Ole Gunnar Solskjaer announced his retirement from football today, seems rather harsh for a 12yr old.
I’m by no means a Man U fan but always held Solskjaer in high regard as one of the most talented pure strikers the game has ever seen. I can only imagine how different his career would have been without the constant bind of knee injuries.
At first I though this video was just going to be another humours clip bitching the Apple Kool-aid (AKA Steve Jobs Distortion Reality Field).
But, thankfully, its a little deeper than that, check it out:
Is it in any way wrong that I don’t find it scary or wrong that RAF Typhoons had to shadow a Russian bomber this week?
Just look at it:
Its nothing more than the respective governments showing off their shiny expensive toys. In a way its quite cool. I mean, the Eurofighther is finally seeing some service! Sure its boring and quite non-threatening but it gives the RAF to say to the world “look, its our new plane, do you like it?”.
Next week a couple of F-22s will probably join in too. God knows they need something to do.
Blimey it was a bad game for Robbo and not a great match all round. It was also a nightmare match for McLaren, no matter what he or the pundits say when England loose to Germany, it hurts.
Smith and Owen played half-decently. Smith showed real promise as a play maker and Owen lapped up the very few chances given to him but lacked the sharp finishing of years gone by. Both players need more 90-minutes to their name this season before they can shine like they used to. Thankfully Sam Allardyce is well known for getting the best out of players that are showing career fatigue.
Elsewhere on the pitch Micah Richards again showed how he is quickly becoming the golden boy of the back 4 and Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and David Beckham all shined at times.
After a great start the game became painfully inconsistent. The 2nd half was a shambles and a torment to watch with only the inclusion of Shawn Wright-Phillips giving fans anything to get excited about.
On the plus side England did play the better football over the full 90 and had the most chances. Plus it was good to see David James getting a re-call, if only as a faith card from the manager.
I can’t help but dwell on the game where others will say “Wait for Israel in 2 weeks time”.
Sure it was a friendly, but it was at the new Wembley and against our longest standing football adversaries. We should have grabbed the game by the horns and beat the opposition into submission. The feeling of morale coming out of such a result would have done wonders in the England camp and made the weight on McLaren’s shoulders just that little bit lighter.
Its England time again! And under my recent title of Kimb Jones - England Fan I feel a great duty to comment on the current issues cropping up in the English national side.
Lets get this straight shall we. Michael Owen and Alan Smith are excellent up-front players. They have both proven in the past that they can score goal after goal and as new Newcastle team members should already have a good idea of how to play together.
It should not and will not be a problem playing these two up front in a 4-4-2 situation no matter what the press are saying.
Both players have been hit with long spells of injury. Smith was out for a year with a horrendous knee and ankle mashing and Owen’s foot and knee problems have been the focus of many England fans woes.
This period of downtime will haunt these five-star players and should force them to push that extra mile while playing for their country in what is the best new stadium in the world.
And if they do well? What should happen? Should Rooney, Crouch, Bent etc be sidelined to leave room for what could an international strike partnership of epic goal scoring proportions!?
Why yes.
Its a big problem being England manager at the moment. The players available are just too GOOD.
McLaren has to please not only the team but the nation and the FA in selecting players with hi-profiles and great track records in their domestic guise that may or may not play well together.
The current injury situation will, if handled correctly, bring the English team together and bind them as a real unit.
Players not normally called into action such as Smith and the Premier Leagues new golden boy Micah Richards will have to play exceptionally well to bridge the gaps in the team. They will have to rely on playing as a team and not on the performance of a small set of high-profile-poster-boy-superstars.
And if it works. It should stay that way. (Keep reading)
Another lovely v2007 photo has surfaced of Ramone and I wet and fuzzy singing along to some unknown band:
For me it epitomises a good 90% of the memories from this years V Festival as I spent most of my time in my black kagool with a paper cup filled with alcoholic beverage in one hand and the other hoisted in the air.
Its just what cameras are all about, a magical moment captured forever that you can look back at forever.
This image popped up today on Digg and had me in tears:
It was especially poignant as I had been sorting though a load of festival photos just minutes before seeing it and actually thought it would have some tips on how to improve badly lit photos…. (Keep reading)
For me, the 2007 festival season is over. Glastonbury and V is enough for an ageing relic like me.
This year was my 10th year as a festival goer and my 16th festival, others include:
Wowzers! Only when I list them all I realise just how many hours I have spent in a strange field surrounded by tents and burger vans over the past decade.
This year has been hailed as the best V festival ever, high praise indeed. I am as yet unsure if it will sustain this accolade once the memories of previous years re-surface but it has defiantly sustain the moniker of the wettest V ever.
The rain has changed the festival dynamic like nothing else. Over the years I have expected it to rain at Glastonbury and then bask in sunshine at Reading, V or Leeds as they are always deeper into the British summer calender.
However, not since v2005 have I felt the sun on my face while a small vile of room deodorizer is slipped under my nose during the mid-afternoon lull while a not-quite-good-enough-for-the-top-20 band plays their singular hit. Ahh, happy days.
Alas however, climate change cannot effect the enjoyment factor of a festival. Over the years my friends and I have grown used to not having fully functional toilet facilities or even running water, we can surely embrace the rain in the same way.
To celebrate my 10th year I will attempt to publish ALL of my previously unseen festival photos to the web. Most of them are pre-digital-camera and so will require the arduous task of individual scanning, a task I already see me putting off for a while.
For now I will dig up some from more recent years, with comments:
v2005: This is Ramone, my and Tony looking weary after a long day in the sunshine.
Glastonbury 2005: The rain. These are my girlfriends fashionable wellington’s which I got her as a joke for Christmas, they turned out quite handy in the end.
v2006: The ‘Festival Jumper’ makes an appearance.
Just got back from this years V Festival and the word of the weekend was ‘Fullapple’…
Maybe this year I will cover some aspects of the festival over at that music website I am supposed to be running…
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