Thursday, July 30, 2020
Welcome To My World
It's been kinda fun seeing people react to the end of the Covid-19 ravaged 2019/20 season. Playing games in empty stadiums at obscure kick off times? I became immune to them in Indonesia and while I would have preferred to have gone to the games I wasn't going to spit no dummy. And don't get me started on the Football Without Fans Is Nothing nonsense.
But let's look forward to this weekend's FA Cup Final. I do feel for the decent bods who have taken to social media wailing on the net about missing their first Cup Final since, in some cases, the 1950s but for me this has become the norm since I left England in 1987.
I thought I would be gone 12 months! George Graham had just taken over and I had seen us win our first ever trophy when we had beaten Liverpool 2-1 in the League Cup Final at Wembley and I was looking forward to returning to England after a year in Asia and Australia and carry on following the team I had grown up supporting home, away and in Europe.
Sadly, I was gone a little longer than 12 months, try 360 give or take, along the way missing a good few finals so while fans are remembering their big days out watching us I'll try and remember where I was when the Arsenal were playing in a Final
1987/88 Luton Town v Arsenal - I was in Sydney. Crashed at my brother's place, we'd been out on the beer all day/night and I watched the game at his apartment as he struggled to get some zzzs before going to work. I spent most of the game screaming obscenties at the TV screen, we lost of course and I was thrown out soon after!
1992/93 Arsenal v Sheffield Wednesday League Cup Final - I was now living and working in the German Alps on the side of a mountain. I sneaked away from work to listen on a ropey old transistor radio I had found somewhere. I felt like 'Knowledge' with this thing stuck to my ear!
1992/93 Arsenal v Sheffield Wednesday FA Cup Final - Still in Germany, I don't remember the first game but for the replay I sneaked down to the deserted ball room in the disused hotel where I was staying and found a channel showing the game. Reception wasn't the best but good enough for me to be cursing the prospects of penalties. Then...Any Linighan! I screamed out of the windows to the snow covered mountains then thought not a good idea...avalanche alert!
1993/94 Arsenal v Parma - Had only been in Thailand a few months and had gone to Malaysia for my first visa run. It was only when I got off the train in Butterworth I realised I was not going to get back to Bangkok in time for the final so I scraped together my Ringgit and splashed out on a flight instead and watched the game in the silence of my apartment.
1994/95 Arsenal v Real Zaragoza - Still in Bangkok and nursing an expensive alcohol problem. Crawled back from some bar and sat in the lobby of my guest house watching the game with the caretaker on Thai TV before crawling off to work. Not a fun morning...
1997/98 Arsenal v Newcastle United - Still in Bangkok and headed down to Bobby's Arms in Patpong to watch this game. Not a bad place to celebrate a double!
1999/2000 Arsenal v Galatasaray - In Bangladesh now and no bars to watch the game for obvious reasons. Found a channel to watch it on, wished I hadn't bothered and didn't bother with the penalties. I dunno, I just don't have the faith when it comes to 12 yards. The maid, whose name was Shatti, learnt some interesting vocab...
2000/01 Arsenal v Liverpool - Was still based in Bangladesh but flew to Bangkok for the weekend. Spent all day on the ale but once the Mickeys scored I left the bar to find somewhere not showing football. I failed and when I returned to the bar a few weeks later I was presented with a pretty hefty outstanding bill.
2001/02 Arsenal v Chelsea - I was now back in Thailand and went to a bar to watch the game with a Chelsea supporting mate. Two cracking goals from Freddie and Ray Parlour and my pal won the sweepstake having guessed Arsenal would win 2-0! Happy days...
2002/03 Arsenal v Southampton - Another final, another country. I was now in Indonesia and watched this game in a bar just round the corner from my apartment. Looked like I was missing out on loads of fun in England but I wasn't ready, or able, to return home.
2004/05 Arsenal v Manchester United - Six months earlier I'd been told I was getting married but I had no job and no money. Somehow I found a job in Pakistan and so it was I was watching a cup final in yet another country. Surprised it took so long to send Reyes off, when it went to penalties I turned it off. A few minutes later and my fiance rang me cheering her head off...
2005/06 Arsenal v Barcelona - Back in Indonesia and a month away from my wedding. Sadly there was to be no gift from Paris and I still blame Almunia. I wasn't ready to blame Wenger...not yet.
