Quotes

Moyesy: "The couple of goals before half time made it look very good at the break, but then I thought we played well in the second half and were a bit unfortunate not to score more goals.
"I felt we could have had at least two more goals, it was good entertainment. We tried to win the game and we did that in the first half."

"I wanted them to be professional after getting those two goals back against Villa last week. I wanted us to be sure that we did win the game. I wanted us to keep a clean sheet and they did that and in doing that part of the job, as I said, we were probably a bit unfortunate not to score more goals ourselves."

Barry Lyndon would have understood the Fulham match
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

The English have always had a real cultural problem in dealing with genuine self-confidence. Its roots lie in the social framework of the old class system, now largely superseded by a long forecast openly economic class system. Formerly, anybody who didn't knuckle their forehead to the local aristocrat was considered a trouble maker and sent to Australia. The difference now is that you are expected to bow the knee (wherever you run to on the globe) to what is laughably called "the free market," whereas in fact you are dealing with a self-appointed priesthood of CEOs and hidden owners. The difference is marginal. You'll find it quite well described in "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell, albeit in outdated Edwardian prose.

All of this briefly crossed my mind as sixteen years old Wayne Rooney, The Duke, went about his game at Villa with the single mindedness and naivete of adolescence. Plainly he's going to upset and irritate an awful lot of forehead knuckling lower middle class mindsets. It's easy to see his outrageous combination of self-belief and pugnacious looks destroying the quiet desperation of a mortgaged to the hilt living room in, say, Caldy or some other god forsaken suburb, never mind the peace of mind of owl arse established footy pros. Direct action will always upset the Uriah Heeps of our society. You know, the ones who tell you they've "always worked hard" as though they were the only ones who have. Like the Puritans, they will always suspect someone, somewhere, is actually enjoying themselves. Take it a step further, to enjoying yourself AND disagreeing with them, never mind taking the piss out of them, and you have an immensely amusing formula for creating froth around the mouths of the Melledrew Tendency.

But wasn't that loss at Villa an absolute pain in the derriere? Having got back into the game through real fighting spirit and some of the best second-half footy we've played in ages……………we go and lose to a lousy scrambled goal with most of our defence ball watching. You would weep if it wasn't the sort of turn of events we have got too used to in recent years. Dunno about you but I would have settled for a point at 2-2.

Still, there were a lot of encouraging moments. The first half might have been the same old same old yet the second half showed Moyesy HAS made a difference with the same players. For half an hour, as on other occasions, we knocked the ball around in a way hardly seen under Smiffy except in spasms. A win seemed inevitable, again something you could rarely say under Smiffy.

It was instructive too watching the progress of The Duke. He left his mark on the game, or should I say on two unsuspecting Villa players, in a manner way beyond his sixteen summers. Quite how he will learn to steady his combativeness is another matter. I suspect Moyesy took him off after the booking to make sure he didn't get sent off. But perhaps the seminal moment came when he burst through in full cry with only a central defender to beat……………………and lost out to a superb tackle at the last moment. Welcome to first class footy, Duke. Learn or lapse. At sixteen, time is temporarily on his side, but not for that much longer. It will soon fly over.

I have to say Moyesy's choice of Nic as the substitute was surprising. To my increasing irritation Nic just hasn't done the biz for us except in maybe three or four competitive games. Only he can say why. He's had enough opportunities. It just hasn't worked out. All it did once again was highlight how short we are of midfield players of genuine class and consistency. Then again, who isn't when you look around the division outside the top three or four? So Nic certainly isn't on his own in falling short.

Fact is, like it or not, and I couldn't give a monkey's whether you do or not, expecting outright miracles with the same players is simply asking too much. It won't happen, though you wouldn't think so to listen to some fans. Under Smiffy, the moan was "Too defensive!" Under Moyesy, the moan is "Too attacking!" Oh well. You can safely bet the moan emphasis will now be on Moyesy's substitutions and tactics…………just as they were on Smiffy's…………but with a different slant. Some things never change. All you have to do is listen to radio phone-ins and you can hear precisely the same kind of mantra from fans of clubs in a similar state to ourselves. Sometimes it's all too boring for words.

Midweek again saw some European fixtures, most of which have become a farce, be it the playing and administrative format or the surrounding spectacle. The most sickening sight is the rows of empty seats behind advertising hoardings. This is a matter of policy insisted on by the G14 Group to provide emphasis for adverts. Which tells you aaaall you need to know about those crooks. If you want to know more details go here, weep, get mad, and get even:

http://www.g14clubs.com/G14accueil/index.asp

And as you read it remember the current tacky European competition formula was insisted on by these organised hoodlums. When UEFA changed it slightly this season G14 protested about even those small changes, as you can read. Now they are trying to enrol new members………………of course, by invitation only. The goal is to try to split the game to their own advantage. Never forget their numbers include Manchester United and the pinkies, shortly to be joined by Arsenal. They'd sell their own mothers to service their own short term money needs, disgusting getts. In the meantime The Beautiful Game goes to hell in a hand basket.

