Where's The Midfield? (Not Quite) Live Edition 26/10/13

It's not really live given it's two days later that I'm writing this post, but in all likelihood my trip to BD8 on Saturday afternoon will be my only live football of the season. Short of them making another Wembley appearance, I suppose. After Tuesday's creditable performance at Preston in drawing 2-2 after two 1-0 defeats, pre-season favourites Wolverhampton rolled into town. The visit of Wolves conjures memories of Edinho punching Keith Curle in the kop end penalty area, a thunderous near post free kick from Nigel Pepper, Robbie Blake completely stealing Robbie Keane's thunder, and of course, the 9th of May, 1999. Well, technically that was in Wolverhampton, but you get the idea. Wolves have fallen on hard times of late, with two successive relegations from the Premier League to the old Third Division.

Football is a funny mistress though, and we are continually reminded that the biggest wage bills and largest supports are no guarantee of success. Though Wolves were making a nonsense of that cynicism with 10 league wins from 13 games before Saturday. Over 18,000 packed into Valley Parade for the game, and it was somewhat strange to see a side with one defeat all season being, to be blunt, bloody awful for the first 25 minutes. Sat in a 4-5-1 formation, they seemed content to sit behind the ball, hoof it down the inside left channel and let their prematurely balding striker Griffiths take terrible shots at goal from the corner of the area. I kept asking myself "how on earth have they won 10 games. They're rubbish". City took the lead 15 minutes in when Kyel Reid's cross to the far post dropped to Rafa De Vita on his home debut, and after his first shot was kicked off the line, he scored with the rebound. It was no more than the home side deserved.

Wolves manager Kenny Jackett ditched his formation and gameplan after 25 minutes, bringing on six-and-a-half million quid's worth of striker in Irish international Kevin Doyle. And within a couple of minutes, Wolves led 2-1. First, for about the third time in the afternoon two City players ran into one another, the ball ran loose and a Wolves player shot from distance, only for Jon McLaughlin to dive over the ball. If you've seen that before, you were probably watching me play football on a Wednesday night. And then not a minute later Richard Stearman had the freedom of the six yard box to head in a left wing cross after a corner had been blocked. Up to half time, Wolves marginally held the edge, but they were OK, nothing special. They'd been gifted the lead. It's slightly worrisome the number of bad goals we're conceding from set pieces at the moment. It's a far cry from last year. 

So at half time, the emergency signal was sent up from the Valley Parade floodlights. Enter, stage left, Nahki Wells, out for four weeks with an ankle injury. And for much of the second half, we penned Wolves in without creating many clear scoring opportunities. The positive: Wells is back, looked sharp and gave the side the pace up front it was sorely missing, Hanson was a monster in the first 25 minutes, the crowd were patient and supportive. The negative: Kyel Reid had one of those days when he wanted to beat his man a second or third time instead of putting the ball on Hanson's head. His dive in the penalty area when he could probably have rounded the Wolves keeper and crossed instead of falling into him showed poor decision making. And how many times can two professional players run into one another during a game?

Three defeats in four, after one in the first 10. The games are harder at present, for certain, but there's a little bit of luck not going in their favour at present. Maybe it's just evening itself out after two or three sides pressed the self destruct button against them earlier in the season. Hopefully they can get back to winning ways in the upcoming weeks.

Oh and we've apparently drawn the fat crooked alleged-flasher man in the FA Cup in two weeks. That'll be nice.

Elsewhere: Man Utd won but weren't very good again. Liverpool appear to be 'for real' as pundits over here like to say, and Joe Hart dropped the latest in a series of high profile clangers in a last minute defeat at Chelsea. Not that I saw it, being sat over Greenland on a plane at the time (Greenland is very pretty from 40,000 feet). England have something of a problem in goal ahead of the World Cup. They have a lot of problems, so the more the merrier, I suppose.

Another Non Running Post

Two non running posts in a row! To save you all from being bored by another post about transatlantic saucepan shipments, there's been almost no discussion about football here at all over the last few weeks. So I'm going to at least make an effort to discuss football once a week. Maybe I'll call it "Where's The Midfield?" for old times' sake, though the joke is largely redundant now since a certain team in BD8 has a midfield again. It only took them ten years to find one.

Firstly, the continuing good start by that side in BD8. If you'd told me at the outset we'd have 18 points from 9 games, having only lost once by (nearly) October, I'd have called for the men in white coats. It's still somewhat misleading in that we have lost to the highest placed side we've played (the grim Port Vale side of Micky Adams, purveyor of route-one hoofball, 10th), and gained points from sides currently 11th (albeit their keeper was sent off after 25 minutes), 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 24th. But at the same time, it shows that (touch wood) the side is more than capable of holding its own at this level and should be looking to make the top 6. Today's game demonstrated the character in the side. 1-0 down to a goal in the second minute, having lost your top scorer injured after 20, and not playing at all well; to still dig in and play to the 94th minute in search of a winner speaks volumes about the mentality of the players, something Parkinson spoke of at length when he first arrived at the club just over two years ago. The current team are anything but nervous about playing in front of a large crowd. They've scored in nine league games in a row, which I don't remember happening much in the last 15 years.

