The State Of Football: November 2013 - Cocaine, The New Metatarsal

I started writing this blog post a few months ago but never got around to finishing it. I always start typing when the Mrs is watching X-Factor or some other reality show but then end up getting distracted, usually by the Serie A/La Liga/Ligue 1 game that I have one the go on my laptop. Tonight I find myself raging after watching a ridiculously poor performance from West Ham and have decided to take a break from football, and therefore have no distractions, other than X-Factor in the background (which isn't much of a distraction for me).

What I want to talk about are the observations that I've made lately that are things that I feel didn't exist say five years ago and are very much common place in football in the year 2013.

"Cocaine is a hell of a drug"

"Cocaine Injuries"
I spoke about Tomas Rosicky's ongoing injury problems a few blog posts ago and alluded to the fact that I've been told by a few people who have a mate that's in the know (I'm sure you all know someone like this, their best mate is next door neighbours with Nani or their brother's girlfriend's sister is going out with Junior Hoilett *sigh*) that Rosicky was absent from the Arsenal starting lineup not because of a muscle, bone, joint or ligament injury but because of a cocaine addiction. I've since heard that Jack Wilshere and Andy Carroll have both spent time off due to addictions to the white stuff (apparently Andy Carroll is still off as a result); the whole thing makes me think of the spate of metatarsal injuries that we had around 10 years ago. Let's hope we're not all going have to pray and rub our noses around April/May of next year in the hope that Jack can be fit for the World Cup squad.

Swapping shirts at half time
What?!? When did we start doing this? I can understand when people do it in meaningless friendlies between Brazil and Nigeria at Loftus Road; when they're probably going to make 11 substitutions each at half time. I'd want to nab Neymar's shirt. But when you're 3-0 down in a La Liga game at the Bernabeau at  Ronaldo has already dicked all over you don't make his head bigger by running over and being like, "Oh Christiano you're so amazing, can I have your shirt por favour (I know the lingo in La Liga)?" Especially when you've got another 45 minutes of trying to catch him and give him a kicking without he or any of his team mates having enough evidence to wave the imaginary card at the ref. You've got a job to do! I wouldn't go up to my boss at lunchtime and ask if we can swap ties (I probably wouldn't do it at 5pm either though, he'd think I'd lost it)!! Stop it!

4-6-0 and the false nine
Right, I've got loads of ammo for this one as I've just watched us (West Ham) lose to the worst, scrap that they can't be the worst because they're clearly better than us, one of the worst team's in the Premier League. I need to clear things up for misinformed football fans who seem to think we're playing this formation for tactical reasons or out of arrogance after the Sp*rs game. West Ham United have no strikers. We play nobody up front because we have NOBODY to play up front (unless we play one of our youth players). We released a player in the summer because he wasn't good enough in our eyes (Carlton Cole) and then had to beg him to re-sign with us because we have no alternatives (damn you cocaine, you stole Andy Carroll, according to my mate's dad's neighbour who goes to Zumba classes with Andy Carroll's mum)! If I was Carlton Cole I'd have said, "Yeah, you want me back do you Sam? £500k a week!" We'd have probably paid it, what other options do we have? Play 6 midfielders, one of whom does nothing other than walk around arguing with anything that can speak (Nolan), 2 of whom are wingers who want to just cross the ball at any opportunity (to the 0 in the middle of the box) and then bang long balls up to nobody when we run out of ideas? So just to recap, we're not trying to be defensive, clever or arrogant, we're not Spain or Barca, we have no other option!

Beating up Joe Hart
Joe Hart is a great goalkeeper, OK maybe not a great goalkeeper, he's a very good goalkeeper. Can we stop trying to crucify him for every mistake he makes (and goals where her couldn't have done anything better). Maybe it's because I'm a goalkeeper, I can't stand it when people pick on goalkeepers, we can't afford to make mistakes like you outfielders do and most of the time we'll go game after game not putting a foot wrong, but do you remember that? No! People need to start pointing fingers at Nastasic and Javi Garcia and not relishing the fact that City are now playing Pantymillion over our England's true number 1.

Roma
Roma are pretty awesome at the moment. Well I say that but I fear they may have peaked a few weeks ago and aren't as good as they were when Totti and Gervinho were fit. For those of you that don't follow the Italian league (what the hell are you doing with your lives) Roma are basically doing an Arsenal; every week they win and everyone says, "No they can't win the league, it's too early, they haven't played anyone decent yet..." I suppose Inter, Napoli, Tottenham and Liverpool aren't decent then no? For those of you that don't follow Serie A you also need to be made aware that Gervinho has actually been good. I kid you not, not only does he sound like he should be Brazilian, he now looks like it too.

BT Sport and the Sunday Night Football Show
Today I had a little rant on Twitter. I actually had two if you count the swearing that preceded the conclusion West Ham v Norwich game. The first of my rants was with regard to the fact the BT Sport have now bought the rights to the Champions League from 2015 onwards, meaning that there will be no more Champions League on terrestrial TV. I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs of it all and spout off about the continual movement of football away from the fans in the interests on big corporations who claim that they are doing it all with the aim of providing an amazing service at a great price but are actually just trying to make MORE money.

