Following Blues From Afar – A Very Different Christmas, Blues Vs Chelsea – By Aff

January 15, 2010 by Aff · 6 Comments
Filed under: Life In Australia

Sometimes, being an exiled Bluenose makes you feel exactly that – exiled. You tend to miss things that people at home take for granted. Banter in the street, the feeling of superiority after a derby day win, the idiotic ramblings of the TalkSPORT pundits, the genius of Jeff Stelling’s over dramatising Liverpool’s demise. Sure, it’s easy to follow things like this these days with the wonders of modern technology but most people aren’t at their best at 3 AM in the morning and Jeff Stelling – as good as he is – just doesn’t cut the homesick blues when you’re pining to be at St Andrews, and in Birmingham itself.

With that being said, there’s also a sadistic satisfaction to following Blues from Australia. I proudly announce to people that I haven’t missed a Blues game since I arrived in October 2008 and from a sports-mad country like Australia, I still get raised eyebrows and a look that says “We really can’t compete with you ’soccer’ fans.” People here, no matter what they may tell you, do not love sport as much as English football fans love their clubs. Part of this satisfaction came over the Christmas period for me. I felt as though I’d done my duty as a Blues fan and could justifiably claim to be as involved in the club as anyone who had been sitting in the Tilton against Chelsea on Boxing Day.

My story starts many weeks before Christmas when it was decided that for a week after Christmas, I would be visiting Melbourne with Mrs Aff and Mr & Mrs In-Law Aff. We’ve regularly been on roadtrips together over the years and Melbourne is a city that I don’t know much about and yet every Pom I’d ever come across in Aus says that it’s the most English of all the Australian cities. I was itching to visit. The problem was that during my time away (Boxing Day to 3rd January) Blues would be playing twice. Naturally both games would be live on Fox Sports but on the night of the Chelsea game, I would be staying in a motel in Bairnsdale. Wireless internet was not on the menu according to the website and so I’d have to scout around trying to find a pub or club showing the game or manage to scam some internet from someone, somewhere. The second game was versus Stoke and I was pretty sure I’d be okay for that since I’d be staying with family in Melbourne – no issue.

Boxing Day came and I had scouted around on the internet for WiFi hotspots in and around Bairnsdale (pop. 11,282.) McDonalds have 24 hour free WiFi in this country and I considered going to park the car in the car park and just leech coverage – at least radio coverage if not streaming video. However, my laptop is quite old and the battery lasts half an hour tops so unless I could find an in car charger, I was stuffed on that score. I’d scout round local shops once I got there. On Boxing Day morning, I glumly set about making sure I had everything I needed – camera, check, laptop, check, books to read, check, wallet, check, keys, check, phone, check. Everything else, Mrs Aff is responsible for because I’m the type of guy that would make sure I had 14 t-shirts but would forget to pack socks.

As I set about my extensive list of essentials, Mrs Aff had an idea. A rather ingenius lightbulb idea too, so it was.

“Why don’t you take a dial up cable with you? Our internet account has a back up dial account and you can dial out from the motel at a local rate and just stream the commentary of the game?” I gave her one of those looks that said “If you were a puppy, I’d give you a chew stick. You’re very pretty,” and the trip was suddenly looking much more favourable. I had a sneaking suspicion that we’d ‘do’ Chelsea and I’d kick myself forever if we won but I hadn’t heard or seen it happen.

I was envisaging one of those ‘moments’ as a football fan. You know one of those moments that you think about in 5, 10, 15 years and describe in detail to your best mate – and people who have zero interest in football – over and over again. And because your friends and family love you and realise how important it is, they react accordingly and pretend like they’ve never heard it before. I don’t know how many times Mrs Aff has relived the Stern John in the last minute at VP story. Each time, being attentive and pretending like she doesn’t know what’s coming. She’s a really good sort, in case you hadn’t noticed already. I was fearing another Stern John moment and I couldn’t stand the idea that in five years, people would talk about that game against Chelsea where Chucho skinned seven players and then curled one in from 4 million yards. I couldn’t miss that. I couldn’t say that “Ah yes, I was asleep in the middle of nowhere in Victora (I think.)” I had to be connected to it.

The trip up to Bairnsdale was lengthy. We stopped and ate, we had a look around pretty seaside towns, we went and saw Buchan Caves. All very jolly for a family roadtrip. My in-laws asked about the Chelsea game. They often ask me about Blues and keep an eye on how we’re doing. They even ring me up to tell me when Blues games are replayed on Fox Sports to make sure I haven’t missed anything. When in England, Mother-In-Law Aff used to send me Premier League previews from the local papers to give me the Aussie slant on how Blues might do. They were always much more favourable when we had Stan Lazaridis…

We arrived in Bairnsdale and after checking in, I immediately asked the receptionist about the possibility of internet usage. She stated that they had dial up but that the motel could only use one line at a time. I reassured her that at midnight-2 AM, I’m pretty sure I’d be the only one interested in using it! She agreed and stated that she wasn’t sure what the charge for the internet would be. She wasn’t sure whether it would charge me a standard local call (probably around 50 cents – 25 of your English pence) or the much more expensive local motel call rate of 60c per thirty seconds ($108 for 90 minutes!) She said that I’d find out when I got the bill the next day. I gave her a “Are you serious? You’re serious? Do more, find out,” look. She explained that she wasn’t the owner and that the owner was away on holiday at the moment. She agreed to ring and find out for me. She rang. The owner didn’t know either. I didn’t want to risk spending over £50 to listen to a dodgy internet commentary in a game that conceivably we could get tonked in. I was… how shall we put it? Pissed off, that’s it.

So onto the next option.

“Do you know of any clubs in the area that might be showing it?”
“What time does it start?”
“11:45 PM.”
“Well, the RSL closes at midnight.”
“…”

Clearly, they didn’t own it and probably weren’t from around there. Or if they were, it’s put me right off moving there, that’s for sure. Onto option 3, in-car charger to listen to Wi-Fi at McDonalds. Time was getting on at this point. It must’ve been about 4:30 PM. We raced around town looking for electronic shops. Some were already closed (welcome to country Australia, folks!) but we found an independant place that was still open. We popped in and asked a very friendly local if she had in-car chargers for laptops. She stated that she did and showed us a selection. I spied one for $20 but wasn’t sure that it would fit my connection. I needed to check. The lady asked where we were staying. I explained that we were in a motel just around the corner. She stated that if we popped back to check, she would stay open enough time for us to return to make a decision. What a friendly, helpful person… she should really run a motel.