Elsewhere: Whisper it quietly, but are the first cracks appearing in the walls of the red half of the Manchester empire? Between van Persie's goals and the motivational powers of Ferguson, a title was won last year with a really quite ordinary team, van Persie and Rooney (and, arguably, De Gea) apart. But now? If there's one thing apparent this year, it's that absent the reign of terror in the dressing room and on the training ground (and the threat of being sold to whichever side is currently managed by Steve Bruce or Mark Hughes), the dead wood at Old Trafford that should have been shipped out years ago (Jones, Anderson, Buttner, Cleverley, Welbeck, Young, Ferdinand off the top of my head) are a damned sight less effective now there's not the morbid fear of the famous hairdryering anymore. Fellaini? In the right circumstances, yes. But at 27.5 MILLION POUNDS? The 1994 and 1999 sides would annihilate the current side without breaking sweat. Bleating about the fixture list is fine and dandy when the fixture computer man gives you Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool in the first five games, but West Brom? At home? The next few years of Saturday mornings in the Ship as the armchair Manchester United fans plaintively plead "but.......but....." at the TV as they finally realise every sporting dynasty ends sooner or later are going to be glorious.

Also: Chelsea. It annoys me no end that the English football media continues to breathlessly flirt with Mourinho like some infatuated teenage schoolgirl with a crush, instead of querying his bonkers idea that leaving Juan Mata out of the side is a good one. They were unambitious to the point of cowardice at Old Trafford in August given how pedestrian Manchester United are these days. Fortunately, last week on the edge of CRISIS they met a Fulham side even less ambitious than that. His teams play an awful, cynical, not-remotely-entertaining, do-just-enough brand of 'football' that would be pilloried if he were, say, Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis or Neil Warnock, but because he's some tanned, suave fashionably greying continental, the press love him. I didn't read much critique about his team essentially playing without a left hand side for the final 30 minutes at Everton two weeks ago. You're so dreamy, Jose.

If you'd asked me before the start of the season who'd win the league, I'd say Chelsea, with Manchester United second. Because they're both presently as formidable as Sheffield United are in the third division, a side might win by default this year. But who? Manchester City spent another squillion pounds of the Sheikh's money to lose at notoriously tough away venues like Cardiff and Aston Villa (!). Even Fourth Division sides beat Aston Villa. Spurs will always find interesting and creative ways to muck things up. Liverpool, well, they're on the brink of becoming the Toronto Maple Leafs. It might just be Arsenal's turn to win the whole thing by default, if they can keep the ball out of the net enough. Though with Per Mertesacker (turning circle of an oil tanker, terrorised by ex-supermarket shelf stackers), and Laurent Koscielny (generally an accident waiting to happen) in their defence, that's easier said than done. Wenger inherited a defence from George Graham that won him three league titles, bolstered it with Sol Campbell for a bit, but they've been a clown-shoed circus troupe at the back for years and you know they'll revert to type eventually.

Best League in the world? Pffft.

Practice

Wednesday night football is back! We apparently have enough players to field a team for the summer season, so it'll soon be time to play wacky races again to get to games on Wednedays after work (should I actually ever manage to secure employment again, that is). 

Because we've got several new players, the usual weekend football practice is upon us this afternoon, so it's time to steel myself for having multiple footballs whacked at me for two hours. New gloves were needed anyway, so I went out to the local football shop yesterday afternoon to find a reasonably priced pair for the outdoor season. A rude shock was in store. Pretty much every pair was $100+. (Cue HOW MUCH? joke) Are they made of gold nowadays or something? I found a pair that were a bit on the big side, but tolerably priced (tolerable in the sense that I made it disappear onto the credit card) . This pair has finger spines in, which is a first for me; it means bending the fingers backwards is very difficult, but maybe they'll reduce the number of finger injuries I seem to get these days...

