Watching football...

Only crap ones then!

I witnessed at first hand what a rubbish ref Mike Riley is. Ye gods, the man's an absolute irritant, how the hell you can book a goalkeeper for opting not to take a free kick 15 yards inside his own half is ludicrous. Seven yellow cards - most of them for petty infringements and yet him and his lino miss a clear 2 yards offside winner for Arsenal that gets replayed on the big screen for all to see including himself and yet he STILL gives the "goal" which he didn't HAVE to do as the game had not kicked off again.

Dishonest is the politest description I can think of!

Oh I don't know about that. I would have all of them back apart from 18 goal Charlie McDonald! Gritts won everything in the air last night and worked well with Jack Lester. We were also impressed with their pacy left winger Drew Talbot who I read today has suffered two broken legs, a season long back injury and an 8 month cruciate ligament injury in his very short footballing career and on loan from Wigan midfielder Lewis Montrose. I quite like how Chesterfield play as well. Organised at the back, strong in midfield, pacy down the flanks with a direct style but with a bit of flair and creativity in the correct areas. An outside bet for the play offs if they win their 3 games in hand. Otherwise Exeter will have to screw up very badly in order not to make the play offs!

A colleague who's a Argyle supporter went as white as a sheet last week when I told him they could be playing City next season. I think he'd forgotten all about that!

As you can imagine I enjoyed my trip to Burton and can add little to the comments of others about the game suffice to say I've not been as happy all season as I was sat in the stand during the first-half. Quite simply we were excellent all over the pitch. And where better than to enjoy a half-time Bovril than in the older football fan's drink's home town?

I'd actually been in Burton since early afternoon arriving at the railway station to be greeted with signs describing it as A Gateway to the National Forest. Does this mean Burton isn't confident enough to describe itself as the gateway to the forest? I hope they're not losing their nerve on that one as well...

For those of you who've been to Burton, you'll know it's not a place of great character or beauty although I must say it's pretty decent down by the River Trent where I spent a while before dropping my bag at the Delter Hotel. This is a tidy establishment a few hundred yards from the Pirelli and almost slap bang opposite Derby Turn where Burton Wanderers played in the Football League in the 1890s.

At breakfast the next morning I held out little chance of football conversation with the North American family - father and two sons - at the next table. But then the proprietor came and asked them if they'd enjoyed the game. Being polite to the bloke - who clearly knew very little about football - they made the obligatory pro-home team/good guest noises. Then we got talking and it transpired that the father - probably in his mid 50s - was a Prestonian (in spite of his accent) who regularly brings his two lads to Britain on football-watching trips. He remembered coming to Plainmoor to see PNE in 1970/71; knew his grounds and history; knew his players and was rather proud of having one of the largest programme collections in North America (boosted by the arrival of every PNE programme through the post).

Unfortunately our conversation which - if it had started the night before would have lasted five hours - was over in fifteen minutes because they were off to the station to take the scenic route to Hereford for that evening's game against Brighton. Then tonight it was Ninian Park for the match against Derby. I do hope the lads enjoy it as much as dad and I wonder what their mates back in New Jersey will make of tales of Edgar Street?

For me there was a trip to Ashbourne which is famous for its tradtional rough-and-tumble Shrovetide football. Walking around the streets of that lovely little town I wondered if Groundhoppers tick off the market square when they visit? I bet some of them bloody do.

In fact I've been told that Dovedale is good groundhopping territory on account of its summer football. Apparently this started because the local agricultural labourers were too busy in the dark winters to play football. Instead they started playing at 7pm on summer evenings and the tradition has stuck much to the undoubted pleasure of men with clipboards and plastic covers for team sheets.....

Just been in town buying a new anorak in preparation for Royal Marines v Exeter Civil Service this afternoon.

Came home via the cathedral and saw part of the Good Friday crucifixion re-enactment. I was a little alarmed when I thought Tim Sills was one of the figures on the crosses....(it did look like him!). I know he's not popular amongst City fans but.....

And to that, you could add how Bill Shankly was associated, at various times, with Carlisle United, Preston North End, Grimsby Town, Workington, Huddersfield Town....

For me, following players up and down the leagues was one of the little delights of being a football fan. I’d imagine many supporters of my generation have a mental database of the career details of thousands upon thousands of footballers. But, in my case, that database now contains very few current Premier League players. This may be because there are so many coming from other leagues. Of these, some become well-known and hugely significant whilst others come from nowhere, play very little and disappear quickly. I can't - and don't want to - keep track.

Likewise there are now relatively few lower division players emerging to appear in the Premier League on a regular basis. To this effect I’ve even heard some people – not the Football League’s marketing division I hasten to add – describe the Premier League as an international league with the Championship as the pinnacle of the English game. That’s a thought-provoking idea if nothing else and seeing Jonathan Stead playing for Ipswich at Wolves recently got me thinking a bit more.

