29 September 2010

Partizan Belgrade Away (CL)

Lackluster and I really don't care. I mean that's what it's become. I just really don't care. I didn't rush home to take a look at the score... because I really just don't care anymore.

How in the world would you throw your soul behind our keepers?

Don't answer that?

I really don't care.

Life's funny like that, things just keep going no matter what. To tell you the truth, nothing really surprises me anymore. Well I mean I can be surprised when things go right but honestly nothing really ever goes perfect.

So you go into the game and you got 10 men, all of the sudden. You're away and what happens? OH yah, you turn it around to a 3-1 victory. However, playing a relegation bound team at your home ground you bottle like a bunch of... I'll just leave it at that.

Coincidentally, I just want to commend Chelski on it's open armed approach at accommodating OM at Stanford Bridge. It just goes to show money don't buy you class. It barely buys you trophies.

On the other hand, Tottenham are shit!

Yes.. welcome to my hate-filled Wednesday!

~LeChat

27 September 2010

West Brom at Home

REALLY! Chelski drops points a few moments before kick off and what does the good ol'Arsenal go off and do. You know what they didn't do. Couldn't even manage a draw against a side that does the good old up and down.

My usual pub forays are becoming more or less the cause of a bad heart condition. I think this whole having hope for some silverware thing is really not good for my health. I know I sound like a pessimistic person but did you watch the game this weekend.

So what else is new? Nothing.

There was an interesting article about Anelka on CNN, no less, today. It goes on about how despite his nickname, "Le Sulk", that he really is a man of principle who let's his football do the talking for him.

They went on to compare him with the likes of Cantona and Keane. You know, I personally stood behind Nico's act of telling Domenech what he thought of him. I wish more people would have done that earlier and France, just maybe, would have done a tad bit better.

Principle, such a strange concept in today's world. For example, not to belabor a point, but it's a matter of Principle that I don't even fathom the thought about going to a certain bistro to watch my football.

I know I'm not god's gift to Arsenal supporters or any kind of supporters for that sake, but there is no way I'm going to acknowledge that place as any football pub. Hell, it's not even a pub... it's a bistro.

ManCity Himself was letting me know this weekend that we should go terrorize the place but honestly, I can't do it. It's like giving in, like saying I know that you exist and that you actually have an effect on my world. Whatever, I spent too many pixels even typing about that place.

Mentioning places to watch football, the pub recently celebrated like 7 years since being open. It's kind of interesting that I've been watching football there that long as well. Myself, GrumpyGooner and a few others of our old crew started coming down to Fells as we had grown tired of the constant annoyance known as Canton.

One of my fondest memories of the old days is sitting at bar, just me and GrumpyGooner, watching Arsenal - Chelski (before they had big money). MiniMourinho was at the other end, venting and turning seven shades of blue as The Arsenal strolled up and down the pitch.

Grumpy and I were of course having a good old laugh about the game. It's always good when you are winning. At one point, MiniMourinho slaps the bar, lets out an expletive or two, pays his tab and walks out. We knew what he was thinking and what he felt. We'd been there before as well.

I don't know why that image and day sticks out in my head so much. The emptiness of the pub or the fact that we had an unspoken conversation with another supporter, whom we didn't know from Sam or Adam.

All I know is that it, the pub, has become this place where football does reside in a city which is now beginning to have a few other options.

~LeChat

21 September 2010

Sunderland Away then Spurs Away (Carling)

In not keeping with traditions, I'm writing this today/night. The usual Monday rants got bumped due to me laying in bed with the covers pulled over my head and feeling like some miniature mountain climber was using my esophagus as his Mount Everest.

I am not a big fan of internal pain. External pain, the stuff you can see what's going on, like a skinned up knee or what have you. I can even deal with the pain of a bruise that you get from when someone kicks you in the shin, cause you know what caused it.

I just can't deal with that weird internal stuff caused by whatever flying rhino hypno virus decides to deal you. Call it what you will but all in all the common cold sucks beans.

You know things are just going along fine, just like Saturday. Things are going along fine, never mind the missed penalty. Then all of the sudden, in the 94th minute, you're struck out of nowhere. There is nothing to do but lay under the covers and wish it all away.

Sunday, I personally was not in a cheerful mode. I decided to get up early and make my way to the Manchester - Liverpool tie. There were times I wish I had just stayed in bed. The only consolation to the whole effort was a very beautiful goal by a vampire looking of a man.

I think it was pure dumb luck that I walked back into the pub and glanced at the screen to see it happen in real time. A volley, a touch and a drop of the shoulder putting the ball over his head, off the cross bar and across the line.

Pure beauty. It's what made the other 90 minutes worth sitting through.

All I can say is that while we can watch a player on match day play absolutely horrid, we never have a clue on why the manager keeps picking him. We pray and hope that the boss knows what he's doing but we question it. We all do.

Then one play, amongst the others, shines a brilliant light through the fog that has obfuscated our vision and gives us a glimpse of what the manager sees day in and day out.

Since, I'm cheating a bit and doubling up. All I really have to say about S*urs right now is fuck off. Seriously... fuck off. I won't get to see the highlights until later and frankly knowing the scoreline. I really don't care.

Scum 1 - Gunners 4

It really would be nice if they would just fuck off. Seriously... fuck off.

~LeChat

16 September 2010

Sporting Braga at home - CL

Funny thing about Champions league ties; you realize that there are these other leagues out there vying for something big. I don't mean the likes of Spain, France, Germany or even the Dutch. I am talking about the likes of Portugal and Russia and Scotland.