Anyway this isn't what I wanted to talk about, what I wanted to say, quite positively for BT Sport, is that as much as Michael Owen has got to be one of the most boring sounding Co-Commentators EVER, up there with Mick McCarthy, they have got something right in the form of the Sunday Night Football Show presented by James Richardson. The program is brilliant and provides me with not only an alternative to the X-Factor Results Show but also decent coverage from Italy, France and Germany, a bit of educated football related "banter" (I hate that phrase) and a live game from one of the afore mentioned countries. Give it a watch.

Get one of these on at HT

Real Eagles
I'm  not quite sure when we started doing this? I didn't get the memo. But I've noticed that Crystal Palace, in an aim to look even more like one of those Eastern European teams whose fans you'd never want to bump into after the game, have decided to copy Lazio and get a REAL EAGLE in as their mascot?!? What the hell?!? An Eagle? It's bad enough that they already have "Ultras" and that teams all over England have started bringing those stupid pyro/smoke bomb things to games. It's Wigan v Barnsley, not Locomotive Moscow v Anzi Makachakalaka!! Back on the subject of the Eagle, what next? Are Hull going to bring a real Tiger down? Will Leicester maybe round up some of the local Foxes to go through the opposition team's bins and leave old rotten vegetables strewn across the away changing rooms? What the hell has the footballing world come to?

That isn't debris in the background...

40 Team World Cup
We already have a 24 team European Championship in 2016 and a road show scheduled for 2020 and Platini goes and wades in with this idea of a 40 team World Cup. Now don't get me wrong, I probably love the World Cup more than 99.999999% of people with wives/girlfriends on this planet, so I'd love it to last a bit longer, but at the same time he's not really given it any thought. Firstly if you have groups made up of uneven amounts meaning that in some of the final group games other teams will have already played and will know what result they need in order to go through (see Austria v West Germany 1982). Secondly, I keep saying this over and over and over, there are 9/10 teams that are members of CONMEBOL (the South American equivalent of UEFA) and they can potentially get 5 spaces at a World Cup. Conversely there 46 and 56 members of the AFC and CAF respectively and each of those federations get around 4 spaces each. And then people wonder why Asian and African teams haven't done that well in the past at the World Cup?? Surely we need to redistribute World cup spaces (including ones for UEFA, OFC and CONCACAF), if not in the interests of being fair, let's do it off the back of the randomness that teams from Africa bring to major international tournaments. In fact let's have a World Cup in Africa again soon (that'll p*ss off the racists), I feel like the last one we had wasn't crazy enough, by African Cup of Nations standards, I want to see a World Cup semi final where the grass on the pitch is so bad that they've (freshly) painted it green; and where there are so many flying insects on the field it looks like a story out of the bible. If you think I've gone off on a random tangent (which I slightly have) then check out the pictures from the Semis of the last African Cup of Nations, the above mentioned things actually happened. Anyway, to cut a long story short, leave it alone Platini!

Kaka
Kaka's back!! I'm assuming he still belongs to Jesus, none the less Jesus has let Milan have him for a while. And boy do they need him! For all of you that didn't know that Roma are currently the form team in Italy I have another bombshell for you. Milan are awful. The novelty of playing in Italy again has worn off for Balotelli and he's back to spending most of the games he plays walking around, occasionally diving and smashing penalties in. Robinho isn't doing much better, I kid you not, I can think of THREE instances this season where he's scuffed a ball that has been squared to him and missed an open goal. I mean who does that?? I'd have backed Carlton Cole to score the chances he's missed. As for the rest of the team, as much as I like Andrea Poli, Stephan El Shaarawy (or SES as I keep hearing him reffered to) and Riccardo Montolivo, in general the Milan squad is above average at best; and then there's Kaka. He scored a good goal against Lazio a couple of weeks ago, I've seen him come on and change games and dare I say it, I've even seen the "Kaka glide". The "Kaka glide" being the moment that he picks the ball up just inside the opposition half and gradually accelerates with it at his feet, effortlessly going past scrambling defenders (oooh it makes me feel like I'm 25/26 again), then when he gets to the box he plays a beautiful ball through...

...and Robinho scuffs it wide! Not quite 2007, but nice to see him doing what he does best.