Omens

I'm listening to the BBC 5 Live football daily podcast, which was recorded in the aftermath of yesterday's Wembley win. It's fun to hear the Claret and Amber song and Status Quo in the background. The BBC is great, and don't knock it; those of us that have to suffer pale imitations of it miss it lots. Perma-tanned Southend manager Phil Brown has just opined "if you can guarantee you're going to win, this is the way to get promoted". Chris Kamara, manager in 1996 once said pretty much the same thing. The win in 1996 was seemingly inevitable the second the final whistle went after the second leg in Blackpool. Was yesterday's game inevitable? When you consider the following, maybe it was:

In 1995-96,

QPR were relegated from the top division

Gillingham were promoted from the bottom division

Bradford City had been in their current division for six seasons
They played 60+ games in the season
They conceded five goals in their elimination from the League Cup
They knocked Burton Albion out of a cup competition
They finished in the final playoff spot

They edged Chesterfield out of the last playoff spot

They met Chesterfield in the 43rd game of the league season

They knocked out the highest-placed playoff side (Blackpool)
They knocked out their playoff semi-final opponents in the League Cup in extra time earlier in the season
They lost the home playoff game and won away

They scored three goals away from home to make Wembley

Their goalkeeper was called Jonathan

He was eligible to play for Scotland

The playoff final opposition began with "No"
They won both league games without conceding a goal against them

The first goal in the playoff final was scored by a Bradfordian

In 2012-13.... all of the above happened. Sometimes, things are evidently meant to be.

Going The Distance

One of the more extraordinary football seasons I can remember finally came to and end yesterday. Returning to Wembley to put things right after their walloping at the hands of Swansea in the freezing cold in the League Cup Final in February was a fitting end to a marathon season. Yesterday was the 64th game of the season, and it would have been a much harder thing to stomach than February 24th had they not won, for all that effort to be for nothing. Some of the omens going back to 1996 meant that a win yesterday was almost preordained (I'll expand on that in another post). But was it?

Fortunately, when they needed to the most they played possibly their best 45 minutes of the season, making the second half an exercise in closing the game out. It'd be hard to single out any one player as man of the match as pretty much everyone dominated his opposite number. But for the Northampton keeper, the scoreline might well have matched the 5-0 result in February. 

The season came in three separate parts. From August to December, the team finally looked like they had got over their problems of being a scalp for the smaller teams. In all competitions, they lost 6 of the first 32 games, 3 of them to teams that would be promoted. In the last 18 games, they lost 3 times. That's 9 defeats in 50 games, which is promotion worthy by any measuring stick. The middle section of the season, taken from roughly the elimination of Arsenal in the League Cup, to the Cup Final itself saw just 3 wins from 14 games. That took the side from a solid 4th place to 12th, as they became a scalp for the teams in the division again, and the toll of numerous extra-times and the fixture backlog began to take effect. Such were the number of cup matches, the team didn't play six consecutive league matches until mid-March, seven months after the season started. Six of the games went to extra time, so you could claim they played an equivalent of 66 games. The fitness coach is worth every penny of his contract.

Look at who they met along the way: Watford, who have made the Championship playoff final; Wigan, who won the FA Cup; Arsenal who made the knockout of the Champions League; Aston Villa, who any number of players' wages would cover our entire wage bill for the season, beaten over two legs; Brentford, who knocked them out of the FA Cup in December after extra time in a replay made the League One playoff final today.

So after six years, they finally escaped being beaten at Dagenham, Barnet and Accrington every year. No more having Morecambe come and park the bus and celebrate a 1-1 draw like they'd won the World Cup. Finally, a chance to disappear into the relative obscurity of League One where Wolves, Sheffield United and Coventry are the teams everyone wants to beat. I think we'll do OK next year. The team - through their exploits this year in the cups - is clearly capable of playing at a higher level; some would clearly survive at Championship level. After twelve years of ever-downward progress, finally, the ship is turned round and looks to be heading in the right direction again. Credit has to be given to the two co-owners. In these times of clubs being playthings for unhinged rich people (see any number of instances, but Blackburn Rovers spring immediately to mind), it's good that the two co-owners, lifelong fans both, are on record as being custodians of the club, and aren't going to sell out unless they think it's the right thing. That's a rare thing these days.

They did go the distance. The tune linked to is part of the Valley Parade pre-match routine, coming from the closing scenes of the 1976 film Rocky, in which the titular no-chance outsider goes the full fifteen rounds with a more fancied opponent. That it should be played at ten minutes to kick off in this of all seasons, when the unfancied underdog did finally get its day - more than once - was oddly prophetic. They should keep it, in anticipation of feats still to come.

Going The Distance

So one last game to play in the Bradford City season, game 64 at Wembley Stadium two weeks yesterday, after this morning's overturning of their first leg deficit. From trailing Burton after the 3-2 home defeat on Thursday night in the semi final, first leg, was the season going to end in disappointing fashion? Nope! It's quite a shock to the system to have to be up at 4:40am to find a stream of the game and to put the kettle on. 

Burton had the best home record in the division this year (17 wins, 3 draws, 3 defeats, all of which were 1-0). But it's such a BCFC thing to do it the hard way, everyone was hoping things would go the way they did against Blackpool in 1996. After the first twenty minutes they calmed down and scored three goals which were aided to a greater or lesser degree by the comical defending of the Burton defence and goalie. The latter looked pretty ropey on Thursday night in the first game, and was just as iffy today. It would be the perfect way to end the season putting something right after the walloping they got at the hands of Swansea in the league cup final.

