Glory of Victory?

Why, oh why, have I been so muted about Southend's promotion when I've written about most other facets of football since?

This is a tricky one to answer. Every football fan goes from game to game hoping that the team can do something, anything, to get three points. As the team gets more points the supporters gain hope and expectations. As the team gets fewer points, supporters get anguish and despair. These are the two contrasting emotions that make following professional sport the insatiable addiction it is.

It sounds bizarre but in some way, I enjoyed watching Southend scratching round the bottom of League 2 for points as much as I have enjoyed seeing them flying at the top of League one. This leads me to think that football is an outlet, tantamount to watching a soap, where you turn up for those 90 minutes each Saturday and put your life on hold while this assumed life runs another week of drama. This certainly seems to be the case for me and many more because there's little other explanation for the attachment that grown men take to this game.

When Kevin Maher lifted the trophy, I was happy but the delirium had gone. For me, the delirium was when Hartlepool equalised against Brentford all but clinching promotion. For, me the delirium was when Wayne Gray broke free and beat the Bristol City keeper to put us 5 minutes away from being champions. The emotion of football comes during the game for me, not whilst watching celebrations, and parades all seems a bit flat when compared with the excitement of the moment itself.

Of course, there is one thing that makes being at the top half better than the bottom and that is the quality of football on display. If people suggest football can't take an art form, then they don't watch enough football. Football moves in patterns at the most basic level. At the foot of league two, generally, players defend in fours, midfielders protect their back line and strikers try to offer an outlet. As you move through the league ladder, more and more sets teams apart until you get to the top of the chain where players like Henry have such sublime talent that they change the game.

For Southend, although it might not be much to anyone else, Freddy Eastwood, whilst far from being the only Championship quality player, sets games alight with almost outrageous flair, fine technique and the ability to move past players before they know what's happening.

For Southend supporters, this is near the pinnacle and with 5,000 season ticket sales already confirmed, there are a lot of people wanting to be a part of it right now.

All that remains to be said is:

Championne, Championne, Olé Olé Olé!!

The Power of Plastic

It's amazing.

Years and years of evolution. Countless experimentation with man's natural surroundings developed basic scientific principles. Further toying with these ideas and inspiration for new ones lead to further experimentation and invention after invention. Eventually the full utilisation of oil has formed plastics that supply so much to facilitate existence on this planet.

Meanwhile man has learnt to jump higher, run faster and throw further. With every physical obstacle, man finds a way to improve physically towards the goal of survival. When obstacles were exhausted, man challenged other men in desperate attempts to prove superiority over one another and contests became a ritual of life with gladiators pitted against gladiators.

All this has lead me to one majestic moment that defines life.

The time when you press the Ch+ button on your Sky remote and in an instant go from Grimsby vs Lincoln to Sevilla vs Real Madrid.

Some European Trophy

So, it finishes Ronaldinho 2, Thierry Henry 1. Or at least, if you only read newspapers and didn't watch football, you'd have thought.

In the event, Ronaldinho didn't pull the performance that many were expecting. In fairness, it was a beautifully timed pass to Eto'o that seemed to turn the game in Barcelona's favour. Arsenal fans berating the referee for his decision to send the keeper off should take a second look. Whilst the ref might have given the goal, he might have given the goal and sent Lehmann off. With the free kick flying over, it was a double let off for the Gunners.

What the sending off signified, however, was very telling for Arsenal who had started the brighter. In particular Henry who stung Victor Valdes' hands very early on.

If there was a genuine battle between the two players who genuinely play in a different class to most world class players, Henry came out on top from this performance. Daring, quick of feet, determined and extremely intelligent in possession, Henry in this attitude normally gives Arsenal enough to beat anyone. Time and again he made the Barcelona back line look foolish even though I'm told that the best defender in the world was out there in blue and red. All he lacked was a finish when gifted the opportunity to make the game safe at 2-0. His set-piece delivery was outstanding and it was no surprise when Campbelll rose majestically to head one of them in.

Well, I think I've lost the focus of this a little. Very absorbing game of football though and the end of season football feast has been a real treat.

Final score then, Barça 2 Arsenal 1. Henry 1, Ronaldinho 0.

The New England Manager

Whoah whoah whoah, I think to myself on my return to these shores. That was English for stopping three horses by the way. Whilst I have been keeping tabs on most of the football news in England, particularly Southend's masterful rise to the Championship, apparently things are a lot worse when the papers are reporting them.

Before I start, I'll mention that a Southend related post is in the offing but around this time and with league matters all but settled for us, England's situation, albeit after the World Cup becomes prominent.

