Post World Cup Rant
This world cup has been shit, a real dissapointment! not one outstanding team, pretty much every knockout game has been negative or ruined by incessant diving and play-acting, give it 20 years and the only thing that will be remembered is Zidane spoiling his career in the last 10 mins (i reckon he was racially abused.....the only thing i can see making him flip!)
FIFA really need to get a handle on the diving and rolling around holding their faces of players who have stubbed a toe......maybe punish the offenders retrospectively with video evidence, lengthy bans! its really spoiling the game. i can't really remember too many good games from the tournament, only Ghana vs Brazil and Japan vs Australia stand out for non stop action! also the Italian side that won the tournament are probably the most ordianary side to ever win a major tournament.
As for England....since 66 we have made it to 2 semi finals and lost on pens to Germany in both, i think its time we stopped counting ourselves among the footballing elite......looking back over the past 30 odd years the final has invariably featured one of Brazil, Italy, Germany, France or the dreaded Argies, Where have we been!? i think big changes need to be made to the way the FA and England team is run, namely we should restrict media access during tournaments, we need a manager who can make his own decisions (not Mclaren) and we need to shake off the loser mentality we seem to have embedded in us. I say get Clive Woodward in as an advisor for the preperation at the Euros, as the only English coach who has won anything he has gotta have some good tips for running the side. he also made some decent comments about being "sick of losing" and changes he thinks need to be made for success (not involving making the ball more egg shaped suprisingly)
Anyway.....rant over for now, here are my fave 5 moments of this years competition in no particular order, links to photo or video evidence of any of thses will be rewarded!
1. Zidane ruining his legacy with a vicious headbutt in the last 10 mins of his career, it looks worse everytime you see it!
2. Eric Abidale getting a Luis Figo volley full pelt in the face! this was actually my fave moment overall, its comedy gold....it was such a belt, and he wasn't even looking!
3. The renaming of the Golden Boot to the Golden Shoe? i mean come on FIFA...its football not Tapdancing!
4. The referee of Switzerland vs. South Korea doing a elaborate point to the centre circle following Freis goal.......only to fall arse over tit. Brilliant.
5. BBC Pundit Martin O'Neill forgetting his point mid "punditry" this happened many times, what made it better is that he would say he had remembered it, only to forget it again and make a shit point up to cover for it. Still, the BBC beat ITV coverage hands down, i mean Robbie Earle and Ally McCoist as world cup commentators, what were you thinking? and Gabby Logan? if you will have a woman presenting football at least make her fit!
So that about wraps up the World Cup Blog Log for now, unless Jam has anything more to add..........
Shame about the standard this year, but roll on the Euros in 2008 i guess!
Surprise surprise
Well its all over -
In a bizzarre turn of events, even though we went out, it was bloody brilliant down the pub. We sat in the other end of the arms, on the sofa right in front of the big screen and made lots of new friends, including one bloke who shouted YEAHHHH YEAHHHHH YEAHHHHH every ten minutes which was bloody hilarious. It doesnt sound too funny now but you had to be there I suppose.
When the portugese missed their second penalty, I went the most mental I've ever gone ever at a pub. Whats sad is that I will not be getting that excited again for another 4 years or so at least. But hey, thats football.
Arms himself was devestated and he's also a little angry with one of the supporters that he ate that day. This 'supporter' not only had a bloody stupid haircut but he also lobbed a barstool at one of the big screens when ronaldo scored that last penalty. It hurt arms bad, but he will be fit to eat more pub goers as of today. A full investigation has been launched. Arms though, always happy to pose for the press, let me take this photo of him yesterday. He also told me that the world cup had been a lucrative and emotional rollercoaster.
"Its been a lucrative and emotional rollercoaster" he guffawed at me whilst eating his tenth weetabix sandwich of the day.
The Dream is over!
Well....it all came off the rails abit last night i guess as England crashed out on PENALTIES again! Shame, cos there was a cracking atmosphere in the City Arms and what was a good night anyway would have been a belter had England won!
