No social media experiments last night. I went to pick my mate up with options open but with a hankering for Thurrock. By the time I got to Loughton the sensible thing was to head to Waltham Abbey. It also gave my mate an opportunity for a cash point run followed by a quick fire trip to McDonald's. What these errands meant was getting there about 30 seconds before kick off and missing out on a programme. I'm far from obsessed with programmes but I'd rather have one than not (though have long since given up on buying them at Orient in spite of the quality having improved significantly in recent times). I did politely decline the offer of one in the post. I'm not THAT bothered.
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Monday, 11 August 2014
How Many Were There Going From St. Ives?
When the fixtures were announced there was no doubt in my mind that I would be at Orient watching them take on promoted Chesterfield. A couple of weeks ago I had decided that I would take in Clapton's visit to Haringey Borough but having seen Clapton pummel Ealing Town in a friendly I didn't need to scratch my Clapton itch 2 games in a row.
But where to go? In the end I conducted a social media experiment. I sent a tweet to 4 clubs asking them where I should go on the first day of the season. Of the 4 it seems that Haringey Borough and Rayners Lane set up accounts and then promptly forgot about them. So no reply from them. That left Wingate & Finchley and North Greenford United. I had no reason to expect anyone to answer but if I were a betting man I would've backed Wingate as they seem to to be pretty web savvy. I was wrong. Within 5 minutes North Greenford tweeted me back telling me West London was the place to be. So, off I went.
But where to go? In the end I conducted a social media experiment. I sent a tweet to 4 clubs asking them where I should go on the first day of the season. Of the 4 it seems that Haringey Borough and Rayners Lane set up accounts and then promptly forgot about them. So no reply from them. That left Wingate & Finchley and North Greenford United. I had no reason to expect anyone to answer but if I were a betting man I would've backed Wingate as they seem to to be pretty web savvy. I was wrong. Within 5 minutes North Greenford tweeted me back telling me West London was the place to be. So, off I went.
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Fickle By Nature
So, I'm fickle. I'm a football fan; it's part of the job description isn't it? Some weeks before my last post I slumped drunkenly into my Wembley seat, head despairingly plunged in my hands. No Championship dreams for Orient. A 2 goal halftime lead had transformed into penalty shootout agony. Not to worry though, with the eternal foolish optimism of most fans I found myself not only drowning my sorrows in a pub round the corner from Baker Street tube. Not only that, I was getting excited about next season. I vowed to get a season ticket again.
I didn't though. I remembered the things I touched upon in my last post and decided against it and settled down to enjoy the World Cup. Then something strange happened. Francesco Becchetti, a mysterious Italian billionaire bought out Barry Hearn and became the new owner of Orient. Much excitement ensued as last season's squad was added to. Not only that but the newcomers were players that fans had heard of and rated. My money remained resolutely in my pocket as my levels of enthusiasm failed to increase at all. It all seems too good to be true and not very Orient. There seems to be very little information available in English about Becchetti. Why would a billionaire buy a club like Orient. We don't own our ground and even if he were to buy the lease from Hearn there is now next to no scope for development at Brisbane Road. That leaves the Olympic Stadium as spectre that hasn't been quite banished. I wish I could just enjoy the ride on the pitch but my suspicion of where we're headed off it. I'm not stopping supporting Orient but I can't see myself at Brisbane Road too many times this season. Obviously I leave myself open to accusations of not being a real fan but I'm not sure I've ever seen the rulebook.
So what does the season ahead hold for me? I've bemoaned the lack of a thriving non-league club in East London. Dagenham & Redbridge ate up all the candidates in the 80s. There is no Sutton United or Dulwich Hamlet round these parts. However, there is Clapton. The Clapton Ultras make taking in a few of their game an interesting prospect. I may even manage to see them win a league game. Waltham Forest struggle on and need all the support they can get. I'll be sure to get down to Dulwich a few times. I can't deny a club with its own lager. These are places that could probably do with my entrance money more than Orient at the moment.
I am lucky that I am happy to get my footballing kicks in a multitude a ways. I'm already forming plans. The romance of a daytrip to Glossop North End. Can I get to Dumfries and back in a day? I've always wanted to see Queen of the South. Maybe a trip to Belgium. The possibilities are if not endless difficult to exhaust in a season . I may even get round to getting to Wingate & Finchley. How can Finchley have so many tube stations and the ground be so far from all of them? I bet parking is murder too.
