Floored

Well, it never looked likely that Ricky Hatton would beat Pretty Boy, but the hype has been so massive and the support so impressive that many people believed that it just might have been. But it wasn't.

I am a fan of boxing, despite the fact that I think it's very dangerous, and really I know it to be morally wrong. When I watch a good boxing match though, I forget all about that and really get into the visceral, man against man - against nature itself - stuff. I didn't stay up or get up early to catch the fight. I wouldn't have considered paying £15 for it, even if it had been on at a reasonable hour of the day or night. From what I've read this morning, it was a treat for boxing fans, a 'masterclass' by Floyd Mayweather; ten rounds of holding and breaking. There are some great shots of Hatton starfished in the red corner in the papers today.

When all's said and done, it just wasn't to be. Which kind of sums up Ricky's football team, doesn't it? Despite an almost total lack of attacking options (Vassell preferred up front to Samaras says it all really) and Elano continuing to sit out the worst of the English winter, it still took some serious luck and cheating for Spurs to beat us yesterday, from what I can gather of last night's MOTD2 coverage and the Grauniad write-up. How anyone, let alone a supposedly professional ref, could have let the Chimbonda goal stand, is beyond me. As is Sven's zen-like attitude at the moment. Cool is not the word for it, and there is something distasteful about cracking Theo Walcott jokes like some prodigal David Blunkett.

If I hadn't have been otherwise engaged, I would have been at the Lane yesterday, sitting in the Spurs end. Thank god for that other engagement. We had 2 shots on target the whole game, and I fear...



It's gonna be lonely this Christmas
Lonely and cold
It's gonna be lonely this Christmas
Without you to hold
It'll be cold, so cold...

Without you.

First Class Part 2

PROLOGUE





So, spent several minutes attempting to place an AVI file into yesterday's post - you know, "262Kb of 20MB uploaded" etc, etc. Finding the file was in itself no mean feat as AVI files (my old camera used to save video in MPEG format, sob) have a kind of semi-existence on a Mac anyway, but find it I did and then lost myself in reveries of dial-up data transfer while I made some crumpets, went to the toilet and kept an eye on the blue bar crawling across the bottom of the screen. I was slightly perturbed by the ! in a triangle and the message saying "Unable to contact Blogger.com. Please check your connection by clicking here." but I didn't want to move away from the page in case I lost that which had already passed through the intarpipes, so I persevered to the end.


"20MB of 20MB uploaded" it said at last. But the blue bar kept pulsing away. How long is 5 seconds in the broadband age? It is an eternity, that's how long. Nothing happened, and the window saying "Your video will be displayed here" was nothing more than an object in Powerpoint, complete with grab handles at the corners. I deleted it.

On with the show

After The Only One I Know, Roll With It came on and the ground was starting to fill up, with the exception of the upper tier of the away section. (I thought they were supposed to be BIG footy fans?) Kept my eye out for the eye-catchers, watched Dunney and Micah warming up, Petrov pinging it about and the almighty Elano stretching. I was sitting in the family stand, but had no fear of repeating some of my previous foul mouthed rants during the reign of Keegan as I had a good feeling about us.

Boro's lineup wasn't exactly the most intimidating either. Who the fuck is Craddock? And I've just noticed that the BBC report on the match doesn't mention Tuncay in the Boro lineup. He was their most annoying, and most effective player. Very strange.

Steve Bennett was a total wanker and let 4 or 5 bad tackles by Boro go unpunished. They couldn't live with us in the first half and either shat themselves (our first goal a classic example) or hacked our players down every time we broke forward. We looked a bit shaky (Joe Hart) and a little lacking in energy (Micah) but Boro rarely threatened. And they don't have an Elano in their side like we do. His first was an absolute belter and the ground rocked when it flew in.

Half time and no balti pies left, so I unwisely shovelled the scalding grey mush of a cheese & onion in before going back up. Vile.

Second half we were at the City end, and not expecting to see much action. I had a perfect view of Elano's brilliantly taken free kick sailing in though and proceeded to do the arms aloft Blue Moon.



Three nil and that was Boro fucked, despite Tuncay's badgering and moaning. Woodgate was solid in defence for them and I feel we would have had more if he hadn't have been playing. He got booked though. Ha! City fell asleep at the end, with large numbers of the fans having already left, and Hutchison got a consolation back for the Teesiders, but on the whole it was a great day at the office. It says a lot for how far we've come that I heard people saying they were disappointed we hadn't kept a clean sheet, and that we hadn't played as well as we did against Newcastle. Last season we would have killed for a home performance like that.

We wound our way back through the post-apocalyptic surroundings to the car and there was the little ginger girl, this time on a bike, as we approached. She wasn't on the ball like City but, and didn't approach us for the promised quid. "If she ain't gonna ask," said our Manc driver, "Then I certainly am not going to fork out. Let's go!" and we fought our way through the horrendous traffic back to Piccadilly.

It was to be a long journey, but if I had known quite how long, I wouldn't have been anything like as relaxed as I took my seat in First Class and proceeded to read my King of The Kippax, waiting for the optimum moment to trek down to the buffet (or 'shop' as they insist on calling it these days) for a g&t and a packet of Big Eat cheese & onion. The carriages down in steerage were very crowded, and even First Class was almost full by the time we reached Birmingham New Street. I gave up any hope of getting some kip when someone sat in the seat opposite me, but my troubles were just beginning.

At Birmingham International, another large crowd - off the planes - got on, most notably a Paul O'Grady clone (when I say clone, I mean lookalike, 'mk?) who sat on the floor of the vestibule and began to yell into his mobile. Every time the doors opened, I would catch a snippet of what he was saying ("Look at me, just got off a first class flight, and I'm sitting in a fuckin' corridor!") and he seemed to be more or less repeating the same story.

