We 'appy Few

A lot has been made about the history and destiny behind Wednesday. Fifty years since the Munich disaster, forty years since ManU first won the title (and I was there) and Giggs coming on to break Bobby Charlton's club appearance record. Pity that 1999 didn't quite fit the decimal pattern.

The thing is, footie fans are ridiculously superstitious. Even me, rational and logical in most things, but come a ManU match and that goes out the window. As an example, when me and Mrs P sat down to watch the match. The question was whether to watch it on ITV or Sky. I plumped for the former on the basis that the Reds 'don't lose on ITV'. Even when we went 1 - 0 up the irrational in me said: "Don't turn over to Sky. We'll be losing 1 - 0 there."

The point of this post is equally superstitious. One fact that seemed lost on the night that because of the demands of tv the penalty shoot-out took the game beyond midnight and into the morning of 22 May - the birthday of George Best.

I suppose on that basis John Terry has no chance of being remembered. Except for the wrong reasons.

How Cruel

Gloat, gloat

Bluebirds are go!

Love this Lego Road to Wembley by Cardiff City. Now the BBC have lost the rights to the FA Cup, why not Lego Match of the Day? I also think that Do the Ayatollah is a much better FA Cup song than the James Fox official title, at least I know which one the fans will be singing. Plus any song that has the line in its opening bars "we're ready for a new tale, at the helm is Peter Ridsdale" is deeply, deeply buttock-clenching.

For balance, I should link to the well shot, poor soundtracked Pompey till I Die and the unofficial What a Wonderful Team. Poor show Pompey!

What Really Happened Last Night

Thanks to Manchester Confidential

Well it all ended in tears as some Jonahs were predicting beforehand and there have been plenty of recriminations and 20/20 hindsight as to why things went wrong. The main culprits appears to be the failing big screen and the city council which is a bit rich as:

a) the Rangers fans scared off the technicians sent to fix the screen by hurling bottles etc at them and,

b) there was a Plan B with a spare screen at the Velodrome.

Alcohol has been blamed of course, although with the amount being consumed I'm amazed that the fans could stand let alone riot. For me with 20/20 hindsight, the ultimate cause was having screens and fan zones at all.

Police 'intelligence' (marvellous oxymoron that) predicted that 70,000 fans would descend on Manchester and if the city council are at fault it is for taking this at face value. They set up the fans zones to cope with that number of ticketless fans.

A fine example of the unintended consequences when trying to do the right thing. The message from Manchester was: "We know you're going to come anyway so we will welcome you. We will give you big screens, and we will waive our no drinking on the street by-law. Oh and we will make shed loads of money in the process."

The unintended consequence was that tens of thousands of fans thought: "Hmm... Cost of a train ticket, a guarantee that I can watch the match with with my mates and drink as much lager as I want. Must be worth a punt."

And instead of 70,000 fans we got 200,000 plus and the whole thing went tits up. But the council won't make the same mistake again, oh no. They've cancelled plans to have big screens for the Chelsea/ManU set to next week. Thanks a bunch Rangers.

Not that I would have gone into town to watch the game -- I've got a perfectly telly at home -- but now I'm tempted to. To threaten to fall on the city centre on the day, get absolutely plastered and trash the place if I can't get to see the match. Worked for the Gers.

I Belong to Glasgow

I got home early tonight with vague headache. From the first thing this morning wave after wave Gers fans arrived in Manchester in their tens of thousands (last estimate 120,000 to 150,000). It wasn't too bad at first. They were noisy as in singing and shouting, but come the afternoon they were drunker and the air horns came out. It isn't easy having a work phone conversation when it sounds like you're in the middle of the Battle of the Somme.

It was all good natured mind, if you can describe sectarian songs as good natured. Personally I wouldn't recognise one if it came round and gave me a haircut, but colleagues who had grown up in Northern Ireland found it very uncomfortable.

