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I bought some light bulbs today, in Sainsbury’s, and one of them doesn’t work. Worse things happen at sea, of course, but it was annoying nevertheless. And it made me think of buying lightbulbs in the olden days, from the small electrical shop in the village where I grew up. The shop was gloriously named Venus and Spong, and was run by a rather stern, but friendly middle-aged couple. The woman (could she have been Venus?) had a facial disfigurement, caused, according to my older sister, by her “pulling a face when the wind changed”, which seemed entirely plausible at the time, but may not have been true. Whenever Venus or her husband (surely not Spong?) sold a lightbulb, they would test the bulb in a light fitting on the counter before any money changed hands, as if the magic of electric light had to be seen by the customer to be believed.
And thinking of that bit of old-fashioned customer service reminded me of the smell of Venus and Spong (the shop, not the people). It smelt like, well, like an electrical shop, and was so distinctive in a way that shops these days just aren’t. Similarly, the grocer’s shop, Gadsby’s, with a row of tins of loose biscuits in front of the counter and dried peas by the ounce (which were perfect for my Sekedin gun), smelt like no other shop. Every now and then, while wandering around a big supermarket, I get whiffs of the small shops that it has replaced, as if the ghosts of Venus, Spong and Gadsby are haunting the aisles to remind me of how things used to be, and to make me feel guilty for not hunting down the last small electrical shop in Bristol for my lightbulbs.
OK, so we lost the playoff final, and we’re all gutted. But, four days on, here are some RTBC:
- Last season was the best ever in my time as a supporter, and next season could be even better.
- If we’d got promoted, we’d have probably lost most of our games next season. In the Championship, we’ll probably win most of our games. And we like seeing City win.
- In the Premiership, we’d have only had 19 home games. In the Championship, we’ll have 23. And we like seeing City play.
- We’re still a division above Leicester, Leeds, and, of course, the Gas.
- We get to beat Crystal Palace and Watford all over again.
- We won’t see Dean Windass, ever again. (Even if we don’t swap places with Hull this time next year, he’ll surely be too old, too fat, or too knackered to play football for much longer.)
Let’s hope he does this one:
Tom Waits has quietly confirmed the dates for the European part of his summer tour. No performances in England, let alone Bristol, so we realised that we would have to travel if we wanted to see him. Edinburgh seemed the best bet, and tickets went on sale this morning at 10:00. This meant that I had to take time off work to try to get some (I couldn’t really justify sitting at my desk during work time, endlessly clicking the refresh button on the Ticket master website), so, come 9:50, there was I, sat at the computer, one hand on the keyboard, the other hand on the phone, with a mobile between my teeth for good measure. I soon gave up on the phone, the number being permanently engaged, but shortly after 10 a message popped up on the browser offering 2 seats in the second row of the dress circle – great news indeed. It only took a couple of hours for all the seats to be sold for all five Edinburgh and Dublin dates.
So we’re off to Scotland to see Tom. The last (and only other) time I saw him was in 1985, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing him perform again ever since. I can hardly wait – 61 days and counting!
We can go on about what a good day out it was, how really we need another Championship season to consolidate our position at that level, how Hull will probably “do a Derby” and come straight back down, but the bald, unavoidable fact is that we lost. And as we drove back into Bristol quietly last night, all I could think about was how different the city would have felt had we won, about all our missed opportunities in front of the Hull goal, about how close we came, and about how disappointed I felt.
Meanwhile, in the world of less important football, Man United beat Chelsea in the Champions’ League final in Moscow. It was a good game, I suppose, although I didn’t feel that bothered as to who won – if either of them had been playing anyone else, I’d have wanted their opponent to win. That said, I was marginally glad that United won, partly because of the whole Munich anniversary thing, partly because of Ryan Giggs breaking Sir Bobby Charlton’s record, partly because of Ronaldo’s brilliance, but mostly because of my irrational dislike of Chelsea. I was delighted that Drogba got himself sent off, and also that it was Nicolas “Couldn’t Give a Shit” Anelka’s penalty that was saved to give United the trophy. Alex Ferguson’s shiny suit was very unfortunate, and combined well with his crimson complexion and wobbly neck to put me in mind of a turkey prematurely wrapped in foil for the oven, but he seemed very pleased with himself nevertheless.
And so to real football. In precisely 24 hours’ time, the full time whistle will be blown at Wemberley, and one of three things will have happened. Hull may have won, and we’ll be shuffling towards the exit, left wondering if we’ll ever be successful in the playoffs. City may have won, and we’ll be losing control in a most undignified manner, singing “We are Premiership, say we are Premiership”. Or it may be all square after 90 minutes, and we’ll be bracing ourselves for the agony of extra time. How will we cope? My hunch is that Hull, the bookies’ favourites, will knick it with a late goal, but how I hope on hope that I’m wrong. This really is… The Big One.
