The State of Football/Cricket March 2018 - West Ham, Smith and the World Cup

I'm back! Yeah yeah  I know... Not even going to apologise or make any excuses, life's busy!

So much is happening at the moment on and off the pitch. Where do I start? I'll save the best til last i.e. La Coupé de Monde! Die Weltmeisterschaft! You know that thing. The month's escape from normal life! The vain attempt to relive summers gone (basically 90 and 94 for me)! THAT! Like I said that comes later.

First, life! Well not life, day to day sport. Mundanity. Is that a word? It should be! I've just invented a word! Take that Ms Kanarak! Told you my English would get me somewhere! A blog about football read by a couple of hundred/maybe thousand people on the internet! Who's the English failure now eh?*

Anyway as I was saying, first every day football and my club West Ham in particular. I actually started writing this the other day on my commute to and from work, and I had reams and reams on the broken promises and outright lies of our board coupled with their expectation that we keep putting our hands in our pockets paying for a Champions League team yet getting a Championship response from the owners.

On top of this I had an anecdote of how I'd given mine and my son's tickets away for yesterday's game, and upgraded my son's to an adult to find, to my horror/disgust that we were charging £38 to upgrade a child's ticket (so how much is the full ticket?) to a relegation 6 pointer!

I decided to omit the bulk of this rant because I don't want to be too negative after yesterday's result; but at the same time the win against Southampton changes nothing in my opinion. The unrest at Burnley wasn't about the result and had been a long time coming, the Porn Barrons (or Smut Peddlers as my mates in one WhatsApp group refer to them) need to do a lot to win me and a lot of other fans back!

Moving on from West Ham I want to briefly discuss cricket. Yeah I do that on here every now and then. Cricket is my second favourite sport, seen as I no longer have an interest in F1 (it's gotten silly/predictable/boring). So last week it came to light that Cameron Bancroft was cheating in the 3rd Test against South Africa. To those of you not that familiar with our national summer sport, Bancroft was essentially scuffing up one side of the ball in order to aid its,  sometimes unpredictable, deviation while in mid air. This makes it harder for the opposition batsmen to hit it, increasing their chances of getting out. That's all you're getting in terms of an explanation from me, there's not much more to it to be fair, despite all the diagrams floating around from the  part time Physicists on social media.

There seems to be fair few cricket fans out there with short/selective memories and an inflated sense of moral fibre. While Smith was found guilty of cheating; he wasn't actually was he, he was found guilty of allowing it to happen or being complicit in Bancroft's actions; regardless while he was found guilty of cheating, the reaction has been nothing short of ridiculous.

The press chasing him through airports, the tearful interviews resembling that of someone who has been caught taking performance enhancing drugs (or facing the death penalty after being caught smuggling drugs into South East Asia), the social media reactions from a number of former cricketers. It's all a bit much. I mean come on I've seen people suggesting that's why the Aussies won the Ashes, let's not be silly now! Australia won the Ashes because Smith himself is an excellent batsmen, England have the most fragile of batting lineups (look at the New Zealand test the other day, were they ball tampering too?), and England are terrible away from home, hence the inability to beat Bangladesh, India,  Pakistan and even my beloved (yet terrible) West Indies side in recent years.

Ball tampering is bad, and it's cheating, and it shouldn't happen (and Smith and Co should be punished) but it's happened before, in some cases quite recently and some of "Typical cheating Aussies" comments I'm seeing are coming from people who seem to forget that the contemporary commentating guru that is Mike Atherton, was caught doing the very same thing, while captain of England, as has the current South African captain Faf du Plessis (TWICE)!

I've even seen Stuart Broad, the man who famously blatantly knicked a ball into an Australian fielder's hands in the Ashes,  pretended that he hadn't and went on to score match-winning runs, chipping in. The guy has got some front!

Now I don't think that Broad should have been dragged over hot coals for that and I think the same of Smith. A significant fine and a ban for the rest of the series would have been more befitting of the crime. This whole situation is that classic reaction that we currently get to any controversy in sport. Just like when people say, "The standard of refereeing is getting worse..." the minute someone makes a mistake in a football match. No it's not, the reaction to errors is. We have cameras that pick up everything from every angle and footage that can reach us from a regional league the other side of the World in minutes. Then the social media outcry, the experts, the moral preachers. Give it a rest!

Finally, and most importantly! IT'S A WORLD CUP YEAR! I'm actually starting to get excited now. I've trawling the internet searching for new stuff to read, going back through old Barry Davies videos (a lot of them are getting removed from YouTube on copyright grounds, get involved ASAP). It's coming!

