Posts Tagged ‘football’

How was your weekend? If you lived in the UK it was probably very wet, miserable and your team got beat during the weekends football.

Sound familiar? Well that’s because most weekends at the moment have been like that. Rain, more rain, some sleet, a bit of hail, even some snow in places, cloudy, and your football team getting beat.

Ok so maybe not everyone’s team got beat, but mines did, and by statistically, the worst team in the league. Spurs 2 Bolton 0. Gutted.

The worst thing to happen to Bolton was the departure of Big Sam a short while back (2007). Sammy Lee was a useless manager, and nearly killed off Bolton’s morale. Megson to be honest is just as bad. They need to bring back allardyce as soon as possible, otherwise they will go down this season (to be honest they’ve been on the brink for years now).

A title would be nice too; they’ve spent 69 seasons in the top flight over the years, and at no point have won the title. Perhaps the Midas touch of Harry Redknapp is required.

It’s frustrating as a fan of the club for many years now. All I’ve wanted to see is some glory. Its all to easy for fans of the game to latch onto one of the big clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool of Manchester United, especially if your not from England (I believe Manchester United are the most supported club worldwide, but I’m too lazy to check). I’m not from England, yet I have a family connection by way of sorts to Bolton, so I choose them well over fifteen years ago and have stuck by them through thick and thin.

With three managers since 2007, you have to wonder if that’s the real problem now, Big Sam had it stable, and things were improving. Maybe the answer is to find out if Charles Foweraker is still around an see if he fancies taking Bolton to the FA cup 3 more times (Foweraker was the clubs longest serving manager at 24 years – 1920-1944, and won the FA cup in ’23, ’26 and ’29).

Realistically, the club needs to find an investor willing to spend a few hundred million on the team, as apparently that’s how you win trophies these days, plus, I hear Jose mourino could be on his way back from Inter Milan next season, if I was the chairman, Jose would be getting a call.

Have you ever though about all of the awesome things you could possibly have done in your life but haven’t yet? I mean all the things you either want to do, need to do, or have to do? We’ll as I’m having a pondering moment, I’ve decided to list my top ten ambitions (in no particular order) that I aim to achieve, preferably before I’m 30, or dead.

1. Parachute: It’s something I’ve talked about for years. I think that the feeling of free falling must be pretty cool, but if I’m honest, I’m not the greatest fan of heights, so the chances of me actually getting the courage to do it are slim to none. I reckon that to actually achieve this goal, I’d have to go up in a plane filled with water that had a shark (possibly with a fricken’ laser beam attached to its head) in a cage in the corner that would be released at 20,000 feet. It’s called the ‘jump or be eaten technique’…possibly.

2. Win the world cup as captain of Scotland: Now this one is a daft dream that is unachievable, but with Boyd out of the squad, there is room for one more…

3. Buy over Bolton Wanderers: Its football related again, but I’d love to buy over the hard-hitting Bolton squad, buy a bunch of amazing players for squillions of pounds, and take them to the top of the Premier League. Actually, scratch that, I’ve got more chance of lifting the world cup…

4. Own a Monkey: If it was cool for Michael Jackson and Ross from Friends – it’s cool enough for me.

5. Drive in a Destruction Derby: This would be awesome! I’d love to have a go at smashing other cars up, and I reckon I’d be good. I had all the top scores on the Playstation 1 game of the same name, which gives me at least a fighting chance.

6. Break the Internet: Could you imagine how funny that would be? The world would stop spinning. I heard that if you type ‘Google’ in to Google you can break the net, but to be honest, I’m too scared to try it.

7. Play a dual guitar solo with Jimi Hendrix: Now I know this is impossible, but I’m hoping that before I die, time travel will be invented and I can head back and chill with the great man himself.

8. Invent a hangover-less beer: Could you imagine if you invented this? You would genuinely become the worlds most loved person to millions, and the most hated to caffeine tablet companies. On a serious note however - with the amount of money poured – no pun intended – into beer development, a cure for this is more likely than a cure for many terminal diseases. So with the money I’d make from my hangover-less beer I’d help with number nine in my list…

9. Invent the cure for disease: So after basking in the glory of my beer-orientated invention, I’d ensure that the billions of pounds needed every year to fund cancer, aids, and various other diseases, is spent so that one day everyone can live without fear of suddenly becoming ill.  No need to thank me, thank the hangover-less beer.

10. Hit a golf ball on the moon: This would be cool. I can barely hit a ball 200 yards, but if you whack one into space it would essentially take off and not come back. You might feel a little guilty if 50 years later as Apollo 100 is about to land, and you’re well struck ball comes screaming through the window. It’d be a bit late to shout “fore!!” however, so I’ll just write it on the ball before I send it on its maiden voyage.

I played football the other night and not just FIFA on the Xbox, real football (well, five-a-side). I’ve been playing every week without fail for the last month or two, and I’m getting progressively fitter.

The first game nearly killed me, as my fitness was at the level of a 75-year old chain-smoking woman. I ran around for about ten minutes before I had my hands on my knees cursing the fact I had another 50 minutes to play left. I made it too the end (just) but didn’t score a single goal. Gutted.