So candidate 'A', the choice of choices, Felipe Scolari has been approached but has turned the job down after some alleged threat and the world has turned upside down for England. Thankfully, there have been an excellent set of pundits with the usually solid Sky team to shed some light on the situation to help me out. Why has everyone suddenly declined to severe depression at the news? In his favour, on paper, Scolari has an excellent pedigree at the highest level. However, on closer examination, he's not done what Hiddink did for Korea or, indeed, what Rehhagel did for Greece. Portugal have always had some very good players and common belief in Portugal was that the team was destined to have a good tournament. Throw in some very good youngsters and a European Cup winning crop of Porto players all on home soil and suddenly the task of reaching the final of that tournament suddenly looks easier. If Rooney had stayed on the pitch, would Portugal really have got to the final? As for Brazil, that team won arguably the poorest World Cup in history. The old guard were still good enough to beat most teams and a fledgling Ronaldinho certainly helped matters. You only need look at who they played in the final to see that the 'Cup for the Unnderdogs' was maybe just a) a poor set of teams and b) Europeans struggling out of Europe. Even giving Scolari credit for all of this, the appointment of someone with such a pedigree would mean only complete success would be tolerated and he would be sacked when the proverbial Rooney at the next tournament doesn't get injured.

Still, this is all water under the bridge and no party's likely to hop in a kayak and chase it. The pendulum now seems to be swinging towards an Englishman as the FA would seem to be disgracing the English game if English managers were overlooked twice or even, very possibly, they get rebuffed. In my opinion, that leaves us with the middle class of the English game's managerial hierarchy. Sam Allardyce, Steve McClaren and Alan Curbishley.

Allardyce, to me seems like the best choice. If, a year ago, I had seen myself writing this, I would have probably sat myself down and had a long chat. "Bolton's footballing approach is brash and direct", I would have said. To an extent, this is true. However, I don't think that Allardyce is a bad manager, he is a pragmatic one. Allardyce inherited a fairly average, unglamorous football team in the second tier of the football league. Staying in the Premiership isn't easy (damn this year's crop for disproving this) but staying in the Premiership for several years is much harder. Allardyce saw this and brought in experienced Pros that he quickly moulded in to a team with a direct style of football. This style earned results. I have no doubt that Allardyce would love to play flowing total football and Bolton aren't shabby at knocking the ball around in midfield but their Blitzkrieg approach to attacking earns them a lot of points. I genuinely believe that rather than being ingrained with the belief that football should be played directly, Sam wants to win games and his open minded approach to training methods and playing approaches may reap huge rewards for England. If that isn't enough, name me one player who would give him mouth.

McClaren seems the obvious second choice and depending on the value of experience at international level, could be ahead on points. Having been with the team for so long, he has seen it all with England. The only worry with this is that if Eriksson's methods are to be questioned then what hope does McClaren have, having spent so much time learning off him? Coupled with this, he has created a very patchwork Middlesboro team that, whislt having had cash spent on it, still looks far from being the real deal. I'm not going to let the UEFA success blind me cos I've seen them play in that competition before. Still, I think he would be a sound choice as head coach but Big Sam first for me as manager thanks.

Last but not.... well....actually, he probably is least in this list: Alan Curbishley. In Alan's favour are his complete availability and his proven track record at excellent man management. You feel that with Charlton, there are no fancy training techniques, dieticians or sports psychologists but simply Alan, a couple of coaches and a few plastic cones. His record at keeping Charlton Premiership is astounding given his transfer budget and squads but with not even a game of European experience under his belt, you do wonder. Besides his qualifications, he looks wearied and comments about a break from football, while cliched, look to be the man's intent.

End of the day, it won't matter a jot who I think the FA should appoint because they don't consult me on anything these days. Judging by Allardyce's caginess and McClaren's "I've-got-a-secret-but-won't-tell" grin, Steve may be getting the golden call. Then again, he'd just taken a point at Old Trafford while Sam lost to Spurs. No-one can really know but at least it looks like we may have a chance to bring some national pride back with managers as well as players. Keegan for manager anyone???

It's the end of the job as we know it....

Finally, the graft part of my grand plan to go to Canada is over. I think that, as it's a report on my job, I should present it vaguely as a job report.

PS' Temporary employment: Reflection

Introduction
It soon became apparent that if I was to be going to Canada, something I had already paid a fair amount for, I would need some money. Every attempt to genetically breed cash with a tree failed and I'm not really hard enough to get away with stealing lunch money so I decided I would need to find an alternative method. In short, money was needed.

