Done
up like a Kipper.
by
Mickey Blue Eyes.
The
Shareholders Association held their annual "do" on Monday
and your correspondent dutifully attended. It was of course a mere
coincidence I got mildly pissed in so doing. It was a fairly subdued
affair which re-affirmed my belief that the growing nucleus of young
shareholders will soon replace the current tired set up. There's always
a time to stand aside and it seems the present shareholders leaders
haven't even noticed the clock ticking or the accumulated dandruff
on their shoulders. This was never better demonstrated than when Moyesy
stood up all fresh-faced, eager and idealistic and delivered the kind
of ad hoc speech few of the attendant grey heads could even begin
to imagine. More importantly it was realistic. There will, said Moyesy,
be more pain before there's any gain. Quelle surprise. Like you, I
haven't a clue if he's going to succeed or not, but I do know our
club needs a substantial gale of cleansing fresh air and he seems
to presage it. It is time to let in the Young Turks. As we all know,
our club has trembled on the brink for too long. Let sensible youth
into leadership of the shareholders. But of course that automatically
excludes the carpet baggers and young fogeys. We don't need empty-headed
Suits and barrow-boys. We need fired up young idealogues, not sour
dwarfs.
Earlier
in the day ITV Digital went up for sale as administrators tried to
weasel out of the situation by selling the company. Once Carlton and
Granada are finally nailed it wouldn't do any harm for tyro fans to
note the damage these PLCs have done to our game. Multiply that by
a million apocalypses and you get an idea of what will happen if we
don't frig off the G14 hoods and Sky TV NOW. The depressing saga continues
with allegedly thirty clubs in danger of economic collapse because
of the welched contract. Typically, early in the process the media
Suits accused the Football League of "greed" and "not
having their house in order." This is true only if you assume
the League were stupid to believe the Suits would honour a contract
freely bid, agreed and signed. But you know my stance on this…………………I'd
fuck over the Suits with the blunt end of a ragman's trumpet, to say
nothing of kicking the government into withdrawing a £2 BILLION
subsidy to the same whining right-wing scroungers.
Long
term rumour and allegations also again got up front during the weekend.
An investigative journalist alleges "five or six top managers"
have indulged in corrupt transfer practices. Well, we already know
about Bunger, whom some of our misguided fans once wanted to replace
Smiffy. This allegedly involves manipulated comings and goings from
which said managers allegedly took a percentage. The stories have
been around for a long, long time so there's nothing new in them.
Smiffy's even been connected to some of the allegations.
The
difference this time is that the claims might be lodged in a book.
I have no idea if the stories are true or not but it wouldn't surprise
me if they are. Our game cannot be free of societal trends, and our
society is shitty at the moment and has been for almost a generation
of extreme right-wing cack. When a mad harridan of a prime minister
shrieks (conveniently forgetting who voted her in in the first place),
"There's no such thing as society?" and does her level best
to destroy it a la Ayn Rand then don't be surprised by what you get.
And why be surprised when some low-level club employee forages in
the gutter selling footy stories to Murdoch's media? It's all cut
from the same cloth as ITV Digital. With a bit of luck these are just
the first few chickens to flutter uncertainly onto the roost. So be
it. Let's torch the place and then rebuild. Sometimes it's the only
sensible option.
It
was Blue Kipper night on Tuesday. A full house celebrated with the
kind of abandon you associate with Bacchanalia. It was, er, quite
different from the Shareholders "do." If you missed it,
eat your heart out and make sure you go next year. You won't be surprised
to hear that after four solid nights of footy-related debauchery Yours
Truly wilted slightly as waves of Evertonia swept the place. Speakers
were a tired and emotional Howard Kendall, Alan Whittle, Gordon West
and John Bailey. Stubbsy won Player of the Year and Beloved Lard Arse
got a special award for…………well, being Unsy. There was a terrific
stand-up comedian from Rochdale, name of Brian Sharp. He's well named
is the boy Brian. I had only heard three or four of his gags and the
rest had me rolling on the floor. But Bails went one better with,
he swears, a true story:
Years
ago, the team was taken to the Costa Blanca for a close season holiday.