Of course, I may just end up back at Orient. If it all goes to plan on the pitch it may be too alluring to turn my back on it all despite my (admittedly nebulous) misgivings. Which is where I came in. I'm a football fan.
I'm fickle.
I didn't though. I remembered the things I touched upon in my last post and decided against it and settled down to enjoy the World Cup. Then something strange happened. Francesco Becchetti, a mysterious Italian billionaire bought out Barry Hearn and became the new owner of Orient. Much excitement ensued as last season's squad was added to. Not only that but the newcomers were players that fans had heard of and rated. My money remained resolutely in my pocket as my levels of enthusiasm failed to increase at all. It all seems too good to be true and not very Orient. There seems to be very little information available in English about Becchetti. Why would a billionaire buy a club like Orient. We don't own our ground and even if he were to buy the lease from Hearn there is now next to no scope for development at Brisbane Road. That leaves the Olympic Stadium as spectre that hasn't been quite banished. I wish I could just enjoy the ride on the pitch but my suspicion of where we're headed off it. I'm not stopping supporting Orient but I can't see myself at Brisbane Road too many times this season. Obviously I leave myself open to accusations of not being a real fan but I'm not sure I've ever seen the rulebook.
So what does the season ahead hold for me? I've bemoaned the lack of a thriving non-league club in East London. Dagenham & Redbridge ate up all the candidates in the 80s. There is no Sutton United or Dulwich Hamlet round these parts. However, there is Clapton. The Clapton Ultras make taking in a few of their game an interesting prospect. I may even manage to see them win a league game. Waltham Forest struggle on and need all the support they can get. I'll be sure to get down to Dulwich a few times. I can't deny a club with its own lager. These are places that could probably do with my entrance money more than Orient at the moment.
I am lucky that I am happy to get my footballing kicks in a multitude a ways. I'm already forming plans. The romance of a daytrip to Glossop North End. Can I get to Dumfries and back in a day? I've always wanted to see Queen of the South. Maybe a trip to Belgium. The possibilities are if not endless difficult to exhaust in a season . I may even get round to getting to Wingate & Finchley. How can Finchley have so many tube stations and the ground be so far from all of them? I bet parking is murder too.
Of course, I may just end up back at Orient. If it all goes to plan on the pitch it may be too alluring to turn my back on it all despite my (admittedly nebulous) misgivings. Which is where I came in. I'm a football fan.
I'm fickle.
Saturday, 31 May 2014
A Stream of Consciousness Instead of Bothering With the England Peru Game
Crikey. It's almost 3 years since I last posted. What started out as a fun idea succumbed to the reality of working full time, bringing up children and most relevantly (and pretentiously) not really finding my voice. I'm not sure I've found my voice yet but I can feel a stream of consciousness coming on.
Back in 2010 I decided not to renew my Leyton Orient season ticket. What had been a pleasure had become a drudge. I had one mainly to save money. Once I bought I felt I couldn't miss any games to make sure I got my money's worth. So I stopped; and I felt liberated. Then, I remembered going to non-league games as a youngster. I started going to them again and felt even more liberated. In the end I went to more to football than I had in years. I still went to Orient but not as some kind of weird obligation to myself so that felt better too.
I had misgivings though. The Olympics hadn't happened yet but I was a bit suspicious of the prospect of that big stadium being built in Stratford. I wasn't bothered about a bigger side moving in next door (and I'm still not) but I was worried about an ambitious plan to take Orient there. This is a worry that still hasn't completely subsided. Because deep down I know that most routes away from Brisbane Road would mean me parting company permanently with the team I support sooner rather than later. So it's fair to say that as well as saving money and not feeling obligated to and spending more time with my family not renewing my season ticket was also a case of putting a bit of emotional distance between me and Orient before someone else did it for me.
It was both the sense of liberation I felt and the slightly dislocated sense of disillusionment I felt with Orient that gave birth to this blog. They weren't responsible parents though and this blog still died. (I still haven't decided whether this is a belated epitaph or a breath of new life!). And yet...and yet the annoyance that I had felt with top flight football continued to grow. The hype bored me. The mind games bored me.The vitriol bored and depressed me. For last couple of months I have been toying with the idea of giving next season a miss; at least in terms of professional football. I'll tackle the elephant in the room first. If Orient hadn't lost to Rotherham United and their cheating fraudulent manager in the play-off final I would have there with bells on for Orient's first season in the Championship for an aeon. I'm not that silly. Additionally, for no real logical reason, the World Cup is exempt from this disillusion. I'm fully aware of FIFA's dodginess but the World Cup is just about the only thing that can be relied upon to bring out the 8 year old boy in me and reignite that childlike feeling of excitement. For crying out loud, I was stood in the middle of a busy tube station concourse a few hours ago at the height of rush hour, swapping Panini football stickers. (Quite how they seem to have gone viral this year is another discussion in its own right.). I may struggle with the pre-tournament friendlies but I will be immersing myself in the World Cup completely. But do I fancy Premier League 2014/15? Not so much.
