Chelsea at home, Wigan away

This has been a weird week all around, just to begin with, 2 matches within 3 days time. I know there are those who side with, well they get paid a shit ton of money to look like shit, but it's seriously a lot to ask especially in the premiership.

Boxing Day
Have to admit this was one of the worst Boxing day turn outs I've ever witnessed. It may have been for a lack of quality games on the screens or just no one cares about tradition.

The shitty faithful were streaming their gave across the internet and putting it on the big screen upstairs. I will give proper respect to them for doing that. Downstairs, if I had thrown Mount Everest at the pub I don't think I would have hit a Manc fan/supporter at all.

Now I understand people are out of town for the holidays and all but really, not even a fair-weather or at least one that I knew of. Thank the gods for the local hooligans meandering in and having a few together. For lack of quantity there were a good lot of us surrounding the back tables not paying much attention to the screens at all.

Monday
There we go. A much better turn of events. I have never seen that much red and white in the pub since before the splitters left. Some of the Chelski lads also showed up, nice turn out for them.

So as I've been informed by the man himself, I've never mentioned Shorts in my blog. Shorts, he's a good lad as they would say and yes I know it's a weak nickname for him but it's also early in the morning for me to be typing. I promised him a few lines as well. As I was saying, Shorts has been instrumental in the instigation and creation of new songs and chants for the pub. This, to me, makes him a real pub hero, have a beer Shorts and be kind to those who are shorter.

I swear I must have said something about him at one time or the other. Oh wells, after the game we all headed over to the dollar store for some post match bevvies. LilblondieGooner was trying to figure out if MiniMo was going to let her back into the apartment. I think we all offered a place to stay but we knew he would anyways.

Wednesday
Let us just say it was not as delicious as Monday. Things started off bad, got better and settled into what can only be disappointing but not the worst thing that could happen. It was just weird.

Arsenal on the big screen, Chelski in the back (cough cough where they belong). The Librarian mentioned it was interesting that there was an actual divide in the pub, like an imaginary line that neither side ventured cross. Or maybe I was watching a documentary on North Korea last night. No I'm sure she said something to that affect.

We all spent most of the matches giving each other some friendly abuse. At one point something was said between LilblondieGooner and LilblondieChelski. I still have no idea what was said but I think the west coast is softening LilblondieGooner.

I spent the rest of the night sulking in my own self misery. I even gave up a short trip to the dollar store, just didn't feel like being around people. Like I said, strange night all around; who would give up a trip to the dollar store?

~LeChat

s-NOOOOOOOO Football

Surprise!
I heard a rumour of 3 inches in one hour around the Grove. I mean that's what I heard so I'm not going to question it. It must be true.

My weekend consisted of going to see Tron in 3D. It's a decent remake/sequel of the old movie. I'm not going to give a full review cause it has nothing to do with football at all.

Well I suppose it has something to do with my life... and this blog is related to my life and it's parallel dimension to the world of football.

Saturday morning I woke up, as usual, bright and early. I took a nice shower, and did the things you normally do after you wake up. I hop on the good old computer thing and take a look at the action.

I knew some things might be canceled because of the recent English weather but I couldn't believe almost everything was canceled. I had to take a quick look at my day and figured that this weekend would be a bust football wise, at least.

Sunday was spent doing much the same. Not much. As expected, more cancellations. I did however get to catch up on some video watching. By the way, the discovery channel 2008 Iditarod series, not really worth it. While I do enjoy my sled dog racing, the low raspy talking "expect something bad to happen" commentator needs to go. Give me the nasally Alaskan in the helicopter any day. OVER-Produced.

Much like what ESPN has tried to do to proper football; Over produce the crap out of it and then spoon feed it to the unwashed. I know it's all about viewership and making it feel comfortable to Joe and Mary America. However, you alienate the same who actually got you to put the game on the television to begin with.

Reminds me of the time Fox took over the NHL and started doing the glowing puck thing. What a disaster! The glow was never where it was supposed to be and served more of a distraction to the regular watchers of the sport than to the new viewership that it was trying to capture and that never would stick around to begin with.

My thing is, if you want to get into something, really want to understand the world around you. You take your time, pay your dues and come out a whole lot better than having it given to you by god, er I mean Corporate Run Media Conglomerates.

I know you can call me a hypocrite because the same could be said about the BBC, however the BBC has had match of the day in place since forever and a day and that is the formula.

I'm not knocking media coverage in general, just specific things. CBC had hockey night, so Fox, buy a clue. BBC has match of the day, so ESPN, buy a clue. There's a reason these things work. I wouldn't ask either of those broadcasters to reinvent Baseball or American Football coverage, especially when they have no history with it. So, FOX and ESPN, have your field day with that.

If you want people to be into the sport and really be into it and watching it. It's not in game day presentation. It is in the grassroots. Why don't you start reaching down a little bit, college games or even sponsor some childrens' leagues? Why don't you give back to the community that you force to watch your stupid ass commercials and dancing robots. Your revenue is nothing without a good foundation.

~LeChat

United Away and the forgotten CL

Yes, that's right. I forgot the Champions League-midweek the week before. It didn't really matter much anyways. There wasn't much to say about it. It was just another game that took way too long to finish. So let's just put that to rest and on to more recent things.

I dropped down the pub on Saturday for the Liverpool match at the behest of ScouseDrummer. I wasn't going to, just because I was watching the Habs the night before lose to Detroit. So I eyed up the weekend as not to have to pay attention to any sport, for that matter.

