.

Don’t forget to tweet #WeAreCardiffCity this season. The fixtures and first game aren’t too long away now!!

I love the way marketing people assume that the public love to read complete bollocks. I mean look at this;

“The kit…….. forming part of our all-inclusive ethos at the club. As supporters, players, staff, whoever we are, we are one City, one community, one club. #WeAreCardiffCity“

It’s lucky that I’m fluent in marketing bollocks so I can translate. The following

 “…….all-inclusive ethos at the club. As supporters, players, staff, whoever we are, we are one City, one community, one club.” 

actually means;

“We all wear the same coloured clothing so it looks like we’re are all on the same side.”

I wonder if the inclusivity includes the Cardiff fans that don’t like the red kit? Now, let’s turn to this;

“The club decided to maximise on the Puma King design and adopt a two-tone red home kit this season, helping us stand out in the Premier League crowd.”

Standing out in the premier league crowd with a kit that looks a bit like Liverpool’s, that’s absolutely brilliant!!! The following is nearly the worst piece of marketing bollocks in the piece;

“The unique, classic and stylish looking kit…”

This phrase is complete rubbish, ahem, has been written under too much artistic license. The design isn’t unique; Wolves, Motherwell, Raith Rovers, Chesterfield and probably most of the Puma supplied clubs will be using a similar template nest season. (Incidentally, if you’ve ever wondered why clubs have template-based Puma kits, it’s because the same company, Genesis Sports, supplies them all). Judging from the reaction on twitter the kit isn’t considered a classic or a stylish design either. The worst piece of marketing bollocks in the piece is this line.

“The two Puma King stripes reflect the fans loyalty to the club, which is appreciated by all.”

Firstly, it sounds like something a mealy-mouthed politician or penitent tax-fiddling chief executive would say. Secondly, within the contest of Cardiff’s rebrand,  it’s a hollow attempt to curry favour. Lastly the phrase sounds like Cardiff City have actually written the line themselves, you know in order to make it look as though they care about the opinion of the fans. In reality Puma came up with the line, similar language was used when Wolves’ new kit was unveiled.

The PUMA King shirt, includes the famous two stripes within  the neckline, representing the passion and loyalty of the fans.

They don’t really explain how the two stripes actually reflect the fans loyalty to a club do they? Why the hell isn’t good enough to be truthful? Something like “Well we needed some kind of design around the collar area.” would have sufficed.

Overblown ideas are typical from Puma, see how they market football boots;

“Performance is the lifeblood of football.

The better we perform, the more we enjoy it. And the more we enjoy it, the better we perform. 

But at PUMA, we create boots that don’t just boost performance, but reflect your footballing nature, and the way you play the game. We call this the Nature of Performance, and it’s at the heart of everything we do. Our boots elevate their wearers, releasing them from their shackles for 90 minutes every Saturday.

Take Agüero, the Speed Junkie. Blurrily quick feet that leave defenders in a daze. Does that sound like you? Sergio likes the lightweight, responsive evoSPEED. You might do too.

Fàbregas is power hungry. Powerful long-range screamers, powerful tackles, powerful runs . The kind of stuff you see him doing each and every match. The PowerCat 1 is his partner, driving him on to deliver the goods. 

And then there’s Yaya. He doesn’t just own the ball; he casts a spell over it. The man is all about running the game, owning the play – you could call him a control freak. If you like being in charge, then his King boots are for you.

Now it’s your chance to tell the world about the nature of your performance. Visit PUMA’s new Nature of Performance Facebook app and show your allegiance. 

Make a statement and join the team that best represents your nature – Sergio’s speed junkies, Yaya’s control freaks or Cesc’s team of power hungry individuals. 

Get personal after-game messages, virtual training sessions, exclusive competitions and all the latest news and info about your team and your captain. You won’t find this stuff anywhere else.

So there’s just one question to answer… which team are you going to join?

And again… 

Looking back through the sands of time, there’s one character trait that defines the human species – the desire to improve. We want to be better, stronger, faster. It’s in our nature.

At PUMA we’re driven by the same hunger. Every time we get in the lab and create a new boot, we need to break boundaries, defy convention and evolve.

There’s no doubt that the PUMA evoSPEED has revolutionised the game. But did we sit back, pat ourselves on the back and say job done? You know us better than that.

We wanted to break the speed limit, creating a new evoSPEED that was lighter, more flexible and even faster. But how do you take the speediest boot around and inject it with even more blistering pace? Simple – you go to Ducati, or as we call them ‘The Godfathers of Speed.’

Puma are simply transfixed by their own significance . I don’t think we should be too harsh on Puma however as bullshit production is rampant in the sports manufacturing industry.  Mind you bullshit production is vital if you want to get on with visionaries. It certainly looks like Vinny boy and Puma are a perfect fit. They’re both living the dream.

Surrendering to far-right agendas

Earlier Roy Hodgson sent out an e-mail  to “appeal to fans over ‘No Surrender to the IRA’ chant before Ireland  friendly”, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable request. Today the Daily Telegraph told us that “fans hit back at manager Roy Hodgson’s plea over ‘No Surrender’ chant”

Mark Perryman, who is a member of the London England fans’ group, does not believe that Hodgson’s email will have been well received.

“I think most people will put it straight into the electronic trash bin,” he said. “The worst possible reason for doing something is to be seen to do it. It is gesture politics to be able to say to people, ‘well we sent an email to everybody’.

“I have been following England since 1996 and this song has been sung at every single game home and away that I have been to. The FA have shrugged their shoulders, put their hands over the ears, cranked up the volume of the national anthem and hoped that it would go away.

“It hasn’t gone away. So why has it taken 17 years, or possibly longer, to wake up to this fact? Is it OK for some reason to sing ‘No Surrender to the IRA scum’ when we are playing Montenegro but it is not OK when we are playing Ireland? They are not engaging with the reasons people sing this song. It’s about having an equal-sided conversation.

“For most people, it is just a way of expressing their Englishness. Is that something I agree with? No. I can’t understand why people go to chant ‘No Surrender’.”

I thought the Telegraph was being a little bit disingenuous by using Mark Perryman as an apparent spokesman against this perfectly reasonable move; he likes to pride himself on trying to encourage a more inclusive outlook at England matches. I found Perryman’s thoughts in a another place just to check if they were being disingenuous.

Why England fans should surrender their  traditional chant

Banning the ‘No Surrender’ chant against Ireland won’t  work. Dialogue, not diktat, is needed to find a new tune to unite fans

It has been on the fixture list for months – I snapped up my tickets as long  ago as February. On Wednesday, England play Ireland at Wembley, as part of the  celebrations to mark the FA’s 150th anniversary. Yet it seems that the FA has  only now woken up to the fact that it may be anything but friendly in the  stands. In the coming days all England supporters and ticket-holders will be  receiving an  email or letter from the England manager telling us not to sing a certain  song on the night in order not to cause offence.

For as long as I’ve been a travelling England fan (my first game was Moldova  away in 1996), a decent proportion of England fans have used the musical pause  after the third line of God Save the Queen to insert “No Surrender” with as much  volume and defiance as they can manage. And as the action ebbs and flows on the  pitch – especially when it ebbs – the chant will go up again: “No surrender, no  surrender, no surrender to the IRA scum!” 

Not everybody joins in, but enough do to ensure the sentiment is firmly  established as part and parcel of what being an England fan is – whether we like  it or not (in my case and plenty of other fans’ case, the latter). The FA know  all this only too well, but over the years they’ve put their hands over their  collective ears and wished it would go away. Well, it hasn’t. On some occasions,  they have cranked up the volume for the poor opera singer belting out God Save  the Queen, in the hope no one will hear the unofficial fourth line. Fat chance  that will work on Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, journalists are scrambling to unpick what the chant means, with  associations with the National Front, BNP, EDL and extreme Northern Irish  unionism widely trailed. This is the great get-out clause. If No Surrender can  be shown to have something to do with the far right, we can safely condemn it as  belonging to the other. Yet the notion of not surrendering is absolutely central  to a much broader version of Englishness than that of the fascists and race  haters – and it is not all bad either. World war two, resistance against the  Nazis, the Battle of Britain and the blitz spirit were all about not  surrendering too.

Yet ironically, since 1945, surrendering is one thing this the English have  excelled at. First it was the empire. Then at Wembley in 1953 our presumed  footballing superiority was dashed when Puskas’ Hungary thrashed us 6-3 (I  wonder how the FA will mark that anniversary). We have surrendered the idea of  being a monocultural nation: there’s a reason why there will be so many Irish  there on Wednesday night, some of whom will be sitting amongst the England fans.  We’ve also surrendered to being not completely apart from Europe. Does everyone  welcome any or all that we’ve given up in order to become what we are now? It’s  complicated. “No Surrender” rings out while we’re cheering on a team that is the  perfect example of a post-imperial, multicultural and Europeanised England.

I personally don’t go to England matches to sing No Surrender for the same  reason that you won’t find me at Wembley on Wednesday night trying to raise a  chant of “No Privatisation”: I leave my politics at the turnstile. But simply banning the chant won’t work, nor will demonising those who join in. We don’t need diktats, but dialogue about what we have surrendered and why some of those  surrenders have made sense. A conversation about how a political and peaceful  solution to one of the bloodiest terror campaigns of postwar Europe was found.  An admission that both sides surrendered and found peace instead.

On the way, we may just uncover an entirely different, softer version of  martial and imperial Englishness to the one we’re used to. “What’s so funny  ’bout peace, love and understanding?” Now there’s a tune for Wednesday  night.

To judge from both articles Perryman doesn’t seem to like other people singing the song so you could say the Telegraph does seem a little disingenuous towards him. Having said that I’m not sure what he’s trying to say.

Perryman might not go to sing political song as he “leaves politics at the turnstile” but it’s probably safe to assume that the people who enjoy singing this song don’t feel like him. Why shouldn’t we challenge these people?

I can’t see how a human being can choose to leave politics at the turnstile. Do you turn a blind eye to the racial abuse of your fellow fans simply because you left politics at the turnstile? Do you laugh at the knuckle dragging sexism merely to fit in? Do you join in with the abuse of the “Pikeys” because the songs are funny?  I found the following paragraph a little odd too;

“Meanwhile, journalists are scrambling to unpick what the chant means, with  associations with the National Front, BNP, EDL and extreme Northern Irish  unionism widely trailed. This is the great get-out clause. If No Surrender can  be shown to have something to do with the far right, we can safely condemn it as  belonging to the other. Yet the notion of not surrendering is absolutely central  to a much broader version of Englishness than that of the fascists and race  haters – and it is not all bad either. World war two, resistance against the  Nazis, the Battle of Britain and the blitz spirit were all about not  surrendering too.”

We don’t need to unpick the No Surrender chant very much to see that it’s use has explicit connections to Combat 18, Loyalists terror groups and, judging by twitter, the EDL.

Although the phrase “No Surrender” is two simple words, and although  the idea of not surrendering to something can be used by any political ideology –  “No Pasaran” for example – and although you can place a more progressive British spin to the idea, when you hear the song at England matches it’s not a neutral expression of feelings. The song is charged with unthinking hatred of “the other”; Catholics, Foreigners, Immigrants etc etc, and delivered via a defiant attitude. The people singing know perfectly well what they’re singing.

Making the connection between the song and right-wing politics and then challenging this is not  a “great get-out clause. it’s something that we should all do. If we don’t challenge something that’s wrong how will things change? Did the widespread racial abuse at British football matches stop because people let it slide, or because people labeled as such behaviour racist and challenged it?

Perryman wants to have a dialogue to change the situation, how can you do this if you don’t label certain behavior as wrong?

A scarf for your soul? Part 5

I was looking at Stand AMF’s Facebook page earlier today and I noticed that there had been a protest in Cardiff a few days ago;

The photo provoked a little bit of a reaction;

David Jones Let it go fellas I wasn’t happy about it but where would you rather be? Let it go. (Pissing into the wind sort of springs to mind)

Lindsay Williams That’s right let it be look at what as happens

Glyn Stone Waist of time, were red, and thats how we are going to stay, red and in the prem or blue and in the lower leagues or non existant.

Liam John Hogan A bit late

Liam John Hogan We play in red now about time you guys stop complaining and get behind the team

Sean Tempah Marks Too late now your making a biggy outta it u got back the team no matter what color they are

David Davies-Evans Huge turn out. Lmfao. Time to move on. Ive been supporting the BLUEBIRDS since the 70’s I have my opinions. But it is what it is.

Lee Chant bore fest yawn

Jiffy Davies Can u ask the guy who owns that house does he want his pine end cleaned its bogging lol

Ryan Lewis wish these small numbers of people would quit it,we had to send a party of people to convince the malaysians to return without them wed be screwed and probably playing welsh leauge etc ffs were in the premier leauge

Kris Is-Vile Iles Yaawwwnnnn, Are people STILL crying about this? Such a shame that this minority are attempting to spoil the clubs success.

Richard Faulkner I am not happy about the colour change followed ccfc home and away since i was 12 . A bit late to start something like this just shows in the numbers that attended. Blue till i die. but red till the Malaysians fuck off . Ps never have or going to buy a red shirt tho .

Steve Davies-Evans Another laughable turnout! Do people really believe this will change Tans mind?

Dai Jones cracking pic,fuck the red tits,sell out wankers I hope the prem is worth it

Gareth Chino Edwards Liam john hogan obviously not a true fan at heart

Phillip Greenslade Some of those in the picture refuse to follow City in the Premiership because they are not wearing blue. Whose missing out those who want to have a day out in Torquey or the ones that are going for a day out in Everton?

Richard Faulkner Too little too late ga. We should have done it as soon as the change came last season . X

Richard Faulkner Liam john Hogan only looks about 12 . What the heck does he know about ccfc . I will never accept it . But will support our football club blue army.

Jason Turner I support Cardiff City fc..i really like the red shirt so come on get over it lol

Gareth Chino Edwards Would rather a real day out in torquay then a sit down no atmosphere in everton, I love the club but it aint the same! We should follow german laws on football as its done them no harm

Phillip Greenslade What if Cardiff are winning in Everton? German fans understand that the Colour of your team be it Blue or Red is what ‘s needed to build an atmosphere. We should ban Brands on the terraces! OUCH….

David Ccfc Fleming Keep trying u wont get. Nowhere. I love Cardiff but these protests are only going to ruin the club if vt walks away just. Accept it i loved the blue kit but people. Need to accept the change

Kyle Cudgie Cullen I can see myself with my vest on lol

Kyle Cudgie Cullen Could at least keep away kit blue ! There just taking the piss if they make that yellow aswel

Geraint Lewis Should be aloud to say how we feel this was at the end of the season no games and it to celebrate the history nothing was said about tan so what a matter with that

Simon Underhill Some of you make me sick to my stomach

Lewis Matthews I can’t believe the crap people write on here, a group of supporters get together to celebrate our once proud history and all some people want to do is moan and have a pop. It’s clear as day that the premiership means more than the traditions/identity and integrity of what a football club should be

Joe Mackay once a blue always a blue. Lots of kids on here that have sold out. we would have survived with or without his money. Was there really any need to turn red! Shame some of you on here never came and told us your opinions yesterday.

Liam Blundell Top quality boys keep Cardiff blue AMF

Lee Chapman If that’s all there is out of our HUGE fan base all I can say is find something more exciting to do with your time yawn

Lee Chapman Gareth Edwards your an arrogant prick fair play, who are you to tell anybody they ain’t a real fan?? For 11 years since the old 3rd tier of football iv travelled all around the country had season ticket after season ticket spent thousands and thousands of my hard earned money following city. I’m sat here today with the red top on, if given the chance to chose I would prefer to stay blue I just realise bitching about it won’t do nothing and would rather not let something eat me up day after day, the only person who wants to question their credibility as a fan is

James ‘Grizz’ Grieve The blue few. Plastic sell out club. Lost your soul, not Cardiff any more. Against modern football.

Simon Underhill Lee. If you want people to respect your opinions try respecting ours. Cardiff is blue and you’ll have to carry me off in a coffin before I wear anything red.

A fan with soul You can argue the toss all you like, but anyone who justifies the “red re-brand” is a soulless apologist with no respect for Cardiff’s identity and proud heritage.

Louis Williams Exactly what’s wrong with today’s fans mindset ^ you’d rather be in the prem with an owner who doesn’t give a fuck about the clubs heritage with his dirty money rather then be in a lower league with pride of your club no matter whatever the financial situation is.

Matt Hill Just wait until you realise selling your soul for the premiership isn’t worth it. Once the media get fed up of the “fairytale” angle you’ll just be another small team getting shown last on match of the day.

Why do I get the impression that the people who are angry at the protesters are really angry at themselves. You can tell from their hollow words that they so desperately want have the gumption to let their consciences guide them. If only there was an example to guide them. If only there was a club that made a design based decision and then recanted after fan pressure. Wait a minute……..

May 26th 2013 – Everton unveil new Crest

May 27th 2013 – Everton fans up in arms about club’s redesigned crest.

May 28th 2013 – Everton vow to ditch unpopular new crest after fan backlash.

“The Banter”, and how to deal with it.

Last night I saw this photo on twitter.

I can’t decide what I hate most about this picture, is it the fact that someone thinks casual xenophobia is funny? Is it the corruption of a loveable classic of British comedy? Or is it merely the overpowering aroma of “The Banter”?

Fucking Football.

Then I saw that Borussia Dortmund had knocked this on twitter;

An easy victory for comedy I think.

I’ve had enough of monotony!!!

An interesting article was posted on the When Saturday Comes website this morning;

The Champions League final has become monotonous

Not enough variety in the teams

A Lyon v Paris Saint-Germain final next season might mean the Champions League can pack up and go home. Now we have an all-German decider to go with the Spanish, Italian and English ones we’ve enjoyed this millennium, would a one-nation final from the last of its “Big Five” leagues mean UEFA can do no more for its richest members? Would an all-Ligue 1 affair be the natural end of the commercial revolution instigated by Napoli drawing Real Madrid in the first round of the 1987-88 European Cup? Considering what we’ve grown accustomed to, not likely.

It might seem a tad domestic for Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund fans but this season’s Champions League final pairing amounts to a pleasant change for the rest of us. This despite two clubs who between them have been European champions five times previously, meeting in a stadium hosting the final for the seventh occasion (and Wembley last had it just two seasons ago). Chelsea reached two finals in the last five years, between which we twice had Manchester United v Barcelona. The first ever all-German final is at least a new tune on the same old instrument.

We’re apparently living in the era of Barcelona and Real Madrid but this will make it six seasons since a Champions League final didn’t feature Manchester United or Bayern Munich. As well as Saturday evening’s venue, England has provided eight finalists in the last eight years. Liverpool faced Milan in both 2005 and 2007. In the 21 years since UEFA rebranded the old European Champion Clubs’ Cup, half the finals have featured one of the Milan clubs or Juventus. A decider between two teams from the same country remains the best hope of variation on a thoroughly staid theme.

The mono-nation European Cup final could’ve happened in the days of the pure knockout format, of course. It was a possibility whenever the winner failed to simultaneously defend their domestic league title. That it didn’t actually happen until the 21st century grants it a certain frisson – the immediate, micro-monopoly temporarily cancelling out the overriding one. Further short-term excitement is provided by historic repetition. It’s no coincidence that Real Madrid (1956 and 2000), Milan (1963 and 2003) and Manchester United (1968 and 2008) are winning the first one-nation finals in exactly the same order as they became the first club from their country to win the European Cup at all. It usually takes around four decades – Bayern won Germany’s first European Cup in 1974.

Real Madrid’s 1955-60 domination of the tournament included defeats of Barcelona, Atlético Madrid and Sevilla in semi- and quarter-finals. Barcelona finally stopped them in the second round of their fifth defence. Nottingham Forest famously eliminated holders Liverpool early in 1978-79. Juventus couldn’t retain the European Cup in 1985-86, but did defeat reigning Serie A champions Verona in the second round.

Now it often looks like one country is on the cusp of providing all the semi-finalists for Europe’s premier club competition, a feat only achieved once in any continental competition – the 1979-80 UEFA Cup by the Bundesliga. UEFA introduced selected national league runners-up for the 1997-98 season. Dortmund instantly highlighted what some of us thought a flaw in the system by winning the 1997 Champions League while finishing outside the top two in the Bundesliga. But three clubs from one country in the competition for champions was only the thin end of UEFA’s wedge.

Two French clubs who’ve never previously played in the European Cup final? It would blow the minds of couch potatoes across the globe. It would inject the competition with what, by its own standards, amounts to new life. Michel Platini could write his own ticket, while redoubling the prices of everyone else’s.”

I couldn’t help agreeing with the article as I’ve often had similar thoughts in the past, more than  a couple of times.

I wonder if it’s too easy to hark back to a golden past? Didn’t Real Madrid, Benfica, Milan and Inter dominate the European Cup of the 1950s and 1960s? Weren’t Ajax, Bayern Forest and Liverpool the only clubs to win the trophy between 1971 and 1981? We could also factor in the idea that during the European Cup’s golden age (between 1956 and 1970) only 13 clubs ever made it to the final. In fact only 39 clubs (representing 13 countries) have ever reached the final of the European Cup / champions league.

You might argue that football competitions will be naturally dominated by the  clubs best equipped to deal with the competition. In the past domination was based around sporting prowess so it wasn’t really a problem, today domination is a problem because it’s based around economic prowess. In short, the richer leagues dominate the champions league.

I’ll underline this idea with a few figures. (I’ll add the watershed of 1992 because that’s when the champions league was created). As I said above only 39 clubs (representing 13 countries) have qualified for the final of the European Cup / champions league.

• Before 1992 33 clubs (representing 13 countries) qualified for the final.
• Since 1992 17 clubs (representing 7 countries) have qualified for the final.

As we’re dealing with period of different lengths (56 v 20 years) the amount of clubs / countries may look comparable but the figures aren’t really comparable; 7 of the 17 clubs that have qualified for a final since 1992 have appeared in a single final.

The concentration of power in European football is unmistakable, the richer league dominate. Six clubs; Barcelona, Bayern, Inter, Man. Utd, Milan and Real Madrid, have made 25 final appearances between them.

This concentration of power is illustrated even more starkly if we disregard the anomalous clubs from countries outside the big four leagues (Porto, Monaco, Marseille and Ajax). The remaining thirteen clubs have made 35 final appearances between them.

Since 1992 four national leagues have dominated the finals of the champions league, it’s no wonder people are bored of the PR-led champions league.

Look at where we could have gone!!!!

Bangor City are not going to be playing European matches next season. I’ll just repeat that; Bangor City are not going to be playing European matches next season.

I don’t need to remind myself of this thought, or repeat it,  as it lives in the place where my joy used to, at quieter times the thought echoes around my empty head. Sometimes it has a thought about wasted chances for company, at other times I’m eating.

I often like to torment myself and, luckily for me, this situation offered a perfect opportunity for torment. I wondered about the possibilities that would have presented themselves if Bangor City were going to be playing European matches next season. Here what I found.

If Bangor were unseeded (Based on their co-efficient of 3.500) they could draw these clubs.

