We’re all going on a European and West Indian tour

Please don't let Astra beat us again!!

West Ham and (Test) Cricket. Two of the many things I love in life.

The former have begun their journey, in their new home (The Estadio Olimpico). I feel like I don’t talk as much about West Ham on here as some people would expect, especially for someone who attends around half their games each season. That’s because, truth be told, I find it a bit boring talking about West Ham. Well on here anyway. Most of the stuff I write about West Ham comes in a fit of rage after a series of poor performances or something like that. That’s boring! I don’t want to be angry.

Then there’s the fact that we are in the Premier League. As I pointed out last week, I find it really hard (especially this year) to get on board the Premier League hype train. Maybe that will change in the next few weeks, who knows? But for now I’m not gripped.

I suppose it’s a good thing that tonight’s game isn’t in the Premier League then. Tonight is the 2^nd, and hopefully not final, trip on our European Tour. “Unfinished Business”, according to the West Ham Marketing team, against the mighty Astra Giurgiu (so mighty I had to look that spelling up). We dispatched of another European giant in the form of NK Domzale is the last round, putting them to the sword in our first outing in the aforementioned shiny new stadium. Now it’s time to book a place in the Europa League group stages, the part of the competition where I’ll stop taking the piss out of the fact that I’ve never heard of our opposition (probably because I will have). For me that’s when the European tour actually begins.

Obviously we have to get there first. I for one am not taking tonight’s match lightly. It was Astra who famously dumped us out last year, bafflingly to the delight of many fans?!? Probably the same fans that were then shocked that despite us having the money the, likes of Lacazette and, more realistically, Bacca have expressed that they have no interest in joining us (you have to build some sort of European pedigree in order to attract many of that next tier of players).

Going into tonight it would appear that we’re already all over the place. Defeat in our first league game of the season, granted this was against one of the favourites for the title; Our £20m striker getting injured in that game; “Minor injuries” to other key players, which I’m hoping is just them trying to avoid playing Astra; and reports of a player mutiny regarding Antonio playing at right back. It all sounds very West Ham already.

I’m going to reserve judgement until we’ve played a few games, although we’d better beat Bournemouth on the weekend. For now #COYI

Look at this guy, with his sunhat going on like he's some sort of "Batting Don"

As mentioned Test Cricket is another one of my passions. I’ve previously explained why it’s Test Cricket and not any of the shorter formats, so I won’t go into that again. This time of year is particularly busy in the test calendar. We’ve had Pakistan over here playing England; Australia touring Sri Lanka; and India in the West Indies.

The England Pakistan series was probably one of the most engrossing that there have been for a while. Unfortunately, such can be the nature of modern day Test Cricket, nowadays there aren’t often series where both sides manage to win multiple test matches. It all tends to play out as a bit of a mismatch in favour of one side or the other, so this summer’s series fascinatingly refreshing.

One thing I’ve been meaning to say for a long time, with regards to English cricket, is how good is Alistair Cook? Yes he’s very backfoot dominant, but the numbers don’t lie. There has to be an argument for Cook being the greatest ever English batsmen; if not in terms of flair, definitely in terms of consistent run scoring.

Meanwhile the series that has just finished between Australia and Sri Lanka has also been very interesting. While the Sri Lankans ultimately ran out 3-0 winners there were two of those test matches that the Aussies could have actually won, but for monumental collapses due to their inability to play spin. One of the Sri Lankan victories was such a turn around that I managed to make a bit of money betting on it (another reason to love test cricket is the stuff that you can bet on, as a causal gambler, if you understand cricket and can spot shifts in the momentum of the game).

Finally, actually not finally, New Zealand start their series with South Africa tomorrow and have been playing Zimbabwe, additionally there was the series in the Caribbean which pitted my beloved, seemingly in constantly turmoil, West Indians against a much stronger Indian side. Talk at the beginning of the series was of this being a chance for the West Indies to show signs of progress in the longer format of the game. Progress that was supposed to have come about as a result of the recent changes to the domestic setup; and an up and coming pool of players that have already demonstrated their ability at the U19 and T20 World Cups, which we won, held earlier this year.

What we actually have had so far is two crushing defeats at the hands of the Indians. But I do feel like there are signs to be optimistic about. In the last test for the first time in a long while I felts like we had a balanced line-up, including a top 6/7 that may genuinely be able to score runs at test level, and a bowling line-up that that could possible take 20 wickets in a 5 day game. “So why did they get their asses handed to them in the third test then Travis?” I hear you ask (you probably aren’t asking that but I’m going to give my opinion).

There is a key factor that I feel is responsible for the West Indies’ failure at the top level of international cricket. This is the domestic setup and investment in it. While it’s great that this new PCL 1^st class competition has been created and is being funded, we need to have a look at fundamentals such as the facilities being used to host West Indian cricket.

I’m not sure whether it’s due to apathy or a lack of funding, or whether it’s intentional, but too many wickets are flat and offer nothing to seam bowlers. Hence we’ve stopped producing them. When I was a kid every West Indian test side consisted of 3 (often 4) fearsome fast bowlers. Where are these guys now? The last test was the first time in a long time that I’ve seen us play four seamers. More tellingly, I feel like our batsmen are always being bounced out and tested with short deliveries yet we never seem to be able to give the treatment back the same way.

Pitches that are more conducive to fast bowling will encourage more kids to become seamers when they grow up, and in turn will give our batsmen more exposure to hostile fast bowling at domestic level. I remember the days when mediocre players like Keith Artherton would bat in sun hats with quick bowlers steaming in at them; now our top order are struggling to deal with fast bowlers with averages that are above 35, like Ishant Sharma!!

We also need to sort our outfields out. The outfield in the last test was nothing short of a disgrace. I can comfortably state that no other test playing nation would host a match on an outfield where it was nigh on impossible to score a boundary if you played the ball along the floor. I’ve struggled at played Saturday cricket with better outfields than the one in St Lucia. How can we expect our batsmen to grow up playing proper, risk free (or reduced), attacking shots along the ground and do rudimentary things like rotating the strike when they aren’t rewarded. This is what breeds sloggers like Kieron Pollard and will also be a factor in our poor approach to batting in the middle of limited overs games when the field is out.

On top of the above our players make the daftest decisions in match situations. I feel like this is in part due to things like not being able to rotate the strike & relieve pressure, handle hostile short pitched bowling, or bowl the right type of seam delivery (with the right field set) for the type of batsman at the crease. The seeds are there but we need to establish a credible 1^st class competition, played in arenas, which have surfaces that both test and reward, batsmen and bowlers. How hard is it!??! I’ll come down and cut the bloody outfield for you!

Sorry I’m aware that this is more of a non-humorous brain dump today. If this is the first time you’ve been on here, it’s normally better! Honest!

Launch of the iPhone 529,293,456H which now comes in turquoise!

The new season starts tomorrow (well the new Premier League season, Aston Villa have already managed to embarrass themselves twice already).  I should be excited (I think) as a football fan, and more importantly a fan of a side plying its trade in the Best league the world™.

But I don’t get it. As mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, I was one of a minority who didn’t switch the TV off on the evening of the 10^th July and say, “Thank god that’s over! It was awful! I can’t wait to get back to watching games like West Brom v Middlesbrough…”

Obviously I’m exaggerating for effect, but even the prospect of watching the same big sides playing each other on a Super Sunday with Martin Tyler saying “And it’s LIVE”, who the hell does he think he is?!?; Mourinho moaning; Arsenal choking but doing just enough to STILL finish above Spurs; West Ham infuriating me with the most baffling displays, even last year (see Swansea at home); West Brom and Sunderland invariably going on runs during which many amateur Sunday sides would fancy their chances against them, yet staying up. It’s just a bit “Meh” for me.

