Tremendous Scenes Brian – Manchester 17th May 2015

The footballing silly season has already commenced. Constant speculation about David de Gea’s long term position at Old Trafford (clue, there isn’t one), Jake Livermore of Hull Tigers has tested positive for cocaine and this morning, the Daily Star had a front page lead about a player who had been keeping his teammate’s wife company. But none of that could beat yesterday’s drama.

This is a moment where rivalries are transcended, a moment where the football family come together to pay tribute to a legend. Steven Gerrard’s Continue reading Tremendous Scenes Brian – Manchester 17th May 2015

Always Hurting The One He Loves – Old Trafford November 10th 2013

I sometimes think that the London press faint in orgasmic hypnosis to the words of Arsene Wenger. If you believe the press, you could easily imagine Wenger at nightime sitting serenely in his personal oak panelled library at his house in Totteridge, digesting Richard Feynman’s thesis on Quantum Physics with a background ambience of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.5, whilst sagely sipping a glass of 2006 Bourgogne Chardonnay. Wenger is calm personified, an economics graduate from Strasbourg University and a man who invented modern urbanity. He also, for an educated man, talks an awful lot of bollocks. Continue reading Always Hurting The One He Loves – Old Trafford November 10th 2013

An Old Fashioned Charabanc…Islington 29th of April 2013

Three weeks ago, United played City and for the first time ever, I didn’t see a single ticket tout working a United game. The same thing happened yesterday at Arsenal’s stadium at Ashburton Grove. The circumstances though between the two games and lack of ticket grafters were radically different. For the derby, the local plod had decided on a zero tolerance policy for the enterprising free marketeers who work on Warwick Road, doing as the government tell them to do by going out and earning a living. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Yesterday at Arsenal, I did not come across a single person selling a ticket until the game had kicked off. The concourse was flooded with reds desperately trying to get tickets and there was absolutely nothing about. Through desperation, I tried jibbing my way into the ground. Twice I got in and twice some over-enthusiastic and underpaid jobsworth woke up at the very second I didn’t want them too. On the third attempt, I was clocked by a Policeman who’d saw me getting kicked out five minutes earlier. After he compared me to a feature of female genitalia, he advised me in Anglo Saxon language with all the humour you’d expect from a copper that I’d be spending some time courtesy of his friends and her majesty at Blackstock Road Police station if he saw me again. I didn’t want that to happen as they have a habit of releasing people minutes after the last train has left so you don’t even get a nights stay out of them. With resignation, I was walking towards Holloway Road to find a pub showing the match when I bumped into an Arsenal fan who offered me a spare for £200.00. Seconds after I told him this amateur once a season tout which orifice he could place his ticket, I heard a faint cheer go up and I was convinced United had scored. Due to the local mobile phone masts going berserk, it was a good five minutes before I could phone somebody to be greeted with the news that it was actually Arsenal who had scored with a goal by Theo Walcott. Continue reading An Old Fashioned Charabanc…Islington 29th of April 2013