AFC Wimbledon - You Can't Kill The Spirit

The Dons are back - having beaten Luton 4-3 on penalties in the Conference playoffs - and I'd just like to say how hard it must feel for Luton supporters and players, losing on penalties. Last time I saw them play Luton it was an FA Cup semi-final.

Guardianistas are always on about the evils of money in the game - and for once they are right. There are plenty of examples of it - not least the loss of Plough Lane and the sale of the club to Milton Keynes. There can't be many better instances of localism than the recreation of the club :

In June 2002, in order to assemble a competitive team at short notice, AFC Wimbledon held player trials over three days on Wimbledon Common, open to any unattached player who felt he was good enough to try out for the team. From these trials, the club's squad for their inaugural season was chosen.

While Kingsmeadow hasn't got the atmosphere that made a trip to Plough Lane so difficult for big teams twenty years back, it's a nice little place - and the artwork's always something to look forward to. Best of luck next season - it's great have them back where they belong. Where the eagles fly ...

Sunday Sadness

Left, the monstrous East Stand, an Eighties addition to a previously open terrace which ruined the view of the pitch from the landings of Swansea Prison, seen in background. Front, a gaping void in the North Bank, the large terrace which could hold 10,000-plus fans in pre-Taylor Report days.

They're finally demolishing the Vetch Field, former home of Swansea Town, which has been standing empty for six years. The turf trodden by Ivor and Len Allchurch, John and Mel Charles, Terry Medwin, Cliff Jones (not to mention Dave Gwyther and Tony Millington), will become a 'landscaped area'.

Someone's pinched the clock.

There's something awfully sad about an abandoned football ground. I felt the same about Park Avenue, which for years remained empty in Bradford 7, the posts gone and the grass growing a yard high.



















Photo by ronaldaroo on flickr.

"Where now are the coaches and people ? where is the rattle a'rattling?
Where are the shirts and the scarves and the two sides battling?
Where is the roar and the chant, and the toilet roll throwing?
Where is the hand round the pint, and the cigarette glowing?"

The sporting landscape of a Swansea childhood is vanishing - at neighbouring St Helen's, the disappearance of the Mound Stand destroyed one of cricket's great pleasures - the ability to watch the sea and the shipping between deliveries. Then the old East Stand, recipient of a couple of Gary Sobers' six sixes, was demolished and replaced by what looks like an aluminium bus shelter. The stand overhung the Mumbles Road and was supported by pillars on the pavement, giving a cloister effect and shelter from rain. During the early Sixties wave of Welsh nationalism, the letters F R E E W A L E S ! were painted on the pillars. Within weeks some wag had painted out the W, and the pillars advertised free ales until demolition.

South Africa Are Too Honest

They really need to take a leaf out of the book of some other lesser footballing nations hosting the World Cup for the first time :

a) make sure the 'draw' for the groups puts you in a group with at least two minnows. How about the USA, Slovenia and Algeria, for example ? Instead, they've got the nearest thing to a Group of Death that this World Cup affords. Mexico, Uruguay and France, all of whom can play a bit. Arrange the draw in the style of Spain 1982.

b) make sure the refs are 'onside'. I'd take advice on this from South Korea.

Bit late for them now. The ANC Government may have plenty of corruption allegations swirling around senior figures, but when it came to the really important stuff they couldn't deliver. Of course the team have to do it on the pitch, but a lot can be done with good preparation and organisation to ensure that the host nation stays inside FIFA guidelines by qualifying for the knockout stages.

The emptying stadium with ten minutes left told its own story. Alas !

Quote Of The Day

My son, at half time :


"You can have your nuclear weapons as long as you beat Brazil"

The Art of Football

On Boxing Day, being in Sarf London, we took a trip down to Kingsmeadow to see the reborn Dons, AFC Wimbledon, beat Hayes and Yeading 5-0. Although a Baggies fan, I'd watched the Dons in their 80s glory days at the Lane and got soaked at Huddersfield on that radiation-rainy day when they made the top flight.

At the end of this video of the game, the camera shows this flag at the Tempest End.