Useless Sunday afternoon digression:

Northampton's win over Cheltenham this evening means that there might be a reasonable chance at breaking the Fourth Division playoff final attendance. Northampton took 30,000+ to Wembley twice in the late 1990s and of course 33,000+ decamped from Yorkshire for the league cup final. Given the tickets are likely to be cheaper this time you'd hope a similar number will travel. Maybe even the Second West pub will get some this time. The record for the fourth tier game is the 61,589 that watched the 2007 final, the first at the newly re-opened Wembley Stadium. Given the records established this season, one way or another, one more would be nice.

2012: 24,029 (Cheltenham 0-2 Crewe, Wembley)

2011: 11,484 (Stevenage 1-0 Torquay, Old Trafford)

2010: 32,054 (Dagenham & Redbridge 3-2 Rotherham, Wembley)

2009: 53,706 (Gillingham 1-0 Shrewsbury, Wembley)

2008: 35,715 (Rochdale 2-3 Stockport, Wembley)

2007: 61,589 (Bristol R. 3-1 Shrewsbury, Wembley)

2006: 29,196 (Cheltenham 1-0 Grimsby, Millennium Stadium)

2005: 19,653 (Lincoln 0-2 Southend, Millennium Stadium)

2004: 37,298 (Huddersfield *0-0 Mansfield, Millennium Stadium)

2003: 32,148 (Bournemouth 5-2 Lincoln, Millennium Stadium)

2002: 24,368 (Cheltenham 3-1 Rushden & Diamonds, Millennium Stadium)

2001: 23,600 (Blackpool 4-2 Leyton Orient, Millennium Stadium)

2000: 33,383 (Peterborough 1-0 Darlington, Wembley)

1999: 36,985 (Leyton Orient 0-1 Scunthorpe, Wembley)

1998: 19,486 (Colchester 1-0 Torquay, Wembley)

1997: 46,804 (Northampton 1-0 Swansea, Wembley)

1996: 43,431 (Darlington 0-1 Plymouth, Wembley)

1995: 22,814 (Bury 0-2 Chesterfield, Wembley)

1994: 40,109 (Preston 2-4 Wycombe, Wembley)

1993: 22,416 (Crewe 1-1* York, Wembley)

1992: 22,741 (Blackpool *1-1 Scunthorpe, Wembley)

1991: 21,615 (Blackpool 2-2* Torquay, Wembley)

1990: 26,404 (Cambridge 1-0 Chesterfield, Wembley)

* won on penalties. Let's not even think about that on the 18th......it scares me to put the record to the test in such season-ending circumstances.

Winners

So here we are again, recipients of winners t-shirts. Except that this time I was actually on the field so I won't feel quite so bad about wearing said shirt rather than the two previous ones I wasn't able to contribute to through a combination of either being a) on crutches or b) sat in a group meeting.

The semi-final last week saw a rematch with Hurricane Halifax, where we were under captain's orders to play nicely. I managed to get a shot in the face in the first thirty seconds, and we eventually won 5-4, making hard work of things as we gave away some very strange goals. There were no more international incidents. The highlight of the game was the opposition own goal when we were leading 4-3. They were playing alternating goalies. One came out to change, but the player in front of him didn't see he'd left the net. From the right wing at halfway, said player rolled it back to where he thought the goalie was. But wasn't, for a comical own goal that turned out to be the winning goal in a 5-4 win. So we waited with bated breath to see who we'd play in the final. Would we meet "We'll See You Later" again, they of the ridiculous "you're shooting too hard" outburst? No, we'd meet the team that won 6 and lost one game, but the six wins came against teams 6th and 8th-12th in the league. The ref said before last night's game that the second semi last week "was very bad-tempered".

The opposition were remarkably airtight for a team that had conceded 27 goals in seven league matches (in comparison to our nine in seven matches) against some of the league's cannon fodder. I think there might have been a ringer or two out there. Yes, suspiciously good goalie, I'm looking at you. Showing fine composure after going 1-0 down early in the second half, the team rallied and won 2-1 with a goal right on the point of a shootout (for reasons which escape me, if the game is tied at the five minutes to go mark, it goes to straight to penalties). Thus ensued a final five minutes of 'parking the bus' before decamping to Boston Pizza for a wild evening, if you can call being home for 9:30 wild. Four-ish weeks to go and then it's back to outdoors again. Just enough time to give the bionic leg a rest.....