By mid-afternoon public transport had ground to a halt as the buses and trams simply couldn't get into the city centre and I had to laugh when listening to Peter Allen interviewed a City fan on Five Live who said that they had to walk from Victoria because the trams were stopped by Scots on the line. You could tell from Peter's reaction that he thought it was a joke, but it was true.

As I said, I left early because the traffic was pretty heavy. My journey took me close to Eastlands where the main event takes place tonight and from there onward every pub I passed there was a blue shirted or Union Jack bedecked figure going in or out.

But if I had a headache when I got home, it will be as nought to how the Gers fans feel tomorrow. Alcohol fumes wafted though our open office windows and Tesco got a telling off for stacking 24-packs of lager outside their doors (as did every other brand of store from what I could tell) and in Albert Square there were two tanker lorries of Carlsberg. (You could imagine the marketing men looking at the crowd and scratching their heads wondering whether it would be enough.

Anyway, despite everything I belong to Glasgow tonight, even if Manchester is twinned with St Petersburg, so come on you Gers. You surely can't fear a team whose manager is named after an egg flip.

Love It

Bet he drives one. Wish I could. Sigh...

Superlatives

We do get carried away with them sometimes. How often do we use the phrases 'world class', 'superb' and 'great' when really what we mean is 'adequate' or 'well-paid' especially where footballers are concerned.

With that and this day in mind, you do wonder what the lives lost at Munich in 1958 would be worth today. Or how many superlatives might be coined by the headline writers?

It was in my lifetime, but I was too young to recall 1958 and I don't think I ever see them play, although I might be wrong as my Dad took me to both Old Trafford and Maine Road to sit on his shoulders when I hadn't a clue what was going on.

Anyway, what happened in the slush and ice of Munich deprived England and ManU of success. Local lads Roger Byrne, Geoff Bent and Eddie Colman perished there, as did Barnsley-born Mark Jones and Tommy Taylor, plus David Pegg from Derbyshire and Irish-born Billy Whelan.

And Duncan Edwards. The man who might lifted the World Cup in '66 instead of Bobby Moore. Yes, he was a giant of the game and someone who could have become a legend, but I suspect that true hero might have been Tommy Taylor.

We will never know and simply speculate. Had that plane not slipped off the runway, had those players not died young, had ManU gone on to win the European Cup then maybe, just maybe Englisg clubs might would not have to wait ten years for that glory and might won the World Cup more than once.

Hi Ho Pompey

Me and Mrs P were lucky enough to get two tickets for the Portsmouth game at Old Trafford last night. We usually sit high up in the North Stand, but we found ourselves quite low down in the South Stand towards the old Scoreboard End which gave us a terrific view of that goal. I've watched the replays on the web over and over and I still can't figure how Ronnie got it up and over the wall and then dip into the net. From our side on position, it had the trajectory of a howitzer.

Yes, great seats at least for that entertaining first half other than it is near the corner where the away fans sit so you have to put up with the usual chants and insults. (Two nil and you're still shit" etc) I don't have a problem with that -- it's the role of the away fans and the Pompey fans are as loud as they get -- but they had with them the worst trumpeter I have ever heard providing accompaniment.

Anyway, the point of this post is to give a word of thanks and appreciation to those Pompey fans. At half-time Mick Groves, formerly of the Spinners, came on the pitch to sing the Flowers of Manchester as above and I did fear that the Pompey might let themselves down and spoil the occasion, but they didn't and the song was heard out in respectful silence.

Okay so they may have taken themselves off to the bar for an expensive beer or coffee, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and my respect.

PS: Aah, so that's how he did it -- controlled chaos.

Fantasy Football

I don't know if you read the late Jack Pulman's Private Schultz, or saw the tv series, the story of a hapless German conman who had, by his own admission, an inbuilt stumble because he always fell just before the finishing line.

I've only just had the heart to post about this, but do you think that the England team have the same problem? Having been handed not one, but two miracles, it took something special to throw it all away against Croatia. Mind you, it seems that the sign was there that it was going to be one almighty cock-up.

