Super Tuesday? Really? Whisper It At Bescot Please!

Super Tuesday – At Bescot? : Scunthorpe at Home

I’m feeling rather optimistic (if you’ve read any other entries in this blog you may spot the somewhat-inevitable, optimistic- football fan pattern) .But why not? My team made the League One leaders look less than ordinary on Saturday – at their ground. OK, OK we failed to win, but looked far superior (yes, we failed to win, don’t bring that up again … please).

And this no-win streak can only go on for so long can’t it? The runes have got to be for us at some point: surely?

So why not the home game on Tuesday against Scunthorpe?

Yes optimistic indeed.

I hear on the radio that medical researchers are up in arms and trying to get “the tackle” banned from school rugby. Citing it as an unnecessary element of a game that is, by its nature, contact and confrontation. I have no opinion one way or the other. I went to a grammar school too late to be sucked in to the sport but on the other hand have had some seriously riotous nights out with rugby players.

My game is with the properly shaped ball; I have little to say about either of the two forms of the Rugby code.

Meanwhile Adam Johnson ( sacked by Sunderland) is found guilty of sexual offences involving a child. He had shown real talent as a footballer, but got carried away by the fame and, almost doubtless, the money. Footballers nowadays are akin perhaps to the rock and roll celebrities of the 1970s: young, rich and pandered to. Just without the drugs and alcohol.

Brighter news is that eh World Track Cycling Championships starts this week; Sir Bradley Wiggins and Laura Trott amongst others will be doing their respective things round and round the London Velodrome.

 

And, across the Pond people in the good old U. S. of A are in the excitement and hoo-ha of democracy: seeking to choose candidates for each party who will represent their parties (Democrats and Republicans) in the nation’s presidential elections.

Donald Trump, successful yet abrasive businessman seems to be winning for the ; while Hilary Clinton (wife of former U.S. president Bill Clinton and a career politician seems to be getting the votes for her side.

 

It is kind of interesting to see a different type of political system in action> In the U.K we vote locally for party candidates who have already chosen their party leaders. First past the post polling means the party that gets the highest number of Members of Parliament wins control in the House of Commons. We do not vote for a Prime Minister in the way the Americans vote for a president. Which system is better? Both are equally good, perhaps and at the same time equally flawed.

So Tuesday evening comes around. I’m still optimistic. Reasons as detailed above – oh and a good week at work helping out too. And the fact that Saddlers Widow was good enough to drag herself to Bescot Ticket office on the first morning of season ticket sales to nab my season ticket for next year.  I would have had one anyway I think, so why not take advantage of the Early Bird discount –and get a free Walsall at Wembley: History in the Making book at the same time. The joke at work is that the first thousand to buy season tickets get one free copy of this souvenir book (souvenir of a day that was brilliant until the first whistle, then went swiftly downhill) – and that anyone else who buys a season ticket after that gets two free books. Cannot beat that football-fan irony can you?

My bro has to join the queue for his ticket but I breeze through the savoy Lounge entrance, a bit of banter with the two always-friendly front of house attendants who laugh that, after all, there are only another six homes games left aren’t there?

Do they know something I don’t.

We are fourth as I walk past them. Play off places. That will mean at least one more home game.

Or we finish first (yes please!) or second and get through automatically … or seventh and don’t need to be at Bescot again until the friendlies see us off to another League One season.

I meet Cully in the Lounge. He’s a bit rueful: mentions he has already got his season ticket and Savoy Lounge Pass (this is being offered only to existing pass holders and on a first come first served basis. I smile and tell him I also have my season ticket, but not my Lounge Pass yet.

We sink a beer, then head out to join my brother. Same team as Saturday: keeping faith. And we look good for all of ten minutes, then are pushed, bullied and lacking in authority as Scunthorpe with s few loyal fans (credit to them!) turn the screw. Neither team doing much seriously to threaten the other’s goal, but neither team looking very fluent either.

It is frustrating. I start getting annoyed with the tiniest, least relevant of things. Sublimating, I suppose yelling negative comments at my own team, whose performance is so much below the standard I was expecting. Bad day at the office syndrome maybe, but this is yet another bad day: we need to clock up some wins. At half time results were going for us: Burton drawing, Wigan not winning, Gillingham the same. We could be picking up points and places. But we look jaded. Tom Bradshaw is manful as always, people running, Downing looking positively Brazilian as he runs the ball out of defence and plays us in to a chance. But overall we are just running on the spot.

There is a round of applause to celebrate the life of a Walsall fan who was murdered while on holiday in Tunisia. So, it was a terrorist attack, but the guy was murdered; let’s just get it straight eh? Two other members of his family were also tragically murdered in the cowardly attack.

Full time drags itself around and we have a second consecutive clean sheet: yippee for that then!

But, somehow have crept up the table to third place.

Desperate after the ordeal we have suffered we decide we need a beer (well, that’s what we tell ourselves) but are caught in traffic and the first pub we try has stopped serving.

But the good old Royal Oak (Norton Lane) is in Tuesday night quiz mode and we down a couple in there.

Barnsley at home on Saturday. Got to get a win then surely?

Getting a striker is an entirely different matter.

Ee Bah Gum, Lad: Tour’s On.

Sitting here, watching the gruelling hill-climb stages of the Tour de France (second day, Harrogate to Sheffield stage) I am trying to take the beans out of two recycled buckets full of broad beans. Outside the sun is still shining as it is on the massive crowds lining the route of the race. Yorkshire, indeed England, has taken this opportunity to heart. There are French flags, Slovakian supporters (of Peter Sagan), Cornish flags, the Union flag, writing on the roads (“Eat Yorkshire Pudding!”) in traditional Tour de France style; even a Black Country flag. It is marvellous to see such an enthusiastic response – and the camera work is excellent too. I love the way the landmarks and features are in French and the distances in kilometres and that the commentary includes good background historical, geographical and cultural references.

      

 

Our daughter featured in some “Tour de Facts” videos about the English stages and general rules of the Tour de France for English cycle sales, parts and repair stores, Halfords. I am, of course indubitably proud of her … but they are also quite informative and well made: I managed to learn things I was previously unaware of, and watching them has improved my enjoyment of the race I am now watching as broad beans bounce off the footstool around my ankles. (The “yellow jersey” is yellow because this was the colour of the pages of the newspaper that introduced it – before that the race leader wore a green armband only).

These videos are available on YouTube: if you are interested take a look at this first in the series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvTDV2iirnk

I would have been quite happy  to have watched the Grand Depart (from Leeds, yesterday) but in the cyclical way of things in my life the very daughter that rode in and presented the Tour de Facts videos was moving house, so … a busy day not watching TV. However I am happy to report that the move, nicely timed to include a switch over overlap between rented accommodation and completion date, sees the new house well decorated and new carpets installed.

After the Grand Depart the race proceeded in blazing hot sunshine (nothing at all like the wet weather forecast!) and within sight of the finish line Mark Cavendish and another rider both came off their bikes. “Cav” most recently bandied about as an Isle of Man native is suddenly lauded as a native of Yorkshire – but, is now out of the whole Tour, having broken a collar bone – and done the decent thing by admitting the coming together was all his fault. Such sportsmanship.

In a TV interview with Ian Brailsford (manager of the ultra-successful Sky team) talked about his decision to leave out Sir Bradley Wiggins, saying that, in recent years the Sky team had been turned from “plucky losers to two-times winners” and that part of that turn around in mind-set was due to someone somewhere along the line making such calls.

In another strand of my life I have been excited by news that Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are together for another Who tour – and that I have managed to get tickets for the show in Birmingham. December. Something else to look forward to.