Playoffs

The end of the Wednesday night indoor season is now upon us. The good ship Hungover United has been in scintillating form once again. The last two weeks have been somewhat bad-tempered affairs (yes, Canadians actually getting all ornery at something that isn't hockey). Last week, we had a spirit point rating of -2 after some of the team were protesting after the game at their treatment at the, er, agricultural style of tackling of Hurricane Halifax. A team who had already scored -2 in spirit points once already. The ref's opinion: "yes, they were fouls, but you complained all the time so I let them go". Player sent off after the whistle and suspended (even from the venue), team warned by the league about our conduct. 

This week, we were under captain's orders to all be good boys and girls this week. And we were fine until about ten minutes into the second half of this week's game where, hilariously, one of the female players on the other side who was - to be polite - putting herself about went to block a shot. It hit her on the fleshy bit of the thigh. Ouch.  But, you know, if you want to block shots then them's the breaks. There then followed a strop and tantrum about shooting too hard (which isn't in the Laws of the Game as far as I can see), followed by verbals from one of our team who wasn't there last week. There then followed ten minutes of very fractious play. Fortunately, we have got +2 this week which means "We'll See You Later" have given us -1 again. Hopefully we don't get any more suspensions or sanctions because "shooting too hard" is a nonsensical stick to beat the other team with when I nearly had my head taken off last week with a shot. The league standings are finalised, and so in next week's 1 vs 4 matchup for the playoffs, we play.........Hurricane Halifax again. We need UN peacekeepers or something.

Musings on Tuesday's Events

Five days on from Tuesday night and it still doesn't seem real. Even after having booked a flight to the Final on Thursday night, and having spent the last couple of days finding and booking a hotel, it still seems odd. Watching the highlights over and over again just reinforces how bizarre it all is.

A few things to reflect on, in no particular order:

• We have now played 420 minutes of football against Premier League opposition, and conceded just four goals with a back four that was nowhere near first choice at the start of the year.
• Given the easy chances missed/kicked off the line/hit the woodwork, we could have had way more than four goals across the two ties, almost as remarkable.
• Blair Turgott learnt an object lesson in taking the ball to the corner and keeping it there the next time, lest the ball end up in your own net ten seconds later.
• How can a top flight side concede a goal from a corner, eight games in a row?
• Throwing on forwards at the expense of midfielders is something that a pub team manager might consider tactically unsound. Yes, now you've five strikers strung across the penalty area, but nobody to pass to them.
• Confidence in football is an amazing thing. In one half, tails up, playing like you're a side three divisions higher. In the other, having given up yet another unopposed free header that ended up in your net, playing with complete terror and panic.
• Shay Given must be chained to the goalline.
• How noisy were the fans when we scored the goal in the second leg.
• Fifteen years of absolutely chronic Cup draws finally gave way to something more entertaining.
• I hope that the commemorative strip idea that was so roundly panned (and rightly so) on twitter and facebook yesterday was the idea of the kit manufacturer and not the club. Not days after being feted in the media as an antidote to the ills of the modern game, to then be seen to be cashing in is absolutely chronic PR if it's the club's doing.
• The club made the Wall Street Journal today, the New York Times on Wednesday. Appearances on Canadian TV? Nil.

Blimey

So barely more than two weeks after getting back here, it looks like I'm going to have to plan another quick trip to London for some football match or other. I'll write a better post when I'm able to string coherent speech together. For now, "wow" will have to suffice

Pile-up

Last night's home draw with Brentford in the FA Cup means that there'll be yet another game for the Bantams to schedule before Christmas. From mid September to New Year's Day, they'll have had exactly two midweeks free of games. This is a combination of a) the number of cup games they've been involved in; b) the season starting two weeks later than normal because of the Olympics, and ending a week sooner because Wembley is needed for the Champion's League final on the day the Fourth Division play-off final is usually played; and c) the fact midweek games have generally been moved from the winter to the autumn in light of the last few bad winters and mass postponements.

That four of the games have gone to extra time - and potentially a fifth - means that the game on December 29th against Rochdale will be the equivalent of a 38th game of the season. That's a whole Premier League season, in half the time available. It looks highly likely that if they're involved in the playoffs, they'll be into the realm of playing 60 games, before any potential further advance in cup matches is is considered. With a small squad, already robbed of three central defenders through very serious injuries, that's a big ask.

Odd thing is, I was looking back at the 1995-96 season on Soccerbase to check on something I put on twitter related to the sacking of the Micky Mellon below. That season, we played.......60 games. The normal 46 in the league, six in the league cup (in the days of two legged ties), three in the FA cup, two in whatever the Johnstone's Paint Trophy was called at the time*, and three in the playoffs. But I don't remember that season as overly fixture congested. Of course, the playoffs extended the season to the last weekend in May, which might have something to do with it.