I raced back to the motel. I picked up my laptop. I checked. I raced back (‘raced’ being a term to indicate the gravity of the situation, at no point did I break any local traffic laws and go quicker than signs stated that I am allowed to go. Besides, I wasn’t driving,) to the shop. The $20 did not fit – but there was another one that did. It was in the $70-$100 price range. I baulked. I wasn’t going to shell out £35-40 with no guarantee that McDonalds did not switch internet off when they closed and went to drive-through only and without making sure that it would work at a speed decent enough to stream the game.

Sunk.

I went back to my motel room and sat on the edge of my bed. Thinking, thinking, thinking. I fired up my laptop and did a search for local wireless internet. Depending on where I stood / sat in the room, there was lots of networks around. Only one was unsecured. It belonged to a motel across the street. I double-clicked it to see if I could use it. I couldn’t. I needed a login and password. The wireless range was good enough – again depending on where I stood – but could I use it if I wasn’t staying there? One way to find out.

Off I trudged to Kansas City Motel across the road from where I was staying. I walked in and addressed the lady behind the counter recalling the entire story from start to finish and explained how important this game is. “And so, would I be able to purchase some internet from you even though I’m not staying here?”
The woman looked slightly confused and ever so slightly proud at the same time. She looked at me:
“Well, no-one has ever asked before. But I don’t see why not. We’re fully booked anyway so it’s not like you could stay here even if you wanted to.” And I handed her seven Australian dollars and she handed me, what I can only describe as Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket. I clutched it tightly in my paw and – I’m not proud of this – moonwalked across the street back to my own motel. My mother-in-law saw me and there’s a photo in existence of me looking more excited than any man has a right to over a piece of paper of that size.

I booted up my laptop to make sure that I could connect. I did so. It was odd because it would only connect to certain sites. I couldn’t check the BBC but I could check bcfc.com and Joys & Sorrows. I hoped against hope that I could stream the game through a football subscription site that I am a member of. Time would tell – but for now, I had to get some shut-eye. I needed a couple of hours worth of sleep before the game kicked off in order to be able to function the next day – day 2 of the road trip, Bairnsdale to Melbourne including a three hour coastal walk along the cliffs at Kilcunda.

11 PM came and I wasn’t asleep. After a big family dispute about the longest river in Australia and where it starts, we ended up doing the Melbourne Herald Sun’s quiz. We didn’t do very well and eventually, I decided that 45 minutes sleep wasn’t going to make much difference so I did what I always do when I’m waiting for Blues to kick off – I walked up and down the room stressing. The accommodation was pretty basic with one bedroom locked away from an open-plan kitchen, living room, second bedroom kinda deal. Mrs Aff and I took the open plan since I’d be watching Blues in the ‘kitchen’ whilst the in-laws took the private bedroom – mainly because I couldn’t get wireless connectivity in there!

15 minutes before kick off and I booted up the laptop. I connected. It fluctuated between 0-60% connectivity. I held the laptop up. I placed it on the floor. I sat with it on my lap. I put it on the table. I opened the door. I opened a window. I opened the curtains. I moved furniture. Still, it wouldn’t connect to the stream. Several under-breath profanities later, it connected briefly. 10 minutes had already gone and I feared I’d missed the Chucho wonder-goal where he beat 19 players and curled it in from 9 million yards. Not so.

I worked out that balancing the laptop on top of the TV in front of the window gave me 60% connectivity and the speed tended to vault up and down between 1.5mb and 6mb. This was good enough and I settled (stood) up to watch the game. I stood a few inches in front of my laptop with one paw holding it at all times to make sure that it didn’t fall (although mainly because I didn’t want to risk losing connectivity and somehow, my hand on it meant that my body was some sort of wireless receiver, I didn’t want to stop that… y’know, just in case.) I stood like this for nearly two hours, watching as we took on the very best – and didn’t come off second best.

Chucho’s ‘goal’ (from 3 yards, not nine million) sort of caught me unawares and there may have been celebrating, whooping (whisper-whoop as I’d now like to Christen it,) pumping of fist and running round in mini-circles before I realised that it had been disallowed. Thankfully, the laptop stayed fairly steady on top of the TV and the wireless receiver running around in circles like a child at a birthday party did not break a really good quality stream.

At the end of the game, I was exhausted. Slightly disappointed too since Chucho’s goal really should’ve stood and we could and should have been 1 up. Maybe that would’ve spurred Chelsea on but in the circumstances, a point was a good point and it kept the unbeaten run going. I didn’t miss any of those moments that you talk about in 10, 15 years although I daresay that I’ll be recounting this story many times. People have already asked about it and again, more shakes of the head and raising of eyebrows as I recount various aspects of it.

When you go through stuff like this, it makes you realise that whether you’ve forked out £400 for a season ticket, go when you can afford to, let Blues ruin or make your weekend or whether you just get up at 3 AM in the morning to watch a pixelated internet stream, we’re all part of one club and you do what you can when you can to prove this. During this trip, I really felt like I did my part and at the end of the game, I stood and applauded the blue pixels off the screen like I was there. I felt like Roger Johnson was applauding me back at full time and in that moment, I realised that being exiled doesn’t mean being excluded, it just means that I get to show my commitment in a whole other sort of way.

Part two coming soon, Blues away at Stoke…

You can follow me on twitter – http://twitter.com/affbcfc

Tags: Australia, birmingham blues bcfc chelsea roadtrip aff australia, Birmingham City, Blues, Chelsea, Christian Benitez

Liverpool 2-2 Birmingham City – A View From Down Under

November 10, 2009 by Aff · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Life In Australia

I know it may sound childish but each time I type ‘View From Down Under’, I have a small chuckle to myself. I’m quite childish. But in the same way that infantile humour makes me giggle, the idea of watching Blues makes me excited. I’m very easily excited, especially considering some of the stuff that I’ve seen us play in the past – and then still been excited about us the weekend after. I mean, the Liverpool home defeat in the 1/4 final of the FA Cup, for example. It still brings me out in a cold sweat just thinking about it but the following weekend, I was still excited about the prospect of Blues playing (don’t bother looking it up, we were beaten 3-0 by Chelsea!)