Intrigued, I googled the phrase and found this. It appears that enigmatic artist-in-residence Fleydon premieres all his new works at Kingsmeadow.

Inspired by sources from the great masters :



Via the socialist realism of Soviet Russia :



Through iconic images of the 40s :



To cutting-edge modern imagery - all sorts, in fact.

(and it's £2 for kids and £6 for students at Kingsmeadow. A whacking tray of chips is £1.50 and the tea is made with real teabags. What more could one want from a footy club?)

Enfants de la Patrie (again) ?

I've written about this sort of thing before. Now even the Indie is noticing :

"No," he said. "I'm not watching the match. I never watch France play football. The team disgusts me because they are not really French."

What did he mean, I asked (although I knew exactly what he meant). My neighbour mumbled something about not liking the team because they didn't sing the Marseillaise before matches (something that has not been true for more than a decade). What he really meant was that there were too many non-white faces in the line-up (seven out of 11). I pointed out that every single France player in the now infamous main de Dieu World Cup qualifying team was born in France and mostly in Greater Paris. He looked embarrassed, made a "so what" hand gesture and walked away.

That same night thousands of young people from the poorer suburbs of Greater Paris poured on to the Champs Elysées to celebrate the fact that their country had qualified for the World Cup finals in South Africa next summer. These were French kids, born in France, but they were not celebrating France's morally-challenged victory over Ireland. They were celebrating – boisterously, and at times violently – Algeria's victory over Egypt in Algiers.

Guardian :

As the evening went on, more than 12,000 Algerians poured on to the Champs Elysées, which was closed to traffic as youngsters danced on the roofs of cars, chanting "One, two, three, Vive l'Algérie", and throwing fireworks into the dank November night. "I can't believe it," I was told by Samia, a 20-year-old student. "I've never seen anything like it. It's not just about football. It has to be about something else."

About midnight it became clearer what that something else might be. Armed police had by now gathered around the Arc de Triomphe, trying to break up the crowds. They were met with taunts, stones and fireworks. The party soon degenerated into a riot and the cries of "Vive l'Algérie" were replaced by the familiar battle cry of "Nique la police" (**** the police). The police responded with teargas and baton charges.

There were 60 arrests, and similar scenes in Lyon and Marseille. The violence carried on and by Friday morning the police reported that more than 200 cars had been burnt in the suburbs of Paris.

You have to remember that the same night France had cheated their way past Ireland to qualify. Yet the centre of Paris belonged to (violent) young French citizens who identified as Algerian.

Couldn't happen here, of course :

"You can cry now miserable Egyptians! We proudly defeated and humiliated you and we have now qualified for the worl cup 2010 in South Africa. You are the most hated people in the Arab world! Worse than jews."

Mr Indie - a chap called John Lichfield - seems to have been mugged by reality :

I have lived in France for almost 13 years. I adore France and I adore the French. I have to admit, however, that I have found the events of recent days – Sarko's crusade, Henry's handball, my neighbour's comments, the celebrations by French-born Algeria fans and the brutal response of the CRS – rather unsettling.

Eleven years ago, I was one of those who wrote admiringly of the Brown-White-Black France which won the World Cup. I, and many others, suggested that their victory might soften race relations in France; that other brown and black French kids might be encouraged to feel French; that white French kids would grow up with brown and black French heroes.

Since then, we have learned better.

Guardian ditto :

The sourness surrounding the Algerian victory seemed such a long way away from the famous "rainbow" French team of 1998 that beat Brazil in a glorious World Cup final at the Stade de France... This moment was hailed as the beginning of a new era in French cultural life. Eleven years later, that moment seems to belong to a very distant past. Indeed, the divisions in French society seemed to have hardened since then.

Laban doesn't think the lessons to be drawn are any different from last time :

So what, you may say. Why should we care about what happens in a far-away country of which we know little ?

Because their problems are ours. There's a terrible symmetry between the children and grandchildren of immigrants to France, much more radicalised, violent and discontented than their grandparents, and those to the UK.

Fear And Loathing ....

in Staines, as the suburb awaits the arrival of Millwall's travelling support and the possible destruction of the borough. 462 comments so far.

