Who's Left?

Here is the revised England Squad For Euro 2012

Goalies - J Hart, R Green, J Butland
Defenders - J Terry, A Cole, G Johnson, J Lescott, L Baines, P Jones, M Kelly, P Jagielka
Midfield - S Gerrard, T Walcott, A Young, J Milner, A Oxtail-Chamberlain, S Parker, S Downing, J Henderson
Forwards - W Rooney, A Carroll, J Defoe, D Wellbeck

Four withdrawals so far with Frank Lampard, Gary Cahill, Gareth Barry and John Ruddy all out injured and there are still injury concerns over Parker and Terry.
Liverpool's Martin Kelly is the latest call up even though he wasn't on the original reserves list, I'm sure Daniel Sturridge would have volunteered to play right back if he was asked :)

It seems Micah Richards is the latest player to have a strop after not being called up in the original squad following on from Michael Carrick last week and the two goalies Foster and Robinson who took the choice a few years back.
 So we now have six Liverpool players in the squad, and as someone said on the radio this week "is that good news for Brenda Rogers or bad news for Roy Hodgson"?
Kelly hasn't looked too bad when I've seen him, Carroll is finally looking like an England player, Gerrard is a bit past his best but still good enough to warrant selection and Glen Johnson still looks better in the opposition's half as he always has :)
Henderson and Downing probably don't deserve a place on their season's form.

Sad for Gary Cahill who found out just how solid Joe Hart is as his jaw bounced off him, but Lescott looked quality against Belgium so hopefully we won't miss him, the midfield is a concern with Gerrard still injury prone, Parker possibly injured and always likely to get sent off and Young and Walcott who can be brilliant but both can go missing in games, and Milner has never impressed me.
I think Oxlade Chamberlain could be given a go in the centre where he played really well for Arsenal against Milan this season.
Up front with Rooney missing the first 2 games he could either go with one up probably Wellbeck or if he goes for 2 up I reckon Carroll and Defoe could work well together, Judas is always likely to score if he gets a chance and if Carroll won a few headers he could make those chances, but I don't think either of them could operate as a lone striker.

Westerns

Talking about cheap shirts I found this "quality" website :)
Not only can I buy "Western Ham United" shirts or "Shits" as it says here, but I was surprised to find out that we had been League champions in 2004/2005? ... must have slept through that :)

Westerns make you think of cowboys, and I'm guessing that is who you would be giving your credit card details too?

Cheap Shirts

Don't usually advertise here but thought this was a good offer, JJB are doing the newish England away kit for only £12.50 and the home kit for £25 till Tuesday, I'm not sure if this is just an online offer or it's available in the shops I'll pop down tomorrow if they are open and see as I quite like the away one.

Had a look through some of the other new kits (sadly at full price) and I feel sorry for Man U fans with their new tea towel pattern home shirts, Chelsea's new one is better than last years, Everton's new black and gold away kit is pretty cool and I'm undecided about the new Barcelona home shirt, which as with all footy shirts these days is now spoilt by having to advertise some dodgy company on the front.

With the cost of advertising these days why can't we all claim money back from these companies when we go out wearing a shirt with their logo on the front?  I don't really expect to get anything as I had no luck trying to get Tesco's to give me a discount for advertising their company by using their crap plastic bags :)
Now I just take several superior Morrisons bags with me and when they say "do you need bags" I say "no it's ok I've brought my own" .... they never seem too pleased :)

Goal FX

Love this, goal celebrations with added effects :)
Arsene's horse is classic.
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Ten Nil

West Ham's 10-0 League Cup win over Bury in 1983 this was the 2nd leg of a 2nd Round tie, we had won 2-1 away but none of us who were there probably expected a score like this.
As it goes it wasn't really the greatest game except for the score, Bury were terrible and it seems hard to believe we signed their central defender Paul Hilton not long after? although he did have some good games for us over the next few years including playing as a makeshift striker.
Tony Cottee scored four, Alan Devonshire got two, Trevor Brooking hit two (but one was given as an own goal), Alvin Martin and the obligatory Ray Stewart penalty made up the scorers.
Dave Swindlehurst who was our centre forward at the time failed to score, he never totally impressed in the couple of years he was there, although he did get about 15 goals in this season.

