Swansea at Home, Borussia Dortmund (CL)

So much talk, still, about the 8-2 dismantling of the Arsenal by the hands or should I say feet of the MancScum that you would think the season was over... in September. It can be like that, life, over-dramatic and unnecessarily inaccurate (double negative, I know). We tend to forget about what will happen the next week or the week after that. It's not all fatalistic.

I have a grand idea, let's keep watching until May, then decide what the story was/is going to be.

The next week has happened. It wasn't the overwhelming success that one would think for a top whatever side against a newly promoted Swansea but there is that shred of hope. Even in the darkest hour there shall be light.

I never quite understood how one can have some thing that at the time seemed so debilitating, so overwhelming, so dreadful, be the end all and be all. It may have been about 3 years ago now, during the apex of the whole mortgage foreclosure crisis in the US. A woman decided to throw herself off the topish floor of a garage downtown. It caused a bit of a mess.

Now, that is a way to go, about 10 floors of just free-fall and hitting the ground. While, I never got a full clear story about why she did it, the only thing I could think is, “what was the trigger that made her do it.” I have no idea whether she was married or had children or even elderly parents to look after. The whole thing comes off as a really selfish act, albeit, quite a dramatic one.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, were the problems she had really that bad? Did the issues she have really affect her in a way that there was no other way out? Like I said, I'm not her and I couldn't have any possible way to know what was going through her mind or what pushed her over the edge in such a manner. I wonder if anyone ever helped put it all in perspective.

Perspective, I guess that is the most important thing. Keeping everything in perspective. Sure an 8-2 loss seems like the end of the world. Sure 6 seasons with no proper silverware seems like an end to an era but the reality of it is... it's not.

A few trades, Swansea and Borussia Dortmund later, there is a whole new look, a beacon at the end of a really long and dark tunnel. The only hope is that the beacon of light is not a train but actual light.

Funny thing about that analogy, I've been hiking through a tunnel when a train decided to come by. Mind you and me, not the most fun thing in the world to have happen. However, it could have been worst...much worst.

~LeChat

Udinese CL and United Away

My mind says I should have written this about a week ago. My heart says I was right to wait a bit before putting something down. I'm not going to dwell on the victory or the loss. What's the point in doing that now?

So here we are, the close of the transfer window that had quite a few last minute decisions made. I can't say either way but sometimes in life you got to make decisions. Sometimes you have to say am I going to keep letting this happen or do I just make a firm decision. I assume the later happened for now we see Benayoun and Arteta pulling on the red and white.

I can neither be shocked nor surprised. In reality, I care about as much as... wow, can't even come up with a proper analogy. By the way, I'm about to drop kick blogger in a minute; keeps refreshing in the middle of sentences.

Two weeks ago, whilst watching the utter demise of the sp*rs followed by the superior drubbing of the Arsenal. It was quite interesting to have this odd fellow go on a tirade about spending for players and having a plan and other such nosh. When in fact the only way to get his point across was to get exponentially louder when anyone offered any differing opinion. No sense in trying to have a practical conversation about football at that point.

It is as if the blinders had been put in place and there was nothing you could say or suggest that would make a difference. I don't want to compare that with a current political rhetoric that is occurring right now and has been for the last 10 years or so. I really don't understand it nor shall I try.

Full circle and I still lack an analogy for not caring and wanting to drop kick something for the sake of just drop kicking something. The dull thud of foot to body contact or better yet the hollow thunk of hitting someone directly in the chest cavity.

Anyways, the last couple of weeks; a sound thrashing at the hands of MancScum, an earthquake, a hurricane (that wasn't too bad), a few decent trades, and a grand prix that people decided to complain about. I like to agree with one observant fellow who stated, "you knew about it for over a year!"

Thank you and good night.


~LeChat

3 games 1 blog

Well 2 plus one qualifier have passed. And yes this is my first actual blog of the season. I wasn't up to writing at all this summer or even towards the end of the season. Isn't it time for us to get reacquainted. This blog itself became a concept in my mind several years ago, after my umpteenth reading of Fever Pitch. If you haven't read it and claim to be a football supporter, then I'd put it on your summer/autumnal reading list. Basically, the author parallels his ups and downs in his life with the ebb and flow of a certain North London club's season. I'll just say it's a good read and there have been two movies made out of it. (One for an American audience with the Red Sox as the team... *grumble*)

Now that was not my only inspiration, or should I say push to make the concept come to fruition. There have been several other books written on the discourse of how society and culture relate to football. And there is no denying that it has become so entwined in the very lives of some peoples that it permeates every aspect of culture.

Why is this important? 

It is what this blog is about; my society, my culture, my life and how football impregnates it, parallels it and frankly can make a right mess of it. I don't really care about how many kilometers player x ran or whether or not player y got traded on for 50 million quid and a very nice looking sheep. There is plenty of coverage of that... stuff... is it necessary to have another blog about it?

So here, I lay out my life, my thoughts and my general ideas about everything and it's relationship with the one thing. It would be easy to say that I have some clearly obsessive tendency but that is not the case. However, it should be noted that football is the glue that can bring some very divergent minds together. It's a beautiful thing.

I can have a conversation with the rest of the world; agree, disagree, or come to an agreement to disagree, yet at the end of the day, still respect that opinion. That's the real beauty of it. The game itself is just a backdrop. It would be nice if we could all sit down for a pint, maybe those in white castles could have a better understanding of those in the favela, perhaps?

Who knows?

What I do know is that I spent the last two weekends at the pub. Back in action with a few familiar faces and some that I have never seen before and more than likely not see much often after. While I might pretend to not want any newbies showing up, it really is a good thing. It shows there are those out there who just might get drawn into the fold. Someone for whom a spark will light off in their dim, mundane, every day existence and will finally be welcomed as an us, rather than a them.

I might get accused for treating football supporters like an exclusive club, but it's obvious, there is a certain pretext to it, an underlying evolution that has occurred in each and every supporter at one time or another. It is the glue that binds as well as causes cruddy things to stick, whether we like it or not; drunken, violent, territorial, loud and sophomoric. I stop short of moronic because that is simply unfair; morons receive benefits and treatment.

These are the things that football supporters are accused of around the world; not to mention homophobia, xenophobia, nationalism and racism. We, ourselves, know this to be a minority and shouldn't let it taint our love and love others have for the game.

It is quite sad that this is on my mind at the start of a season. It is a bitter reality, a pill to swallow. In order to know beauty, one must also know ugliness. Another cliché would be that beauty will prevail above all else. Let's hope it does and the rest of the season is a beautiful one.