Media bits and bobs

Time for a few media snippets :

Footie-mad tattooist inscribes penis on rival fan's back The Register

Thank God Jack didn't get up to any mischievousness when he did mine and Dunc's

I liked this too :

BBC NEWS Northern Ireland Peace plan for Craggy Island row

I'm sure Dermot Morgan would have a chuckle over it.

This story didn't interest me at all apart from their tremendous use of the "(far right)" caption.

BBC NEWS Entertainment Complaints rise in new racism row

Similarly I wasn't really bothered about Celebrity Big Brother apart from the fact Shilpa Shetty winning shut that bolshy, trollop Faria Alam's big fat mouth:

slattern pontificates this time last year

And here's a video of Stallone at Goodison :

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1744742337

A day down in the heartland

Ah, the south…where us northerners like to go for a good old moan…and with just cause too. It seemed like we were barely south of Catthorpe when beer suddenly became £3 a pint, huge BMW off-roaders were driving 3 millimetres from our bumper and some bilious old hag called Jane from the Bede Close branch of the Higham Ferrers Self-appointed Landscape-gardening Authorities was ranting and berating us for parking our car on the side of the road…perhaps we’d caught the place on a bad day.

You see the reason we were down here was that this was rugby country. Yes, an actual place where people are rugby fans and walk around wearing rugby tops and everything. Franklins Gardens was just to the south and we’d driven past a place called Welford so presumably Welford Road could not be far away. Yep, Everton’s tame exit from the FA Cup spelt, for us, one thing…Beer & Rugby.

Saints and Tigers would have to do without us for today, however, ‘cause we were headed to Goldington Road for Bedford V Waterloo. This would be an interesting one as it was my first ever Waterloo away game. Visitors to Blundellsands all seem to love it ‘cause it’s a “proper old fashioned rugby club”. Small, friendly little ground, lovely old clubhouse with it’s internationals board and hallowed war memorials, all the old memorabilia along with an open fire and as much real ale as you could ever want.

How would a visit to a fairly big club in rugby’s heartland stack up? Well in truth it stacked up fairly well. For a start there was people there…not millions of them but certainly about 2,000 compared to little Waterloo pulling in 750 - 1,000 on a good day. This didn’t mean that it had that faceless footy ground feeling, a nice clubhouse beckoned and the fans still mill round & mix sociably on the sidelines and the pitch, though oddly sloping was better than you’d see in many Premiership grounds (Guinness & Barclays)…Yep, Bedford is a lovely place to watch a game of rugby.

The home fans seemed a good bunch, we ensconced ourselves in with a couple of group of blues and chatted, drank and enjoyed the game together. It was all very welcoming. Indeed the one loudmouth who spent the game jeering the opposition, shouting at us to get back up the M6 and making lazy, lame “robbing Scouser” jokes about our Scottish number 8 (“Get a haircut you car thief” * pause for laughter *) seemed to be irritating home and away fan in equal amounts. So basically a case of a proper National Division One team being bigger but just as good.

Now onto the game…In that department teams like Bedford are certainly bigger but “just as good” would be a massive understatement. People talk about the gap between the Nationals and the Premiership but for a group of part-timers stepping up against teams like Bedford, Exeter, Pirates, Rotherham etc is just as big-a chasm.

We were gratified to find that the Blues hadn’t snuck any highly rated internationals into their side as they’d done with Tom Varndell back in October. Even so there was only ever going to be one winner. The Blues forced themselves into possession for most of first 40 minutes and Waterloo, it has to be said, defended tremendously. Time and time again the Blues went into contact hard through the middle, recycled professionally and worked it out wide to the quick lads. It sounds patronising but the fact that at half time the score was kept to 13-3 really was a credit to the Merseysiders but inevitably you can’t hold them off for a full 80 minutes. Almost from the off in the second half the gaps began to appear and the Blues class, professionalism and fitness told…it was only when Bedford had their bonus point safely tucked away that Waterloo had a real sustained spell of pressure. The locals were pretty unanimous in praising & applauding the visitors efforts (aside from our loudmouth friend who smugly urged the part-timers to kick for goal in order to double our score) but ultimately we all agreed that on FA Cup forth round day there was never, ever going to be a shock on the cards.