It was also the first time I seen ManCity himself after the Station show. He survived and I think made an impression on the local punk crowd that frequents the bar we play at on occasion. It was nice of him to show up and support.

Anyways, Saturday I sat along the back bench with ScouseDrummer and family, hoping for a Newcastle loss, just because they had fired Chris Hughton, for doing a respectable job. I hate to say I would rather see them dive into the relegation zone but they did look sharp against Liverpool.

However, keeping in mind, they were still running under the Hughton formula. The genius he is, Pardew hasn't been able to instill his special brand of stupidity. HEY didn't he manage WestHam before the slippage?

In the 2006–07 season Pardew was criticised after seeing West Ham through their worst run of defeats in over 70 years which included an exit from the UEFA Cup to Palermo in the very first round[10] and a League Cup defeat to Chesterfield. [11]

Thank you Wikipedia. I only use this to prove a point. Honestly, Hughton didn't deserve to be treated like that. So in short, unlucky Hughton and an unlucky Liverpool.

Back to proper football though, not that Newcastle - Scouse wasn't proper but it wasn't ManScum - Arsenal. I think the week/weekend prior I kept getting asked my opinion on the thing. In my heart of hearts I knew what the result would be but I just kept saying, "we will see, we will see."

I'm not saying my beloved club was going to lose, but I can at least be honest about football. This season, and as pointed out in the Guardian, the last 7 meetings between the Arsenal and ManScum or Chelski; the Arsenal has failed to come away with 3 points.

That's called reality. With the tools in the shed, it is possible, but there's this consistency that seems to be lacking, an end product. Reminds me of my project for Senior seminar at University. I did enough, with the right tools to come away with something that was more than passable, however it still remains an unfinished body of work.

It wasn't a training ground project, as Evra (that gape hole) would have you think, but it wasn't the quality finished project which was envisioned. That's the reality when we look at Ashburton Grove for the moment.

The ball can be stroked along the carpet in the most smooth and silky way but when the end product is not being produced, it's only nice. Not great, not wonderful, not enough to really not worry about being 2-nil up.

LilWestCoastGooner had sent me a few messages about my depressive ways at looking at the club recently. It's not really depressive but I've seen this spell before; I've lived through it, around the time I first started supporting. It came again a few years after Graham took over. It started to hit right before the "Invincibles" season. It just exists.

United has always been a hard club to deal with in the Wenger/Fergie era. I don't see much changing, as they are men cut from the same cloth, managing teams with like dispositions when it comes to building, promoting instead of buying and replacing like a sidewalk whore does with her diaphragms.

Give me 3 more weekends of Arsenal - ManScum! I'll watch it over and over.

~LeChat

Fulham at home

Sometimes even in victory, there can be a kind of sadness or despair. As you know, I don't like to harp on team or individual performance, so I'm not really going to start. However, I'll leave it at this one remark; having one or two good cylinders is not the way to run your four cylinder car.

I've been keeping my profile low as of late. I'm really not in the mood for dealing with any kind of nonsense, even the good kind. I wish I could pinpoint what the exact issue is, as to come to some kind of realistic conclusion but that's not an easy thing to do.

I could point to having a weak defence but all that does is make up another excuse for not being able to finish when you're up at the half, when finishing is necessary. Honestly, what's the point in making up some sad excuse. There's always a cog missing for some odd reason.

Have you ever built something from one of those DIY stores. They give you this pile of parts in the bag and a couple of doo-dads and whizz-bangs. If you're lucky and it's one of the nicer DIY projects you even get a little wrench or special screwdriver type tool as well.

At the end of the project, you look back at your well put together whojamabob and pat yourself on the back. Hell, even take some pictures to show off to your friends on FB or whatever. Then you look at the ground, in the bag with all the doo-dads and whizz-bangs in it and you notice a couple of them that didn't make it into the whojamabob.

You push on it... it seems sturdy. You put your weight on it... it's holding it. You scratch your head, shrug and either toss the bag or put it in that one drawer; you know the one drawer that holds every left over thing that you fear throwing out. Well you never know when you may need those whizz-bangs and doo-dads.

At the end of the day, your project is still standing but for some reason you get the feeling it's incomplete. You know, at least in the back of your head, something is missing. Possibly, it's in the drawer or maybe not. However, it's still standing with a semi-vacant hole where that last doo-dad was supposed to go in.

~LeChat

Wigan at home (Carling Cup)

Another mid-week gone by and what is there to say? Not much I suppose. As usual I found myself dealing with work stuff. Good thing is, the phone lines went down, so most of the morning was spent actually doing my job, rather than returning calls from over-needy clients.

ArseBob and PastryMan had some little bet going on FB about starting lineups. I popped my head in on it but wasn't really up for the challenge. I'm not that good at picking starting lineups. Years and years of ChampMan has taught me that. One day Bristol City will be the powerhouse team, with my cyber-self as manager.

So I had the gamecast all set up at work. Then like 101 things happened and I totally forgot about it. The more annoying thing, at least at the time, was the Guardian had the play by play only for the MancScum game. In the end however, it turned out to be a boon rather than a bust.

WestHam had it's way with United like Giggs on a sheep farm. At least that's the analogy I was given. I actually didn't find out the final tally until I was about to leave work. The same time I remembered I had the gamecast going on for the Arsenal match.

Yes, that's right, I can be brain dead at times. It just happens.

All in all, with a nice little berth into the semi-finals of the Carling, I can be at least a tad bit happy for the moment.

~LeChat