Just had a very nervous planning meeting with Laz and Andrew (the other drivers for the trip to Wembley on Saturday), which I think concluded with a decision to leave at 7:45… for a 3:00 kick-off 2 hours down the road?! Ah well, I’ll go with the flow. We’re rendezvousing at Reading Services, circa 0915 hours, there to prepare for a final assault on Uxbridge, there to storm the Metropolitan line. With a following wind, we could be at Wembley in time for morning coffee, but we’re hoping to outwit the northern forces from Hull, who will arrive 20 minutes later and find nowhere to park, so will have to go home again. And given that the most enjoyable part of the day will probably be the pre-3:00 bit, I suppose we might as well make the most of it. OK, we’ll leave at dawn…
A good example of misuse of the word “literally” on the radio this morning. Some financial bloke was talking about money troubles in the postal service, and said that “the pension fund shortfall is literally a black hole in the Royal Mail’s accounts“. So did he mean that the shortfall is literally one of those things in space which swallows everything up? Or, given that these black holes are themselves only a concept and not literally holes, did he mean that, somewhere at Royal Mail HQ, there’s a dusty, leather-bound ledger with a hole in it that is black? I think we should be told…
(More “Literallys” here …)
“I’ve got something here that you’ll like“, said the postman, smiling broadly in the morning sunshine as he handed over an envelope marked “special delivery” – our tickets for Saturday’s playoff final. He knew what the envelope held because he, too, is a City fan and had received his envelope yesterday, and today he seemed especially happy in his work, spreading his bounty to the BS3 faithful. All over the city, the same scene was happening on thousands of doorsteps, from Easton to Ashton, Southville to Eastville (well, perhaps not Eastville…), and I couldn’t help wondering whether somewhere there’s a postie who’s a City fan who failed to get tickets in the free-for-all on Sunday, in which 20,000 tickets were sold in 25 minutes – imagine his pain as he hands over the envelopes to the lucky ones.
Ah, the playoffs! What a great idea. In the pre-playoffs era, City’s season would have ended weeks ago, with an unrewarded 4th place, with which we couldn’t have helped being disappointed, having spent so many weeks in the top 2. But, thanks to the playoffs, we’re having a fantastic time, watching the playoff matches, thinking about the final, planning our trip to Wembley, and, well, just hoping. And that’s what supporting City, or any other team, is all about – reflecting on past adventures and enjoying present challenges, certainly, but it’s the anticipation and optimism about the future that really keeps us going, that puts a spring in our step on matchdays, that makes us sing “Johnson says ‘Bounce around the ground‘” in the shower. It’s what’s giving me butterflies, even with 4 days to go, and it’s what turns a good season into a great one. And it’s what makes a postman smile.
Incredibly, we’ve made it to the final hurdle. A superb City performance in an electric atmosphere saw the boys beat Palace 2-1 for the second time in 4 days, going through to the Wembley showdown with a 4-2 aggregate score. It was scintillating, once-in-a-lifetime, tear-jerking stuff, which makes all those dreary 0-0 draws with Nowhere United on a wet Tuesday night in the third division so worthwhile.
Hero of the hour was Lee Trundle, who rewarded the fans’ patience with a superb goal in extra time. At the time, it always looked certain to go in, probably because of the mass of wishful thinking pushing it goalwards and the hours of pre-match fantasising about just such a fairytale ending. It was on the television replays that I realised just what a great goal it was - under pressure from defenders, and on legs that, after nearly 2 hours of frantic football, must have been running on the last rush of adrenalin, he curled an absolute peach into the top corner of the net. The mass euphoria was extraordinary, and almost frightening in its intensity, whilst Michael McIndoe’s sublime free kick minutes later put the icing on the cake and sent the Palace fans streaming towards the exit.
So now it really is The Big One, our beloved little Gary Johnson taking his little team on a charabanc to the big city, there to play for the biggest prize of all. I think I’ve just had a great idea for a screenplay…
A fine City performance when it really mattered, and two world-class goals from Carey (what a time to score your first goal of the season) and Noble (a superb curling drive from 35 yards out, leaving the goalkeeper with little hope of saving it).
But it’s only half time in this two-legged tie, and it’s still finely balanced. Palarse actually played rather better football than we’ve come to expect, and, if anything, were the less physical side. They will be desperate to win tonight at Ashton Gate, and Warnock’s proud boast is that he’s never lost a playoff semi-final. How we would love to break that particular record – I’m sure he’s a very nice man, but he keeps his charms so well hidden, and he certainly hasn’t endeared himself to the City faithful this season. He can look forward to a particularly warm welcome to Ashton Gate this evening, as can the loutish Shaun Derry, who clearly wasn’t taught good manners as a child. I bet he chews with his mouth open.
The drama of the occasion boils down to this. If Palace fail to score more goals than us tonight, we go to Wembley in a couple of weeks, there to compete in what’s been described as the richest club match in world football, worth an estimated £60 million to the winners. Suddenly, Bristol City find themselves on the brink of the Big Time.
Well, it seems a pretty unfair fight, as City’s Robins take on the high-flying eagles of Crystal Palarse. But anything can happen in the playoffs, and with a fully fit, highly motivated squad with nothing to lose, who would write us off? (And why are so many clubs’ nicknames bird-related? Anyone?)