We still have some way to go to match Stockport's season a year later. In the 1996-97, they played 67 (!) games: 46 in the league; 11 in the league cup where they reached the semi-final; 4 in the FA Cup, and 6 in the Auto Windscreen Shield where they lost the two-legged northern final.

* Wikipedia tells me they were eliminated by the drawing of lots - trust something as weird as that to happen to them - after a three team group between themselves, Carlisle and Doncaster resulted in three 1-1 draws and all sides having an equal record. Further advance would have added even more games to the total.

Expectations

Aldershot knocked Fleetwood Town out of the FA Cup this afternoon. On the face of it, a bit of a shock, given the former's 23rd place in the league, compared with the latter's budget and Blue Square Premier title not six months ago. The magic of the FA Cup, upsets and all that. The outcome? Fleetwood summarily fired manager Micky Mellon, for the heinous crime of losing three games in row and being seventh in the league.

I took a wander to the Fleetwood Town forum when I heard the news. I reckoned they'd be appalled at losing the manager who'd taken them from the Blue Square North - essentially the sixth tier of English football - to a level they'd never, ever played at. I was wrong. "Taken us as far as he can". "Thank f*ck for that". "Six games too late". Expectations are seemingly that with a wealthy backer, they should sweep all before them in vicarious, entertaining fashion. The great thing about sport in general is that it doesn't work like that. At least at lower levels. The Premier League long since stopped being competitive*

"Dream job for the right person", opined one poster**. Until it all falls apart, Gretna/Grays Athletic style as attendances don't rise to cover the cost of the vastly inflated wage bill.

* Of course, the coincidence that this should happen in the same week that Chelsea's sacking of their manager (six months removed from a European title) has spectacularly blown up in their face isn't lost on me.

** Someone wanted Peter Taylor. I laughed, hard.

Playoff Time

Wednesday night saw the last of our regular season games for the summer outdoor season. After the complete collapse in form that saw us finish seventh of eight in the Spring season, after a run of six defeats on the bounce culminating in Sunday afternoon practices* how would we do in the summer season? Answer, a lot lot better, as shown in the league table on the right.

This time, we were able to score a lot more goals than in the Spring, despite losing two or three players to fairly long term injuries. It also helped that we could keep our female contingent numerous, such that they didn't have to play whole games, with the exception of the nutty 6-5 win against KAM United where we played the whole game a player short. I kept the ridiculous goals against to a minimum (the first one against on Wednesday night a case in point. Dear oh dear), and achieved my aim of a goals per game against of less than two. Playoffs for the chance to have our photo taken with a plastic knock-off of the World Cup begin next week. No expense spared, that really would be the reward for twelve weeks battling the sun, high winds and ever shortening daylight.

*practice is really a euphemism for having four or five footballs shot at me very hard for two hours on a rock hard school playing field. It hurts

Cup of Cheer

So to carry on from the post below, yet another win for the Bantams this afternoon (or evening, depending where you live). An eighth win from eleven games, and a fourth in a row. It's all very.....disorientating. It speaks volumes for the character they seem to have in the building that they can shrug off an apparently very harsh 2-0 deficit and come back in the closing stages. By my reckoning, that's still only the fourth or fifth time they've come from 2-0 down to win a game in more than 20 years. Winning breeds confidence which breeds more wins.

I have two wishes: firstly, that they are finally rewarded with a plum tie in the fourth round against a top team where they can get some exposure and make some money. And secondly, that they didn't put so much into tonight's game - they rested six players, but Hanson, Wells and Reid still ended up playing an hour - that they come out flat on Saturday in front of some of an expectant crowd. There have been too many games like that down the years. That game will, I think, tell us a lot more about the season to come.

Moan Free Zone

There's a long way to go in the new football season, for sure, but it's a promising beginning thus far for the (once) mighty Bantams. Four home wins on the bounce from the start of a season for the first time since 1957, two wins away from home against teams in higher divisions in cup competitions, merciless dispatch of sides we usually struggle terribly against at home. Fifth in the league and a very winnable home tie in the third round of the league cup next week with the chance of a big payday at a big name. It's all very........disorientating to not have things to moan about.

Hangovers

The rehabilitation of my duffed ankle/leg has continued over the last few weeks with the recommencement of outdoor football. This year, we're playing in an 8-a-side league with proper referees and nets and all that jazz. I'd felt reasonably good about playing indoors by the end of the season, but knew that outdoors would be a whole different kettle of fish. There's so much more ground to cover, and a bigger target to defend. And it would involve jumping in the air, which is how I did myself in in the first place. 

