In May, Oldham Athletic will become the first professional English team to tour Bangladesh. They will play the national team, and it is estimated that 120, 000 will attend the matches!
120, 000?!?!? That's stupid. Latics get less than 6000 every home game. It's the equivilent of Manchester United playing against about 13.5 million.
I'm stunned. But want the world to know. Oldham on the map, can't be bad...
Cory
Imagine if Mike Newell had said this:
He shouldn't be here. I know that sounds racist but I am racist. This is not park football, so what are black people doing here? We have a problem in this country with political correctness - bringing blacks into the game is not the way to improve refereeing and officialdom. If you start bringing in blacks you have big problems. It is tokenism for the politically correct idiots.
Of course Mike Newell's remarks were not about black referees, but about women referees; not that it makes much difference. I had always thought he was an articulate, sensible man, but apparently not. Surely it is the ability of the referee that matters, not their sex. Amy Rayner had all the appropriate qualifications, so should be allowed to act as an assistant referee. To say otherwise is plain sexist and discrimatory, which is why I would not mind if Mike Newell lost his job over this. I don't give a toss what he's said about his chairman, though it seems he's in hot water over that as well.
For those in dire need of serious political content, don't be afraid! Some should be on the way...
Cory
At Oldham Athletic, we have had our share of unpopular owners over the years. We used to have Ken Bates as chairman, back in the 60s. Then before the current owners came in, Chris Moore was our big cheese. He brought in lots of players, then felt he was losing too much money and withdrew his 95% stake of the club. That shafted us; we were 24 hours from bankruptcy for virtually six months.
However, none of that even gets near the madness of Hearts FC's current owner, Vladimir Romanov:
Romanov says he will move players on to "Kilmarnock or whatever club will take them" unless [Hearts] defeat Dunfermline.
And he has warned that he would then play a team of youngsters against Celtic the following weekend.
Roddy Forsyth on 5Live was also saying that Romanov may even play himself!
The man's clearly lost it, though the situation is kindof funny, if you share my warped sense of humour.
It is, though, sad that football clubs have become a haven for petty rich men for flex their egos, cash, and petty little quarrels.
Cory
Tony Blair's speech was rather amusing. I may even grow to like him before he goes.
Before I go, though, the second most amusing thing I've seen this week. The most amusing was Newsnight offering a "Stephen Byers for Labour leader" badge.
I went to see Oldham v Gillingham on Saturday, and saw one of the funniest goals in a long while. See the youtube here. It's the third goal.
Cory
The football season for Oldham Athletic, the most "interesting" team in the world, kicks off on August 5th. That's only a week on Saturday. It's only five minutes since England was knocked out of the world cup. Too much football already!
Not that Oldham have much chance of success, our only signings are some obscure Frenchman, our ex-keeper, and a bloke who used to play for Sheffield Wednesday. Sigh.
-posted by Roy
These last two weeks have gone by in a flash. It's amazing how little time you have when you are working, rather than doing a history degree, where most of the work consists of attending seminars on books you have not read. Wimbledon, for instance, started half a second ago. It's finished now.
The World Cup, by contrast, seems to have been around forever. I was still at uni having seminars on books I had not read when it started. Seeing England go out the way they did was not surprising. I wasn't sad at the news; more like how you feel when you are told that a sickly elderly relative has died. You knew it was coming, you braced yourself for the worst, and it was just a matter of time. Though usually great-aunt Hilda's death rattles aren't summoned by Jamie Carragher stepping forward to take a penalty.
Then in the semi-finals I was supporting the Germans, but only because my brother and mother were so vehemently supporting Italy. Taking a contrary position for the sake of it is, I think, called "SWP syndrome". As usual, the team I was supporting lost.
To the final. I was knackered, and didn't really want to watch it, but duty calls. I wanted Italy to win at first (watching football is never exciting if you're neutral) because I thought that French chap dived for the penalty. Perhaps he didn't though, having watched the replays. This fervour for Italy increased after Zidane's headbutt. It's not nice, dammit, headbutting people. Though, at the end of the day, all things considered, putting two and two together, I couldn't give a flying flan who won eventually......