...And finally, Podcasts
Just wanted to mention this because then it makes this a "Ten things". I'm really into football podcasts at the moment my week is pretty much dominated by them. If you take anything from this blog post make it what I'm about to tell you! If you like football and you can see past Match of the Day and the rest of the crap that the BBC and Sky Sports have to offer get involved in the following:-

• The Guardian Football Weekly & Football Weekly Extra (presented by James Richardson of channel 4 Football Italia fame)
• The Game - Times football podcast presented by Gabriele Marcotti (tied with James Richardson as my favourite pundit)
• The Football Ramble - One of the funniest football related things I've ever come across (after this blog obviously)
• Forza Italian Football - A very informative look into the worlds of Serie A & B
• Serie A Live Radio - Serie A from a North American perspective. Full of weird sound clips and Italian commentary (my Italian is getting better every day BTW); I'm not sure if it's intentional but they make me laugh every week, without fail
• Revista De La Liga - I know I slagged off Sky Sports at the top of this section, but this is actually quite good
• French Football Weekly - a decent podcast about the goings on in Ligue 1, all I have to say on it really

And that's it from me, it's all very Winter 2013. I'll try and get another post up soon and who knows, the next time I look at the state of football we might be travelling to games on hover-boards; by that point BT Sport and Sky Sports will be the only channels that show sports (even kids playing in the park) and the subscription fee will just be taken out of our pay packets without our say just like student loan repayments and national insurance. Money grabbing ****s!

Oh and BTW, I haven't said that any of the above mentioned players are on coke so don't sue me! This is just the word on the street...

I suspect my girlfriend thinks I watch too much football...

I'm no poet, I've never written a poem in my life, and can't really get my head around what makes a poem a poem if it doesn't rhyme. This is just something I thought of while reflecting on what I did last weekend (not necessarily a poem)...

Saturday morning, I caught the build up to the Liverpool game on my mobile.

I don't like Liverpool, I'd hoped they'd lose.

From the sounds of it Stoke could have shocked them.

I suspect my girlfriend thinks I watch too much football.

I went to West Ham, to watch us play newly promoted Cardiff.

We weren't amazing, but Cardiff weren't good enough to punish us.

In the end it was a comfortable victory, Cardiff will do well to stay up.

I suspect my girlfriend thinks I watch too much football.

I rushed home to watch the end of the Man United game.
Van Persie carried on where he left off.
I must be the only person without him in my fantasy team
I continue to suspect my girlfriend thinks I watch too much football.

Next up was Bilbao away to Valladolid.
Couldn't watch it on Sky Go, so I frantically searched for a stream.
Bilbao were too good for them, they looked very incisive going forward.
At this point my girlfriend definitely must think I watch too much football.

Sunday morning was the same, up early to see the build up to Palace v Sp*rs.
Palace aren't ready for the Premiership, Sp*rs unfortunately look quite good.
Went from this game straight into Chelsea v Hull
Yeah, my girlfriend thinks I watch too much football.

On to Barcelona v Levante, intermittently flicking over to the Dortmund game.
Barcelona are 6-0 up after 45 minutes, are Levante even trying?
Dortmund scrape a late 2-1 win, my accumulator is still on.
If you ask my girlfriend she'd say, I watch too much football.

PSG to end the day, at home to Ajaccio.
Last game on the accumulator, it takes precedence over Real Madrid.
PSG draw comeing back from a goal down, Cavani's equaliser was brilliant.
My girlfriend goes to bed in the dying minutes probably thinking, "man alive, he watches too much football".

So in 48 hours I managed to watch 9 live games in one way or another.
I'd like to point out that the majority of this was done on my laptop and mobile.
I'm no TV hogger, god bless Sky Go/BT Sport Mobile
Despite this if you ask her, I suspect my girlfriend thinks I watch too much football.

"Playing Hard" and the Confederations Cup

His hair is still rubbish

So the football season is finally over (unless you count the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the Women's European Championship), all of you non-football fans can finally stop saying, "What's this match about? I thought the season was over?!?" I have nothing to fear though because this summer's main event for me is The Ashes. For those of you who are unfamiliar, The Ashes is a series of 5 day cricket matches between England and Australia, where many people in this country all of a sudden become partisan English cricket fans and we're expected to turn a blind eye to any sporting injustices that those brash, beer swilling, cork hat wearing, convict descendant Australians suffer. Obviously I don't conform to this. For a start, being of West Indian heritage my leanings aren't towards either side and I therefore can offer my unbiased opinions on the whole thing.

Last Wednesday I eagerly awaited the the start of the series and I wasn't disappointed. Well I wasn't in terms of entertainment. What did disappoint me was some of the ridiculously biased commentary (and media coverage). I'm not sure why I was surprised by it all, it happens every time the national football team takes part in a major tournament. It started with Chris Roger's dismissal on the first day (apologies non-cricket fans, there is some football at the end of this), the ball seemed to be sliding down the leg side but the umpire gave it out. Upon review it was found to be just clipping the outside of the stump so the umpires original decision correctly stood. Now this decision, although correct as per the rules of the game, was pretty harsh and heaped more pressure on the already struggling Australians. Fast forward 24 hours and Jonathan Trott was given out LBW, now as with the Rogers Decision it was really close and as with the Rogers decision the batsmen was given out when he probably wasn't. Now I say this but all of the evidence, Hotspot (from the angle that was available) and "Snicko" both suggested that Trott hadn't touched the ball with his bat, and therefore was out. Where both incidents differed was the response that they got in the media. If there are any cricket followers reading this (please say there are, the football fans have probably either skipped on to the Confederations Cup bit or gone back to Twitter to take the mick out of Wayne Rooney) you'll remember the stories of Trott fuming and Anderson's press conference, but I don't remember seeing anything in the press regarding the Rogers dismissal.