I don't mean to discount these leagues but you tend to forget that they exist at times. It's like you know there are these little bugs that eat all kinds of deterious matter but you forget they exist until they become a problem.

Somehow these little bugs will grow and grow in number. Then you have this clump of strange bugs eating at whatever these bugs eat. They start to slowly become a problem and then you go and get the exterminator.

There are times when the exterminator works fast, making short work of the bugs clumping around the object of their feast. Eventually these little bugs start to die off, leaving just a few carcass of what was once a great clump of bugs.

These bugs, maybe a few will survive and try to raise their heads. Maybe they say to themselves, "Remember the good old days. We championed over that one foot square piece of carpet. Do you remember?"

The exterminator, with all his tools continues to squirt and squirt until the bug resurgence is nothing but a stained memory on the carpet.

~LeChat

13 September 2010

Bolton at Home

I've come to realise after my many many years of supporting a club; just how deeply my affiliation and, for lack of a better word, obsession can be.

Saturday morning, I was headed down to the pub, as usual. I had took a scant glance at the United game before leaving the homestead and not really caring about the scoreline at all. I took the not so usual path down through some of the county roads, as I needed to fuel my car up.

Now, if it isn't obvious to those that read this or know me, I am a pretty way left of center person. One thing I have no care for is the flagrant posting of your cookie cutter political beliefs on your bumper, no matter what your party affiliation.

I don't mean things like "Save the Whales" or "Protect my Guns" or anything with a direct, well intended statement of cause. I'm talking about the stupid "I'm a repub/dem/whatever nonsensical party you choose to make sure everyone else knows you are part of." Honestly, if that is how you fixate your little life, that's all on you.

Yes there is a point to all this, patience.

So I pull up to the stoplight and ahead of me is some yokel with GOP stickers plastered along the back of his not quite full grown SUV. I chuckled a bit cause it's an SUV instead of Fuckemup Pickuptruck. Now it didn't really raise my ire, as stupidity usually does but you know, it was just like, what are you really saying? Do you really believe in all this? Do you just tow the party line without thought or consequence?

Then I come to realise it is an election year, so I let it go. I will give him credit for having a sticker that said, "I'm a Reagan Republican" which was a bit different from the usual milieu of shite.

We pull up to the next light and he pulls into the lane beside another mini SUV. This one had a big old St. George on the back with England in bold letters scribed in the center. I smile, comparing the two vehicles, now I sit behind a fellow football supporter.

Not so fast, sir! 'Lo and behold, next to the St. George resided a Union Jack... and... unfortunately... it held a 10 letter word, which I can only say with the greatest disgust. He was not a football supporter. He was fucking MANC SCUM!

I sat there, gripping my steering wheel and gritting my teeth. I stared into his rear view, calling him all sorts of dirty words, hoping he would look up so I could introduce him to some sign language.

I started noticing other stickers on the back of his piece of crap SUV. MancShit this MancScum that. He had a baby on board sign that said something like Careful Little Piece of Shit Supporter on Board.

The light was starting to last too long. It finally changes and I follow him closely, hoping once he would look up. My eyes drilling into his rearview, thinking to myself, "Comeon you fuck, turn around, so I can call you a FUCK!"

I had to put this mong in his place. I looked back at the GOP SUV and shook my head. He was lucky he didn't have any MancScum shit on his vehicle. I would have probably been arrested if he did.

My attention returns fully to the MancScum SUV in front of me. I start praying he turns into the station up ahead. I was a bit low on gas, so I didn't want to risk following him all over the city, just to tell him to fuck off.

He keeps driving straight. I pull into the station, and start looking for a new victim. I had a lot of pure rage going on at this point. I ended up just angrily swiping my card and calling the gas pump a cunt, cause it started making weird noises as I was refueling.

It made me think as I drove onwards to the pub. I have always taken into account what club someone supports and use that to form the basis of opinion about that person.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a few very good friends who are MancScum supporters. I have even spoken to a couple, yah just one or two, decent, proper Scum supporters. Individually, I can say they are all good people. They know the game. They love their club. You can even have a few beers with them. They just picked the wrong ones to support.

It's a funny disease, football. If you try and get away from it, somehow it just keeps creeping back in. If you don't ever have that feeling, then you're not a proper football supporter.

Yes I am judging you.

You may watch the sport. Play the sport. You may even go take in a game or two every year, but if it doesn't affect so that others may see you as even slightly disturbed or refer to you as "the soccer guy" or some other stupid nickname. Then don't ever dare call yourself a supporter; a fan, yes, but not a supporter.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably why there is so much distaste for the American support. Yes, they did well in WC2010. The team played much better than expected. The pub was chocked full of punters, however where are those crowds now?

Someone on the street last week spotted me wearing my French kit. He made a comment about something and WC2010. I just nodded and smiled. I think he even asked something along the lines of why I was wearing it, since the World Cup was over.

I just smiled again and said, "I support France."

I didn't feel like explaining Euros to the guy. He was being nice and starting conversation but as a supporter, in general, you just grit your teeth and wish they just didn't say anything at all.

It would be like me discussing the difference between a west coast offence and nickel defence. I could tell you that one means you're attacking and the other means you're defending. I have very little idea on the intricacies of American Football and won't pretend like I do. That's just me though.

Life is funny, so is football. I am glad that I get to enjoy both.

~LeChat