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’.)

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