• Rosenborg
• Žilina
• Ventspils
• Tromsø
• Aktobe
• Dinamo Minsk
• St Patrick’s Athletic
• Qarabağ
• Malmö FF
• Sarajevo
• KR
• Inter Turku
• Dacia Chişinău
• Levadia Tallinn
• Linfield
• Valletta
• Olimpija Ljubljana
• Liepājas Metalurgs
• Gefle
• Pyunik
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Liga I (Between Pandurii Târgu Jiu, Astra Giurgiu and Petrolul Ploiești)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Serbian Super League (Between Red Star and Vojvodina)
•  Runners-up of 2012–13 Bulgarian A League (Between Ludogorets Razgrad, CSKA Sofia and Botev Plovdiv)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Bulgarian A League (Between Ludogorets Razgrad and  CSKA Sofia)
•  Runners-up of 2012–13 Hungarian First League (Between Videoton, MTK, Honvéd, Debrecen and Ferencváros)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Hungarian First League (Between Videoton, MTK, Honvéd, Debrecen and Ferencváros)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Between Olimpic, Borac Banja Luka and Čelik)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Slovenian First League (Between Koper and Domžale)
•  Winners of 2012–13 Macedonian Cup (Between Shkëndija and Teteks)
•  Runners-up of 2012–13 Macedonian First League (Between Vardar, Turnovo and Metalurg)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Macedonian First League (Between Vardar, Turnovo and Metalurg)
•  Winners of 2012–13 Montenegrin Cup  (Between Budućnost Podgorica and Čelik Nikšić)
•  Runners-up of 2012–13 Montenegrin First League  (Between Budućnost Podgorica and Čelik Nikšić)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Montenegrin First League  (Between Čelik Nikšić , Grbalj and Rudar)

If Bangor City were seeded they could draw these clubs;

• Inter Baku
• Skonto
• Sūduva Marijampolė
• Vaduz
• Flora Tallinn
• Khazar Lankaran
• HB
• TPS
• Breiðablik
• Glentoran
• Milsami Orhei
• Torpedo Kutaisi
• Irtysh Pavlodar
•  Jeunesse Esch
• Crusaders
• FC Santa Coloma
• Chikhura Sachkhere
• Žalgiris Vilnius
• Mariehamn
• Mika
• ÍBV
• Hibernians
• Sliema Wanderers
• Tiraspol
• Drogheda United
• Narva Trans
• Gandzasar
• Kruoja Pakruojis
• Astana
• Laçi
• Teuta Durrës
• Víkingur
• Kukësi
• ÍF
• La Fiorita
•  Runners-up of 2012–13 Luxembourg National Division (Between Fola Esch, F91 Dudelange, RM Hamm Benfica and FC Differdange)
•  Third-placed team of 2012–13 Luxembourg National Division (Between Fola Esch, F91 Dudelange, RM Hamm Benfica and FC Differdange)
•  Winners of 2012–13 Andorran Cup (Between UE Santa Coloma and UE Sant Julià)
•  Runners-up of 2012–13 Sammarinese Championship (Between Tre Penne, La Fiorita and Libertas)

When you do this for 5 years you start to feel as though you only see certain names, the Inter Turkus, the Pyuniks and the Ventspils’eses. This doesn’t mean that aren’t some tempting destinations on the lists.

If money and time off weren’t an issue then the Kazakh, Armenian or Azeri options would look very interesting.

If Bangor were unseeded I’d have loved to draw Malmo, I like the 20 mile bridge and light blue shirts, or St. Pat’s, I’d love to see hundreds on a Bangor City European away trip, or Bosnia, or Slovenia, for years Slovenia was a border between east and west and it’s near the crossroads of central Europe and I’ve always wanted to go to Bosnia. MTK and Honved have their own charms. After reading  this blog I’m not sure I’d like to draw Dinamo Minsk.

If Bangor were seeded I’d have loved any of the clubs from the smaller countries but I’d especially like to go to the Faroes or Luxembourg. Based on this post by my journalist friend Egan I’d have loved it if Bangor had drawn IFK Mariehamn. I love a charming anomaly and a groups of Swedish speaking islands that’s part of Finland is definitely a charming anomaly.

I’ve watched a rugby match

RGC 45 Rhydyfelin 0

WRU Division One East

18/5/13

If you disregarded the cold wind this match wasn’t bad entertainment, especially as it only cost £3 to get in. I went with Gareth and his dad, I should have gone last week but Bangor’s play-off intervened.

Considering Rhydyfelin were in third position RGC (Rygbi Gogledd Cymru) did rather well. In short I had a pleasant time, and I even saw ex-Welsh international Rupert Moon in a hoodie.

At some point in the first half Gareth became desperate for a beer and wondered where “the guy with the cans” had gone. I surmised that “the guy with the cans” was a guy with a rucksack full of beer and I was right. I already thought it was odd that people were drinking cans of beer on a terrace but a bloke selling cans of beer, out of a rucksack, at a sporting event, well that was too much.

Why aren’t British football fans treated in this civilised way? Don’t give me that old guff about the consumption of alcohol automatically leading to trouble. Beer is served on the terraces of Germany, Denmark and Austria (I’ve seen this with my own eyes) and none of those countries have “terraces of destruction” filled by “rampaging animals”.

Why are rugby fans trusted to behave like adults whereas football fans aren’t? It’s a ridiculous double standard if you consider what can happen on a rugby club night out.  As for the “inherent decency” of rugby fans, well the potential for trouble can be as high with rugby fans as it is with football fans; I noticed a definite air of menace in the Millennium Stadium when I went to watch the World Cup Semi-Final in 2011 .

To my jaundiced eye attitudes (another example) can be as bad amongst rugby fan as they are amongst as “scummy” football fans. For example the English rugby and football teams both have triumphalist and reactionary monarchists following them. Having said all this I can’t say for cetain whether rugby shares football’s major problem; “Alcohol + The Banter = Gobshiteism”.

Instead of being treated with respect football fans are charged £1500 to display simple banners at matches.

You know that UKIP, well…….

I hate scapegoating that UKIP as “bigoted cranks” as much as the next person but when you’re confronted by newspaper articles like this……….

UKIP councillors’ racist rants: More of Nigel Farage’s troops exposed as  bigots

A Sunday Mirror investigation has discovered sickening rants on the Facebook  pages of party official.

Nigel Farage’s UKIP party is still riddled with racism… despite his claim  of a crackdown.

A Sunday Mirror investigation has discovered sickening rants on the Facebook pages of party officials.

Details of their vitriol emerged only days after Eric Kitson quit as a  councillor in Stourbridge, Worcs, after we exposed his internet slurs against  Muslims and Jews.

Last month Farage claimed “a huge amount of time and money” had been spent  researching the backgrounds of council candidates.

He said: “Our membership is up nearly 50 per cent, and inevitably we are  going to have one or two teething problems.”

But today we can reveal his members’ latest hate-fuelled ­postings.

Ukip’s Chris Pain, leader of the opposition at Lincs Council and the party’s  East Midlands regional chairman, wrote: “Have you noticed that if you  ­rearrange the letters in ‘illegal ­immigrants’, and add just a few more  letters, it spells, ‘Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing,  resource-sucking, baby-making, non-English-speaking ********* and take those  other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-********,  raghead ******** with you.’”

Mr Pain has also ­objected to foreign doctors working in the NHS.

Last May he posted a story about a Hungarian medic who bungled an operation  on a four-year-old boy in Manchester, and wrote: “We don’t want them taking all  the jobs in the local community and we certainly don’t want them working in our  hospitals!”

Peter Entwistle, party chairman in Bury, Greater Manchester, labelled  President Barack Obama a Muslim, writing: “I bet he’s a closet ‘Imam’ as  well!

“If I ever see him on a Greyhound bus wearing a rucksack, I’m getting  off!!” 

The party’s deputy chairman in Scotland, Misty Thackeray, “liked” a Facebook  group claiming “paedophilia is part of Islamic tradition”.

He also praised far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a  self-­confessed “hater of Islam”.

Recommending Mr Wilders’ new book, he said: “Geert is great …(peace be upon  him.. lol) ..!”

Meanwhile Tiggs Keywood-­Wainwright, a Ukip councillor in Boston, Lincs,  complained about mosques being built in “quintessentially English” Cambridge.  “Is nowhere sacred for the Brits in Britain any more?” she wrote.

“Bottom line is we have too many muslims in this country!”

Mr Pain said the comments on his Facebook pages were “not my original posts  or writings”, claiming his ­account had been hacked.

Mr Entwistle laughed when confronted about his President Obama bus comments,  saying: “I don’t think I’d be the only one getting off.”

Mr Thackeray refused to comment on “this ridiculous nonsense”. He said Mr  Wilders was a “legally, democratically-elected politician”.

Ms Keywood-Wainwright admitted she “probably” regretted some of her  remarks.

She claimed she meant there were too many Muslims “in certain areas”, adding:  “My GPs are all Muslims and I have no ­problem with them at all.

“One of them is extremely nice and very, very good at her job.”

Farage described demonstrators who besieged him in Edinburgh on Thursday as  “fascist scum”.

He also slammed the phone down on a BBC interviewer questioning him about  Scots issues.

…… and the way their supporters (“Proud Defenders of Britain“) express their views ……

(red = poor spelling)

Alec  Buck wrote at 6:00 PM on 19/5/2013

Funny how when UKIP start to make headway into  English hearts the vile leftie trot scum start chucking around the “Nazi” word.  What’s up you communist scum? Afraid you will no longer have a chance of getting  voted in again because you hate the white working classes after they left you in  the dust? Scum like you should move to North Koria if you like communisum so  effing much. All talk no trousers you lot

Robert  Berry  wrote at 4:19 PM on 19/5/2013

A left wing newspaper like the Mirror will always  find right wing extremists in any organisation that does not suit their  socialist views and silly people like Susanne Deumig will blindly swallow their  comments without seeking out real evidence and truth. I would say to her and  sheep like her who cannot think for themselves, read the UKIP manifesto. Yes  their may be racists and bigots in the party as there is in all parties but UKIP  is not racist or homophobic, nor is it against immigration. What it is against  is control of our borders and laws by an unelected comittee in Belgium and  uncontrolled, unskilled immigration which is overloading our welfare system, our  schools and damaging the job prospects of many of our young people.

Nigel  Farage was drowned out by a mob of left wing extremists. He was not allowed to  speak and was right to leave the scene. This is not democracy it is mob rule by  morons.

Brian  Robertson wrote at 2:22 PM on 19/5/2013

I wonder what Muslims say about us and our country  behind the anonymity of their language? We already know what they say about our  women and girls.

Derek  Lavery wrote at 8:58 AM on 19/5/2013

what about all the bile thrown by the rotten lefties  including your paper at the death of mrs thatcher,or the cheering of the ira  bomb in brighton,,,,,,,,,,,,,nice peopl socialists.

Gary  Roberts wrote at 8:17 AM on 19/5/2013

Oh dear  it looks like the left have got their claws  out for Nigel Farage.  People voted for UKIP because of the out of touch tories  and labour, but because of their popularity all of a sudden they become racists  ,nazi’s and what ever other drivel the dreaded left can come up with. The reason  many people voted for UKIP is because they will not be taken in for all the  slurs and accusations that the other parties and their press friends throw at  them. Lets have a clean fight, instead of all the rubbish and lies that is  reported.

……it’s difficult not to scapegoat the UKIP as “bigoted cranks”.

My favourite photo

The photo below is probably my favourite photo

There are a couple of reasons why this photo is probably my favourite.

Firstly, of all the photos I’ve ever taken it’s the one that most exemplifies north Wales; it’s dark, sparsely populated and there’s evidence of rain. This may sound less than appealing to you but I always feel at home when there’s rain and cloudy darkness.

Secondly, I like looking at this photo because it makes me think of every midweek match that I’ve ever seen in north Wales and I find the memory that it stirs up – being wet and windswept – very comforting indeed.

Lastly, and most importantly for the purposes of RCAFS‘, it exemplifies the sort of values that a football fan should have, and I’m not just saying that because I know most of the people in the photo.

I don’t see people that cannot handle defeat, I don’t see divviness, I don’t hear the shrill cacophony of self-centered moaners and the “Banter Bus” is out of service.

I look at the photo and I can tell these fans won’t start whistling or booing when another corner is wasted. I see loyalty and stoicism, I see thoughtful contemplation and belief, I see the nobility of experience.

I will use the photo in RCAFS’ publicity material.

You need to embrace defeat lad

I think I’ve worked out the main problem with the people who use social media and like “THE FOOTBALL”, the divvies can’t accept defeat.

I’ve decided to do something about this. I’m going to help eradicate this flat-earthism by starting a pressure group; “The Righteous Coalition Against Football-based Stupidity” (which will be known as RCAFS). We must fight back against this insidious threat, we must take a stand!!!

My first step has been to write a script for an advert, well how else am I going to get the message out there?

[Darkness.

The sound of clinking cups and shouted food orders builds slowly.

The picture becomes brighter………………………..A man is reading a broadsheet paper.

The camera zooms out to reveal that the man is sitting at a café table. The camera zooms further out and an everyday, working class “Greasy Spoon” cafeteria is revealed.

The camera floats down the aisle, we see man after man eating fry-ups and drinking tea. Then the camera suddenly stops and returns to the first man.

He puts down his broadsheet, picks up his working class “Greasy Spoon” cafeteria mug and slurps down a mouthful of tea. He then slams the cup down and says “AHHHH” with a satisfied expression on his face. He then rises from his seat.

The audience immediately notices that he’s different from the rest of the customers. He’s immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit while the other patrons are in work clothes and ill-fitting polyester. The man looks out of place. 

(Note to actor; I can hear the questions in your head “A man in a three piece suit, reading a broadsheet newspaper!!!, in a Working Class Greasy Spoon Cafeteria? That just doesn’t ring true darling!!” Well love, your motivation here is irony.

If you can’t picture irony then picture the annoying Geordie-Mackem-Middlesborough twang in the cuntish HP adverts. (By The Way, saying “Manwich” when you mean “Sandwich” isn’t funny in the slightest, the last actor for which I wrote a specific part tried this joke and we threw him in the nearest river and then blacklisted him)

The man in the suit looks around with a quizzical expression upon his face., the kind of expression that tells the audience “I’m a character”. He moves sideways, almost gliding, to the aisle and then strides over to the counter. Before the owner (in a clichéd string vest) can speak the man in the suit put his finger to the his lips.]

[The man in the suit then turns to face the full cafeteria, looks at the camera and begins his monologue.]

“There is a problem in our midst….

 [The man begins striding purposefully down the aisle.]

 …. Yes, there is a major problem with us …..

[The man takes a sip from the mug of the first obviously working class customers. The man then ruffles the customer’s hair dismissively before carrying on.]

….We all know there’s a problem, yes we all know there’s a problem, but no-one will say. Well my friends…

[The man lovingly grabs the cheek of a second obviously working class customer.]

…. it’s time to stop denying the truth to ourselves. We need to confront the problem….

[The man points an accusing finger at  the third obviously working class customer, this one cannot bring his cup to his lips.]

…. It’s time we acknowledged that football fans must embrace the idea of defeat!!!

[It’s another accusing finger for another obviously working class customer, this one has half a piece of toast dangling from his gaping mouth.]

Hiding from the idea of defeat might sound like the best thing, but shielding yourself from the icy grip of defeat is too easy. It is too easy people…

[At the next table a fifth obviously working class customer gazes open-mouthed at the Man.]

….Refusing to embrace defeat might sound like a pleasant way to act but it’s bad people, so, so bad….

[A sixth obviously working class customer is agog.]

….It’s no good people, you need to embrace defeat.

YOU NEED TO EMBRACE DEFEAT. YES YOU!!!!

YOU NEED TO NOT ONLY TASTE THE BITTERNESS OF DEFEAT, YOU HAVE TO ENJOY THE TASTE!!! FOR THE TASTE OF DEFEAT MAKE THE TASTE OF VICTORY ALL THE SWEETER!!!!

[A seventh obviously working class customer spits his tea all over the table when he realizes that the man is dead right]

WE SPEND FAR TOO LONG WORRYING ABOUT DEFEAT’S ICE-COLD EMBRACE, BUT WE HAVE TO LONG FOR THAT ICE-COLD EMBRACE FOR IT WILL MAKE THE EMBRACE OF VICTORY ALL THE WARMER!!!

[A eighth obviously working class customer is smiling in that knowing way. The penny has dropped!!!]

You see people you have been thinking about this in the wrong way. Victory, Defeat and Draw are mere words.

Victory is not really a victory, it’s an opportunity to look like arrogant swine.

Defeat is not really defeat, it’s an opportunity to dream of better times, of golden skies.

[The obviously working class customers begin to rise in open-mouthed wonder at what they’re hearing.]

Most of all you need to remember that the Chinese word for opportunity and crisis is the same “Crisi-tunity”

Yes comrades, Crisi-tunity knocks!!!

Do we give in to petty squabbling OR DO WE DARE TO DREAM?

[By the time the man reaches the door the cafeteria’s clientele is on it’s feet cheering and hugging. The owner is high-fiving with the usually bored teenage waitress.

The man opens the door, turns around and then stands in the doorway. He nods patronisingly at those easily-led working class customers.

The man smoothes his jacket down and straightens his tie and wears “that smug look” upon his face. The last shot is the man striding off in to the distance.]

I’d better get a stronger letterbox for the volume of applications I’m going to receive.

No really, are you a football fan, or a potential criminal?

I don’t normally interact with the law-talking community but last Friday, thanks to twitter, I was able to read a letter written by 2012’s “Bar Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year”, Alison Gurden. Twitter can be really good sometimes. The letter shows us how the ticket restrictions for the Crystal Palace v Brighton play off semi-final, something  I wrote about the other week, may contravene existing laws.

Just after I discovered the letter I discovered Alison’s  blog .The blog highlights the serious legal issues that football fans may have to deal with so it’s a usefully sobering read. Alison has plenty of experience dealing with football related cases and while it’s good that there are people who can help fans with legal expertise it’s worrying that so many individuals are charged with various offences.

The draconian rules regarding Crystal Palace v Brighton tickets subtly hint that Britain’s police may not particularly like football fans, the cases that Alison highlights in her blog hint a little more forcefully. For example there are times when it looks as though the police want to infringe the civil liberties of football fans;

Can the Police retention of information on football fans breach a fan’s right to privacy?

Are you a football fan?

Have you been

• given a section 27 dispersal notice?
• filmed coming out of the train station?
• stop searched on your way to a football match?

If yes,  your personal data is possibly being held by the Police.

What is meant by Personal Data?

Personal data can be anything which identifies you, so a record of your name, address, description, photographs or video footage all amount to personal data.

How is it held?

Most police force Football Policing Units keep an intelligence database on fans who are considered to be ‘risk fans’.  In other words, fans who are suspected of causing disorder.  In addition there is a nationwide database which contains information on public order and which contains details of some football fans activities, and the Police National Computer which contains information on all arrests, cautions, PNDs, convictions.  This data can be held for years, particularly as a football banning order can contain information going back up to 10 years.

S0 what does this mean for football fans?

If you have been involved in violence or disorder, or been cautioned or convicted of an offence then your data will definitely be held on the PNC and you cannot challenge this as you fall in to the same category as every other person who has been cautioned or convicted of an offence.  The PNC is in the process of being updated so that it can hold much more information, and I am sure that everyone reading this will accept that the Police should have a tool to assist in their investigations, and to prevent crime.

However, it is the retention of a football fan’s data merely due to the fact that they are a football fan which can be argued as being disproportionate.  If you are a fan who regularly attends football matches, have never been cautioned or convicted of an offence and have never been involved in disorder, is it fair that your data should be held by the Police?  For instance, some police forces have a practice of stopping fans as they come out of a convenience store, and asking them to stand against the wall so that they can be video’d to record what they are wearing.  Most are asked their names and addresses, and some are asked to roll up their sleeves to show any tattoos they may have.  The question then has to be, why is this data being taken in the first place as the fan has done nothing more than walk out of a shop with a can of soda in their hand, and secondly what happens to this recording – is it destroyed or retained?” (I highlighted these sentences in bold)

At other times it can seem as though there is a thrist to prosecute football fans.

“With the exception of a few football fans, who I can also count on one hand, all of my clients say the same thing “I can’t believe this is happening to me, I have never been in trouble, I did nothing wrong’, and are mostly young lads in the twenties or men in their forties.   Examples of my recent cases include the 18 year old who was arrested outside the stadium due to having a smoke bomb in his pocket, which he had intended to let off after the match if his team won, and to celebrate his 18th birthday at the same time.  There was also a 35 year old fan who was arrested for allegedly assaulting a steward who grabbed the client’s 8 year old son by the collar and pushed him back to his seat. The father grabbed the steward’s arm to make him release the grip on his son. The son had run to the front of the stands to take a photo of the mascot.  The fan who was woken up at 6am by a police knocking on his door with a search warrant following a complaint by a steward that the fan had assaulted him.  It turned out that the steward had made the complaint because he believed his ex-wife was now in a relationship with the fan.

All of these cases were resolved before they got to the door of the court, and all resolved in favour of the fan, but required a lot of work behind the scenes. This work was done on legal aid.  If the Government’s legal aid plans come into force, none of these clients would be entitled to legal aid, they would have to find a lawyer to take on their case privately, and because the cases never made it to court, the client would not be able to recover their legal costs. In addition it saved a lot of court time, and CPS and Police costs that would have been incurred.”

You could argue that all law-abiding fans have nothing to fear but that’s what people say about the increased use of CCTV. There are obvious problems in the battle between law enforcement and civil liberties. Who’s watching the detectives? Can we trust the police to be impartial agents in the implementation of laws? The following accumulation of Police statements  indicates that the police may have pre-conceived ideas about football fans.

‘When I walked into the pub and spoke to Football Fan 1 and tried to engage in discussion about today’s game he ignored me.  I then saw him in a crowd chanting football songs as he walked to the ground.  When in the ground he sat in his seat initially but then moved to another seat showing complete disrespect to the stewards.  he was wearing a black Northface jacket which is the attire worn by many risk football fans at football matches…After the game he was seen to be giving hostile looks at some opposing team supporters as he stood outside the kebab shop, I then saw him go inside the off license and slam the door.  All of this leads me to believe that he is a risk supporter with no regard to the police or other fans.  His lack of engagement with the police show that he is anti-police, and his chanting in the street was in a residential area where women and children who were not attending the football match could have been present and could have been frightened and offended by the chanting and group mentality.”

The problem is not just that statements such as this constitute evidence for banning orders, it’s that statements such as this look as though they’ve been written in a less than impartial fashion; I detected a definite sense of “us and them” about this one.

This situation becomes even more troubling when you realize it’s not even a mere “us and them” confrontation, it’s an “us and them” confrontation of gross inequalities; the side that has the power to ensure banning orders seems to show ill-will towards the other side.  This doesn’t seem right from a legal, or a moral, perspective.

It’s difficult to know where to start unpicking the accumulation but let’s start with the uncomfortable idea that the Police target people on the basis of their appearance, the line; “he was wearing a black Northface jacket which is the attire worn by many risk football fans at football matches.”  Even if we disregard the horrifying historical parallels, the police might still be wrong. The person in question may have chosen this particular jacket because it would offer him some protection from the elements. Anyway, does North Face still have a place in the clobber of clued-up “lads””?

Why is “When in the ground he sat in his seat initially but then moved to another seat.” such a problem? What if he found himself near some irritating fans in his first seat? One would presume that there were enough empty seats, and if there were what’s the problem with moving?

Let’s turn to the lines “His lack of engagement with the police show that he is anti-police,” and “I then saw him go inside the off license and slam the door”. Are these lines incriminating evidence or an indication that the police are already looking for trouble? What if the door handle slipped out of the fan’s hand? How exactly does “His lack of engagement with the police” show that he is “anti-police”?  The problem seems to lie in the first line “When I walked into the pub and spoke to Football Fan 1 and tried to engage in discussion about today’s game he ignored me”.

So this person ignored a police officer ergo he’s “anti-police“. The accumulation doesn’t tell us if the police officers were actually a little too aggressive in his friendly manner, or if they interrupted an interesting conversation. It doesn’t tell us if he’d had a negative experience with the particular police officer in the past, especially as there’s an implication that they know each other.

From the accumulation it would appear that the police officer, or officers, aren’t aware of the effect that police officers have when they turn up unannounced in the middle of a pub of football fans. Whenever it has happened to me, yes even Bangor City matches are policed, it’s always felt a little intimidating. Even when they adopt a ”friendly manner” with outgoing conversation and the like it’s still intimidating.

This kind of behaviour is nothing more than a vulgar display of power in order remind people who’s in control and who’s a potential criminal. I’d hate to think what would happen if somebody accidentally fell off their seat at the moment the police were walking around. It’s actually quite disgusting that football fans can’t be trusted to behave like normal functioning adults in a democratic society.

You may think I’m being tad unfair to the police, or you may be doubting whether they act on whims, or you may think that the fans are to blame because they act like idiots. Well if you’re turning into a doubting Thomas consider the use of “Section 27 of Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006”. In case you were unaware of Section 27…

 “(It) allows police to move someone from a specified area for a period of up to 48 hours. You do not actually have to have committed any offence for the act to be enforced. Section 27 gives police the powers to move anybody, from any place, at anytime, if they think there’s a possibility an alcohol related offence may be committed.” 

In 2008 roughly 80 Stoke fans were issued with a Section 27s.

“Policing of Stoke fans raises serious concerns

Frightening new police powers have emerged following the shocking treatment of Stoke City fans prior to their team’s away fixture with Manchester United last Saturday, November 15, 2008.

An estimated 80 Stoke supporters visited the Railway Inn pub in Irlam, Greater Manchester, on their way to Old Trafford. The pub was a natural stop-off point, being on en route to the stadium via the M6 and a local railway station. By all accounts that the Football Supporters’ Federation have heard it was a relatively quiet atmosphere, with little singing, never mind trouble.