Broad's "Snicko" reading is still oscillating

Worse was to come the following day. While batting Stuart Broad edged, I say "edged" however he almost got the full face of the bat on it, a ball to first slip and then stood there whilst the umpire failed (somehow) to give him out. People say it was the Australian's fault for wasting all of their reviews, personally I don't think it would have mattered if they'd have had a review left, both Hotspot and "Snicko" would have been useless. With Hotspot you wouldn't have got a little white mark where the ball made contact; the whole bat would have been white from the heat that the ball created when it CLEARLY DEFLECTED OFF THE BAT INTO THE SLIP'S HANDS. As for "Snicko" there wouldn't have been a clean spike in the oscilating sound waves! It would have looked like somebody's sound cloud mix!! The was so much sound because it CLEARLY DEFLECTED OFF THE BAT INTO THE SLIP'S HANDS!! And then to add to it all Naser Hussein then had the cheek to say that Stuart Broad was "COURAGEOUS" for staying out there and dealing with the flack he will have got from the fielders?!? What the hell?!? That's like me turning up at a courtroom for a trial of a burglar who'd been caught on CCTV in the act, smiling in the camera, with no mask (or even hood) on, and saying, "Ooooh! He's courageous for pleading not guilty! Standing up to the prosecution lawyer!" When did we start not only turning a blind eye to cheating but praising it?!? Has the world gone mad?!? All I keep hearing is that it's because England are "Playing Hard". Yeah that's hard indeed, it's pretty hard to get someone out if they hit the ball, you catch it, and they're still not out! I hope we don't see any more displays of such courage or "Playing Hard" during the rest of the series. Shane Warne now joins the commentary team, hopefully he can restore some balance to their views...

Arshavin clearly hasn't a clue what to do with this bat!

Here's one for all of the football and cricket fans. No wonder the Aussies are struggling with their batting, they've got Andrei Arshavin coming it at number 5. He's not been any good since that 4-4 at Anfield.

PS For you non-cricket fans, it's Steve Smith

How's your Russian Warnie??

Now to the Football!!
Order has been restored! Spain choked in the Confederations Cup Final and the flair of the mighty Brazilians won the day. Bring back Alfonso (with the white boots) and Morientes! To be fair the result (however entertaining) was a bit of a freak one, Spain were knackered after a late finish in their semi with Italy. I struggled with all those late nights, the players must have felt even worse. I'm really not sure how I'm gonna cope next year? Can't FIFA just schedule the games for 6pm and 8pm BST? PLEASE! I'm pretty much going to die at work next year with those 11pm kick offs. And remember I don't want any, "Are you staying up to watch that? England aren't even playing!"

Neymar?? Nah!!

Finally I just wanted to say how wrong I was about Neymar. I'm not saying he's as good as Messi or Ronaldo. I'm not saying he's achieved anything major in his career or that he'll definitely be successful in Spain. What I am saying is that I did not give the guy any credit whatsoever when I heard he was coming to Europe. I had him down as the new Andrea Silenzi. Based on what I saw he was at least a Finidi George!

And if you know your 'History'...

History is a funny thing. You can make it. You can re-write it. I've got a degree in it. More importantly and in the context of this blog post, there's a phrase or should I say concept that is often banded around in the football world. That being the concept of a football team having 'History'.

Firstly I'm going to explain this concept for anyone that may not be as au fait (what the hell are you doing reading a blog on football it you're not?). In the last 20 years football has been transformed from a sport in which a few teams were dominant but outsiders stood a chance if they worked hard and luck went their way; to a game dominated by teams that are able to spend more money on a single player than some of the other competitors in their division spend assembling whole squads. With the increasing influence that money has has on the game there has been an influx of billionaire 'Sugar Daddys' purchasing average football clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester City & Paris Saint Germain and turning them into superpowers with the waive of a chequebook. As a result of this, naturally, there are a lot of jealous football fans and these football fans begrudge the likes of Chelsea stating that one of the main reasons for their dislike of them being that they don't have any 'History'. 'History' is essentially the footballing equivalent of 'Old Money', the concept of a team having the right to be successful because they have in the past and that newly successful teams have less right to 'mix it with the big boys', so to speak.

Personally I am not a fan of the concept of 'History' aka the footballing equivalent of the divine right of kings. There are a number of reasons for this, the first being that it's such a vague concept. A good 'History' is very hard to quantify, well nobody ever has quantified it for me. Do you consider a team that has won 10 trophies in the past to have 'History' or is it 15 or even 20? When looking at volume of trophies won shouldn't you also take into consideration how prestigious or difficult it was to win each one? For example you cannot equate a League Title won to a Zenith Data Systems Trophy (remember that one on Midweek Sports Special? Anyone who does, give yourself a pat on the back), a Southern League Title (West Ham won one of those once, and you don't hear me bleating on about it*) or even more relevant to modern day football a Littlewoods/Rumbelows/Coca Cola/Carling/Captital One Cup. I don't care what anyone says, not even two Rumbelows Cups equate to a League Title in my books!