Don’t get me wrong. I love football. And I’m intrigued by the appointments of Mourinho, Guardiola and Conte. By Klopp’s first full season in charge of Liverpool. I want to see whether I was right about Zlatan and if Pogba will step up now he’s playing in a league which isn’t a one and a half horse race. The masochistic part of me wants to see if Man United tear Bournemouth apart this week, with their shiny new side (sorry Bournemouth, I do actually really like you).

But I just can’t get THAT excited. I can see it for what it is, a really well marketed, expensive product, which still lacks some substance when compared to its rivals. It’s like an iPhone! That’s it! The Premier League is football’s equivalent of the iPhone. Yes it’s a good phone, it’s one of the best in the market. But if you weren’t being told that it was the best product out there every time you turned the TV on; If you sampled one of the genuine alternatives to it, and gave that alternative a good trial; You’d probably realise that it offers nothing that its rivals can’t already provide.

And you’d start to pick out its very obvious flaws, be them the complete lack of control of your own media that the operating system gives you by default (come on Apple, we don’t all need hand holding!); the tens of overpriced foreign imports that come in each season and make absolutely no impact because they’re just not that good; the complete tie in to the IOS operating system and lack of backwards/sideways compatibly with hardware (why change the chargers, actually why are they different from every other manufacturer’s); or the damage that the influx of mediocre foreign imports and the craving for instant, money driven, success is doing to our, already not so good, national team.

Not to mention the complete and utter disregard for match going fans. The very people that helped make this product as marketable as it is today; and silly things like not having a YouTube app (I know why, but you’re supposed to be this really intuitive easy to use product) or having to use that crap limited Safari browser.

Anyway, I massively digress. Long and short of it all, I don't buy into the hype of either. You won't find me queuing up outside the apple store overnight or losing sleep over the prospect of Leicester beginning the defence of their title tomorrow against Hull. And come early May I'll probably even be a little bit relieved when it's all over again.

It's over. Was it that bad?

So long to the worst tournament ever! The snoozefest that was Euro 2016. That’s it right? Worst tournament in the history of mankind and the solar system. Worse than Euro 80, which genuinely was the worst in history of mankind, from what I’ve seen of it. Worse than those games of Wembley Doubles at school that never seemed to get past the 2nd round. Worse than Euro 96, which dare I say, wasn’t all that.

Those are the noises coming from the “experts” and from social media, so I suppose it was terrible then. I suppose the 24 team format did ruin it, by letting all and sundry into the competition, to play negative football. I mean take Hungary for example, they definitely didn’t top their group, averaging 2 goals scored a game. They certainly weren’t involved in one of the best games in the tournament, a topsy-turvy shootout with Portugal. The four games they were involved in couldn’t have averaged well over 3 goals per game?

OK so maybe Hungary are an anomaly. What about Iceland? Conquerors of the great England side that went to France. They were negative right? OK so maybe they lined up with a 4-4-2 for their games, but it was a negative one right? I mean let’s forget that they scored in every game they played in; that the 5 games they were involved in yielded 17 goals. They shouldn’t have been there! Diluting the quality of the competition! Sucking all of the entertainment out of it. Let’s hope UEFA see sense and cut Euro 2020 down to just 16 teams. Essentially have less football in a football tournament! Actually why stop at 16. Why don’t we just ask all the experts and Euro 2016 detractors who they think the best two teams in Europe are and they can play a final against each other. Actually scrap the final let’s just have penalties! That way we can get back to the two, alienating cash cows, that are the Premier League and Champions League. Where the same teams do well pretty much every year (Leicester City last year aside). That’s far more entertaining isn’t it.

I’m being silly aren’t I. And I suppose I’m being selective with my examples. For every Hungary and Iceland, Euro 2016 had a Romania, or Sweden, or dare I say Northern Ireland. I agree that Euro 2016 was no classic. It certainly wasn't a patch on the last 24 team tournament I watched, USA 94. But it just wasn’t that bad. What about all the late goals? Payet, winning the opening game with a screamer against Romania. Errrrzil’s ball for Schweinsteiger in the dying seconds of my Ukraine game. Both of the late French goals against Albania. Eder coming to life for all of 30 seconds, to make the difference against Sweden. Northern Ireland putting Ukraine to bed. The Czech Republic coming back from 2 down to draw with, the early darker horses, Croatia. Sturridge snatching us a win against Wales or Milner helping us chuck the Russian game away. And most of all Quaresma marking his rehabilitation into the community with the latest of late winners against the Croats.

There was plenty of drama (and I believe excitement) and the odd spectacular goal. You’ll not see a better bicycle kick than Shaqiri's strike in the last 16 against Poland. Hamsik almost scored one of goals of the tournament against Wales, but denied by a brilliant goal line clearance; he then followed it up with that turn and finish against the Russians. Nainggolan’s goal against Wales seems to have been completely forgotten as Belgium went on to lose the game. As has Modric’s volley against Turkey, because of his early exit. It just wasn’t that bad! I don’t care what Alan Shearer says!

Personally I think the issue is two things. The first being that Portugal, a team nobody liked (not even me), ended up winning the competition. “But they came 3rd in their group...” Newsflash! So did Italy and Argentina in 94 and 90 respectively. It happens. As I mentioned in an earlier post, on top of getting more games, having 24 teams ensures that travesties,  such as teams winning two of their three group games or winning one and drawing the other two but going out,  don't happen.

The second thing being that Euro 2016 was a perfect exhibition of modern day football. Gone are the days of the epic 4-3 quarter final. Football, well successful football, is all about pressing, and running; one up top and playing on the counter. Look at the final. It was basically a carbon copy of the 2010 and 2014 World Cup finals, with different teams. That’s how these big games are decided nowadays. Look at the Copa America final! Since 1990 the losing team in the World Cup final has only scored on one occasion (France in 2006). Before then, the losing team had never failed to score, IN EVERY FINAL! So don’t blame Portugal or having 24 teams for you not witnessing a 1986 World Cup final style game. Blame the incredibly high stakes placed on defeat nowadays due to the amount of money in the game. Blame the exposure that players and coaches from lesser fancied nations will have had to playing against the best, due to factors such as the expansion of the Champions League and the increase in foreign imports in all of Europe’s big domestic leagues. People don’t just naively turn up to be a 1974 Zaire or 1982 El Salvador.

If Euro 2016 didn’t crack up to what you thought it would be, never fear! There’s a third major international tournament this summer. And it’s actually the original one! That’s right the only reason why you have a World Cup or European Championship to moan about is because of the Olympic Football tournament. This predates them both, and it was discussion regarding the eligibility of professionals at the Olympic Football tournament; as well as whether, two time Olympic Champions in the 1920s, Uruguay were the real deal, which lead to the inaugural World Cup being staged in 1930 (same for the European Championship in 1960).

I love the Olympic Football tournament, and have watched each one since Atlanta in 1996. There promises to be some great football on display (well, counter-pressing with one up top). For a start, the likes of Neymar, Marquinhos,  Douglas Costa, Manuel Lanzini (Paolo Dybala and Mauro Icardi were cut from the final 23), the Bender brothers (that’s not a weird WWF tag team) and Max Meyer will be in attendance. Best of all, most of the games are on UK work friendly times. It’s going to be great! I only wish that our FAs would stop being so stubborn, and put together a team GB, that way they could be overhyped then go crashing out amid all manner of excuses and scapegoat. That’s what makes a real tournament.

