Fazzinchi

Gary and Alan Preside.

The early evening TV schedules are packed to bursting with football at the moment.  Not surprising given that the biennial soccer festival that is either the World Cup or, in this case, the Euro Championships are here.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that none of the home nations have qualified and, unlike the last time such a thing occurred, we can’t even pretend to Irish to give us a team to follow.  So, we (more…)

How Was That For You?

The second test between England and New Zealand looked odds on to be another tale of woe to add to England’s back catalogue of miserable recent history. Facing a first innings deficit of 179 runs (after a woeful batting display yesterday morning) seemed to be an insurmountable task but some inspiration from the man they call “Monty” and a miraculously rejuvenated batting display meant that England made the victory target (more…)

General Grievous?

• The England cricket team: Why do they bother? Grievous Bodily Harmison needs a new nickname… something related to puppy dogs I should think. Just when it looked like Sidebottom could salvage something from the wreckage of the first test of the New Zealand tour at Hamilton, we conspire to collpase spectacularly (again). I’m just happy, like the England team apparently, to have been asleep through most of it. (more…)

The Future

As a follow-on from my previous football-related post, during which I promised to espouse on the ways that the England footy team can recover from its current pit of despair, another significant event in the England calendar occurred today as the first half of the mountain that needs to be climbed has been identified.  This afternoon’s draw for the qualifying campaign for World Cup 2010 has thrown us, once more, together with scourge of Euro qualifiers, Croatia.  The other teams (more…)

Remember When England Could Win Matches?

When Mladen Petric fired home Croatia’s winner and broke the hearts of every England fan on Wednesday night, I was reminded of an old sketch from the Mary Whitehouse Experience… [adopting a John Motson-style voice] “D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R-F-O-R-E-N-G-L-A-N-D…. and that could spell disaster for England!”. On a global scale, when watching news footage from cyclone-hit Bangladesh or the unfolding political tensions in Pakistan or the quashing of freedom in Burma, it’s easy to argue about the fact that this was, after all, only a football match. (more…)

Another View

The recent England football internationals gave me another excuse, as if one were needed, to head down to the local pub for an afternoon of beer and shouting at the television.  There was a noticable lack of interest in the match against Israel as proved by the usual masses of fans, draped in St George’s Crosses and replica kits, being largely absent (”part-time supporters”, what would you do with ‘em, eh?).  Despite that, the on pitch performance was pretty good.  Steve McLaren (more…)