*I may not bleat on about it but if I hear any more crap about teams not having 'History' I'm gonna write to West Ham suggesting we should have a star on our badge for our Southern League Title.

If your team won a trophy in this 'get up' you can say they have 'History'

Additionally, how long ago does a trophy have to have been won to be counted as 'History'? There are professional footballers who won't be old enough to vividly remember Chelsea's 1997 FA Cup victory, the trophy that is seen to have kicked off their period of relative domestic success. Yet Chelsea are the first team name on the lips of all critical wannabe 'Footballing Historians'. That trophy was won 16 years ago, how far back do I have to go? I feel a bit sorry for Chelsea (only a tiny bit), I bet Liverpool and Manchester United fans didn't have Sunderland and Aston Villa fans coming to them in the 1980's and 1990's saying that they had no 'History', that their success was worth nothing because when their teams were dominant you couldn't barge the goalkeeper over the line once he'd caught the ball (the protection that keepers get nowadays eh) and that their players never had to spend 5 days down a coal mine then  recover to wallop the opposition on a Saturday afternoon. Or did Sunderland and Villa fans (in case you're unsure as to why I'm picking Sunderland and Villa; they both can be argued to have 'History' in my eyes, especially when you go back to the earlier part of the 20th century) get stick off of fans of The Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers where does it end? Where does it end??

Another thing that really irks me regarding the concept of 'History' are the common misconceptions that people have with regards to teams that have 'History'. A typical example, and I swear I'm not picking on them, they spring to mind because I come across them all the time, is when I hear Sp*rs fans say that Manchester City have no 'History'. Now I'm not saying that Man City have 'History' but up until 3 years ago both Sp*rs and Man City had won the same number of league titles (that's 2 for those of you who didn't know, can't believe you didn't know that). I've then heard Sp*rs fans in the same breath, suggest that they have 'History' or have had periods where they dominated English football (and if you think I'm lying I'll 'out' said Sp*rs fans). Firstly I'd just like to make one thing clear, Tottenham Hotspur have NEVER had a period where they have dominated English football. Yes they were a strong side in the 60's and they have won the FA cup on a number of occasions (7 or 8, I can't remember off the top of my head and I can't be bothered to look it up) but they have not dominated English football. Secondly in my books 2 league titles is pretty comparable to 2 league titles. YES Sp*rs have won a hell of a lot more FA Cups but then anyone can win the FA Cup. Names are drawn out of a hat for Christ's sake, you could have the easiest draw in the world and get to the final, then the luck could be on your side on that one day. That's exactly what happened to Wigan this year and they got relegated. I mean West Ham have won the FA Cup 3 times! Speaking of  West Ham, I've even had people suggest to me that we have 'History'. We DO NOT have history! That's right. I said it, I don't care that West Ham are my team I'm being honest, fans need to sit and read a football history book before they start chucking the H-bomb about.

Finally let me set the record straight for all of you out there, well anyone that's still interested in Travis Newton's Whistle Stop Guide to English footballing history, most of you will have probably stopped reading by now. I must explain before I start naming names, in my eyes winning the League Title is the ultimate prize in football and is a true barometer of a teams strength as they will have, by winning it, proved that they are the best team in the land over a period of around 40 games; playing everyone else of a similar standard home and away over a 10 month period. No domestic cup competition can compare to the League Championship however the FA Cup is a prestigious competition which, it can be argued, is generally taken seriously by all teams big or small (except for that time when Man Utd went off to the World Club Cup and got schooled by Romario and Edmundo). The Littlewoods/Rumbelows/Coca Cola/Carling/Capital One Cup on the other hand is right down on the pecking order, anybody claiming to have 'History' who has mainly (or only) enjoyed success in that tournament needs  a serious talking to and will receive one if I ever find out about them. Now that I've set your expectations I'd like to declare that the following teams have 'History' and therefore their fans are allowed to sing the song that goes, "And if you know your history! Well it's enough to make your heart go! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah...!" Anyone else is banned from doing so in my presence.

Liverpool
God I hate Liverpool, their fans are so smug and they are the biggest users of the H-bomb. Unfortunately you cannot argue with their claim to 'History'. They've even won the Littlewoods/Rumbelows/Coca Cola/Carling/Capital One Cup more times than anyone else.

Manchester United
The, self proclaimed, benchmark of English footballing dominance (in my eyes Liverpool are still more successful even at 20 titles to 18). It's testament to their success that I don't like them but can't actually think of a reason other than pure jealousy.

Arsenal
Kings of Southern England, nobody south of the Watford Gap comes anywhere near to these guys in terms of success. Anyone who suggests otherwise has either been smoking crack or is bad at addition, end of.