2006/07 Arsenal v Chelsea League Cup Final - Wasn't shown live in Indonesia but I was starting to lose patience now with Wenger. I wasn't yet a fully fledged WOB but not far off it. A stronger team winning would have helped build a winning mentality especially among the young players but the message from Wenger was that this trophy was beneath him.
2010/11 Arsenal v Birmingham - My slide into WOBism had become irreversible after the Gallas hissy fit at St Andrew's in 2008 and I had by now all but lost interest in the club. We were going nowhere under Wenger and the winning touch in his early days which had relied so much on George Graham's back five, was long gone. Winning mentality was something that was often talked about, how many times did he tell us he was a winner who hated to lose, but the evidence told a different tale. We had gone from Seaman and Adams to Almunia and Koscielny and it hurt me to see them wearing the colours of the club I had loved for so long. Again, didn't watch this game, it wasn't live.
2013/14 Arsenal v Hull City - I was slowly climbing out of the tunnel of despair which supporting Arsenal had dragged me. I loathed the Unholy Trinity of Wenger/Gazidis/Kroenke but was starting to watch games again starting with friendlies in Malaysia and Indonesia and then, in 2012, my first games in England since 1997. We were beaten by Wigan on my first visit to the Emirates but for the first time in 15 years I knew what it meant to be a fan in the stadium. I had grown so used to switching off the TV after a game but now the performance stayed with me as I queued for the tube back to my hotel. It confirmed one thing I had allowed myself to forget...there is only one way to watch football and that is at the ground. Watching a game on TV you are stripped of the build up, the beer, the comeradie and the emotion of football which keeps fans coming back week in, week out. TV football is little more than a soap opera where you briefly wonder who X will shag next week before returning to your real life.
With my faith coming back I joined 3,500 Indonesian Arsenal fans to watch the Final just round the corner from where I lived. Not a good start and had Clichy not headed off the line I think it's fair to say Hull would have gone on to win the game.
2014/15 - Arsenal v Aston Villa - Honestly can't remember where I watched this game. I'm thinking Bintang may have played a role in my amnesia...
2016/17 Arsenal v Chelsea - Teamed up again with the Arsenal Supporters in Jakarta for this but no beer is my abiding memory...apart from Ramsey and Mertesacker!
2017/18 Arsenal v Manchester City - Now back in England and despite being offered a ticket for the game by the club, 200 quid if you please, I decided to pop down the pub and watch it. Wish I hadn't bothered...I can still see Mustafi being brushed aside...
2018/19 Arsenal v Chelsea UEFA Europa League Final - I had a ticket but more fool me I hadn't booked a flight back when tickets were cheaper and routes less complex. I should've booked early doors for about 500 quid and just enjoyed a few days in Baku, but I decided for some foolish reason, not to.
2019/20 Arsenal v Chelsea - Welcome to my fucking world!
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Doncaster Rovers v Bristol Rovers
Having lived in places like Bangkok and Sydney and visited destinations like Bali and Dubai it can difficult to believe I used to think Doncaster was exotic but it be the truth. Once upon a time family holidays would invariably consist of traveling on the train between London and Hartlepool along the north east line, stopping off at Peterborough, Doncaster, York and Darlington before changing to the Hartlepool branch line.
For me, as a young football fan, it was a journey of wonder. Pulling out of King's Cross we would emerge from the tunnels of north London and slide past the art deco stands of Arsenal Stadium and head up north. I grew up feeling a familiarity with the towns and football clubs along that railway line even though I cared not a jot how they did at the weekends.
It wasn't until the 1984/85 season that I finally made it to Doncaster Rovers old Belle Vue ground. That particular day saw many games around the country postponed due to the bad weather yet for some reason the game in Doncaster was never in doubt so rather than risk milling round London, far cheaper and far closer, in the hope a game would survive the freeze I bit the bullet and produced my Young Person's Railcard for my cheap day return to Doncaster. As it happened just 10 gams survived the chill including Chelsea v Arsenal!
There was no Google Maps of course but I was good at understanding maps in those days so once I arrived in Doncaster I had the route etched in my mind via a couple of roundabouts and soon found myself at the creaking old ground. I paid my money and took my seat in the old wooden stand where the pigeon shit crusted wooden seats weren't the most comfortable.
It's surprising what you remember over the years. I was sat towards the back of the stand and just behind me were what I took to be some local miners. I985 was of course peak miner's strike and Yorkshire was at its heart and these people behind me were being less than complimentary about someone sat elsewhere. 'Scab' was one word they used!