Since Macca got the sack, managers have been queuing up to say they don't want the job. Martin O'Neill, Jose Mourinho, Sam Allardyce, Mark Hughes, the list goes on. And you can't blame them. It must be the most impossible job in football. To paraphrase Enoch Powell, "all England managerial lives end in failure."

We're going to have to think laterally here. If no one individual is going to step forward because the rest of us will ultimately crucify them via the media why not turn it around like they've done at Ebbsfleet? We could all be the manager! Here's how it would work: All us England fans would stump up a joining fee to show that we're serious about becoming managers in common, all proceeds to charity. Everything would be done online and we would have access to:

1. All the media pundits who would spout on about team selection, formation etc.
2. A bunch of scouts who would watch all the Premiership games and advise on who was hot and who was not.
3. Psychotherapists, psychologists etc to tell us who was up for it and who wasn't.
4. Astrologers, numerologists and feng shui consultants to tell which player's star was in the ascendancy, the luckiest combination of shirt a team formation numbers and how to arrange the furniture before watching the match.
5. Jeremy Clarkson on which luxury sports car is least likely to cause England players metatarsal damage.
   

Then we'd all vote on formation, tactics, team selection etc and the majority rules. It would be the ultimate fantasy football.

But I can hear you saying, "There's a flaw in this idea SP. Who is going to do the actual managing. The team preparation, the shouting and arm-waving in the technical area, the half-time team talks, the fist punching when we score, the berating the fourth official when it's ruled offside and the post-match over the moon/sick as a parrot interviews?

Well I've thought of that. I did toy with idea of having a lottery to select one of the managers in common to do the job, but I don't think that would work. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't fancy risking getting chinned by John Terry when giving him the hair dryer treatment, or telling Rooney he was being subbed.

So here's the alternative -- tje celebrity manager. We online pundits would also be able to choose a Premiership or Championship manager to take charge game by game. So if we wanted a team with flair and pace, we might go for Ferguson or Wenger; if solid defence, then Mark Hughes; if a combination to grind out results, then Harry Redknapp; or lumping it up the park for Peter Crouch, well that would be Big Sam's territory.

The beauty is that we'd get the footie we deserve. And if and when it goes tits up, we'd have no-one to blame but ourselves. (Okay the minority who voted for 442 could go nah-na-na-nah-nah to the majority who went for 3511, but there wouldn't be a collective photo on the back pages of the "wallies with the brollies".

And the FA wouldn't have to pay of the latest failed manager £2.5 million to bugger off.

I really think I'm on to something here, so much so that I'm going to add this -- © -- before Brian Barwick tries to nick the idea. It's no more ludicrous than any of his.

Seal the Deal

I do hope that the rumours that Kerlon Moura Souza may come to ManU. The 19 year old centre forward who plays for Brazilian club Cruzeiro looks a class act as a striker, but particularly with his 'seal dribble' where he plays keepie-uppie with his head while tearing through the defenders who have no option but to foul him to stop him.

For that reason, I have no doubt that if it became an established tactic (and Bolton's Daniel Braaten does a fair impression) then FIFA would have to ban it, or at least limit the number of times you can head the ball before reverting to the conventional method of whacking the ball with your foot.

So get the cheque book out Glazer and send Alex to sign him up before Chelski get there first. Worse still, it could be Sven. Rumour has it he does most of his scouting on YouTube.

And Leeds!

I've often wondered what it is that makes otherwise prolific bloggers suddenly dry up the way I have over the last week or so. It isn't that I haven't been thinking things or that things havenen't been happening to me. Nor have I become less opinionated -- I started a post about grammar schools that I haven't quite got round to finishing. I reckon there could be a psychology thesis in it, not selective education, but the absence of posts I mean.

I put it down to a vague feeling of depression caused by reading too much. I've been captivated by The Damned United by David Peace, an eerie evocation of Brian Clough's 44 days in charge at Leeds, interwoven with his spell at Derby. I think I've become to empathise with Cloughie, something I never thought I'd say.

