Finnishman returns

Back in a new home, to express my freedom of speech. Due to popular demand (thank you for your kind words, I will buy you next time in the pub). To go to my previous home click here. You might also be interested to to learn about the Internet lie detector.

It would be tempting to say that my battle with the car rental company took so much effort that I haven't been able to sleep, let alone write a blog. But of course it's not true.

Actually I am kind of proud to continue the blog, to show it was not just flirting with something new and exciting and then getting bored and dumping it.

Actually, I have a couple of times had great subjects (i thought they were so, anyway) to write about but they never made it into cyber space due to various excuses. And to make it worse, I have forgotten most of them. One of the few actually useful tips I have heard is to always carry a notebook with you and when you have a good idea write it down there.

I will from now on. I want you to be able to ... savour these ideas and create an illusion I am in your service 24 hours a day. Not only on moments like this when I am desperately trying to come up with something witty and worth reading about for my first blog entry.

I try to be more consistent writer this time. I have even some quirky snippet type of series in mind (or i had, i admit i forgot to write them down ... next time i will).

Oct 23

The day started well. Our ex-landlord called and told we can get our deposits back tomorrow (after nearly two months after moving out it's about time, really) thanks to a nice customer servant of npower who left a voicemail to him saying we have paid the gas bill and thus all our bills at that address. Fantastic.

But then it was a bit downhill, really. Don't worry, you will get a painfully detailed account why.

I had given away my regular Sat daytime workshift to see Norwich City play Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road.

I had seen the canaries play live four times previously and every time the result had been a draw. Not necessarily a bore one, as the scorelines 1-1, 1-1, 0-0, 3-3 might suggest. This time I was hoping for them to ... maybe actually win. OK, the previous match had gone all but well (at Luton, 4-2 defeat) but at least we had clawed two goals back from an abysmal half-fime scoreline of 4-0 against a team that last season was two divisions below us. And the pundits are singing their praises of how good team we supposedly are, after all. Robert Green, England goalie, Dean Ashton, maybe the best striker in the division being prime examples of quality players.

How wrong was I.

"I went to football-stadiun called Loftus Road with me mates. I sat on a bench to see my team Norwich City play football. I was really looking forward to it as watching foorball makes me happy. But QPR got a first chance. QPR scores. QPR gets second chance. QPR scores. Queens Park Rangers means QPR. They must make the Queen very happy, I think, when she watches their resuults.

Our players were pointing their fingers at other of our players when we let in too many goals. We let in three goals. This time I was not happy to watching my team play. Our players did not play very well. Dean Ashton played ok. I hope everything will get better soon. I dont want be sad when I watch me team play."
THE END
-Willie Birdman


Schoolboy errors. Our game was full of those.

I sent a desperate text to some friends saying I will walk to Norwich at the end of the season if we get promoted. Why am I so convinced it won't happen?

After all, it is early days, I know. And some of our players and pundits keep singing (pun intended) their praises on how "we are the best team in the division". The truth is we seem (and sound) out of tune, badly. Just imagine a chorus of pundits singing ... ok, a whisky basso might hit the right note at times but ...

Won 4, drawn 4 and lost 7.

Basically we could not lose a match all season anymore to get a straight promotion which I can't really see happening. Our goalie should be great: after all he is to my understanding the only non-Premier league player in the England squad (or then it is a sign of having particularly mediocre goalies for Englad at the moment).

Whatever the reason, we have conceded 23 goals this season. Sheffield United and Reading, the two top teams, have combined conceded fewer (21). Needless to say that their strikers are hitting the target better than ours' and, well, both of them are about 20 points ahead of us.

A good rule of thumb in football is that if you put together a great run, you may catch other teams 1 point per match - which requires they are not doing particularly well.

As all armchair managers, I have been able to spot the problem with my team through ingenius analysis.

My inner armchair analyst tells me that the reason is ... our central defence. Craig Fleming, fantastic servant for the club and long-time captain, is not at the age of 34 a man he used to be and not a player for the future. Gary Doherty, £1M signing from Spurs .. don't get me started with him. To his credit, he wins a lots of headers. And, he wins a lot of headers. His minuses. Let's not get too wordy here...

Let me put it another way. QPR substitute central defender George Santos came on the pitch and scored a half-volley with his practically first touch for QPR's third. On one hand it tells it was "just one of those days" when nothing goes your way for Norwich. On the other: we do not have that kind of class on the pitch from the start. Especially in defence. And QPR are not exactly red hot favourites for promotion.

We had the best player on the pitch - no matter what coloured glasses were you watching through - in Dean Ashton but how long will he play for us?

Luckily there was the half-time entertainment. Normally I don't pay attention to it but this time I was so shocked at our abject display that seeing grown up men spinning themselves around a pole several times and - their heads spinning - stumbling to shoot a penalty kick to a goal guarded by QPR mascot actually made me laugh. Although it was a young girl who deservedly won it, placing her shot more accurately than our players apart from Ashton did.. It was that bad, really.

At the end of the match there was a one man pitch invasion in which a bloke (a surprisingly well-clad wanker) ran onto the pitch to walk on his hands in the centre circle. Bravo.

Read more here .

Prologue

At the end of last season, we went into the final game knowing a win would guarantee one more season of Premiership. We had among others beaten Manchester United in a mazy run that clawed us back from deep down, the abyss of position twenty among twenty teams.

We lost 6-0. Were absolutely trashed and smashed. Everything good achieved went out of the window. The team was Fulham. With nothing to play for.

At the end of the day ...

I won a game of scrabble to end the day ... on a bit higher note. (if you have to know, the winning word was "squit" - Collins dictionary, 9th edition). Dictionaries really come in handy when you play in English as there are words galore in this great language.

PS. I do not intend to engage in lengthy rants about Norwich City in the column in the future. But I do hope this shows I care about the club as I have cared for over 15 years. Yess, it's weird. I am a Finnishman. There should be no reason to sing praises of a rather obscure football team from the middle of East Anglian countryside. But I do. Especially when the time for praises will arrive. I believe it will but when ... cannot tell now. Until that through thick and thin ... and too many witty headlines about the quality of the singing and flying abilities of this certain bird species. Well, at least something remains constant ...

I will be back, latest next Wed