Me, I'd love to see everyone else pre-empt the English G14 clubs by co-ordinated mass resignation from the present league and establishment of a single league which excluded the guilty parties. In short, fuck them off with a first strike the way the Scottish clubs have dealt with the Old Firm religious nazis. See how long they'd last out in the cold playing themselves in front of rows of empty seats, advertising hoardings and hardly anybody watching the TV broadcasts. Fact is, the game cannot survive in any meaningful way without domestic leagues and competitions. Everything else feeds off that. A separate European league would die just as soon as the novelty wore off. I say hit G14 and hit them now.

At the other end of the scale, our club announced the new academy will be out at Halewood on a green field site. Which means goodbye to the sites at Netherton and Bellefield. I can't say I much like the architectural design of the building but anything's better than the portakabins out at Netherton. And talking of new buildings you can probably expect another extremely important announcement within the next couple of weeks. In the latter case you better get an ambulance ready for the Melledrew Tendency. They're about to be brought face to face with brutal reality.

So it was an interesting run up to the Fulham match. They're an odd club, Fulham, but still a cog in the game and not to be discounted. At least, not until Mohammed Fayed gets bored with the assorted council tax tory moaners who form the bulk of their support. (There! That's today's main outrageous generalisation out of the way!) Last season the Moyes revolution started with that famous 2-1 win at GP and Unsy's twenty seven seconds goal. Earlier in the season Smiffy's fragile façade started its final crumble when we lost dreadfully, if only 2-0, at Harrod's home ground. Funnily enough, if memory serves we were something like seventh and could have gone fourth if we had won. From then on it was downhill all the way. By that time Smiffy was telling the boardroom that European footy was a distinct possibility. I don't know about the board's reaction but had he told the fans that at any time he would have been greeted by the "Welease Woger" scene from "Life of Brian."

I was full of Autumn snuffles and sore throat as I made my way to St. Francis De Sales club to meet the Kipperites. It's an awful looking single storey brick building topped by barbed wire set in a wadi of litter and parked cars. It's much better inside than out. That's in a strict relative sense, much like Harlem is better than the Bronx.

By the time I arrived televised Arsenal were 2-0 up against The Sheepshaggers and passing it around better than any side I have seen in the last couple of decades. If they can keep this up they'll be the best side I have ever seen bar none. This made us all thoughtful.

Jogger pointed out that that they are our opponents in our next home game. Somebody said, "What the fuck do we do about THAT?" To which came the anesthetized response, "Might as well get drunk to ease the pain and then applaud them politely." No question, the Gunners are one of the all time greats right now. It's a mantle they can only lose through complete collapse of form. The prospect seems as likely as an Irish moon shot.

Then there was a Blue Kipper presentation by John Bailey and padre Harry Ross. Bails detached himself from his drink and duties long enough to return to Lard a photo of him coming off the pitch during the match V pinkies before Unsy's testimonial. You can't keep Bails down for long, in fact you can't keep him down at all. As he gave the photo to Lard he said, "That's the fastest you moved all game." You can't argue with the pros.

Kipper busied himself taking digital photographs of groups of our itinerant fans from seemingly everywhere, including Milton Keynes and the Isle of Man. Sort of undercuts our gleeful savage digs at the Mancs and the pinkies and their long distance fans. Which just goes to demonstrate that people are people and there's no point being pompous about it. Of course it's the latter aspect which makes it so easy to wind up the hapless pinkies as tight as a lazzy band. Then keep on twanging it. Go on, you KNOW you love doing it.

Before the game normality was restored in our corner of me beloved Street End. Neil was back from high diving in Acapulco, Mexico (or it might have been muff-diving in Southport) and the two Peters occupied their usual seats. Then The Squire appeared for a brief chat. I felt good in a subdued sort of cold-ridden way. Summer's gone, Autumn's here.

Teams, Wrighty back in goal, Tony/Unsy full backs, Davey/Joey (he LIVES! He isn't a myth!) centre backs, Slaphead/Li Tie/Gravedigger/Pembo midfield, SuperKev/The Rad up front, The Duke/Big Yin on the bench. For them, all sorts of short term mercenary bastards (I was getting excited and irrational by this time) including the madly priced Cheesehead 'keeper and the ineffable thug Barry Hayles. Judging by the booing, nobody has forgotten Hayles' catalytic part in the handbags session at their dump last season. Lard calls him, "'Eavy 'Ead," a nickname which had me spluttering happily into my post-match drink. You have to see and hear Lard's mild delivery of this sort of thing to appreciate it fully. Once again foreign names abounded. Legwinski's moniker had me chortling too.

By now everyone acknowledges Fulham's ability to pass the ball around. Equally, we all know they can't hit a dinosaur's bum with a frying pan once they get into the penalty area. And nothing's changed, except maybe their passing isn't quite as good. Maybe it's a sign of Tigana's mooted impending departure sometime this season. Or maybe it's yet another sign that French influence is fading as rapidly as it rose, Wenger and his boys apart. (Actually, I was about to write "Frog influence" there but I thought I'd save some of you the effort of an e-mail.) Whatever, Fayed's lot aren't as good as they were vaunted last season. They never were, really. It was just another metro media hype to fill empty metro heads with empty phrases from thick metro journos.