However, at 1.15pm a number of officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) entered the premises and told fans they would not be allowed to leave the pub, would be forcibly taken back to Stoke, and not be allowed to visit Old Trafford.

Each supporter was then issued with a Section 27 from the Violent Crime Reduction Act of 2006. This allows police to move someone from a specified area for a period of up to 48 hours. You do not actually have to have committed any offence for the act to be enforced. Section 27 gives police the powers to move anybody, from any place, at anytime, if they think there’s a possibility an alcohol related offence may be committed.

Stoke City fan Lyndon Edwards, who is making a formal complaint to GMP and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, was one of those in the pub: “I asked for it to be stated on the Section 27 form given that I was not intoxicated and that there was no evidence of any disorder on my part. This was refused so I refused to sign the form. I was told to sign it or I would be arrested. We were then loaded onto buses and had to sit there for what seemed like an eternity.”

“There were no football chants being sung at the Railway Inn and no evidence of disorder whatsoever. If there had of been we would have left the pub and made our way elsewhere.”

The Stoke supporters were then driven back in convoy to Stoke city centre, regardless of whether this was actually where they were from, without compensation of any sort.“I have spoken to a number of Stoke fans who were there and I am quite satisfied that they did absolutely nothing wrong, but they end being hauled back to Stoke against their will and missing the game,” said Malcolm Clarke, chair of the FSF and a Stoke City fan.

“They were treated very badly by the Greater Manchester Police. This new law gives the police a great deal of instant power which can severely affect the basic civil rights of football supporters, if they happen to be in the wrong pub or on the wrong train at the wrong time.

“If the police had any evidence that the people in that pub included some risk supporters, or people with banning orders, they should have taken appropriate action against those people alone. There can be no excuse for taking this draconian action against ordinary innocent supporters who happened to be using the same pub.”

“We are most concerned about how it is being used, and will be taking this up at the highest level.”

If you were one of the Stoke City fans who received this treatment please click here to read about how you can take it up with the relevant authorities.”

That’s not all “The Stoke City supporters said they were told to “urinate into cups” after officers banned them from the toilet at the pub in Irlam, Greater Manchester.” 

Fans of other clubs have also been affected by section 27;

“In December of last year, South Yorkshire Police used the same legislation to force a group of Plymouth Argyle supporters to leave Doncaster prior to their match against Doncaster Rovers. The South Yorkshire Star falsely accused them of being “known trouble-makers” but they were contacted by the FSF soon after the incident, who also took on their case. It has also been mentioned that supporters of Gillingham and Southend United have been on the wrong end of this illegal interpretation of the law.”

The police had to pay compensation for their suppression of the Stoke fans’ civil liberties.”Police payout after fans ‘locked in’ pub before match” – and while this is welcome it’s an unnerving idea to think that the police can act like this in a democracy. Section 27 presumably is so elastic that it can be applied to other areas such as political demonstrations.

Football stadiums are safer places in the 21^st century than in the 1970s or ‘80s yet the police still seek to criminalise football fans. British football was forced to tear down perimeter fences down after Hillsborough yet Britain’s police are still motivated by the impulses that led to their erection of fences.

I’m not claiming that football fans are all angels and I’m not saying that a situation that mixes thousands of people in close proximity, alcohol-induced lowering of inhibition and “The Banter” won’t result in a little “boisterousness”. I’m not even saying that football matches don’t present different security concerns from “normal” situations but there’s no excuse for such a draconian approach.

My Photo Of The Season

Here it is, I call it “Two Badges on a Coat”

This is the end, Beautiful friend, This is the end

Bangor City 4 Bala Town 2

Welsh Premier League European Play-Off Semi-Final

11/5/13

Three weeks ago we had three chances to go to Europe.

Two weeks ago we still had two chances.

Last Monday evening there was only one chance left.

By 4 o’clock today there were no chances left (Actually Bangor had lost their last chance 3:10 pm, when we went 4-0 behind, but let’s not split hairs.)

I’m too numb to describe this process, or my annoyance at football, and at life, in detail.

Here’s my last picture of Bangor’s season.

The football / music crossover

Last night I tried to find a couple of Super Furry Animals songs on You Tube. I not only found the songs I wanted I chanced upon my favourite crossover between football and music; the day when the Super Furry Animals went to watch Wales lose 7-1 to Holland in Eindhoven (It’s 7 minutes in).;

While that’s my favourite crossover moment there are several others that I like.  Mark E. Smith reading out the football results is one of them.

The video to the Super Furry Animals’ “Play It Cool” is another favourite.

As is Half Man Half Biscuits’ “Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools”.

Primal Scream’s “The Big Man and the Scream Team Meet the Barmy Army Uptown” and Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls going through a metal detector are two more favourites.

 

The thought of Ex-Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann wearing a Tool baseball cap for a Match of the Day interview always makes me smile.

I found a few more interesting things on the internet. For example here’s Eusebio in a Harlow Record Shop just before the 1968 European Cup Final

Alexis Taylor from Hot Chip wrote “Nayim from the halfway line”

Here’s Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris playing football

I was also reminded of  Jess Conrad’s cringeworthy output. Firstly “Soccer Superstar” and it’s “ballllllllll control”

Then his tribute to the Showbiz Soccer XI.

It’s funny to think that  football / music crossovers existed before Timothy Lovejoy invented them.

Weekends are meant to be fun

Last weekend was so depressive I’m only going to relate a few details.

FC United 3 Frickley Atheltic 2

Northern Premier League Premier Division

4/5/13

This weekend had such a good beginning, the sun on my face, a picnic in Warrington Central, an ethical shirt for 5-a-side from FC’s sale rail, another badge for another jacket and a three nil win for the good guys.

The weekend starts to turn bad………

Wrexham 0 Newport County 2

Conference Promotion Play-Off

5/5/13

I thought it would be good for north Walian football if Wrexham became a Football League club again. Clem would be heading down to the Racecourse and everything.

Then Newport scored their first goal and I scared my wife by shouting “FUCK!!!!” at the computer screen.

God hates north Wales.

The weekend turns bad………

Bangor City 1 Prestatyn Town 3

Welsh Cup Final

6/5/13

The sun did shine and the drinks did flow, then it went downhill.

All fans were housed in the Yale stand and even though we had more fans than Prestatyn we were given the less specious  away end. Then Prestatyn scored in the second minute, then we equalised in the 60^th minute. By the time Prestatyn scored two minutes before extra time’s half time people were thinking of penalties . Price scored their third goal against a demoralised defence, as if that mattered.

I could complain about Prestatyn’s  snidey ways, about their exaggeration and their time wasting, about their constant attempts to control the referee through moaning. I could complain that the wanker gave in and gave them EVERY FUCKING DECISION. I could complain about the bullshit time wasting tactics that Price and Parkinson adopted in the last 10 minutes of injury time.

I could complain about all that but I’m too much of a gentleman to do that. I’ve got too much class and good grace to offer anything less than my warmest congratulations to Prestatyn, so yeah, well done you bunch of pricks.

I want “interesting” not “AN Other at Right Back for blah blah blah XI”

Earlier today a York fan told the When Saturday Comes message board about an interesting pre-season match.

“Seems a bit early to be starting a thread about pre-season friendlies, but this story is worth sharing…

My beloved York have been approached and are apparently in discussions to go to Niš in southern Serbia for a game against FK Radnički to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, the connection being that Emperor Constantine, who was responsible for the edict, was born in Niš and made Emperor in York! Apparently the main stumbling block at the moment is whether or not we can afford the trip.”

I tried to find out more about this match but all I could find was this article on a Serbian website.

 Jork igra sa Radničkim u Nišu

U toku su finalni pregovori sa fudbalskim klubom iz Engleske da se na stadionu Čair odigra prijateljski meč između Radničkog i Jorka u okviru proslave godišnjice Milanskog edikta.

Ovu informaciju Južnim vestima potvrdio je državni sekretar u Ministarstvu omladine i sporta Nenad Borovčanin koji je nedavno boravio u Velikoj Britaniji.

– Počeli smo pregovore sa Jorkom preko Sport England-a, ali će se uključiti i predsednik Britanske olimpijske asocijacije Lord Sebastian Kou. Utakmica bi bila u znaku Milanskog edikta, kao utakmica tolerancije uz mogući patronat UEFA. Niš bi bio domaćin, a jedina obaveza je da obezbedi smeštaj u gradu – izjavio je Borovčanin za Južne vesti

Termin odigravanja meča još nije poznat.

Ideja da se organizuje utakmica potekla je iz poznanstva Borovčanina i gradonačelnika Jorka, a vezu predstavlja to što je Car Konstantin rođen u Nišu, a krunisan u Jorku.

Borovčanin je dodao da je naišao na pozitivan odgovor u Nišu, a da su gradske vlasti pored fudbalske zainteresovane i za organizaciju jedne rukometne utakmice.

– Poslednji put kad sam boravio u Nišu o tome sam razgovarao sa gradonačelnikom Perišićem, za koga smo otvorili mogućnost da bude gost Jorka i njihovog gradonačelnika. Takođe, Igor Novaković je izrazio želju da se ista utakmica organizuje i u rukometu, ali u Jorku nije rukomet baš tolio razvijen, pa ćemo još razgovarati o tome – dodao je Borovčanin.

Fudbalski klub Jork je trenutno 17. na tabeli 4. lige od 24 kluba koja se takmiče u ovom rangu. Klub je osnovan 1908. godine, ali je 1917. godine ugašen. Pet godina kasnije, 1922. godine, ponovo je aktiviran.

Prošle godine su pobedom od 2:0 nad Njuportom osvojili “FA trofej”.

When you put it through Google translate it becomes;

“York plays with Workers in Nis

During the final negotiations with the football club in England to be in attendance at Cair play a friendly match between the workers and York in celebration of the anniversary of the Edict of Milan.

This information was confirmed by Southern news, the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Youth and Sports Nenad Borovčanin who recently stayed in the UK.

– We have begun negotiations with York via Sport England, but will include the British Olympic Association chairman Lord Sebastian Coe. The match will be marked by the Edict of Milan, a game of tolerance with a possible patronage of UEFA. Niš to the host, and the only obligation is to provide housing in the city – said the South Borovčanin news.

Rescheduled match is not yet known.

The idea to organize the match came from acquaintances and Borovčanin York mayor, and a link to the Emperor Constantine was born in Nis, and crowned at York.

Borovčanin added that he met with a positive response in Nis, and that the city authorities in addition to football stakeholders and the organization of a volleyball match.

– Last time I was in Nis I talked with Mayor Perisic, who have opened up the opportunity to be the guest of York and its mayor.  Also, Novakovic has expressed a wish to organize the same game in handball, volleyball at York is not just TOLIO developed, and we still talk about it – he said Borovčanin.

York City Football Club is currently 17 in Table 4 league of 24 clubs that compete in this division. Klub je osnovan 1908. The club was founded in 1908, but it was in 1917. year running. Five years later, in 1922, again is activated.

Last year, a 2-0 victory over the Newport won “FA Trophy” . “

“Marking the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan”  has got to be the most interesting reason for a friendly I’ve ever heard. I don’t think anyone will deny that it’s miles more interesting than “It’s so and so’s testimonial” or “We can’t be arsed making any effort so we’re sending you something ending in vague roman numerals“.

I’ve thought of more friendlies with interesting historical angles.

Ferencvaros versus Nefchi Baku would celebrate Suleiman the Magnificent’s rule over the Ottoman Empire. The two clubs are at opposite ends of his massive empire.

First Vienna versus Corinthian Casuals would celebrate the life of Sigmund Freud. One club represents the city where he was educated and the other represents the city in which he died

Cavalier FC (From the Bahamas) versus Genoa CFC would celebrate the life of Christopher Columbus. One club represents his home town and the other represents one of the places he crashed in to.

Wuppertaler SV Borussia, versus FC United would commemorate Friedrich Engels by pitting a club from his birthplace against a club from the city where he put his revolutionary ideas together.

FC Zurich versus SV Babelsberg 03 would celebrate the example of Rosa Luxemburg. Zurich is the city where she went to university and Babelsberg play in the Karl-Liebknecht-Stadion.

Triangular tournaments would also be good. For example a tournament between SV Eintracht Trier 05, 1. FC Union Berlin and AFC Wimbledon would commemorate Karl Marx’s example. Trier would represent his home town, Union would represent the start of his revolutionary journey and Wimbledon would represent London, the place of his death.

A similar tournament between Rosario Central , UNAM Pumas, and FC La Habana would commemorate the life of the well-known football fan and revolutionary Che Guevara. Rosario is his club, UNAM Pumas come from the university that he briefly taught at, and FC La Habana are from the place where he’s a revolutionary icon.

Montpellier versus St. Andrews United would celebrate the friendship between Auguste Comte, the founder of the discipline of sociology, and John Stuart Mill, the philosopher. Montpellier was Comte’s birthplace and Mill was Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews in the 1860s.

Leyton Orient versus New York Cosmos would celebrate the urban myth that Nylon’s name came from its simultaneous development in London and New York.

AS Monaco versus FC Vaduz would celebrate the 2oth century’s creative banking sector.

Colo Colo versus Grantham Town would celebrate the friendship between Lady Thatcher and Pinochet the saviour. The match would take place Chile’s national stadium, the world’s most famous sporting arena / concentration camp.

Chelsea, Melbourne and New York Red Bulls would celebrate the life of Rupert Murdoch, the late 20th century’s greatest media mogul, by including clubs in the places he’s owned newspapers.

Boca Juniors versus Bangor City would celebrate my historic urge to watch football in Argentina. Plus Diego Maradona is a Bangor fan.

I’m sure some of these matched will happen one day.

Look lad, be stoic, or be quiet.

I’ve been a football fan for so long I understand how football fans think……

“I’ve taken an interest in this match so I demand my team wins. If we’re not going to win, I’m going to moan. I’m entitled to victories!!!!

Yeah I can moan if I want to, in fact I’m entitled to moan.  I’ve paid to get there, I’ve paid to get in. I’m entitled to moan as moaning is part of my human rights.

When things don’t go as I planned I’m entitled to moan because I’m not allowed to feel the pain of defeat.  I’m special and nothing’s allowed to offend me.

I don’t want to see people make mistakes. I paid for my ticket and I paid to get in, I didn’t pay to see people make mistakes.

Why should I have to see my team lose?

Everything’s a disgrace, losing’s a disgrace, players not trying are a disgrace, the referees and officials are a disgrace, the stewards are a disgrace, the “attitudes” are a disgrace.

The manager’s a disgrace, the pitches are a disgrace, the others fans are a disgrace, the opposition players are a disgrace.

The opposition fans are cheering, they’re a disgrace. The opposition players are celebrating, they’re a disgrace

I’ve paid to get there and I’ve paid to get in. I deserve better.

DO YOU HEAR THAT YOU USELESS BUNCH OF TWATS, I DESERVE BETTER!!! YES ME, I’VE MADE THE EFFORT TO TAKE AN INTEREST IN YOU AND ALL YOU’VE DONE IS LET ME DOWN. DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU. HAVE. LET. ME. DOWN. AND I DESERVE BETTER.”

Stoic acceptance isn’t good enough anymore and quiet internal contemplation isn’t seem enough anymore either, even quiet moaning amongst trusted friends is passé. Moaning has to be aired in the loudest and most attention-grabbing manner possible, you just can’t exist outside the shrill cacophony.

I fear that moaners have taken over.

It’s not possible to have a quiet conversation about football at a bus stop anymore. A moaning get has to grasp the charming little chat and steer it sharply in the direction of his pet theories. You have to hear about how Nev and the boys are personally letting him down, and how shocking the 6-0 defeat at XXX XXX XXXXXX was and how it should never have happened, and how Nev continues to pick his favourites as if it’s the self-evident truth, and how XXX XXX XXXXXX being so many points ahead that it’s embarrassing. He just won’t let more positive views intrude into his well-thought out ideas. (I was other person in the conversation in case you’re wondering)

The moaning get also embraces new technology so you’ll find him comfortable in his twitter profile. Watch him slag off the players that “have let me down” so badly in the Welsh cup final. He won’t care that the players might be angry or upset at losing, he has to have his say because he’s paid all that money and the players have not only let him down, they’ve let him down personally. He’s got to target the moaning personally because this is how proper fans act, especially when they’ve got access to social media and they’re full-time legends with tickets for the first class section of “The Soccer AM Banter Bus” . (I witnessed drunk people acting like this last night on twitter in case you’re wondering)

Behaviour of this nature has made me realise that lost points and cup defeats aren’t the worst things about Bangor City losing matches, the worst thing is inevitable torrent of pet theories and unjustified anger. If the moaning gets had novel, profound or interesting things to say about Bangor City losing football matches then they’d be worth listening to, their anger might even be fun to read, but when you’ve heard ranting once you’ve heard it a hundred times before.

What do fans, especially fans of semi-pro clubs, think they’re going to achieve by using social media to attack players, or tell them that they’re crap? Semi-pro clubs rely on creating the sense that everyone’s in it together, all slagging people off will achieve is splitting the group into “us” and “them”.

Will the moaning be worth it if from now on players ignore us at the end of matches, or stick two fingers up, instead of cheering us? Will the letting the world know about your hurt feelings be worth it if those players decide to leave because they can’t be arsed dealing with drunken idiots? Or won’t issues like this matter because you’re entitled to your air your deeply hurt feelings, especially as you paid to get there and paid to get in.

Nobody wants to see their teams lose but losing is an inevitable fact of football. Why don’t people get this? It’s a pitiful situation when people reach adulthood and react to defeats like an eight year old.

I hate football.

Internet Football Comedy Review Number 2

The Support Group Episode 7

If nothing else these clips provide results for the experiment that gives a thousand hairless monkeys a thousand typewriters. Now we know for definite that they’ll produce very weak comedy based around “the banter” at best.

The writers behind this crap are as relentless and deluded as Ben Elton aren’t they?……. Wait a minute, we may have found the uncredited writing partners of Ben Elton’s latest situation tragedy for the BBC.

Calmness Trumps Overexicted Shouting

You can rely on moaning gets to hark back to the golden days but don’t worry, most of the time they are obviously talking rubbish. However when it comes to football coverage on TV the moaning gets may have a point.

From the technological angle one could argue that today’s coverage is much better; we have better cameras and more angles than they used to, matches are in high definition and our pundits use arrows and circles to explain their wonderful ideas. From the taste angle one could argue that the cacophony that now surrounds football makes football look and sound godawful.

Anyone that watches The Big Match Revisted on ITV4 would instantly notice the differences from thirty years ago; the players looked older, the kits looked better and the goalkeepers were gloveless. They would also notice that football  programmes were calmer.

On Tuesday morning’s repeat the main match was a Third Division match between Watford v Brentford – Third division football as the main match!!!, another charming difference between then and now – and even though the match was quite exciting – the final score was 3-3 – everything was described in a calm fashion. The first goal came from a Watford penalty and Brian Moore not only calmly supported the ref’s view, he described the penalty’s aftermath thus;

“1-0 Watford”

Throughout the commentary calmness was Moore’s hallmark;

…….“Smith!!! Getting in there!!!……….A goal of beautiful simplicity”……

 ……”It looks as if we have the making of a good match”……

……”So Watford who were 1-0 up, are now behind”……

……”And Blisset makes it 2-2!!! ……….. Even Watford look surprised the goal was given”…..

……”Phillips, a nice touch!!!………. Oh it wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be”……

……”So Steve Sims, not happy with it (the penalty) but that’s the linesman’s decision” ……

……”It’s there! 3-3!”…..

……”Anyone that was here can go home tonight and say they’ve had their money’s worth”…….

Thirty years ago there was no prolonged shouting or orgasmic explosions. Peter. Drury. Didn’t. Excitedly. Punctuate. Every. Word. In. Every. Sentence. To. Make. Everything. Sound. Like. A. Historic. Moment. Tyldesley’s pre-prepared lines and Townsend’s trademark verbal diarrhoea were absent. All we had was Brian Moore, Hugh Johns and Martin Tyler delivering calm measured commentaries whose only punctuation was a slight raising of the voice during exciting goalmouth incidents.

Every time I watch one of these repeats it’s a welcome relief from the hyperbolic formats we have to put up with; a single presenter, a single commentator, photos, or even humble words, used to explain what happened in matches they didn’t cover, no-one fished for controversy in the convivial interviews with managers. So-called important information nowadays –  results, the announcement of clubs being promoted, the continuation of long winning runs – was read out in passing after the match action.

Nowadays the critical ilk of Townsend, Keane and Shearer have hegemonic control of football punditry. Thirty years ago society didn’t need the sharp tongued criticism of personally offended ex-players, the nearest thing I heard to a criticism In Tuesday’s repeat was “Phillips, a nice touch!!! ……… Oh it wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be”.

In case you’re still unsure about this here’s a chance to judge for yourselves. Do you prefer this…..

…..or this load of bollocks?;

Would you rather have this….

….or this pile of shite?

My Dad really disliked Brian Moore. At first I thought that this was because we naturally mistrusted ITV in our house (we were a Radio Times family) but my Dad’s wasn’t motivated by anti-ITV prejudice on this matter, he simply felt that Moore had his favourites. The line; “Here he goes again……… “Winterbuurrn!!!!!!!!!!!”” has remained with me since the early 1990s.

My Dad’s  attitude influenced me to mistrust Brain Moore, although my prejudice was more based on our family’s anti-ITV prejudice. Watching the Big Match Revisited has convinced me that I was a little too hasty. Today’s commentators are less and Moore is more.

Internet Football Comedy Review Number 2

The Support Group Episode 4

There’s only one word for this………ABSOLUTE FUCKING WANK

Internet Football Comedy Review Number 1

The Support Group Episode 2

There’s only one word for this…..FUCKING WANK.

Franchising is everywhere, so beware

Sometimes you’re so wrapped up in how an idea affects you  – the negative effects of corporate football for example –  that you forget about the people in other places that are also affected by the idea. Yesterday I was reminded by wonderful “The Beaten Generation” (TGB) blog that football franchising, and it’s related activities, is an international trend.

My re-education began with a post about a fight back in Austria;

Austria Salzburg’s dream alive as another Red Bull duel looms

SECOND-placed Austria Salzburg kicked off against FC Dornbirn on Saturday afternoon four points and 30 minutes behind FC Liefering, but as their players trudged in at the break a goal down and seven points behind the leaders, some fans wondered if they’d ever get going at all. “We were down, out of everything, it was over,” Harry from Fanclub Absolut told me on Sunday, reflecting on a remarkable sequence of second half events which saw them crush that deficit to just two points.

“All of a sudden,” Harry continued, “our announcer shouted through the PA, ‘Altach have equalized at Liefering!’ at the top of his voice. Not even 10 seconds later, Austria equalized. The place was magic. Next thing was the end in Liefering; we knew they had drawn and out of the blue our chance started to live again. The terrace was buzzing and people felt that the team needed us, today, more than ever. We pushed them, everyone, people in the stands were not sitting anymore. Our team ran like animals and five minutes later, Vujic scored and it all simply boiled over.”

After the top two drew in October, I wrote on FC Liefering’s controversial involvement with Red Bull and how it threatened to derail Austria Salzburg’s route back to the Bundesliga. But what Marko Vujic’s Tardelli-esque celebration on Saturday tells us is that going into Wednesday’s return fixture, the on-field momentum at least is with the good guys in violet and white.

On Tuesday the Austrian FA (ÖFB) decide which of the sides vying for promotion from the regional third tier would be granted licenses to play in Bundesliga 2 next season. The Fairnessimfussball initiative has articulated the myriad sporting and ethical concerns about Red Bull’s involvement with FC Liefering (plus FC Pasching and FC Anif, two more clubs under Red Bull’s wing) and the implications of their potential promotion into the national league system.

Owners are prevented from operating more than one club in either Bundesliga 1 or 2, and Red Bull already have the one they bastardised when buying and rebranding Austria Salzburg in 2005. The drinks firm say their relationship with FC Liefering is a “cooperation” and not an ownership, but it’s a cooperation which extends to FC Liefering wearing Red Bull Salzburg’s colours and playing at Red Bull Salzburg’s ground.

The day after Tuesday’s verdict, it’s where an extraordinary crowd of 10,000 are expected to see the Regionalliga West’s top two slug it out with more than mere promotion and local bragging rights at stake. For eight years now, the fans of Austria Salzburg have exerted the same unbreakable pride, tradition and passion Red Bull thought they could buy in 2005. Red Bull were wrong, and whatever the outcome of Tuesday’s ÖFB meeting, Austria Salzburg aim to make them pay.”