Everton
One that often slips under the radar of even the most learned football fan. I'm often accused of favouring them due to the ties I've had with them in the past. For those of you with lives and friends and that made it this far down (I'm not sure why you'd still be reading if you have a life), they have 9 League Titles, 5 FA Cups and a European Cup Winners Cup. They also are second in the list of teams with the longest run in the top flight AND even more importantly they sing, "And if you know your history..." THAT! My friends, is what you call 'History'.

Aston Villa
These guys can't be over looked in my eyes. Yes they've not had the most enjoyable last 15 years thanks to the likes of David O'Leary and Alex McLeish; but you cannot argue with 7 League Championships, 7 FA Cups, 5 Littlewoods/Rumbelows/Coca Cola/Carling/Capital One Cups and even a European Cup. And that European Cup was won in my lifetime (and I'm young guys, so that was pretty recent). Villa dominated the 1890's and I suspect (begrudgingly) that they were the inspiration behind West Ham's colours (although we traditionally have white socks), seen as we were formed in 1895. Imagine having so much 'History' that other teams copy your kit eh... Cough! Sunderland!

Other notable mentions are the likes of Sunderland and Blackburn Rovers. Although I'd argue that these teams like Newcastle, Tottenham, Chelsea, Man City, Sheff Weds and Sheff Utd have enjoyed some success but cannot sing the history song or claim to have 'History'.

And that, my readers, is a history of English Domestic Football according to me. You may disagree. You may think I have too much time on my hands. You may not care! You may only sing, "And if you know your history..." if you support Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Everton or Aston Villa (or maybe The Wanderers).

PS The Confederations Cup start this weekend!!!!

I'm back (like Thomas Rosicky)

Guess who's back...

I'm so so so so sorry. I have been mega lazy in the last few months and haven't posted since January. As the title of the post says, so is Thomas Rosicky; the difference is Rosicky has, allegedly, been away doing a load of coke with Jack Wilshire (do not sue me Arsenal or Thomas/Jack, this is what I have heard, I'm not saying it is fact). Whereas I have... Erm, what have I been doing? Here's ten things I've been doing instead of blogging:-

Being blocked on Twitter by Richard Keys
It's now been 159 days. What the hell are you playing at Keysey? You and Andy Gray may have once dominated Ford Super Sunday but you have very little clout on the internet. Unblock me so that I can tell you how out of touch you are with the real footballing world!! Cowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard!

Moving house
Absolutely nothing to do with football. I moved house on the 27th April to about 2 mins down the road from where I was. The only link I can think of to do with football is that on the day I moved I hurried into my new flat in the hope that I'd catch Man City v West Ham, which was on Sky that afternoon. I got to see the game whilst struggling to put together a self assemble sofa that should have taken a few minutes. Wish I'd never bothered...

Struggling to watch god awful games at Upton Park
That leads me on to the next thing I've been doing. As you may know if you've read my blog before, I have a season ticket at West Ham. Now while I am very glad that we comfortably survived our first season back in the top flight (and showed a hell of a lot more backbone than we did in our previous two seasons in the Premiership); I can't lie, I witnessed some of the most mundane football I've seen EVER. Particularly the Wigan and Reading games. We're talking games so bad you start checking Twitter at around 30 minutes and making conversation with the guy, you only know through having a season ticket, who is having a baby in August may I add. Congratulations, guy who's name I don't know (he's only been there 2 seasons)! Games so bad you feel sorry for the poor buggers that have made the long trip all the way down from Wigan, I mean they still use a horse and cart up there right (please don't hate me, people of Wigan, I'm kidding, it's what I do)?!? Long and short of it all, they were bad games.

Full of "pluck"

Shedding a tear for the minnows of Europe's top divisions
I never used to care about cannon fodder. Especially if they were playing West Ham (to be fair I still don't care if we're playing them in a meaningful game), who am I kidding West Ham are cannon fodder, sometimes, so I'd be damned if I wanted other cannon fodder to do well. Can't have them stealing our plaudits for being "plucky". This season I have cared. It started with lowly Pescara. Poor Pescara! Initially it was just that I noted that they had Vladimir Weiss and Ivan Pelizzoli playing for them, then I started playing with them on FIFA 13, now I wan't to go and watch them playing in Serie B at the Adriatico (yeah I know the name of their ground, I'm Italian me)! Shame they're useless eh. I also developed a soft spot for Wigan in the past season, that was born out out liking the fact that they "play good football" and even more so they play with 3 at the back!! I was so glad that they won the FA cup, especially seen as everyone wrote them off before the game even started. It's a shame that Wigan went down, I'll certainly miss their open brand of (sometimes poorly organised) football.

Getting angry at FIFA 13
Earlier this week I tweeted this link to another site as I felt this totally summed up my experience of playing FIFA13 online. Unfortunately, my gripes do not stop there, don't worry I'm not going to launch into a geeky rant regarding the flaws of FIFA13's single player mode. I will say this though, for the sake of my health FIFA14 better not contain defenders that run out of the way intentionally and referees that award random penalties. Sort it out EA Sports, my blood pressure can't take it!

Back to racing on a Thursday night!