I need to start working out how my days are going to pan out; the 13.00 kick offs on working days are going to be a killer, and we're expecting twins (yep that's right!) a few weeks before the tournament starts. This is going to be the biggest challenge ever! Bigger than the midnight kick offs in USA 94 (couldn't blag those with my parents, aged 13); the 7am starts in 02 when I had only just finished University and as a result hadn't woken up before 8am for 3 years; bigger than that time in 1998 when  I bunked A-Level History to watch Paraguay v South Africa (I was convinced Chilavert was gonna score a free kick)**; or that night in 2014 when I failed miserably to stay up and watch Japan v Senegal, which began at 2am.

This is a true test of my initiative. Whatever happens, expect more ramblings on here in the coming weeks (the reality is I'll probably end up being too busy/lazy to act upon my thoughts) as my excitement grows!

*I actually did OK at English and at school in general. That little Monologe was completely made up for the purpose of a cheap gag. Although Ms Kanarak (or "Kanarek"? I can't remember) genuinely was my GCSE English teacher. And she was a bit of a dick! Sorry if you care about the World Cup and are reading Ms Kanarak/Kanarek!

**this actually happened! And the same Ms Kanarak/Kanarek (I actually think it's spelt Konarek now), who was the Head of the Sixth Form, rang my house! No lie!

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!

10 Things: Week 4 - 10 Memorable European Championship Moments

I've just polished off two plates of home made Carbonara and I can barely move, to me that seems an apt moment to write another blog post. Not sure if I've mentioned it but Euro 2012 is next week, I literally can't wait. Every lunch hour at work has been spent reading about the squads going, watching old videos and of course swatting stats obscure and sad enough to repulse many an individual of the opposite sex (even desperate girls). As a result of my European Championship excitedness (is that a word?) and the fact that I've seen a million old videos I thought I'd make this week's 10 Things 10 Memorable European Championship moments. Can I just add that the qualification criteria has to be that I've witnessed them, meaning that, as I was only 7 and not that interested in football at the time, Marco Van Basten's volley (which you will no doubt see on any European Championship related TV show at the moment) has not made the list. Here are the the 10 things that have...

Denmark knocking Holland out on penalties - 1992
Unfortunately I can't find an individual clip for this one so you'll have to watch the BBC's montage of the whole tournament. This stuck in my head for two reasons, the first being that Euro 92 was my first European Championships meaning that I remember it all quite vividly. I can remember being allowed to stay up late as the game had gone to penalties and wanting the Danes to win, I've never rooted for the favourites, even as a child. The second reason being that I found it quite funny the Danish defender wins the shootout for them and celebrates by going round, and round, and round in a circle in the penalty area (3:10), sometimes it's the little things... This was also an early sign to the footballing world that the Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel was going to be something special, just ask Van Basten.

John Jensen's goal - 1992
Later on in Euro 92 Denmark pulled off another upset beating the then seemingly impregnable World Champions Germany 2-0 in the final. I think Kim Vilfort got the 2nd but I'm not sure, in fact I don't think anyone's sure. All we ever remember is John Jensen, of Arsenal infamy, scoring a belter in the first half and some poor German defender trying his damnedest, in vain, to stop the ball from going in. Apparently it was Steffan Effenburg according to Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. As per Skinner and Baddiel's video Jensen was actually a terrible shot (he couldn't hit water in a boat) and football fans had to wait quite a few more years before seeing his next goal. Maybe that's why it sticks out as a memory for me.

Thomas Brolin justifies the BBC's selection of Barry Davies for the England game

"Brolin! Dahlin! Brolin!!!" - 1992
I've said it before and I'll say it again (although I haven't actually said it before on this blog, so this will be news to most of you), when Barry Davies commentates on a sporting event, good things happen e.g. Maradona's wonder goal against England in 1986, Great Britain against West Germany in the Olympic Hockey in 1988 "Where were the Germans?"... Well in 1992 Davies did it again, in England's last game in the competition and Gary Lineker's last ever game for England; Thomas Brolin went on a run and played a short pass into his team mate Martin Dahlin, who instantly flicked it back to him with the outside of his foot, Brolin then curled a first time shot into the top corner of the English goal and we were out. Not our finest hour but definitely one of Davies and the European Championships'. That goal is also on the BBC Euro 92 video above.

Definitely the most exciting thing to happen in Birmingham in the 1990's

Karel Poborsky's ridiculous scoop shot - 1996
I've seen people lobbed millions of times, as a goalkeeper I have been lobbed on a number of occasions, as my friends will happily inform you, I have never seen any player literally scoop the ball straight up in the air and get it to come down under the bar. Quality goal from a quality 90's player.

Davor Suker lobbing Schmiecal - 1996
Suker's lob was more of your conventional lob, what made it memorable for me was that number one it was against Peter Schmeichel who had been one of the stars of the tournament four years before (and had become a household name at Manchester United) and in addition to this it was the first time I'd really seen Davor Suker in action. I remember there being a lot of fuss about him prior to the tournament and in this game he most certainly announced himself at Euro 96 as this goal was the 3rd in a brilliant hat-trick. Love the resigned slump to the ground that Schmeichel does, as if to say, "Oh great! You've lobbed me, we clearly cannot stop you today can we..."