I was intrigued by this FC Liefering so I clicked the link. This is what I found.

Purple reigns over club-crazy Red Bull

FOUR promotions into their epic journey back to the Bundesliga, Austria Salzburg face new competition for a fifth – from none other than Red Bull, whose rebranding of their club prompted fans to reform it in Austria’s footballing basement in 2005.

Saturday’s 3rd division topspiele der woche saw second-placed FC Liefering enter Salzburg’s violet quarter to face the side they trail by a single point. From their red & white colours to the familiar styling of their club badge, FC Liefering are Red Bull in all but name; a monstrous club, a patchwork of body parts from pilfered graves – all because one team’s seemingly not enough for the drinks firm’s Dr Frankenstein, Dieter Mateschitz.

The story goes a little something like this. A few years ago, Bundesliga reserve sides were prevented from playing any higher than the 3rd tier: the Regionalligas East, West and Central. This was much to the annoyance of Red Bull, whose reserves had remained in Regionalliga West having won it in 2011. So they paid off cash-strapped USK Anif and changed its name to FC Liefering, then handed FC Liefering Red Bull Salzburg’s reserve squad, then formed a new club called FC Anif and gave it Red Bull Salzburg’s reserves’ league spot.

Confused? Well there’s another team, FC Pasching, under Red Bull’s evil wing now too, so there. The upshot of all this is that Red Bull have control of three 3rd division clubs – FC Anif and FC Liefering in Regionalliga West, plus FC Pasching in Regionalliga Central – and claim none of them are reserve sides, therefore all should be able to be promoted.

Furthermore, because promotion from the Regionalligas is clinched via a sequence of play offs, it’s conceivable that FC Liefering and FC Pasching could contend a bizarre end-of-season decider between two Red Bull teams. The Salzburg FA say they’re powerless to prevent this, but the Austrian FA surely face an administrative headache if such a situation were to arise.

On Saturday, a nervy tussle between Regionalliga West’s top two ended all square, with all the action saved for a fantic last 15 minutes which featured both goals and a red card for Red Bull in front of a rapturous Maxglan full house. With three games to go before der winterpause, Austria Salzburg remain undefeated in their latest exhilarating tilt at what could turn out to be their most impressive feat yet.”

In case you’re unfamiliar with red bull’s takeover of Austria Salzburg here’s the When Saturday Comes article  that TBG linked to.

“The comprehensive corporate makeover of Austria Salzburg has brought in big money and big promises but has alienated supporters, as Paul Joyce reports

The Austrian Bundesliga has always been highly commercialised. Club names can be altered at the behest of new investors – hence FC Superfund in Pasching, or SCU Seidl Software of Untersiebenbrunn. With players plastered from head to arse in sponsors’ logos like motor-racing drivers, it’s fitting that Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz followed his acquisition of a Formula 1 team with that of SV Austria Salzburg in April.

Mateschitz, whose stake in the energy drink manufacturer has been estimated at $2 billion, aims to establish the 1994 UEFA Cup finalists as a major European force “within three to five years”. Enticing Franz Beckenbauer to Salzburg as an advisor has facilitated the construction of a squad containing former Arsenal goalkeeper Alex Manninger and such experienced internationals as Thomas Linke, Alex Zickler and Vratislav Lokvenc. With a budget of €30 million, last year’s relegation candidates have become this season’s title favourites.

Yet Mateschitz’s brazenness in treating the re-named “Red Bull Salzburg” as a mere marketing instrument for his company has alienated fans. Austria Salzburg’s illustrious history has been airbrushed from the website of the club, which now has a new crest and appears to have been founded in 2005.

More insensitive still was the jettisoning of the violet and white colours in which Salzburg have played since 1933 in favour of red and white (home) and blue (away). Dismissing supporters’ criticism as “kindergarten stuff”, Mateschitz stated: “The red bull can’t be violet, or else we couldn’t call it Red Bull.” In news that may interest his other club, Bayern Munich, Beckenbauer chimed in: “Whether you play in purple, blue or green is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the team being successful.” New manager Kurt Jara said that any fans who wanted to play in violet should form their own club.

In June, Salzburg fans wearing violet and white were refused entry to a pre-season friendly against Hajduk Split with the words: “The club doesn’t want this.” Although Red Bull blamed local stewards for the incident, they were subsequently identified as being from Salzburg’s own stadium.

In an attempt to create a dialogue with Mateschitz, the pro-violet campaign group Initiative Violett-Weiß urged fans to refrain from anti-Red Bull protests or pitch invasions – as happened at another pre-season match in Mondsee – that could allow the club to portray them as hooligans. Critical fans instead pursued a policy of silent non-support during the first home match of the season against SV Mattersburg on July 20. Not that they had much choice; having already halved the standing capacity of the south stand in which the Salzburg ultras congregated, Red Bull prohibited home fans from taking drums, flags and banners into their Euro 2008 stadium in Wals-Siezenheim.

If the tacky Red Bull graffiti made the ground resemble a skateboard park, the matchday experience itself was like watching a beach volleyball game hosted by Manuel from Fawlty Towers. After a laser show and David Coulthard’s celebrity kick-off, the game was accompanied by verbal and musical exhortations from the stadium announcers. Inspired by the Pamplona bull run, Red Bull “fan animators” dressed in white with red scarves and waist-sashes cajoled the crowd into waving their white bullfighting handkerchiefs – seemingly oblivious to the fact that this gesture indicates disdain in Spanish football.

In the goalless first period, the pro-violet support boycott was so effective that the stadium announcers had to remind their customers that this was meant to be a home match. Yet four unanswered second-half goals for Red Bull were greeted ecstatically by the majority of a capacity crowd of 18,500, many of whom wore the red and white shirts issued free to season-ticket holders. The Initiative Violett-Weiß received much more solidarity from the travelling Mattersburg crew, whose “Stop Mad Cow Disease!” banner was removed by Red Bull stewards.

Mateschitz would, however, be well-advised to consider which sector of his new toy’s fanbase is more likely to travel to away games or to stand by the team once the initial euphoria has subsided. He might also remember that the millions invested in rivals Austria Vienna by the Austro-Canadian industrialist Frank Stronach have not been matched by sporting success, with Stronach’s constant interventions in the club’s affairs causing internal turmoil.

At the Mattersburg match, however, Red Bull’s only compromise to the south stand traditonalists was to issue them with violet-lensed cardboard spectacles.”

The line “many of whom wore the red and white shirts issued free to season-ticket holders” features a marketing ploy the owners of Cardiff  will be familiar with. Another line that will sound familiar to British ears is; “Whether you play in purple, blue or green is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the team being successful.”

Wikipedia’s banality can render anything “normal”;

“The Red Bull Juniors are playing in the Regionalliga West, which is one of the three 3rd level leagues in Austria. In December 2011 the club signed a cooperation with FC Pasching (Regionalliga Mitte) and USK Anif (Regionalliga West) The coach of the Juniors, Gerald Baumgartner, left Salzburg and became new coach of FC Pasching. Also players went to Pasching and Anif. After the 2011/12 season the new coach Peter Hyballa left the club and became new head coach of SK Sturm Graz.

From the 2012/13 season the Juniors play as FC Liefering in the Regionalliga West. They are the farm team of FC Red Bull Salzburg. Because they play under the licence of USK Anif, they are eligible for to promotion to the First League.”

Those banal words not only normalize red bull’s circumvention of the rules they also make the circumvention appear worse by making it look matter of fact. Thankfully TBG and the other people that understand football see right through corporate behaviour;

Red bull seem intent on taking over football; they have opened football franchises on 4 continents. Like everyone involved in corporate football they have to showcase their vision. Firstly, a video about how “the lucky, chosen ones” can go to their academy in Brazil

Secondly, an introduction to Leipzig

Red bull think that they’re a cool, rad and hip company; just look at the officially approved corporate graffiti in Salzburg’s ground!!!!

But the truly sad thing about self-described “hip companies” –  red bull, nike, apple et al – is that they mistake the single-minded pursuit of profit for hipness.

Judging by the photos I found on Salzburg Austria’s twitter feed they lost Wednesday’s match with the latest bastard child of red bull. This result means that we’ve all lost.

Are you a football fan or a potential criminal?

It looks like some football clubs and the police have difficulty telling the difference sometimes. Here are Brighton and Hove Albion’s ticketing arrangements for the play-off semi-finals;

Play-Off Semi-Final: Away Leg

 PUBLISHED 11:00 2nd May 2013

by Will Jago

Following the final league game of the season, tickets for Albion’s Championship play-off semi-final away leg will be on sale to supporters with 1,260+ loyalty points from 8pm on Saturday 4 May – online only.

 

The club expect the fixtures to take place on the following dates:

 

In the event of playing Nottingham Forest

Thursday 9 May – Nottingham Forest v Albion, kick-off 7.45pm

Sunday 12 May – Albion v Nottingham Forest, kick-off 12.45pm

 

In the event of playing Crystal Palace/Bolton Wanderers

Friday 10 May – Crystal Place/Bolton Wanderers v Albion, kick-of 7.45pm

Monday 13 May – Albion v Crystal Palace/Bolton Wanderers, kick-off 7.45pm

 

On Sale Dates

 

	Online	Ticketline
1,260+ Loyalty Points	8pm, Saturday 4th May	10am, Monday 6th May
1,150+ Loyalty Points	1pm, Monday 6th May	9.30am, Tuesday 7th May

 

Supporters are advised that tickets will be available to purchase online and by calling the ticketline on 0844 327 1901 in the timeframes indicated above. Tickets will NOT be available to buy in person at the Amex Stadium or Queens Road ticket offices.

 

All tickets are subject to availability. Albion will receive an allocation of approximately 2,000 tickets for the away leg and visiting supporters to the Amex will receive a similar allocation in the corresponding fixture.

 

In the event of playing Crystal Palace in the semi-finals, the following conditions of sale have been agreed by the two clubs, the Metropolitan Police and Sussex Police:

 

1. You must be a season ticket holder to purchase a ticket and only one ticket will be available per season ticket holder.

2. Your details and seat number will be made available to Crystal Palace FC, the Metropolitan Police and Sussex Police.

3. The ticket may only be used by the purchaser.

4. All away fans must carry a separate document which confirms their identity.

5. You agree to hand over your ticket and identity document for examination by a police officer or steward at the stadium or en route to or from the stadium.

6. Failure to produce the ticket and an identity document for examination will result in refusal of entry to the match and any future matches this season.

7. There will be a one year exclusion for anyone who is found to have handed over or sold a ticket to any other person.

8. There will be a one year exclusion for anyone who is found in possession of a ticket issued to another person.

Charming, isn’t it? Treated like a potential criminal, or a citizen of an occupied country, because you want to go to football match.

The last two conditions of sale seem particularly draconian. Imagine that you bought a ticket but then suffered an acute attack of food poisoning the night before the match. Of course you can’t risk going you don’t want to rush to the toilet along a crowded row. However you don’t want your ticket to go to waste and your brother is a lapsed fan you give it to him. Your brother is very happy and goes to the match with a smile on his face!! Then he gets caught in unauthorised possession of a football ticket and both of you earn one year bans. 

In short both of you end up with a one year ban because you were nice to your brother. 

Some matches involving Bangor City

Welsh Schools FA U18s 2 Scottish Schools FA U18s 0

Centenary Shield

15/3/13

Turning up at Nantporth without knowing anything about either team feels quite odd. In other news, it was cold, the match kicked off 20 minutes late, Wales were unquestionably the better side and I left early to catch a train.

 

XXX XXX XXXXXX X Bangor City 0

Welsh Premier League

16/3/13

A match happened on this afternoon.

Prestatyn Town P Bangor City P

Welsh Premier League

23/3/13

We had snow.

Bangor City 3 Port Talbot Town 3

Welsh Premier League

30/3/13

Bangor earned a point with a last minute equalizer and as Port Talbot were generally the better side we did well to earn the point. Brooks, Port Talbot’s captain, looks like a good player. Unfortunately he also seems to be a bit of a pantomime villain.

The trouble with pantomime villains is their unquenchable thirst for notoriety. Brooks showed us the full gamut; a little bit of a dive for a penalty, a touch of needless aggression, a bit of pointless exaggeration followed by a miraculous recovery and a cheeky smile at the baying crowd before rounding it with off with a soupcon of badge kissing as if he thought we disliked Port Talbot Town instead of his behaviour.

I missed seeing Nigel and the boys again.

Bangor City 1 XXX XXX XXXXXX X

Welsh Cup Semi-Final

6/4/13

A match happened on this afternoon.

Prestatyn Town o Bangor City 1

Welsh Premier League

9/4/13

Prestatyn lost. Ha ha Gibbo.

Bangor City 2 Carmarthen Town 0

Welsh Premier League

13/4/13

Carmarthen Town appear to be managed by a tosser and represented by dirty twats. They lost, ha ha!

Airbus UK Broughton 2 Bangor City 0

Welsh Premier League

20/4/13

We could’ve gone up to second place today. We could’ve been in the Europa League place. But we lost so we stayed third. Unless we win by 23-0 next week Airbus will be in Europe.  Sadly, the spectre of racial abuse cast a shadow over today.

Rhyl P Bangor City P

North Wales Coast FA Challenge Cup Semi-Final

24/4/13

There should have been a match but there wasn’t. This was due to some rubbish about a second appeal from Meliden, the club that Bangor beat in the quarter final.

Bangor City 1 XXX XXX XXXXXX X

Welsh Premier League

27/4/13  

A match happened on this afternoon.

Rhyl 4 Bangor City 0

North Wales Coast FA Challenge Cup Semi-Final

30/4/13

The match was finally on. Bangor played their reserves, Rhyl didn’t. The Rhyl fans sang their anti-Bangor songs like the match mattered, it didn’t.

Vested Interests versus Investigative Journalism

Last night I watched a BBC programme called “The Editors” because I knew that David Bond,  the BBC’ News’ Sports editor, would be answering his self-penned question; “Has something gone seriously wrong with football?” The programme’s misleading adverts meant that I thought he’d have an hour to highlight issues that have been ignored by the media. I was looking forward opinions, expertise and experience of one of the BBC’s top journalists.

From what I saw (not all of the show I must add) The Editors consists of several short pieces that only provide slightly more detail than the ordinary news. I didn’t quite know what Bond was hoping to achieve with his piece but he didn’t get to the heart of the matter, or even scratch the surface for that matter, so watching his piece was quite frustrating. Mind you I should have realised that it was going to be like this; I read the article that Bond wrote on the BBC website – “Has the evolution of the beautiful game been for better or worse?” – a few hours before.

As soon as I read the title I already had an answer; “The evolution of the beautiful game has been for better and worse with the emphasis on the latter” There are more world-class players in England’s top division now but you have to pay extortionate amounts to watch them. Here’s the article;

Has the evolution of the beautiful game been for better or worse?

English football has never been more popular, more powerful or more wealthy.

In the space of just two decades the Premier League has transformed the way the game is played, watched and run in this country.

Run-down grounds have been turned into shiny, all-seater stadiums with megastores and restaurants serving three-course meals and fine wines.

More women and children are going to games and, apart from Millwall’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley two weeks ago, crowd trouble inside stadiums is extremely rare.

I remember when things were very different. In the 1980s, when I started watching football, most grounds were clapped out old relics. All fenced-in terraces and stands with corrugated roofs. The atmosphere could often be sinister and forbidding.

The experience of watching a game in this country is now, happily, unrecognisable from those days. The Hillsborough disaster forced the game to change and fans now enjoy a much more comfortable and enjoyable experience.

And yet there is still a nagging sense that something has been lost. That in the rush to cash in on the economic boom of the 1990s clubs left their core audience behind.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on a film for BBC News: The Editors programme on how the national game has changed.

I met parents and children at a junior football game in Bracknell. I got up at the crack of dawn to travel from Manchester to Wembley with 10 bus loads of Man City fans bound for their club’s FA Cup semi-final with Chelsea. And I went to Germany’s industrial heartland to see the head of Borussia Dortmund, one of the powerhouses of the resurgent Bundesliga.

Everyone I spoke to was full of admiration for what the Premier League and English football had achieved in recent times. But all said they had concerns – whether it was over ticket prices, players failing in their role as role models or owners exploiting supporters.

Hans Joachim Watzke, the chief executive of Dortmund, says clubs like his ensure fans feel a part of the club by involving them as members. Thanks to the 50 plus one rule, no one businessman or company can take control of German clubs. He believes the English ownership model leads to fans being treated as clients and has killed the romance of the game.

Other people I spoke to during my filming for the programme talked of a disconnect between the very top of the game and the grassroots.

As players have got richer and richer so there is a perception, it seems, that they are out of touch with the people who help pay their wages.

As the playing talent has got richer – earning on average £1m a year in the Premier League – so ticket prices have gone up again and again to help pay the bills for such talent.

Even as television has poured unprecedented amounts of money into the game – the next round of three-year TV deals could break through the £5bn barrier for the first time – ticket prices have continued to rise. In fact since the start of the Premier League in 1992 tickets have gone up several times the rate of inflation.

This has led to a shift in the demographics of football’s supporter base with many fans from the game’s traditional working class heartland now priced out. With so many live games on TV, lots of supporters choose to watch in the pub or at home instead of paying for a season ticket.

The Premier League argues that if ticket pricing was such an issue then crowds would have fallen. Instead, it points out the opposite is true with attendances rising by 60% since 1992. Grounds in the old First Division were only 70% full at the time of the Premier League breakaway. Now the number is almost 95%.

The League says that its member clubs “price according to demand”, an unfettered free market approach which ensures they can maximise revenue and profits which in turn can be spent on improving facilities and on developing and buying new talent. They also insist that cheaper or subsidised tickets would only lead to an explosion in touting which would rob the clubs of valuable income and leave genuine fans paying even more money.

But by allowing the market alone to decide the cost of watching football there is undoubtedly a risk that clubs will alienate their traditional fanbase and a younger generation of supporters will be lost.

What’s more, treating fans purely as consumers fails to take into account the special connection they have with their club. Or the fact that a supporter of one club can’t simply walk down the road and follow another team if they aren’t happy with the prices or the team on offer.

This is where treating football as any other product falls down. There is something different about being a fan of a club. It comes with an emotional attachment that is quite simply different to going to watch a concert or a film.

These arguments are well rehearsed. And it is, of course, a giant leap to blame all of English football’s problems on the business model which drives the game. Economics can’t be held responsible for players who bite their opponents, for example.

But the media money has brought with it intense levels of scrutiny for all those involved in the sport. Set against that level of attention and expectation is it any wonder so many come up short?

The smallest of incidents can be horribly distorted – a side effect of being the most popular sport in the age of social media and 24-hour news.

And yet for all its popularity, there is a sense that football has lost touch. It was a sentiment best summed up by a judge, Justice Leonard, at the end of the Harry Redknapp tax evasion trial last year.

“Football,” he said, “is a sport which has become so commercial, it may be thought by some to have rather lost its way.”

English football’s journey from the dark old days of the 70s and 80s has unquestionably brought great progress. But not all the changes have been for the better.

David Bond’s film on how English football has changed will be shown on BBC News: The Editors on BBC One, Monday 29 April at 23:15 BST.

There’s nothing wrong with parts of the article because at some point there’s an implication that something is obviously wrong with this situation;

“The League says that its member clubs “price according to demand”, an unfettered free market approach which ensures they can maximise revenue and profits which in turn can be spent on improving facilities and on developing and buying new talent. They also insist that cheaper or subsidised tickets would only lead to an explosion in touting which would rob the clubs of valuable income and leave genuine fans paying even more money.”

I had to read the last sentence – “They also insist that cheaper or subsidised tickets would only lead to an explosion in touting which would rob the clubs of valuable income and leave genuine fans paying even more money.” – several times just to make sure I fully understood the enormity of the point. The powers that be actually expect us to accept a weasel answer like that.

While parts of the article were fine I didn’t like its general thrust. Firstly he labelled fans as football’s “core audience” then he employed trite clichés;

Statement 1 – “treating fans purely as consumers fails to take into account the special connection they have with their club. Or the fact that a supporter of one club can’t simply walk down the road and follow another team if they aren’t happy with the prices or the team on offer…….”

Statement 2 – “…….In the 1980s, when I started watching football, most grounds were clapped out old relics. All fenced-in terraces and stands with corrugated roofs. The atmosphere could often be sinister and forbidding.”

Statement 1 is not only a cliché, it’s plainly wrong, Football has always created feelings of connection to a club or a stadium but football wasn’t always as partisan as it is now. For example, a member of my Dad’s old quiz team was a Liverpool fan from Wallasey but he would also go and watch Everton if Everton were at home and Liverpool were away.

Bond stated the following with absolute certainty;

“….Or THE FACT that a supporter of one club can’t simply walk down the road and follow another team if they aren’t happy with the prices or the team on offer”

Fans may not change their minds on products like a grocery shopper but they can change their minds about their clubs given the right circumstances, for example alienated Manchester United formed FC United;

How does he explain the creation AFC Wimbledon, or the Cardiff fans that have refused to countenance the re-brand? What about any fans that doesn’t feel part of “their” clubs’ any more? People shape history as much as history shapes people and fans are not merely willing dupes ready for exploitation, they know when things aren’t to their liking.

Was Statement 2 his actual experience, or the experience of most fans, or is it just another of contemporary society’s clichéd remembrances? While there was undoubtedly a bit more “aggro” in the 1980s, can we say that the atmosphere was “sinister and forbidding” in every ground at all times? It’s also odd that he picked “stands with corrugated roofs” as some kind of signifier of football decrepitude when most of the “fantastic new grounds” are clad in corrugated metal sheets.

There is another false idea in the article; football “comes with an emotional attachment that is quite simply different to going to watch a concert or a film.” Football is no more special than anything else and I say this as a football fan.

People can become engrossed in anything, they can emotional about anything if they’re interested enough in it, whether this is watching soap operas, collecting first editions or visiting art galleries. Who’s to say that these interests are less worthy than a football fan’s interests? Would the person that finds a first edition after a twenty year search feel less joy than the football fan that’s just seen his club win a semi-final?

To say that a football fan has more emotional attachment to his interest than a film buff or a massive music fan is to misunderstand the relationships people have with film and music. A lot of people hear their most cherished piece of music, close their eyes and bask in a favourite memory. When a person really likes a band their attachment to their music is not a simple logical decision, it’s an emotional decision. If you do think people elicit emotional responses from films then seek out the thoughts of Mark Kermode and Phillp French.

The worst thing about Bond’s work is the way his views are packaged. Outwardly he seeks to challenge the status quo by highlighting problems – “players are out of touch with the people who help pay their wages” …….” a disconnect between the very top of the game and the grassroots”. – but all he does is justify the existence of the problems that besiege modern football.

In both the film and the article Bond employs the “football was dying on its feet in the 1980s” thesis. By meekly accepting subtext of this thesis  – “Football stopped being horrible when Sky’s money arrived” – Bond is stating that we have to accept present day football as it is and not challenge it – “Don’t dare criticise the transformative power of Sky’s money for it is a pancea!!!”

In other words, Bond seeks to attack the status quo by using precisely the same argument that vested interests like Sky use to justify their behaviour.

Bond totally submits to the viewpoint of the vested interests’, despite talking of a “disconnect between the very top of the game and the grassroots”  he managed to interview members of “The Prawn Sandwich Brigade” without challenging the principle of paying £1000s of pounds for football-based hospitality. By stating that football fans have some kind of quasi-religious attachment to their club he prostrates himself before the logic of Sky TV, where “Football is the most important thing ever!”

In fact Bond not only submits to the viewpoint of the vested interests, he explicitly shifts the blame for alienation of fans away from them ;

“And it is, of course, a giant leap to blame all of English football’s problems on the business model which drives the game. Economics can’t be held responsible for players who bite their opponents, for example.”

How can an inquisitive journalist fail to make the connection between the alienation of people from football and the impact of vested interests?

Bond should have spent more time asking basic questions such as; Why did a media corporation want to get involved in football in the first place? Why is that media corporation willing to inject obscene amounts of money in to the sport? Does the media corporation employ forensic coverage in the press and on 24 hour news channels to create spectacle and therefore demand for its product?

Beware fluff masquerading as hard-hitting journalism.

I wandered lonely as an unused subsitute

If ever a picture has hinted that the season is over it’s this one.