Anyway, must go. I wrote this sitting on a balcony in Cyprus, keeping an eye on my sleeping son, sweating like Big Sam will be in Qatar, when the press are on his back for continuing to play a 40+ immobile Kevin Nolan and Ricardo Vaz Te in spite of underwhelming results. Oh well, “He’ll keep England up” I suppose...

Everybody hates Cris (and friends)

So it’s all come to a head. The festival of football that we’ve been treated to over the past 30 days ends tonight. And only two teams remain, France and Portugal. The French will be favourites to lift the trophy; they’ve got the best squad and, on top of that, they’re the hosts so they can expect the support of the majority in attendance. But it’s not just the home fans who’ll be behind the French. Everybody hates Portugal!

I get that a lot of people see Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo as being one and the same, and that a lot of people dislike “CR7”. I get that the Portuguese are very fortunate to have even reached the final, I mean they came third in a pretty average group, without winning a single game (que the anti-24 team competition brigade, FYI I disagree with you), and then found themselves on the easier side of the knockout draw. But the hatred is still a bit disproportionate in my eyes.

You're just a fat Jim Carey! 

I mean they were involved in the best game of the first round, the back and forth goal fest with Hungary. In the same game Ronaldo broke his duck with one of the best goals of the tournament. Yet we still loathe them, and I keep hearing comparisons between them and the Euro 2004 Greek side.

I’d just like to point out that I dislike Portugal as much as the next (non-Portuguese) man. I’m no different to the rest of you. The ideal outcome of tonight’s encounter would be a resounding, but  entertaining, French win. I just can’t think of where it all went wrong?!? I used to love watching Portugal in the days of the “Golden Generation” with Figo, Concecao, Nuno Gomes, Pauleta, Vitor  Bia and Jao (and Sao) Pinto. I also didn’t mind them in the days of Deco, Simao and Maniche.

All I can say is Allez Le Bleus! May the blood of our enemies run through our fields (that’s a national anthem joke by the way)!

Enjoy the final!

Quaresma now gives talks in youth clubs on staying out trouble with the law 

PS remember how Jao Pinto always wore that Robbie Fowler style plaster on his nose, and how Maniche looked like a fat Jim Carey? Also why does Quaresma look like the top man in a Latino gang at an American Super-Max prison? I swear he’s even got tear drops tattooed on his cheek! Is that where he’s been all these years? He was well off the footballing radar for a few years, I’m assuming he’s out on good behavior having renounced his past life and turned his back on Los Zetas.

But England aren't even playing (anymore) - Day 20

I’m still alive, unlike English football. My gap in posting began with me giving it a day or so because I thought I was “saturating the market” and then my hiatus went on and on.

As for England or English football. It’s in the same state it was in 4 years ago. Still trying to convince ourselves that the reason for our abject failure at another tournament was the manager, the cohesion of the players (although we can’t say the Lampard/Gerrard thing now), the referee, penalties, basically the same crap.

As opposed to facing up to the fact that our game isn’t good enough. That we’ve only once ever actually done anything at a major internationally tournament (if that raises an eyebrow, actually look back at our Italia 90 & Euro 96 performances/results). That our Premier League, while fairly strong, contains some absolute dross as well and that none of the truly world class players in it are English. That we’re still tactically inept, because we refuse to believe that we aren’t.

But we’ll never do that. So in 2 years (1 and a half if things get even worse), expect the same post!

More importantly, England's defeat robbed me of the opportunity to hilariously tweet Peter Andre and Kerry Katona telling them that, "Their boys took a hell of a beating!"

I'm off, now. I've got the rest of Poland v Portugal to watch.

This blog post on the subject of England's elimination is worth a read, in my opinion anyway!

I hate this bit - Day 9

Norway beat Brazil in that memorable classic from France 98

Today marks the start of the section of a major international tournament that I hate (probably not hate, but I don’t like it as much as the rest of the competition), the final round of group matches.

The first set of games is the best bit. Seeing teams and players for the first time in the competition, for the first time in 2/3 years or for the first time (in a competitive international fixture) full stop. There’s always a sense of, “Ooh [Major footballing nation] are playing tonight!”

Then there’s the next set of games. You’ve formed some opinions based on what you saw the first time around, which end up either being reaffirmed or shot to pieces. Some teams are eliminated, others cement a place in the next round. It has a purpose, and there is still an excitement.

Finally there’s the last round. Silly season. Some teams are desperate, others couldn’t care less. It’s like the end of every season when Sunderland turn into Barcelona and go on an 8 game winning run to stay up, with Borini playing like Neymar. This is the time, in days of old, where Brazil would give Denilson and Edmundo a run out, Holland would do the same with the likes of Zenden and France would start with the tracksuit-bottomed Lama in goal instead of Barthez.

Most of the games will now feel like testimonials. They don’t care, nobody does, unless you’re a team that regularly lives on the edge of the precipice that is elimination, like England or Spain 20 years ago. And in that case you’ll probably win anyway because Albania’s 2nd choice goalkeeper isn’t up to much!

Bring on the 2nd round! No penalties though!

Learning French, Fascists and Can somebody PLEASE stitch up Corluka’s head! - Days 7 and 8

Technically I’m keeping up with posting 150 words a day. Combining posts is helping. In my defence I wasn’t around yesterday.

I’ve finally been to a major football tournament! I mean I suppose you could count the Olympic football back in 2012, but it’s not quite the same. Yesterday I went to Toulouse and Saw Italy beat Sweden in one of the most disjointed and uninspiring games of football I’ve ever gone and watched. I’ve come to the conclusion that Italy would be better off with the original Pele and Eder up front even if they’ve both now got a combined age of over 130.

There’s been a lot of focus on fan behaviour (or the lack of it) and the threat of terrorism in France, but what I experienced yesterday was thousands of people of all ages and nationalities coming together to watch a (dire) football match. It was like a McDonalds advert! The only negative element in the crowd were a group of 4 or 5 Italian fans sat 4 rows in front of me, who proceeded to perform fascist salutes during the national anthem.

My initial reaction was, “Oh Lazio Ultras…” I’ve seen a lot regarding their links to the far right. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not silly and I know a little about Italian culture and some of the issues that the country currently faces in terms of ethnicity and attitudes towards it, so I’m aware that this isn’t just a Lazio thing. Additionally I know a little bit about fascism (I have a BA Honours degree in History), its significance in Italian history as well as the relationship that the salute, which was adopted by and has become synonymous with Hitler and the Nazis, has with fascism. As a result I didn’t necessarily think that they were racist or would have a problem with me, but it was definitely eye opening. If anything the fella behind them waiving an Algerian flag, might have drawn more attention.

For the record they were 4 Padova fans and one from Genoa (I’ve done a bit of research and even managed to find them on Facebook).

The real issue yesterday was my ridiculously poor grasp of the French language. I mocked Gary and Phil Neville a few months ago, stereotyping them as your archetypal Brits Abroad, shouting everything in English. I was no better yesterday! I mean obviously I wasn’t shouting in English, refusing to drink the water and insisting on eating chips because they’re “safe”. But I literally couldn’t communicate with any of the locals. It probably didn’t help that with Toulouse, not being a major tourist spot like say Paris, many people there don’t speak any English at all, and don’t need to. The upshot of it all is that I need to learn French, and useful French at that. Thanks to 3 lessons a week, for 3 years in my early teens, the best I can do is tell you my name, ask to borrow your ruler and say that during the summer holidays I went to the swimming pool. I need to sort myself out with regards to the French language. My German, on the other hand, is actually quite good.