The game itself was won by visitors Reading 4-0 and the only other thing I recall was haystacks around the pitch!
Fast forward to 2019 and of course Donny now play in the new Keepmoat Stadium, a damned sight more comfy than Belle Vue. The Bristol Rovers game was to be my fifth visit of the season and if any home fans were to get neutral, had enjoyed each game.chatty I determined to keep quiet; my previous four games had seen defeats at home to Sunderland and Crystal Palace, a draw with Barnsley and the 7-0 win over Chorley but in fairness I, as a
The walk from the station to the ground is pretty bleak. Once you get past the Railway and the Leopard, which hosts the odd punk band on a Friday night, there is little to grab a visitor's attention all the way to the ground. It's a long, lonely walk so I guess most people either drive, take a bus or a taxi.
Cheap train tickets mean that I had arrived in Donny at 5pm and so by the time I had been to the bank and walked to the Keepmoat it was still only 6pm and about the only people milling around outside the ground were expectant autograph hunters; wasn't that a kids' thing back in the day? These guys seemed to be at least twice the age of the players they waited for outside the main entrance!
With sod all on the industrial estate around the Keepmoat to keep fans amused beyond a running track and the odd burger van I headed to the Belle Vue bar. One reason I have visited Doncaster so often this season is a membership card, called DNA, that offers discount on the trains and also beers for £6 and if that isn't an invitation to get to a football match then I don't know what is.
This would be my first time watching Bristol Rovers in what a I call the new era (From 1992 until 2012 I was overseas and saw very few games.) However I was keen top see how their Coventry City alumni, Abu Ogogo and Jonson Clarke-Harris were getting on. For while Donny had been struggling in recent weeks the Pirates had been in fine form unbeaten in their previous five games though still way to close to the relegation places for their liking.
Doncaster got off to a flyer with a goal in the opening couple of minutes when a speculative effort from the veteran James Coppinger squirmed through the keeper and into the net. When the 38 year old netted again on 12 minutes I sat back to enjoy what I hoped would be a goal fest. Donny were on the front foot for the whole of the first half and the only surprise was we had to wait so long before the promising Mallik Wilks, on loan from Leeds United, made it 3-0. So much for getting to see how good Ogogo and Clarke-Harris were!
A penny for the thoughts of Bristol Rovers manager Graham Coughlan as he took his seat in the dug out at the start of the second half. 3-0 down, he would have spent the interval trying to instil some belief into his dispirited players. Perhaps there would have plenty of gung-ho spirit among the players as they went back on the pitch. Surely all they needed would be a quick goal and then, given Donny's recent form, nerves would have crept in among the home support and that would have effected the team in red.
Then Kieran Sadler scored a cracker from outside the box. 4-0 and game over. Clarke-Harris pulled one back from the spot to give the travelling supporters something to cheer but the game was Donny's and they were back in the play off spots. And, just as importantly, they had boosted their goal difference. It's in their hands now, that final play off position. Saturday they host Walsall while Peterborough will be looking on nervously.
While the Championship gets much of the attention there is so much to be decided in what is a thrilling League One and that doesn't include Sunday's Checkatrade Cup Final between Portsmouth and Sunderland which is likely to draw a massive crowd!
A penny for the thoughts of Bristol Rovers manager Graham Coughlan as he took his seat in the dug out at the start of the second half. 3-0 down, he would have spent the interval trying to instil some belief into his dispirited players. Perhaps there would have plenty of gung-ho spirit among the players as they went back on the pitch. Surely all they needed would be a quick goal and then, given Donny's recent form, nerves would have crept in among the home support and that would have effected the team in red.
Then Kieran Sadler scored a cracker from outside the box. 4-0 and game over. Clarke-Harris pulled one back from the spot to give the travelling supporters something to cheer but the game was Donny's and they were back in the play off spots. And, just as importantly, they had boosted their goal difference. It's in their hands now, that final play off position. Saturday they host Walsall while Peterborough will be looking on nervously.
While the Championship gets much of the attention there is so much to be decided in what is a thrilling League One and that doesn't include Sunday's Checkatrade Cup Final between Portsmouth and Sunderland which is likely to draw a massive crowd!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Asian Money Trumps English Traditions
Yellow is a very special color for many Arsenal fans. It is associated with success. In the 1971 FA Cup final, for example, yellow was worn as Arsenal came from behind to beat Liverpool after extra time and secure their first double.
