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This post will only appeal to a small percentage of my readership, aka men, but here goes anyway. It is prompted by a complaint from a loyal reader (Phil Mac) that I don't put enough in about our beloved Barrow. The fact that this blog is about my experiences in Edinburgh doesn't seem to wash with Phil.
I've just returned from the pub where I watched a deflated Liverpool capitulate to that bunch of Southern softies known as Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. Good atmosphere in the pub, at least until Chelsea scored their third.
Football is a wonderful game, or to qualify that it is if you didn't lose your last match. Fortunately, having lost at home to relegation rivals Woking last Saturday, Barrow partially redeemed themselves with an away point at Kettering yesterday so, for now, football is wonderful game.
Champions League is all very well, but "grass roots" football is the real thing. I was reminded of this by the daily newsletter email I received today from a guy called Ralph, who lives in New Zealand, such is our fan base and widespread appeal. It contained (as it always does) a look back at a match from Barrow's long and inglorious history, which I faithfully reproduce below along with rough translation:
I've just returned from the pub where I watched a deflated Liverpool capitulate to that bunch of Southern softies known as Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. Good atmosphere in the pub, at least until Chelsea scored their third.
Football is a wonderful game, or to qualify that it is if you didn't lose your last match. Fortunately, having lost at home to relegation rivals Woking last Saturday, Barrow partially redeemed themselves with an away point at Kettering yesterday so, for now, football is wonderful game.
Champions League is all very well, but "grass roots" football is the real thing. I was reminded of this by the daily newsletter email I received today from a guy called Ralph, who lives in New Zealand, such is our fan base and widespread appeal. It contained (as it always does) a look back at a match from Barrow's long and inglorious history, which I faithfully reproduce below along with rough translation:
December 3 1988, Bacup Borough 0 Barrow 0, Lancashire Cup* First Round
Bacup Borough: No team details.$
Barrow: McDonnell, Higgins, Hulse, Harrison, Gordon, Reach, Doherty, Gilmour, G. Gill£, Lowe, Burgess (Chilton). Sub: Skivington%.
Ref: n/a. ** Att: 77. $$ Harrison sent-off. %% Match abandoned after 90 minutes, no floodlights. ***
* even less important than our usual matches
$ we can't even be bothered to produce a team sheet
£ we may or may not have another player called Gill, if we do he's not playing tonight but we want to be very clear which one we are talking about because that's the sort of anoraky people we are
% the poor sod had to sit out the whole match and didn't even get a kick
** ref "not applicable" - says it all really
$$ Players, player's wives, player's mothers, groundsman, tea lady, small boy, dog
%% lucky sod
*** interesting that nobody noticed this for 90 minutes! I assume they finished the match, were due to play extra time as it was a draw but it was by then too dark. Now then, don't you think someone should have thought about this possibility in advance? Presumably they then had to rearrange the match, or even just play the extra time, on another date. Or perhaps they just tossed a coin in the bar afterwards and the unlucky losers went through to the next round.
For those few of you who have never been to Bacup, the ground is on a steep slope on the outskirts of the town, where the wind whistles down off the Pennines across a bleak and barren landscape, peppered with depressing rows of dirty terraced housing. And that's me talking the place up.
Ah, non-league football, its what life's all about.
DEPORTATION UPDATE... DEPORTATION UPDATE...
Alex is reprieved! He had his interview with the immigration department at Edinburgh Airport yesterday and they were feeling in a good mood, so he got a 3 month extension. He even turned up to today's business course wearing a suit. This is probably because he packed all his things up on the expectation they were going to tell him to jump on the next plane back to Malaysia,but fortunately for him it didn't come to that.
Gill told us the news this morning as we arrived for the start of the business course at Napier University.
"Alex says its good news," she said.
"He's being deported," replied Stepan, drily.
The above news may or may not explain the exchange of texts I've just had:
$ we can't even be bothered to produce a team sheet
£ we may or may not have another player called Gill, if we do he's not playing tonight but we want to be very clear which one we are talking about because that's the sort of anoraky people we are
% the poor sod had to sit out the whole match and didn't even get a kick
** ref "not applicable" - says it all really
$$ Players, player's wives, player's mothers, groundsman, tea lady, small boy, dog
%% lucky sod
*** interesting that nobody noticed this for 90 minutes! I assume they finished the match, were due to play extra time as it was a draw but it was by then too dark. Now then, don't you think someone should have thought about this possibility in advance? Presumably they then had to rearrange the match, or even just play the extra time, on another date. Or perhaps they just tossed a coin in the bar afterwards and the unlucky losers went through to the next round.
For those few of you who have never been to Bacup, the ground is on a steep slope on the outskirts of the town, where the wind whistles down off the Pennines across a bleak and barren landscape, peppered with depressing rows of dirty terraced housing. And that's me talking the place up.
Ah, non-league football, its what life's all about.
DEPORTATION UPDATE... DEPORTATION UPDATE...
Alex is reprieved! He had his interview with the immigration department at Edinburgh Airport yesterday and they were feeling in a good mood, so he got a 3 month extension. He even turned up to today's business course wearing a suit. This is probably because he packed all his things up on the expectation they were going to tell him to jump on the next plane back to Malaysia,but fortunately for him it didn't come to that.
Gill told us the news this morning as we arrived for the start of the business course at Napier University.
"Alex says its good news," she said.
"He's being deported," replied Stepan, drily.
The above news may or may not explain the exchange of texts I've just had:
UNKNOWN CALLER: Hey up 4 a drink morow? Hope not 2 busy after course
ME: Who is this please?
U. C.: r u Frank boddy?
ME: Yep
U. C.: Ur terrorist. lol
U. C.: C u morow sheffield navy.peace from d guerilla samboanga teritory.
Answers on a postcard please.
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