Finally, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE STICH UP VEDRUN CORLUKA’S HEAD!! He cannot play another game wrapped in swathes of an array of bandages. At other point yesterday I swear he was wearing a water polo hat?!?

Some more pics from Toulouse...

Will somebody just let me watch the football!! - Days 5 and 6

Why does everybody hate the Sturridge dance? I love it!

It’s a real battle watching major international tournaments these days. I mean when I was a kid I could literally watch EVERY GAME. Maybe not the late ones during USA 94, I recorded them on VHS then played them on fast forward the following day up until each goal, but in other tournaments I was definitely spoilt.

The main problem is work. Especially when they (UEFA & FIFA that is) keep scheduling tournament games for the middle of the working day. I’m not being funny but both federations are pretty money obsessed, hence the choice of Russia and Qatar for the next two World Cups. Have they not worked out that by scheduling games at the best times of the day for the European TV market, they can attract even more advertising money? Stop these bloody 2pm games!

This year I’m missing the 2^nd half of the England Wales game. I know you’re probably saying to yourself, “Well if it was that important to you, why didn’t you take annual leave?” I normally would. In the past I’d never make such a rookie mistake. My holiday form goes in as soon as the draw is made. England games and opening games during working hours are totally out of bounds for work. Not this time. This year I’m moving jobs. I’ve already handed in my notice, as a result I have a reduced allocation of annual leave, and I don’t have any more days left! Arggh!

The tournament has been pretty decent so far. No 0-0’s. And no penalty shoot out’s (I know there haven’t been any knockout games, I’m being silly)! Albania have let me down, well not necessarily let me down but look like they’re going out, contrary to my earlier predictions. But Iceland lived up to the billing I gave them as did Portugal (in a way).

I’m off to Italy v Sweden tomorrow in Toulouse (I’ve probably mentioned it a few times already) and I cannot wait! Zlatan vs Italy!

Oh! And I was on Shoot The Defence again the other night! Thanks again for having me on, even if you did give me a hard time about Payet!

Somebody have a word with Jamie Redknaop! - Day 4

Write off the Italians at your peril. As an avid follower of Serie A, I had been saying for weeks that they wouldn’t amount to anything at this year’s tournament. The Injuries to their best two midfielders; lack of a decent striker (Why?!? Oh why?!? Did Conte not take Giuseppe Rossi?); and the performance at the last World Cup. It all spelt early exit to me. What do I know?!

I’ll tell you what I do know! Belgium are decent, but they’re nowhere near as good as everyone makes out. And I thought that before last night. In England people only rate the Belgians because they know all of their players due to the majority of the playing in The Best League in the World.™* I cannot for the life of me understand how they are ranked 2^nd in the World? Did FIFA just ask Jamie Redknapp for his views?

Speaking of overrated, Portugal are on tonight…!

*Most competitive league in the world at times when it’s obvious that the standard is pretty average e.g. after an early Champions/Europa League exit**

**This isn’t counting towards the 150 word limit by the way!***

***Neither is that…

Sorry non-football fans - Day 3

In all of the giddiness that has taken over in the last few days it has completely passed me by that Brazil were eliminated from the Copa America! IN THE GROUP STAGE! Despite them taking a pretty strong squad and thumping Haiti 7-1 the other night.

This is the thing when a major tournament is on. Everything else stops, even caring for other football. Major Tournaments do actually make me feel sorry for those who don’t like football. I’m sure that they couldn’t give a toss and that they might find my “pity” patronising. But what do they have?

I genuinely woke up on Friday morning feeling like a kid at Christmas. Last night, rather than thinking, “Urgh I hate Sunday nights...” it was, “Great! It’s Germany v Ukraine…”. Same for today, there was no, “Urgh! Monday morning...!” For today is an opportunity to watch Spain, Zlatan and Italy!

Much like Christmas as a kid, a major European tournament has no weekdays or weekends. For about a month, life just isn’t the same!

Day 2 - Euro 2016 the ultimate 80s tournament

Fantastic free kick from Dier

We’ve been transported back in time to the 1980s for this year’s tournament! There are other British teams that have qualified (well done Wales, beating Slovakia, even if you messed my bet up); the tournament has 24 teams in it; and England fans are endearing themselves to the locals by smashing the place up and fighting anything that moves! Excellent!

I’m aware that Russian fans were as much to blame for some of yesterday’s scenes; and that innocent England fans were charged at by Russians at the end of our game. But if you’re a fan that goes to any game and causes trouble, especially with people that are just minding their own business, I think you’re a knuckle dragging moron! Sorry! Those days should be well behind us, why are people so retarded?! Just enjoy the football for f*ck sake!

Anyway. We drew. With a very average Russian side. I feel like even I may have been suckered into thinking England are better than they actually are this year!

Shout out to Albania, who look as good as I'd expected!

2016 European World Cup - day 1

Right here’s the deal. I aim to post every day during this year’s tournament, but each post will be under 100 words  (with the exception of maybe a special post here and there). I've unsuccessfully tried to impose word limits in the past. Currently unnecessarily eating into today’s! Eeeek!

Yesterday France won, everyone expected that.

More importantly we saw ITV’s opening credits for the first time. This is the one thing they normally always trump BBC at (except for in 2004, when the BBC had Basement Jaxx). If only they invested as much in their commentary teams!

Not sure what I think of this year’s. The animations are great but the tune isn’t THAT catchy. Not like their last two world cup themes or Italia 90/USA 94.

Yes I genuinely obsess over these things. I love major tournaments!

That’s 135! Arggh! Make it 150! Now I’ve got loads to play with... La La La!

Twas The Night Before Christmas...

I’m excited! There are less than 24 hours to go! I’m doing all I can to temper my anticipation. I watched Pescara v Trapani a few days ago (the first leg of the Serie B playoff final). It was like one of those moments that alcoholics recount in AA meetings, where they identify that they’ve hit rock bottom. “There was this one night, when I dug out a stream of Pescara v Trapani on the laptop. Filled my computer with viruses, but I didn’t care at the time. I just needed another hit. I needed to hear another ‘peep’ of a referees whistle. To see another player waive an imaginary card...” I jest. I wouldn’t actually normally watch the Serie B playoffs, honestly, not even me! It's Pescara being in them that made me tune in (they were in them last year too actually). They’re kinda my team in Italy. I used to follow Sampdoria, and still kind of do, largely due to the days when they had Gullit and Vialli. But despite them not being up to much since the early 1990s, I felt like that was a bit of a kop out. They were too good. Too big. I mean they’ve been in a Champions League final! I don’t root for teams that get to Champions League finals! It’s just not football! Not for 99% of the teams out there. Football is about disappointment. Not glory. Anguish! The struggle. Those fleeting moments of joy, which get your hopes up, but are ultimately followed by years of dismay. And that’s Pescara down to a tee. In the one season I followed them in Serie A they finished bottom, 8 points adrift of the next team up, 16 from safety, with just 6 wins and 4 draws to their name. That’s the sort of team I want to follow!

Away from the domestic football, which just won’t go away and accept that we’re not interested. The build up to Euro 2016 is almost over. There have been all the friendlies on TV, which has lead to the England hype machine being ramped up (saying that I think we’re better than we’ve been in years), and there’s also been the Copa America. Once again, much like the aforementioned Pescara game, I’ve found myself tuning in to dodgy streams. Predominantly with Spanish commentary, which I have to say makes the whole thing seem more exciting. This is because, for some reason no British TV channels have picked up this year’s tournament, in spite of its expanded format and significance. I managed to see the first half of Venezuela v Costa Rica the other day; like I said I think the commentary probably made it seem far more exciting than it actually was in reality. Other than that I’ve largely been relegated to watching highlights on my phone every morning, due to the absurd kick off times. Why can’t they just play in the middle of the day like they did in USA 94?