And following on from the win against Sunderland and the good performance against Manchester City, I was very excited about our game today. I genuinely gave us a chance of winning. We were never going to be favourites and any other result but a home win would still have been viewed as a bit of an eyebrow raiser. Still, we have a good record against Liverpool in the Premier League and with Liverpool going through a bad run and also missing key players, a good result was on.

The game was to be screened live here (as most games are) but it was to kick off at 7 AM. Seven AM is not a problem for me. I can wake up at pretty much any time of the day or night and I’m yet to miss a Blues game since I arrived in October 2008 so being up and awake at daft hours is sort of second nature by now. Not that 7 AM is strange, really. It’s actually pretty good, being able to watch live football before work.

Ah, yes, work.

This game was not like the Manchester City game. I could not book the day off. One of my colleagues had selfishly booked this week off meaning that in a company that has exactly three employees, gaining a day off on the same day as a colleague was always going to be difficult impossible. So it was decided that I would get up at around 6:30 AM, get ready for work, watch the first half and the first twenty minutes of the second half and then high tail it to work to be ready for an 8:30 AM start where I would listen to the rest of the game via Blues Player.

Best laid plans…

The phone goes around 7:15 AM (or as I like to call it “For f**k’s sake o’clock” – we’d just gone 1-0 down) and Mrs Aff suddenly needs a lift to her mother’s house before I have to go to work. So I decide that I would watch the first half, deliver Mrs Aff to her location and then watch about 10-15 minutes of the second half at my mother-in-law’s house who lives quite near my place of work. My mother-in-law / Mrs Aff combo was due to look after my twin nephews for the day and so when I arrived at said house just after the second half had kicked off, they were not amused when I switched off The Wiggles to watch Blues… although the indoctrination has already begun with said twins already owning a home and away Blues kit between them. One of them has also learnt how to yell ‘Chucho!’ too.

But that is fast forwarding a little bit. Let me go back to “For f**k’s sake o’clock”. Feeling glum with the way we had started, I decide that I would have a bit of a post. I go fishing and blame Joe Hart for the goal on the J & S forum. Unfortunately, no fishes were biting today so I settled back down and focussed 100% on the game. Ridge isn’t a left back, we’re really missing Ferguson, Chucho appears to be too lightweight and needs to learn to stick up for himself. McFadden’s injured. McLeish doesn’t take him off. Next thing I know, we’ve gone and equalised…

Apparently, Blues scoring is dangerous and excessive jumping in a rental property that is somewhat less than sturdy can cause damage. I am warned that if I must jump around and scream like a girl when Blues score, I must stand next to the TV unit in order to catch the TV if it falls. It supposedly, ‘wobbled’. I can’t say I noticed.

I join in with the wonderful rendition of KRO that is booming through my speakers as Mrs Aff kindly fetches me my work clothes so that I don’t have to move from in front of the TV. She’s a good sort. At this point, I must point out that I was not naked whilst watching Blues. That would be weird. I was wearing a very manly dressing gown.

It’s already quite warm, I open the door to the deck and let the neighbours hear that there is a cat being bludgeoned to death with some sort of blunt object in my house. In fact, it was just Liam Ridgewell deciding that he was bored of defending so he thought he’d help the Liverpool attackers by heading the ball across the Blues penalty area (had he REALLY wanted to help, he could’ve just pretended to tackle a Liverpool striker) and then Chucho blazes wide from a tight angle and I can’t help but let out an expletive and stamp my foot like a petulant child (or Steven Gerrard when things aren’t going his way.)

Mother-in-law’s house is about 10-15 minutes drive away so I decide that, as soon as the half time whistle goes, I’ll brush my teeth (last thing I do before leaving the house) and then immediately get gone. I stand half in the living room and half in the laundry. I decide that I really want to see the beginning of the second half so I decide that it looks as though there’ll be no more action in the first half and decide to brush my teeth early. Just as I put my man-sized helping of toothpaste on my red toothbrush (did you know that they don’t have Aquafresh in Australia?) I hear Mrs Aff make a funny noise and then half yells and half confuses ‘Aff… errr…. Afffffffff!’

I walk in to see Cameron Jerome doing a full length dive in front of the Blues fans and the scoreline change in the top left hand corner. Mrs Aff describes the action “It just sort of bobbled into the net. It didn’t look like he meant it, really.” (I’ve just explained to Mrs Aff what happened this morning and she swears that she never used the term ‘bobbled’. She did. Believe me.) I watch the rather crappy replay and revel in the dissatisfaction in the voices of the commentators. I didn’t jump this time, I didn’t have to save the TV. Instead, I try and brush my teeth whilst singing KRO. I spit all over the place and decide that it’s worth it.

The journey to mother-in-law’s house is a good one. The sun is shining, the sea looks spectacular and AC/DC randomize on my car stereo. I (badly) change the lyrics to celebrate our half time status and revel in the delight of Liverpool’s misery. I laugh about the idea of Fox Sports FC on Fox Sports tonight. Last week, they claimed that Manchester City had been involved in an “embarrassing draw with Birmingham City.” What would they make of this?! I crow and sing about how today could not be ruined and how everything appeared to be just a bit brighter and nicer than usual. Even the feckwit in front of me going 40 KPH in a sixty zone was not bothering me… Swell.

I arrive at mother-in-law’s house and turn The Wiggles off. The twins immediately turn into hobgoblins of death as opposed to angelic beings as Anthony and his multi-coloured friends disappear. They climb over me and then turn their attentions to each other. One boots the other in the face (and amazingly, the bootee doesn’t go down claiming a penalty like he’d been shot, in fact, he doesn’t even cry) and so I pretend that I care more about them than I do about Blues and try to separate them. I move the bootee away from the booted and in doing so, I accidentally bang his head on the floor (there was contact, I didn’t get the ball but still, the kid did not appeal for a penalty) and he starts balling his eyes out. Sod him.

