its life.....but not as we know it !!part 1

HOP HOP HOP!

last weekend i took in five non-league games in the central midlands league. there was one game on the Friday night then 4 games at different grounds on the Saturday.

the league is the arse end of football. both in terms of grounds and quality of play. but that's the fun part of it. People had traveled from London, Newcastle, Devon and Sweden to watch this annual event.

i was intrigued to see just how sad some people can be with football.i just go have a few pints, try to get a badge chill out and watch the game.

however some guys there were one up from train spotting! it was great to be sat in the bar at the first game at hucknall rolls royce leisure fc ( my favourite of the five grounds)and watch the hoppers barge each other out of the way to write the teams down in there little note books ( why not just save time and take a picture?)

then on the table next to us there was a debate going on about if it was worth going to watch crystal palace reserves because they don't issue teamsheets! and the now immortal line of " i say football just isn't football without a nice bit of stilton ( a cheese) he then proceed to get afore mentioned cheese out of his sad bag as i call them and cut a slice of the stinking stuff off and eat it!

after that we decided to go outside,we went past the good looking female official on the gate and collected the programme pack for the weekend and i got a team badge. The PA said if anybody needs anything go and see the lady on the gate... hmmm the mind goes into overdrive!

outside yet more strange life forms were to be seen. you know the kind, big back packs, beards caps full off badges all trying to show off by telling anybody who could be arsed to listen about the last ground they went to.

i decided i was only going to get badges of the home clubs we visited on the tour. and a shirebrook town one as i was unable to get one when i last visited them. otherwise i would have spent a bomb and my bank account would have been as healthy as lemman brothers does. (i still spent 18 quid on them all weekend!!)

i managed not to buy any other crap that was being sold, old programmes and alike, i mean who really wants to buy some of this shit? tow law town reserves form 90/91 season anybody? nope thought not.and why do some of these creatures spent all game looking at the afore mentioned shit as appose to watching the game?

rolls royce 3-4 ollerton town

rolls were bottom of the league and played like it, sad thing they are set to fold at the end of the season as i thought they were the best run club of the lot we went to and the one i would most like to watch a game at again given the chance.

there keeper had a night to forget so i wont go into the details. but it was funny when at the end his girlfriend put her arm round him and he replied "fuck off i am having a bad night"

that's the way to treat a lady eh!

Not quite what we wanted

GRIMSBY TOWN 5 -1 LINCOLN CITY

VICTORIA ZIZKOV 1-2 SPARTA PRAGUE

THIS CAN BE A SHIT GAME AT TIMES!!!!!!!

Right lets get the lincs derby out of my system first. Although i am a big jacko fan and firmly belive he is the man to take the imps forward i feel he must hold his hands up and take the blame for this defeat against the empire of the cods.
0-1 down at half time due to a good move from grimsby wasn't great but repairable,the second half saw us take the game to them,get it back to 1-1 then batter them some more. then on 78 they breakaway and get a goal!
then came the turning point, despite there being 12 left plus injury time jacko goes all in, takes of our defensive midfielder and our rock in central defence puts an attacking midfielder and striker on, the result-we are totally unbalanced grimsby score 3 more and we just fall apart quicker than the french resistance in world war 2.
before the subs were made we were making but not taking chances and with us attacking our end i am pretty sure we would have got it back to 2-2 but alas we will never know.

so that's three lincs derby's played with jacko in charge

won 0

drawn 1

lost 2

scored-2

conceded 7

and please jacko dont say on the radio you and the players are hurting like we were, you didn't pay 16 quid to watch us fold like a deck of cards, have 5000 cods giving it large against us.or go to work on Monday and get all the shit i did about it.

the worse thing about it is that you and the players could have done something about it!!!

good win last night against wycombe though!! but the attendance of just over 2500 says volumes as to how the red army are feeling right now

Another derby!