In fairness to our boys this isn’t the sort of game we are targeting but you have to concede that Waterloo will almost certainly go down now. Moseley, our fellow National Division 2 promotion buddies, are making a slightly better fist of it and may stay up but it’s been ultra-tough for both teams. The demands of stepping up into a full-time game and the standards it requires are merciless…Neither Mose or ‘loo are bad sides. They walked to promotion last season and their nearest rivals that year, Esher are strolling the division in their absence.

Fairytales do happen…a post match glance at Bristol scraping a victory against Saints proves that but you get the feeling that for a small, traditional amateur club mixing it with the professionals is going to get tougher and tougher.

It’s not nearly as scary as facing the Bede Close branch of the Higham Ferrers Self-appointed Landscape-gardening Authorities though.

Liverpool Daily Post - Match Report

Bedford Today - Match Report

And here's our Waterloo flag hanging forlornly in the background of this piccie courtesy of Nigel Rudgard

The original and best

William Ralph Dean would have been 100 today. Take a moment to salute the greatest centre forward of them all.

Greatest Ever Everton Team

W.R. Dean from the Everton site



Dixie in his own words





Mr Dean would have probably slapped the player who came out with this :

Pearce baffled by 'greed culture' after cars are put before caps - Sport - Times Online:

"Stuart Pearce was talking to a player recently when he posed what was intended as a rhetorical question. “I said: ‘What would you rather have, a Ferrari or an England cap.’ And they said: ‘Well definitely a Ferrari because they’re fantastic, aren’t they?” the Manchester City manager recalled with horror, shaking his head at the incredulity of it all."

3 points at a cost

So Andy Johnson gets injured the week before the derby. Pretty high price for 3 points. It ort of defines our season. Think back to what's happened since going top of the league against them-across-the-park (as seen above). A few dismal perfmances, lots of awful decisions, games we should have won and inconvenient injuries.

Still, a disspointing season sees us with 35 points at the end of January. Moyes talked about raising expectations when he came to Everton. Maybe my grumbling is testament to that. Still...........

Songs of the day

Roam - B52s


Truganini - Midnight Oil


Chunari chunari (from the Monsoon Wedding soundtrack)

Johnson should have had eight penalties, Hackett concedes | News | Guardian Unlimited Football

Johnson should have had eight penalties, Hackett concedes | News | Guardian Unlimited Football:

"Keith Hackett says Everton's England striker Andrew Johnson may have been harshly treated in being denied several penalties by referees in recent weeks. The admission followed extensive talks with Everton's manager, David Moyes.

Johnson has endured incessant claims this season that he dives, a legacy of similar criticisms during his time with Crystal Palace, and Everton believe that reputation now precedes him. Their disquiet prompted the discussions with Hackett, and the head of the Professional Game Match Officials Board studied video evidence - supplied by the club - of 10 appeals before conceding that the striker seemed unfortunate in eight of them.

'It seems that with Andrew Johnson's pace and ability to go across defenders he has not been getting some of the penalties and free-kicks that he was due,' Hackett said yesterday. 'I want our referees to go on to the pitch with a blank slate and no preconceived ideas. Maybe it's been down to poor positioning or a lack of help from the assistant referees.'"

Thank you Mr Hackett.

This is good :

Alan Green, the BBC’s resident racist does it again. Tired of pickin

Alan Green, the BBC’s resident racist does it again. Tired of picking on Sir Alex Ferguson and Sam Allardyce, Liverpool’s favourite hack has another go at Everton

Nice to see someone feels the same as us about the odious toad.

I'd say this was long overdue :

Moyes meets with refs

They say these things balance themselves up but we've had some terrible decisions go against us this season.

Decision can go against you but in some sports you expect the player to do the honourable thing :

BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | Hussey profits from slice of luck

"'I don't walk, there's no question about it. I've been given out a few times when I haven't been out.

