Do Not Sell My Personal Information
My, I had a look at my calender today and it’s been nearly two months since I last did…well anything at all really. So how is everyone? Resignation is in the air make no mistake, wafting across from the Execs at the FA’s ideal situation in their own heads I suppose!
Anyway since we last conversed just before the Barnet game, so to speak, I got my arse in gear, joined the Travel Club (and after the hassle of trying to rush an app. off late it went on general sale anyway, hah!) and got down to Boro on Saturday for something reassembling a football match (one side turned up at least so I should be grateful for half mercies), but hey ho! I love whorey old cliches, so it makes it all better to know that there can be no winning without losers. Of course it does.
The game itself, well there’s not a lot to say really. Only, at best, three or four players looked interested, we got a good doing that we thoroughly deserved and we were all left to trudge home without feeling too bad about it, because personally I can easily take getting beat WHEN THE OTHER SIDE DESERVE IT. Boro rode their luck early on (who doesn’t against us these days?), have a team of limited triers and with said personell outfought us in every area of the pitch (except their own box because we were never in it, natch!).
It does not do much good to attempt analysis of results like these, mainly because most people can’t stomach having to resurrect the thought of Lauren falling over the ball on the touchline 5 yards from his own corner flag without putting it out of play. I once swore to myself I’d never, the day I got the chance, come home from an Arsenal match saying “ah well”. But to be honest, without Henry and the Freddie and with two of the finest young footballers in Europe stuck on the bench until the very second Maccarone kills the game no less, right now away from home we are an ordinary, ordinary football team. Played two, lost two. [shrugs].
So, whilst I did have a cracking day out, a cracking weekend, a cracking day in Newcastle today (sun out, glorious day, England all but wrapping up the cricket – today brought back a LOT of happy, genuinely happy memories), it all seems so bloody benign to walk back up Windward Way to get a pint before the train back, surrounded by opposition fans who created the most welcoming atmosphere, who displayed none of the loutish….nay, w****erish tendencies to come up in your face screaming “Piss aff ya Gunner, Man U for the league!” (or anything comparably droll), thinking “that was still a good day out”. Doesn’t it? Football is supposed to involve, to create bonds, not alienate you away from the purpose of spending lots of money and giving up the day to do something that is a genuine privilege to be a part of. I’m afraid that when you’re privvy to the kind of shabby individual (everything has to be individual with us all the time doesn’t it?) showings we got offered up, it’s not generally on your mind to indulge in further masochism and play the game over in your head afterwards (“Oh, so their second goal WAS Cygan’s fault after all!”).
I don’t deny internationals are a bastard to have to deal with, and if Henry had been playing I reckon we’d have won because a touch of class would have opened them up. But this is all as irrelevant as Robért Píres these days (and don’t think I’ve got the vendetta some have, because prior to our last few outings I have given the man all the time in the world) – Boro outclassed us. If this sounds daft, I think a few people might want to brace themselves for much the same again. Soon. With bells on.
Anyways, despite now being awfully bored (Engineering work between Newcastle and Edinburgh of course – a 9 hour round trip to Middlesbrough, come off it!), this has been a fantastic weekend, one I’ll remember for as long as I live. I am just left with the nagging feeling I’ve seen a force really on the wane this time. Just as well it’s happened early enough to be spotted, for some heads to be knocked together and for some people to step up and get it right.
Ho-hum. Mew’s new album is on it’s way – I love a story, unorthodox is better I think, and I love it when something is laid flat out in front of you for you to interpret yourself despite the reservations of the author of making such a public display of his emotions – things that make you think are so passe, after all!
Right then, I’m off to shred my shirt with Píres on the back, and I’ll try and make it a tad shorter time than two months before I next bother my elbow for this site. Keep safe and don’t be too harsh on the man Jens. He seems to be one of the few people with a heart we’ve got left. I like people like that. They can do you a whole power of good. Ask Ray Parlour.
