Just thought I’d add this post as a bit of an experiment.
I wonder how many cr*p sp*m comments ‘readers’ will try and post. It’s been amusing me for a while now all the spun comments and blatant plugs for websites that have nothing to do with the beautiful game that get posted.
Be interesting to see how these many people follow blindly the so called ‘SEO experts’ advice and comment on blogs without even looking at what they are posting on…
Any bets??
Conforming to just about every stereotype going, perfectly-named Aston Villa director U.S General Charles Krulak has delivered a rallying cry to his players, urging them to ‘kick the crap’ out of their opponents between now and the end of the season in order to avoid relegation.
Krulak, who is a vet of the Vietnam war (he’s seen things man), delivered his sermon on the club’s Villa Talk forum:
“When my Marines put on their uniforms and the emblem of the Corps and went into battle and things got tough, they did not fight for their Commander, they fought for their brothers-in-arms, the men wearing their uniform and emblem.
“When a player puts on a kit and wears the club badge, I would expect the same. We have very good lads who know how to play with passion. We have all seen them do it and have cheered them on. They are professionals who have given 110 per cent in many games.
“What we need now is to quit pointing fingers and everyone look at the Claret and Blue of our kit and the badge they are wearing and go out and kick the crap out of the next teams we play until the end of the season!”
Probably says more about the ethos of the American military than it does about Gerard Houllier’s mounting problems, but you can’t fault the logic!
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Who would voluntarily choose to be a Sunday League referee?
Meet Mo Awill
Childhood is seemingly the defining factor in what position someone ends up spending the majority of their life playing the beautiful game in. The sprinter on the wing, the disciplinarian in the middle and the big lad will play at the back.
These are formulaic standards that characterize most people’s earliest associations with football. For some people though there is a hole in this and it’s referee shaped.
Apparently not fussed by the glory of participating in the match, those who choose to be referees selflessly blend into the background so that law and order can be maintained in sometimes physically passionate circumstances.
The role of referee is in general a thankless one, just ask Mark Clattenburg. One mistake puts your position in the spotlight and the countless correct and acutely well observed ones are immediately forgotten about. After all if a referee has a good game, it isn’t back page news.
If a player makes a mistake though they’re are able to hide behind the potential successes of their team-mates, but a referee has no such safety, as if he makes a mistake he’s alone, often in a sea of disagreeing fans and players.
Thankfully some people are seemingly gluttons for punishment and are willing to accept these pitfalls and voluntarily choose to oversee games of all levels, but why? Mo Awill is one such person.
He isn’t though a Premier League referee, or even a referee in a professional division, he has the most thankless task in football. He’s a referee in London’s Southern Sunday Football League.
To make matters worse, when I go to see him it’s a bleak and cold winter’s day, pouring down with rain and it’s prematurely dark considering it’s only a little after midday.
It must be love if you’re happy to play in these conditions. Welcome to the Southern Sunday Football League
Barring the girlfriend of a player, no one was watching the game, the rain was lashing down on a drearily dark afternoon, the pitch was a few glasses of water short of a bog and the goal net was held in place by twigs, which had been used as substitutes for missing pegs.
This isn’t the glamorous football that millions of people have familiarised themselves with on TV thanks to Sky Sports extensive coverage of the game, this is something entirely different. This is Gun Show vs. Sporting Club Balham in the Fourth Division of the Southern Sunday Football League.
There were no comfortable seats from which to watch the game, just a muddy surrounding area and there was no protection from the unrelenting rain. Welcome to Clapham Common and it’s a million miles away from the comfort of the Premier League.
The game itself was dominated by the squelching of the ground underfoot, as players initially struggled to adapt to the swamp like conditions and at times the play resembled a rugby scrum, with players doing their best to hide the colours of their team by covering themselves in mud.
With players often running past the ball as it remained stubbornly in the thick earth the game became a test of endurance and determination, as the teams fought to overcome the English winter weather.
At first glance this could be considered a horrible scenario that no one should put themselves through, but on closer inspection and with the benefit of the same feeling towards the game, I understood that this was a genuine expression of love.
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