Possible methods
The first and most obvious possibility was to use my finely honed guitar playing ability to busk on the street. Based on my own experience with buskers, I would need to play everyone's favourite songs to get any money out of them whatsoever. There's quite a diverse mixture of taste out there so I would probably combine two, three or four songs together at once to maximise revenue. Assuming this is effective, I can then earn about two pounds per hour played. Another approach is to streamline activities by expansion of the business. I can buy tape players and play people's favourite songs at the same time while I'm bsuking. Hopefully some of my audience will be big fans of a cacophony. I'd have fun have playing though.

The second possibility is to scrounge. Everyone is a potential victim for this. It involves me becoming the tightest man on the Earth. Whilst I have tried this before, i think it might be difficult to actually make a profit out of this. It may need to be combined with some sort of money making. One option is to scrounge money by walking the streets looking for money on the floor. Think how many nuggets and notes must be lost by foolish drunks.

The third possibility is to get a job. I'll go in every day and give 110% and become a genuine asset to the team. The team leader will be delighted by my effect on the team and will showcase excellent quarterly results that were contributed, largely, by my tremendous efforts. Whilst at work, I will also become the most popular bloke in the team, leading the 5-a-side team to the London Surveyors' title and start sleeping with the Managing Director's daughter. With his consent. Maybe his wife too (on separate occasions of course). At the same time, I will only need to work 10 til 4 each day but continuous pay rises will ensure I won't need to work again for the rest of my life.

The fourth possibility
Amazingly, there turned out to be a fourth possibility which seemed slightly worse than all three others in some respect. This stemmed from me ambitiously applying for a bunch of jobs and not getting any. It quickly dawned on me that I don't have time to be messing around doing this becaues of the time constraint so I ended up blanket applying. Most likely this wouldn't involve the MD's daughter but I could probably cope with that as long as the wife was involved somewhere along the line.

Job Summary - What I was told to expect
Apparently, this was quite a taxing job and it was only suitable for bright candidates who could quickly grasp new concepts. I figured that, since I managed to learn enough VBA for a strong 1st in my final year, I must fit that. I should have been suspicious when my agency told me the interview would be 'just to meet you and see what you were like' whilst my agent was checking out the barmaid. I was told I would be involved in work in progress and subsequent reconcilliations for between one and two months. It was expected to be hard work with long hours and some weekends. This was inkeeping with the long hours I needed to work to make the travle worthwhile.

Job Summary - Actual
The first two weeks involved three of us scrolling through tiny little numbers checking them against other figures. Needless to say, we picked up this concept quite quickly. Frequently, there wold be little or no point in us doing this. Next came the interesting part. I had to manipulate the information to sort by departments and then ring round the whole company to try and get the information we required. Following that, there was a spell where I was chasing about three people for the same information. Following that, a long spell of nothing with the odd job to do each week.

Positives

1. I got paid a pretty decent amount for doing between 45 and 50 hours per week
2. Without even needing to lie on my CV, I have about 18 months of accounting experience in spite of the fact I've pretty much not done any real accounting in it.
3. For about 3 weeks, it was fulfilling and enjoyable.
4. I know a lot more about Central London now
5. My parents seem to be impressed with my dilligence even though I point out I never do work. Should ride with it i guess.
6. I haven't been sitting on my ass and spending money
7. I've managed to write so many more of these points than I thought I could have done. Excellent

Negatives

1. The boredom. Restricted Internet access and no work whatsoever means that you get so bored. I guess this log is testament to that.
2. The mornings. Most days I've got in at 8. This means leaving at 6:56 each morning. After a while, this gets tedious and annoying.
3. The job that slowly kills you. As sung by Radiohead in No Surprises, the indomitable fatigue of working long hours for a period of time has caught up with me. It's hard to explain but it's almost as though work becomes central and everything else incidental.
4. Midweek social life. Gone. Get home between half 8 and half nine. Good luck finding time to go out.
5. Pretty average reference. I may have been here for 4 months but as the Director if finance and financial controller will be gone soon, who'll give me a reference when my potential future employers come ringing. This is linked to...
6. Sat in this pissing cubicle. I used to have my own desk and was starting to chat more and more with people in the office. Then some wanker decides he needs to have his desk free all the time even though he's off in Europe most of the time and I get pushed out to the 'library'. Great for sitting here doing nothing but absolutely rubbish for making pals in the office. As a result, I wasn't even planning on sending an e-mail inviting people for drinks because most of them aren't even sure if I'm still working here. Rubbish supervising to let your 'team' get moved away from everyone.
7. For someone who thinks that life is what you make of it, you could look on the four months as a waste of life. You only get a certain amount of life to live and to spend a third of a year by and large sat in an office working every hour under the sun, well, looks like wasted life.
8. Black bogeys. Every day. I guess London has to have some drawbacks.