And it'd be fair to say the first two or three weeks were a bit of a struggle, mobility wise, culminating in probably the worst 20-30 minutes of football I think I've ever played in the third game. Which was odd since I'd done OK in the first 15-20 minutes, but then I completely lost all bearing of where the net was behind me, and let four goals in in rapid fire before half-time. And then, into the second half, the straw that broke the camel's back: a fifth where I let a shot roll wide - or so I thought - when it actually ended up in the net again. I'm more embarrassed about the shirt and glove throwing fit that followed, storming out of the game at 5-0 down than my actual play. It was the anniversary of the accident, and I don't think in hindsight my head was in the right place. The pitch was rock hard, I was bothered about diving, but they're flimsy excuses. Like a lot of things with me, it's mostly between the ears and sometimes I need a bit of a kick in the rear to get things going. I actually threatened on twitter to pack playing in goal in.

I talked myself out of packing it in, and in the last three games I've felt much better. I didn't play in week five due to a work-related conference dinner, but I'm now able to move more freely. I run in slow motion now, but at least I can run. I'm wearing even more body armour than I was before, which perhaps gives me a bit more peace of mind. I know where the net is again; or at least I know a bit better where it is. I don't slide in to gather the ball or kick it away from the on-rushing forward thinking "don't get hurt" but much more "be assertive, be aggressive, get there first"*. Thinking "don't get hurt" affects the performance too much. We only play for fun, but it's still not a fun feeling when you perceive yourself to be letting the others down through being too passive or cautious. So, in a funny sort of way, I'm looking forward to game ten, when I try and set the record straight against the side I made myself look repeatedly stupid.

* I realise at least one of you out there will not approve of such a statement.

"Football? Bloody hell!"

[3:09 pm I've edited the post to remove a paragraph that's probably a separate entry entirely]

The quote in the title is from Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager, in the immediate aftermath of the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich. I've included the footage especially for L***s U****d fans that might have missed it. United, second best throughout the game to a technically superior opponent, and having had two shots against their woodwork in the last five minutes, scored twice in injury time to win 2-1 and complete the treble. Complete smash-and-grab. It's a well worn cliche, but what goes around, comes around. A long time later, in this case, but in what dramatic fashion.

Manchester United and Manchester City were both tied on points going into today's final games of the Premier League season. The rest of the field have been also rans for some months now. Manchester City had a better goal difference, largely down to a 6-1 win at Old Trafford in September, and so led the table. Manchester City - unbeaten at home in 17 months, 17 wins and 1 draw at home this season - had, on paper, a cakewalk of a game against relegation-threatened QPR. Manchester United had a tricky away game at Sunderland. Yet there was always the chance that Manchester City would revert to type; that loveable loser who had turned the freakish tragi-comic pratfall into an art form down the years. United went ahead fairly early on and weren't in serious danger of losing their game. City had almost all of the ball as QPR "parked the bus", but contrived to do very little with it until a shot from full-back Pablo Zabaleta went through both hands of Paddy Kenny and into the net. Imagine, a blunder from a former Bradford Park Avenue player deciding the league title. 

With the news that Bolton took a lead at Stoke early in the second half, QPR had to come out and try and salvage something from the game since they were now in the drop zone themselves. A terrible defensive lapse from (a probably bored) Joleon Lescott let in Djibril Cisse for an equaliser. They had half an hour to hang on. Whereupon almost immediately Joey Barton swung an elbow - evidently in retaliation - at Carlos Tevez and was sent off, and could have had himself a couple more red cards as he left the field. His career in English football should be finished after today; no amount of philospher-king pronouncements on twitter can hide the fact that he's a sandwich short of a picnic. He could have cost his side his league place. Inconceivably, five minutes later QPR were ahead when a one man break down the left saw a hopeful cross thrown high to the second post, where Lescott was again completely asleep. A beautiful arrive behind him from Jamie Mackie buried it and gave a 2-1 lead to the ten-man visitors. This would be one of the biggest sporting chokes I think I can ever remember. Cue lots of noise from the United supporters in the Ship. People watching in the Ship on days like today is brilliant.

QPR parked the bus again. And it looked like it was going to work; City didn't once put a good ball into the penalty area in the remaining 25 minutes, ignoring that they didn't have anyone capable of winning it in the air. City's desperation was such that they threw Balotelli on, about three weeks after it was widely pronounced he'd never play for them again. And then in the second minute of five minutes of injury time, sub Dzeko headed in a corner from almost on the goalline, from the first cross of any quality. There were still three minutes left, and almost straight from the kickoff, City scored again: broken play on the edge of the area, Aguero took posession and drove towards goal. The QPR left-back dived in, opened the way for Aguero to get a clear shot at goal, and he buried it. Cue bedlam from the blue-clad half of the Ship. Haven't seen many of them in there before. To be clear: I have no real interest in who wins the Premier League. Unless it's BCFC, but the chances of that are, er, slim, unless one of George Galloway's mystery Arabian businessmen friends take over. All I want from my weekend mornings in the Ship are a cooked breakfast, and to be entertained, whether it's the game, the people, or both. And you couldn't argue it wasn't entertaining.