Algeria Wuz Robbed ?

I don't know. Algeria only needed to win, draw or lose to Egypt by less than two goals to qualify for the World Cup.

Algeria arrived in Cairo two days ago. As their bus left the airport, it was attacked with rocks :

“They struck our bus with large bricks,” said a distraught Antar Yahia. "Players have open head wounds with blood. We were lying down in the bus. All the windows were broken. It makes you fear for your life. As long as our lives are not assured we’re afraid to play this match."

Yahia then went on to say that the security guards dispatched for the team did nothing in response to the attacks.

“They let them do it. You can’t launch five kilo rocks from 50 meters. They let them do it and watched. It’s shameful. In our home game we welcomed them with flowers,” he continued.

The Egyptian press accused the players of faking their head injuries.


In the game ? 1-0 to Egypt at the end of normal time. Six minutes added time awarded.

Egypt score in the fifth minute of added time to draw level with Algeria at the top of the group. Egypt 2 Algeria 0. They'll play off in Sudan on Wednesday. Khartoum ? Or Omdurman ?



Apparently the last time they met in similar circumstances, in 1989 :

As an Egyptian player who took part in the match in 1989 recently recalled:

It was an incredible atmosphere. The stadium was full five hours before the game [...] The Algeria team was full of stars and on the pitch it was very crazy; 11 fights between every player. Everybody forgot what the coaches had to say and just fought instead. It was a battle, not a football match. It was like our war against Israel in 1973.

The already tense atmosphere that day got worse when the Algerian team concluded that Egypt’s winning goal was scored by a player in an offside position (although video of the goal available on the Internet today seems to show that it was correctly allowed). After the match, the Algerians surrounded and harassed the referee and then fought with Egyptian supporters — one of whom was blinded by broken glass.

UPDATE - on consideration, the female of the species .... far from the passions of Cairo, New Mexico's defender Elizabeth Lambert displays 'some questionable plays' ... nasty. I'm not sure I've seen much rougher than that - and I don't mean her looks.

Of Fergie and Herbert Chapman

By any count of trophies, Alex Ferguson is the greatest manager there's ever been in British football. He's won them consistently over 30 years, too. Someone keeps his Wikipedia entry very tidy, omitting all reference to the Magnier saga or Jason's Old Trafford dealings.

IMHO he's up there with the very best and is probably the best. But you can't use the massive trophy count to put him head and shoulders above the others. Footy was very different in times past. Three things changed it and made it easier for richer clubs to stay at the top for long periods.

Until the maximum wage was lifted in 1961, no player in England could earn more than £20 a week. If you were getting £20 a week at, say, Ipswich in 1960, why move to a bigger club where you might not get a regular game and you'd be on the same money ? Unless the club wanted to sell, local heros tended to stay put in those days. A young Aaron Ramsey or Theo Walcott might have spent their whole careers with one club. Carlos Tevez is unhappy enough as it is about sitting on the United bench - despite all that cash. A 1960 equivalent would never have swapped a guaranteed first team place to be one of a squad for the same pay - and after all, you can only have so many forwards in a team.

That's not to say that transfer fees didn't make a difference - but the club had to want to sell. Lots of transfers today are basically forced sales.

Another difference was retention of registration. Until the 1995 Bosman ruling the club had your registration even if you were out of contract. To sign you, another club had to stump up. Turnover of players is much higher since Bosman - before, a player who wanted to leave might kick his heels when his contract ended, if his club got stroppy. These days he'd be a free agent - so transfers tend to happen when the player's still got a couple of years left on the contract.

Last, the footy TV cash and the marketing cash. Sky wasn't around in those days - the clubs earned what came in at the gate on matchdays unless they had a wealthy sponsor, and the mega-rich of those days didn't watch a lot of footy.

So a great manager way back when could (with the right club) disband an ageing team of stars and wield the chequebook, but not to anywhere near the same effect as today. Rebuilding was a slower process (and I'm aware that Ferguson has a fine record in bringing on new talent at United).

Mind, Herbert Chapman sounds a bit of a cunning old fox himself. What would El Tel, 'arry and Cloughie make of his teetotal transfer dealings ?