They ended up in a bar late at night, pissed as rats. Georgie Wood
and Roger Kenyon were propped at the bar with everybody else in varying
states of disarray, trying to cop off etc. So this sinister, swarthy,
local Latino wandered over to Georgie and whispered treacherously
(all Latinos are sinister, swarthy and treacherous and, more to the
point, sexually threatening), "Hey meester! I fooka youra seester!"
Mayhem ensued and spilled out into the street, blood and snot decorating
the pavement and walls, Georgie and Roger bashing the living bejaysus
out of every foreigner within arm's reach. Realising the possible
consequences, everyone got off sharpish before the Guardia Civile
arrived. You might remember these little charmers. They wore black
shiny back-to-front hats, khaki uniforms, side and shoulder guns,
hit you with batons for asking the time and wore shades even at night
time. Only the French CRS are worse. As they trotted away, clothes
in shreds and covered with blood, Roger said to Georgie, "Look
at the fuckn state of us. I hope your fuckn sister was worth it."
To which Georgie grinned and replied, "I haven't gorra sister!"
You
know, three hours later in a taxi I was still chortling broken biscuits
at that one.
He
also told the story of when we played a European away leg at Dukla
Prague and Gordon Lee said how much he relished the visit. He said
he'd never been to Dukla before.
Unsy
looks completely different in mufti, not lardy at all. In fact most
of the audience had fatter arses than he did. Look, don't get the
wrong idea here. The Yard at Toon didn't have THAT much affect on
me. It's just that when we've all helped build this myth you can't
help but check it out in the flesh. So take it from me, Beloved Lard
Arse is not lard arsed……………quite the opposite, he looks dead fit.
Then again, after the previous four days I suspect Billy Bunter might
have passed my muster.
I
reckon the funniest Unsy "shout" is the one which goes:
"Dad,
why do they call him Rhino?"
"Coz
eez gorranarse like yer ma's."
Absolute
purler, that, a real ale spiller.
A
very close runner-up is a reference to the famous shorts: "Like
a fuckn Arab's tent."
Match
eve arrived with me on yet further duty from five p.m………………nosh with
the two Phils and a fucked-up ct, then into town to see ubiquitous
Xers making complete arse holes of themselves in the rain. Eventually
my system completely seized up at pumpkin time and I fell into a taxi
in the hope that I wasn't locked out after a week of Evertonian madness.
Yes, it's all very well while you're doing it. It's the after affects
that bugger your life with a brass loofah.
On
match day I felt like I had been run down by an armoured personnel
carrier. But I dragged myself along to the first half of the supporters
clubs meeting organised by the club. The venue was the Thistle Hotel,
formerly the Atlantic Tower, at the waterfront. Really it was just
refinement of the first proposals and one which should be supported
by all sensible fans who want to make sensible communication with
the club. Having looked at the proposals in detail I can see substantial
holes in them but these will undoubtedly be filled as time goes on
and the fans make themselves heard through spontaneous action. These
are but the first hesitant steps in proper organisation of our fans
world wide. Of course there will still be a vital role for independent
organisation and action but the basics of ticket distribution and
club access and other mundane admin matters will largely be taken
care of by these proposals. Naturally, anybody within the organised
body will get priority. Anybody can join and anybody can stay out.
It's up to you. Contact the club for details if you're interested
and make up your own mind.
It
looks promising, given a common sense approach by all involved. Either
that or you can continue to rely on the kind of professional whiners
you find attached to every club, the phony "insiders" seeking
their five minutes of fame, and all the rest of the pessimistic shite.
DO something or don't. Just don't moan afterwards.
Thence
to Wetherspoons on Walton Road to sit slumped with a pint of pure
orange juice and a face like a crushed budgerigar until kick off time.