I missed Brazil battering Haiti last night, I’m assuming the result makes the current Brazilian side better than the 1974 Italian team. I love their goal (3:20) just because of the astonished star jump celebration that the member of the coaching staff does on the sideline. There was none of that last night! Haiti were on the receiving end of a mauling.

What caught my eye was the performance of the new Brazilian wonder kid Gabriel. I don’t know much about him, other than that he was good on FIFA 14 when he was like 16. But the bits I saw of him were impressive. He scored a good goal and came close to adding to his tally later on. That being said, I’m not sure he could ever live up to the great Brazilian striker Ronaldo. Not in my eyes anyway! Ronaldo is my joint favourite player ever (with Maradona and closely followed by Alessandro Del Piero). They guy was just unreal! Imagine a player with the skill of any of the world’s best number 10s, the pace of a dangerous winger and the finishing of any of the world’s most deadliest strikers.

Anyway, enough going on about Ronaldo, he’s not European. And he won’t be playing at the European World Cup. 24 teams, 30 days, one trophy. Before I go I want to touch on one thing. 24 teams. What is everyone's problem with 24 teams? I keep hearing, “They’ve messed it up... ...how will it even work?” Nothing has been “Messed up”. 24 teams is perfect. Allowing the best 3rd placed team to go through to the 2nd round means we won’t be robbed of anyone decent who is unlucky enough to fall foul of the quirks of a four team group where only two go through. If you don’t know what I mean, just consider this, it’s possible to finish 3rd in a 4 team group despite winning 2 of their 3 games. If you think that’ll never happen, see Argentina, Nigeria and Bulgaria or Holland Belgium and Saudi Arabia in 1994. It’s also possible to finish 3rd despite being unbeatable and winning at least one of your games, see Italy, Denmark and Sweden in Euro 2004! The team that lost out in that situation won the World Cup 2 years later, so their elimination was hardly a reflection of their ineptitude! Finally if you're over 33 and you can’t remember a World Cup with 24 teams, shame on you!! Especially if you’re a journalist, yep I’ve seen or heard well respected journalists talk about how confused they are with the 24 team format. I expect you to have at least have seen USA 94! If not Italia 90 and Mexico 86 (if you’re old enough). The fact of the matter is 2 or 3 of the finest World Cups in the colour television era have been 24 team tournaments.
IT WORKS! Stop trying to dampen my excitement or taint my rose-tinted childhood memories!

Anyway, I’m off! Pescara have just drawn the 2nd leg and will play in Serie A next year (it's taken me that long to write this)! I need to get to bed else Michel Platini won’t come down my chimney tonight and deliver me the penalty shootout/0-0 draw free tournament that I crave!

Hope he likes minced pies...

Farewell Boleyn! Hello 90s European Championships!

This has taken me the best part of a week and a half to write. It was all very topical when I started. Now I need to get it finished and posted, primarily because I've written so much I feel it would be a waste not to share it. Can't vouch for it being all that though!

It’s all over! The league title has been sewn up, thank god! And West Ham have played their last game at The Boleyn Ground aka Upton Park. It was a great game as well, with twists & turns and a thrilling finale. The scenes outside were reminiscent of the 1927 White Horse Cup Final. Thousands of people turned up without tickets and you could barely move for West Ham fans.

Then we had the trouble. I didn’t actually see it. I only actually found out that something untoward had happened at half time in the game. I’ve now heard from everyone I’ve spoken to since is that West Ham fans were involved in a riot, that we’re hooligans. I can safely say that we are not hooligans, well not 99% of us anyway. Obviously that’s not what you’ll be fed but hey ho!

I enjoyed the game, as I said earlier, but what I didn’t enjoy was the crush before the game. Even though I got to meet Joey O’Brien, he was sandwiched against me for around 20 minutes as we shuffled towards the stadium. The crush outside  was actually quite frightening at times. There were kids crying ,having to be carried by their dads, and a sense of apathy among the police officers present. A number of heated conversations took place between fans and the police, with comparisons being made with Hillsborough. I even saw a police sergeant bollock his whole team for sitting in a van and watching  on while mayhem ensued. This all seems to have missed the reporting from that night though?

Instead there’s been a huge focus on what a minority of individuals did with the United team bus. Thankfully nobody was injured outside, and we didn’t have another Hillsborough. But the whole episode brought to light issues that I have touched upon in previous posts. The dehumanisation of football fans, with respect to Hillsborough; and the lack of regard for the experience of the match going fan from the Premier League and other authorities. Why wasn’t the United game played the previous midweek, allowing the last game at the Boleyn to be at a reasonable time i.e. the previous Saturday afternoon when we played Swansea?

Aside from the negatives (I know I moan a lot), it was a great send off from a famous old ground that I hold dear to me. I first went to Upton Park in the early 1990’s when I would have been around 11 or 12. I’d been going to football matches since the late 80’s but never been taken to see the team I loved due to the stigma attached to West Ham, and English football at the time. Being a young, black boy, my parents weren’t keen for me to go to grounds renowned for rowdy, sometimes racist, fans. So my early match experiences were in the more tame atmosphere across London at Loftus Road (long story).

Believe it or not though, in well over 25 years of going to watch West Ham (including away games and cup finals), while I’ve seen the odd boozed up moron, which is something all clubs have, I’ve only ever once heard something that I’d consider racist (the deplorable hissing sound that some people think is funny to make when playing Spurs) and have never felt threatened because of the colour of my skin or for any other reason for that matter. Instead, I’ve made loads of friends and have built up a bank of wonderful, and painful, football related memories.

Maybe I was fortunate and caught the Boleyn Ground at the right time in its history. Maybe racists are cowards, as people say, and as a result nothing questionable was ever said in my presence. Maybe I was just lucky on the whole. Who knows? What I do know is that I’ll miss sitting in queues of traffic on the A13 or people outside Upton Park Station. Squeezing through the turnstiles, where my 10 year old season ticket card barely works (it normally takes about 5 goes before it’s recognised), almost banging my head on the ceiling above the urinals; and all the other quirks of our, far from perfect, famous old stadium.

I’m done talking about domestic football, the season is pretty much over and people are announcing European Championship squads. As usual there’s been a spate of pre-tournament injuries, which means we’ll be robbed of seeing the strongest squads in France. Germany will be missing Gundogan, Italy will do very well to get to the quarter finals with both Marchisio and Veratti missing from their midfield. We’re missing Danny Wellbeck, who might not be the greatest player in the world, but can bring energy and enthusiasm going forward, especially at times when you need a goal. Even the Welsh are missing Joe Ledly, who once again is probably no world beater, but will definitely leave them considerably weaker. Maybe I was just oblivious to it all but I feel like this sort of thing never used to happen, except for when we didn’t have Gazza for Euro 92.

Speaking of Euro 92, my obsession with major international tournaments of yesteryear took me back to watching clips from this tournament. I keep hearing people compare Leicester’s recent league title win to Greece’s triumph at Euro 2004. Whenever I hear this I’m prompted to remind whoever it is I’m speaking to about Euro 92. In case you’re not familiar, the eventual tournament winners, Denmark, didn’t even qualify! That’s right, back when I was a kid there was this country called “Yugoslavia” who weren’t bad, in fact they had a “golden generation”, which had previously won the World Youth Cup. They had qualified for Euro 92, and would have been one of the pre-tournament favourites; but then they went and had a civil war, which evolved mass genocide, and UEFA kicked them out of the competition. Denmark were selected to take their place as they had finished 2nd to Yugoslavia in qualifying. What a story! And this was before the likes of Peter Schmeichel were household names, well in the UK anyway.