Oh how forlorn the sock-tape looks amongst the stud marks of an end of season technical area;

Righteous football

FC United of Manchester 1 Chorley 3

Northern Premier League

9/3/13

Today I was finally going to watch an FC United home match and naturally I was quite excited. I was so excited I pranced around Piccadilly Gardens taking photos of the stickers that football fans leave behind on street furniture. On the train to Manchester I decided that the picture taking came somewhere between documenting social history and an art project, at the least I thought it would be interesting.

People are funny aren’t they? They live in a city full of people acting “strangely” but show them a person taking photos of the stickers that football fans leave on street furniture and watch the incredulous expressions appear. Then again who cares what “other people” think? Who cares how they look at you. “Other people” are the sort of people that are too busy downloading music to visit actual music shops.

I saw a lot of “other people” today; the downloaders had descended on a HMV closing down sale like a plague of locusts. I bought a copy of the Socialist Worker outside the Arndale Centre to even up my karmic balance for being part of a society that spawned this. I also know what it’s like to stand in the blistering cold with a paper in one hand, a petition in the other and silent indifference for company.

I went for a brief look for a mother’s day gift and paid a quick visit to the National Football Museum Shop to see if they had the latest issue of A Fine Lung (They didn’t) before boarding the tram for Bury.

I’ve been to three matches in Europe in a tram (In Graz, Vienna and Helsinki) and I’ve been to West Brom on the tram and let me tell you, there’s nothing finer than pulling up outside a ground in a tram and getting out. More cities should reintroduce trams as it’s the only true way for football fans to travel to matches. Cars, buses and train are all fine and dandy but there’s nothing like the majesty of tram travel.

Yes, there’s nothing like tram travel. even if your modern British tram is basically a smaller version of a train, even if the tram  leaves you miles from where you actually want to get to. Fortunately, I was so excited about finally going to FC United I didn’t care about the 15 minute walk to Gigg Lane.

After a bit of research, and help from a few FC fans I know thanks to twitter, I knew that there was something on in FC United’s social club –  “Cause You Can Malcolm”. I wanted to be there when everything was kicking off, at about 1 o’clock, but unfortunately I didn’t get to Gigg Lane until about ten past two, which was still enough time to buy a badge and the latest edition of A Fine Lung.

Let’s deal with the football first.  Unfortunately FC United lost but that’s football for you, sometimes even the righteous don’t win.  I knew what I was going to get, I’ve seen Colwyn Bay enough times, and it was typical Northern Premier League stuff. I didn’t really go for the football anyway.

I love the political edge to FC United; the co-operative status of the club, the feelings expressed on flags and the different way of doing things. For example International Womens’ Day happened this week so the match programme was dedicated to the idea of a “woman’s place is…at the match” (there was also a display in Malcolmses.) I love the FC United way, here’s two more small examples of it; the pre-match entertainment was an Irish tinged punk band and an announcer reads out the teams in the style of John Cooper Clarke rather than John Motson. You can stuff your tinny tannoy.

The next great thing about a visit to an FC United is hearing the song book. The cornucopia of songs is marked by sheer quantity and the  inventiveness is truly impressive. There’s no off the peg Soccer AM shite at FC. Every song is different.. From the joyous I am an FC fan  to the “And Fergie said” (or at least that’s what I think I heard) ”This Badge Is Your Badge” (or at least that’s what I think I heard) “When FC United go out to play” . It was great to finally hear a proper version of Sloop John B, as I’d only seen it performed in a train carriage on You tube;

There are too many songs to list here but I liked them all.

The biggest thing I took from today was the friendliness of people. I turned up at Malcolmeses and just started talking to a bloke about the ”Colwyn Bay Reds” flag on the wall. Before long we were having a conversation about the pubs of Old Colwyn and the standards of non-league attendances. I was also welcomed by the mate of this bloke. It’s the first time I’ve gone to a ground as a stranger and been greeted with “It’s good to see you” followed by a shake of the hand. On the terraces, everyone was polite, and I mean everyone. No-one pushed in to you or past you. Mind you I have come to expect this level on manners in northern cities.

Looking For Eric, and everything I’ve read, hadn’t prepared me for just how wonderful the experience of watching FC United is. I think I may have found a football second home.

 

Celtic 4 Aberdeen 3

Scottish Premier League

16/3/13

This week I was finally going to Celtic Park for a proper match so for the second Saturday in a row I was very excited.

The excitement built from the moment I began the process of buying tickets; Celtic’s ticket booking page gives you the ability to see the view from your ticket. I could already taste the atmosphere. I thought about advertising Bangor with the “Bangor is an Energy” flag.

I was halfway through booking the train tickets when I had the misfortune to read an annoying email. The email told me that the WPL fixture planners had moved Bangor’s away match with XXX XXX XXXXXX from Sunday 17^th to Saturday 16^th. At first I panicked then I remembered that I’d been looking for excuse not to give them money, fate was telling me to go to Celtic, especially as I had already paid for a ticket and half my journey. After I bought the other half of my train journey all I had to do for a couple of weeks was sit and wait.

When today finally arrived I couldn’t believe I was finally on a train up to Glasgow to see Celtic. I was going to see the great Celtic FC on a Saturday!!! This has seemed an impossibly exotic thing since I was young. To add to my sense of childhood wonder it started snowing when we reached Scotland and it’s always nice to see snow.

Unfortunately it was raining in Glasgow when the train arrived. If you look weird taking photos of the stickers that football fans leave on street furniture in dry conditions, imagine how weird people you look if you take photos of the stickers that football fans leave on street furniture when it’s raining.

Rain is a bit of bastard really, it’s not only the sworn enemy of stylish footwear it turns Glasgow’s pavements in to slippery devils. North Waleans aren’t supposed to be too bothered about a little rain but I strode on, unsure of my footing and worried about the effect of rain on yellow suede. Then I didn’t find the DVDs I wanted in Fopp, or footwear ideas in size?, then I couldn’t buy the badge I wanted in Calton books, and Robert wasn’t behind the counter in Calton Books so I couldn’t have a chat, and it was still raining. I really hope the revolution happens on a sunny day.

I love the hustle and bustle of a city. I love hearing accents. Even though it was raining I felt happy when I overheard three Glaswegians having a conversation;

“Did ya see that thing on the telly last night?”

–          “Oh aye, there were these two cunts on it…”

Thanks to Still Game, Rab C. Nesbitt and listening to Billy Connolly’s albums on family car journeys in the 1980s I’ve developed a particular love for the Glaswegian accent, or “Glasgow patter” as I believe it’s called. I love it’s lyrical flow and the way it makes things sound a bit more vibrant. The train guard’ Glaswegian lilt made ”Got a ticket pal?” sound far, far nicer than an effete  “Have you got a ticket sir?”

Just after I bought the Celtic ticket I decided that I needed to experience a bit of proper Glaswegian culture, I took this to mean I needed to have a couple of pints before the match. On the way to the pub I went in a very well-stocked shop, a shop that’s probably well-known by those that go to Celtic Park. My lasting impression of this shop was the weird badge display, half Che Guevara badges / half papal badges. I should be glad that Che Guevara seems to be an image that’s been adopted by fans but in this context any political message had been neutered for commercial gain. I realise that not all shops are like Calton Books but this shop appears to be taking the piss.

Anyway back to the pub….I found a nice looking pub,  The Drover Arms, when I went to Glasgow in the summer but I didn’t feel like I had the time to stop. Today I knew that I had to make up so I went in. I wasn’t disappointed, what attentive staff!! Drying off nicely, a pint in front of me, the air filled with proper banter and fitba on the telly, I finally felt like I was in Glasgow proper.

It was still drizzling when I left the pub; this was alright as I was now dry. By the time I’d walked to ground, bought a couple of fanzines, had a look around the ground I was sopping wet again.

It’s always nice to encounter stewards that are helpful, friendly and chatty as they’re so much nicer than the jobsworth twats with their “You can’t stand there, you can’t take photos, we’re not here to have fun so we’ll make sure that you don’t” sort of approach. I found a friendly steward as soon as I saw that my ticket couldn’t be used; my seat was in the taped off first two rows. The steward just said “I’m Sorry aye, you can just sit at the top of the stand, it’s a bit steep up there I hope you don’t mind” What a novel approach!

I looked at the section of the ground where the Green Brigade congregates and saw a lot of people in black t-shirts with white symbols on them. When I saw a few people in black t-shirts outside the ground I thought they might have been the Green Brigade, it appears that I was correct. I couldn’t make out the slogan on the front of the t-shirt outside the ground but I didn’t have to wait long to find out what the slogans were thanks to the Green Brigade’s giant banners. I don’t know the precise details of the problems that the Green Brigade were experiencing but to my untrained eyes it seems as though there was a bit of victimisation afoot.

The match started with the fastest goal I’ve ever seen; about ten seconds. The bloke sat near was rather happy about this, after sharing a few celebratory words I had someone to chat to for the rest of the match.  It was a good job I had someone to chat with as not much happened in the next twenty minutes. For some reason I’d brought another coat with me and thank god I did as it began to feel rather cold in my lofty position. I had to wear my hat and ancient Celtic scarf as well.

The friendly steward kept popping up to see me, or it may have been my new friend as they seemed quite friendly. Each visit involved a snippet of conversation,  a smile and friendly gesture. This bonhomie almost made me feel as though I was involved with Celtic, well as much as a total outsider can feel involved.  I’d been led to believe that all the humane and personable stewards has been phased out in favour of private security operatives, I’d been grossly deceived.

The crowd was a bit smaller than I envisaged. I tried to ask my new friend why; “Was it due to the lack of Rangers, or boredom with the league’s format?” but instead of answering my new friend sighed loudly. I looked at the pitch and saw an Aberdeen player running through the area with the ball, in another second the ball was in the Celtic goal. There were no more goals before half time.

During half time the cold really got to me and not even our friendly steward could help, or cheer me up. I was cold, the rain was pelting the roof, Celtic were drawing and I sat there, unable to hear the half time announcements and records properly, all I could do was hope for a small crumb of good news. Then I noticed that Alwyn texted me half an hour before to tell me that Bangor were losing 3-0.

The second half went from bad to worse for my new friend. Aberdeen not only somehow took the lead, they went further ahead. Celtic may not have been their fluent best, there many mishit passes and shots, but I couldn’t see how they deserved to be two goals behind. Sadly it didn’t look Celtic would find their way back in to the match as they continued to mishit passes.

When the Celtic fans began to moan it wasn’t an unpleasant sound as there was a glorious rhythm and echo to it all, “That’s shite Celtic, utter shite……………. Aw c’mon this is pish Celtic…………. Aw that cunt is fucking useless.” Not that everyone was annoyed to swearing levels. The friendly steward’s demeanour merely looked a little forced and my new friend called the display “mince” and warned me that this is what Celtic have been like this season; “Good one week, Mince the next”.

He then pointed at the jubilent Aberdeen fans and said “See them, their journey home will be as long as yours” I would have fallen in to a reverie about the views from Scotland’s roads but another text from Alwyn  stopped me; XXX XXX XXXXXX had beaten Bangor 6-0. This was sadly unsurprising, something told me that we wouldn’t win when we were 3-0 down.

When things are going badly everything looks terrible but then you’re in a negative frame of mind and it’s a natural assumption. Football may often looks hopeless but sometimes it only takes a lead reducing goal to make everything feel positive again. Amidst the wailing and gnashing my new friend remained sanguine; “All we need is a goal and we’ll be back in it”. I knew he was right.

And lo, my new friend was proven correct; about 10 minutes after Aberdeen’s third Celtic scored their second goal. A goal in circumstances that look so so bleak always feels better.  Celtic then began to exert a little pressure, at first the usual frenzy of desire made an Celtic equaliser feel imminent but as usual the further we went from Celtic’s second goal the less effect the frenzy had, in the end a Celtic equaliser still looked far away.

Then the football miracle of all football miracles happened; Celtic equalised when someone’s shot, probably Charlie Mulgrew’s, was deflected past Aberdeen’s keeper. I couldn’t quite believe it. For my new friend, this was enough, he’d been proved right and this was enough; “It’ll stay at 3 each. Have a safe journey home!!!” I made my way to the exit as well but something told me I needed to carry on watching the match so I hung around the bottom of the steps.

This time I was right and my new friend was wrong, it didn’t stay at 3 each. Giorgios Samaras, who’d made an incisive impact since entering the fray as “a midway through the half substitute”, scored an injury time winner by hooking the ball over his head.

Injury time winners are the great levelers of football, whether you’re a fan of a less than glamourous club or fan of a world famous giant the feeling is the same. I wouldn’t quite call what was happening around me “Pandemonium” but there was a lot of embracing. The friendly steward even embraced me and wished me a fond farewell.

I walked quickly to the city centre with a spring in my step, what a match, what a finish. I was quite drained by the time I was sitting on my train seat, but it was a good tired. I didn’t even care that the sight of my ancient Celtic scarf had caused a drunk wanker to sing “The famine’s over, why don’t you go home?” at me outside the station. I was quite happy, and this was before I’d found out that Wales had stopped the public schoolboys winning a grand slam.

Fixture congestion ain’t fun

The next time you hear people moaning about players playing too many games in a short space of time spare a thought for Guernsey FC, even if they have signed Matt Le Tissier;

“Matt Le Tissier makes Guernsey FC debut in defeat

Former England forward Matt Le Tissier made his Guernsey FC debut in their 4-2 defeat by Colliers Wood United.

The 44-year-old came on for the last 10 minutes as Guernsey played the 11th of 16 games scheduled for April as they battle through a fixture pile-up.

“In all honesty, while it might be exciting for the fans, it’s not a good sign for us,” Guernsey assistant boss Colin Fallaize told BBC Guernsey.

“It means we were struggling to get a squad together.”

Le Tissier is an honorary president of the club and made 541 appearances for Southampton, winning eight caps for England.

He was registered by Guernsey earlier this season, despite not having played a professional game since 2002.

Fallaize added: “Matt’s as good as gold and travelled down to help us out with squad numbers, but, as Matt would also say himself, it’s not a good sign that he’s there as it means we’re in trouble numbers-wise.

Guernsey face three games in as many days between Friday 26 and Sunday 28 April as they try and get through a backlog of games caused by the combination of the club’s run to the semi-final of the FA Vase and wet weather which meant their Footes Lane ground was unplayable for much of December, January and February.

Matt Loaring hit the crossbar early on for Guernsey before Alex Le Prevost gave them a 19th-minute lead.

Colliers Wood equalised after 37 minutes before Loaring put the Green Lions back in front 60 seconds later.

But the home side levelled two minutes before half-time and went ahead 11 minutes after the break.

They completed their win with a 72nd-minute goal which means second-placed Guernsey remain 18 points off Combined Counties Premier Division leaders Egham Town with five games in hand.

“At the moment, we’re a little bit below par and mentally and physically weary and other teams are up for it,” Fallaize said.

“It was the first time in a long time that we’ve lost back-to-back games and we’ve got to find a way to pull ourselves out of it.”

But Fallaize says something must be done to prevent fixture pile-ups.

Guernsey will play 20 league games between the start of April and 6 May, including four in a row over the Bank Holiday weekend.

“It’s ridiculous, but that’s the nature of the beast. That’s the way it’s fallen on our plate and we have to deal with it,” he added.

“I think it’s a ridiculous situation and any organisation that runs football should have a look at it.”

 Here’s the fixture list in full

April
01 Mo 13:00	League	Away	Windsor
05 Fri 19:45	League	Away	South Park
06 Sat 19:45	League	Home	Cove
07 Su 13:30	League	Home	Camberley Town
09 Tue 19:45	League	Away	Farnham Town
12 Fri 19:45	League	Home	Horley Town
14 Sun 13:30	League	Home	Raynes Park Vale
16 Tue 19:30	League	Away	Hanworth Villa
18 Thu 19:45	League	Away	Badshot Lea
20 Sat 19:45	League	Home	Hanworth Villa
21 Su 13:30	League	Home	Chess. & Hook Utd
24 We 19:30	League	Away	Colliers Wood United
26 Fri 19:45	League	Home	Ash United
27 Sat 17:30	League	Home	Molesey
28 Su 13:30	League	Home	Sandhurst Town
30 Tue 19:45	League	Away	Bedfont Sports
May
03 Fri 19:45	League	Home	Dorking
04 Sat 15:00	League	Home	Hartley Wintney
05 Su 13:30	League	Home	Epsom & Ewell
06 Mo 13:00	League	Home	Farnham Town

Not only do they seem to be playing every other day for just over a month there are four weekends where they have to play matches on consecutive days, two erstwhile unbelievable weekends when they have to play three matches and one really unbelievable weekend when they have to play four matches. I’ve never seen anything like this, even after this Sunday Guernsey still have 5 league matches left. 

I can imagine the tired limbs and the minds cursing the Combined Counties League. This league obviously wants to finish its matches on the May bank holiday weekend but in the light of Guernsey’s pitch problems and cup success you wonder how they can be so inflexible. It’s not like the Combined Counties League don’t have the power to allow the season run for a couple more weeks is it?

We still exist up here you know!

Yesterday Michel Platini and Wales’ first minister opened Dragon Park, near Newport, as this BBC photo shows;

You can read about it as well – “Michel Platini praises Welsh facilities but insists nation does not have infrastructure to host Champions League final“. When I saw the news coverage of the opening I remembered a blog post that my friend Phil wrote just over two years ago;

“The Southification of Welsh Football

There are many good reasons why Newport has been chosen as the site for the new FAW National Football Centre. The FAW had the support of the local council; the City stands in an area of dense population, and the area is close to the main offices of the FAW, close to international match venues, and benefiting from a good transport infastructure. Newport is a worthy choice for the FAW, who had been through a process of “rigorous testing of a number of potential sites across South Wales.”

Get that? “Across South Wales“.

Politically, Welsh authorities have been advocating a policy of decentralisation in a United Kingdom context for almost 15 years. Ironically, when it comes to our own country, we are more than keen to embrace that Centralisation which we claim to oppose. And while the Cardiff area thrives with nationalised investment across a range of sports, the north is being isolated, ignored and neglected.

Until 1986, the FAW headquarters were in Wrexham. They had been there ever since the foundation of the association in 1876. Football in this country was introduced by north-Walians, and played exclusively by north-Walians until mass immigration in the industrial south brought with it thousands of football-mad Englishmen. But gradually, since wrestling control of the game away from its historical cradle, the South-Walian influenced FAW has started to follow rugby’s path with its systematic isolation of the northern half of the country.

Let’s look at match venues. The last senior competitive game in the north was in 1999. The last senior Welsh friendly international to be held in Wrexham was over three years ago, against Norway in February 2008. Since that occasion, Wales have played thirteen home games, in a fifty-five mile stretch between Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli. Representative games at all levels are only occasionally held away from the M4 corridor.  The Welsh Cup Final has found a permanent home in a Llanelli rugby stadium, handicapping finallists Bangor City with a six hour journey for the past two years against local teams.

Aberystwyth has suffered too from centralisation. The Welsh International Super Cup  (Ian Rush tournament) has been held in Aber for the past twenty three years on the immaculate surfaces of the University Fields. It has gained a world-wide reputation and has become a fixture in the Aberystwyth calendar. But no more – from 2011, the tournament has been moved to Cardiff.

It would be churlish to oppose the fantastic new football facility which will benefit elite players across Wales. But if I told you that the young academy players at Bangor City will be training on the concrete car park of their privately-financed new stadium, or that the nearest 3G pitch is 2 hours away from Anglesey, at Wrexham FC, you may understand why north-Walians raise an eyebrow when they see another large investment in an area already rich with facilities. The lack of public pitches in Gwynedd is shameful, and the poverty of facilities across the county is set to worsen with the rumoured closure of local Leisure Centres.

The excuse that population density in the north did not allow the FAW to even investigate the possibilities of a central or northern site does not make sense. This is an elite facility intended for sportsmen and women drawn from across the country – the size of the surrounding population is irrelevent. The Italian National Football Centre is situated at Coverciano, 3 hours away from Rome. The English National Football centre will be sited at Burton on Trent, not in London. And here’s a thought – maybe there should be a responsibility on national bodies to assist the economy of the most vulnerable areas of the country by siting any new facilities in areas of low opportunity which are increasingly suffering from depopulation.

It would be easy to dismiss my arguments as the whining complaints of an Gog, but the FAW are in danger of disenfranchising an area of the country where football is traditionally the dominant sport. Midweek and Friday international games already make it difficult for north-Walians to follow our national side. The selection of south-Walian venues for minor representative games and domestic finals is another kick in the teeth. And now with a National Football Centre in Newport, the southification of football in Wales is almost complete.”

I don’t doubt the need for some kind of national academy, or football centre, as I’m sure that Dragon Park could help Wales’ national teams prepare in a better way or something. I can’t really criticise the location as practically speaking roughly two thirds of Wales’ population (may be incorrect at the time of publishing) live around and along the Swansea – Cardiff – Newport axis. Its location is probably more convenient for passing football dignitaries as well.

Dragon Park isn’t really a problem by itself. Like Phil I’d say that it only becomes a problem because of its part in a disturbing trend; the southification in Welsh football.

We’ve had time to get used to the loss of the FAW’s 110-year old and the lack of qualifying matches, as much as we dislike this  situation these points aren’t really an issue any more.

We know that the world’s oldest surviving international football venue just isn’t good enough for the hoity-toity officials anymore ………… ahem……………. we realize that the Racecourse doesn’t have the requisite standard of changing rooms or press facilities for the modern international game.

We accept that the Racecourse hasn’t even been good enough to host friendlies against such giants of world football as Bosnia, Luxembourg, Georgia or Estonia, in the last five years. We’re all aware of this, we’re used to it. We’re happy that the FAW deign to let us have Under 21 matches and the odd couple of Under 17 friendlies.

Well, we used to be happy.

We probably won’t remain happy for much longer. North Wales now appears unfit to receive crumbs from the table; The last under 21 qualifying match, versus Moldova, took place on the day of Wales’ qualifier in Hampden and was played in Parc-y-Scarlets in Llanelli.

We shouldn’t be surprised, the North’s time in the sun was bound to end. The FAW types are always attracted to the south. For example the FAW may have allowed Wrexham to play host some Under 21s qualifying matches in the last few years but they always played  the  matches against bigger and better countries – France, Italy, the play-off versus England –   in Cardiff or Swansea.

Of course there is a running theme, this summer Wales will host the European Under 19s Womens’ championships and all the matches will be played in south Wales, This year Israel will host the European Under 21s Championship. The FAW tabled a bid to host the tournament and they were going to hold the tournament in south Wales.  To further underline the point, the FAW’s website tells us that teams representing Wales have played 58 home matches in the last three years at all levels (men, women and semi-pro). The website tells us that of those 58 matches 39 were played in south Wales.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that  they choose to schedule qualifying matches for Fridays or their apparently hands-free, and guilt-free, attitude towards Wales’ national football league.

There’s a large irony in Welsh sport at present, the creation of the RGC 1404 regional rugby side and the scheduling of Under 20s six nation matches in Colwyn Bay, indicates that the perpetually southern based Welsh Rugby Union seems to care more about north Wales than the north Wales founded Football Association of Wales.

Shirt spotting at the Snooker World Championships

Today the World Snooker Championships started today. For me this means one thing; football shirt spotting.

It’s not difficult to play along, as you can see……

If you looked at the last three photos and thought that you were seeing things, you weren’t. It probably is the same guy in a succession of Coventry City replica shirts. Actually it’s said that he’s well-known for wearing Coventry shirts at The Crucible; last year he “got down on one knee and popped the question in one of his famous Coventry City  jerseys“.

Anyway, I’ve only watched one session (about two hours worth) and I have already spotted the following club shirts / polo shirts;

• Coventry City (him again?)
• West Ham
• Bury
• Middlesborough
• Leicester
• Tottenham
• Liverpool
• England

I also noticed

• Northampton Saints
• England Rugby

Before you start this new hobby, be warned!!! Within half an hour it starts to feels like you’re spotting provincial flags at an England football international.

Actually, it turns out Thatcher was right

Yesterday, Thatcher’s funeral took place. Yesterday Charles Moore, of the Daily Telegraph, said this;

“Thatcher is reviled in parts of the country that are less important”

I immediately doubted the veracity of this statement but I was a bit hasty, a trainee rabble rouser from the Daily Mail called Graeme Yorke soon put me straight;

Forfar 4 East Fife 5… who cares? I’d rather watch Britain’s Got Talent,  it’s time to ditch the meaningless Scottish classified results (and bin the Welsh ones too!)

And finally…

Bala Town 4 Afan Lido 0

At least that’s what I think the presenter  reading the football results said on the radio about 5.05pm on Saturday evening.