Eight years later they won the Cup again. Wearing yellow.
Then there was 1989, Mickey Thomas and all that. Winning the old Division One at Anfield, against Liverpool, they wore yellow shirts.
On the other hand, fans, die hard traditionalists at heart, do not have that have emotional attachment to blue, or white, or purple, which have been used in recent years. Primarily because they are not associated with winning trophies in the way yellow is.
Not that the club seem too worried. This season’s second choice shirt is a purple and black number and it is apparently "selling well." Traditionalists, the old school, are up in arms about it but the club are looking at the bottom line and, especially, the lucrative Chinese market.
Talking to an Arsenal supporters' group recently, commercial director Tom Fox was quizzed about shirt designs, and while he recognized the role yellow has played in the club's history, he inferred that was not as important as the Asian consumer.
"You want a yellow shirt with blue trim, I get it. There are fans in China that don’t want that," he told the supporters. He went on to say they, and kids in N5, Arsenal’s home turf in London, wanted something more fashionable to wear with their contemporary clothing.
Arsenal have jumped on the Asian bandwagon in the last 15 months or so with tours to China, Malaysia and Hong Kong. But it’s not just about shirt sales. It’s about raising the club’s profile in a part of the world that companies are rushing headlong into. And it’s about attracting sponsors who either want a piece of that action or they are already there but looking to expand themselves.
Watch a Premier League game most weekends and you can see how the clubs, and the league, are bending over backwards to chase the Asian dollar. Or baht. Or ringgit.
Liverpool, Everton, Aston Villa and Queens Park Rangers have sponsors on their club shirt who are either Asian in origin or have a large presence in Asia while the likes of West Ham United, Wigan Athletic, Swansea City and Stoke City have online gambling sites.
It’s not just on the shirts that Asia is being targeted or showing off its wealth. Take a look at the A boards and you can see a Thai brewing war revolving in front of TV audiences around the world. Liverpool recently signed a deal with Indonesia’s flag carrier while a sports website, strongly and subtly, linked to a major tobacco company, also features prominently.
And there’s more. Queens Park Rangers, Leicester City and Cardiff City are owned by rich businessmen from Thailand (Leicester) and Malaysia. Seeing replica Leicester City shirts on sale at Bangkok’s international airport among the more familiar duty free brands takes some getting used to. And some chicken farmers own Blackburn Rovers.
Cardiff City have of course gone one step further in their attempts to appeal to a new breed of supporter. The Malaysian owned club have ditched their traditional blue shirts in a bid to attract fans in a culture where dragons and the color red carry strong messages of wealth and power, alienating some of their doorstep in the process. For now though it does seem most fans are giving the new owners the benefit of the doubt with the move but how long the honeymoon lasts remains to be seen.
A few years ago nobody in Malaysia would have known anything at all about Cardiff; indeed cynics may say they still don’t. But will a Malaysian owning a little known football club be enough to open the club to people who have already been following English football a decade or more and already have their own teams in red they support?
English fans have long been moaning about the crass commercialism of the game, especially the Premier League and its 'greed is good' policy, and the look east is only causing more consternation as fans who have followed their clubs through thick and thin now find themselves being marginalized by the perceived influx of foreign money.
There are pitfalls to this easy money. Everton, who have had a long and successful relationship with a Thai beer company, had their fingers burnt when they were due to go on a tour to Indonesia only to find it cancelled at the last minute for reasons that remain unclear but probably revolve around money.
The English Premier League may not be the best league in the world but it doesn’t matter. Had satellite TV been worldwide in the late 1980s or early 1990s perhaps Italian clubs would be the most popular. But it wasn’t. The big English clubs and their players are brands. And like all brands they are there to be exploited.
A new TV deal will boost the money flowing into clubs, but most of it will likely end up in players' and agents' pockets leaving clubs again scouring the globe for sponsors and revenue sources. With fans already being squeezed by high ticket prices, the most expensive seats for Arsenal v Chelsea later this month are a mind-boggling 123.50 GBP (Rp 1.85 million) and the cheapest at a mere 62.00 GBP, fans cannot be expected to keep bearing the brunt and Fox recognized that recently by saying the club was after 95 percent revenue growth coming from the club’s international business.
Traditions may be nice and may be what brings a club and its support together, but they don’t pay the bills. Expect to see more changes as new owners tinker with their club to attract new support and new money.