The 1983-4 season started well and we led the league early on and were top 3 for most of the season, but a disastrous run of only 2 wins in the final third of the season saw us slip to 9th :(

The commentary is very quiet so you'll need to turn the speakers up, and he is a bit annoying pronouncing Cottee as Coaty, and calling Billy Bonds Bill.

Euro 2012 Songs

I know it's only the European Championship and nobody fancies us to do well but I'm surprised not many have bothered to knock up some new England songs, so far I haven't heard anything worth talking about on the radio, and a quick hunt through You Tube hasn't found much, most of the songs listed as Euro 2012 are old ones and feature the likes of Beckham and Capello etc but I'll keep looking.
Best one I've found so far is this, it might be old but there are some nice girls in the video :)



If anyone can steer me in the direction of something better please let me know.

Edit - Thanks to Gobshyte here is the Irish official song :)

Comments

I am going to try an experiment over the next couple of weeks.
Currently the comments are limited to registered (Google) users and are un-moderated.

According to the blog stats meter I am getting about 500 visitors a week (and only about 400 of those are me) and apart from a few regulars no-one says anything? so I am going to open it up to anonymous users as I always appreciate some feedback even though I know it will probably be negative and most likely abusive, which is why I'll now be moderating to weed out the death threats, racist comments, spam, dodgy website links and libelous accusations in the hope of a few decent contributions :)

The more feedback I get the more likely I am to post more stuff (and some of it might be worth reading), but it will give me a reason to look every day.

Cigarette Cards (Part 2)

Here's part two of the 1930's cigarette card collection, starting out with three London sides.

Chelsea - Early Ken Bates picture?, Chelsea had a couple of famous moments before the Abramovich era but most of their trophies have come in the last nine years with this years Champions league win being the pinnacle.

Tottenham Hotspur - Won Two League titles in 1951 & 1961 and have won the FA Cup eight times, but only have one League cup win in the last twenty years so they have been underachieving for a long while.

Brentford - Sadly like these cards Brentford's finest moments were back in the 1930's, having had just one season in the top two tiers in the last fifty years.

Darlington - Very little to cheer about for supporters of Darlington over the years with only a couple of lower tier titles in their history. The last year has been like a soap opera with them winning their first Wembley final (FA Trophy) last May with a last minute goal then getting relegated from the conference and coming as close as any team could to going out of business, before being saved by the supporters finding enough money to keep them afloat. The FA then relegated them four divisions to the Northern League Division one :(
Darlington's ground serves as a warning for any lower league team thinking of building a new stadium as it holds 25,000 but has never seen more than 11,600 and is very unlikely to get more than a few hundred people there in the foreseeable future.

Blackburn Rovers - Three league titles including being one of only five teams to have won the Premier league and six FA Cups (although five of those were in the 1800's), the Jack Walker era made them a regular top flight team but this season under the Venkey's makes you worry for their future?

Liverpool - Much as I dislike Liverpool for a lot of reasons you cannot deny they have an honours list to die for - 18 league titles in the last century, 7 FA Cup wins, 5 European Cups, 8 League Cups and 3 UEFA Cups. They always seem to have the finances to stay as one of the top ten clubs but will need some major changes to compete with the current "big four". If Brendan Rogers is as good as some think he is and the supporters actually give him a chance maybe things could be on the up?

Poll Results

Congratulations to Joey Barton for winning the NBTF Muppet of the Season award :)

Just 16 votes cast sadly out of the 1200+ pageviews since it was posted, but with 43% of the vote he takes it comfortably.
A 4 way tie for second with John Terry, Luis Suarez, Mario Balotelli and Kenny Dalglish all getting 2 votes.

Season 2011/12

All the domestic stuff has finally finished and here is the final list of what happened.