We arrived at the hotel half-an-hour early. Chapman immediately went into the lounge bar. He called the waiter, placed two pound notes in his hand and said: "George, this is Mr Wall, my assistant. He will drink whisky and dry ginger. I will drink gin and tonic. We shall be joined by guests. They will drink whatever they like. See that our guests are given double of everything, but Mr Wall's whisky and dry ginger will contain no whisky, and my gin and tonic will contain no gin."

The inebriated guests were then beaten down on the transfer price !

UPDATE - James Hamilton has more (and better-written, and better-researched) - on Herbert Chapman.

PS - three home wins in a row ! The Baggies may be bottom, but there are only six points between bottom and ninth ! Surely United and Chelsea will be nervously glancing over their shoulders ...

And With One Bound ....

Rafa Benitez turns every soccer neutral (as far as the title race is concerned I don't think my Baggies are quite capable of catching up) into a Liverpool supporter.

The Spaniard said that Ferguson and his staff's haranguing of match officials when they leave the bench at half-time was so severe that his side had resorted to "marking" members of the United bench and he advised Luiz Felipe Scolari to do the same when he arrives at Old Trafford tomorrow. "We know what happens every time we go to Old Trafford," Benitez said. "Mr Scolari needs to know so that maybe he can use zonal marking against the staff of United because they are always doing man to man with the referees when they go to the bench and especially at half-time. Other managers need to know this."

Benitez detailed four instances – against Hull City, Southampton last week, his own side last April and Portsmouth in the FA Cup last March – of what he sees as Ferguson's repeated attempts to influence referees, as well as football authorities with his criticism of scheduling.

Fergie's a funny chap. I keep hearing how his Govan roots make him a natural Labour donor, but that strikes me as the one publicly visible streak of sentimentality in an otherwise pretty ruthless and focused operator who's also clever enough to know when he's bitten off more than he can chew. After all, Labour are no longer the party of those grim but golden days, having spent the last fifty years increasing reliance on the state, rewarding irresponsibility and punishing self-reliance - none of which spring to mind as core Fergie values when you see the way he runs his teams. He's IMHO more likely to think that the Lord helps those who help themselves. I don't think a Fergie Prime Ministership would have a great deal of time for benefit culture, to take one example. If he could personally interview all claimants I think we'd see claims dropping by 80% - and the truly deserving 20% would get more.

But he does always seem to need to push the envelope just that little bit more, doesn't he ? I tell you this - I would love it - love it - if Liverpool win the league this season.

It's the long hours culture I tell you ...

what stops one's blogging ... and the fact that I got back last night and slumped in front of what turned into a cracking match, played at hight speed with 'high commitment' aka tackles flying in all over the place.

With a few minutes of normal time to go .. 'I bet someone'll be sent off in extra time' - but I thought it would be for a late tackle, not a piece of foolishness like Drogba's. Tevez (who seemed to start it off) must have been delighted, but fair play to those from both sides who hauled Vidic away - he's a great player and his battle with Drogba was epic.

Poor John Terry. Remember Beckham's penalty slip ? And poor Avram Grant - I hope he stays.

Meanwhile ... the handcart to hell rattles on its predestined path ... the Fatherless Children Bill is passed, another little black girl dies in suspicious circumstances while the social workers are looking the other way, more feral youths are convicted of murder even as the last-but-five gang of feral youths are granted leave to appeal, and a "Justice Minister" makes soothing noises to the family of the last-but-twenty-three, just like a "Justice Minister" made soothing noises to the family of the last-but-five gang's victim. 'Tis a familiar tale. Still, say not the struggle nought availeth - even if it does look that way.

Surprise

I wanted Rangers to win, but win or lose this was a pretty predictable headline. I was in Manchester in 1974 when Rangers played at Old Trafford in a 'friendly'. United supporters were hiding their scarves as they got off the train at Victoria and 'the violence was the worst Old Trafford has ever seen'.

The Way We Were - Scally Edition

Panorama investigates the Anfield Kop in 1964. Check out the number of ties (many), and the number of women (few). A different world.