I leave him and return to the game. I watch for the next ten minutes and then craftily confess that “I can’t see Liverpool scoring a goal here, y’know!” before I run around touching walls. I’m not crazy, my mother-in-law’s house is made of wood and so it made perfect sense. Well, at the time. Now I think about it and I’m a little bit embarrassed, especially considering the quality of Liverpool’s equaliser. They were clearly going to score a Jerome-esque effort to bring it level and I was foolish to write off a top 8 side.

It appears that I’m having quite a few sly digs at Liverpool here. It’s not really Liverpool that I’m feeling aggrieved by, really. It’s the whole footballing system and the type of people in the game today. I could go on a five hour rant about such things but I’ll save you that… let’s just say that honesty, class and honour left the game long ago and it’s few and far between that we get genuine class in the game any longer. We’d all like to pretend that our club and its employees are above and beyond such actions but the sad fact of the matter is that if it had been the other way around, the majority of Blues fans would’ve been trying to justify it.

But I digress…

I climb into my car and hope that we’re still winning by the time I get there. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I withstand the urge to break the law and check the message. I swing into my favourite car parking spot and immediately check my phone… was it good news? Was it bad news? Was it someone taking the piss? “McFadden booked” reports Mrs Aff. She’s a really good sort. I text back that saying that I would bring on McSheff for McFads.

I get into the office and switch my PC on. The boss calls me into his office and insists on going through five million things before I am allowed to escape. I’ve received another text message by now. I’m dying to check it. Eventually, I leave his office and find “Liverpool penalty.” My heart sank.

The boss has already put ABC Local on the wireless and so I drown that out with commentary live from Anfield. Hearing Tom Ross in paradise is a bit disconcerting, to say the least. The game updater thing reports that it’s 2-2 and from this point on, I can only taste defeat. I listen to the rest of the game but cannot get a feel for it. Thankfully, the final whistle goes and my commentary with it.

The rest of my day was pretty uneventful in terms of this report so I’ll do an Offspring and spare you the details. I’ve watched the game in full since I arrived home and to say that it’s a disappointment would be an understatement. I can understand why Walton gave the penalty but that doesn’t mean it is one. The fact is that a Liverpool player saw a leg, jumped over it and onto the floor and cheated his team level. When you see things like this, it really does turn you off to the game. At work today, I was over the moon with a point but after seeing it on TV, it deflates you, especially considering how close the margins between staying up and relegation can be.

McLeish has called our performance “magnificent”. I’m not sure I agree with the assessment. However, it was gutsy and the type of performance that, as Blues fans, we expect. Players were willing to put themselves on the line for the cause and they showed that never say die attitude. We’ll play better this season and lose so to come away with a point at one of the top eight is encouraging.

On today’s performance, we’ve learnt just how essential Barry Ferguson is to Blues and the new brand of football that we’re trying to play, that Chucho may have a bit of a fox in the box nature about him as well as being a speed merchant (I still feel as though he needs to toughen up a bit), that Ridge cannot go on playing left back, that McFadden is never going to be a wide player, that Jerome actually can control a ball from time to time and that Joe Hart can answer his critics and play under the microscope… the world would’ve been watching him today after Taylor’s clean sheet against Manchester City.

But mostly, we’ve learnt that we have a group of players who as well as being able to play a bit, can also put in a performance of guts, guile and balls – basically, the minimum I’d say that most Blues fans expect from their side.

See you after Fulham!

You can follow me on Twitter @affbcfc

(I’ve just asked Mrs Aff to proof read this. She’s insistent that she didn’t say bobbled. I’m quite hungry. Tea’s nearly ready. Now that I think about it, I think she might’ve said ’sailed’.)

Tags: aff australia birmingham, cheat, ey ey calm down, Liverpool

Blues Down Under – The New Board

November 7, 2009 by Aff · 5 Comments
Filed under: Life In Australia

Hello London, this is Sydney(ish) calling.

I’ve been in Australia for about a year now. I’m happy to report that things are going well. To quote a balding sixty-something year old New York song writer “Things are okay with me these days, I got a good job, I got a good office, I got a new wife, got a new life and the family is fine.” We’re just coming into summer and daylight savings means that I get up every morning to live football on the telly and 20-25 degrees outside. Life is sweet although watching ‘Super Sunday’ games is a bit of a hassle if it’s a good un such as Chelsea Vs Manchester United since they kick off at around 3 AM on Monday AEST. Not ideal when one is due at work at 8:30 AM. That said, Blues kicked off as that time last Sunday so I booked the day off. It would’ve been worth it had we won although missing any day off work is never necessarily bad.

Super Sunday here in Aus consists of watching North Queensland Fury against Wellington Phoenix. It doesn’t really cut the mustard, really. Still, bless ‘em, they try. And Fox Sports certainly have their own Jamie Redknapp – winner of the ‘Pundit I’d most like to hit in the face with a frying pan because he never says anything remotely interesting nor controversial but does occasionally say something really stupid’ award in the shape of Robbie Slater. And there’s Mark Bosnich, who annoys me because despite the fact that, at a relatively young age, I was taught to dislike him, actually says some mildly interesting and amusing things. And he puts Slater in his place. Which makes me happy which makes me forgive Bosnich for all of his past demeanours a little bit.

Still, it’s not really the standard of local football that I’m here to blog about. I’m finally settled in Australia now and in some sort of rhythm as far as life goes. So I decided that, with Kev’s permission, I’d start to blog about what it’s like following Blues from the other side of the planet. So from this point on, I’ll blog weekly(ish) about the goings on at St Andrew’s from an ex-pats point of view as well as sharing tidbits of what it’s like to live in Australia.

The backend of last season was a bit of a nightmare here. Blues were on TV occasionally (when they were on back home) but coverage was irregular and a half hour round up of all action from the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 every Tuesday night did not suffice. Online coverage was sketchy too. As quickly as footage was uploaded to places like YouTube, it was erased due to copyright issues. Which I suppose is fair enough but when you’re a homesick Pom, it’s a bit of a pain. Still, promotion was achieved via a dodgy online footy stream that decided it needed to buffer every 2 minutes or so. I’m sure that those at Reading saw it in a bit more High Def than us here in Aus. Still, the result is all that matters and promotion to the Premier League meant red button access. Fox Sports show five Saturday 3 PM kick offs concurrently at 2 AM (midnight when it’s not daylight savings) so there’s a good chance that Blues will be on live here every week. Which means I’ll see more of Blues here in Australia that I could afford to in England! So far, I’ve missed just one game – Blues at home to Bolton, which was not shown here.