The subtext is that he only feels alive when he is at work. The problem being that Elland Road is the very last place he wants to be, something I think I might very well say. I remember that team of Bremner, Lorrimer, Madeley et al and how they killed the game for a generation through their niggling digs and fouls, diving and intimidation of the ref, and what can only be described as the professionalism of football.

For sure it still goes on on, my own beloved ManU being less than innocent on that score, but at least there is also flair in the modern game, that and an ambition to play beautiful game as it was meant to be, at least for some teams.

I'm about two thirds of the way through this compelling account of an odd period in the Cloughi story so I should be finished by the weekend when perhaps the blogging gloom will have lifted.

And Leeds!

I've often wondered what it is that makes otherwise prolific bloggers suddenly dry up the way I have over the last week or so. It isn't that I haven't been thinking things or that things havenen't been happening to me. Nor have I become less opinionated -- I started a post about grammar schools that I haven't quite got round to finishing. I reckon there could be a psychology thesis in it, not selective education, but the absence of posts I mean.

I put it down to a vague feeling of depression caused by reading too much. I've been captivated by The Damned United by David Peace, an eerie evocation of Brian Clough's 44 days in charge at Leeds, interwoven with his spell at Derby. I think I've become to empathise with Cloughie, something I never thought I'd say.

The subtext is that he only feels alive when he is at work. The problem being that Elland Road is the very last place he wants to be, something I think I might very well say. I remember that team of Bremner, Lorrimer, Madeley et al and how they killed the game for a generation through their niggling digs and fouls, diving and intimidation of the ref, and what can only be described as the professionalism of football.

For sure it still goes on on, my own beloved ManU being less than innocent on that score, but at least there is also flair in the modern gave, that and an ambition to play beautiful game as it was meant to be.

I'm about two thirds of the way through this compelling account of an odd period in the Cloughi story so I should be finished by the weekend when perhaps the blogging gloom will have lifted.

Priceless

And Leeds!

Sad though it is that Leeds look certs for relegation (I can't believe I said that) and destined for administration, or worse, because the last bit is there but for the grace of God etc, and you never know who will be next.

If it's any consolation, despite Leeds having been out of the Premiership for three years, or whatever it is, they still come in at number six in the league for average points per game won in the Prem, 1.48 to be precise, above Aston Villa, Spurs, Rovers and Everton.

Some consolation, eh? To Newcastle, I mean, who just crept over the line with 1.54.

Show U-Boating?

I don't normally write much here about football despite it being a big part of my life. It's a bit like the rule on pub conversations -- don't venture into religion or politics, and in blogdom you can probably add football, particularly if, like me, you happen to be a ManU supporter. Doesn't exactly draw the sympathy vote.

But I've bitten my tongue long enough over this Ronaldo is a cheat business. I should preface my comments with the hope that I'm not blinded by bias and that I would say the same had the situation be reversed. My red credentials in the open (and before you ask, a fan since I was a boy, as was my father before me and his father before him) I say this:

1. It wasn't a penalty; the keeper didn't touch him.
2. The referee got it wrong.
3. Ronaldo didn't dive, he stumbled.

Watch the replays. He doesn't throw himself chest first on the floor. He puts his hands out in an attempt to regain his balance and fails. The referee gives his wrong decision and United go 1-0 up and unless footballers have been schooled in reverse psychology by feigning an attempted recovery while diving, then Ronaldo is in the clear. And Alex agrees.

If there is a question to be asked, it isthis: if a player stumbles, knowing that the goalie or whoever hasn't touched them, and the ref awards a penalty, what are they supposed to do? Go to the ref and say, "No, no, you got it wrong"?

I can only recall one apparent example in football. I think it was Michael Owen (Though I stand to be corrected) who seemed to be brought down by a keeper and waved his hands in a "No, no" sort of way, although it was in the early clampdown on diving and I still think the denial was of a dive, not the potential penalty.

Blatant honesty might have a place in sports still played in the Corinthian spirit, but how many are there these days? None than I can think of. And had Ronaldo done the decent thing, can you imagine Taggart's hairdryer? Or the fans come to that.