First published in Jakarta Globe
Eight years later they won the Cup again. Wearing yellow.
Then there was 1989, Mickey Thomas and all that. Winning the old Division One at Anfield, against Liverpool, they wore yellow shirts.
On the other hand, fans, die hard traditionalists at heart, do not have that have emotional attachment to blue, or white, or purple, which have been used in recent years. Primarily because they are not associated with winning trophies in the way yellow is.
Not that the club seem too worried. This season’s second choice shirt is a purple and black number and it is apparently "selling well." Traditionalists, the old school, are up in arms about it but the club are looking at the bottom line and, especially, the lucrative Chinese market.
Talking to an Arsenal supporters' group recently, commercial director Tom Fox was quizzed about shirt designs, and while he recognized the role yellow has played in the club's history, he inferred that was not as important as the Asian consumer.
"You want a yellow shirt with blue trim, I get it. There are fans in China that don’t want that," he told the supporters. He went on to say they, and kids in N5, Arsenal’s home turf in London, wanted something more fashionable to wear with their contemporary clothing.
Arsenal have jumped on the Asian bandwagon in the last 15 months or so with tours to China, Malaysia and Hong Kong. But it’s not just about shirt sales. It’s about raising the club’s profile in a part of the world that companies are rushing headlong into. And it’s about attracting sponsors who either want a piece of that action or they are already there but looking to expand themselves.
Watch a Premier League game most weekends and you can see how the clubs, and the league, are bending over backwards to chase the Asian dollar. Or baht. Or ringgit.
Liverpool, Everton, Aston Villa and Queens Park Rangers have sponsors on their club shirt who are either Asian in origin or have a large presence in Asia while the likes of West Ham United, Wigan Athletic, Swansea City and Stoke City have online gambling sites.
It’s not just on the shirts that Asia is being targeted or showing off its wealth. Take a look at the A boards and you can see a Thai brewing war revolving in front of TV audiences around the world. Liverpool recently signed a deal with Indonesia’s flag carrier while a sports website, strongly and subtly, linked to a major tobacco company, also features prominently.
And there’s more. Queens Park Rangers, Leicester City and Cardiff City are owned by rich businessmen from Thailand (Leicester) and Malaysia. Seeing replica Leicester City shirts on sale at Bangkok’s international airport among the more familiar duty free brands takes some getting used to. And some chicken farmers own Blackburn Rovers.
Cardiff City have of course gone one step further in their attempts to appeal to a new breed of supporter. The Malaysian owned club have ditched their traditional blue shirts in a bid to attract fans in a culture where dragons and the color red carry strong messages of wealth and power, alienating some of their doorstep in the process. For now though it does seem most fans are giving the new owners the benefit of the doubt with the move but how long the honeymoon lasts remains to be seen.
A few years ago nobody in Malaysia would have known anything at all about Cardiff; indeed cynics may say they still don’t. But will a Malaysian owning a little known football club be enough to open the club to people who have already been following English football a decade or more and already have their own teams in red they support?
English fans have long been moaning about the crass commercialism of the game, especially the Premier League and its 'greed is good' policy, and the look east is only causing more consternation as fans who have followed their clubs through thick and thin now find themselves being marginalized by the perceived influx of foreign money.
There are pitfalls to this easy money. Everton, who have had a long and successful relationship with a Thai beer company, had their fingers burnt when they were due to go on a tour to Indonesia only to find it cancelled at the last minute for reasons that remain unclear but probably revolve around money.
The English Premier League may not be the best league in the world but it doesn’t matter. Had satellite TV been worldwide in the late 1980s or early 1990s perhaps Italian clubs would be the most popular. But it wasn’t. The big English clubs and their players are brands. And like all brands they are there to be exploited.
A new TV deal will boost the money flowing into clubs, but most of it will likely end up in players' and agents' pockets leaving clubs again scouring the globe for sponsors and revenue sources. With fans already being squeezed by high ticket prices, the most expensive seats for Arsenal v Chelsea later this month are a mind-boggling 123.50 GBP (Rp 1.85 million) and the cheapest at a mere 62.00 GBP, fans cannot be expected to keep bearing the brunt and Fox recognized that recently by saying the club was after 95 percent revenue growth coming from the club’s international business.
Traditions may be nice and may be what brings a club and its support together, but they don’t pay the bills. Expect to see more changes as new owners tinker with their club to attract new support and new money.