Oh, and Arsenal. But that wasn’t down to the selection decisions of the Fox Sport directors. That was down to my cable box blowing up literally just as the game kicked off. By the time I had tuned into the service that is Blues World, we were already 2-0 down. My other half was not amused since she’s the TV guru in our household and naturally, at 2 AM, when the cable and TV weren’t working, it was her job to fix it. She failed and eventually went back to bed in a huff. When I flipped the PC on and found us 2-0 down, she thought that I should’ve been too busy being appreciate for her efforts to fix the TV rather than focussed on how Blues were getting on. Women, eh?

And speaking of Blues World (or whatever it’s called these days) I hope one of the upgrades to the club as a result of the takeover is to ditch the jokers that run it and try and find a better way to connect with exiled fans. The service is a joke and in my experience, rarely does what it claims to do – Ie. Give exiled fans commentary. I won’t bore you with the list of mess ups throughout the years, suffice to say, it’s left me very bitter at the fact that I have no other choice but to subscribe if I want to hear Blues live when we’re not on TV. I hope that Blues World isn’t the way that Yeung, Hui, Yu, Pannu, Dunford and co are hoping to win over the 5 gazillion Chinese fans that we now have.

So as far as coverage goes, I was really looking forward to this season. And then we made the signings that we did and everyone was optimistic. We didn’t start quite as well as we’d hoped and optimism quickly turned into despair. Meanwhile, Yeung had turned up again and decided that this time, he had the funds and Sullivan and Gold were ready to play ball. Things happened very quickly and at the back end of last season, who would’ve guessed that in January, we’d have a different board with different ambitions?

What I like about the new board is that they seem to realise that football is fun. The last board – and a lot of fans across the footballing spectrum – became obssessed with winning, with success, with moving the football club on, with not getting left behind, with buying a better player, making more money. It’s a depressing thought since football has always been and should always be about having a laugh, a bit of fun, destressing from the week. It’s a little bit of a worry when the stress of football is taking over from the stress of a working week! Maybe fun isn’t the right word and perhaps I’m not painting it in the light that I wish to paint it in, like Blues are just a bit of light-hearted fun to me. That’s not true and I can’t really seem to find the correct words. Still, on we plough…

One word that is not correct is entertainment. I hate the idea that football is ‘entertainment’. WWE Wrestling is ‘entertainment’. A Keanu Reeves film is ‘entertainment’ (comedy really, but still.) A choreographed TV programme is ‘entertainment’. Football should never be choreographed or predictable or entertainment. Entertaining, sure… but somehow, that’s different. Entertainment to me is something that is designed to amuse or engage using a certain angle or coming from a certain direction. Football should be unpredictable and you should get that feeling that anything could happen when you walk through a turnstyle or sit down in front of your TV (in my case.) I still get that but it’s becoming harder to find.

And that’s why the new board seem to be such a breath of fresh air. Without jumping on the bandwagon of absolutely slating the old board – a viewpoint I generally find to be a little bit disrespectful and unappreciative on the whole – the new board seem to have realised that you need to give the fans something to be happy about. And not necessarily a 40m budget for a transfer window. And speaking of that, that worries me somewhat… what if we spend 40m and get relegated? What happens? Assume we can sell players but will they go for as much as we paid? Probably not. The old board always budgeted for relegation very well, despite what some might say.

But back to the point about the new board understanding what is required. A sense of fun and occasion, a sense of everyone working together, a sense of respect for the fans, a sense of general oveall enjoyment. I have no doubts that behind the fun-loving, getting pissed at Chinese restaurants with the fans antics lie some serious and impressive people. But coming in and immediately banging on about progress, about success, about achievements, about what the fans need to do to make it happen is not what we want. It’s not what football wants – or needs. The fun needs to be put back into the game and dare I say the word that tends to, most of the time, make me cringe when I hear it… no sod it, I’ll say it – CHARACTERS. That’s what the new board seem to be.

No-one’s saying that you can afford to run a Premier League team whilst half pissed and not focussing on what needs to be done. But there has to be scope for a bit of lively fun and clowning around. Something to brings the smiles back to the faces when the roll of the ball may not be doing so. A director grabbing a microphone (a director, I hasten to add who is not Delia Smith) and yells “I love you all!” to an astonished St Andrew’s and then goes head-to-head in a drinking competition with a local Viler and then sings KRO with the fans is exactly what we need!

Anyone remember the Barry Fry days? Compared to the days of say, Trevor Francis, they weren’t terribly successful. Yes, we won two trophies but unfortunately, we had to be relegated in the first place to do so! Bazza got rid of the youth set up and bought so many bad players and caused so many arguments that often, we found ourselves – as a third tier club – unable to get OUT of the newspapers. They were great days and people loved them because there was that sense of amusement surrounding it all. A cloud of disbelief and astonishment hung over the club because literally, you never knew what was coming next.

Then Trev took over and took us tantalisingly close to silverware and the Premier League. Some of those games under TF – the atmosphere especially – will live with some ‘noses forever. But overall, was it more fun that it was under Bazza? I’d argue that it wasn’t. Trev sort of dragged the club up towards a more professional footing and layed a lot of the groundwork for when W’or Brucey took over. But they never quite matched up to the days of Bazza being in charge, did they?

This is how I sort of feel about the new board, I think. Whilst the old board may (and it has yet to be proven) have been more professional and responsible in the way they made sure that the future of the club was never in doubt, there’s a sense of curiousness, anxiety and excitement about the new board. They could literally do anything and I always have the feeling that when I get up in the morning, I could read anything on my PC screen regarding Blues. I mean, we literally could’ve signed Ronaldo to play on the wing… but backed this up by signing the Honey Monster as cover for left back. It’s that sort of silly scenario that makes me glad that the takeover has gone ahead.