A shameful thing to say, perhaps, but I can't really get excited about football in the same way I can about, say, cricket. And the first Test starts on Thursday. Woohoo!
-posted by Roy.
Out of the dozens and dozens of cars I have seen sporting England flags, only two have been white vans. This would not seem to fit the picture of flag wavers our "liberal elite" tries to portray. Strange that, isn't it? Surely our liberal elite cannot be ignorant, wrong and misguided......? Perish the thought Roy. Slap on wrist.
-posted by Roy
Don't expect my posts to be full of World Cup fever. I know naff all about football, and just like watching it occasionally. Nevertheless, the price for coming here is to be entertained by my World Cup musings...
A decent day's work for England. Yes, it would have been nice to blow Paraguay away, but it was a settled, mostly assured performance. Coupled with the marvellous 0-0 draw between Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago, England must be clear favourites to win this group.
On the subject of football there is this "interesting" post by Faisal Bodi.
This seems very irresponsible. With tensions already high in the Muslim community (which we can blame the police for) this does nothing to help matters.
Also, why does Bodi need to bring the Crusades into this anyway? He could just not fly the flag because he can't be bothered to buy one, it slows down his car, he doesn't own a white van, the colours clash with his shirt etc. But instead he brings up some events that happened over 900 years ago. Now I'm the first person to acknowledge the significance of the Crusades, but 900 years ago?! It's like me boycotting Normandy because of the Norman Conquest and the Harrying of the North, or refusing to go to Denmark because of the Vikings. His post also conveniently ignores the Muslim invasions into medieval Spain and France.
Then again, we know Bodi is a grade-A prat, he's said "interesting" things before. See Harry's Place as well.
-posted by Roy.
I have been so preoccupied with revising and other methods of wasting time over the last few days, I've hardly had any time to post comments on this blog. There's so much important stuff I've not even considered talking about. Nuclear power, Iran, cash for peerages, the Education Bill, the launching of the Euston Manifesto....too much news! I need more time to read and think about them, and will come up with something coherent when exams are over.
I'll leave you with this little gem for now. I'm not sure if it's a spoof or not, but it's funny regardless. And this scares me. I can't bring myself to listen to whatever gruesome concoction they have come up with. The thought sends shivers down my spine....
UPDATE - I have heard it. It's even worse than I imagined.
-posted by Roy
Hopefully this will be a welcome break from politics and laughing about what a reject I'm going to be in 30 years time. Perhaps I shouldn't be jotting thoughts on football on a beautiful sunny day, whilst listening to Henry Blofeld commentate on the First Test at Lords, but I don't care.
Firstly, let's just get the embarrassing stuff out of the way. I am an Oldham Athletic supporter. I have been since I was about nine. It's not my fault. I was born in Oldham, a David Beckham penalty away from Boundary Park. Yes, they are crap, and are in League One, where they belong. Don't listen to deluded Oldham fans who say we ought to get promoted to the Championship (or whatever it's called now). That would be an embarrassment, as we'd lose every single game playing crap longball football and go through three managers in a season. I'd rather stay in mediocrity where we belong.
Right, that's that done with. The World Cup. I can't get excited that it's only 29 days away. It only reminds me how little time there is until my exams. And everyone's excited that Theo Walcott's in the squad. But it's not as if he's going to play. Sven's just probably thought, "Sod it, what have I got to lose, it's my last tournament anyway" and chosen two youngsters in Walcott and Aaron Lennon, so the tabloids can go on about England's youngsters, instead of realising England are extremely unlikely to win the World Cup, now Rooney has broken his metatarsal. So now I have no expectations for England in Germany whatsoever, I can lie back and enjoy the tournament (in only 29 days time, let's not forget) without worrying about how well England will do. All my worrying will go on my exams, and after that, on English cricket.
-posted by Roy