I’ve only played maybe six more times since then, but I can definitely see an improvement. I ran around non-stop for pretty much the whole match, and I’ve scored consistently every week. I used to be decent at the game; I played regularly for a couple of years, and only stopped playing for about 7 months, but it quite alarming how quickly your fitness deteriorates.

I love playing the game, the competitive spirit will never die in me, and now that I’m getting back to a decent level of fitness (I’m giving it 5 more games to be 100%) I’m looking into the possibility of joining a non-league club.

But am I good enough? Sadly there are no standardised tests you can take. When I was young I had the “Ryan Giggs: Soccer Skills” VHS tape, I used to watch it all the time, and it still stands up, because Ryan Giggs is a great player.

Maybe I’m too old to play. At 27, as far as football is concerned, I’m completely passed my prime. I could probably be a keeper, as I was always a bit nifty in goals, and I’m not scared of getting hit by the ball, but I’d rather be a defender, or a midfielder. I’m not really a striker if I’m being honest, I prefer to run with the ball, and cross it in, maybe take the freekicks, more of a short passing game (I used to watch a lot of Italian football when I was a lad), but I’m not the guy for hammering home the winner in the world cup final – although that would be nice.

So where to start, I’m going to head to the local team in my area, speak to the boss and try to arrange to get in on their training. I reckon that’s the best thing to do, and then at least I’ll know if I still play at my grand old age. Wish me luck.

The football at the weekend as great if you were a Hull City fan, pretty normal if you were a Chelsea fan, and an absolute joke if you were a Bolton fan.

Let’s start with Hull City’s wake-up call for a usually dominant Arsenal. Although technically more efficient, Arsenal were just a bit too lazy to pull this one off. Hull were considered underdogs right from the start, but as we often see in the FA cup 3rd round, underdogs can bite – really hard. Geovanni’s goal at 66 minutes was truly a contender for goal of the season, what an absolute scorcher! I still don’t know why Almunia even bothered to dive.

Chelsea breezed past Hulls promoted rivals Stoke City with a two-nil bore-fest. Anelka finally did something useful, and put the ball in the back of the net to secure the win and keep the blues at the top of the table. They play a very European style with Luiz Filipe Scolari starting to have his presence felt by the team. Sadly for neutral fans this ensures boring victory after victory. Must be great to be a Chelsea fan I guess.

The big talking point of the weekend is Rob styles ludicrous decision to award Manchester United a penalty after complete girl Ronaldo threw himself to the ground after a great clean tackle from Bolton’s defender. Styles cracked under the pressure of having to make the decision and pointed half heartedly at the spot. Bolton fans couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it, and if you look at the Manchester United players, I don’t think they could even believe it. Ronaldo buried it, and Bolton lost their spirit and then subsequently the match.

Now if this isn’t a call for video evidence during matches, I don’t know what is. How many times have we seen stuff like this happen? Every week there is an offside decision, a handball moment, or a freekick that swings the balance of the game. The reason this has never been implemented is because the football big-wigs don’t want to ruin the beautiful game. What they may be forgetting is that when they allowed billionaire investors to buy over teams as little play things, the game was ruined instantly.

I honestly don’t see what the problem is. Technology is so far advanced that refs could wear watches with screens on them that allow them access to instant replays, our they could have radio’s in their ear that allows them to be told from a fourth official that something happened, failing that they should just show replays of any incident on the stadiums big screens and have the fans vote. Ok maybe not the last one, but the other two ideas would work just fine.

What do you think? Should we keep the game as it is, with its numerous bad decisions, and game changing moments? Or should we actually have a fair and balanced contest. I know what I’d choose.

Well the ‘Toon Army’ got what they wanted; they’ve got rid of Mike Ashley. Now what?

From the looks of things, Newcastle United are stuffed. No-one in their right mind would possibly want to invest when you look at the amount of cash the ex-chairman invested/lost.

Ashley had invested £244 million into the doomed club, using £110 of that to clear the clubs debts - and they’re still not debt free. The problems I see is that how can a team be expected to play well with all this madness surrounding them. Look at it in your own world: How easy could you would if you were on the checkouts at Tesco and customers are going crazy, chanting, banner waving to sack a defiant manager, al the while your expected to perform to your optimum level. Somehow I think most people would crack under the pressure.

It saddens me that he is afraid to take his children to the matches anymore for fear of being “assaulted”. Actually, now that I just typed that I realise that that has really annoyed me…why should a man be scared to take his kids to a football game, especially when he owns the team. No-one should be expected to fear for their life over a game.

Now I know that some of you will be defiant and say that it’s not just a game, but come on people, your getting charged hundreds of pounds a year to watch a bunch of guys kick a pig bladder around. They get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, and all you get is a pie, a Bovril, a plastic chair, and a sense of utter deflation on a Sunday when your team loses. Believe me, as a fan of a Scottish Second division team, I know that feeling…

The Newcastle United fans have perhaps piled too much pressure on Ashley. Fans high expectations have caused this fiasco, and if things carry on like this Newcastle will be a Championship side next year.

Now I agree what happened to Keegan was wrong, he should have had control of transfers, etc, but forming a lynch mob to take down a guy who’s invested a hell of a lot of money in to the club is a bit unfair to say the least.

I, like many others, have no idea what will happen to the club. I hope they don’t go down this season but it’s gonna be a close run thing for them whatever happens. I won’t be surprised if players start asking for a release…