Ten minutes out of B'ham International, the train ground to a halt and our guard informed us that there had been signal problems, that there were four trains ahead of us and that there would be some delays. Was he ever right! Two sodding hours we were stuck, inching forward every 15 minutes. Paul O'Grady kept telling different people his story:

"Table for two please."

"The entry charge is 6 Euros," (in a very good Dutch accent) "You go around the side, and we will refund the money, but you must take off your clothes... It was a fucking sex party! Jesus Christ! Table for two please. Take off your clothes! Can you believe it?" This went on for the entire rest of the journey - 4 hours, ladies and gentlemen, 4 HOURS! - in various forms and to various people. I must admit to finding it amusing the first couple of times - he seemed like a comedian - but he could have flown from Amsterdam without the help of an aeroplane and seemed unaware (unless he was extremely narcissistic and thought that we all wanted to hear his story again and again and again) that he was repeating himself.

After about an hour, I could smell cigarette smoke drifting in from the vestibule. Paul was smoking, and he had little to fear from the guard (or 'Train Manager' as they insist on calling them) because the guy was locked in his cupboard in fear of his life. One elderly man I passed at one point could be heard calling the 'Train Manager' a 'loser' in a loud voice, because he had failed to make any announcements for the almost two hours of us being stationary. I could not but agree. We arrived in London at around midnight, after 6 hours on the train, and Virgin Trains had laid on taxis for those travelling on to other destinations. I overheard Paul say that he was planning a trip to Southend-on-Sea.

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First Class Part 1

As promised, an oopdate on my adventures oop North over the weekend.

First thoughts as I arrived were that there was nothing familiar about the place. It's been 10 years since I've visited, it's true, and that was only a flying visit for a wedding, but even so I used to live and work in Manchester. For quite a few years as well. But it just felt as if it was somewhere I had never been before.

My admirable guides collected me by car and we drove from Piccadilly to leafy Didsbury. Only the Mancunian Way and the old UMIST (chief among the aforesaid guides told me that UMIST no longer exists, but has been subsumed by the gargantuan University of Manchester, home to 400,000 students) building rang any bells for me. Apart from that, only the place names were familiar, but not the way the place looked. Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield, Burnage (home of the Gallagher brothers) and Hulme. I saw a 47 bus, one which I used on a daily basis, and that brought a tinge of nostalgia.

Saturday night, out in Didsbury. Crowded is the word. The first pub we hit was the D&P - Dog & Partridge, just after the France All Blacks game had kicked off. It was heaving, and reminded me of the halcyon days of pub-going, when you would stand shoulder to shoulder with loudly talking blokes and tuck your elbows in to hold and drink your pint. Monkey nut shells were strewn all over the floor. The only difference from those distant times was the smoke-free atmosphere. Thank you NuLab for that one. I very much enjoy a good bitter when I get out of London, where I drink only Fosters, so a couple of pints of Timothy Taylor Landlord went down very nicely indeed. Unfortunately the many fine Lancs ladies in the pub did not. Fnarr.

Following that we moved on to the Nelson, just across the road for a Buxton or twain. Karaoke on one side, rugger on the other, but considerably less crowded than the D&P. Watched the end of the game in there, and was oddly pleased for the French, mainly because I never thought they could do it. By this time, our laughter was getting a bit more strident and the Nelson was filling up, so we headed for the Station, which was as packed, if not more so, as the D&P. 80s disco, very narrow space in front of the bar and toilets right at the back, past the DJ stand. Good though. Marston's Pedigree was the beverage of choice.

Then home for sweet dreams of the sporting day ahead.

As my train was pulling into Piccadilly on the Saturday, a Middlesbrough train was pulling out. I took that to be a good omen, being as I am, highly superstitious when it comes to football. It was a bit difficult to see inside, but I'm sure the occupants resembled those on the bus in the Woody Allen film - "I prefer your earlier, funny films" later ripped off by the crisps (?) ad.



We drove through Manchester towards 'Sportcity' and the Commonwealth Games spread in Beswick, heading for the B of the Bang and into a quite frightening and very run down housing estate, arriving just before 2 o'clock, to be greeted by a little girl with ginger hair who made my day by asking for a quid to look after the car. Our driver, who was local and wise, handled it well. "Tell you what, if it's still 'ere when we get back we'll talk, all right?" The girl nodded and stumped off. Through back alleys, past boarded up shops and young scallies carrying bits of ripped fence we made our way to the ground. It was a magnificent sight, rising out of the wasteland around, and the sound of the faithful cheering, even almost an hour before kick-off gave me a little frisson of pleasure.








Bought an obligatory KOTK on the way in, and I'm trying to write this in a homage style to one of the City history pieces you see in there.



Once in, the impression was better than Wembley, where I saw the England Brazil match back in June. I'm not a big fan of this trend for branded mega stadia complete with shopping malls and oyster bars, though I'm not misty-eyed about squeezing into some torture chair at Selhurst Park either. Eastlands seems to have got the balance right. You do get a 'special' feeling, but you can also buy a chicken balti pie and a pint of lager - priced at £2.40 and £3.00 respectively from the bars situated at each block.


Up the steps... and there it is. The hallowed turf. Mecca. The Only One I Know was on the PA as I reached the top step.

To be continued... due to a total fucking pain in the arse with uploading a frigging video.

Look after yer car mistoh?

Unbridled joy as my first visit to the cathedral of Eastlands went off like a dream. More will follow, including pictures, but I wanted to pay tribute to Elano and the boys now, while the euphoria is undampened (even by the 6 hour train journey back home - 2 hours stationary between Coventry and Birmingham International)

Come on City! Come on City! Come on City!