Anyone Remember ?

I could have sworn that a couple of years back there was a shooting incident at Queen's Park Rangers ground, Loftus Road when members of the then board were shot at - I think at half-time during a game, although I may be wrong. Unless it was another club, but I think it was QPR.

Anyone else remember ? Can't find owt on the web. Links ? Comments are open.

Pot "shocked" at blackness of kettle

Guardian :

Joey Barton has described Newcastle United fans as "vicious" and admitted to being "shocked" by the scale of abuse meted out to Sam Allardyce and his players during last Saturday's 3-0 home defeat by Liverpool.

Quote of the Day

Sam Tarran.


"Now, we can all appreciate the foresight of the Balfour Declaration."

Over The Top ?

I know Robbie Savage isn't everyone's cup of tea - maybe not even mine. Some of his tackling brings a whole new meaning to the word 'robust'. While he terrorises opponents, officials and even his managers, I'm not sure he's actually a terrorist.

An airline pilot who let Premiership footballer Robbie Savage onto the flight deck has been sacked for breaking anti-terrorism rules. Former Gulf War RAF pilot Pablo Mason was dismissed by Mytravel after letting the midfielder near the controls in an effort to ease his fear of flying.

You'd never think Mr Savage was afeared of flying when you look at his tackling. It's his opponents who have reason to fear an involuntary trip into the air.



"Thank You For Flying Air Savage"

Lions of Mesopotamia

No matter how hawkish your views on Iraq might be, you'd have to admit that they've had a rough old time in the last three years. And you'd have to be a right curmudgeon not to be pleased at the news that they've beaten Saudi Arabia 1-0 to win the Asian Cup for the first time.

There's 5 minutes of final highlights here - and from that it looks to have been a richly deserved win (once the pop-up loaded, I had to click on 'play' half a dozen times before the connection kicked in). Younes looks a fine player, and there's a wonderful bit of skill by the no. 13 Karrar Jassim in the first half.

The victory was greeted with celebrations all over Iraq - the BBC have some rare footage of ecstatically happy Iraqis. Four killed by celebratory gunfire so far.

One Man And His Dog

As police and council officials scour Westminster for the missing Gullit, Jose Mourinho gives exclusive Telegraph interview :

This, my friends, is pressure. Not "why you not win Premiership" or "why you spend £300 million and still cannot win Champions League". This is not pressure. Pressure is when your wife is on doorstep in tears because man wants to take away her Gullit. This is pressure.

So I arrive and I try to talk to these people, like I would referee. This is nothing personal. I just say what it is in my heart. I try to cleanse my soul a little bit. So when I say bitch, I am not speaking to policewoman who is there, I am not talking about her, this is just little word I use to comfort Gullit. But when I say this little word, they take me and Gullit away.

And for why? This is what I am saying: has Sir Fergie's Highland terrier been taken away? No. Do they come at night to take Roy Keane's labrador? No. Only the Special Dog is the one inside. Sir's dog, he is outside cocking his leg against lamp-post while Special Dog is eating porridge. Hey, don't get me wrong, Sir's dog is a wonderful dog, very clever, very good, upright old Scottish dog who we must all respect. The Special Dog and him, they share a bowl of food whenever they meet. And it is very good food, very expensive food, because Sir's dog is a fine dog.

All I am saying is this: there is one rule for Sir's dog and another rule for Special Dog. I ask you, why did this happen in FA Cup final week? Why? Maybe you think there is conspiracy against Special Dog because he is from Chelsea and Sir's dog is from Manchester. I speak only facts. You decide.

Better still, Radio Five have the live interview (Realplayer needed). Priceless.

Best

We were at a non-league match this afternoon, and there was a minute's silence before kick-off.

You might not have heard a pin drop, but you could hear the nearby traffic. Someone coughed about fifty yards away. Otherwise, not a sound from 800 people. Everyone in the stands was on their feet.

The silence seemed to go on for more than a minute. A church clock a quarter of a mile away struck three. Still silence.

Then the referee blew and the whole ground burst into applause.



Meanwhile, at Maine Road, those lovable scallies ...