The latest edition of the Lower League Week is now up at Born Offside, and boy, it’s a long one.
"Being long means something's good right?" - Peter Jackson quote*
In it, I rundown all of the biggest events in the lower leagues – the managerial change at Sheffield Wednesday, Wrexham’s deal with a local university, Bradley Wright-Phillips’ apparent return to form, the Oxford-Swindon derby, Nobby Solano going missing, and a bizarrely dramatic nine goal thriller.
To read all that news in a column that has been described as ‘genuinely bearable’ come this way for the Lower League Week.
My latest Lower League Week is now up at Born Offside, and for a change I’m linking to it on the day, rather than a fortnight after. It’s a radical approach, but I feel it may help keep the blog more timely and relevant.
My reference to Hartlepool's Town End 'rocking like Vanilla Ice' was timely when it was written, but not when it was linked.
My latest column features news on the weekend’s Sheffield derby, Bournemouth’s half time team talk (more interesting than that sounds), Keith Curle’s start at Notts County and Port Vale’s financial troubles.
Looking back at the dates of recent posts, I’ve been neglecting the blog in the past few weeks, and, like the alcoholic father I am in this metaphor*, I intend to overcompensate dramatically in a way that embarasses everyone.
So, in the next few days I intend to polish off a few things I’ve been working on, and get them up either here on the blog or elsewhere (and remember to link to them this time).
So in the next few days there should be a follow up to my earlier Life’s Too Short article in a shameless attempt to cash in on the show’s American debut. I intend to write reviews of the books I’ve read since my last review was posted, and more.
That is, if my day job of rocket scientist/rockstar doesn’t get in the way.
Hard at work
Since my last post here at the blog, I’ve written two entries for Born Offside. The first of the two, filed on the 15th, went into depth on the lovely cuddly Steve Evans, while covering Torquay’s remarkable winning streak, Kettering not being able to afford to pay police for their matches, and more.
Despite his crimes, this is the closest he gets to a prison these days
Then, last week, I covered the reasons for Stevenage’s rise and congratulated them on holding Tottenham to a draw, the reasons why Lee Clark’s sacking at Huddersfield was reasonable, and once again giving Darlington sympathetic press.
Really, as a Hartlepool fan, I hope they sort their finances out so that I don’t have to be sympathetic to them so often.
Nine days without posting – if I don’t write more often, I’ll never clog up people’s inboxes.
Right. After spending a few days away, I missed a week of lower league column for Born Offside, and compensated with Born Offside’s first ever Lower League Fortnight.
Knowing my issues with reliability and consistency, I’m sure it won’t be the last time that happens.
This issue covered transfer movements, changes in management, Bournemouth paying a huge £800,000 transfer fee…it’s crazy, a tell thee.
I’m so happy to have signed for Bournemouth. Yayyyyyyy.
This past week, Fabio Capello, the Italian manager of the England national football team, walked out. It was the culmination of a long series of irritating events – the media attacked Capello for not walking on water, Wayne Rooney did something stupid and Capello didn’t stop him from doing it so is therefore dangerously incompetent, John Terry may or may not have said something potentially hugely offensive and faces a trial for it, Capello wanted to stick by him, his bosses didn’t, Capello told Italian television he wanted Terry to remain as captain.
Just a brief post to tell everyone reading this (and statistically, that means you’re probably a random googler who was searching for a picture of a mountain or jawless zombie) that my latest column for BornOffside is now up.
In it you’ll be able to read about Les Parry at Tranmere, Paolo di Canio’s actions at Swindon, and Giles Coke making a bad impression at Bury, which is pretty much the same thing, right?
My new column is now up on Born Offside. Once again I offer a brief summary of the events in the lower leagues of English football, the big events this week and in recent weeks.
Yep, still what the cool kids are talking about
Anyone foolish enough to have wasted their time reading the first two columns (and it’s foolish to wsate time reading anything I write) will notice I’ve given each column a name.
A name should be something that in some way summarises or explains what’s within.
Being an observant sort, I noticed, after completing the column, that a majority of the subjects are, in one way or another, are moving up.
Some are players moving to bigger clubs, one is a club moving up the leagues, and so on.
It’s called creating a theme, and I am truly a master at it.
Being an indisciplined and irregular writer has many interesting consequences, for the writer, employer, and reader. For instance, there’s the curiosity as to whether a planned feature will appear, wonder over how long a character will remain on a cliffhanger, and the legal mystery of what happens to expenses if that lazy so and so doesn’t finish off the work for once, grrr.
You can just tell he’s disappointed with me
One of the positive consequences for the reader is that, at times, several features appear all at once.
Yesterday (okay, technically this morning you damn pedants) I mentioned I’ve started writing for Born Offside.
Well, you lucky lucky people, the second edition is now online.
Try not to get too excited.
The hope is that, when the feature gets settled in, it’ll start appearing early in the week, so you may even be able to read a third edition within a few days.
Okay, catching up a little with the blog. Firstly, I’m planning to start writing regular features pretty soon, promise.
I’ve now started writing for bornoffside.net – an up and coming English football website that I think will get a fair bit bigger over the course of the year.
You should start reading now, so you know all about Born Offside before your friends, bug them about how cool it is when they’ve not heard about it, and, eventually, they’ll grudgingly accept that you did know about Born Offside before them, so you must be really cool.
This is what cool looks like
My feature on Born Offside will be a weekly column, recapping the biggest events in the lower leagues. So, if you want to know about the goings on at Bristol Rovers and Swindon Town (and let’s face it, why wouldn’t you?) you’ll be able to read my weekly column.
I’m a supporter of Hartlepool United Football Club, who, going by the wisdom of the fans, are ‘by far the greatest team the world has ever seen’. You may think that would be the Dutch ’70 team, or maybe the current Barcelona team, but no, apparently it’s a small team in the third tier of English football.
It’s a funny old game.
Much better than the Camp Nou
Hartlepool are a small team, all things considered.
The season started optimistically, and there’s been some good form away from home, competing well as one of the best teams, results wise. But, the home form has been awful, with several successive home defeats. On 6 December, the decision was made to remove the popular Mick Wadsworth, as manager.
Writing at Vital Hartlepool yesterday, I took a look at the causes of the bad form.
SciFiFootball 