First published in Jakarta Globe
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Fergie Strangely Silent On Dodgy Pen
Sir Alex Ferguson has shown himself up for being the parochial, biased, self centered, hypocritical man that he is.
Following his team's 1-0 reverse at Goodison Park in their opening game of the season, Fergie came out and blamed everyone for the defeat. He had a pop at Everton's style of play and intimated the home support had influenced the match officials.
Last week, back in Old Trafford bunker surrounded by his supplicants and gophers, the Scottish manager showed that the Olympic spirit that had temporarily effused the nation had gone.
United were given a penalty that was not a penalty. Except at Old Trafford. The Wigan Athletic keeper can be seen clearly pulling out of the challenge. But a baying home support cranked up the volume and the ref caved on, awarding United just one of many soft penalties they,and to be fair other big teams, will likely receive this season.
Did we see Fergie rush to the media and complain about the justice or morality of the decision so blatantly influenced by intimidating fans? Did he rush to say the ref had got it wrong? Did he offer any sympathy to the beleaguered Wigan manager over the unfairness of the decision?
Nope. He did none of those things.
And why should he? If he feels he can manipulate or intimidate match officials into giving his team the 50/50s then he is going to continue to do so.
The Olympic spirit is all very noce and wishy washy. But it is also patronising and does not win trophies.
Following his team's 1-0 reverse at Goodison Park in their opening game of the season, Fergie came out and blamed everyone for the defeat. He had a pop at Everton's style of play and intimated the home support had influenced the match officials.
Last week, back in Old Trafford bunker surrounded by his supplicants and gophers, the Scottish manager showed that the Olympic spirit that had temporarily effused the nation had gone.
United were given a penalty that was not a penalty. Except at Old Trafford. The Wigan Athletic keeper can be seen clearly pulling out of the challenge. But a baying home support cranked up the volume and the ref caved on, awarding United just one of many soft penalties they,and to be fair other big teams, will likely receive this season.
Did we see Fergie rush to the media and complain about the justice or morality of the decision so blatantly influenced by intimidating fans? Did he rush to say the ref had got it wrong? Did he offer any sympathy to the beleaguered Wigan manager over the unfairness of the decision?
Nope. He did none of those things.
And why should he? If he feels he can manipulate or intimidate match officials into giving his team the 50/50s then he is going to continue to do so.
The Olympic spirit is all very noce and wishy washy. But it is also patronising and does not win trophies.
Boro End Rovers Unbeaten Run
Blackburn Rovers' fans remain unconvinced. Despite remaining top of the Championship following their first defeat of the season at home to Middlesbrough manager Steve Kean has again come under fire for Rovers' poor showing over 90 minutes.
Victory for Rovers would have seen a four point gap open up over a cluster of teams sitting just below them on 13 points but it wasn't to be for the home team and the defeat has just succeeded in opening the taps of vitriol one more time and for the first time this season the chants of Kean Out echoed round Ewood Park.
Fans are still staying away in their thousands. Just over 13,000 turned up last night for the Middlesbrough game, still 10,000 short of Premier League attendances. The record signing of Jordan Rhodes and his spectacular start had given the club something of a boost but the old antagonisms remain bubbling under the surface as witnessed by the cyber schadenfreude that followed this defeat.
The club owners, chicken farmers from India, have stuck doggedly with Kean since relegation, just one bone of many contentions fans have, and the question is are they tiring of backing their man?
Rovers, with all the disquiet going on in the background, have started the season brightly with four wins and two draws in their opening half dozen games but performances have been less than stellar against opposition from mid table or below. Opponents like Barnsley (18th), Ipswich Town (23rd) and Leeds United (14th).
Middlesbrough on the other hand came into the game with nothing to show for their first three games. Yet their win propelled them up to 6th place, just two points behind Blackburn, despite boasting a negative goal difference.
Are Blackburn top because they have found the secret of winning ugly against mediocre teams? Have they just had an easy start to the season? Is the Championship a genuinely weak division?
Six games in is too early to assess the strength or otherwise of the division. A better indicator though of how well Rovers match up against the other teams will come on 3rd October when Rovers travel to Nottingham Forest.
The East Midlands club remain unbeaten and have had some serious investment over the summer. A good result there, coupled with a good performance, may convince a few of the sceptics that there is more to Rovers than doggedness and luck.
Defeat there, and a poor result away to Charlton Athletic next time out and that axe could well be being sharpened.