Summary

Got paid and enjoyed working in London but there was plenty to resent about treatment in the job I suppose. They tried but weren't the best employers. I haven't even had a telephone for a month now.

Conclusion

Difficult one to write but I honestly think my attitude towards the job has changed in the course of me writing this and has boosted my optimism for Canada. Ok, there was plenty that has annoyed me about the job recently but using a business perspective, the only way to interpret outcomes is to relate them to targets and then factor in circumstances. Without any factoring, I've managed to work a month more than I had targeted. If there's any way I can afford this trip then this is the only way. I also may have targeted more money but by working more hours, I made up this shortfall and reduced the amount of time I would have had to spend it.

I've worked the time, I've earnt the money and I feel I've acted as a model employee, only taking liberties after they have been presented as the only thing to do short of actually stopping completely. Working in London has been a good laugh: I've met up with plenty of people because of working in London and been to plenty of places I never would have otherwise, not to mention getting a very familiar knowledge of central London.

I've shown a resilience in working here and a stubbornness of character to motivate myself to come here at 6 in the morning knowing full well it would be boring but I've always managed to keep an eye on the bigger picture and recognised that it all contributes to Canada. The only aspect I need to fulfil now, one that should be much easier, is to ensure I enjoy Canada as fully as possible and the year from June to June will have been one of the best of my life.

Fantasy Premier League

I had to post on this. I literally couldn't resist doing it.

I normally enter fantasy football competitions (*description at end for uninitiated) and take some crazy gamble on a newcomer. One of my key players gets injured and I'm out of the running for anything by November. Last year I went on Fantasy Premier League and found a game where you could make transfers, choose a captain, rotate subs and deal in the market with fluctuating player values. In short, it's much more proactive than typical pick your team and hope versions.

Anyway, last year proved to be something of a learning curve. by the time I had anything resembling a strategy, I was playing catch up on people who barely changed their team but had managed to pick Henry, Johnson and Defoe up front early doors. By the end I had an idea though.

This season started disastrously. I gambled on Fowler picking up points in week 1 by making him captain. Fowler, apparently, was injured and didn't play. The rest of my team stuttered through and I was bottom of our mates' league. I made three changes (one per week is 'free', every othe costs you 4 points~one goal for a striker) in a bid to try and resurrect my team and man, it really worked!

In September, I was in the top ten point scorers (oout of 640,000) in teh whole game and my form has continued through October. I am currently in the top 250 with bonus points likely to boost me this week. It's ridiculous how proud I am of this achievement but hooray for me.

Even better, I'm going away to Canada on Sunday so as long as I don't collapse at the weekend, I can point to how amazing I would have done if only I'd carried on. YEAS!


* Fantasy football: You play Premiership manager and pick a team/squad of Premiership players who are awarded for their performances in the real Premiership. For instance, if Lampard scores a goal for Chelsea and you have him in your team, you are awarded points for a midfielder scoring a goal. You are typically constrained by a budget to buy players with better players being more expensive and 'poorer' players cheaper.

ShrimperWatch - Barnsley at Home

If anyone needed a reminder that football is a funny old game, I think we saw it on Saturday at Roots Hall. Up front Goater laboured with little reward and Eastwood had too little service. Maher and Guttridge struggled to get the team moving with intense pressure from Barnsley and were hardly supported by Lawson who's not a winger byt he looks of it and Campbell Ryce who looks like he'll need time to settle. In defence we tried hard enough but struggled to cope with anything over the top and were frequently saved by great 'keeping fromFlahavan.

So we lost right? Well no
So we're third then surely? Well, no again.

Apparently such a lacklustre performance was actually enough to earn us a draw and leapfrog Huddersfield to 1st place. Like I say, it's a funny game.

Key Man: Flahavan. Probably should have made the saves he did but dealt with these well and handling was top drawer. Not much chance for the goal as you need your defence to be brave and clear those.

Blogging, bloglinking, the pointless blog and parsitism

In my job, I've noticed that I come across a lot of blogs on the net. Ok, I'm expanding the truth a little. When I'm sat in my office at work I come across a lot of blogs but the work I do has no orientation whatsoever to blogging. The world of blogs strikes me as a curious one indeed though.