Zinedine Zidane's free kick - 2000
Barring the head-butt in his last ever game, the 2006 World Cup Final, I think it can be said that Zinedine Zidane always popped up when France needed him. Against Spain in the Euro 2000 Quarter Final France most certainly needed him and he delivered as always. I remember watching him bending in a quality free kick, to put France ahead in a pretty tight game, while I was getting ready to go out with my mates on a Sunday evening, a far cry from being allowed to stay up late and watch the Denmark v Holland penalty shoot out.

Figo's goal against England - 2000
In my opinion this is one of the best goals that has been scored at the European Championships, if not the best (yep, better than Gazza and Van Basten). The context of the goal makes it special in itself, England had raced to a two goal lead against the famous Golden Generation Portuguese side. Figo's goal started what was to be a remarkable comeback and one of England's biggest capitulations, they threw the game away quicker than a housewife does the rubbish on Boxing Day morning (is that a good one??). David Seaman didn't even move and I don't blame him, the ball flew in so quickly I think he only relised Figo had scored once England were taking centre. Bravo Luis!

The Coup leaders

Greece - 2004
I still can't believe this even happened! I can remember missing the opening game of the tournament, much to my disgust, as I had to go to Thorpe Parks for a mate's birthday?!? Who goes to Thorpe Park for their 25th?!? Grow up and watch the football! I rushed home expecting to find Portugal 2 or 3 nil up against the Greeks only to find that they had actually just pulled one back to make it 2-1. I remember being out in a bar and seeing Greece were 1 nil up against France and thinking, "Ooooh! They're in trouble now! The French are gonna make them pay..." I also remember... you get the picture, each time I thought, "This is it, the Greeks are out now..." they'd pop up and somehow scrape through, and this was all without the aid of a penalty shoot-out. My fondest memory of the whole thing was going to Southgate, in Enfield, about 30 minutes after they'd lifted the trophy (in case you don't know, Southgate has more Greek inhabitants, well Greek Cypriot, than Greece itself) and being greeted by a scene reminiscent of when an oppressive government, that had been in power for years, is finally overthrown in a coup. I kid you not, there were guys riding on the backs of trucks chanting, I swear at one point somebody fired a Kalashnikov into the air... ok maybe that didn't happen, but there were definitely guys on the backs of trucks.

Petr Cech becoming me for 5 minutes - 2008
Petr Cech is a great goalkeeper, more importantly he's a professional goalkeeper. I am a decent goalkeeper but more importantly I am a decent Sunday League goalkeeper. There is an unwritten rule in football with regards to crossing the ball. Against a professional goalkeeper you DO NOT cross the ball to near to him as her will gobble it up without even breaking sweat and you will have wasted offensive possession of the ball. Against a Sunday League goalkeeper on the other hand, stick it right above him as he's probably still hungover, often carrying a bit of extra weight and therefore not very agile and his hands are probably about as safe as Afghanistan is as a holiday destination, and you never know what'll happen... Back in 2008 against Turkey Petr Cech got confused and assumed the role of a Sunday League goalkeeper (5.08) just to be on the safe side. Turkey, who were heading out, went through and the Czech Republic, who were heading through, went crashing out. And Cech is probably still giving it all of the usual goalkeeping excuses that we Sunday Leaguers use, "It was the wind...", "The ref should have given a foul...", "The sun was in my eyes..."

Holland tearing Italy and France a new one - 2008
I'm aware that both France and Italy had disastrous World Cups and were both back home before you could say "ageing flops" but when Holland were drawn against them at Euro 2008 they were both finalists from the previous World Cup. As a result I did not expect Holland to tear both teams to shreds especially seen as the Dutch, much like the Spanish, had up until recent times flattered to deceive at major international tournaments. Playing pretty football and scoring decent goals then folding faster than an origami artist as soon as they faced decent opposition. To be fair they did mess up in the Quarter Finals against Russia despite their dazzling displays in the group stage but I was very impressed.

So that's it. 10 magical European Championship moments, for anyone who can think of more notable instances that the competition has had in the past 20 years, tough! I am aware that I've not included Gazza's goal against Scotland, McAllister's penalty where the ball moved as he was going to take it, Ibrahimovic's back-heel against Italy in 2004 and his driven shot against Greece in 2008 (both events that ITV refuse to accept even happened), Maniche's goal from the short corner against Holland in 2004, Rooney powering through Croatia, England crumbling AGAIN against France in the last minute in 2004 and the Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo having the audacity to save Darius Vassel's penalty bare-handed then tuck the winner home seconds later. Fact of the matter is that there have been so many memorable moments in the last 20 years and tons more before then too, that is why I can't wait for next Friday. Bring it on!!