'If I do happen to get out and umpire doesn't give me, that's just the way the game goes,' Hussey commented."


Cheating Aussie get.

If he'd have walked England might have had a decent chance of winning that. The batting failed miserably but the bowling/fielding held the Aussies pinned for ages. They really had to work for that one. Perhaps the've been stung into recovery. We can only hope.

Muhammad Ali - 65 today

Greatest. Of. All. Time.

As-Salaam-Alaikum and happy birthday Sir.

"Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean, I make medicine sick!"

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark."



and continuing an Everton/Boxing theme :



Davey Weir left Everton after 8 year. Sad to see him go as he's been a good solid player for us.

Weir to Rangers

An Evertonian in Paris

Stallone in Paris

Once a blue always a blue?

Good old Sly.

Celebrated Dylan photo recreated & the weekend sport

Celebrated Dylan photo recreated

This was a nice story...especially 'cause the photo was taken on the day of the 1966 FA Cup final when Everton came from two goals down to beat Sheffield Wednesday (and Eddie Kavanagh became the first football hooligan).

Interesting to think of all those people in Liverpool glued to their radios whilst Bob Dylan himself was strolling round the city and posing for photographs with their kids.

Good story about some mischief by some Villa fans :
Football club in diary own goal

Liked this too :
BBC NEWS | Wales | South East Wales | Fans to fly high after match ban

One the face of it it should have been a bad weekend sportwise but our mate Rufus was up from London so we were always going to have fun. First up Waterloo put in an immensely creditable performance against high-flying Earth Titans (When you are playing a team claiming to represent the whole God-damn planet you know you are up against it). They looked very business-like and there was probably only ever going to be one winner but it was only when one of players was sin-binned that they punished us...Amazing as it sounds if Waterloo play like that between now and the end of the season they'll stay up. We had our usual gang at the game plus Rufus and a good time was had by all. We really should get membership next season. I also managed to get my hands on the rather fetching new white 'loo kit.



Going down fighting


Nice one AJ

Sunday saw us trip down to Goodison for a pretty dour game against Reading. The Royals are a fine club with a good manager, you've got to have a lot of respect for them. They nicked a goal largely through our own ineptitude. Everton rallied well in the second half and we equalised...It would have been ace if we could have snatched it at the death but me, Anne, Rufus and Sylvester Stallone all enjoyed the match.



I'm an Everton fan now

From there we had something to eat nipped to Lime St and had a quick pint with our guest whilst watching a fantastic game of footy. Spurs V Newcastle was superb, two of my least favourite clubs went at it hammer and tongs. Brilliant goal by Martins. Net result Everton are 7th....somehow. And pompous old Alan Green got annoyed but then his employers had to apologise for the fat wretch.

4-9 over 180 minutes. Arsenal claim the kop

3-6 and a penalty missed

Wow...didn't expect that. Evertonians have had fun today. Pathetic I know but after years of being on the recieving end it's nice to send a bit back the other way. Best one so far :

Q: What time did liverpool kick off last night

A: Every 15 minutes

The Guardian have been less than impressed with liverpool's look at us, we're the best fans in the world campaign :

Guardian Unlimited: Sport blog: Fans get the team they deserve

Whatever way you look at it that's a spanking...They charged premium rate for the game then put out a 2nd string team. Now fair enough if the manager wants to rest players but should you charge the top rate?

Meanwhile Bascombe's delusions stretch to claiming that liverpool's spending is out-stripped by Arsenal's big money academy

What a loon

In other news Sylvester Stallone is going to be at Goodison Park for the Everton V Reading game at the weekend...how odd.

icLiverpool - Waterloo axe falls on coach Melrose

icLiverpool - Waterloo axe falls on coach Melrose

Shame but maybe a change will be as good as a rest. Dave Blythe has taken over so hopefully they can nick a win or two and get back in touch for the run-in. It'll be a proper miracle if they survive though. Come on 'loo!!!!!

Yesterday we went to see Everton V Blackburn in the cup...utterly wretched way to spend an afternoon. We got bullied and battered and never got going until it was too later. Net result 1-4 at home. Shocking. I'd never walk out on them but it was pretty tempting.



