International Footie

As far as I know, Tuesday 6th February 2007 still remains a record breaking day for London, when the city hosted no less than 4 international rugby fixtures on the same night. It has become quite a norm over recent years for the city to host football games of nations other than England, and this probably best indicates the cosmopolitan nature of the city and the huge variety of people and cultures you will find here.

Friday night was another example, when the Republic of Ireland took on the Super Eagles of Nigeria in a friendly football international at Fulham's Craven Cottage. Keen to experience the atmosphere of an international football game, I joined 11,262 other supporters (I counted them).

It really was a fantastic experience, with the Irish supporters slightly outnumbering the Nigerian supporters - but not by many.
The game was played in an excellent spirit, and the Scottish referee never had to produce a single yellow card in the 90 minutes.

The first half was all action. The Nigerians playing a far more muscular and robust brand of football, over the more European style of technical passing and precision of the Irish (perhaps instilled by manager, Giovanni Trapattoni.) However, for all their endeavour, the Irish team found it difficult to click together and it was in fact the Nigerians who played a better passing game, ultimately leading to them opening the scoring through Michael Eneramo just on the half hour.

The Republic of Ireland, spurred on by a massively noisy group of supporters, tried to respond, but still found it difficult. After 38 minutes however, they did manage to round off a sweeping move when Keith Andrews split the Nigerian defence and found Robbie Keane who rounded the Nigerian keeping, slotting home into an unguarded net.

The iconic Republic captain almost brought the house down, with the supporters chanting his name boisterously, and Keane taking the applause, acknowledging each stand in turn.

The second half was a completely different affair. Three substitutions by Ireland, including Keane, brought a different complexion to the game, and whilst they did threaten the Nigerian goal in the first 10 minutes of the half, Ireland still couldn't break down a stubborn defence, nor quite click their passing game together. With about 20 minutes of the game left, the crowd appeared to have settled for a draw, if the players hadn't, and a Mexican wave was started... An indication of the state of play at that time was that the wave went around Craven Cottage about 6 or 7 times without interruption.

The evening's entertainment drew to a close and the final result was the 1-1 draw.

It was a fantastic evening, a great experience and a very good first attendance at international football.
And with the number of international games that London regularly hosts, I am looking forward to my next game.

Damned when they do, and weak when they don't

One of the Prides of London are it's very many football clubs.
Two of my local clubs have achieved promotion this year - AFC Wimbledon being promoted from the Blue Square Conference South league as Champions, and Brentford returning to League One as the Champions of League 2.

And this week London hosted two Champions League semi-final matches in the space of two days.

So there is a lot of football pride and excellence in the City.

Today however was a day for newspaper headlines and sensationalised photographs. In case you didn't see the match, Chelsea were knocked out of the competition by a goal scored in the 3rd minute of injury time last night, and the main contention is that the Norwegian referee dismissed no less than 4 penalty claims - any of which would probably have been given more times than dismissed on any other day, in any other game. I am not a Chelsea supporter, but I understand their dismay.

However, the players vented their frustration and anger at the referee is scenes that some commentators have described as "outrageous" and "unacceptable".

So when was the last time you had a bad day at the office? When was the last time that you put your heart and soul into something at the office and had it torn to shreds, broken and crushed to dust in front of your eyes by someone or something beyond or control - a dream shattered through no fault of your own?
And how did YOU react? If you didn't react with shock, horror, anger, shouting, screaming then was your heart really in the project in the first place?

By no means are these actions condonable - but they are understandable when you have worked your socks off and had that effort trampled on.

And so it is with the players last night. I don't agree with what they did - but I do understand it. And in honesty - I probably would have done the same thing - especially knowing my own reactions to some things on the sports field.

These players who earn more in 7 days than I earn in three years actually showed that they have passion and love for their work - not that they are just there to make up the numbers and earn fat salaries to spend frivilously. And indeed - had they gone down quietly, you can be sure that the critics would have marked them spineless, money grabbing and without passion.

No, what they did is probably not right, and we would never teach our kids to react in that manner - but honestly would we have acted any different - and in fact have we ourselves acted differently in similar situations in our places of work?

Let them who are without blame, cast the first stone...
I am not sure there are many people who could or should be casting stones.