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No, not the annoying television holiday show, but the light hearted reminiscenes of 10 days of festive fun, and the odd game of football.
23rd December
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If a week of constant alcoholic over-indulgence hasn't obliterated your recent memories, you will recall that our first game of the festive period was away at Newcastle. I arrived at the local pub just as the game was starting, and within seconds I was already shouting for a goal, penalty, and professional foul, ( in that order ), as Robbie ran through on goal. I don't need much warming up to get hysterical about a footy game.
The game took time to get interesting, as Newcastle ( hereafter referred to as "the Toon" ) played with an uncharacteristic 7 men behind the ball. This strategy was obviously devised by Mark Lawrenson to ensure that there was always a couple of players standing on the goal-line when keeper Sernicek went walk-about. Personally I don't think there's much point spending 21 million on two strikers when your keeper doesn't even know what position he's playing in.
But anyway, everthing was going nicely for 30 minutes. Thommo was playing so well that my Arsenal supporting friend had to start reminding me of the events of a May evening seven and a half years ago. Then Newcastle scored, Arsenal mate stopped talking about Nigel Winterburn's pass, and I stared forlornly into my orange juice. It was bloody typical, up until the free kick Ginola's only contribution to the evening had been to appear in that awful Renault advert.
Fortunately the goal sparked us into life, and after a few near things we finally strung together some slick passes, and Robbie smashed it in. Credit to Stan for creating the space, he went near post and the Toon defenders followed him, they probably still have nightmares about April 3rd, 1996.
The second half however did not make comfortable viewing. The Toon had plenty of chances, notably Ferdinand bottling it when he was one-on-one, and then Thommo headed off the line. For us, Fowler had a few chances, but didn't look fit, so when it finished 1-1 I was happy enough. My Arsenal friend said he was happy too, but I heard what he called Peter Beardsley under his breath when he shot just wide, so he didn't fool me.
24th December
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No footy. But did watch the Euro '96 review I'd taped from the night before. No harm to Gareth Southgate, but his ability to answer interview questions is even worse than his penalty taking.
25th December
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Ate too much food, too afraid to look in a mirror in case I appear to resemble Owls' goalie Kevin Pressman.
26th December
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For as long as I care to remember, Boxing Day has been spent in the company of a radio listening to the footy. The featured game : Blackburn vs Newcastle proved entertaining, but as the afternoon wore on, still no goals reported from Anfield. Then with 15 minutes to go the commentator announces : " ... there's been a goal at Anfield ... "
Imagine how I chuckled mirthfully as I heard it was a goal for Leicester City. Then imagine what I really felt like. And then imagine the commentator telling you that Man U were 4 up away to Forest thanks to a goal by Andy Cole. Yes, it was that bad.
246 seconds of morose self-pity later and the radio offers a glimmer of hope, another goal at Anfield. Collymore ! Start cheering loudly, and family probably start wondering about the integrity of the drinks cabinet.
So, 1-1 it finished. Bad result ? Well, not a great result for a team chasing a championship, but it would be arrogant to dismiss Leicester like that. Instead of disparaging these teams we should be seeking to emulate their commitment. Then we'd win the league no problem.
Then made the foolish mistake of watching the Sheffield Wednesday - Arsenal game on Sky. It was dreadful, Arsenal are the football equivalent of an autostereogram, you stare at them for hours waiting for something to happen, but it never does.
27th December
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No footy. Hands starting to shake, vision bluring.
28th December
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More footy. This time the Toon play Spurs, and remember the highly rated England pair of Ian Walker and Sol Campbell ? Well, the future of the English national team looks bright as they restrict Newcastle to a narrow 1-7 victory.
Another appearance from Arsenal. I am found asleep in front of the television set.
29th December
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Last game of footy this year, as we visit Southampton. The good news is that this game is live on Sky. The bad news is that Northern Ireland has the most idiotic pub opening hours outside the Arab world. It would have been easier to watch the game in Kabul I reckon.
3.50 pm, and Brother's-friend-with-Sky comes to the rescue, ( cheers Keith ).
For most of the first half I wondered why I bothered, this was
a dreadful game. But slowly I realised why Southampton are
hovering at the bottom of the league ...
... most of their players have been replaced by dopplegangers !
Francis Benali was obviously separated at birth from Freddy Mercury. The implausibly named Ulrich Van Gobbel is in fact Ving Rhames, ( the head gangster in Pulp Fiction ). And who did quite a good man-mark on Macca for a Holywood actor. And I'd be quite surprised if anyone failed to notice that the bald ugly bloke Matthew Robinson was the guy in the concentration camp in the recent X-Files episode.
And who noticed Colm Meaney ( Chief O'Brien from Deep Space Nine ) as Dave Beasant ? Colm might have got away with it, but with 15 minutes to go he mistook the corner flag for for a broken turbo-lift and raced out of his area. His attempted clearance was unbelievably poor, even the real Dave Beasant couldn't have done any worse.
Luckily for us, it fell to John Barnes, who hit it back first
time ...
and the ball rolled agonisingly towards an empty net ...
It seemed to take an age to reach the goal line, and Barnes' long pass just beat the dispairing dive of the Beasant look-alike. Needless to say, I went absolutely bananas.
The rest of the game was instantly forgettable, but David
James gets a special mention. Basically, we robbed Southampton of
2 points. But who's complaining ?
Apart from Graeme Souness.
30th December
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No footy. Gnaw fingernails away instead.
31st December
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No footy. Begin writing paper on "Football Withdrawal Syndrome" for the British Medical Journal.
1st January
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Not sure what sort of New Year's Party our lads had last night, but they seemed to take 70 minutes to sober up. By then it was too late, Thommo making a blunder of Beasant like proportions to gift a goal to Chelsea. From the radio commentary it seemed to all go pear-shaped when Ruddock limped off, which is worrying. Anyone know why we can't keep clean sheets any more ?
On the brigher side, it was interesting to hear Roy bringing on Berger to play alongside Fowler, Colly and Macca - I hope he uses that tactic more often.
Come full time, I was obviously "gutted, absolutely sick as a parrot Brian" with the result, but this could also be attributed to the early symptoms of Chocolate poisoning. Anyway, a narrow defeat by an in-form side is no disgrace.
To cheer myself up, I went down t'pub to watch the Man U - Villa game. Although some people might call Andy Cole "hopeless" for failing to score from 6 yards out, I can offer an excuse in mitigation, it was at the extreme limit of his range after all.