I think he was actually a turnip even though a swede made more sense?!?

Barring the Denmark shock Euro 92 was actually a bit boring. Last time round I spoke about how you can often marry European Championships to World Cups in terms of tactics, players and even silly things like fashion. Well Euro 92 was most certainly married to Italia 90! All I can remember from England's group is low scoring draws. In case you didn’t know, we failed to get out of the group, and were knocked out by one of my most prevailing childhood memories ,which produced one of my favourite ever  bits of commentary (said by the great Barry Davies of course). On top of this, Greame “Turnip (or Swede, I think it was actually Swede as Sweden knocked us out) head” Taylor took Gary Lineker off in favour of the less threatening Alan Smith! Denying Lineker the chance to equal Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record. Worst decision ever, especially considering we had a young lad on the bench called Alan Shearer who was much better than Smith. I think that substitution summed up both Taylor’s reign as manager and Euro 92, Smith was more functional than exciting (I’m being generous with that description) and never amounted to anything internationally.

Then there was Euro 96. Football came home! Baddiel and Skinner wrote the first incarnation of Three Lions. We actually won a penalty shootout (Rafa Nadal's uncle seeing his penalty saved by Seaman)! Our only victorious shootout so far. Euro 96 was a bit of a disappointment for me. I can remember being really excited in the build up. Two years before I’d experienced my favourite World Cup, USA 94. And the European Championships had now been expanded to 16 teams, the format used right up until the last competition. I had high hopes.

I’m probably being harsh. You had Suker’s hattrick, including a lob, against the defending champions Denmark; Poborsky’s RIDICULOUS scoop lob against Portugal at Villa Park; and... and that was about it! See it was rubbish! I’m not even having England’s performances! I remember the draw against Switzerland where we let them back into the game, the patches of average play against Scotland and a pretty uninspiring 0-0 with Spain in the quarter finals. Euro 96 is always the subject of much romanticism because it was played over here and because we agonisingly went out on penalties in the semi finals; oh and because of the aforementioned Baddiel and Skinner song, which is always associated with the tournament. But it actually wasn’t that great. Well I don’t think it was anyway.

That's enough for now. I need to go and indulge in more clips of European Championships gone by. Maybe I'll try and dig out that Spain Yugoslavia game from Euro 2000, with Alfonso and his white boots or Figo's screamer against England...

Bye!

Hillsborough, Tottenham and Euro 88

It’s been a while (as always), I’ve been meaning to post something (as always). Now I have tons to talk about. I’m going to try and be as succinct as possible. Here goes…

He's the sort of bloke that used to come out and complain about you playing football in the street

So straight off the bat, sorry off the bat is one of those w*nky things people say in work meetings like Starter for 10 and Let’s park that! No more w*nky office jargon. I’ll begin with the Premier League title race. It’s all but over now. Thank god! I was getting seriously worried Tottenham were going to win it. So worried I stuck £25 on them at 15/8 (would have won £65, including my stake). But they messed up, they drew with Tony Pulis’ West Brom this Monday and have now put Leicester in a position where they only need 2 points to secure their first (and maybe only, in my lifetime) league title.  I bet Pulis was so happy! He’s got that “party pooper” air about him. That, turn on the lights, “Everybody go home! Your parents have been called…!” look about him (I think I’ve stolen that from the Football Ramble? Not sure? If I have, sorry! I’ve just given you free advertising there anyway! And I kind of thought that before you brought it up!).

Anyway Spurs probably won’t win the league now and I’m delighted. There’s been a lot of Spurslike reaction to this too, “I bet all the mugs backing Leicester are happy now… Shut up Arsenal fans! At least we got this far…! It’s all a conspiracy (I’ve genuinely seen this)…!” This is my main reason for not wishing my fellow Londoners well. While I know some decent Spurs fans who are measured in their opinions on football, the majority of them show about as much humility in victory, as a 5 year old who’s just won a game of pass the parcel at their best mate’s birthday party! I genuinely fear for us all if that lot ever win the league. So come on Leicester! Pick up those two points so we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

PS genuine well done to Tottenham (as much as it pains me to say it), probably the strongest, but obviously not statistically the best, team in the country this season. Please revert to type next season!

Let’s move away from talk of the league (in case Tottenham do go and win it). As you may or may not know, this week in court, it was found that the victims of the Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed.

While this will never make up for the 27 years of hurt experienced by the affected families or bring back any of the 96 people that died, I believe it’s a step in the right direction. I’m always appalled by the when I read about the initial reactions of the police, politicians of the day and media outlets when I read the Hillsborough story; as well as the fact that the disaster happened in the first place. I think it strikes a chord with me as I go to watch so much football and see so many families and kids at games.

When I then read the sorts of comments made by the likes of David Cameron (don’t even start me on that guy), Margaret Thatcher and The S*n newspaper I’m infuriated. In what other world would families go out on a weekend to an event, to see something they enjoy, for entertainment; be killed as a result of negligence on the part of the event organisers and then be criminalised by politicians and the media. Yeah we had (and probably still have to an extent) a hooligan problem within football in the 1980s, but 22 of the victims were kids! Were these hooligans? Would The S*n/Thatcher have come out and said what they did had these been middle class families at the theatre? Or more realistically, 96 nightclub goers? It’s absolutely disgusting. In my opinion, anybody with a public voice who has attempted to trivialise the disaster and its effect on the families involved, or criminalise the victims should be held to account for their comments, no matter how long ago, and sacked! And I will never EVER buy The S*n newspaper (or even have it in my house), I can’t understand how any football fan would. Just my opinion, mind you.

On to a more jovial subject. It’s coming up to summer in an even numbered year, which can only mean one thing…! MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT! The Mrs is already dreading it. I’ve given soft signals as to my unavailability between Friday 10^th of June and Sunday 10^th of July. I’m even going!! Yes! Italy v Sweden in Toulouse on the 17^th June. I can’t wait! Oh by the way, I forgot to mention what tournament it is, for any lay people who still read this (I fear those numbers have dwindled). It’s the European Championships aka the EuropeanWorld Cup (not The Euro or The Euros! God I hate that phrase)! It took a while for me to get excited for this one. I think that happens with every European World Cup, due to the more low key build up in the media compared to a “World” World Cup. But I’m well up for it now. And I’ve started my countdown doing what any self respecting saddo would do, scavenging and scouring the internet for info, videos & stories to add to the stuff I’ve already seen (or know) about past European World Cups. Just to top my really weird obsession, I’ve split my “research” by tournament and by week starting with Euro 88. I’ll get on to why in a minute but I’ve already f*cked this up because there are 7 tournaments for me to look at but only around 5 weeks until the tournament starts, saying that I probably won’t be that fussed by the time we get to the last few tournaments, although Euro 2008 was one of the best tournaments in recent years in my opinion.

So why start with Euro 88? Well if you’re a geek like me and know you European Championship history, you’ll know that pre 1980 it wasn’t much of an actual tournament. There was a long qualifying competition which resulted in 4 teams being left at the end to play the semis and the final. It all had a bit of a glorified Emirates Cup feel about it. I mean Germany (West pre 1992) didn’t even enter the first few. Then 1980 was an awful competition from all I’ve read, so awful that I can only just about remember the finalists and the score. Apparently it was dominated by hooliganism and low scoring matches and played in half empty stadiums. It will be of no surprise to some people to hear that Euro 80 was held in Italy (all though the low scoring thing doesn’t ring true nowadays, but that’s another subject). And then Euro 84, which by all accounts was a marvellous tournament, seems to have been wiped off the face of the earth in terms of any historical footprint. I think it’s because we didn’t qualify and everyone thought it was going to be as sh*t as Euro 80.

