S Y D, N E Y

As I said to my old mate CK, I bet that when the A League kicked off back in 2005 Sydney FC weren't expecting to average only 12,000 in the regular season of the fourth year of the competition in which they were Premiers. The market for club football in Sydney was illustrated one sunny weekend in October 1998 when over 25,000 Sydneysiders turned out to support the NSL. Sure the league they were supporting was arguably a more credible one ...but Marconi weren't even playing at home ...and Olympic had the bye.

...that this is still football worth watching and that Grimsby is still a team worth fighting for

Crawley Town 0 Grimsby Town 1

Check out Marianthi SpiralScratch's review of Grimsby Town's first game in the Conference here: Cod Almighty.

Photo taken from Marianthi SpiralScratch's Grimsby Town FC flickr set.

MON has left the building

I used to support The Villa. Here in NZ you can sometimes tell when someone started following football from the English club they support. Take for example all those Leeds supporters who appeared when Leeds were doing well in the early 1990s and all those Blackburn supporters of the mid 1990s when that club was in the ascendency etc etc.

Villa were pretty big around the time I was born. League Cup victories in 1975 and 1977, First Division Champions in 1980-81 ...and of course 1982. The greatest footballing year of my life (until a bunch of shop assistants, truck drivers, interior decorators, school teachers, window cleaners etc took to the field at the Club World Cup in 2009). In 1982 the All Whites marched on to Spain and Villa lifted the European Cup in Rotterdam. I don’t really support Villa anymore. Reading this blog you may be forgiven for thinking that I don’t support the Premier League. I don’t. Sure I keep a watch out for The Admiral’s performances and I do follow the relegation battles come the end of the season but I don’t follow the other end of the table. Why bother when only 4 (and a half) teams are ever going to win the Premiership – the half is reserved for Spurs and Citeh.

Anyway, there’s been much discussion about why MON left. Some say he was sick and tired of trying to build a competitive side with Randy selling (or looking to sell) his best players at the end of each season – Barry, Milner, Young etc etc. Some are sad to see him go. Others argue MON had more money at his disposal than any Villa manager in recent history and still couldn’t do any better than 6^th place. Arguments which take from the past to explain the present/future are troublesome. Time goes forward not backwards. What was a considerable sum to spend on players back in 2005 ain’t so in 2010.

There was one reader’s comment on the Guardian website which reckoned Villa without MON was headed straight for the Championship. One can only hope. If that happened I might consider supporting them again.

Ruminations on a World Cup campaign (cont.)... I knew I had forgotten something

10. Vuvuzelas
Completely destroyed the World Cup.

Ruminations on a World Cup campaign

1. Tommy Smith:

Our best player. His feints, dummies, positioning etc to gain control of the ball and maintain possession reminded me of a real player. But see 8 below.

2. Ryan Nelsen and Mark Paston:

Were good. Obviously.

3. Ivan Vicelich:

I reckon the Italy game was Ivan’s best game in an All Whites shirt. In all three games he was good “mopping up, calming things down, keeping cool and issuing orders”. The sight of Ivan taking the kick off to commence the second half of the Paraguay game nearly made me pee my pants. But if you play an uber defensive “mopper upper” then the other central midfielder really needs to be an outrageously creative playmaker – and with all respect to Simon Elliot he’s a million miles away from that. Did someone say Michael McGlinchey?

4. All Whites v Slovakia:

Probably the worst performance I’ve ever seen from an All Whites side in the last 10 years. Were it not for 3 seconds in the 96^th minute then it would’ve been a very poor start to the campaign. I guess both teams can be forgiven as it was their first up match (and also Slovakia’s first game at a World Cup and the All Whites first game at a World Cup in 28 years) – but it really was like watching two teams wearing lead boots chasing a balloon...in slow motion.

5. All Whites v Italy:

Italy had 23 shots on goal to our 3. On a good day half of those would’ve gone in making it something like a 12 - 2 final scoreline in Italy’s favour. On a great day all of those would’ve gone in making it a 23 – 3 final scoreline.

6. All Whites v Paraguay:

How can you play 3 strikers and yet not have any shots on goal? OK, I exaggerate... we had three. What was Ricki Herbert doing – surely we should’ve just flooded the pitch with our attacking players and pushed everyone forward. We were on the verge of making it through to the second round. I would’ve liked to have heard Chris Coleman’s punditry on ITV – apparently he was imploring Ricki to dispense with the defence minded game plan and push players forward. It was as if not conceding a goal was more important than progressing to the next round!? Maybe Herbert should’ve taken some goalscorers. On that note here is Fallon’s league and cup record for the 3 seasons prior to the World Cup: 114 appearances for 17 goals. Here is Killens: 57 appearances for 6 goals.

7. Luck:

I think we were lucky with the draw – being drawn in the same group as Slovakia (in their first World Cup) and the aging Italians – and lucky with playing Slovakia first up and Paraguay last. I reckon it would've been a different World Cup had we come up against Paraguay first... or been drawn in Group G.

8. Rory Fallon:

I find it hard to support the guy. He turned his back on NZ to go play for England. Even when it was obvious that he’d be forever warming the bench of some third rate outfit, NZ still wasn’t good enough for him. Only when he got a whiff of a World Cup did he show his face. Same goes for Tommy Smith and Winston Reid. I bet neither of them would’ve come calling had there not been a trip to the World Cup on offer. It’s much easier to support those who have put their hand up to play for NZ from the start – you know, Vicelich, Smeltz, Killen, Elliot, Bertos, Paston etc. Guys who have fronted at the Caketin in front of 2000 versus Vanuatu and at QE2 in front of 9000 versus Malaysia etc.

9. Mainstream media coverage:

The mainstream media coverage was just an embarrassment - TVNZ, TV3, The Herald etc etc. A whole lot of people who didn’t know what they were talking about. So too was seeing All Whites players like Winston Reid, Rory Fallon, Tony Lochhead et al appearing in the Womans Day!! It made me ashamed to be a NZ football supporter. Also embarrassing were the many “journalists” who just couldn’t hide their manic hatred of the world game, ie Leggat, Rattue, Eric Young and co.