It’s a two-legged tie, of course, with the home leg coming on Tuesday evening, and the overall winner going onward to the final at Wemberley. So even a narrow defeat tomorrow would not be a disaster, as we can be good at comebacks – my favourite City memory is off the injury time winner against Hartlepool to take us to the 2004 playoff final, a moment of such intensity that I can still feel the Dolman stand shake. (Of course we lost the final, to Brighton, of all teams, but we won’t dwell on that…)
There’s always something fascinating about the Guardian’s “Unsettling animal picture of the week”, but normally it’s something wincingly weird, or just plain grotesque, like a two-headed frog or a sheep eating itself. But this one really made me smile, so I thought I’d save it from the recycling bin and commit it to the relative permanence of the interweb.
Yay! Tom’s doing a gig in Birmingham! But hot diggedy dawg, that’ll be Birmingham, Alabama, and sadly not the one that’s an hour’s drive from Bristol. He’s announced his American tour dates (and they seem to be a rather odd collection of venues), but no European details yet. That said, he promises in his whacky press conference (see highlights below) that he will be coming to Europe, and mentions Spain and Dublin, so maybe he’ll stop off in merrie olde England en route. Here’s hoping!
A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, and the sort of comfortable win that we seem to have been waiting patiently for for a very long time. Some of our football was cosmic, notably Trundle’s trickery and Noble’s sublime free kick for the third goal, whilst Preston played like a side with, well, nothing to play for, and the win never seemed in doubt.
And so we’ve finished in 4th place, which, despite the disappointment of missing out on automatic promotion, is a magnificent achievement by Sir Gary and the Boys in the first season in the Championship. The less good news is that Crystal Palarse won comfortably, thereby taking 5th place from Watford, so it is them that we play in the playoffs. (I would have much preferred to have Watford, who have had an even less successful end to the season that us, but we really mustn’t be choosy.)
So next Saturday we start all over again, with Palace away, and the home leg on Tuesday week. Can we cope with the tension??
Elsewhere, West Brom beat QPR to become champions – well done, Baggies, far and away the best team to have visited Ashton Gate this season – and, most dramatically, Stoke drew with Leicester to condemn them to the 3rd division for the first time in their history. Leicester have had three managers this season, and I have to say that part of me is very glad to see the “throwaway manager” syndrome suitably rewarded. I wonder who will succeed Ian Holloway, who will now undoubtedly also be ditched?
Tom Waits has made an announcement about his 2008 tour of Europe! The announcement only says that a further announcement will be made, on Monday, and that this will confirm the concert dates. I am so excited!
A lovely day today, warm and sunny – even Barton Hill managed to look nice. The golf course would have looked nicer, of course, but the green fees have to be paid somehow, so I was at work. Stephen and I actually had a very nice game last night in lovely conditions. It was the season’s first match in the club knock-outs, and, sure enough, we were knocked out, as usual. On this occasion it was by Andrew and Stewart, who played exceptionally well to demolish us, 5 and 3 (which means they were 5 holes up with 3 to play). So, several years into my golfing career, I have yet to win a competitive knock-out match. Just as well I’m not thinking of turning pro just yet, or else the family may go hungry.
And talking of the family’s hunger… having held out for many years, I’m under increasing pressure to buy a microwave cooker. I regard microwaves as the work of the devil, but people seem to think they are just marvellous – “Dad, just think, we’d be able to have microwave chips, and defrost things, like milk“. Well excuse me, but, quite apart from never feeling the need to freeze milk, let alone defrost it, my experience of things “cooked” in a microwave is that they are always disappointing and often inedible. So, over my dead body will we have a microwave. Trouble is, I think the boys would rather have a microwave than a father, so patricide could be in the offing. If I’m found floating face down in the harbour, this blog should be used in evidence against them.
On a lighter note, we have an all-”English” Champions’ League final, with Chelsea facing Man United in Moscow in a few weeks. I never thought I’d say so, but I think I want United to win, Chelsea having replaced them as the team I want most to see fail. Apparently all 45,000 English supporters going to the final will have to get Russian visas – a nice little earner for the Russians, and bound to be a bureaucratic nightmare for supporters of United and Chelsea (apart, of course, from Roman Abramovich). May I suggest that, in future, any country in “Europe” that demands money from other Europeans to cross its border should not be allowed to host such a high profile sporting event? That said, if it was Bristol City in the final instead of Chelsea, I’d be there like a shot, and I’d be tempted to use the service promoted in an email I received today, offering a variety of charter flights to Moscow for the occasion – one of them, a 10-seater “Challenger 604″ jet, would cost only £70,000 for the day. “Note that the charge is for the whole plane, not per seat, but may be subject to surcharges for de-icing“, says the small print. Take your own de-icing spray, only £1.99 at Halfords.
Anyway, back in the world of real football, City have the final game of the season on Sunday, against Preston North End. There’s still lots to play for in our league, with 5 clubs at the bottom trying to avoid relegation, and many permutations at the top as well, whereas for us it’s simply a case of whether we’ll finish 4th, 5th or 6th, which will in turn determine when we play our playoff games, and against whom. I’ve already bought our playoff tickets, and it’s very odd to spend £28 on a ticket which says “Opponents – tbc, Date – tbc, Time – tbc”.