Premier League
Champions - Man City
Champions League - Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea
Europa League - Tottenham, Newcastle, Liverpool
Relegated - Wolves, Bolton, Blackburn

Championship
Champions - Reading
Promoted - Southampton, West Ham
Relegated - Portsmouth, Coventry, Doncaster

League One
Champions - Charlton
Promoted - Sheff Wed, Huddersfield
Relegated - Rochdale, Exeter, Chesterfield, Wycombe

League Two
Champions - Swindon
Promoted - Shrewsbury, Crawley, Crewe
Relegated - Macclesfield, Hereford

Conference
Champions - Fleetwood
Promoted - York
Relegated - Kettering, Bath City, Darlington and Hayes

Nostalgia - Hooligans On TV

An early eighties edition of the London Programme focusing on football hooligans.
Mainly featuring Chelsea, Tottenham and England but also an interview with Cass Pennant.

Nothing you haven't seen before but still interesting from a nostalgia point of view, they say the top ten "firms" of that time are Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal, West Ham, Millwall, Portsmouth, Sheff Wed, Newcastle, Leeds and Man Utd, from a personal point of view I was surprised they included Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday and would have said Stoke and Liverpool instead.

I used to watch the London programme mainly because of the brilliant theme tune :)

Congrats Huddersfield

Congratulations to Huddersfield who beat the scum to win the League one play-off today on penalties, such a shame for McCabe and the rapist :)

A pretty dull game which ended 0-0 after extra time leading to a pretty amazing penalty shoot out. Huddersfield managed to miss their first 3 penalties, Sheff Utd missed 2 of the first 3, former Southend player Peter Clark finally broke the duck for Huddersfield and Taylor missed for Sheffield meaning after 4 penalties it was 1-1 and sudden death!!

The next 12 penalties were all scored leaving just the goalies to take kicks, Huddersfield keeper Alex Smithies who was a late replacement stepped up and scored, experienced Sheffield keeper Steve Simonsen blasts the ball over the bar and that was that :)

Huddersfield's decision to sack Lee Clark and replace him with another unfairly sacked manager ex-Leeds boss Larry Grayson seemed one of the worst decisions of the season, but it has paid dividends and you wouldn't expect me to cheer on Sheffield United :)
So we shall see if Jordan Rhodes can do it at the higher level next season.

Just one more thing to be settled this season with tomorrow's League 2 play off between Cheltenham and Crewe who both beat the odds to get to Wembley a few weeks back.

Decisions

Eurovision 2012 or England v Norway friendly?
Sadly I like Cheese :) so the footie is being recorded.

Really gutted that after being off work for over a month with my various medical problems and stretches in hospital I go back to work next week and almost certainly I won't be able to book any more time off in a while.
 My hours are 2-10pm meaning I will be at work during all of England's Euro 2012 group games :(
If we get through to the quarter finals that will be a weekend game but the semi's are midweek as well.
I have one of those mini handheld telly's which have served me well in previous tournaments but now we've gone digital that's just another piece of useless crap in my cupboard :(

Going Green

Well with Drogba gone and Torres sulking they are going to need some superheroes to compete with the Manchester clubs.

Worthy Cause

If you've got some spare money and fancy spending it on something unique then visit here - bobbymoorefund

It's the E-Bay auction on behalf of the Bobby Moore fund for Cancer research.
If your loaded you can go with the Chelsea squad to a European game, get a signed David Beckham shirt or maybe a VIP trip round the Emirates or even deluxe seats and a meal for the upcoming England v Belgium game. Plus a load of non football items.
Even if you are hard up you might be able to afford the 4 tickets to a Leyton Orient game with a signed shirt, or a pair of Robert Green's signed gloves :)

A good cause, and some interesting items :)
 

Well Done Chelsea

Well that was a good day all round unless you were a Munich, Blackpool or Tottenham fan :)
I'm obviously still on a high from earlier and I'll admit I was cheering Chelsea on tonight and they kept it nail biting till the end.