Money is the root of all evil. That's the easy explanation. To go a little deeper; it's the uneven distribution of the money and the sad fact that most fans don't care where the money comes from if it delivers (or at least promises to) results and trophies. But this week as I tried to expunge the memories of Orient's failed penalty shootout with thoughts of the World Cup by concentrating on sorting out my swaps and charging through the first few chapters of James Montague's Thirty One Nil that I had a slight epiphany. Money and football is a huge problem but it's not the thing souring my relationship with it. Perspective. The huge lack of perspective at almost every corner is what is doing it. Arsenal fans have bewildered me over the years with their desperation at being an well run solvent clubs that qualifies for the Champions League every year. My bewilderment grew at the utter jubilation at wining the FA Cup, a competition they rarely grace with their first choice XI. They're not the only culprits though. If it's not a foul it HAS to be a dive. If he's out of form he's worst player in the club's history. Very often the lack of perspective is greater the less likely people are to actually go to matches. Added to the ability talk about football online and often anonymously people lose all perspective and most of their dignity and the levels of vitriol spiral out of control. But the Proustian rush of memories caused by peeling stickers from their backing and Montague's account of no hope minnows playing full of caused me to remember that I can do football on my terms. I've got my own perspective.
The counter argument is that I don't care enough. Possibly so. But I care enough for me. I'll go to Orient games, watch Match of the Day on Sunday mornings, have occasional outings to the pub to watch Sky games, go to some non league games and maybe a game here or there further afield. I'm not quite ready to give up on the game yet.
Now, there's a World Cup about to be on. I'll probably be back griping about Mick McCarthy very soon.
tldr: Football's shit but I still love it.
Back in 2010 I decided not to renew my Leyton Orient season ticket. What had been a pleasure had become a drudge. I had one mainly to save money. Once I bought I felt I couldn't miss any games to make sure I got my money's worth. So I stopped; and I felt liberated. Then, I remembered going to non-league games as a youngster. I started going to them again and felt even more liberated. In the end I went to more to football than I had in years. I still went to Orient but not as some kind of weird obligation to myself so that felt better too.
I had misgivings though. The Olympics hadn't happened yet but I was a bit suspicious of the prospect of that big stadium being built in Stratford. I wasn't bothered about a bigger side moving in next door (and I'm still not) but I was worried about an ambitious plan to take Orient there. This is a worry that still hasn't completely subsided. Because deep down I know that most routes away from Brisbane Road would mean me parting company permanently with the team I support sooner rather than later. So it's fair to say that as well as saving money and not feeling obligated to and spending more time with my family not renewing my season ticket was also a case of putting a bit of emotional distance between me and Orient before someone else did it for me.
It was both the sense of liberation I felt and the slightly dislocated sense of disillusionment I felt with Orient that gave birth to this blog. They weren't responsible parents though and this blog still died. (I still haven't decided whether this is a belated epitaph or a breath of new life!). And yet...and yet the annoyance that I had felt with top flight football continued to grow. The hype bored me. The mind games bored me.The vitriol bored and depressed me. For last couple of months I have been toying with the idea of giving next season a miss; at least in terms of professional football. I'll tackle the elephant in the room first. If Orient hadn't lost to Rotherham United and their cheating fraudulent manager in the play-off final I would have there with bells on for Orient's first season in the Championship for an aeon. I'm not that silly. Additionally, for no real logical reason, the World Cup is exempt from this disillusion. I'm fully aware of FIFA's dodginess but the World Cup is just about the only thing that can be relied upon to bring out the 8 year old boy in me and reignite that childlike feeling of excitement. For crying out loud, I was stood in the middle of a busy tube station concourse a few hours ago at the height of rush hour, swapping Panini football stickers. (Quite how they seem to have gone viral this year is another discussion in its own right.). I may struggle with the pre-tournament friendlies but I will be immersing myself in the World Cup completely. But do I fancy Premier League 2014/15? Not so much.
