Andre Silly-Arse Boas

Another week, another wacky suggestion. This time one that "is frankly offensive" according to Football League chief Andy Williamson. It concerns AVB (as he must be referred to at all times, by order of the media) and his bizarre idea of allowing bigger clubs to field their reserve sides in the Championship. 
"It could be a great benefit because you don't have to work with a 26-man squad, but a 19-man squad and just recall the best young guys with constant activity" he said, clearly not giving a flying fig about the traditions and passions of other clubs unfortunate enough not to be in the Premier League at this given moment. "What happens in Barcelona is a good model in terms of competitions. They promote talent," he said. Yes, they promote the talent of the top clubs!!

'Just before we go let's take a look at the top of The Championship'

I was absolutely astounded by the arrogance and downright selfishness of this suggestion. 
How would it be decided which Premiership teams could field a reserve side in The Championship? Would it be based on financial standing? Average attendance? It's an absolutely bonkers idea. If Chelsea could do it then why not Newcastle, Sunderland, Villa, etc etc all clubs of equal stature in most peoples eyes, regardless of performance over the last 10 years.


AVB would do well to look at Chelsea's history. Sure, they are one of the top teams in England at the moment but that hasn't always been the case, not by a long stretch. After forming in 1905 it took them 50 years to win a major trophy, the league championship in 1955 (great scott!). Indeed, before their FA Cup success in 1997 they had won the grand total of 4 trophies in their history. They were relegated twice in the 1980's and it is only since Roman Abramovich took over that they have had a period of sustained success. 

Andy Williamson summed it up for me; "Our clubs are constituted as sovereign entities which represent their town or city with pride, rather than being a subsidiary of another club in another part of the country, these are senior professional football matches that matter - they are not just platforms for developing other clubs' players."

Thankfully Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger also waded in to show his disapproval, "The supporters of Barnet do not want their club not to be promoted because the reserve team of Arsenal is in front of them," he said.

Therein lies the difference, Wenger is a man who understands English football, clearly AVB does not. Comments such as this do not endear him to the football fraternity. I can't help hoping that Chelsea get knocked out of the FA Cup by a lower league team after this!

A Grand Day Out

It's been a little while since I posted so there is likely to be a flood of posts now!
Back on Friday the 6th January it seemed like half of Oldham had decamped to Anfield, hoping to witness an FA Cup shock, or at least have a few beers and hope we didn't get thrashed. Liverpool vs Oldham Athletic, a fixture so mouth-watering to Latics fans that many of us queued for 5 hours in torrential rain and a small hurricane to get tickets. The banter kept us going throughout the morning and early afternoon. At one point I turned to my mates laughing and cried "what are we doing here?". It certainly seemed ridiculous. As someone who had been to Anfield twice in our Premiership days, I don't remember these kind of queues. Neither did the ticket office it seems, two staff were on to cope with selling nearly 3000 tickets, the club are simply not used to this kind of demand. Rumours circulated at various points that there were only 200 tickets left, cue anxious looks down the queue trying to assess whether we were going to miss out. It was all bollocks as it turned out. After 5 hours of queueing I could quite easily understand why 2 fans had been treated for pneumonia! As we limped away from the ticket office, walking was an arduous trial. 5 hours of shuffling along had taken it's toll, we felt like we'd been on an expedition with Scott.

We are half way down, still with 2 hours to go!

The atmosphere before the game in the Anfield Road end was immense. We had plenty of time to wet our whistles after stopping for a couple of pints at The Arkles. I have to say there was not one hint of trouble from the Liverpool fans, there was plenty of singing in the pub but no hint of animosity. As you can see from the photos, our 'restricted view' seats were right on the front row. I was more than happy with this, and even happier when Robbie Simpson smashed in a 25 yarder to give us the lead. Could we hold on? My mates optimistic words of "I told you, we're gonna win" had barely left his throat when Bellamys' fortunate deflection levelled the scores. One dodgy penalty later and we were staring down the barrel. I knew deep down that there was no way back, but 5-1 was ridiculous! 

We're gonna win this!

We didn't know why the game had been held up for what seemed like 15 minutes. When I heard some of our fans singing 'You're just a town full of racists' I did wonder if we'd turned on each other! As it turned out Tom Adeyemi had been subjected to some taunting by a small number of idiots in the Liverpool end and he was unsurprisingly unhappy. you've probably read all about this. I believe that had this been any other club then the matter would not have received nearly as much attention, but the media always love a follow-up story and this was manna for those hacks looking to add to the Suarez situation. It was disappointing for us, firstly, because most right-minded people realise there is no place in the game for racism or any other prejudice, and secondly, because we'd actually played really well, and this incident had taken some of the attention away from the performance. We even had a couple of half chances to make it 2-2 and could conceivably been 2 or 3 up before we scored, Kuqi firing a particularly decent opportunity into the side netting. 

It was great to be involved in a big game again. Perennial Premiership mainstays tend to take these games for granted. We knew that realistically it would be a long time before we went anywhere like Anfield again, and we were determined to enjoy it. Of course, there was still the prospect of appearing at Wembley in the JPT final. Oh, hang on....