Quotes

Moysey says: “It was very cosmopolitan, and it was one that probably hasn’t got one language that everyone can speak. But football is one language and hopefully in time they can blend together.”

Moysey on the Chinese Debutants: "I thought they did quite well and showed great enthusiasm. They covered the pitch quite well when they came on, they were both competitive and Li Tie made a great pass for the second goal. Li Wei Feng did some good things too, even if he was perhaps a bit naïve at times. They’ve done well today but we’ll take our time and watch them in training and see how they develop.”

   Photos >> Photos 2 >> Photos 3

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ROMANI ITE DOMUM…….OR, IF YOU PREFER, ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

The phone trilled. It was the day after Blue Kipper posted my Shrewsbury match report. It was Neil, owner of a season ticket in the row in front of me at GP.

"Mick, you goin' to Chester for the friendly?"

"CHESTER!? For fuck's SAKE, Neil, I've just done a number on that place in me match report. It's a weird place, man. It's full of mortgaged-to-the-hilt paranoids on haha sherbet, like most of west Wirral. Except they won't be laffin'"

Neil was dismissive. "Ah fuck it. They won't know it's you. Just talk posh like yer always do when yer pissed. They'll think you're one of them dickheads whining about the level of council tax."

And so it came to pass we went to Deva, former Roman outpost, late Victorian tourist trap, now sadly home to a Football Conference club. I'm still not sure why we went because everyone else was with the first team on our triumphant tour of mighty Jockland. Maybe it was my premature sense of guilt at the prospect of missing a lot of away matches this season.

On the other hand I could have been reeling from the news concerning one Peter Moser. Allegedly, he is the world's fastest one-man band who runs 100 metres in nineteen seconds while playing four tunes on 139 instruments. I shit you not, the sprinting musician took part in our beloved city's International Street Festival. When you read of such feats it leads you to have even less sympathy with The Big Yin's lack of fitness.

Anyway, the match was complete shite livened only by a left wing display by Kevin McLeod. Meanwhile, Stevie Watson strutted around at inside left and shook his head by way of absolved explanation every time he made a lousy pass. Really, it was a complete waste of time. But we won 1-0 courtesy of a Peter Clarke goal in front of 3,500 fans, most of whom were Evertonians. Nice, though, to get the smell of rain drenched grass and pay mad prices to get into the supporters club, even madder prices for the ale and still madder prices to get in for the match. Nobody objects if it keeps Chester afloat and gets them back into the League. You can of course eliminate from this the hundred or so Chester loonies behind a goal who told everybody at regular intervals who they hated. If only they knew how out of date they sounded. As I've said elsewhere, they are WEIRD people in Chester.

Come Saturday and I was ready for something a good deal closer to the real thing. I went to Wrexham in the BlueKippermobile piloted by Gary. He collected me, then Stevie and Chris, then Mogsy.

A few hundred metres down the road there was a loud noise. We all said, "My goodness! What on earth was that noise!?" or words to that affect. Turned out it was a flat. We piled out. Gary pondered the problem and said, "It's a fuckn good job it's not boilin' 'ot an' I 'aven't gorra nangover." Actually this was the precise case. Scouse irony, you see. (I only say this to explain to the more stupid among the peons who read these things.)

The artisans amongst us tried to replace the wheel. I am not an artisan, so I supervised and made smart arse comments at suitable intervals. Gary finally conquered the strange wrist movements required to operate a modern jack and the car perched precariously as The Lads tried to remove the wheel.

It stayed stubbornly unremoved while we consulted the manual. There was puzzlement and sweaty irritation until Gary used his moby and telephoned a Friend Who Knows About These Things. We listened with interest as Gary explained the situation and then said, "Yeh………oh aye yeh………yeh………right………yeh………no sweat." He flipped off the moby and looked at us with a thoughtful intensity. "Yes?" we said expectantly, "How do we get the wheel off?" There's no gainsaying Gary, he's a master of suspense. He weighed us all up carefully. "Basically," he said, "we have to kick the fuck out of it 'till it comes off." Then he walked round to the boot, angled his delivery (he's a useful player) and kicked it until it detached and fell to the floor with a satisfying clunk. This is a terrible dénouement of mechanical engineering but comes as no surprise to those of us who feel that all engineers ought to be killed at birth. The wheel got changed to much muttering. We sped on, Gary coping heroically with a major hangover.

We arrived at a pub called the Plas Coch just in time to have a single beer before getting to the ground. Three sides are seated and one behind-the-goal-area is left to the dregs of terrace neanderthals who almost destroyed the game, in this case Wrexham fans. The outside of the ground has been remodelled by my same friends who were involved with the design of Bolton's new ground. The general appearance is equally as antiseptic. But the guilty party is from Wirral so what do you expect? Never trust anyone who was born and raised in English semi-detached land. But a good deal worse are those who flee to the suburbs at the behest of the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph. One way or another the Romans must have had the same problem.

Well, I tried to stay awake during the match, I really did. The only things which kept me from dozing off were the company and the display of Rodrigo. If the Brazilian plays like this in the real thing he's going to create a stir. And there's the rub. Friendlies aren't really worth a carrot, though it's nice to win always. In the tiny number of games I have seen, Juli has played well. He seems unafraid to double back and do his share of the midfield work. The problem is of course these games don't get anywhere near the real thing. Which means said Drum Banger might be caught short when the chips are down.

For instance, in this one Wrexham plainly took it all much more seriously than we did. Then after thirty minutes they had shot their bolt and did hardly anything at all thereafter. Their major moment came when Richard Wright made a dreadful error on a back pass and their man missed an open goal.

We got one just before half time when Juli delivered a wicked through pass to The Rad, centre box, and he smacked it home without ceremony. Earlier he hit the bar with a close range header. Then the 'Banger scored a penalty just after the break after Idan got hauled down by a clumsy Taff defence.

Our two Chinese players were on by this time and I have to say they looked quite useful. The penalty came from a through ball by one of them. Some of their long passing really surprised me and so did their work rate. It would be nice to think they'll work out.

The Rad also did one of his specials. You know, one-on-one and he STILL fucks up. It's beyond a joke now. Even the Evertonian legendary patience is wearing thin when he screws up at this rate.

But the crazy optimism is still there. Witness the arrival of The Duke for fifteen minutes. The long drawn out, "ROOOOOOOneyyyyyyyyyyy!!!" is probably going to become a feature, and doesn't he know it. Five minutes on and he tried one of his twenty-metres- out-twist-and-shoot-thingies. It was three metres off target but it could just as easily have whistled in. Apart from that, he made the kind of sixteen-years-old nuisance of himself which continues to astound the cogniscenti.

We retired to the pub afterwards to discuss the economic and philosophical trend of post-Friedmanism versus the despondency of pragmatic MBA kulture.

Er, no we didn't. We had a few beers and went home. It rained on the way back and I had to use my rainhood to stay dry while Stevie, Gary, Mogsy and Chris all got soaked. It was a satisfying moment.

Roll on the season.

   Photos >> Photos 2 >> Photos 3

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Team News

Lard
reports from
The Racecourse Ground

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The Rad

 

Li Wei Feng - Defender

 

Li Tie - Midfielder

 

 

 

  Photos

Photos 2

Photos 3