Victory for Rovers would have seen a four point gap open up over a cluster of teams sitting just below them on 13 points but it wasn't to be for the home team and the defeat has just succeeded in opening the taps of vitriol one more time and for the first time this season the chants of Kean Out echoed round Ewood Park.
Fans are still staying away in their thousands. Just over 13,000 turned up last night for the Middlesbrough game, still 10,000 short of Premier League attendances. The record signing of Jordan Rhodes and his spectacular start had given the club something of a boost but the old antagonisms remain bubbling under the surface as witnessed by the cyber schadenfreude that followed this defeat.
The club owners, chicken farmers from India, have stuck doggedly with Kean since relegation, just one bone of many contentions fans have, and the question is are they tiring of backing their man?
Rovers, with all the disquiet going on in the background, have started the season brightly with four wins and two draws in their opening half dozen games but performances have been less than stellar against opposition from mid table or below. Opponents like Barnsley (18th), Ipswich Town (23rd) and Leeds United (14th).
Middlesbrough on the other hand came into the game with nothing to show for their first three games. Yet their win propelled them up to 6th place, just two points behind Blackburn, despite boasting a negative goal difference.
Are Blackburn top because they have found the secret of winning ugly against mediocre teams? Have they just had an easy start to the season? Is the Championship a genuinely weak division?
Six games in is too early to assess the strength or otherwise of the division. A better indicator though of how well Rovers match up against the other teams will come on 3rd October when Rovers travel to Nottingham Forest.
The East Midlands club remain unbeaten and have had some serious investment over the summer. A good result there, coupled with a good performance, may convince a few of the sceptics that there is more to Rovers than doggedness and luck.
Defeat there, and a poor result away to Charlton Athletic next time out and that axe could well be being sharpened.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
New Whines, Old Bottles
First appeared in Jakarta Globe
It’s been the worst of weeks. The transfer window slammed
shut last Friday and with international duty occupying many minds headline
writers have had their work cut out trying to fill the cavernous spaces the
footballing public demand.
In the days of the cold war, old China watchers used to scan
the pictures of the political elite looking for what was not there. Without an
open press, without leaks or inside sources, governments had to rely on who was
featured prominently in the papers and who was not to infer which way the wind
was blowing in the secretive communist state. Policy would be dictated by
someone’s pose or presence in a grainy black and white photograph.
You can imagine, then, many an editor and writer breathing a
huge sigh of relief and offering a silent prayer of thanks to headline magnet,
Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo it seems no longer makes headlines for scoring
goals. His brace last weekend made it 114 in 104 games for Real Madrid. Hitting
the back of the net with such regularity is no longer enough though to make the
news.
What grabbed people’s attention this time was the way the
Portuguese striker celebrated. He didn’t. No ripping off his shirt to show off
his six pack, no turning cartwheels, no bearing his teeth or punching the air.
Nothing.
It was later revealed that Ronaldo was sad. That was enough
to send people into a spin. For the vast majority of people struggling with a
deteriorating economy the idea of a multi millionaire may be sad would be met
with a shrug of the shoulders and who cares?
But this is football. We seem to allow footballers more
leeway than businesspeople.
Many rushed to surmise why the poor dear should be so upset
and most suggested money be the problem. As if 12 million Euros a year could
cause anyone any hardship.
This was manna from heaven for sports writers looking at a
quiet week. They put two and two together and decided Ronaldo was either
angling for a move or setting out his stall in upcoming contract negotiations;
suggestions the man himself was quick to deny.
It didn’t matter though what he said. Everyone was quick to
link Ronaldo with clubs like Manchester City or Paris Saint German or any
Russian club who could afford to better his current hardship allowance.
Hot on the heels of Ronaldo’s sulk came Cesc Fabregas. He
hadn’t played the full 90 minutes yet in any of Barcelona’s opening three games
and he went public saying he was unhappy with a bit part role at the Spanish
side.
He went on to say that he would take his ‘unhappy’ face home
if he had to rather than let his manager or team mates see it. Tellingly he
added that he had moved back to Spain to ‘compete, to learn and enjoy, not sit
wracking my brains’.
The headlines the next day? Cesc being linked with a move
back to Arsenal!
A moan by Arsenal’s French full back, Bacary Sagna, in a
French newspaper made it a hat trick of whines to dominate the headlines this
week.
Sagna, recovering from a long term injury, said he was upset
when Alex Song left the club in the summer. Not Robin van Persie which had been
on the cards, but Song. He said that Alex leaving was a surprise saying that he
was 24 years old and still had three years left on his contract.