On the day, was justice done? Hard to say. QPR were so lacking in ambition in the first half, I'd be mighty annoyed if that was my side on a do-or-die sort of day. But their defensive performance in the second half for 35 minutes with a man down was superb. They gave City the wide areas of the pitch and took away the middle; City had no striker capable of winning the ball in the air till Dzeko came on, and no midfielder capable of crossing the ball. But over the course of the season, they probably deserved it; they were the best side in the league up until the New Year. City will be accused of "buying the league", but since the dawn of the Premier League era, that's pretty much the case every year; United's team today cost about the same as City's did. United won the league almost by default last year with no worthy challenger. This year looked different for about a month, culminating in that 8-2 demolition of Arsenal in September, but that looks to have been something of a false dawn. This is the weakest Manchester United squad in a generation. Think of their treble winning team of 1999: Schmeichel; G Neville, Stam, Johnsen/Berg, Irwin; Beckham, Keane, Scholes, Giggs; Yorke, Cole with P Neville, Butt, Sheringham, Solskjaer and others on the bench. How many of the 2012 vintage gets in the 1999 side? Or the 1994 side? Rooney alone, probably. It bodes ill for the competition at large that while City have so much money to spend, United are at best, in transition, Chelsea are now way past their prime and this year's Liverpool are possibly the worst they've been since the late 1950s. 

Twitter was full of "that's why it's the best league in the world". Depends what you mean by "best". Spectacle? Almost certainly. Technical ability? Patently not. All five goals today stemmed from some sort of defensive error, some of the level that our Wednesday team might mock if we committed them. Today was, though, an illustration about just what's so good about the beautiful game; wild swings in momentum, sides turning the game on its head out of nothing, and moments of high drama. Almost certainly, this was the latest in the season that a title has ever been decided. Even later than the famous Liverpool-Arsenal game in 1989. The "oh, soccer [rolls eyes], 0-0 draws all the time, booooring" meme is as inaccurate as it is lazy.

In the end, a team so well known for its ability to conjure wins out of added time at the end of the game was denied by the team across town doing the same thing. But don't be disheartened United fans; you've still some way to go to get to BCFC levels of losing games in the last minute. Somewhere, though, Oliver Kahn, Carsten Jancker, Sami Kuffour and the rest of the Bayern players denied in 1999 are probably having a quiet grin to themselves about what happened today.

Returns

Wednesday night is football night. To continue the happy mood round here of late, there was a crushing 6-2 win for Hangover 96, in which I neither managed to get almost decapitated (as tonight's opponents did about five weeks ago), nor further injure my left hand (which I had done the two previous times I've played at tonight's venue). All three episodes occurred in the dying seconds of games, so it was nice to hear the final whistle blow and not be left in an undignified heap on the floor. There were even some more searching through-balls as well.

By the time I got home it was nearly 11pm (that's 9:30 starts for you), so before retiring to bed for a bit of a read, I just checked my tracking number for the return envelope for my passport. I hadn't had an email to indicate that it had gone into the system, but it showed that it's on its way back. Hopefully, I have it in my hand by Friday at the latest, and I can then get on with a quick trip home before I start work again. I hadn't mentioned in on here because most people who read this know one way or another, but for those of you out there that don't I am going back to work in the lab I worked in at the university for a a period of some months (to be precisely determined, but the job ad said ten months). Hopefully, while I'm there, something more permanent comes along, now that my applications won't be binned before they were read because of my status. Everything has just about turned out right. Eventually.

Turning

A week is a long time in football. Two weeks is an age. So it's nice to see that the once mighty Bantams are finally, it seems, heading in the right direction. They have managed to double their wins total in that period, after all. The first half of the season, cup competitions apart, has been painful. At more than one point on Saturday mornings this autumn, the team has been only a goal away from being right at the foot of the football league. 

Parkinson has slowly recast the team from the collection of loanees and inexperienced kids he was left with after Jackson's sudden departure in August. Goals were preciously hard to come by, and it seemed with Matt Duke that they couldn't keep them out at the other end either. Slowly, with the acquisition of Marcel Seip and Andrew Davies, and McLaughlin's return in goal the goals against has been tightened dramatically (just two against in five games. A goalie that can stop shots. Goals against go down. Who knew?). And now the goals have begun to come, six in the two festive home games.

I can't imagine a collective support more desperate to cling onto something than ours over the last ten years, there have been so many false dawns and mistakes made, but it's been fun to be up early in the morning to listen to games and hear the crowd, supportive and engaged again. Or giving the referee a piece of their mind as they have in the last two games. Hopefully, 2012 is a better year than 2011 was.

Shocking

This is the funniest thing I've seen on the internet in months. I defy you to not be in stitches at the end.