To be honest I’d switched off a long time  before he got to that riveting scoreline.

In fact, as soon as he said ‘Wycombe 2  Aldershot 1’, the final fixture in  League Two on Saturday, football as we know  it was over.

It had nothing to do with the fact that  Aldershot are the club I’ve  supported man and boy and that they are heading for  the Conference. It  had everything to do with the fact that nobody gives a  monkey’s about  results outside the 92 top clubs.

Have you tried listening to the Scottish  results lately? No, neither have I. It’s a complete waste of time. Celtic win  everything now that Rangers  are competing in the Shetland Isles Division Four.  No amount of whisky,  let alone Irn-Bru, could make you think having the full  rundown of  results from north of the border – and Wales, come to think of it –  is  worthwhile. Not even for the fabled Forfar 4 East Fife 5.

I’d rather watch Britain’s Got Talent (can’t  believe I’ve just written  that!) than see meaningless scoreline after  meaningless scoreline pop up on the videprinter. Or listen to the shipping  forecast than hear them  on the wireless.

 What we want is the football of the real  world. In these days of Messi and Ronaldo and the Champions League we need to  know about La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and, now that Becks is just a Channel  hop away, Ligue 1.

It’s time for the Beeb and Sky to realise  there’s a new viewer and/or listener out there. Gone are the days when we all  gathered round the wireless at 5pm on Saturdays to listen to the familiar  introductory music for Sports Report and then the distinctive tones of results readers, John Webster and James  Alexander Gordon.

 Empty seats: The stands are hardly packed for Hamilton  Accies v Falkirk

Anyone interested – there can’t be anyone,  can there? – in how East Stirling, bottom of the Irn-Bru Division Three, got on  against Annan Athletic can easily phone or tweet of one the team’s half-dozen  loyal supporters to find out.

And don’t give me the old line about needing  to give all the results because of football coupons. When was  the last time you  saw someone filling in one?

The move for Scottish independence is to be  welcomed. Cut them adrift and let them have their own results programme and  while we’re at it they can take the Corbett Sports Welsh Premier League results  with them.

They can then drone on about Cowdenbeath and  Stenhousemuir to their Hearts’ content and leave us to soak up the results that  really matter.

So the righties are right, there really are places that are more important than other.

On Tuesday’s, or was it Wednesday’s?, BBC Wales news crusty old Lord Crickhowell told us all that Wales had to suffer the changes that Thatcher lovingly bestowed in order to make Wales a more wonderful place to live. Again I doubted the veracity of the ideas, but then I saw a couple of photos

To think I doubted Lord Crickhowell! Of course you have to jettison the past if you want to develop. You have to realize when your outdated methods have become outdated and are no longer fit for purpose. Outdated methods certainly would not have propelled Cardiff City in to the brave new world would they? Those clinging to outdated methods can complain all they like, it ain’t going to change anything;

Cardiff City weren’t promoted last night. Cardiff City died last summer’

Scott Thomas, who started following Cardiff City during the 1975-76 season, explains why he does not regret walking away from the club last summer – even after promotion

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 April 2013 16.35 BST

Craig Bellamy celebrates Cardiff City’s promotion to the Premier League. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
In the summer of 2012 Cardiff City changed their colours from blue to red. The owner, Vincent Tan, thought the club would thrive on the field and in the Asian market if they played in red and wore a dragon on their shirt.

Some fans were pragmatic enough to accept the changes. They have gone on to enjoy the uptake in the team’s form that culminated in Cardiff City’s promotion to the Premier League on Tuesday night. Other supporters, such as Scott Thomas, thought the bargain was not worth it. After 30 years of following the club, Thomas walked away from Cardiff City last summer. Here he explains his decision.

“I don’t watch Cardiff City games any more but, when I saw a picture of Craig Bellamy holding a red scarf emblazoned with dragons and the word ‘Cardiff’ rather than the club’s proper name, it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. It confirmed that I made the right decision. I was surprisingly sanguine about the promotion. Cardiff City didn’t go up last night; Cardiff City died last summer.

“Seeing fans celebrate on the pitch during a news bulletin felt like watching the plug being pulled from a life-support machine that has been keeping an old relative alive. It was just another day at the office for club I no longer recognise. They are just another team now, not the one I supported for decades.

“I never dreamed that Cardiff City would make it to the top flight and I wouldn’t be there to see it. But the club I supported disappeared when a Malaysian businessman with no previous links to the city and no interest in its football took over Cardiff City and made it literally unrecognisable. The club I followed had history and traditions that went back 100 years, but now its future is subject to the whims of a single man.

“I began supporting the club when my uncle and cousin took me to a match against Sheffield Wednesday in the 1975-76 season. I followed them to over 60 grounds in the fourth, third and second tiers with 25 friends I picked up over the years. I’m proud to say only a few of those guys renewed their season tickets for this season and some of them will not be renewing for next year.

“It was big decision to walk away. Every fan has their own tipping point, but I knew immediately that I couldn’t support a franchise. I wouldn’t support a business like Tesco or Sainsbury’s, and that’s what Cardiff City have become. The club is no longer a community asset; it’s just a football team that happens to play in the city. Cardiff City are one step away from MK Dons.

“Many supporters stayed and many more will join now – people love a bandwagon – but a lot of the old-timers go less regularly and with less passion. More would have left, but a perfect storm of circumstances whipped fans into a demented reaction. They were desperate for success after so many near-misses and couldn’t bear to see Swansea City do so well up the road.

“I hate to admit it – old habits die hard – but Swansea City are a model club in many ways. Fan ownership has to be the way forward, but the Football Association aren’t going protect the historical identity of clubs. The FA are just a booking agent for Wembley Stadium these days, as shown by the announcement of a 5.15pm kick-off time for this year’s Cup final.

“Even the national team are inferior to Premier League clubs now. Owners with money – or the promise of money – can do as they please. The FA didn’t prevent Newcastle from rebranding their stadium and they didn’t save Wimbledon, so they weren’t going to save Cardiff City. We have listed buildings in this country, but football clubs are a free for all.

“I could never support another club, but I’ve enjoyed watching other teams and other sports. I went to Wales’s game in Scotland at Hampden last month, then to the Six Nations at Murrayfield and then to see Rangers play a few days later. Going to the Olympics and Paralympics, as well as rugby and boxing has been refreshing. On balance, it’s better to be away from the venal, soul-destroying situation at Cardiff City.”

Yeah we need to get rid of the people unwilling to adapt, just ask the people behind the scenes in Cardiff. One of them, director Steve Borley , tweeted;

“what a load of cr@p. English press bashing welsh sport time to grow up. 25000 celebrate one sour grape.”

Yeah, take that pygmies of the left! Your principles won’t get no ticket for Old Trafford away.

Thatcher has won, rejoice, rejoice!!!

I’m probably still “the enemy within”

Eight days have passed since the death of Margaret Thatcher and as we all know it’s been eight days jam-packed with fulsome tributes, offended bluster and propagandistic whitewashing.

I hope that you can tell from the opening sentence that I still despise Thatcherism. I hope you tell that I was socialised into despising Thatcher and her abhorrent works – My grandmother couldn’t see Thatcher on TV without uttering the word “bitch”. You may assume that I was very happy last Monday but if I was “happy” it was only a superficial and hollow sort of happiness, the sort of happiness a football fan feels when  their club has lost and they find out their hated rivals have lost.

As much I wanted to celebrate her demise I felt uncomfortable about actually celebrating. Firstly, we’re talking about the death of a frail old woman. Secondly, I find the thought of celebrating anyone’s person’s death a bit ghoulish, I’m the sort of person that felt squeamish when I saw that video of Saddam Hussein being executed on the news. Thirdly, she may have gone but her toxic ideas still constrict British society. Having said this I refuse to judge those that want to celebrate. If people can celebrate Thatcher’s life as a great example to us all then why can’t others take the opposite view in a democracy?

In the last eight days it seems that every Tory with a functioning mind has opined a heartfelt tribute or penned a righteous justification. By the time we reached last week’s Question Time I was sick of the historical whitewash, mind you I’d probably had enough of solemn bullshit within 30 seconds of watching any programme on Monday evening. Whilst I witnessed the stuff pour out I struggled to understand how any of the tribute-makers, especially journalists, could fail to point out the negative side of Thatcher’s work. “Divisive” was as far as the criticism got and Glenda Jackson was subjected to “howls of protest” when she presented a different version of history to the recalled House of Commons.

Last week people not only defended Thatcher they also attacked those that didn’t share enthusiasm for her. “It’s disgraceful!!! Disrespectful!!!!, blah, blah, blah.”…………

“On Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron branded some reaction to the death of Lady Thatcher as “pretty distasteful”.

He went on: “I think the overwhelming sense across the country – and you can see it yesterday in the House of Commons – is that we are mourning the loss of someone who gave a huge amount to this country, an extraordinary leader.”

“Righties” – the press or general head bangers – should never be allowed to claim the moral high ground but that’s especially true at this moment. They don’t seem to care about the human cost of her policies and they’re not above celebrating the deaths of public figures if it suits their agenda.

These double standards were plain to see in Saturday’s edition of Murdoch’s tabloid (I found it on the train to Bangor in case you’re wondering, I didn’t buy the piece of shit). Firstly, the use of “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” as an unofficial anthem is attacked in their inimitable style;

Then the weirdness of an evil regime and how it brainwashes people is described in their inimitable style;

I realise that Thatcher may not have controlled an actual dictatorship but you get the point.

This is the beauty of the British “righties”; they allow the odious, the judgmental and the often discredited –  Louise Mensch, Norman Lamont, Simon Heffer and Bernard Ingham – a platform for prejudice, paranoia and often ridiculous views then cry foul when “lefties” takes the opposite view.

The last week has shown yet again just how much “righties” favour the judgmental broad brush. They absolutely love the creation of nebulous enemies like “The Lefties”, “The Unions”, “The Foreigners”, “The Bureaucrats”, “The Europeans”, “The Liberal Elite”,  “The Football Fans”. Consequently we’ve heard all about Maggie’s victories, especially how “The Lefties” and “The Foreigners” were bested; “She stood up against Europe”………..”She stood up against Argentina”……………. “She stood up against the unions”. No clichés were left unuttered.

The trouble with  “righties” is that they see unjust dictatorships and politically correct compulsion in their enemies then demand that we unthinkingly accept their view of Thatcher.

For example, a couple of rich club owners thought “football” should respect the memory of Thatcher with silences.  They seriously thought that “football” should do this because some right-winders make the extremely questionable claim that  she “saved football from its turmoil of the 1980s and paved the way towards the  all-seat magnificence of the game as it is today” or because they’re club owners and they demanded it. These owners don’t seem to grasp why fans might not respect the legacy of Thatcherism. This short letter about Hillsborough from Bernard Ingham about Hillsborough tells you all you need to know about the Thatcher’s government’s thoughts on football fans;

“Righties” don’t seem to have thought much about why “Lefties” are so horrified by Thatcher, or why they doesn’t respect her legacy. How are people supposed to respect Thatcher’s legacy when they can remember what happened during her reign?

Ken Livingstone: “She created today’s housing crisis. She created the banking crisis. And she created the benefits crisis. It was her government that started putting people on incapacity benefit rather than register them as unemployed because the Britain she inherited was broadly full employment. She decided when she wrote off our manufacturing industry that she could live with two or three million unemployed, and the benefits bill, the legacy of that, we are struggling with today. In actual fact, every real problem we face today is the legacy of the fact that she was fundamentally wrong.”

Alexei Sayle: “She made a conscious decision to run down manufacturing and concentrate on two areas which were arms manufacture and financial services. I wonder in some ways if having financial services and arms manufacturing at the core of your country kind of corrupts you morally. This idea that she was a great reformer – in a sense she was a great destroyer.”

David Stubbs; “You presided over the dismantling of the UK’s manufacturing base, sold off the country’s commonly owned silverware to a bunch of money-grubbing, pinstriped opportunists, practically eliminated the country’s social housing stock and eroded the welfare state by unleashing the worst of which the British people are capable – fear, ruthless greed and small-minded loathing, racism, xenophobia and homophobia – adding insult to injury by administering all this with a sickly, acrid, old-fashioned dose of castor oil moralism. It is just that you rot in senile purgatory and die a lonely death.”

Welsh Mining Books ; Just heard the news about Thatcher, can’t say that I am wailing with uncontrollable grief. And before the sycophants start eulogizing her lets have a look at her true legacy.

Thriving communities were destroyed by her policy of ‘greed is good’ the rich got richer and to hell with the rest of us. More crime, more drug use, more suicides and the collapse of the ‘community’ way of life.

She sold off …the public owned industries to ‘kick-start’ the rip-off Britain that we have today, the railways, gas, electric, telecom needed reform yes, but all she did was pass them onto foreign ownership with the resultant charges that we suffer today.

She did look after her family, while destroying everyone elses, children were forced to move away, or both partners forced to work to make ends meet.  The result is the high social care costs of today – but fair play mun, she looked after Denis, letting him use No.10 notepaper for his business so foreigners thought that they were dealing with the government, and her boy, whatisname, done alight with dodgy arms deal didn’t he. Talking about arms deals, how many did she and the Argentinian generals kill in the Falklands, a war every expert states could have been averted if we had acted sooner, but there you are, she won a general election on their graves.  Health and education became run-down, and the school playgrounds sold off, and the Tories of today have the gall to complain about obesity.

Heavy industry, such as shipbuilding, steel and coal mining wiped out to make entirely dependent on other countries for our manufactured goods. Now we don’t make anything thanks to Thatcher just serve each other in shops and such and watch the bankers laugh at us.

Which brings me to the biggest con of all, selling off council houses cheaply, sounded great didn’t it.  But did you notice that although the house prices were reduced thereby starving local authorities of money, the interest rates shot up so the fat cats won again.  But the real motive was to get everyone in debt, and it succeeded, and once you owe a lot of money you are less likely to strike for your rights.

I can’t be bothered to add bits on the poll tax riots, standards of living dropping for the first time in this country, increasing poverty levels, the two-faced rhetoric over Europe, the disgraceful pandering to American bankers, and the cold indifference to peoples suffering.

And they will be telling us how wonderful she was.

How can people respect the legacy of Thatcher when we can see that Thatcher wasn’t just wrong from a moral perspective but from a logical perspective as well; A right to buy scheme that led to a lack social housing stock, selling off playing fields then complaining of feckless teenagers, closing the unprofitable and uneconomic coal mines then importing coal for Britain’s power-stations, making hundreds of thousands redundant then complaining about the increased cost of welfare, telling people to get on their bikes to find jobs but sending the police to beat up the miners when they fought to keep their jobs.

The problem I have with people supporting the memory of Thatcher is that they come across as a little disingenuous. They may dress their ideas in celebratory or respectful language but we all know what they’re saying; “I did well under Thatcher”.

This is the crux of Thatcherism v Society. Basically if you did well under Thatcher, you love her work. If you did badly, or hated seeing the effect of her policies, you hate Thatcher’s work. It can be no coincidence that the two owners that wanted to honour Thatcher, Whelan and Madejski, grew very rich thanks to Thatcherite policies. I don’t know why a lot of Thatcher devotees are reticent, they should celebrate the blatant idea of  “I AM DOING ALRIGHT, SO PULL UP THE LADDER” seeing as it’s probably the central tenet of their blessed ideology.

I saw the Good / Bad dichotomy in my personal experience of Thatcherism……..

………Almost as soon as I heard about Thatcher’s demise I thought of my dad. By last Thursday I’d remembered the certificate that’s hanging up in my Mum’s hall

At first glance it’s a charming little certificate. It has a lovely border, a lovely gilt-edged frame and my dad’s name lovingly written in beautiful calligraphy. The BT logo, which my Dad nicknamed the fruity messenger, sits proudly in the middle and the bottom is embellished by a printed signature of BT’s then chairman, Sir Iain Vallance.

The certificate tells you that Michael Johnson served British Telecom, and the G.P.O., with distinction for twenty-eight years. It’s the certificate that BT gave to my dad when they made him redundant.

By itself the certificate epitomises Thatcher’s callous outlook; a mass-produced piece of thin card as an adequate representation of a person’s working life. Somebody really thought that a piece of thin card can represent years of dignified labour, of loyalty to company ethics, of friendships. They might as well have written “Just fuck off Johnson, and don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.” on a piece of scrap paper.

The certificate reminds me that the prospect of steadily decreasing offers of a redundancy payout forced my dad, and thousands of others, into accepting a fait accompli. BT was “over manned” and that was that. There was no gold clock presentation from a respectful BT board, there was just a simple pay-off, a small pension and a mass-produced certificate with a pre-printed signature at the bottom.

Then I remembered how my dad tried to sign on after he was made redundant. After 40 years of making contributions to the system he was told that in Thatcher’s welfare state his lucrative redundancy package was just too lucrative and he wasn’t entitled to any money. I think about the lack of dignity and wince.

The certificate has always been a reminder of the cynical callousness of Thatcherite policies. It shows how privatisation turned the providers of services for society into thrusting profit-maximising business. It shows how companies were encouraged to dispense with people simply because  someone had decided that the companies were “over manned” and in desperate need of a period of “rationalization”.

As I hinted above, the really horrible thing about Thatcherism was that while it was bad for those that suffered it was good for those that did well out of it. Eighteen years after my dad’s redundancy Iain Vallance, the man behind pre-printed signature, was also being made redundant (or should that be “stepping down” as he was rich?) The main difference between my dad and Vallance was that Vallance ‘s honorary job – Emeritus president of BT – paid £350,000 and he was claiming a £600, 000 pay-out .

Norman Tebbit was another one that did well out of BT’s privatiasation. I remember my dad swearing at the pictures of Tebbit in the BT company magazines he was sent (Tebbit was a director at some point between 1988-2000). Tebbit wasn’t just in favour of BT’s privatisation, he was the actual minister that introduced the idea to the House of Commons;  “With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about privatisation of British Telecom.”

This shameless behaviour would be bad enough on its own lack of merit but if you remember his famous suggestion to the “feckless” working classes about getting on their bikes, does “amoral” go far enough? Like any good Thatcherite true-believer he continues to justify his disgusting outlook;

“The Worker complained that it is all Thatcher’s fault and that BT sacked 30,000 people. Well, certainly in order to improve service and cut prices BT had to reduce staff numbers, but what would The Worker want? I am not sure how many customers BT would have left if they had 30,000 more people on the payroll.”

Sadly, from his soul’s point of view, Tebbit doesn’t merely justify Thacherism, he revels in the utterly callous nature of the ideology;

“. For his part, mailkel (a message poster) banged on about me having bought shares and served as a director of BT. Well almost everyone except me was able to buy shares in the flotation in 1984. I had to wait until I had left office. Later on I was invited by the board to become a director and was later elected by the shareholders. I hope that mailkel bought BT shares and did well out of them, but it is a pity no one thought he was worth having as a director of the company.

Why should we celebrate an ideology that produce outcomes like this? How can we celebrate a political outlook that treats certain sections of a society with utter contempt? How can we celebrate an ideology that cynically created winners and losers?

Do you know why I love semi-pro football? It’s the friendliness

Yesterday Bangor City played XXX XXX XXXXXX in a Welsh Cup semi-final in Rhyl.  Everybody I knew had been more than excited since the draw happened a month ago. It was going to be “one of those days comrade”, it was going to be sunny with coordinated travel plans and a base camp, my god, how the drinks were gonna flow, flow, flow.

Things were going swimmingly until last Wednesday, when someone noticed that a Rhyl pub landlord had typed something on facebook;

just had a call from the police to inform us that they expect upwards of 1500 bangor city supporters,plus about 750 xxx supporters to arrive in the town on saturday from 10 am onwards,this can only mean one thing for us at the milly,we dont open saturday till 6-30 pm, boards will be placed on the windows for obvious reasons,so the rumour brigade will have a field day,sorry to our regulars but your safety comes first over making a few quid.cant understand why rhyl was chosen as a venue for two wpl teams when they dont even play in that league yet till next season.especially after being treated like a leper by the wpl for the last 3 years.

I know there’s a bit of rivalry between Rhyl and Bangor City but surely this was a bit of an over-reaction for effect; “boards will be placed on the windows for obvious reasons” is it? Is that really necessary? Come on landlord, Bangor fans are not barbarians. If only you had remembered the Rhyl Visitor’s letter page from the week after the last Welsh Cup semi-final Bangor played in Rhyl;

In this day and age nothing stirs up pointless indignation like  internet based sociological commentary. The “enforced” pub closure didn’t matter; our base camp was a good little pub and we also had a few in the Rhyl clubhouse. Yes that was right, the Rhyl FC clubhouse. We may not have been allowed in a normal pub because of the potential trouble between Rhyl and Bangor fans but we were allowed in the Rhyl clubhouse. You can’t make it up, as Richard Littlejohn often hectors.

Wait a minute, I’ve just mentioned Littlejohn’s name, I’ll go and wash my mouth out.

………..By the way we walked past the pub in question on the way to the ground and noticed that the landlord hadn’t boarded up his windows. Anyway, speaking of XXX XXX XXXXXX legitimisers, a couple from the 750 that the police were convinced were going to show up…….. …..750, honestly 750!!!!

You can’t make it up, as Richard Littlejohn oft…….

Hold on, while I go back to the bathroom.

……….Anyway back to the 750 legitimisers of XXX XXX XXXXXX, yes 750 (SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY)!!!!!! Well one, or possibly two, of the them tried their best to reduce a semi-final of the world’s third oldest national cup competition in to an argument between two over-exicited 10 year olds. Someone connected to XXX XXX XXXXXX tweeted;

go to google fight and fight off the xxx xxx xxxxxx v Bangor city fc watch the spanking bit like on the pitch

Xxx xxx xxxxxx xx / Bangor city fc – Google Fight : make this fight with Googlefight ! http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=The+new+saints+fc&word2=Bangor+city+fc … via @abondance_com

The truly sad thing is not the fact that somebody has reduced a football match to an argument between a pair of over-excited 10 year olds, it’s that an adult human being thought something can be achieved by doing that.  Like I said I really love semi-pro football for the friendly atmosphere.

Aren’t footballers looking younger nowadays!!!

In my mind this is what 38 year old pro footballers, AKA “old footballers”, have always looked like;

To me “old footballers” were all about wrinkles, lines and looking world-weary. As I watched Tottenham’s UEFA Cup match last night I realised that this viewpoint was an outdated viewpoint, nowadays “old footballers” look like this…..

and this…..

and this…….

While they look a bit different to their younger selves……………………

………………they don’t look bad for their age do they?

Flipping heck, you know you’re getting old when “old footballers” start to look younger. This realization hit me like a brick hits a plate-glass window. My existential anchor is wobbly. After a working life full of strenuous activity older players should look old and haggard, it’s natural. Only now they don’t look old and haggard.

So, not only do they have loads of money, glamour and enough sex as they can eat and now they’re better looking when they’re older too. With this on my mind I actually noticed how old I look this morning, not how old I think I look. Bloody Professional footballers.

Nostalgic programmes, like the “The Big Match Revisted” on ITV4, show you why I used to think the way I did,  in the 1970s and ’80s footballers looked older;

Steve Gritt (Age 30)

Steve McMahon (Age 28)

Ray Wilkins (Age 28-29)

Frank Worthington (Age 27ish)

Francis Lee (Age 26-28)

Billy Bremner (Age 26-28)

Nobby Stiles (Age 27-29)

Jeff Blockley (Age 26-28)

Joe Jordan (Age 29-31)

Neville Southall (Age 26)

Alan Sunderland (Age 31-ish)

Gerry Francis (Age 28-30)

And they say football is more stressful nowadays!

Please stop force feeding me elitism!!!!

I’ve noticed that there are three reasons why most people love football –  1) They think football is “The Beautiful Game.” (© Clive Tyldesley) 2) They think football is “The People’s Game.” (© Andy Townsend) 3) They love the way Gazprom lights up football. The greatest of the reasons is the last one.

You’d like to think that most people would love football for the flowing moves or the heroism of skillful individuals but people love the footy because of the elitism. People simply couldn’t care that football as we know it was created by big business for Italia ’90, they too busy adoring the kind of sparkle that likes of Gazprom bring to the party.

For example nearly two weeks ago England beat San Marino 8-0 yet the people weren’t happy, they were very angry. Journalists, people paid to make stories out of nothing, were very angry and pundits , people paid to state the blindingly obvious in the most irritating fashion possible, were dead angry as well.