So from here on in i will be supporting Germany as they have done the least cheating on the way.....and also as they love the penalties!
anyway, if you want to see a video of what happened on the way home from the pub that might cheer you up, have a cut and paste of this link!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6W-lfMF--s
Englad vs. Portugal Preview
Now we are at the business end of the tournament....we have seen the kings of penalties (Germany) destroy the cheats from south america (Argentina)....and Italy stuff Ukraine (possibly fixed) now its Englands turn to have a bit of revenge on Big Phil (Scolari not Wilson) and stick it up Portugal
I will be in the lucky pub wearing my lucky clothing as will my fellow blogger Jam. To those of you joining us we salute you.........to those of you watching the game elsewhere........i'm not angry, i'm just dissapointed (though i am also quite angry) My wrath will be felt if we lose as i will blame you for not being in the lucky pub.
COME ON ENGLAND!
World cup and the holy grail
The latest beer infused story from our man in Germany, reporter Capel:
"After staying at the fan fest in the main square generally dancing drinking and showing off we suddenly noticed they were emptying the whole place . the skies had turned black and a storm was coming!. and this was the storm of all storms - large hailstones the size of golfballs and torrential rain, never seen anything like it !
We ran for cover through a park and saw the welcoming site of a big beer tent.. they had a big screen at the front-just in time for the portugal-Holland bout. excellent we thought, noticed the no smoking signs and thought, well fair enough guess its a fire hazard. one of our party went up and asked for four beers but was politely told that they didn't serve beer. hmm most odd, anway we grabbed a sandwich and settled down to watch the game as we didn't really 'need' anymore beer
unfortunately the screen was having problems receiving a signal so this guy gets up and asks us in english if we'd all like to join him in prayer, thinking this was a'joke' due to the poor signal we all laughed ridiculiously heartily , it was then that he told us we were in the official world cup church !!. considering how this week has gone we felt we really didn't have enough hours to repent so beat a hasty reteat. so no fags, no booze but the food was great -loaves and fishes everywhere"
England 1 vs. Ecuador 0
So we are into the Quarters against big Phil Scolari again.....and by Grimdor didn't we make hard work of it! I guess it wouldn't be England if we didn't!
The venue will soon be renamed the "Lucky" City Arms, the only unfortunate bit about England keeping winning is that i now have to wear my lucky shirt, lucky jeans, lucky trainers and lucky pants and stand in our lucky spot in the luckiest (and this week, hottest!) pub in England!
The atmosphere at the "Lucky" City Arms this week was soured a bit by a bunch of big morons who were too drunk and knew about 3 different chants (most of them about how much we "hate the Krauts"....get a life lads.......) the repetitive chanting of said chants resulted in my brain feeling like someone was stood next to me just going "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP" for about 2 hours........
I am sure that super reporter James Allsworth will have a comment on the City Arms' take on the events of England vs. Ecuador later today..........notice how he is the only one who can interview the Arms.....he is alot like Peter Parker getting pictures of Spiderman or Clark Kent interviewing Superman.....except I am fairly certain he is not the City Arms (mostly as a city arms costume would never fit under his clothes)
Our corresponant from germany checks in!
Reporter Capel, our arrest dodging Germany correspondant, wired in this latest, exclusive report -
"...got our train from cologne to berlin (decamping before trip to munich then stuttgart) at 1,30 in the morning after 14 hr drinkathon sponsored by pilsner. Upon bording the train we noticed a sleeping german wrapped in a bayern munich flag (massive one). After deciding that setting fire to it was maybe a bridge too far(oops mentined the war again but i think i got away with it) my erstwhile german hating german companion Michael (Agent Schindel) relieved said Munich fan of flag and carefully folded it up before depositing out of the window ! England 1 Bayern armchair fan 0."
Both capel and special agent shindel also lowered the german flag from enormous flag pole outside the england hotel as they felt it was insensitive and entirely unecessary.
Good work reporter capel. Good work.