Then came Euro 88, and the game changed! First of all, amazing stat, Euro 88 is the only major international tournament (of the modern day at least) to have not had a single red card, own goal or knockout match decided by penalty shootout. Based on my hatred of penalty shootouts (bring back replays for big games), that’s a winner in my opinion. And Euro 88 looks great! By that I mean images of it, both still and moving. It’s not as bright and colourful as Mexico 86 but it’s certainly not as dark and dingy as Italia 90. I always think World Cups and European Championships can be married up to an extent, in terms of fashion i.e. kits, haircuts etc, tactics and to a lesser extent star players. Euro 88 was definitely more in line with the aforementioned, and historically popular, Mexico 86. It also shares the fact that missed it due to my being not that interested in football at a young age (not until the winter that followed, when I was around 8). God I wish I’d have started watching a year earlier! I think the mystique of it being a tournament that I missed, makes it all the more interesting.

Much like Euro 84 and 80, in fact any European World Cup, Euro 88 wasn’t our finest hour. England’s record at the tournament reads: played three, lost three, scored two, conceded seven! The key moments of the campaign being an opening match up with the Republic of Ireland, making their debut at the European World Cup (parallels with Wales this year?); and an epic battle with, the eventual champions, Holland, where Marco Van Basten sunk us with a hat trick.

I managed to dig out a video of the ITV build up, along with half time and full time analysis for the England v Ireland game, which in my opinion is hilarious due to the late Brian Clough’s completely dismissive, “We’re England you know!” attitude when speaking about the Irish chances of winning the game. In addition I dug out THE FULL official video of the Tournament (produced by Worldmark as always) Tor! Total Football, which is narrated by none other than Craig Charles. I must say I impressed myself with this find, it’s the height of “Geekiry”. I didn’t even realise European World Cups had official videos, if you’ve got a spare hour (and you give a sh*t) I can recommend it!

Right I’m off to immerse myself in Euro 92, which will largely involve me wondering why Graham Taylor subbed Lineker (he deserved Rooney’s record) and saying “…Brolin! Dahlin! BROLIN!” in my best Barry Davies accent.

That wasn't very succinct was it.

Chat sh*t get banged!

Twenty isn't plenty!

I was going to write about something else. I had actually started a post a few weeks ago all about that cheeky Barcelona penalty. It was full of talk of Respect and references to the song. It was great. It was funny! But I never quite finished it. And before I knew it, it was 2/3 weeks since the incident had passed; hardly an on trend topic to talk about. So now you’re stuck with this. This might not be as funny, saying that I feel the tone of my posts has changed recently, since I made the change. I’ve not really made reference to that, maybe I will in the future… maybe I won’t.

Anyway. Aside from being cryptic about stuff you probably couldn’t give a toss about, let’s talk current soccerball! Yeah!

It’s no secret on here that I have a West Ham season ticket, I’ve had it since 2004. What is that 12 years? Yeah something like that. Over that 12 years it’s risen and risen and risen in cost and I’ve carried on paying for it regardless. I got the thing in the first place because it was the most cost effective way of seeing West Ham play on a regular basis. And I stand by that.

Recently there’s been a lot of talk about ticket prices. Ticket prices and kick off times. Comparisons with what they do in Germany, comparisons with Barcelona season tickets, the rise of FC United and other fan focused clubs, Twenty is plenty, bla bla bla…

This week we had the Twenty is plenty “successfully” managing to get Premier League clubs to agree to capping away ticket prices at £30 (so Twenty wasn’t in fact plenty then). We’ve also seen Liverpool do a u-turn on their newly introduced pricing structure after 10,000 fans walked out halfway through a game and now I’m hearing talk of all sorts of Premier League clubs freezing their ticket prices.

That’s all great, it is honestly. But that doesn’t even scratch the surface in my opinion. I appreciate we don’t go to watch our teams in crumbling stadiums that lack adequate security, and that we can pretty much bring the whole family along to experience the drama of the Best League in the World (or “Most competitive” at times when it’s obvious that the standard is average). I appreciate that I don’t HAVE to go and watch West Ham or anyone for that matter. That I don’t have to pay Sky or BT or Setanta or anyone else who wants to reach into my pocket in return for showing me footage of the latest football matches. That as long as I continue to pay all or any of these bodies to consume the football they offer, I’m adding to the problem. But they still take the p*ss!

There’s no denying that. For example, I’m going to Old Trafford on Sunday to watch West Ham’s FA Cup quarter final against Manchester United. The tickets for this game went on sale before the FA had even decided what day the game would be scheduled for. So essentially, I and every other West Ham fan that wanted to go, had to make a commitment. A commitment to put whatever they had going on in their lives on hold on whichever day the FA decided to move the match to after we’d already committed to going. I don’t live in or near Manchester, most West Ham fans won’t. It’s 215 miles (shortest route) between the two grounds. Therefore going to Manchester would eat up the best part of a day, potentially a working one, according to the FA (it could have originally been scheduled for a Friday or Monday).

This sort of thing happens time and time again. Sky and BT move games to Saturday Mornings/Evenings and Monday nights at the drop of a hat. And we (match going fans) move our lives to accommodate them. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve rushed back from work, had no dinner, got in at midnight when I had work to get up for in the mornings. And then on top of all of this the clubs need a body to form to say to them, “don’t you think charging thousands of people more than £20 to come and watch you, when you make millions (if not billions) every year, and this income is negligible, is a bit much?” For them to respond, “Hmmm, OK we won’t charge more than £30! But that’s it… …OK we’ll keep our Season Tickets at their extortionate rates, which have risen well above inflation over the past 10, 20 years and just not charge you any extra next season, because it might look bad.”

In what other walk of life would you significantly inconvenience yourself, your friends and family; and pay money at a rate well over the odds to do so? It’s crazy. But we do it. And, as I alluded earlier, nobody forces us to do so. In fact we’re the only ones who can stop it. We’re the only ones who can cancel our Sky subscriptions, not subscribe to BT or whoever the new rival that comes along might be. Stop going to these games scheduled at time which cause fans to travel at ridiculous hours of the day and take time off work (TAKE TIME OFF WORK, let that sink in, lose income to pay over the odds for something?). But we won’t.

The reason why we’re even in this situation is because we’re slaves to football. This game. This sport; past time. Which took off as a thing to do (watching or participating) in our spare time on the weekend. Which became a form of entertainment for the average working man. An opportunity to gather with the rest of the community, to get behind our local team. Has turned into something similar to those con subscriptions, from which you can never get out. Like trying to leave a gym. Or like a drug that we’re hooked to, constantly sucking money from us. It’s like heroin!

I know this is all a bit dark, and not funny at all. I know I’m moaning yet doing nothing about it. I can’t help it. I’m trapped and they know it!

In other news, this week I was invited to participate in a weekly football podcast called Shoot The Defence. They've previously had me on the show ranting about West Ham (and raving about odd things like 1950's football). It was a pleasure being able to participate again. Give it a listen  (although it's a  few days out of date). Listen to Shoot The Defence in general, it'seems decent and they have a monthly segment where former footballer Leon  Knight basically tears into Arsenal for having no bottle, it's hilarious! Anyway  here's this week's show...

http://shootthedefence.libsyn.com/shoot-the-defence-premier-league-review-6

I'm off now! Where’s that Sky subscription telephone number I need to update my direct debit details…?!?