Money is the root of all evil. That's the easy explanation. To go a little deeper; it's the uneven distribution of the money and the sad fact that most fans don't care where the money comes from if it delivers (or at least promises to) results and trophies. But this week as I tried to expunge the memories of Orient's failed penalty shootout with thoughts of the World Cup by concentrating on sorting out my swaps and charging through the first few chapters of James Montague's Thirty One Nil that I had a slight epiphany. Money and football is a huge problem but it's not the thing souring my relationship with it. Perspective. The huge lack of perspective at almost every corner is what is doing it. Arsenal fans have bewildered me over the years with their desperation at being an well run solvent clubs that qualifies for the Champions League every year. My bewilderment grew at the utter jubilation at wining the FA Cup, a competition they rarely grace with their first choice XI. They're not the only culprits though. If it's not a foul it HAS to be a dive. If he's out of form he's worst player in the club's history. Very often the lack of perspective is greater the less likely people are to actually go to matches. Added to the ability talk about football online and often anonymously people lose all perspective and most of their dignity and the levels of vitriol spiral out of control. But the Proustian rush of memories caused by peeling stickers from their backing and Montague's account of no hope minnows playing full of caused me to remember that I can do football on my terms. I've got my own perspective.
The counter argument is that I don't care enough. Possibly so. But I care enough for me. I'll go to Orient games, watch Match of the Day on Sunday mornings, have occasional outings to the pub to watch Sky games, go to some non league games and maybe a game here or there further afield. I'm not quite ready to give up on the game yet.
Now, there's a World Cup about to be on. I'll probably be back griping about Mick McCarthy very soon.
tldr: Football's shit but I still love it.
Saturday, 3 September 2011
This Train Terminates at Cockfosters
Yes, we have all had a giggle at Cockfosters. But it probably means chief forester (if you believe Wikipedia) so doesn't that make you feel immature? Not me. However, no more knob gags for now. Cockfosters is where I went for Non League Day.
I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been before and the proximity of Cockfosters' Chalk Lane ground to the Tube station made them an attractive option. Their opponents, Redbridge, are reasonably local to me and I hadn't seen them yet this season so off I headed into the the cauldron of the late summer Central line and wended my way up the surprisingly slow Picadilly line. Cockfosters isn't that far away surely.
Arriving at 5 to 3 didn't give me any time to get to know Cockfosters but the road up to the ground is lovely. The ground itself is bordered by 2 cricket grounds giving it a leafy idyll kind of a feel. I handed my money over roughly 4.7 seconds before kick off.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
The Long Arm of the Draw
So, I had an early start this season at the end of June with Fulham's game against the minnows of Runavik but had not managed to fit anything in until last weekend. I had also decided that it having celebrated the arrival of daughter number 2 almost 2 weeks earlier that it was time for my eldest daughter's first match. Now 3 1/3 is a bit too young for league football so Orient was out but I reckoned on the more sparsely populated surroundings of Barkingside vs Southend Manor being a little more conducive to the her attention span. This was especially important as she hadn't actually expressed any interest in football itself; just going to the football with me. So armed with a bag full of goodies, a picture book and a doll I put the buggy into action and set off.
The one thing that I wasn't expecting on arrival was 2 policeman in the car park making sure that all was tranquil at Oakside. It seems that Essex Senior League football was now a major event in the aftermath of the riots. In the end 4 coppers stood on the terrace enjoying the football (admittedly I think all 4 were special constables but it was still an amusing sight.)
The one thing that I wasn't expecting on arrival was 2 policeman in the car park making sure that all was tranquil at Oakside. It seems that Essex Senior League football was now a major event in the aftermath of the riots. In the end 4 coppers stood on the terrace enjoying the football (admittedly I think all 4 were special constables but it was still an amusing sight.)
Sunday, 14 August 2011
The Blog that Lived
It has been months since my last post. At first this was down to me being too excited about the Orient Arsenal game to get my thoughts into any kind of coherent form. After that real life took over and a mixture of pregnancy (mu wife's rather than mine!) and house hunting took over. Although I still went to games I didn't really have time to write anything meaningful. So, for me 2011/12 started way back on June 30th with £5 tickets for Fulham against the Faeroese heroes of NSI Runavik. Unfortunately drunk too much afterwards so no blog there and to be honest it would have just involved excruciating explanations of jokes about the Dentist if I had bothered so all's well that ends well. So here's to 2011/12
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