London Calling

It’s Monday evening and Arsenal are finished. We’re nothing anymore. Now we’ve lost two games we’ll probably finish between third and sixth. Obviously we’ve got no chance in Europe and we should concentrate on the domestic cups, playing our first team in the League Cup. Pires is finished. As is Bergkamp who looks like he’s already retired. Jose Reyes will never make a striker because he needs too many chances. Flamini is useless and only in the team because he’s French. Ditto x 2 Cygan. Gilberto was never really any good and unbalances the team. Without Henry we’re doomed, but he’s leaving anyway and not worthy of being captain. Cole’s not trying. Lauren could never defend and Kolo should be in midfield. Hleb looks good but hasn’t scored so there’s no product.

All things I’ve read Arsenal fans posting on forums today. It’s sad that no one can see grey areas anymore; everything has to be black and white.

And talking of grey areas, there’s none greyer than Middlesbrough. Known as the smoggies, basically because the whole area is (or at least used to be) covered in smoke from various factories. But mainly from the ICI factory. Biggest chemical factory in Europe for years apparently. You don’t need to be an environmentalist to imagine what generations of that cause! And the cities main (only!) landmark is the Transporter Bridge.

The Riverside. It such a lovely name for a stadium. Conjures up images of watching the boat race go by from the terraces at Craven Cottage. Sunny days and smiling faces. Well let me tell you that never in the history of football has a stadium ever made such an effort to conceal it’s true identity with a pretty name.

Have you downloaded Google Earth? If you can, do it. It’s superb.  http://earth.google.com/  See your house from space!

Anyway, look at England and put the postcode TS3 6RS in to see the stadium and surroundings from above. If you can’t do that what you’re missing is an almost Mad Max like scene with a modern identikit stadium in the middle of nothing. There is just absolutely nothing around. In the past there was a boat on the river that had bars where you could at least get a beer within a mile of the stadium, but although it’s still there it’s now a members only casino!

I got there a lot quicker than I expected and managed to find a building to park outside about 10 minutes walk away. I’m fortunate that I don’t have to worry too much about the safety of my car. It’s a 10 year old Peugeot 106 that does too many miles with too few cleans. Actually the front isn’t too bad but I’d hate to have to sit in the back.

Boro in Boro

There’s nothing to do except go to the ground and it’s still 90 minutes before kick off, so I had a walk around but there’s bugger all to see so I ended up by the main entrance talking to a couple of older locals who were amongst the people watching players arrive. (The Romford Pele arrived and I got a thumbs up for throwing an ‘OohAah Ray Parlour!’ in his direction.) To be honest they were a friendly couple of guys but one had an alarming twitch in his arm and the other finished every sentence by slowly leaning his head to one side! Chemical factory? Making my excuses I headed back to the away entrance, but the gates were still shut with just over an hour to go. Strange, because the tickets implore you to take your seats 80 minutes before kick off! 80 minutes – who are they trying to kid here?

Anyway, strolled back round just in time for the Arsenal coach to arrive and watched the players go into the ground. It did occur to me at the time that 1 hour before kick off was a bit late to arrive, but the way we started the match maybe not.

So we were finally allowed in and I went down the front to watch the warm ups. Especially Jens. His stretching exercises really scare me! I’m absolutely sure the human body should not bend in the ways his does. But what worried me even more was seeing Riley and his cronies warming up in front of us. That guy is so manc that one of the commentators on MotD said about Hlebs’ penalty appeal ‘He only gives those at Old Trafford’. I hate referees. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. But there are some I really hate, especially ones that go to teams championship celebrations (Riley was actually guest of honour at a manc fan club do). The only reason I’ll not say he’s bent is because I think that implies he does it for money.

It's just wrong!

The game. Could have beens, but is should be mentioned that in the first few minutes that non-striker Jose hit the post with one shot and had the keeper save another with a combination of hand and face. Not to mention Den skying that chance Jose gave him. And the penalty we should have had. Could have been different but it wasn’t. Didn’t help that Riley was revelling in winding up our players. Or that the linesman at our end absolutely refused to give a single correct decision our way! Yes I’m bitter because there was so much going on in front of the officials faces that they ignored. What is a real shame though, is that we didn’t equalise at the death. Obviously pulling it back to 1-2 in the 93’d minute makes it hard but we did have one more chance and if we’d pulled a point out of that it would have given the team so much belief. Because that’s the magic ingredient we need. One moment. One nick.

Time to play

But we lost and that’s that so let’s laugh at Newcastle! A very good friend of mine Clifford (he’ll kill me if he reads this because he hates being called that) is a mad Fulham fan. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last time he missed a game he was busy being born! He stayed up after their 1-1 with Newcastle and had watched our game in a bar. Yes I got some stick…but it was good to catch up and to listen to him. A 1-1 draw and he’s delighted. All he wants from his team is for them to keep having a go and for them to avoid relegation. I asked him about Europe and he just laughed. He’d love the chance to go and see Fulham competing in Europe but so long as they’re in the top league next term he doesn’t really mind. Strange glimpsing a different world.

I would tell you more about our night out in Newcastle but some things are classified under the Official Mates Act. Probably many more are classified under the I Got Drunk and Can’t Remember Act. But rather than me let’s laugh (as promised) at Newcastle.

Well there’s Owen for a start, the guy that Real bought for £8m, used a bit for a year, and sold for £17m. I’m no expert in body language but you don’t have to be to see the boy doesn’t want to be here. The day they had the signing was in the school holidays and they opened one end of the ground for kids to see him. I wasn’t there but I saw the local news a couple of times that day and he didn’t even come close to smiling once. When Newcastle scored his arms shot in the air and for half a second he smiled…then it was gone and his arms were back by his side. It was like ‘We scored yippee, oh I’m playing for Newcastle damn’. Luque (who has looked good) pinged his hamstring, Parker (was it – suddenly I’m not sure) got sent off. Not looking good for Souness. I’d say the board will give him a season to turn things around – Autumn.

One other thing that made me laugh this week. Fat Sam Allardyce made a statement last week (via his agent) after England lost to Northern Ireland. It said that he would want to be considered for the England job should it come up and was available anytime. After the defeat the press naturally start talking about the ‘next England manager’ and obviously his name comes up. On MotD he said how flattered and honoured he was to be talked about as the next England manager. Make it less obvious next time Sam.

Come On You Red(currant)s