King's Conundrum

To quit or not to quit, that is the question. Whether it is nobler for me to bow out of international football to prolong my Tottenham career or suffer the constant agony in my knee and give everything for club and country?

Of course I owe Tottenham everything, they brought me through their youth ranks and put me into the first team. I played my socks off. Well I say played my socks off, I had to yank them off, the elastic was too tight and was cutting of the circulation in my weak, weak legs.

Then they made me captain, despite only appearing once every blue moon. I say once every blue moon, but in truth I did miss a couple of blue moons due to being injured.

Of course not everyone at Spurs was supportive. Darren Anderton and I never got on. He felt I was a threat to his place on the physio table. He was very competitive, always claiming he could get injured easier than me. But I showed him. One day I fly landed upon my outstretched leg and pop! my knee was dislocated. In your face Darren.

But I also have to think of my country. I've never been a regular at international level and not just because I'm always injured. I'm also just not good enough. There has always been at least two better defenders than me. But I'm sure my retirement would be a great loss to the England team nonetheless. They need someone to make Owen Hargreaves look like he's regularly fit. Who will fill that role now? Well I suppose they could try and see if Tomas Rosicky has any English relatives.

So what to do? If I retire I may be able to play four, maybe five, games a season for Spurs but if I keep my international dreams alive I may one day almost nearly be in contention for a starting place in the England team at a major tournament right up until about two days before it starts when bang! there goes my knee again.

It is quite the conundrum.

Arsenal. We're all about the spitting.

"For their club captain Cesc Fabregas to spit at my assistant at the end of the game shows you what this club is all about."

The above is a quote from Phil 'the stain in my pants is a nice shade of' Brown. Regardless of whether the incident happened or not what the bleedin' flip is Phil 'brother of Charlie' Brown talking about? Why would one player, Captain or not, spitting at someone reflect the club as a whole? Last season was our club all about sitting on the half way line crying? When Henry was captain was our club all about looking vaguely pissed off every time we scored? Or when Tony Adams was captain was our team all about getting drunk out of their minds at every available opportunity? Well actually the answer to the last one is yes. But the points still valid. One man's actions do not tell you what a club is all about.

And if they did surely Wenger's actions would supercede the captain's? In which case Arsenal would presumably be about myopia. So is Phil 'I wish Whitney had married me instead of Bobby' Brown not the main focal point of his team? Do his actions not represent how he wants people to perceive his team? Is he in fact leaving the burden of that particular responsibility entirely on his club captians shoulders? And if so what kind of manager is he? A shit one, clearly.

Arshavin Talks To Garth Crooks

(For those who missed my brief appearance as Parlour's Annual Hat-trick on 606)

The following is an interview given by Andrey Arshavin to everyone's favourite pundit, Garth Crooks, discussing his recent move to Arsenal.

Garth: Hello Andrey, your name is the equivalent of the British name Andrew.

Arshavin: Erm...ok.

Garth: Having recently moved from Zenit St Petersburg which is a Russian team to Arsenal in England there will have been many cultural differences you've had to face. The language barrier, the food, the people you meet all of these are very different to your native country.

Arshavin: Erm...also in my country our interviewers ask questions rather than make statements.

Garth: As a player I found that foreigners often struggled to adapt to the pace of English football. You have also said this has been the biggest challenge for you. Which shows that we as footballers are on the same wavelength, because I believe deep down all footballers are the same.

Arshavin: Erm...I'm sorry are you interviewing me our just stating your views on football?

Garth: Interviewing obviously. My style is somewhat different to your average pundit. I'm more erudite, more verbose, better educated, I am in short an football intellectual.

Arshavin: Did you play football?

Garth: Yes. For Tottenham.

Arshavin: Ah I see.

Garth: So cultural differences in football...

Arshavin: I have noticed in England that all the players wear boxer shorts, in Russia we never do this.

Garth: Why not?

Arshavin: Chernobyl fallout.

Sod 'em then

Once again I have been banned from 606. My favourite part is that they give no explanation for it but they have sent an email saying my profile, only recently approved by the mods, was 'off-topic' this is a profile in which I stated I was Arsenal born and bred. This has led me to believe the BBC 606 boards are not a sports forum at all but instead are in fact a forum for the brainwashing of young minds.

I think the BBC believe if they can attract enough 16 year olds they will be able to mould them into non-offensive, humourless adults by the twin threats of pre-moderation and banning. In this way they can create the next generation of bland, safe broadcasters and the BBC will never have to go through the Brand/Ross debacle ever again.

The future is dull the future is beige.

Thanks for all the support but I'm afraid I can no longer be arsed with trying to get back on 606. I will probably keep scanning the boards (it beats doing real work) but I shall no longer be infesting the boards with my evil, subversive filth.

I will keep posting it here and on Dave's blog though. Incidentally did anyone notice that they said that both JJG and DP's comments were unacceptable? What did Dave ever do? Well apart from all the xenophobia, ignorance and condoning of violence masquerading as British grit? I always thought that was the BBC's core values.

And just to finish off this ill-focused rant: who exactly does necrophilia offend anyway? The dead? Well fuck them.

Beach Football

Arsene Wenger described Eduardo's goal against Burnley as a 'beach' shot. Which is all well and good but in my experience beach football doesn't involve shots like that at all.

Firstly you turn up at the beach, the outing has been meticulously planned for a couple of weeks, the weather has been glorious in the days building up to the trip and then on that morning the rain lashes down. Unperturbed you ring your mates and come to the conclusion it'll probably brighten up later.

Everyone piles into a couple of cars and you drive to the nearest coast. On arrival the rain has eased up slightly and you have to find a spot on the stony beach in amongst the families wrapped in jumpers huddled around a solitary deckchair behind a futile windbreak. Finding a prime spot you chuck a couple of bags down for goalposts and prepare for a game of three and in.

Then calamity strikes. You've forgotten a ball. You send one of your mates off to one of the cheapy beach shops to get an air flow ball from one of those large string bags hanging outside the shopfront. The wag that he is, he also purchases a 'kiss me quick' hat that must be worn by whoevers in goal.

Then the game can start in earnest. One of you - the one who almost, nearly had a trial with Brentford - tries a screamer form 20 yards which gets caught by the wind and flies into the sea. He refuses to retrieve it. You trudge down to the freezing water pluck the bobbing ball out the sea, roll it in front of you and go on a mazy dribble through sandcastles, patches of seaweed and some unknown brown liquid sinking into the sand before losing the ball as soon as you reach another human being.

The game lasts about 10 minutes until everyone is exhausted from trying to run on the stone and sand surface. This usually coincides with the ball once again being hoofed into the sea by the almost, nearly Brentford trialist. After the match you retire to the nearest pub and watch out the window as your ball floats away to France.

Now that's beach football.

(Originally posted by my new persona on 606 but due to pre-mod pretty much went unnoticed.)

A Not Entirely Shocking State Of Affairs

Well I went and did it, I got banned from the BBC's 606 boards.

How it took them so long I will never know. Anyway I am hoping I'll be able to return, my first attempt got instantly banned too so hopefully the third one will stay. (I've still got some way to catch up with Gross_is_God, who made it up to about 24 accounts I believe) . Any way if I get banned again I'll give up and only post on here and of course Dave Pundit's blog.

Dave too is banned so this weeks predictions will go up on his blog and I'll use my new account to post a link to them, then next week I'll go about setting up Dave Pundit 2: Pundit Harder.

Anyway back to posting non-offensive rubbish in an attempt to escape pre-mod.

***edit***

3rd attempt has been banned now. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. Anyway cheers for all the appreciation threads, some of them even lasted long enough to get comments!