‘In the street supporters sometimes come to see me,’ Sagna
was quoted as saying, ‘I can understand they are annoyed. I’m like them. I
don’t understand everything.’
Of course he doesn’t understand everything. It’s not his job
to understand everything. It’s his job to play football. However having been
injured for a long time, and not having the most demanding job in the world it
is only natural to wonder what is going on.
Sagna’s doubts have been seized on by Arsenal fans, and the
media, haunted by the last couple of seasons when players like Samir Nasri and
Robin van Persie were allowed to have their contracts wind down meaning a
summer of protracted rumour and he said, she said headlines.
Thankfully, next week the real business of kicking a ball
around returns and we can start talking about what happens on the field!
Everyone Loves A Swan
First appeared in Jakarta Globe
Swansea City have certainly been a breath of fresh air in
the sometimes fetid Premier League. Totally unfashionable, lacking in any real
football pedigree, coming from Wales. There is absolutely nothing in their DNA
to suggest the Swans are anything more than a lower league club with
aspirations of a giant killing in one of the domestic cups once in a while.
They flirted briefly in Division One a decade before Sky TV
came along and invented the Premier League and, by extension, English football.
Their manager at the time, John Toshack, was a Liverpool
legend and he gathered around him a whole galaxy of other former Liverpool
legends, players like Ian Callaghan and Ray Kennedy.
The Swans climbed the divisions reaching the top flight in
1981 and even, for a few glorious days, led the table.
It didn’t last of course. It wasn’t a model designed to
last. By packing the first X1 with experienced but aging pros approaching
retirement there was no Plan B. As the players wrinkled the club withered and
fell, ingloriously, back down the leagues and almost going bust.
Now they’re back. And rather than being a retirement home
for the aged, who now tend to go into the far safer and far warmer TV studio,
they have been able to attract promising young managers who in turn have made
this city on the south coast of Wales a far more cosmopolitan place than it has
ever been before.
Given their visceral rivalry with Cardiff, just along the
coast, it is a sign of the times that the city of Swansea have so openly
embraced the new faces that have come to the football club with their new
ideas.
First there was the Spaniard Roberto Martinez followed by
Paolo Sousa, his compatriot. Then Northern Irishman Brendan Rodgers. And now
the Great Dane himself; Michael Laudrup.
It’s all a far cry from the more traditional appointee, the
likes of Colin Appleton, Frank Burrows and John Bond; journeymen managers who
inspire images of flat caps and cold showers.
Swansea’s first season in the Premier League delighted
everyone with their delicious passing and movement. They even beat Arsenal 3-2
at home with a performance that must have even had the usually sour loser
Arsene Wenger purring at least inwardly.
Players like Scott Sinclair, Nathan Dyer and Joe Allen
impressed. So much so the former is likely to join Manchester City, the latter
has joined his former gaffer Rodgers at Liverpool.
Yet the dream isn’t over. Instead, Laudrup has come in and
the fans must be rubbing their eyes in disbelief. That Laudrup, perhaps the
greatest player Denmark ever produced; the Laurdup who played for both
Barcelona and Real Madrid, should have been sold on the dreams of a small
provincial club in the south of Wales is nothing short of astounding.
Yet it follows the theme began in 2007 when Martinez came
in. Young, eager, innovative managers with a thing to prove who believe in
playing football on the ground.
Faced with the departure of Allen and the imminent loss of
Sinclair, Laudrup acted quickly to bring in new players. And after just two
games one of them, Spaniard Michu, has already impressed with his ability and
workrate.
His goal at Loftus Road in the opening day win against
Queens Park Rangers highlighted his ability. Latching on to a sublime through
ball, he was able to curl the ball past the hapless Robert Green. It was a
highlight on a day of highlights.
The win over West Ham United at their own Liberty Stadium
highlighted his work ethic. Visiting defender James Collins looked unsure in
possession in his own half. Scenting an opportunity, Michu moved in. Collins
panicked and played the ball back to his keeper. But the delivery of the back
pass lacked power, Michu pounced and it was 2-0.
Despite their fine start, two wins and no goals conceded,
Laudrup will admit that the fixture list has been kind to his team. Many
challenges lie ahead and no doubt, in fine management speak, he will talk about
how his team’s goal is Premier League survival.
Along the way you can be sure they will win many more
admirers.
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