Chat Sh*t Get Banged Part II

I feel sorry for Gary Neville. He’s passionate, articulate, clearly a forward thinking bloke. Maybe the ideal football management candidate of all the ex-pro pundits that grace our television screens every week. It’s not working for him though. No wins in the league (I think they lost to Sporting Heehaw* on Saturday); then there was that result in midweek.

That’s when all the haters came out. The knives were sharpened, the funny memes were photoshopped. As were the not so funny ones, you know the Kermit the Frog drinking the iced tea, Kevin Hart and Bill Cosby pulling faces. They were all out.

The justification for it all? Well it was the notion that, as per my favourite quote/song of the moment, Gary Neville is guilty of “Chatting sh*t”. And those that “Chat sh*t” as we know, “Get banged” or memed!

And this is why I feel sorry for Neville. Firstly he has never “Chatted sh*t”. Well not in my opinion anyway. Like I said before, he has been refreshingly articulate, honest and erudite in his analysis on Sky Sports, and is a far cry from some of the other dross that we’ve had to endure over the years.

Secondly, I’m not sure who’s been following what at Valencia, but they’re in a bit of a mess this year. There’s a reason why there was an open position at Valencia in the first place. Why Valencia a club only behind Real, Barca, Atleti and Athletic Club in terms of success, the Spanish equivalent of Aston Villa in terms of history (and don’t be fooled by their recent displays Villa have a great history) have appointed an Englishman, with no previous managerial experience, the manage their team. The club is a joke at the moment!

I mean I’m not even sure Neville speaks Spanish, for my own amusement in my head he doesn’t. In my head he a Phil roam Valencia speaking really sloooooowly but loudly in their Mancunian accents trying to get the locals to understand what they want. Searching for a place where they can get a beer, eat some good old English food (none of that “foreign stuff”), watch the football (Premier League of course) and maybe do a bit of Karaoke in the evening. You know, the sort of place that has pictures of the food on a sign outside. And a menu in 4 different languages. And of course they’re doing all of this whilst incredibly sunburnt.

Anyway I massively digress. The point is, Valencia are a mess and have been a mess for a while now, before Neville came along. And this was Barca, not Stoke. They didn’t just get outfought or outthought in a tough midweek battle at the Britannia they got ripped to shreds by the best players that 3 of the 4 best nations in South America have to offer. By what could be argued to be the 3 best players in the world. It’s not like Barca have never done this to anyone before, it happens. It happened to Roma a couple of months ago. Madrid were shown up at home in El Classico. So what I’m saying is. Is Neville that bad, we don’t know. We won’t know until he manages a team that’s not in turmoil. Until he has a go in a country where he can speak the language fluently. If he takes a good side or a side with potential and makes them worse/doesn’t perform. Then yes he’s probably not a good manager.

For now, leave him alone. Stop banging him for “chatting sh*t”. And PLEASE stop posting that Sky Sports pic with that quote, it’s been proven he didn’t actually say that!

*I KNOW IT’S NOT SPELT “HEEHAW”!!!

The Saturday afternoon ritual

We’ve all got one, those of us who are enlightened enough to enjoy football that is. We do the same thing every week, the only difference being how you feel at the end of the day, which depends on the success/failure of the team you follow. I’m thinking about this because I’m currently sitting in my father in law’s living room. Watching Man United play Southampton on one of those dodgy streams on my laptop. You know the ones where you have to close a million adverts before you can even see the video player in the middle of your web browser. Where they try and trick you into downloading some software because you’ve “got a virus on your laptop”. The ones that probably give you a virus, if you do have one that is.

It’s what I do every other weekend. Not always at my father in law’s (but often there). I do it every other weekend because on the weekends in between you’ll more than likely find me at West Ham. That’s the other thing I do, my other ritual.

It’s funny because we, football fans, do these things on a regular, habitual, basis. Often in a particular manner as we think it has some sort of bearing on our team’s fortunes that weekend. For example, I watch West Ham on these dodgy streams, I potentially fill my laptop with viruses (don’t worry I run two separate virus scans regularly, and I don’t install that crap, I’ve been using the Internet long enough to know better) but I’m convinced it’s bad luck. I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched us on a stream and we won. But a) I still watch pretty much every other week (provided I’ve got nothing else on), even though I think it’s bad luck; b) I, a rational adult in his mid 30s, believe that somehow me trawling through pages and pages that offer “singles in my area” (I mean I’m not even single, where were these attractive women when I was?!?) to watch some often pixelated, and sometimes Turkish or Chinese broadcast of my team playing will have a negative effect on them.

But I do it because I can’t not see. Not if I have the opportunity to see. If I am out, fair enough. But if I’m indoors on a Saturday, with my laptop and connection to the Internet, you’ll find me screaming at the laptop screen because West Ham are inviting too much pressure from Watford or making Sunderland look good. And even when we’re not playing away at 3pm on a Saturday and I’m at home, I watch another game which can range from Bournemouth v Aston Villa  (yes I did actually watch that) to the latest  action from Serie B  (no joke).
Ahhh! The things football makes us do! I’m gonna go a run a virus scan on my computer...

PS I’m not at West Ham today because I object to Sky scheduling Saturday evening games! If it were up to me all West Ham home games would be at 3pm on a Saturday (couldn’t give a toss about the Premier League’s money)!

Those who talk rubbish, risk being struck down!

This isn’t so much a new me or a change to this blog, I don’t do “New Me’s” or New Year’s resolutions. But there are going to be changes, in the blog and in life (watch this space)! To me the New Year is the same as the old one. Except for this one is a European Championship year (no birthdays, weddings or christenings in June or July please). And I’m getting married at the end of it. I’ve decided I need to do something about my growing waistline, which has basically been moving in the same direction since we had our first child Noah (aka West Ham’s bad luck charm) last November. So it’s plenty more running and my own take on the caveman diet in 2016, but more procrastination and sarcasm when it comes to this blog. I can’t wait!!

As for the football, West Ham are doing OK. Many will say we’ve followed the same pattern as last year, a great start to the season with some notable scalps, which then tailed off post November. There is a difference though, the difference is you can see we’re trying new things and players like Payet and Lanzini have added freshness to our attacking play. In many areas we still have the same personnel as last season and as a result have shown our limitations, notably with our defensive displays against Bournemouth and Tottenham. I suppose we now just have to see who comes in in January and whether we can put in an impressive finish to our last season at The Boleyn Ground.

On the subject of transfers it’s now January, as you will have guessed from all of the faux philosophical statuses on social media, which means one thing. The transfer window is open! Barcelona can now sign players (because they desperately need to don’t they); Arsenal won’t sign anyone, despite all of their fans pleading for the capture of Draxler or Benzema or the new Draxler/Benzema; and West Ham (not just West Ham all the other mid ranking Premier League teams) will panic loan an extra 3 has been’s, or never were’s until the end of the Season, see Nikita Jelavic aka the shit version of Andy Carroll (I hope he’s on loan).

Leicester are top! Well they’re not anymore; they’re 2^nd on goal difference. But regardless, that’s quite an achievement for a club who were bottom of the Premier League this time last year. Personally I’d love Leicester to win the league. It would give me the hope that the disparity that has been created between the big and small clubs, in the last 25 years since the advent of the Premier League, Champions League and all that Sky Money, is starting to even out. Fingers crossed…!

Finally if there is anything that the first 4/5 months of the season has taught me; other than the fact that Mourinho is actually mental and LVG hasn’t been good since that Ajax team; it is that in a world were Leicester City are the best team in the country, as a wise man once said… “Chat sh*t, get banged!”