Praying Tottenham don't finish in the top four
To me Tottenham are like Dick Dastardly in Wacky Racers. Nobody (other than Tottenham fans) wants them to win; they look like they're finally going to win, then right at the last minute they f*ck it all up, the rest of the field stream past them and the Ant Hill Mob end up winning the race. This season was like no other Dick Dastardly raced into a 7 point lead over Penelope Pitstop in March, cue all of Dick Dastardly's fans bombarding social networking sites with drivel about how Penelope Pitstop hadn't won the Wacky Races Championship in years (even though Dick himself has never been renowned for his race wining ability), was well past her best and how Dick Dastardly's time had now come. Cut to May and Dick Dastardly had chucked it all away again, despite Mutley basically carrying him single handedly through the race (Mutley won him 27 points), leaving Penelope to sneak across the line right at the last minute. God I hate Dick Dastardly! I can't wait for Mutley to go to another cartoon...

Playing 7 a side football on a Thursday
Can professional footballers stop going down to Fairlop Power League on Thursday evenings to play in their 7-a-side league! Now I'm no professional footballer, I'm not even good enough to have a tale of having trials at a well known football club when I was 14, but at the same time I'm no mug when it comes to playing the beautiful game. When we entered the league we were told we were going to be put in the bottom division and our eyes lit up. We'd played 7-a-side before at Fairlop on a Tuesday, had managed to win the 2nd division and even hold our own in the top one, so the bottom division on a Thursday. No problem. Bring on the Cannon Fodder! And it started like this, we won our first few games handsomely. Every week we'd salivate as teams full of beer bellied over 35 year old men assembled at the bar prior to our game, speculating as to which unlucky 7 were going to fall at our hands on this occasion. There was even talk of playing me up front if it got too easy (I'm a goalkeeper for those of you who don't know). Then it all came crashing to a halt. One week we arrived to see a group of lads at least 5 years our junior and a waist size or so smaller. "It's ok, we're in the bottom league. These will be sh*t." we said. And then it began... In the last 3 months we've probably won 2 or 3 games, bear in mind we play EVERY week so we've probably played somewhere between 12 and 15 games. We're now the guys they smile about when we arrive at the bar, we're the beer bellied over 30 year olds! It's not fair! We were the new team playing in a league that we were clearly too strong for. Now they are. I'm going to start emailing some Premiership teams tipping them off that some of their academy/reserve players may be taking part in un-sanctioned physical activity on a Thursday. When I arrive at the bar I'm fed up of hearing, "I don't know much about these lot lads, they're a new team..."


Counting down to the World Cup
I love the World Cup. This time next year I'll be counting the days down until it all kicks off in Brazil. I've kind have already began (382 days).

Counting down to the Confederations Cup
Every summer that isn't a World Cup summer I have to find a substitute. This is the only way I can get over the depression that there isn't a World Cup on (this is the actual truth). The best substitute is the European Championships (or European World Cup to those of you in the know). Failing that we also have Copa Americas and The Confederations Cup. The thing I like about The Confederations Cup is that it is a tiny tiny insight into what the next World Cup is going to be like. For example, anyone who saw the last one would have heard the Vuvuzelas and known that it was going to be a key feature of South Africa 2010. I have no idea what Brazil 2014 will be like, I'm pretty sure Tahiti won't be there but none the less I'm bursting with excitement about this years Confederations Cup. Look out for updates on here, 20 days to go!!

Making plans to start blogging again
I'm not going to lie. I have embarked on an intense program of procrastination. Ideas for stuff to blog about have popped into my head in the last few months and there have been times when I've got as far as turning on my laptop in anger, but for some reason or another nothing happened. For anyone out there who enjoys reading this stuff I genuinely apologise (mum). I will not leave it a few months again until I return. I'll be back soon with my thoughts on the hot topic of debate within the footballing world that is "History"...