It must be weekend derby time!

over in the city of prague victoria zizkov are playing city rivals and glamour boys of czech football AC Sparta prague

I went to prague to watch sparta but when i got there i found out that the game had been moved to the day after i flew out of the city so that was me done with sparta!

however i felt much more at home with zizkov! they are based in the working class area of prague, i was able to look inside the stadium and take some pictures. they have a left wing fan base and best of all they play in red and white strips!! (As all the top teams in the world do!! lol)

if sparta and slavia are the Arseanal and chelsea, Zizkov are the west ham of prague, in the working class end of town and dont win very much!there biggest achievement is knocking rangers out of the 2002 UFEA cup!! no league titles since 1928 and only a couple of cup wins to boot, yep that sounds like my kind of team comrade!!!

The best thing about czech football is that win or lose you can celebrate/commiserate yourself with some of the finest beer in the world, nice and cheap and served by the best barmaids in the world!!! they chat to the custerms do tricks when serving you, not that british ones that tend to dress like slobs and spend more time reading magazines,texting people or arguing with the boyfriends on the phone,oh and there generally better looking as well.

As for the beer it must be tried!!!it tastes so much better than the crap we get in the west. more taste less fizz! Kozel must be tried and thankfully pubs here are starting to serve cezch beer! After kozel pilsner is very nice an ideal session beer which you can now get in bottles form the local shops! and last but not least starpromaen which is on tap in retford!! get in!!

of the the three kozel wins it for me every time!!!

So lets hope that after the imps win Saturday zizkov can make it a double and lets celebrate with a bottle or two of kozel!!!!!!!

the red army's are on the march!!!!! in every way!

Red group, gold group all fighters follow me!!

So after destorying the cockney london dross on tuesday night 3-0, the red imps squadron set off to take on the old enemy in north east lincolnshire. after losing at home to league leaders Brentford on tuesday they sit below the dreaded blackline of the relagation zone and on there knees after six defeats on the bounce .there has surly never been a more important derby for them in the 100 years plus we have been at each others throats.

the fuckers will raise there game for this one you can bet your life on it. just like they did at sincil bank in the 1-1 draw in august but can they do it enough?

lets hope not!!!!

Lincolns strenght this season has been out wide with danny engussen, the second best thing to come out of france after the french kinckers,stockings and high heels combo.

i think the key is for us to sit in then when the codds attack (and they are in the state that draws are no good to them) get the ball wide and let him run at them. and either do the damage himself or let the Horse (geff horsefild) finish them off.

i also get the feeling that is we get the first goal then they will go into there shell and the crowd will get on there backs. if they get the 1st however it will lift them and thoses stupid inflatable fish they have will be waved around for all to see!

all in all the evil empire of the codds is rocking so lets go for it and destory the codd star!!

lock all ships in attack postion

red group standing by!!

white group standing by!

gold and blue halves group standing by!

all imps follow me and engage thoses codds!!!

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!!!!!

The Lincolnshire derby!!!

World football is full of derby matchs, Inter v Milan, Rangers v Celtic , Sparta v Slavia prague River plate v Boco juniors and now its our turn,the Lincolnshire Derby! its Grimsby v Lincoln!!

I must say that i am looking foward to this one more than any other of our visits to the land of the cod. Firstly because i am meeting up with an old friend who i havnt seen in fourteen years since school ,a grimsby fan no less!!(and having a night round the town on the friday night catching up to boot)

The second is more serious. as i write this blog Grimsby are looking relagation in the face. because of three teams having point deductions for money problems they started the season 17 points ahead of the relagation zone. that is now down to two points ahead of bournmouth in the last relagation place.with luton all but relagated.In the middweek games the codheads (thats what we call them) host top of the table brentford and bournmouth host midd table aldershot town who have nothing to play for (hmmm that sounds familer!!) so there is a very good chance that by the time the imps roll into town on saturaday the codds will be in the dreaded drop zone!

here is where the problem lies.all imps fans who arent smoking the funny stuff now that this season was all about rebuilding after the mess john schofield left us in. the defence is much tighter but alsa goals have been a little hard to come by.all this means that we are playing things out for next year. so we have nothing to play for where as grimsby are fighting for there lives.