I mean, I’m sure that none of the above will happen and I’m sure that in time, we’ll see a thoroughly slick and professional outfit emerge who ARE capable of running the club to the same standard – and more – than the last board. I sincerely hope so. But I always hope that there’s this rogue element to their ownership. The type of thing that could see literally anything come from the left field and blind sight us all. The old board lost that ability and it was always middle of the road stuff with David Sullivan’s broadsides at the fans the only really thing out of the ordinary – and even after a while, they became second nature.

The now have the keys to the kingdom, let’s see what they can do with them… this expat is excited about the future. Even if the future spells financial oblivion and relegation to the third tier to play against little teams like Leeds, Charlton and Southampton!

Yours in Down-Underness…
Aff

Ps. If you do not remember me or you’d like to read some of my stuff from the olders days of J&S, you can do so here.

Tags: Arsenal, Australia, Barry Fry, Carson Yeung, Chelsea, David Gold, David Sullivan, Manchester Utd, Premier League, The Board, Trevor Francis

Swansea Vs Blues – Report From Down Under

November 25, 2008 by Aff · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Life In Australia, Matches

I have to get a couple of things out of the way before telling you about my experience of Blues away at Swansea this weekend. Firstly, the point of today’s blog, to report on Blues away at Swansea City. Here’s a selection of match reports for your viewing pleasure :

- Beeb
- Teamtalk
- Guardian
- Singing The Blues
- BCFC.com
- Swansea City site

Secondly, there hasn’t been any updates for the last week. You may or may not have noticed. I apologize for that. You see, I’m having second thoughts about the blog. Not about running it, you understand. I love running it and the new angle has re inspired me somewhat. However, for every match, I’m finding that my reports’of “Got up at stupid O’Clock, listened on radio via painfully slow internet, didn’t get an impression of what really went on,” might get a little bit tedious after a while.

Thankfully, I’ve already had offers of help from various people and I will get around to replying to them soon enough. It seems as though the more time I get online, the more things there are to do. I’m pleased to say that it looks like Bazza will once again offer his regular column – complete with travel reports! – and Nat has agreed to do some work on match previews and match reports. Anyone else willing to offer will be hearing from me shortly. I’m after Blues-specific articles. Obviously, you’d think, eh?!

Basically I’m trying to say that whilst I try and get back up to speed with blogging regularly and signing up people to write articles etc, it might be a little bit ’samey’ for a while. I’m trying to build a picture of what it’s like to be supporting Blues from afar. I don’t think I’ve done that too well yet. The time difference, the lack of sleep, the lack of access to every day news, the finding time to specifically ‘catch up’, the onslaught of local sport that’s more important etc. It’s not easy. I hope to, in time, mix experiences of exile life with the every day articles that once made Joys & Sorrows such an interesting read.

Anyway, Swansea away…

A Friday night fixture at home meant an early Saturday morning for me. I’d been a bit disconnected this week with news of finding a job and buying a car being at the forefront of my mind. Blues sort of took a back seat although British football in general was beginning to seep into my consciousness thanks to the adding of Setanta Sports to our Austar TV package – for just $6 a month, no less! They show English international football, English international cricket and perhaps most importantly Setanta Sports News.

Now I know what some of you might be thinking : Setanta Sports News is crap! And yes, when compared with its more slick Sky Sports counterpart, it is. But when you compare it to Fox Sports News, you’d be counting your blessings. Especially when you see some of the presenters. Sky Sports News can boast Jeff Stelling and Georgie Thompson… Fox Sports have some chick whose head is so square that I keep thinking Buzz Lightyear is bringing me the latest NRL results and a guy who is so wooden that Pinocchico has started drinking, such is his worry that someone might take his job at next year’s panto at the Sydney Opera House.

Setanta Sports don’t have the best presenters but its heavily football-based and so at least its easy to see what is going on – and they show the Premier League highlights at 11 AM Sunday, a full 30 hours before Fox Sports. Plus it has Steve Claridge who makes me laugh by his absence. You just know that he’s thinking about the 10/3 outside bet at the 3:20 at Newmarket instead of focusing on the football. The quick-flick of the Sunday papers are good too. All the ridiculous headlines without the inconvenience of having to surf the web to these sites or find someone daft enough to buy the rags (because, let’s face it, who buys the Daily and Sunday Star?)

Blues were set to kick off at 6:45 AM on the Saturday morning. I decided that instead of getting up, I would run the internet cable down through the hall, leave my laptop next to my bed and simply lie in bed with some headphones on. There were no live games on the TV to accompany listening to Blues and so staying in bed seemed like the most sensible idea. Besides, having coffee whilst listening to Blues probably wouldn’t be the most sensible idea. My nerves are frayed enough…

After some minor scrapping – and swearing – with my power saving features on my laptop, I managed to tune in just as the game was kicking off. For once, McLeish and I were on the same wavelength and he picked the same side that I would’ve away from St Andrew’s. I think Kemy’s more of an option at home but at a place where a draw might be considered a good result, it’s important to be strong in the middle and Nafti is certainly that. Quincy getting a start, McFads up top alongside the much unfairly maligned Marcus Bent. Well done, Big Eck! I can sense a victory.

D’oh. 30 odd seconds in and it’s all going wrong. I had been warned not to celebrate when we scored or berate our lot if we went behind. After all, it’s one thing lying in bed listening to Blues when you’re alone, quite another thing to inflict Blues on your partner who is sleeping soundly next to you. To my credit, I huffed and left it there. I did want to ask just what the fudge was going on, question how much we wanted it, and generally berate everything and anything from Wales – possibly with the exception of Katherine Jenkins because her accent seems pretend.

From the “Great commentary, Tom!” I was getting via 1152, it sounded as though Swansea could’ve gone in three or four up. Jaidi was being run for pace and isolated each time whilst Blues seemed sluggish and generally clueless. Since I’d arrived in Australia, I’d heard us win just once on the radio, last week against Charlton when everyone agreed that it was just one of those games where mad things happen and that our victory was more by accident than design – and hearing us struggle was something I was, sadly, becoming all too familiar with.