The first aspect is that there are just so many of them. If you looked at every blog on blogger.com, you would probably be looking til the World Cup. If you then start looking at livejournal, myspace and others, you will be forever reading blogs. In fact, it seems to me that the number of blogs has reached saturation points yet with people self-absorbed in the goings on of their own lives, it will continue to expand.

I'm as guilty of this needless expansion as anyone. Because of the way I have only plugged my blog to a handful of people, most of whom don't know me personally, it's almost certain that my entries are read infrequently (I should get a counter to find out how little really). I would estimate that each thing I write is read, possibly twice by other people but it is hardly mass media.

Still, I don't think that the number is what troubles me with blogs. No, I think it is the way in which the entire blog community has no top-down structure. If someone wanted a web page about Southend, they would go Start->Sport->Football->England->SouthendUtd->page. If someone was looking for it they would find it amongst other similar sites. Because of the way that blogs are set up and because of the way that they encompass various subjects and views, such a structure is not practical. Instead, Blogs enter the world as entities in a sea of uncertainty. Over time, they drift (or surf) around the sea and encounter other bloggers. If they share a common interest or get on, they build a bond and make a note of how to find them. When they find more, they share notes and so the networking grows.

It's remarkable to see this and it would be a glorious network if content could be relied upon.

Something that annoys me more and more as the Internet expands is the phenomenon of information overload. This was first identified as something that managers would experience as their companies' computer systems grew more and more sophisticated. As the systems become more sophisitcated, more information is produced and needs to be filtered to avoid the information becoming useless or unused. Apologies to people at the useless end of the scale but this seems to be the way that blogs are going.

As I tend to do, I started bloglinking whereby you find someone's blog and click another link they have. On the second page, you read a bit then click a link and so it goes on. You put trust in your first link to have good links, then their friends to have good links and so on. Through doing this, I've realised that (on the 5th click by the way) you can find some terrible sites with the most insignificant or irrelevant information that seems to be no more than tittle-tattle. In fact, if it was tittle-tattle, you'd be grateful. Instead, it will be people saying something along the lines of "today I'm happy. Here's a picture of my cat".

I know what you might be thinking. "Why, if he detests it so much, does he not put the time spent looking through teo lines down to experience and click on". Well, this is a tricky question because I honestly don't know why i can't just click through a page when it looks like it will be terrible. I seem to have a compulsion with blogs to read near enough all of the present information on the page. I don't know whether I'm looking for a previous post that shows current ones in an ironic light so I can laugh along with them or whether my faith in humanity tells me it must have just been a bad day but I go to sites and I have to read them. Unfortunately, this fills my head with information on how someone I've never known has been for the last ten days via the medium of a smiley or sad face. I don't want to know that. Reading why pigeons bob their head while they walk or who is the new number 2 at Yeovil carries some significance to me but "Today I am :). Went to the shops but they had no tomato. Got Beetroot instead" is useless and very throwaway.

I also fairly detest parasitism between blogs. If it's stored once and the person is in your little community, there is no justification for bastardising visitors from other sites by nicking their features, even if they do consent. If you are to copy something from elsewhere, at least pay people the respect of sending others to their site rather than just displaying it for yourself. The only time I have been happy with it was when I discovered "Backstroke of The West" taken by a guy in Beirut. I believe it had disappeared from its original space though.

Whoo. That was quite a rant by the end. Needless to say, none of the pages linked from mine strike me as anything like this. In fact, watching badgerbadgerbadger.com may be a better use of your time if you are thinking about bloglinking!

Ok, I just typed that straight out with no real forethought so it may be revised. If your site is worth a look feel free to post it here.

ShrimperWatch - Rushden Away LDV

Didn't go and don't know what to say. Ok, we've loved it over the past two seasons but it's also destroyed our results and form after the final. By all accounts we were battered first half and battered back second. Good luck to Rushden and hopefully that win helps them to regain some form. Not overly fussed about 2 defeats in a row as Tilson knows what he's doing.

Key man: From the crackly sound of the match on a train, sounded like Lawson did well and staked a place for a start against Barnsley. Now that IS a game I'm fussed about.

NOTE: Gonna stop doing these in Canada unless something remarkably good happens!

ShrimperWatch - Doncaster Away

Lost 2-0 to lowly Doncaster. Didn't go so I'm working with 2nd hand information which is always slightly refracted through the messenger but sounds as though we had a pretty poor performance in a pretty poor game.

First was a long range strike and I always thought the run would end when one of these went in because (e.g.Yeovil) they haven't gone in whent hey might have done. Second seems like them catching us on the break.

Key man: No idea. probably 'Southender' off SOL for not going with his magic camera.