However.. the imps away form has been off playoff standard and with some quators of the support starting to question jacko after the sale of frecklington and our own playoff challange long over an away derby win for lincoln would stop the mutterings in the stands of sincil bank.and buy jacko some time till the summer.so its all to play for!!!!!!!

as for the game i think if we can keep them out for the 1st 25 mins we are in with a great chance. They HAVE to win, so if they push foward can hopefully do what we did at gillingham and port vale and rip them to bits with out pace on the wings on the counter.At home teams sit in against us and that is why i think we have been poor at home,although we have only lost three at sincil bank.

so heres to a good night friday night, three points for the imps and if we do win its got to be battered cod (from grimsby!) with chips for tea saturaday night washed down with high quality czech beer!!!

CHAMPIONS!!!!!

Well what a night and what a game that was!!!.Like i said in an earlier blog i dont pretend to know all the rules but i understand the rules a little better than i did before this game. Some of the positions and stuff still baffle me but i am getting there i am still a rookie as they say! a wannbe kick return,thats me!!

The build up to the game over there kind of portrayed the cardinals as the nice guys who were underdogs, never won a superbowl and were for years the whipping boys of the league who had come good and turned the tables. The steelers were seen as a big nasty team that were used to winning titles and winning ugly,often grinding teams down. and had 3/4 of the fans in the stadium but didnt have a cheerleading team!

i started drinking about 6.30 uk time to warm up for the big game, a chat on the web cam with my NFL mentor so by the time the coverage came on the tv uk time 11.00 pm i was really up for it! i had a eaten half a takeaway pizza with the view to reheat the other half up but in the end i didnt need to do that (the popcorn i was munching through out the game put paid to that)

The pre-game ceremonies were most enjoyable. not quite sure what song faith hill sung but it sounded ok.The anthem of the united states was quite good although it rather took the shine of it that it wasnt sung live as i read in the paper today. and i thought it was very good to have the flight crew of the plane that landed in the river in new york there.

on to the coin toss, now this bit confused me. i am sure you dont really need six players there to toss the coin. and i would say that the head of the US armed forced must have better things to do with his time than to toss the thing. although given how the US/UK operations have gone in iraq and Afghanistan then mayby thats how decisions have been made?to invade or not invade?

(just to say i fully support our coalition and troops the ground, just not to sure why we are out there and are we doing more harm that good?)

on to the game i was fully cheering when the steelers scored what everybody thought was a touchdown only for it to be chalked off! but the steelers looked well on top of the game (to me anyway)i was bricking it though when just before half time it looked like the cardinals would score a certain touchdown and lead at half time when my 2nd favourite moment of the game happened, a 100 yard touchdown!! get in there! just before half time! i thought that must kill the game off! (shows what i know!!! ) then my top superbowl moment, the chap who got the touchdown having oxygen!!! never seen anything like that!!!!

i said at ht to my mentor that it looked like the steelers had the game wrapped up and that it was done and dusted!!! me and my big mouth!.

the third quarter was steady enough but in the 4th it went tits up big time! our famed defensive looked to have fallen to bits. their quarterback threw like a demon where as ours got sacked(as i believe the term is lol) and when they took about 2 mins left i thaught thats fucked it. i could only imagine what danielles face looked like. thankfully it all came right in the end with big ben steping up to throw a touchdown for the steelers and getting them/us out of jail just as lincoln and liverpool had done earlier in the weekend.

i was pacing up and down for most of the 4th period so it was nice to sit down and crack open yet another beer to watch the trophy being presented.

to me one of the best parts of the whole event was when dan rooney was asked if there was room for any more titles in the trophy room. he answered "we will make room" which to me sounded as if we are already building for next year!!!.

in the end i got to bed at about 4.00 am! loved the whole event and am proud to be a member of the steeler nation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heres to the SIX times champions!!!!

(thats more than the giants!!!)

thanks for the coaching as well danielle!!!

SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER WEATHER!!!

Well thats fu**ed that then hasnt it! sorry danielle. You can't shoot the messanger though!