A fairly ordinary first 80 minutes with a few good chances for both, then Muller scored for Bayern with a header that Cech really should have saved, but you just knew it wasn't over as Drogba hadn't scored yet as he always does in finals, and sure enough a brilliant header levelled it with 3 minutes to go.
Extra time and Munich get a penalty, it looked really soft with Drogba just catching Ribery's foot and I can only assume Ribery hurt himself with the dive as he had to go off? up stepped Robben and Cech pulled off a great save :)
So it ends up with penalties again and you worry about any team winning on penalties against Germans, but despite Mata missing the first one Cech pulls off 2 fine saves to leave Drogba the chance of scoring the winner ... which he does :)

Such a great and unique sight of Germans crying after a penalty shoot out, superb :)

Play Off Final

Fucking nerve wracking but Awesome!!!
So we can forget about the Championship again, West Ham are back in the premier league :)

The Match
Decided to go down the internet stream route as I can't afford Sky and the various tablets I'm on at the moment mean I can't drink :((
My internet streams over the season have been pretty shit rarely getting more than 10 minutes without it stopping or crashing, but I thought I'd found a good one as I watched the build up in high quality without problems, but within minutes of the game starting it was stop/start/stop improving a bit if I switched to watching it in small format, changed to a lower quality stream which improved things a bit for the rest of the game.

Slightly worrying start with Blackpool having 2 good chances early on but then the Hammers got their game together and started to make a few chances with Cole and Vaz Te managing to break Blackpool's offside trap, it was also noticeable that West ham were winning nearly every header.
Finally after about 35 minutes Matt Taylor broke down the left and after one slightly lucky deflection he was through to cross to Carton Cole who finished superbly :)
Kevin Phillips had been kept quiet and as half time comes we are 1-0 up.

Second half began and the Hammers started well but then Blackpool break away the "son of scum" Tom Ince equalises :(
Matt Taylor then clears off the line from Baptiste and the tide is turning :(
Tactical change and O'Neill is off to be replaced by Linda with Taylor going forward, minutes later injury prone defender Demel is down and out and we have to bring Faubert on, and seconds later Collison has hurt his injured shoulder :(
Luckily Collison is fit to carry on but Blackpool are totally on top, Carton Cole has one great shot saved but Blackpool are all over us for the next 30 minutes.
Stunning volley by Nolan hits the crossbar but livens the Hammers up for the final 10 minutes.
With 3 minutes to go Nolan breaks down the left and crosses for Cole it breaks free for Ricardo Vaz Te who bangs in the winner :D

Carlton Cole was fucking brilliant, Tomkins was superb and Vaz Te always looked the most likely.
Shame for Holly but hopefully they can go up next season.

YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nearly There

Getting excited now, less than 24 hours to go.
Totally confident of victory and just hoping the game is a classic :)
Would love to see it end up something like 5-3
.....  although 1-0 will do :)
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European Cup Final 2012

If anyone is still sober on Saturday night after the big game, we shouldn't forget the other match the Champions?? league final from Munich.
Chelsea will be helped by the added support of Arsenal and Hammers fans who want them to win to deny Tottenham a Champions?? league place next season :)

For the record neither of these teams were Champions last season, Chelsea were 2nd and Munich 3rd in their domestic leagues, so I still cannot get my head around why they call this the Champions league?

Munich should be very much the favourites due to them playing at home and having nearly a full strength team to choose from, they are missing 2 suspended defenders Alaba and Badstuber but most of the big names are there. Bayern have looked good in this seasons competition and did well to knockout Mourinho's Madrid in the Semi on penalties (well they are German), they have a good selection of top class players such as German internationals Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Gomez, Neuer, Boateng, Muller and Kroos as well as the world's ugliest player Franck Ribery and diving Dutchman Arjen Robben.
Domestically they have been second best again to Borrusia Dortmund who hammered them last week in the German Cup final 5-2 inspired by Man U target the talented Japanese player Shinji Kagawa.