A few years back – when he was at Huddersfield – Stead was one of the hottest prospects at our level. In time he got his big move to Blackburn but didn’t really cut it and soon moved on Sunderland and Sheffield United. I don’t know if that’s due to the player’s shortcomings - as a footballer or individual – but it struck me his career trajectory is at the top end of what could now be expected by a talented young player in the lower divisions. Twenty, thirty, forty years ago I’d imagine there would have been a far greater likelihood of him becoming an established First Division footballer.

Maybe the absence of Jonathan Steads is what – so we’re led to believe – makes the Premier League far superior to dowdy old Division One. If so, that’s progress. But, as I think Merse implies, we’re left with a situation where the leading clubs have diminishing interaction with the rest of the British game. This reflects the supra-national nature of the Premier League/Champions League complex where Manchester United’s rivals are now Barcelona rather than Leeds and Tranmere’s promising players are further from Liverpool’s plans than those in La Liga and its feeders.

Football - at the very top – became globalised long ago and its increasing internationalisation was inevitable. How bad a thing is that anyway? It’s easy to cry foul about excessive foreign influence in English football but, in all the time I’ve been interested in the game, one of the most exciting developments was the introduction of non-British and Irish players in 1978. It’s amazing that, with a handful of peculiar exceptions, there were no foreign footballers playing for English teams until then. This meant that those early signings – Ardiles and Villa at Spurs, Muhren and Thijssen at Ipswich – really added another dimension. So consequently it was only right that, after a pretty long interlude, clubs started appointing overseas coaches and managers.

Too many foreign players and coaches? I’m not sure but I’m surprised by their number and how the wider forces of globalisation in football have changed the character and nature of our leading clubs. A few years back – to me anyway – these clubs became less distinguishable from each other. Amidst all our Cloughie nostalgia we remember the differences between Derby, Leeds, Liverpool and the rest in terms of mentality, playing style, personnel, managers, grounds, crowds and - well - everything. Now, by these measures, it seems big clubs are relatively indistinguishable. They are also becoming increasingly less distinctive when compared with Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona, etc, etc. I'm a little sadddened by that in a game where characteristics and identities count for so much.

Or do we just have too many players? Bigger squads; squad rotation; players rested for cup-ties; more and more subs - all of which means we tend to think less of full-strength teams and more of the best approach to each game. Pragmatic but less glamorous; progressive – and just like the idea of a flexible workforce – hard to argue against. Nonetheless I’m not sure if it adds to the pleasure I derive from being interested in football.

On that note you may recall how, in another thread, I mentioned the furore that accompanied Leeds sending a weakened team to Derby on Easter Monday 1970. Here’s the results and line-ups from that day. The Leeds team stands out like a sore thumb. Injuries and suspensions apart, all the other teams are pretty much as you’d expect (and I don't mean Stirling bleedin' Albion):

On my way to see friends at Uplyme, I took in Axminster v. Ottery this morning. 4-1 to Axminster. It was like a throwback to the 70's with Merson type tackles which today would warrant a straight red. Two should have gone. The hoppers were there making the gate a record for the club, 358. Ground hopping is absolutely an eccentric English past time. Completely bonkers. There was conversations about why the Kent County League has an odd number of teams in the top divisions; what an excellent film The Deadwood Stage was starring Doris Day etc. But I cut them dead with the revelation that Plainmoor is the only professional/ perhaps even part time ground in the country with both dug outs in the same half of the pitch. This provided a stunned reaction. You could almost hear their brains whirring as they took this in, no doubt another interesting tidbit to dine out on. I also said that Dittisham United had probably the most picturesque ground in the country. Well I did my bit for the tourism industry - I feel rather pleased with myself. Had a ice cream with flake with 100s and 1000s on top on the Cobb at Lyme Regis. All in all a rather nice footballing day. Life in the fast lane or what.

Yes, an eccentric English pastime...with the odd visitor from Germany, Holland and Scandinavia. There's also something of the village fete atmosphere about the Hop with stalls, food and people chatting in small groups. As Sam hints, you overhear detailed football chat as well as conversations about all manner of quirky topics. The activity seems to attract the single-tracked bore just as much as the more-rounded multi-obsessive who may be keen on football, running, cricket, film, beer, politics and the whole bloody kaboodle...

...and you'll never see so many little red books suddenly appear each time there's a substitution, booking, goal or any other recordable incident.

One topic of discussion yesterday was the whereabouts of Wolfie who hasn't been seen for a while. If my memory is correct, Wolfie is the character who wouldn't "count" a game unless he touched the match ball (there are others who don't count goalless draws whilst some insist upon touching all four corner flags and both crossbars to "log" a game). Apparently Wolfie, who was also prone to record the time of his first contact with the ball, didn't enjoy Hops because there was competition to touch the ball as well as skulduggery designed to prevent him from making contact.

Wolfie was first pointed out to me on one of his more successful days at Liskeard about ten years ago when he managed to touch the ball after after about 15 seconds. Later in the game he beat off competition to hop over the wall and chase the ball along the road. Now this was a bloke aged about forty-five at the time....

Maybe Hops are best sampled by the odd game - rather than the whole seven matches - and it all finishes at Buckland Athletic v Witheridge at 6.30pm today.