Tom Ross and Jon McCarthy tried to be positive but there was no denying the fact that Marcus Bent’s equaliser was rough justice on our hosts. Still, taking your chances is perhaps the most important aspect of this game of ours and we’d done that. But the fact that we’re still being outplayed by most teams is a worry. The scoreline took a more correct turn before the break and I spent the half time break lying on my side – sulking. To make matters worse, it was absolutely lashing it down outside. We’ve been in drought for a while here and the rain was welcome news for the locals. I was supposed to be pleased that having come from two years of solid, almost uninterrupted rain, I had walked into yet more torrential rain. Pft.

I avoided falling asleep and tuned in just as the second half was kicking off. Honestly, off the top of my head I can’t remember the subs or when the Swansea injuries happened. It’s been over 24 hours and I’ve read nothing up on the match yet. It’s amazing how much you forget when you go simply by commentary. Especially when you’ve listened to as many games as I have over the years. I really should do the geek thing and save the text match reports from Blues Live before attempting to write any sort of match report.

The second half sounded much more even with Blues having a lot more of it. Super sub Kevin Phillips (oh how he must hate that tag) came good and showed just why he’s on the wages he is with two goals to win the game for Blues. The descriptions of the goals weren’t exactly superb with lots of “ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” and “OHHHFDGSAFSDAfdsavfsdfgfdsg!!!!!!!!!” from Ross. Someone really needs to tell him to stop that. We know how to celebrate a goal. We don’t need him celebrating on our behalf. The only thing I really learnt about Super Kev’s goals were that the second one went into the top right hand corner. Aside from that, not a clue.

I greeted the equaliser with a clenched fist and a punch of the air. Which annoyed Mrs Aff because she decided that 8 AM on a Saturday morning is a good time for a “cuddle with Aff”. If she was mildly annoyed by that, I’m pretty sure she considered divorce when the winner was greeted with “YESSSS!!!!!” and a rendition of “Super, Super KEV!” Actually, in all fairness, the rendition did seem to last at least four hours. In fact, I woke up singing his name this morning. Ex-Villa or not, he’s doing the business at key times this season.

Blues winning on a Saturday morning is a great way of starting your weekend. The main focal point of the whole weekend is over with and you know it’s gone well. When the game kicks off at 3 PM on a Saturday – or 5:20 – it still has the potential to ruin everything. It’s even worse if Blues play on a Sunday and we lose. After all, it just reminds us that work is just around the corner and ruins at least half of your weekend. On the plus side, at least Saturday could be enjoyed. It’s a quandary.

As I touched upon in my previous blog, being an exile brings a unique perspective on performance versus points. Whether Blues win or lose, commentary rarely changes and there’s exciting bits and not so exciting bits. Even if Blues are crap, there’s hope when Ross’s voice goes high-pitched and unfathomable and bad news when you hear a cheer but no squeal. The commentary doesn’t describe the action, it doesn’t paint a picture in your mind, it doesn’t help you work out what’s happening. For an exile, all that matters is being connected and winning the points. Do I care if we didn’t play well when it’s 5 AM in the morning? Not really. All I want is for us to have won so I can go to bed with us in a better position than when my alarm woke me up. In the cold light of day, I can read and analyse a lot more and realise that we’re being quite fortunate but when we’re playing, I honestly don’t care.

Against Swansea, it didn’t sound like we played particularly well. Jon McCarthy (one of my all time Blues heroes) and Tom Ross were struggling to be positive and when this happens, you know that it must be truly bad. But we took three points. And I can forgive the bad performance and I can forgive the lack of entertainment and value for money because we won. I haven’t spent my hard earned money following and watching Blues so therefore, all I care about is the success. I’d love us to play Arsenal-esque football (only, with the ability to win from time to time!) and have people rave about us but I’m a bit more realistic than that and for now, and especialy in this league, winning is the most important thing.

Some believe that Blues fans, and football fans in general, are now treated like customers. We’re customers of the entertainment industry and as such, we should be offered up suitable entertainment for our hard earned. After all, when you come out of the cinema or away from a concert, you will inevitably compare the outlay with the quality of the product on offer. Why should football be any different? I agree with this point of view but again, as an exile, I’ll take a win over a performance every day of the week.

Had I been writing this six months ago, my opinion might have been different. I’ve seen some turgid stuff at St Andrew’s over the years and having walked out of the ground shaking my head, I’d wished I’d stayed at home. But when I take five minutes to think about such games, they’re all cheap cup games where we’ve struggled to knock over sub-standard opposition with aplomb or games where we’ve failed to get a favourable result. Not too many times have I walked out thinking that I wish I hadn’t bothered if Blues have won.

But then, that’s just me and when you’re starved of watching the club regularly, any visit to St Andrew’s to watch Blues is an event and any chance to see us win is one that’s taken. So maybe that should be the latest poll… performance versus points. Versus Swansea, I’m delighted to take the points. I’m now off to read what others thought of the performance.

Tags: Swansea City

Blues Vs Charlton – A Report From Down Under

November 25, 2008 by Aff · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Life In Australia, Matches

After staying up until stupid o’clock (3:30 AM to be precise) playing Xbox games at a relatives place the previous night, the 2 AM Sunday kick off time for Blues – Charlton was always going to be a big ask. I had planned to go to bed at around 7 PM on the Saturday night and get about 6 hours of shut eye so I could be fresh for the game when my alarm woke me up at 1:45 AM.

No such luck.

Have you ever played Football Manager? I suspect so. I found a copy of FM 2006 in a shop for $5 (about 2 quid) the other day and decided that, with the majority of my entertainment stuff still floating somewhere around the Atlantic on its way to Australia, it would give me something to pass the next few weeks. It’s beginning to cost me.

Have you ever seen the screen that tells you your Addictiveness Rating and it starts off ‘Just One More Game’? Well, this is where I found myself on Sunday evening having led an average Perth Glory team to the top of the A-League at the expense of the Dwight Yorke and Steve Corica inspired Sydney FC. 7 PM rolled by, I carried on playing. 8 PM rolled by, I carried on playing. 9 PM rolled by, I carried on playing, 10:30 PM came and I finally switched it off. I eventually got to sleep close to midnight.