Knock Out Stages
I cannot wait until the Knockout stages now! once we duff up Ecuador the quarters could hopefully feature these 4 matches
England vs Holland
Germany vs Argentina
Italy vs France
Brazil vs Spain
How freaking good would that be!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm off to eat jam sandwiches and watch Italy vs Czech rep now.......combined with a bit o' channel flickery to Ghana vs USA
I have adopted Ghana as my 2nd team in the great tradition of Cameroon, Ireland and Senegal
i like Togo this year too, mainly as their keeper is named Magic Hands. Brilliant.
Picture Time! Trinidad & Sweden games
Keep an eye out for an appearance of the legendary....rare and quite mythical Phil Wilson, Duncan Turner participating in his favourite pastime.....Nat doing an excellent Chewbacca impression, without even meaning too.....Claire being some sort of faceless Dr Who style monster!
World cup story from guest contributor
NAJBWCBL has been in touch with roving reporter Capel, who reported the following from Germany whilst narrowly dodging being arrested:
"Two england fans parked their car in cologne, carefully wrote down the name of the street 'einbahnstrasse' so they could find it later, went off to the game. Later, they got lost in cologne so they showed passing germans the piece of paper with the street name on it - it was met with howls of laugher as ' einbahnstrasse' means 'one way street' in german - they are still looking for the car"
More news direct from germany as and when it happens. We lost contact with Capel shortly after the news wire so Capel, if you are reading this, please check in, we should be able to sort some bail out for you if needs be, I will arrange the monies to be transfered.
England 2 vs 2 Sweden
FOR GOODNESS SAKE WE HAVENT BEAT THIS LOT SINCE 1968!
First half, excellent, second half abingdon boys.
Jam and Nick issued "strikes" to most of the girls in attendence throughout the match in what turned out to be a reduced turnout compared to the Trinidad game, perhaps it was because we are already through to the next phase but still, the World cup is the World cup. Arms had never been so full, he was literally bursting at the seams. I have put this down to the fat landlady letting too many people in. Lack of bouncer on the door this time led to increased chav count and also increased under age drinkers count, who continued to shout "you only sing when your winning" even though it was only ever England that led during the game. Fools.
Strikes were issued to the girls for the following reasons:
Saying england will not win the cup
Losing our viewing position
Trying to impose strikes on me and nick
Saying they liked christina agularia (yes I know I cant spell it)
Not drinking alcohol
Going home early
I somehow managed to be more drunk than I was at the Trinidad game and again, stupid faces were pulled and photos were taken. Claire, you know what to do.
Chief long hair (phils best mate) was there.
After the match I had a quick chat with the City Arms about the knockout phases. Arms told me that he was very much looking forward to the knock out stages of the cup and hoped England went all the way:
"I'm looking forward to the knockout stages and hope England go all the way" he chuckled, overlooking yet another double jack daniels and pineapple juice.
City Arms up in Arms
First off NAJBWCBL would like to issue an apology, following a letter of complaint written by Mr Arms concerning the lack of update, I would like to make the following comment:
Sorry for the lack of update.
Right, now that is clear I can get on with - you guessed it - the update...by the way, because claire is an arse we are still waiting for the photos, they will be online in all their glory as soon as possible.
England 2 vs 0 Trinidad and tobago
Again, england crap. Excellent line up from our end, getting in the pub a good 4 and a half hours before kick off and securing some sofas along the edge of the pub. As the crowds gathered, the sofas got pushed to the side and we sat on the back of them. By the time kick off rolled round we were drunk and about 15 strong in numbers. Highlights included big phil randomly hugging a long haired bloke and a random guy shouting "shut up you big eared C**T" at payneo after one of his torrid frank lampard insults. Fun had by all, especially after England netted, what ensued following both goals can only be described as a beer infused alcohol soaking bundle, which at one point included the bouncer on the door. Photos to come, and as an attendence list for old times sake:
Jam, king, nat, phil, ceri, payneo, turner, Jon collar, goodman, hutt, brogan, essy, claire o'sull, leeah...