The answer, they say, is technology -- tv replays, transmitters in the ball to say whether it crossed the line or not. Not me. Give me the uncertainty of bad reffing any day. Life isn't certain or fair and footie has always reflected that. That's its magic.

At the end of the day, you take each game as it comes, in two halves as it does, but if the players turn up for the manager, and whether sick as a parrot or over the moon, these decisions even themselves out over the season.

Just not in the Chelsea away game, I hope.

The Man in Black

"I've never been an advocate of technology but sooner rather than later they should bring it in.

"When huge decisions at the top level have an impact on teams, management and players then something has to be done."

Thus spake Mark Hughes after the Blackburn/Spurs game yesterday bemoaning the absence of video technology in footie. I've a lot of time for Sparky as a rule, as a player and a manager, but I think he's got it both right and wrong on this one.

Starting with the wrong, the technology has been used in both rugby codes for ages and there have been examples in very recent times when the bloke in the replay booth has got it wrong big-time. So where do you go from there? A video umpire of the video ref?

Finishing with the right, I've said before that the best way to use the technology is to use it retrospectively. That someone, or a group of people, review the replays and for every dive, elbow in the gob etc they issue a yellow or red card.

Under that system, a player could leave the game with an umpteen game ban, the point being that not knowing when they were walking the suspension tightrope they might just start to behave.

Footba' eh?

Bloody hell!

Corinthians

"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things."

No I didn't. The one thing that has stayed with from the age of four or five is my love of football which, when you analyse it, is a pretty childish pursuit.

Back then, I had to rely on my dad to take me. We were bipartisan in our support, going to Old Tafford one week and Maine Road the next. Away games were not an option. We didn't own a car or have the money to take the train or coach.

It was in the days when you stood up to watch and dad had to sit me on his shoulders so that I could when I was young. As I got older, I would push my way to the front with the other lads. Football grounds had their own particular aroma then -- a mixture of beer fumes, cigarette smoke, fried onions and flatulence. Oh how things have changed, as we discovered today.

My dad was 80 on Tuesday and we had planned to take him out for Sunday lunch when by chance I was contacted by a colleague to say that he had a couple of seats for the game with Newcastle and was I interested. It was Mrs P who had the bright idea to take my dad. "He's much rather go to Old Trafford than sit in a pub.

And no, the symbolism wasn't lost on me. Dad used to take me as a boy. Now it was my duty to take him. Now, I may have been a little slow on the uptake as far as the word 'executive' on the piece of plastic that was on our 'ticket' but as we approached the E4 entrance, there was a security woman blocking the way with a chrome and thick rope barriers you normally asociate with banks.

Then on the door were not the usual high-vis jacketed stewards, but two young men in suits with some sort of barcode reader to zap the plastic. We entered the vestibule. No steel and concrete minimalism here, but marble and chrome and a bank of lifts that whisked us to the fifth floor.

There we were met by more flunkeys, one of whom put a paper band round our wrists stating that we were "Lounge/Sport Bar Executive Members." We were handed a complimentary programme each (damn! I'd already bought one) and shown into a pleasant lounge area with a large bar in the middle.

I was just drawing breath to ask dad what he wanted when one of the many waiters approached us to say that it would be his pleasure to take our order and deliver it to us if we might indicate where we would be. As promised, a pint of Tetley's and a coffee arrived and £4.40 didn't feel too steep under the circs.

We were just wondering how we got from the lounge to our seats when a bloke with a mic announced that they had experienced a few problems getting people to their seats in time for kick-off, so would we all make our way to them. (They are in one of the new filled-in corners and presumably people are still getting used to the system.)

And the seats weren't any old seats either. No hard plastic here, but cushioned comfort. Dad loved it, not least the result, though it should have been many more. Then I took him home, thinking duty done. And wouldn't it be great to do it again.

Samba

I managed to get the Sunday chores done just in time to settle down and watch the Bravil vs Argentina friendly on the BBC. And just to add to the mood, I got my own samba rhytmn in the background. Try it yourself, it's fun.