Chelsea haven't had the best of seasons and will be missing 2 of their best players Ramires and Ivanovic as well as Terry and the guy with the weird hair, Cahill and Luiz might be back from injury just in time but chances are they will have to risk playing dodgy defender Jose Boswinga :(
Almost certain is that Didier Drogba will lead the line as he has been awesome recently, and will be interesting to see who produces the best dive on Saturday night out of him and former Chelsea player Robben :)
Torres and Sturridge could both me match winners if they come on, and Fat Frank is due to hit the target a few times in what has been a poor season for him.
The referee is Portuguese Pedro Proenca.

... and the best of the jokes - 
"Suspended Terry can lift trophy" say UEFA, Not sure why Bayern Munich would want him joining in their celebration?
 

Some Music For Saturday

Here's a bit of music for the play off final :)

 West Ham


Blackpool


and one for the ref :)

Oh No!! They've Kicked Kenny

You Bastards!!

Sad news for all of us non Liverpool fans, King Kenny will have to return to his retirement home after being shown the door at Anfield.
Even the living legend of Merseyside has to pay the price of failing to live up to supporters belief that Liverpool are still a big club.
He didn't do too bad this season with one Mickey Mouse Cup win and an FA Cup final appearance, plus they were never really in danger of going down and finished a reasonable 8th.

The fact he spent money like he had an arab billionaire behind him without any noticeable improvement shouldn't be held against him as Rafa Benitez had been doing that for the six years he was there, and if the press are to be believed Benitez is the favourite to get the job back?

The Scottish mafia has taken a big hit this week with Kean and Coyle relegated, McLeish and Dalglish sacked and even Ferguson losing the mind games battle with Mancini.
One odd thought I had which will probably not be considered, is probably the best guy for the job is not too far away .... about a mile across Stanley park???

England Squad For Euro 2012

England Squad For Euro 2012

Goalies - J Hart, R Green, J Ruddy
Defenders - J Terry, A Cole, G Cahill, G Johnson, J Lescott,  L Baines, P Jones
Midfield - S Gerrard, F Lampard, T Walcott, A Young, J Milner, A Oxtail-Chamberlain, S Parker, G Barry,  S Downing
Forwards - W Rooney, A Carroll, J Defoe, D Wellbeck

Reserves - J Buckland, P Jagielka,  J Henderson,  D Sturridge, A Johnson

Left Out -
S Carson, P Robinson, B Foster, F Fielding
R Ferdinand,  M Richards,  L King, K Walker, C Smalling, K Gibbs
J Cole, M Carrick, J Wilshere, A Lennon
P Crouch, D Bent, B Zamora

Not many surprises, the only controversial omission was Rio Ferdinand probably down to the Terry incident but also the fact Rio has been injury prone for a number of years and is due another breakdown?
The 2 best reserve keepers Foster and Robinson don't want to play for England anymore so an easy choice.
In defence I would have expected Micah Richards to be in after Kyle Walker pulled out injured, Phil Jones has looked dodgy recently but can play anywhere like Milner so that is why he is there.
Scott Parker was supposed to be injured but has been included, Downing hasn't looked that good recently but Adam Johnson has suffered from being a squad player at City while Downing plays regularly.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is not a surprise as there was always going to be one player who bursts in at the last minute and he looks good.
Up front I would have liked to see Daniel Sturridge and Peter Crouch as it looks risky having to play the first 2 games with only a choice of Carroll, Wellbeck and Defoe none of which have set the Premiership alive this season.

We go into this championships with low expectations and if we do well it will be a bonus?

Blackpool

Just 5 days to go till the biggest match of the season, yeah I know there is a game in Munich on that day as well but the one that really matters is at Wembley :)
My days of going to games are probably gone now and it wouldn't be right if the only Hammers game I go to all season was the one everyone wants to see and I denied a genuine fan a ticket, lack of cash and just being out of hospital and still feeling like shit make this very unlikely unless some old friend pops round this week with a spare ticket in hand (wishful thinking) :) Although if Southend make it through on Wednesday night I might get to Wembley this season, as I'm on their ticketing list we shall see?