Everyone was united by a single sentiment; “Maybe it’s time we had pre-qualifiers or suffink, ’cause big defeats for “these countries” aren’t doing nuffink for nobody”. “Hear, hear!!” said the world, how dare “these countries” these abominations, besmirch civilisation with their temerity to play international football!! Part-time players playing international football, the very idea!!!!

In the 24 hours after the disgusting travesty of a “contest”. The media told us that “there had been calls” for the creation of two divisions in world football as if this was yet another thing that social media had decided would definitely happen.  Yeah, we have to do away with egalitarianism for gets in the way of feeling angry for nebulous and indefinable reasons.

Then I thought about it all, maybe the moaning gets had a point, I mean when did you hear about “these countries” making it to the last four of a major tournament? What’s the point in them existing? All “these countries” do is impede the best countries in some unspecified way, all they do is stop us having properly exciting football tournaments. Well they do, don’t they? Don’t they? I needed to do a bit of research………………..

……………………………….According to my research 23 different countries have reached the last four of the world cup and 17 have reached the last four of the European championships. This doesn’t tell us much as naturally “these countries” aren’t on either list. Obviously “These countries” aren’t part of the  77 that have qualified for the world cup, or the 28 that have qualified for the European championships either. Naturally “these countries” are part of another two groups – the 22 UEFA members that haven’t qualified for the world cup and the 25 that haven’t qualified for the European championships. The moaning gets are right, “these countries” don’t serve no purpose.

I must state my findings only cover the entire history of both tournaments. As a lot of “these countries” have only been members of UEFA since about 1994 I decided to use 1994 as some kind of watershed.

Since 1994 9 countries have qualified for the last four of the European championship and 13 have qualified for the last four of the world cup, of those countries 6  (Germany, France, Holland, Turkey, Italy and Portugal) have qualified for both. In other words success is concentrated around the bigger countries, which obviously means that “these countries” haven’t altered football since 1994. The moaning gets are right!

On the other hand, if “these countries” have existed since 1994 but football is only “turning bad” in 2013 ‘these countries” aren’t really the problem are they? Therefore why do we need to get rid of them?

As soon as some countries become “worthier” than others you’re on a slippery slope, and not just in football!! Where does the Darwinism stop? Do we limit participation to countries that have qualified in the past, or the big countries that everybody says has a chance. Should we have divisions like the Davis Cup?

The moaning of the moaning gets is pointless; there’s already a method of depriving the undeserving countries of chance of getting embarrassed in major tournaments; qualifying matches. I don’t see why the media created the fuss about this issue in the first place, they always tell us the opposite. Even though there are more of “these countries” than ever before they always say that the present thing they’ve been covering has been the best / biggest World Cup / European Championship / glorious friendly ever. Anyway, would the moaning gets rather beat San Marino 8-0 in a “pointless” match or draw 0-0 with Montenegro?

Elistism infects every pore of European football so club football isn’t immune. Elitism is such an accepted part of the football landscape that the europa league is described as if it’s hemlock and alternatives are couched in terms of devaluing competitions, and by extension clubs.

For example take an edition of Four Four Two from a couple of months ago. In an article one or two (maybe three of four) of their trained journalists claimed “certain people”AKA “morons” wanted a “purist’s European Cup”.

The article detailed the outcome of this fictional “purist’s European Cup” with all the haughty disdain they could muster. e.g; “Lionel Messi – who didn’t get a game in the purists’ European Cup”. Yeah bollocks if it was “fairer”. (They obviously mislaid the fact that if had the champions league never been formulated we wouldn’t miss seeing players like Messi and Ronaldo on a school night because we wouldn’t be used to seeing them on a school night).

In order to underline the point with a massive red marker they transposed a traditional European Cup on to their stupidity. They may have abandoned the group stages for seeded draws for a straight knock out tournament, but they let their stupidity dictate things; somehow XXX XXX XXXXXX reached the final (where they lost 43-0 to Real Madrid) by beating clubs that they wouldn’t normally get near in real life.

The trouble with elitism is that it’s very seductive and you begin to defer slightly too much. UEFA, TV companies, the rest of the media and advertisers have told us to expect the glorious heights of entertainment and glamour so we expect the glorious heights of entertainment and glamour without a second thought, and woe betide them if we don”t get our entertainment and glamour. FourFourTwo may love this Champions League format so much but do they also love the inflated cost of tickets, or the self-serving attitude of everybody concerned?

The article overlooks the idea that the old European Cup was a decent little competition on its own merits, with more than it’s fair share of decent matches. Some of these matches even stand comparison with today; For Barcelona’s stylish dominance of Man United in 2009 I give you Milan’s stylish destruction for Steaua in 1989, for Barca’s recent fantastic comeback I give you Hamburg’s 1980 comeback against Real Madrid. For final boredom Bayern’s 2001 triumph compares very favourably with 1988’s PSV Eindhoven.

The European Cup was not only just as good / bad / indifferent as the champions league in terms of creating spectacle, it was also fairer and more competitive than the champions league. Here are some stats to back this up;

In the history of the European Cup (1956-2013) 123 clubs have reached the quarter final stage.

If we add a watershed of 1992 (The creation of the champions league) we can see a difference. Up to and including 1992 107 clubs reached the last 8 of the European Cup, which means that only 16 new clubs have qualified for the last 8 in last twenty years. To put this another way;

• Before 1992 there was an average of 2.97 new clubs per year.
• After 1992 there’s been an average of a new club every 2.625 years.

The overall stats point towards a measure of equality;

• In the EUROPEAN CUP / CHAMPIONS LEAGUE (1956 – 2013) 123 clubs from 30 countries qualified for the QF
• In the UEFA CUP / EUROPA LEAGUE (1970-2013) 157 clubs from 28 countries qualified for the QF.
• In the CUP WINNERS’ CUP (1960-’99) 170 clubs from 26 countries qualified for the QF.

Other stats reinforce the idea of A developing elitism in the European Cup / champions league;

• Between 1956 and 2013 123 clubs representing 30 countries qualified for the QF.
• Between 1992 and 2013 33 clubs representing 12 countries qualified for the QF.

By comparing the champions league and UEFA Cup / europa league since 1992 we can see how elitism has taken hold;

• CHAMPIONS LEAGUE had 33 clubs from 12 countries
• UEFA CUP /EUROPA LEAGUE had 76 clubs from 19 countries.

Is this the kind of football world  that should be cherished and defender?

One last point, maybe we shouldn’t take the outpouring of journalists too seriously, the poor lambs seem to be affected by whims sometimes. The link at the top of the post  leads to an article written by a journalist called Iain Macintosh. In that article Macca offers a clinical yet hard-nosed case for the permanent relegation of “these countries“;

“…It’s all very well rushing to the defence of San Marino and imploring the ‘arrogant’ European nations to show some respect, but it’s hard to respect a hapless retreat, especially when it’s repeated almost every single time they play football. No-one is winning, no-one is benefitting and this nonsense serves no-one. It’s time it was brought to an end.”

A couple of hours later Paul Sturrock was sacked as Southend’s manager and Macca was very upset on twitter;

“Sturrock has Parkinson’s, he’s unlikely to get another crack at this. And they sack him now? Not at the end of the season? Disgraceful.”

Funny how emotion is fine in one area but not in others. Football is too important to be left to journalists acting on petty prejudice.

It’s all about the coverage.

If you consider the approach that Wales’ national English language broadcaster, BBC Wales, takes to the Welsh domestic football scene you begin to understand why a lot of people living in Wales think that the Welsh domestic football scene is a bit of a joke.

For example, on Saturday XXX XXX XXXXXX won their seventh Welsh Premier League title and the BBC website donated this much coverage to the story;

XXX XXX XXXXXX 3-0 Carmarthen (*Xxxxxx are crowned champions): Xxxxxx romped to the Welsh Premier League title with a convincing win at home to Carmarthen, who had Casey Thomas sent off. Scott Ruscoe set Xxxxxx on their way before Michael Wilde struck twice to complete Xxxxxx’ title defence and seal their seventh league title.

Earlier today the Carmarthen v Airbus match was postponed because the officials didn’t turn up (This isn’t an April Fool) and the BBC’s website donated this much coverage to the story;

“Welsh Premier League game off amid officials’ absence

A Welsh Premier League clash has been postponed because no match officials turned up to take charge.

The league’s Championship Conference clash between Carmarthen Town and second-placed Airbus UK, of Broughton in north Wales, ended up being postponed for a second time.

BBC Sport Wales understands no officials were booked to officiate the match at Richmond Park.

That meant a wasted seven-hour round trip for Broughton and their fans.

League organisers tweeted:  “WPL would like to apologise for the fact Carmarthen v Airbus UK postponed. Normal procedure of re-appointing officials not followed.

“WPL would like to clearly state that no blame should be aimed at the match officials.”

The league was won on Saturday by XXX XXX XXXXXX, who beat Prestatyn Town 4-1.”

The fact the BBC can’t even be bothered get basic information – like the club that XXX XXX XXXXXX beat on Saturday and the score – correct, and then fail to change it after a few hours, probably says something about the BBC’s attitude to Welsh domestic football. While we’re on the subject, a few weeks ago BBC Wales thought that an inept looking womens’ team was worthy of this much coverage.

Caerphilly Castle Ladies FC leave league after 43-0 loss

A football team who suffered a 43-0 defeat at the weekend have withdrawn from the league they were playing in.

Caerphilly Castle Ladies’ results in the Women’s Welsh Premier League will be wiped out.

This season the side, whose first team walked out last summer, also found themselves on the wrong end of 36-0, 28-0 and 26-0 scorelines.

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) said the club had taken the move “with regret”.

The team, known as the Castle, found themselves in the headlines following the latest defeat, which meant the side had let in 219 goals and scored just one in 10 games.

Club officials had said earlier this week they were putting a “brave face” on the results and had no intention of giving up, but the statement issued through the FAW indicated the club will focus on bringing on youth players.

It said: “With regret, the club has decided to withdraw its membership from the Welsh Premier Women’s League with immediate effect.

“Caerphilly Castle is very proud of its tradition of nurturing young footballing talent over the years but the club has found it difficult to compete at the highest level of Welsh Women’s Football this season”

“The committed officials of the club fully intend to continue their passion of developing players throughout the different age groups and hope to return to the Welsh Premier Women’s League as soon as possible.”

The senior team’s results will be wiped from the records, but the club wished the 11 sides remaining in the league luck for the rest of the season.

In terms of numbers participating at all levels, Caerphilly Castle rival Cardiff City for the title of biggest women’s club in Wales.

They finished mid-table in the last two Welsh Premier League seasons, and in 2010 lifted the Welsh League Cup.

While you could argue that mistakes – like match officials not turning up – shouldn’t happen and may need highlighting I’m not sure an institution that claims to represent all of Welsh sport should wilfully encourage people to look down Welsh domestic football.

While Aunty’s representatives can’t wait to let us know about embarrassing little issues they’re a bit more reticent if you want proper news about the weekly affairs of the WPL, stuff  like pre-match team news, quite often they can’t even be bothered to display the correct fixtures.

I would expect haughty sniggering from publications such as Nuts, Loaded or FHM because they employ hairless chimps as “journalists” but the BBC is supposed to be about higher ideals. Mind you to be fair to the BBC they need all their website space to highlight important events like…..  “Malky Mackay hails ‘huge’ clean sheet” .

April Fool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for a look back at some of the best football related pranks. Here’s the top 10;

1) Paolo Di Canio is appointed Sunderland manager in 2013

2) In 2009 Robbie Savage claimed he once left a thought unexpressed.

3) In 1989 Grandstand staged a fight in their studio.

4) In 1988 Shoot told us that Ian Rush was going to join Everton;

5) In 2006 Mark Lawrensen made it appear as though he had said something worth listening to.

6) Burnley unveiled a woollen kit in 2010.

7) This morning Barcelona announced they will wear a sleeveless shirt next season.

8) Real Madrid announced that they were signing George Best in 1972.

9) Sepp Blatter vows to tackle FIFA corruption in 2011

10) In 2011 Chelsea announced that John Terry was going to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics as a part-time mature student at Jesus College, Oxford.

11) Rickie Lambert is named as the new skipper of the All Blacks ;

12) In 2013 Andy Townsend tells the world he’s giving up football punditry to become chief economist for the World Bank.

Actually, football doesn’t seem much fun

Earlier today I went to York on a coach. Thanks to Paul Lake’s autobiography the journey passed easily. Sadly the book is a heart wrenching tale of denied promise, crushed hopes and cruel indifference from those with power. The book reminded me that a footballer’s lot is not always a happy one, which is something I wrote about once………

Incidentally, the books featured in this two part essay are

“The Keeper of Dreams” by Ronald Reng (KoD)

“My Father and Other Working–Class Football Heroes.”  by Gary Imlach

“Soccer at War: 1939-’45” by Jack Rollin

“Woody & Nord” by Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman (W & N)

“Only a Game?” by Eamon Dunphy (O a G?)

“Kickups, Hiccups, Lockups“ by Mickey Thomas

”Kicking & Screaming”  by Rogan Taylor and Andrew Ward (K & S)

Some columns by the anonymous Footballer in Four Four Two magazine.

Part 1

If you compiled a list of dream jobs ” footballer” would probably be high up on it. It certainly used to be high up on my dream job list but I haven’t felt like that since I was about 15. “Slipping through the net” a couple of decades ago certainly helped me deal with the end of the dream, and unlike Tim Lovejoy the celebrity bellend I have no regrets. Any residual desires ended when my illusions about professional football were shattered by some books about the subject.

I was going to review the three football books I had found in a discount bookshop (The books were “The Keeper of Dreams” by Ronald Reng. “My Father and other Working Class Professionals” by Gary Imlach and “Soccer at War: 1939-’45” by Jack Rollin.) but the simple book review developed a life of its own and eventually became a two-part essay. This essay is partly a defence of footballers against incoherently angry phone-in callers, but it’s mostly a representation of my further disillusionment with certain aspects of football.

The erstwhile review developed for two reasons. The first reason was because I thought about the image of footballers. The media tries to bombard us with an image of glamour, glamour, glamour. They tell us that a footballer’s world is non-stop parties and premieres, marriages to WAGs and wheelbarrows for their wages.

This kind of life is a clichéd exaggeration from tabloid culture. As with most things written in tabloids that are not written by Paul Foot or John Pilger this cynically created image is mostly bollocks. When you apply this created image to the total number of professional footballers it can‘t be anything but bollocks. They might earn a lot more than the average wage but is the life of each footballer really that glamorous? I doubt it.

The three books cover three different eras but there are common themes within them. These common themes –  dealing with January mud, psychotic opponents and having to bow and scrape before notable members of a local community – tell you that football hasn’t changed in certain fundamental respects. The common themes not only totally refute the clichéd tabloid image of footballers they make you wonder if there ever has ever been glamour in football.

The second reason the review developed was that I realised the common themes in the three books were present in some of the other football books I’ve read. Books like “Woody & Nord” by Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman, “Only a Game?” by Eamon Dunphy, “Kickups, Hiccups, Lockups“ by Mickey Thomas, ”Kicking & Screaming” by Rogan Taylor and Andrew Ward. I threw in some columns written by the anonymous Footballer in Four Four Two magazine in this essay.

Altogether the reading material covered nearly every era of professional football in Britain so I was able to see that the relationship between footballers and their sport, and the character of football, hasn‘t changed very much over the years. As a result I began to feel a bit sorry for the position that footballers have always found themselves in.

So here goes the mutated book review………………

I will start with a pronouncement; I’M NOT SURE FOOTBALL IS FUN ANY MORE.

I didn’t always feel like this. In the past I vaguely remember claiming that football should be fun. I always thought this was the right way to look at football because I always enjoyed football, and most people seemed to feel the same way; there must be some reason why they always say that football is the most popular sport in the world.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing as it allows you to reflect. Consequently I may have been a little too hasty with my pronouncement. I actually need to go further than this banal statement; I’m not sure I find football enjoyable any more. In case you’re wondering I’m referring to the playing side.

Let’s consider why people play football. That’s not too difficult to work out; it’s the basic joy that playing sport provides. The joy comes in many forms; physical achievement, communal joy, keeping fit, having a laugh with your mates whilst keeping fit, being part of a flowing move, catching the ball perfectly, seeing the ball make the net ripple after you’ve had a shot, the joy of just being in the open air. Let’s call this “the spirit of football”. When I say that I don’t find football enjoyable any more what I really mean is “I haven’t felt “the spirit of football” for a long time”.

Two thought processes led to this. One began roughly 18 months ago amongst the boring details of the nagging aches that plague my sleep. A Tuesday just wasn’t a Tuesday without a dull throbbing ache.

My position – goalkeeper –  accelerated my disillusionment. This vantage point allows one time and space to see the full gamut of human behaviour. Consequently Mondays (excluding bank holidays of course) have become an exhausting cavalcade of simpletons, show boaters and loudmouth gobshites . It was so different in my prime; inexcusable behaviour was frowned upon and you could actually chat with opponents as you left the pitch together but Llandudno in the 1990s is an entirely different continent.

The worst thing I’ve noticed in Llandudno’s minor, minor league is the rise in aggression. I don’t remember such a level of aggression a few years ago. Obviously there were hotheads but generally people seemed calmer. People used to take defeat, or even being tackled, as part of the game. Now it seems that a lot of Llandudno’s players can’t accept the simple facts of football and so they lash out. Someone I know explains this problem really well; people fill the gap between the perception of their technique and the actual level of their technique with aggression.

These fuckers, these twats, these malodorous recidivists, have ruined my favourite physical activity. An anthropologist would have a field day studying their display, the loudness, the cockiness, the loud cockiness, the posing in the style of the anointed rulers of civilisation. This is what really gets to me; the pricks strut around as if they’ve earned the right to speak in public, the right to sneer at those living by more civilised values.

Consequently, if ever I spare a moment’s thought about Mondays my sap rises like larva. I can stand the sneers of the Philistines no longer, I’ve reached my very elastic limit. Football has allowed these base values to flourish, so consequently I have started to hate football

The second process that turned me off football happened via books about football. The reading matter made me wonder whether I really liked football any more. I wondered if I should be encouraging something that put so much pressure on fellow human beings. I wondered whether I should be putting pressure on them just because they were wearing polyester in a colour that I like. I began to wonder whether professional footballers are also disillusioned. I wondered if they also missed “the spirit of football”. After only a few of these books I realised I didn’t like football as much.

Footballers are thought to have dream job but there seems to be precious little joy, aside from a thin veneer, in the autobiographies I’ve read. Even with all their money (Even before the mega-wealth of the moment, footballers have always been relatively well-off in comparison to the rest of the working population) and fame I’m not sure I would like to be a player as their general work environment doesn’t seem very appealing.

Let’s consider the idea that football is somehow glamorous. The kind of glamour associated with football is not real glamour in the traditional sense. There isn’t much glamour in Christmas morning training sessions.

Footballers are people. In fact they are just like the people who fawn over them – apart from the obvious fact that footballers have better balance. They have foibles, they have bad days, they have problems with their neighbours. Why would someone automatically become more glamorous because they sweat on TV for a living? If there is glamour attached to present day football it’s a hollow and shallow version of glamour. It’s the kind that requires a sponsor to exist, it’s not the glamour of Hollywood or the Pyramid Stage.

Anyway the idea of glamour in general has taken a bit of a nose dive in recent years. Film stars used to be glamorous but that was due to their image on the screen. People like Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich exuded glamour, they may have had their peccadilloes but we manage to remember their work more than their “little problems”. As for today’s film stars, well Mel Gibson doesn’t seem to work much now. The main reason for the faded glamour is the media. In the past they may have had muckrakers but they didn’t have Perez Hilton.

As for football it’s just the same. The last time there was true glamour was probably the 1950s with hushed reverence for Puskas, Di Stefano and company but then glamour was allowed to develop at this time. The lack of exposure allowed a mythical image to develop. The thing about the creation of cynical glamour of today is that it can be dispensed with if there are tabloid front pages to fill. Ironically these are the same tabloids that are complicit in the cynical creation of glamorous footballers, footballers that are kindly brought to you by Gilette, Nike and McDonalds………. This cynically created glamour is utterly shallow and it bares no relation to the reality of football.

Unfortunately reality is not the image that footballers are judged by. Even though footballers generally earn above average wages this is rather unfair, why should they be judged on something that’s not of their making?

After studying the reading material I wonder if there was ever was a time in which you could say football has been truly glamorous. As general rule footballers seem more concerned about worries than parties. Their pressure-filled work environment isn’t very healthy and it certainly isn’t glamorous. You don’t need to read books to realise the tabloid glamour version of football isn’t really that truthful. The vast majority of pro footballers do not exist in the constant glare of glamour and publicity. Have you ever seen the tabloid exclusives featuring Brad Friedel, Gareth Bale or Jamie Carragher?

Eamon Dunphy’s famous “Only a Game?” shows us a side of football that is a million miles from glamour. The book paints a picture of football as a constant stream of worries; getting in the team, staying in the team, a suspicion of team-mates who seem to be fakers, malingerers or show-offs, the need to fit in with you team mates even if they are objectionable bastards. As Brian Glanville put it in the intro “The pro footballer’s endemic paranoia….“

A footballers’ world is a world where there’s no loyalty to a team per se because the team only worries about you when you’re useful to them. They don’t care when you’re not in the team. It’s world where your only real loyalty is towards your bank account. There’s no glamour.

Dunphy dedicates his book to “The Good Pro”. The Good Pro is “a trier….. Accepts responsibility ………. Often rescue you ……… makes himself available for the ball all the time …… He will make that run, get that vital touch in the box, go for a return pass instead of holding back …….. Never on the missing list”  You sense that there aren’t enough “Good Pros” in the game for Dunphy.

Dunphy frets about moral issues “Ethics matter everywhere, but in sport they matter more than anywhere else …….. (Sport is) a place where virtue is rewarded and cheating exposed” Again you get the sense that not all footballers, or people, have these values for Dunphy. You can see that worries are never far from the surface.

Here’s a brief taste of the book’s contents to illustrate a less than glamorous job;

25 July; “People are always happy to come back…… You don’t really think about the season today”

26 July: “The first day is always hard but it is not the hardest ……….. And you are really knackered”

27 July; “But this lad was completely unabashed; “I’ve only come here for first team football” he said ………. Oh well we’d better watch out, then. Because he meant it.

3 August; “One is conscious of little things – the apprentices begin to seem absurdly young, you call them ‘son’ now, it doesn’t seem so long since older players addressed you in the same way……………… You begin to wonder what is coming from the friend’s Provident fund, about a testimonial……… about retirement ……….. How much longer will you spend your summers in this idyllic way, dreaming of glory? ………. It’s a shock to realise how rapid the descent is from pinnacle to valley”

13 August; “We always feel quite hard done by at Millwall over close-season tours. Orient went to the Bahamas; even Hendon went to Spain; and we come to Bournemouth!”

14 August; “You could see him measuring himself against us, seeing if he was still as fit as he had been. Seeing if he still had it”

24 August; “Tomorrow is the first game. I am confident. Not certain, for that is impossible ……….. For nine months our lives are committed to the business of winning games.”

31 August: “When they sign a new player who plays in your position it is not funny. Everyone is delighted they’ve signed a new player, but you know it is you who is going to be left out…….”

18 September: “We’re on our way. Only four points behind the top side now, two wins in a row setting us up…..”

1 October: “……… and I looked around ……… ‘I’m Dropped’ ……… No! But I am ……… I could not believe it. I could not think for a minute ………….”

2 October: “Being dropped is something everyone in the game has to face. Manchester United dropped Bobby Charlton once. How do you face it? Yesterday I came home and I just cried. But it’s eating into you the whole time. You can’t think about anything else for one minute. You go home and you are restless, edgy………”

27 October: “Today we got found out. The chickens came home to roost……”

29 October: “A failed football club in October. A depressing place. Already with seven months to go, the morning becomes a dread”

3 November: “Going as twelfth or thirteenth man is a drag. The thirteenth man is the one who normally gets the worst of it. You are in effect skip-boy”

7 November : “Back in the bloody Midweek League again. It’s an unbelievable sensation going to play at Orient on a Wednesday Afternoon in November. There is no one there, absolutely nothing at stake, except your own pride. You don’t feel like it at all”

15 November: “……But he has got absolutely no chance of making it. He really is the butt of everything”

20 November; “Playing in the Midweek League football is futile enough at the best of times. But playing Midweek League football at the Valley really tells you how futile the whole thing is. The biggest ground in London and there was no-one there. No one at all….”