All that said, Fulham were the better side for the first ten-fifteen minutes. During this time, mercenary bastard Inamoto tried to flatten non-mercenary socialist clean living hero Li Tie. Socialism won out as it did in "Enemy At The Gates" when the People's Jude Law did for that nasty nazi tory "home" counties Ed Harris in a true story of Stalingrad. Inamoto didn't show for the second half. Funny that.

But that first quarter hour wasn't so funny. In fact it looked a bit ominous for The People's Club. At one point, a badly failed Davey clearance brought an anguished Street End shout of, "Just fuckn EMPTY it will yer!" Which in turn elicited, "I'll bet that's not in module one of the FA Coaching Course." You had to laugh. It was either that or join the growing muttering around you.

But this is the Moyes revolution. The People don't get rolled over so easily these days. Gradually we got on top. We thought it had peaked when a neat move left The Rad in the clear, left side goal area, about seven metres out, and the chance of a volleyed goal. He tried to kill the ball and only succeeded in bouncing it off his shin. It looked awful. Nevertheless, there were good if untidy signs. Under Moyesy the team has more shape, more determination and really do try to make up for any shortcomings. The outcome might well be a season's difference of eight or ten points to us. Unlikely as it seems, we will only be able to tell after we have played the better teams. Thus far we appear frustratingly and unluckily to lose points against teams similar to ourselves. So the real tests are about to arrive. On paper we should fall back quickly in the league table. We'll see soon enough.

Meantime, the thug Hayles was doing his level best to get sent off as he kicked, punched, pushed and barged everyone in the vicinity. It was a ludicrous sight which the referee let run on for far too long. An early word would have prevented a slow stoking of last season's memories. Instead, Hayles' approach soon leaked through to the rest of them and before long we were doing exactly the same thing. As usual at this level of play it tended to obscure the good things on display.

One of them was yet another superb looking giant centre back for Fulham, number 16. He had a terrific tussle all afternoon with SuperKev. But, touching wood feverishly, we all opined that he was nothing compared to Joey Yobo. The boy's debut was such an improvement on this season's centre back pairings that you'd have to be witless not to notice the difference. And he got better as the game wore on. How he plays against van Nistelrooy and Henry will be the real test, but for now he appears to be the defender we have all waited so long for.

The first half was on the verge of petering out when we got a free kick wide right, roughly level with the angle of the penalty box. I looked at the clock as Pembo shaped to take it. Thirty seconds left. One of his This Season Specials and it whizzed and bent wickedly across the box at head height and SuperKev got another magnificent headed touch on it and it went home in a flash of golden fire. The PA system announced three minutes of added time.

Fulham kicked off and tried to weave through the middle. They got dispossessed and it went out to The Rad, wide left. He killed it first time, waited fractionally, and then laid it off perfectly to The Gravedigger, dead centre, striding forward through a massive gap. He had time to get his body shape right and hit a good shot from maybe twenty metres. It was a daisy cutter, low down on the Cheesehead's right, bent maybe half a metre, took a quick skip off the grass………………and screamed in. Two up in a minute. JaySUS.

In the second half there was only one team in it, us. Fulham had run out of everything except nastiness, and it didn't improve when Hayles got the inevitable booking and then got substituted. Tigana is many things but he isn't stupid.

As the pace stepped up (yes, go on, read that again) we were making them wilt all over the park. Our midfield seemed much more confident, maybe due to Joey's presence at the back, maybe due to the way The Rad and SuperKev were mercilessly harassing their defence, maybe a combination of the two. Another goal looked just a matter of time. The Rad hit both posts in rapid succession and from a typical SuperKev bullet header the Cheesehead made one of the greatest low down right saves I've ever seen. Then he made another magnificent save from a long distance Unsy special.

In the circumstances it made no sense to make any substitutions and I'm delighted to say Moyesy resisted the temptation to resort to it, if only to give The Duke a chance to open his account. Regular readers will know how much I despise the subs muck. Still, it's part of the game until there is enough annoyance to curtail it.

Then Fulham's French-style self-pitying irritation finally spilled over into another handbags session which the referee completely lost control of. It's impossible to escape the conclusion that Fayed's lot like dishing it out but aren't so happy when people have the temerity to defend themselves. The sooner they're gone from the top division, the better. And we should have known a lot better than to over-react. What a completely useless waste of time.

So in the end we could have won easily by three or four. The most gratifying thing is that we kept at it and played some really good stuff in patches. This might be the start of the long-awaited revival. Then again, it might not.

Watch this space. (30/09/02)

Team News

With Joseph Yobo & Gary Naysmith coming through the reserve game v Man City unscathed, they should replace Stubbsey, & Unsey. The onIy downer is the injury to Steve Watson, though it is hard to see where he is going to play, due to the great form shown this season by Tony Hibbert. I think Moysey will STAY the 433 formation.(27/09/02)

Lard predicts the team: Wright, Hibbert, Yobo, Weir, Naysmith, Gravesen, Li Tie, Pembridge, Rooney, Campbell & Radzinski.