At the start of the season I was hoping for West Ham to go back up as champions, with Blackpool as runners up and either Birmingham or Ipswich to go up via the play offs. As it has turned out only one of us will make it which is a shame :(

Our record over Blackpool is pretty good although we have only met 4 times in the last 40 years, 4-0 and 4-1 this season and 3-1 and 0-0 last year, but a one off game at Wembley could go either way?
Our last 2 play off finals have been decided by one goal and dodgy refereeing decisions in 2004 we were favourites against Crystal Palace but lost 1-0 in a game that Graham Poll showed his bias by ruling out 2 good Hammers goals.
In 2005 Preston were probably favourites but we came out on top after Bobby Zamora's goal, but had a let off near the end when Goalie Jimmy Walker handballed on the edge of the box and should have been sent off? but the fact he twisted himself trying to keep his hands inside the penalty area meant he came down awkwardly on his knee and had to be stretchered off probably saved him.

So although we really should win comfortably you have this sort of stuff in the back of your mind, Kevin Phillips is always likely to score and refs don't really like us. Plus Ian Holloway must be the most inspiring manager there is so if it's tight that has to be an advantage?

Anyway for any Blackpool fans that might read this I've been through the old mags and found these from 1973 :)

A few well known players Wyn Davis, John "Budgie" Burridge, Paul Hart and Micky Burns who scored one of the greatest goals of the seventies. I used to love seeing Burridge before games when he would do his acrobatics and go walking round the penalty area on his hands! totally nuts but a great character :)

Cigarette Cards (Part 1)

Bristol City - Now in the Championship, I do remember them being in the top division during the seventies but have spent most years in the second and third tiers.
Manchester City - The new Premier league champions, thanks to the Arab money have returned to the top table after many years of under achievement. One of those clubs that most people quite liked but I've no doubt the hatred will start soon.

Bolton Wanderers - Sadly relegated yesterday, although holding on to Premier league status for a few years they have not been one of the big boys since the 1920's
Newcastle - Had their most successful season in many years, and really for a club of their size and support should be in the top ten regularly.

Everton - Have a great history but have lived in the shadow of Liverpool for most of the last 50 years and despite a few good seasons sadly don't seem to be able to compete financially with their noisy neighbours.
Swansea - I always thought of them as Wales' 3rd biggest team behind Cardiff and Wrexham, but recent history shows they are the only ones to have made the top division in the last 50 years (twice). Not sure why they call themselves City when Swansea is not actually a city?

Bristol Rovers - the Black Arabs? never heard that before, although a well known club really they haven't won anything of note and have never been in the top division. I think of them as a big club mainly because of them winning the Watney cup in 1972 which used to be a big event on telly in those days :)
Barnsley - Had one season in the top division back in the nineties with the "just like watching Brazil" team but have spent most of their history in the second tier which is not too bad really.

Leicester City - One of those nearly teams having been runners up in the league and FA Cup (4 times), had a brief period of glory under Martin O'Neill when they won the league cup twice.
Norwich City - Back in the big time this season and have done pretty well with most of the players that got them out of league one 2 seasons ago, like Leicester their only trophies have been the league cup twice.

Dickhead Barton Special Agent

Joey Barton's still fighting his demons. So chinning Carlos Tevez was just a case of mistaken identity.

They all thought that Joey Barton had left Man City but it looks like he is still on the payroll. His dog is now wealthier than Harry Redknapp's.

After his attacks on Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez, the British Army have recruited Joey Barton and he is to be stationed in the Falkland Islands.

You can tell a lot about a person by their eyes, For example if they have a cigar in one of them chances are they know Joey Barton.

Went to the hairdressers earlier and asked for a "Joey Barton", Although I was less than impressed when I left with the word "Twat" shaved into the back of my hair.

"I went down easy" admitted Joey Barton after his collapse against Arsenal earlier in the season ... I bet he was popular in prison.

Ladbrokes have opened a book on where Joey Barton will start next season? I've put a tenner on Belmarsh.