My alarm buzzed and my first instinct was to throw it through the window. Then I remembered that I have a blog to keep and it would look unprofessional to sleep through a game. Actually, I just can’t stand the idea of missing a Blues game and so I leaned over to switch the alarm off before grabbing my pocket torch off my bedside table. It’s pitch black in the middle of ‘the bush’ and no street lighting means that a torch is the only way I can navigate to my dressing gown and into the living room without waking most of the house up. I’m dreading the day I’m mistaken for a burglar and shot.

By the time I’d plugged in the dial up cable, plonked my laptop on the table and found Fox Sports, I’d almost fallen asleep again. I fumbled around my favourites looking for Blues World. Eventually I found it. I started up the commentary for Blues – Charlton. I was greeted by silence. Nothing. Notta. Zip. Zilch. I cleared my cache and tried to reload. Still nothing. I got angry. Then I realised that it might be my PC. So I tuned in to Torquay versus York City via the same medium. Commentary came through loud and clear. Useless. Utterly useless. Blues World that is, not York or Torquay, both of whom I quite like. Although I suppose me liking them doesn’t prevent them being useless.

I listened for a while whilst keeping one eye on the Villa versus Arsenal on TV (and I know they’re our local rivals and I wouldn’t waste water if they were on fire but anyone who makes Arsene Wenger look like he wants to cry deserves congratulating) and watching a bit of Blues text commentary. Blues took the lead. I was frustrated that I’d missed it. Apparently it was a corker too – Championship highlights are on on Tuesday nights here in Australia, if I can ‘book’ the TV. Other people in the house watch stuff on Tuesday nights. Fingers crossed for tonight.

I was in a funny headspace. Blues were winning but I wasn’t particularly happy. I was annoyed by Blues World not working, annoyed by my own lack of self discipline in going to bed at a reasonable hour and annoyed that I’d found out that Blues commentaries are readily available online for free if you know where to look. Eventually – after twenty minutes had gone – the commentary kicked in. Success. I settled in for the long haul with Fox Sports on the TV and Blues – Charlton on the radio. Okay, I’d paid £20 for a commentary that people were getting for free but fudge it, Blues were winning and that’s pretty much the only thing I’d wanted when my alarm assaulted my ears just under half an hour earlier.

Only, then it went wrong. Shortly after tuning in, we conceded – twice. My bad language cup runneth over. All under my breath in case anyone had gotten up in the night and crept into the room behind me. Bad language isn’t appreciated in this household! Except, interestingly, the word tw@t because they don’t have such a word in Australia and my relatives happen to think it’s ‘cute’. Tw@ts!

And speaking of, Blues seemed like they were playing like it. Half time came and quite how I managed to stay awake through those fifteen minutes, I’ll never quite know. I don’t actually remember the half time break but I remember half time coming. It’s possible that I fell asleep. It’s also possible that I wandered around completely naked. I might’ve done coffee, I might’ve gone out onto the balcony and belted out Keep Right On, I might’ve updated my Facebook status with something tw@t related. I genuinely have no idea. This is how those murderers on God-awful shows like NCIS must feel when they swear they blacked out the second they caused ‘blunt force trauma’ on the back of the poor victim’s head.

No matter, Blues were losing – again.

The hardest place to be in the world is away from St Andrew’s on match day. You have no idea of the shape of the team, how individuals are performing or even what the crowd is like. Sure, commentary gives you an idea but I’ve been at matches when I’ve had different opinions to others on pretty much every single details of the game – including atmosphere. It all depends on where you watch the game from and match reports really are tricky to judge because you don’t get a sense of what a player excelled at or what he struggled with. Highlights aren’t much better out here because they try and squeeze the League Cup, the Championship and Leagues One and Two into a half an hour slot. Might as well attempt to dunk a Travel West Midlands double decker through a basketball hoop – impossible.

For example, they showed Quashie’s (or Squashie as he’s become known in this house) second booking but not his first. Superb considering the first incident is shrouded in so much opinion. I’ve read people say there was no contact, people say he headbutted the Charlton player and people say that he simply chested him in a squaring-up sort of motion. I’ll never know. Which annoys me. But it was 25 degrees and gorgeous yesterday so I’m not regretting missing out on Nigel Squashie possibly or possibly not headbutting someone just yet…

The team for Saturday was a bit of a mystery. Was it 4-4-2 with McFadden out wide left or was it 4-3-1-2 with McFadden having a free role? Again, I’ve read both. Considering where McFadden scored from (and what a goal although Fox Sports gave Goal Of The Week to Stewart from Derby) perhaps it was a free role? Although in a post-game interview, McFads says that he is put there at corners to shoot from range. Answers on a postcard for where he played (and perhaps I should add here that I started writing this article before Tuesday’s highlights show – I finished writing it afterwards hence me having seen McFads’ goal.)

Not much to say about the second half, really. Mostly, I battled to stay awake with the commentary little more than background noise. Thankfully, we scored both of our goals early so I managed to get a couple of celebratory “YESSSSS!!!!”’s in before I went off to the land of ARGHSTAYAWAKE! About the last thing I heard was Squashie’s dismissal. Pretty much my last thought was that he’d get stick after the game and probably a lot of Blues fans hoping that we send him back to West Ham sooner rather than later.

It’s typical that according to most, we threatened to play some nice stuff in the second half before we were reduced to ten men and that after the sending off, the crowd really came alive. The web-stream here runs at a dreadful bit rate and it sounds as though it’s been broadcast from the middle of a very echoey shed – that’s underwater – but still, the strains of Keep Right On are a joy and a much better stimulant than coffee.

We remain second and from my point of view, there’s not much to complain about. After reading the match reports, trying to debate tactics and chewing the fat about Alex McLeish’s decisions, we’re still in the automatic promotion slots. This got me thinking about points versus performance and just how the views of exiles might differ from those paying their dough week in and week out. God knows, I’ve walked out of St Andrew’s complaining – even after we’ve won but this soon simmers down a little by the time I’ve reached town – but when I get up at 2 AM to listen with a cup of steaming coffee, I just want three points and though it’d be nice to hear us knocking it around like Real Madrid, all I want is for us to succeed and bag three points at the end of the ninety so I can go back to bed with a smile on my face.

It’s food for thought and probably something I’ll come back to and explore a little bit more in the coming weeks. As far as Charlton goes, we won, I’m happy. Promotion is still on.

Tags: Blues World, Charlton Athletic