Richard Keys & Wisdom Teeth

Bloody Z-Shaped Blocks

Richard Keys and Wisdom Teeth are two things that I thoroughly dislike at the moment  I'll start with the Wisdom Teeth seen as, although more painful, it most certainly is the lesser of the two evils. Somewhere in the period between Boxing Day and New Years Eve I found myself thinking, "Have I flossed correctly? I feel like there's something stuck in my teeth at the back..." this soon progressed into, "Is my gum itching?" which eventually morphed into, "AHHHHHHHHHH!! I want to rip the left hand side of my jaw out!!" For anybody thinking it, YES, I am a little old for a Wisdom Tooth to be coming out they supposedly grow through between the ages of 17 and 25 (for those that don't know, I'm 32 (just turned)). See the thing that displeases me about Wisdom Teeth, well there are two things, they are that firstly they are THE most redundant parts of the body since the appendix and tonsils (both ticking time bombs that I've managed to evade thus far). I know that the reason we get them is because in days of old our dental hygiene was so bad that we'd have lost a few of our Adult Teeth by the time they came through thus meaning there would be space for them and they would actually serve a purpose as replacement teeth. So basically what you're saying is that we're paying for our ancestors' poor dental care. Not good enough in my books! We should have either evolved to not have Wisdom Teeth or our ancestors should have had regular check ups and flossed every so often. I mean how hard is it to go to the dentist say once every 6 months? Even if they can only get you an appointment smack back in the middle of the day meaning you have to have a half day holiday or longer lunch break. I reckon the Slave-master would have let my ancestors have a half day once every 6 months (too close to the mark??), I mean it's not as bad as the legal minimum 20 days that our employers now need to give... I'm going to stop with the slave jokes now, they're probably making you feel a little uncomfortable and they have nothing to do with Football, which this blog generally has everything to do with. The second thing that I don't like about Wisdom Teeth is their tendency to come out at ridiculous angles thus ensuring that they'll cause some sort of pain at least and if you're really unlucky (I was) an infection. It's like when you used to play Tetris and you were waiting for that one long thin line of four blocks to clear a load of lines. It'd always be Z-Shape, Z-Shape, Z-Shape the other way round, Square, Z-Shape, Inverted L-Shape... and before you knew it, game over (and at game over the next block column would show that the next one due down was the long thing four blocks that you'd needed all along, bastards)! Send me down a Wisdom Tooth that fits the space in my gum damn you!!

Back onto the subject of Football, yes I do love a random, slightly humorous, rant but as mentioned before, this blog is generally about Football. The other thing that is recently developed a disliking for is Richard Keys. See the thing is I remember Keys as a slightly hairy, affable presenter on TV-AM in the 1980's, yeah I'm THAT old (see my age previously mentioned), but years working as the main Presenter on Sky TV's football shows have turned Mr Keys into the offensive and (dated) opinionated beast that we know today. But why do I care? Well I didn't until recently, I'd heard about the controversy and how others had felt about he and his sidekick Andy Gray, but although slightly intrigued I'd hardly given the two of them a second thought. That was until recently. I've know for a while that since being unceremoniously dumped by Sky after numerous 'incidents' the pair were presenting a radio show on Talksport. As I work Monday to Friday 9 to 5 in an office I'd never really had a chance to tune in. But in my current job I can listen to the radio (through headphones) while working, so a few months ago I tuned in and have been doing so every Monday morning between 10 and 12, mainly out of curiosity. What I found when I tuned in was what I'd expected to be fair, Keys and Gray spouting the same rubbish about the Premiership being the best league in the world in the face of any overwhelming facts that proved otherwise and taking great pleasure in latching onto any negative facets that other professional football leagues in Europe may have in an attempt to belittle their credibility. For example most weeks Keys takes great pleasure in reminding listeners of the points deductions that some teams in Serie A have been given for various scandals. I'm not condoning cheating or saying that the clubs in Serie A are whiter than white, I'm aware that there are all sorts of questions that are continually asked with regard to the conduct of officials and the decisions that the bigger clubs get that go in their favour. This wasn't even enough to put my nose out of joint either, I just rolled my eyes and said to myself, "Ol' Keys and Gray are at it again..." When they had a representative from the Society of Black Lawyers on the show discussing the growing pandemic of Racism in Football and a plan for a Black PFA, although I agree some of his points were a little off the mark, Keys and Gray had some questionable points on the matter in my mind. Still, I thought to myself, "They're on the radio doing a show, and they're entitled to their opinions, which some people may agree with." What got me though was when a few weeks ago when Keys had another jibe at "Foreign Football" and I, as many other listeners do, wrote a tweet out in response to Keys' comment... but for some reason Twitter wasn't predicting his user name for me (it should do so for everyone I follow)?? So I searched for the @tSKeysandGray, their username, to check that I was still following them, and discovered that I had in fact been blocked. For what? All I've ever tweeted is stuff on European Football and once a response to the suggestion that the Society of Black Lawyers was in itself an exclusive/divisive organisation. That response being that they exist as there are lawyers of ethnic backgrounds that feel that they are at such a disadvantage due to their ethnic background that they need to be represented through a collective body. And that we should be questioning why we need such a body in this day and age rather than whether they are exclusive. Or words to that effect. Is that blockworthy? I feel as if I've been wronged! I feel like Charlotte Jackson (but not as hot)! I feel like Nelson Mandela, actually I don't, the Mandela thing was definitely not as trivial, but it makes me want to sing, "Freeeeeeeeeeeee Nelson Mandela Travis Newton!!" So here it is, I've been blocked for 19 days to my knowledge (I discovered I was blocked on the 17th of December 2012), I'd like to be freed from my @tSKeysandGray twitter incarceration so I'm going to make a deal out of this until Keys, who claims the account is just his and nothing to do with Gray (that's right Andy, my beef isn't with you), unblocks me. He probably wont even find out about my one man campaign and therefore I'll be blocked forever but as you guys that know about the European World Cup found out in the summer, I can run and run with a joke forever! Even when it no longer seems funny!

19 days...

PS Would you smash it??

PPS The Mark Langdon segment of their show on a Monday morning is really good. Mark is not to be tarred with their brush (I have no beef with you either Mark)!