Which was a coincidence, since I had a face like a crushed cat come
the final whistle. Jaysus, but it was a fucking AWFUL match and an
even worse performance.
Surprisingly,
Nick was back for us and so was Nic.
After
ten minutes of quite shapeless play they got a quite shapeless goal
thanks to the worst piece of quite shapeless goalkeeping I have ever
seen. A cross from their right got to mid goal area without Davey-Stubbsy
anywhere near and, wait for it, Paul stuck at the back stick. So Jansen
just headed into the empty net. Even from the Street End you could
hear the outraged reaction in the Park End. It was Paul's ball. Paul
was not there. And honestly I hope he isn't there next season. It
was absolutely unforgivable even allowing for Davey-Stubbsy slack
marking. Paul is just not a first class goalkeeper. In the meantime,
Moyesy should kick the living shits out of our two centre backs.
A
few minutes later we should have equalised when a cross from our right
cleared their defence and came to an unmarked Unsy on the left angle
of the penalty box. He smacked in a hard ground shot which looked
like it was going wide until Nick got something on it and diverted
it narrowly over the bar. Apart from our goal it was the nearest we
got all afternoon. Their 'keeper made one save from Gemmo before half
time and that was largely it except for a Davey volley.
Every
time we play like this it emanates from the same source: Midfield.
This time the guilty parties were Nic-The Gravedigger-Gemmo-Unsy.
All of them were utter shite individually and as a unit. When we play
like this the result is always depressingly the same. A nipper could
write the script…………the defence gets more pressure, and long balls
get humped up to whoever's playing up front. There's no point giving
it to any fucker in midfield because he either loses it or gives it
away immediately. Thus individual weaknesses are exposed by rank bad
team play. Which in turn makes it easier for the scapegoatists in
the crowd to pick on their favourite bogey man. Fact is, though, the
team were awful. Eventually this got through even to the barrackers
and the crowd began to ease into glum silence. They know the signs
all too well. The hope was that things would improve in the second
half.
Meantime,
all credit to Blackburn. They played it around with purpose and with
reasonable cohesion. They WANTED to get something out of the game.
Ours looked like they couldn't give a shit one way or the other. Rovers
were easily the better side.
All
of which means there will be some action in the close season. Of course
finances will largely dictate the rate of comings and goings. With
less than ten million in the kitty expect no transfer miracles. But
I'm fairly certain Moyesy will want to get a grip of the squad's attitude.
Frankly, it's disgraceful. The players betray both management and
fans when they play like this.
We
were all hoping for a second half turnaround similar to the Leicester
game. And for maybe fifteen all too brief minutes it looked as though
it was on the cards. We scored after five minutes when Unsy's right
side corner got headed by Davey into a clutch of players, centre edge
of their goal area. As it bounced around Nick backheeled it in to
give everyone some hope.
But
ten minutes later Rovers got a second and that was it. We were never
in it afterwards. Some more lousy defending on the edge of our left
edge penalty area left their man with a chance to volley hard. Paul
made an excellent low left save but it bounced up to an unmarked Cole
and he had a simple job to head in from close in. Heads went down
all over the park. Rovers unluckily hit the woodwork twice before
the final whistle and would have thoroughly deserved a 4-1 win. They
were no great shakes though they were a street ahead of us in determination.
Moyesy
and the players went walkabout at the final whistle. The wonder was
that anybody stayed to applaud but, as usual, they did.
Afterwards,
there was an assembly in the Winslow. It seemed to be a convention
for disbelieving head shakers. Eventually I had that most appalling
of events, A Second Wind. No, not a second fart……………a continuance
of quaffing, suitably encouraged by Kipper. So we set off on a tour
which took us through many adventures and many encounters. But I'm
not going to recount them. I'm as fucked as our team is right now.
And
as we doubtless will be when we face The Gunners.
Team
News
,
Pistone, Alexandersson (Radzinski 74), Gravesen, Gemmill, Unsworth