The day before Arsenal had beat liverpool 3-1. Anfield started with a protest against that vile Kelvin MacKenzie and The Sun. Scousers should never buy that filthy rag.

After that their "Aren't we great" campaign started...It must be grim there trying to watch the game surrounded by all those show-offs. 10 minutes to go with the game at 1-3 they get a corner in front of the kop...all of a sudden some loon starts waving a massive flag just behind the goal 'cause they know the cameras will be on them. Must have been annoying for the 200 people behind him who can now see nothing of the goalmouth.

Some catching up

Everton must be going into the new year not knowing whether to be positive or not...The Newcastle game was pretty good. A game that Everton largely controlled and instead of being held at bay or scoring but being pegged back almost imediately we managed to nick a scrappy goal and then consolidate.

After Anichebe had dribbled his opener in we actually looked more confident but a head-to-head the edge of their area lead to us losing concentration and conceding a penalty. Emre sparked off a melee from nowhere, not sure how (rumours abound about spitting or racist abuse) and the ensueing delay didn't help Martins in his preperation for his penalty. It's fair to say it's the worst penalty I've ever seen live...it's possibly the worst pen since Diana Ross in the 94 world cup opening ceremony.

So 1-0 to us at half time...after the break we pressed on and scored from a corner and after Phil Neville had scuffed in his first goal for the club (own goals excluded) we were actually comfortable as the final whistle approached...a very unusual feeling for us it has to be said.

On new year's day City beat us 2-1 (with anothe Johnson penalty claim ignored) so our christmas run was WXWL. Not too bad but the extra point from the City game would have made it look tonnes better.

Not sure which was we'll go...Hibbert and Cahill are coming back but rumours abound at Super Joleon Lescott has attracted interest from Real Madrid. This would be an awful loss for the team. He has been immense since joining. I'd rate him amongst Moyesies best buys.

The weekend see us take on Blackburn in the cup...bad time to play them methinks.

The Cricket capitulation ended last night...a crippling disappointment. Really annoyed about it. You can't really defend the players, their attitude just seemed wrong. Going home for a week instead of fitting in another game. Declining to play warm-up games, bringing their families over and doing their own thing, sticking with the 2005 team no matter how out of form they were.

5-0 leaves the Aussies like pigs in shit gloating away at us.

Still at least we won't hear the phrase "Australia just played some great cricket" again for a while...oh wait there's still the one dayers and we are rubbish at that.

Cultural imperialist redshite

not sure if this is a wind-up or not :

RECLAIM THE KOP - STARTS HERE TODAY:

"On what is a milestone day for the world-famous city of Liverpool, the football club that carries its name is delighted to launch an innovative and educational series that no Liverpudlian dare miss."

This is their official site...Words fail me how pompous liverpool football club can be at times.

It's ace the way they are trying to impose a pre-set uniqueness on everyone.



"Yes, we're all individuals"

Apart from insecure, pretentious, legislated uniqueness from those self righteous no-marks across the park sport is vital in this country

If it wasn't for sport then there would be nothing apart from show about nobodies in various situations or celebrities doing unexpected jobs. Celebrity Dance Idol, Celebrity Singing, Celebrity Horse Riding, Celebrity Haircut Salon, Celebrity Farm, Celebrity Soccer Challenge, Celebrities Sitting in a house for 6 weeks, Celebrities Sitting in a house for 6 weeks, Celebrity Sitting on an island spa for 6 weeks, Celebrity Coal-mining Academy, Celebrity Coastguard Idol conversely you've got obscure nobodies desperately trying to achieve this mythical celebrity status....I despair. What wrong with shows about people who are actually good at the jobs they've chosen and trained for?

If everyone stopped for half a minute and thought about the ridiculousness of these shows then they'd die off overnight.

Buchanan

Arrogant Aussie rubs our noses in it

Spot on rebuttal to Buchanan's arrogant gloating pontificating about England

Buchanan Bluster Deserves to backfire