27 November: “I got very worried because it suddenly dawned on me that I am living in a Millwall house, and that this house, which I regard as my own, isn’t mine at all”

Within the pages of “Only a Game?” you are treated to the whole of football life; the ups and the downs, the winning runs and the failures. Even though it was written nearly 40 years ago it still resonates because it could be any season. The pre-season is full of hope before autumn becomes the graveyard of those plans.

The worries Dunphy articulated are still universal – you can be dropped, your teammates may be tossers and you may worry that your hopes will remain unfulfilled – so if football was unglamorous then it remains unglamorous today. The training depicted in the book seems tough and even though football has become more scientific, with plush new training facilities and Sam Allardyce’s Sport Lab, one basic point still motivates training; you need an awful lot of strenuous physical activity.

Even though “Only a Game?” highlights a lack of glamour this doesn’t turn football into horrible career by itself – most of a film star’s jet set life is spent in draughty studios but this doesn’t make the Hollywood unglamorous – it merely disproves the tabloid glamour. Having said that the book makes you question whether the footballers life is all it’s cracked up to be. A footballers’ job is certainly not a dream job.

Part 2

Reading footballers’ autobiographies may shatter illusions but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t periods in the twentieth century when football was a diverting experience, take the Second World War.

The Second World War should have seriously affected organised football but as Jack Rollin tells us in “Soccer and the War” but there was a vibrant football scene during the conflict. Theoretically the total mobilisation of Britain should have ruined organised football as a spectacle – clubs had to form scratch teams to fulfil fixtures and players were forced to develop a “have boots will travel” attitude – but football wasn’t ruined. With life and death in everyone’s minds the privations presented by wartime football, in comparison to peacetime football, were trifling.

The problems didn’t seem to matter to anyone. The players didn’t mind as compared to the death and destruction they could face the upheaval associated with football must have been enjoyable. Young players didn’t mind as they would be given chances they wouldn’t normally been granted. The fans didn’t mind either as clubs could call up superstars that were stationed in a nearby garrison or airbase, and this was perhaps their only chance to see superstars in their clubs’ shirt.

Instead of ruining organised football the Second World War may have been the only time when organised football was as enjoyable as it was in the good old amateur days. It may have been the only time that playing professional football felt like the football matches you played as a child; playing for fun, playing without pressure.

However football soon reverted to type after the Second World War and the problems for footballers soon returned. Over the course of the reading I noticed eleven problems with a career as a footballer;

1) The constant threat of injury

Injuries are an inevitable problem when physical activities are based around competing groups. A mistimed tackle can cause a broken leg, a shot can cause broken fingers and misplaced enthusiasm can cause a mass punch up. The problem of injuries is obviously historical. For example Norah Bell tells us what happened to her husband Jack in the 1930s;

“When he finished at Luton, he injured his foot and couldn’t play properly anymore and they didn’t give a damn. If you finished football, you finished, and that was that…” (K & S)

Anne Savage said this of her husband;

“He couldn’t run anymore and he was told he’d have arthritis in that leg for the rest of his life as long as he lived, and that leg used to go black up to the knee and he had very bad sleepless nights with it…” (K & S)

They shoot horses don’t they? Violence-related injuries were still common in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s because the omnipresent “hard man” stalked the land. Bobby Keetch illustrates this era;

“I’ve got about eight stitches in my leg here, from a particularly savage encounter with Johnny Giles.“ (K & S)

Today our tolerance of violence is so low that players are sent off for sarcastically clapping and most of today’s “mass brawls” would fail the Trade Descriptions Act (They should be re-christened “Immature pushing and shoving”.) This environment means that players no longer become victims of full-frontal assaults.

While football is now softer and cuddlier this doesn’t mean mindless aggression has ended. I see it on a weekly basis in Llandudno’s minor minor league and players like Ryan “Breaker of Welsh Legs” Shawcross are still allowed to play. Even though violence may not happen as often mouthy buggers are still with us so the potential for a short sharp return is always there.

Hard men, clumsy opponents and advertising hoardings are not always required to cause injuries any more as players can injure themselves. For example they may break metatarsals (a new bone discovered in 2002) by turning too sharply in their plastic coated boots. When you think about this situation being chopped by a hard man was preferable as there was certain brutal nobility to it. A player getting injured because they’re wearing ridiculous footwear isn’t what football should be about.

The threat of injury exists even before footballers set foot in a stadium. Footballers have a lot of spare time which means they will spend a lot of time at home. A home becomes hazardous to your health with inanimate objects like ironing boards, aftershave bottles and condiment jars lying around. Even driving high-powered cars can result in strained ligaments.

2) The historic lack of glamour

Has there ever been any glamour in football? Even in the so-called “age of glamour” in the 1950s I wonder if there was much glamour. During that time a players’ existence wasn’t much different from the rest of the working population. As the true cliché states, they may have even caught the same buses and trams to matches. Players may have drawn an extra look from an adoring fan so they weren’t glamour-less but the extra look was all they drew.

In “the age of glamour” most players also had to take other jobs to help make ends. A particularly well-known example is the international superstar plumber Tom Finney. During this time players were taught to know their place. Stanley Matthews recalled an experience when he was an international and claiming expenses;

“They gave you a little card and it says ‘from Stoke to London’. Well we had to put this down and Tommy Lawton put an extra sixpence on his travel fare , you see, and Mr Huband (the treasurer) also had the prices and he said, “Lawton, you’ve overcharged” so he crossed out the sixpence out” (K & S)

Tom Finney also has a similar recollection;

“I got a very Curt note back; ‘Dear Finney, we’re returning your expenses sheet. Herewith enclosed a new one to make out and for your information the third-class fare from Preston to Liverpool is x shillings and you didn’t have any meal because you only travelled from Liverpool to us” (K & S)

There was no freedom of movement either thanks to the retain and transfer system as George Hardwick relates;

“At the end of every season it was the wail all round the dressing room; ‘I wonder what I’ll get next season?’’ I wonder what they‘ll offer me for next season?’ ‘Am I going to be retained or are they going to kick me out?’….. You were truly slaves” (K & S)

Stuart Imlach’s biography (written by his son) further highlights the situation faced by British players up to the 1960s; the Scottish FA also thought their player were paid slaves to be seen and not heard.

While the relationship between players and clubs has changed considerably in the present epoch of plutocratic ownership the players are still kept at arm’s length.

3) The effect on your family

Stuart Imlach played in the era of change; from the serfdom of the 1950s to the relative freedom of the 1960s. However the freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Freedom was certainly a better situation but greater freedom may have led to other problems. A player could change clubs more easily but think about his family, how would they feel about moving around the country?

If you wanted the same level of pay, or constant first team football, you may have needed to move. You may have even felt the need to move several times. If you were injury prone like Stuart Imlach there was a distinct possibility that you would need to move to improve your situation. The clubs involved in a move could be at the opposite ends of the country, would this sort of move be fair on your family? Could you concentrate with a disgruntled family? The same worries and problems exist today.

We haven’t even mentioned how a family would be affected by having a family member in the public eye constantly either.

4) The bright lights of football fame don’t always shine brightly

Lars Leese highlights a few examples;

“And in the dressing room he was welcomed with a grunt by the kitman ‘What have we here, another new boy? More kit for me to wash?” Actually Lars wasn’t imagining that one …….. Welcome to the world of professional football” (K o D)

“………..At Leverkusen he threw himself at the strikers’ feet, just as he had been doing for years in amateur football, and saw with surprise that they didn’t just shoot, they waited until he was on the ground then casually lobbed it over him or dribbled around him. They called it ‘goalie-watching’” (K o D)

“The box of 3,000 Lars Leeses was on the passenger seat. “I’ve got autograph cards. How fantastic is that?” ……. And then he started writing. He wrote Lars Leese in a black art pen, very carefully, very formally. After 30 minutes he was writing only L. Leese, after an hour Leese, and later just Le___ with a long tail that could, with a little effort, be interpreted as se. He spent two evenings at the sitting room table. Now and then he would curse” (K o D)

5) A footballer is surrounded by Alpha males

Most male football squads are like any other groups of males, they will indulge in exaggerated hyper-masculine behaviour to prove how great they are. This is mainly because most male groups are led by an Alpha male. He sets the tone and runs the show. He’ll be a narcissistic egomaniac with an attitude problem, or to be put it more mildly, he’ll be a complete prick. If you think about it most of the world’s bullshit flows from the actions of Alpha males.

Would you actually want to spend your work life in the company of people acting in exaggerated Alpha ways? If you weren’t an Alpha male but you found the attraction of professional football too tantalising to resist you’d have to develop two mental attitudes to survive.

Firstly, you’ll need the moral cowardice to hide within a group, as Andy Woodman tells us;

“At sixteen you don’t know a lot. I thought it best to accept responsibility for the goals that went past me……… (Then) Everything becomes your fault ………….. Of course the lads liked it when I owned up. How can you defend properly with a crap goalkeeper? “ (W & N)

Dunphy highlights this attitude too;

“28 August: The tendency after a defeat is to look for scapegoats ……….. In that sense Brownie, in our eyes, pays the penalty for being young……” (O a G?)

This bullshit is something I remember from my own time in teams. Everybody looks to blame someone else. I’ve been called “a prick”, “a wanker” “fucking useless” at various times because I had the temerity to make a mistake.

Secondly, you’d have to become immune to the relentless and often vicious mickey taking, as Gareth Southgate tells us;

“Fashion had never crossed my mind …….. All the guys at Palace had their Adidas tracksuits and Lacoste jumpers …… they were cool south Londoners, I was a bumpkin from the country ………. One day I walked into the apprentices dressing room and Chris Powell was dancing across the floor a là Fred Astaire. Everyone was keeled over laughing and then I twigged why, Chris was wearing my grey Hush Puppies ……… Larking about with Dave Stephens I said something half smart to him. “Hark at Leo Gemelli” he said, referring to the brand name of my jumper . ………. “Hark at Leo Gemelli” was all Dave had to say and the boys were falling about laughing and banging the floor” (W & N)

Then there’s the joke played on Andy Woodman because he was released in 1994;

“The Club had supplied us with t-shirts with the word “Champions” printed on the front. (Palace had won the First Division title). On the back of mine one of the lads had used a felt pen to scribble: “For Sale. One Careful Owner. Offers considered” (W & N)

As I know from experience this can cross into downright obnoxiousness. This obnoxiousness is highlighted by Four Four Two’s anonymous “Player”;

“Footballers can abuse their fame; …………. I saw girl one night …….. I told her my girlfriend was going away for a year and that we needed a career to look after the kids ………… I offered her £22,000 a year. I pulled her that night ………. Four days after she turned up at my front door. She told me she had quit her job ……… I lied and told her there’d been a problem with visas …….. I’m not a bad lad”

One mate shouted (at people in a queue at a club); “Fuck off paying Public” (As he got in for nothing frantically grasping the coattails of the sainted player)

One team-mate had cancer and he didn’t even escape. When he refused to come on a night out, another player said; “Why not. You’ve only got a month to live” ……..

“Do you love your new bird? He asked. “Yes” replied the player sheepishly. “Could she be the one for you?” “yeah” “So how do you feel that he’s shagged her, so has he, so has he!” He was crushed and cried in front of all of us”

I’ve never fully understood why this level of cruel humour is necessary to mould pro athletes into a team but then I’m not an alpha male. Could you stand working with immature morons?

6) The cold-heartedly blunt attitude of the professional

This is how the some players dealt with Andy Woodman’s misfortunate release in 1994;

“We then had training and I could tell from their reactions that the lads already knew. Alan had told Gareth and Gareth had told the lads to go easy on me. I was unbelievably angry, I played a blinder in training and Eric Young, the centre back, who was a cold, blunt bastard but not a bad bloke, said to me: ‘Woody, too little, too late son. Too little too late’ As cool and callous as that. But he was right. The misery was only beginning…..” (W & N)

7) Unemployment is a perpetual risk

Imagine if you were an unemployed footballer; you’d obviously want to become an employed footballer again as soon as possible. You’d probably exhaust every avenue trying to get back into football. You’d probably try your old contacts, you might try your old teammates. You may even try a new agent.

If you tried to find a new agent you might find that there a load of crap agents out there; they might be the sort of people who offer to help but don’t really care. Even if you found an enthusiastic agent you may have to go through the indignity of hawking yourself around clubs. This all happened to Lars Leese;

“Thus in February and March 2000 Waldorf Mannheim, 1860 Munich, Alemania Aachen, Rot-Weiss Essen, Kickers Stuttgart, Fortuna Cologne and FC St. Pauli all received faxes from Holgar Wacker (Leese’s agent)………….” (K o D)

Leese waited months for non-existent replies.

Apart from the genuine superstars nobody truly feels that their job is secure. A player only needs to have a couple of shaky games and the pressure starts to mounts. Doubts will be formed in peoples’ minds and the questions begin to form; “Can he really do it?”….. “Can he hack it?”……… “Is he up to it?” The precariousness of football as a career is illustrated when Leese posed one question before signing for Barnsley;

“So this contract is valid for both Premier League and First Division?” (K o D)

Even if you don’t suffer a career ending knee injury your career can still end very suddenly, as Leese found out;

“Professional footballer? It seemed like another life (his life only a year before). Now at half-past five in the morning he was standing in one of the business parks in Gelnhausen, selling sandwiches.” (K o D)

For the vast majority of footballer there is the real risk of this happening. The list of released players can be very large; 123 players were released by Premier League clubs last June (2011).

8) The pressure forced on players

Mickey Thomas tells us what it’s like to play for Manchester United;

“My pressure was appearing in front of those fans. My pressure was getting and keeping my place in the team. My pressure was putting in the kind of performance those thousands expected every week. That was the pressure for me. They only saw Mickey Thomas the footballer. They didn’t see me as a fragile human being who couldn’t handle my footballing life.

They didn’t understand the problems I was going through mentally. Howe could they when the mask never slipped outwardly? Back inside Old Trafford I became adept at hiding my feelings. We would all sit around as a group, as a team . Different characters. Different Mind Sets. Some Strong. Some lacking confidence. Some, like me, unable to cope with the pressure.

We all had our problems. Some were bigger than others. Many couldn’t handle theirs. I was one individual who just couldn’t hack it in that particular phase of my often troubled life. Mentally I was distressed but no one knew. I kept myself to myself. I didn’t confides in anyone.

Everyone assumed I was Mickey, the happy-go-lucky, cheeky chappie. A cocky little guy without a care in the world who loved his job. Far from it. I had so many demons in my head and I couldn’t kick them out. It was literally doing my head in.”

Even George Best felt pressurised sometimes;

“When you’re flavour of the month they come to you…… I couldn’t hide, and I tried. That’s why I disappeared so many times. I kept packing in just to get away from it all, trying to find havens to disappear to, and I couldn’t” (K & S)

It doesn’t look like you can have a normal existence even with all your money. For example you can’t go out and just have a good time;

“Once they went dancing in the Barnsley nightclub, Hedonism. It was the last time. ……….. (Lars) Finally fled with her to the dance floor (away from questioning fans). Everyone else immediately stopped dancing. They stood around the couple in a circle ‘and stared at us though Frank Sinatra had shown up in the club’ Daniela recalled.” (K o D)

This example sounds like a scene from the nightclub scene in “This Sporting Life”. You may remember the trouble Steven Gerrard had on a normal night out once.

9) Footballers are judged by exacting standards

Footballers seem to exist under the highest possible level of scrutiny. The scrutiny is one of the main things that put me off the life of a footballer.

I don’t have a problem with the role of “role model” as it’s an easy role for anyone to accomplish – it basically involves not breaking the law and being polite. What I’m talking about the perceived public accountability of footballers. Footballers seem to have been allotted a major social role in contemporary British society, most of this role involves becoming a lightning rod for criticism

If you were a “Footballer” you would occupy a role and perform a job that few people can adequately fulfil. To be a “Footballer” requires several things. You need a high degree of specialised skills. You need to make it through continual sifting progress that ensures only the best players make it. You need to make it through training by constantly prove that you’ve still got what it takes. Lastly, you need to work like a Trojan all the time.

Even though a “Footballer” has to pass through all those hoops in order to remain as a “footballer” some people still criticise them for being crap and lazy. Even though they are the best people suited to the job they are still criticised. The critics would have a point if the clubs let just anybody become a footballer but clubs don’t, they pick competent people through several sifting processes. If footballers weren’t able to make it through the stages of development they wouldn’t be footballers.

The fact criticism of players exists tells you that some people feel the job is easy. If the job was as easy as these people seem to claim there would be ten of thousands of professional clubs in Britain rather than about 130. Criticising footballers with impunity is rather unfair, as Dunphy puts rather well;

“The cheats or simple inadequates of other walks of life could come to the Den and apply to our work a set of judgemental criteria they wouldn’t dreamed applying on Monday morning” (O a G?)

It would be interesting to ask these critics how they would feel if their work was judged in the same way that they judge footballers, how would they feel if their work was pulled apart on live TV in front of millions? Would they like faceless nobodies to phone up radio stations in order to complain about them and the standard of their work? I sense these critics wouldn’t like it.

The situation is now worse than the one Dunphy describes as the criticism is now a lot stronger. The ridiculous pressure applied by some fans – A lot of fans seem to think that the game owes them success and glory – must be horrible and I’d hate to work in this environment of criticism.

10) Players can become tools of the PR Industry

The spotlight on players is made worse by the commercial pressures exerted by sponsors. Footballers have been hoisted up society’s flag pole of attention as examples to us all, this allows sponsors to think they can take advantage of a footballers’ position by offering them endorsements.

It seems that both sides win out of this arrangement; the company gets some sporting stardust and the sportsman gets a lot of money. Yes, everybody looks like a winner in this situation. However the sportsman only remains a winner until they transgress the spurious moral code dreamt up by the company. When the sportsman transgresses the scrap heap awaits, the sportsman no longer fits in with the company’s wholesome image. It’s like a footballers’ private life is in control of the sponsors and media.

The Public Relations industry’s bullshit has infected football by clouding the minds of football’s administrators. The people under the spell of PR bullshit have created a type of football where TV dictates to football, where companies dictate to clubs and where Bullshit PR teams have decided that player interviews are best brought to you by the good people over at Castrol, Red Bull and IBM.

The people spouting PR bullshit think they are bestowing glamour. They think that a company logo on a polo shirt collar is glamorous apparently. The pressure on players to become spokespeople for horrible companies by proxy is degrading.

11) The people making astronomical sums of money out of football are not the players

Billions in profit are made from football. The sport allows chairmen, shareholders, administrators, sportswear companies and the sponsors to make obscene profits. The simple act of 22 players playing a sport on a pitch allows this to happen. Everything else grew from this simple act; the grounds, the chairman, the administrators, the sponsors they have all come after the game.

Without the 22 players there would be nothing, no profit, no flash suits, no HD TV coverage, no third-party ownership of contracts. Yet the players only see a fraction of the money that’s the result of their labour. They’re kept down, prevented from mixing with the owners, made to feel their place by the gilded plutocrats.

These eleven points tell us that playing professional football is more like a waking nightmare than a dream job.

A few flag ideas

A comrade on the When Saturday Comes message board said something yesterday and I thought there could be a flag in it. I decided to tap into the present “AMF” vibe with this design;

England are playing in eastern Europe tonight. In eastern Europe certain people like to nick flags outside grounds and then display them upside down inside grounds as “battle treasure”. I’ve designed a flag for this unfortunate situation. When hung outside a pre-match pub it looks like this;

When hung inside a ground it looks like this;

Here’s another design, harking back to Europe’s past;

Stuff I’ve found on the internet

There’s no football this afternoon so I had a bit of a look around you tube, here’s what I found.

Hungary 1 Wales 2 – 1975

Poland 3 Bulgaria 0 – 1969

Holland 2 Hungary 2 – 1966

BP Kinizsi (Ferencváros) 4 Austria Vienna 2 – 1955

Orient, Club For A Fiver, Part One, “The famous “Get you dinner’ speech is in another part”;

A bollocking from Warnock;

“It always hurts afterwards” – Dagenham & Redbridge in 1993/’94

Premier Passions  – AKA Peter Reid swearing a bit at points – Part One(Other parts are available)

Magic Waddle – in French and black & hhite!!!

Magic Waddle – in English and colour!!!

Once In A Lifetime (The Extraordinary Story of The New York Cosmos)

Rab C and the Fitba

I’ve just finished watching a Rab C. Nesbitt box set (Series 1-8). It goes without saying that I loved every minute of it but enjoyment wasn’t the only thing I gained, I was also able to repair the gaping hole in my TV comedy CV.

The hole was caused by the episode entitled “Fitba”; I missed it when it was originally broadcast and I don’t think I’ve ever regretted missing a programme as much. The regrets began immediately; the day after it had been on I listened to classmates describing the details of the episode, I was agog.  I can still recall the acute feeling of being gutted.

They never repeated the episode, not even in this multi-channel age, so my imagination developed glorious myths around the episode. Then I decided to forget about the episode until I saw the boxset 3 years ago, whereupon the gaping tear in my sense of having lived a full life reopened. The boxset finally darned the tear and I was able to finally see that the episode was as good as I expected. I could finally relax after 22 years.

As I watched the contents of the boxset I made two realisations; I was a bit of a young connoisseur when it came to television comedy – I’d already seen most of the episodes when they were originally broadcast – and there are hardly any mentions of “the fitba” in Rab C. Nesbitt. The second realisation struck me as a bit odd, the programme is set in the middle of Glasgow. There’s only one obvious mention of “the fitba”; the episode called “Fitba”;

As for other mentions, well, in one episode Jamesie  tells Rab that He, Andra and Dodie are discussing Celtic’s championship winning team. There are also mentions of glamourous European clubs in a couple of episodes and Jamesie wears a Scottish tracksuit top from 1986 in another episode.

Considering that the programme is set in Govan, the middle of Rangers territory, there are only three mentions of the Ibrox club; a doctor comparing Rab’s chances of surviving cancer to Rangers’ chance in the European Cup and Jamesie mentioning the word “Hun” twice. The first mention occurs when Andra has a heart attack in the pub;

“Someone says : “Look he’s turning blue”. Cue Jamesie Cotter : ‘Well that’s awright – he won’t mind – he’s a Hun !!”

The second mention occurs when Jamesie describes Gordon Ramsey. The second mention led to 67 complaints, which in turn drew the following comments from the actress that plays Mary;

“ELAINE C Smith has told viewers who complained about the Christmas Rab C Nesbitt show to “grow up”.

The actress, who plays Rab’s wife Mary, was angry that despite gags including child sex abuse and sexual references in a church – most of the 200 complaints were about the word “Hun”. 

 Character Jamesie Cotter used the word to describe chef Gordon Ramsay, a former Rangers player, angering fans.

Elaine wrote: “There are a load of things I thought viewers would complain about.  “Women in burkas singing ‘Don’t Ya Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?’, sexual references of a lewd nature, God references. “But the complaints were about Gordon Ramsay being called a Hun as a gag. I repeat a GAG … and one written by a lifelong Gers fan too.

“To all of them on both sides of this ridiculous divide I say grow up.”

That’s it, about six references to “the fitba” in 53 episodes

If you try to search out references for football in Rab C. Nesbitt using Google, like trying to find out which club Rab supports, there’s not much to enlighten us. I found a single straw-clutching article in the Evening Standard that connected Gennaro Gattuso to Rab via Gattuso’s clash with Joe Jordan. The biggest lead linking Rab with football came from this tantalising couple of lines in a review of a BBC Scotland radio phone-in show on 22 December 2012;

“Meanwhile, what team did Rab C Nesbitt really support?

That’s the question we asked when his old mucker Tony Roper (aka Jamesie Cotter) joined us in the studio.”

Alas we can’t hear the answer to that question, as the shows are no longer on the i-player, or anywhere for that fact.

Maybe the omission of football is a good thing from the comedy’s point of view. When was the last time you watched a football-based piece of comedy that was full of subtleties and nuances?  I guess that the mystery of Rab and “the Fitba” is a mystery that’s destined not to be solved, but then again there’s nothing wrong with that, life needs a little mystery sometimes.

I’ve got a new hobby!!!

My new hobby is called Sticker Spotting. It’s easy, all you need to do is walk around urban areas and try to spot the stickers that football fans leave behind on street furniture and buildings. Care not for the harsh looks of strangers for these people obviously don’t have an interesting hobby.

Anyway, I’ve seen stickers in Cardiff

In Glasgow

In York

In Port Talbot

In Rhyl

In Helsinki