Finally won a bet last night, with Cardiff and Torquay winning, I collected a cool £30 profit from a £10 bet. All thanks to following @ProTipster on Twitter! Following his tips today I’ve gone for;
1) On William Hill with odds 2/1, which are amazing for this, is Man City to qualify for the Final for the League Cup as they are only 1-0 goal down, although away from home, I still believe they will get through, so put a fiver on this, so hoping for a small profit.
2) The Double I’ve put down, is Man City and Barcelona to win tonight. This had similar odds, maybe about 3/1 or 4/1, so another Fiver has been placed on this. Put I’ve done it online and initially put on the double of Liverpool and Barcelona, so maybe a bit of a waste money, but we’ll see!
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Finally A Win!
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Mick McCarthy
Now made favourite for the next manager to get sacked.
Don’t really know where I stand on this, got a lot of love for Mick, but is it time for him to go? I just can’t decided, so many pro’s and con’s!
If unsure then we have to stick with him, and get fully behind him. I believe we can still stay up, and I hope more than anything that we don’t go down, I can’t bare to finish uni, missing all the years of Premier League football, to go back to Championship football, I had to watch it for years. Please, NO MORE!
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Ultras-themed street art installation, Russia. Amazing.
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Epic Fail
Got my first essay back from my first term of Uni in the third year, got a 2:2, 56%. Absolutely gutted. Just want to give up, need to cut my work hours down, it did play a massive part in the work I did for the essay, although I could of used my spare time a lot lot lot better, or just started it much earlier.
Ah well get the rest back this week hope it goes a little bit better.
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Trying to become a Dab Hand at poker, hopefully not going to ruin my third and final year at Uni.
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Gears Well and Truly ‘Grinded’
Why cover people at work for them, when you want cover they just don’t reply, or just won’t do it. It is the last time I cover anyone
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5 Years Under The Powers Of Merlin The Magician
July 21st 2006
Mick McCarthy was appointed Wolves manager, with a team with no more than 10 players, a team left in disarray with the ending of the disastrous managerial spell of Glenn Hoddle. Given a budget of £1 million to build a team, Wolves favourites for relegation, even with the most demanding Wolves fans knowing anything better than relegation was going to be a major success. He began with the signing of the trusted Gary Breen, and more free transfers such as Jay Bothroyd, slowly building a team capable of competing in the Championship. In his first press conference, McCarthy conceded that the ‘initials MM stood for Mick McCarthy not Merlin the Magician.’
The first season was remarkable, with Wolves making the Play-Offs, eventually losing over the two legs to West Brom. Even such a devastating loss couldn’t dampen the season Wolves fans had just witnessed. McCarthy brought a new ethos to the club. Fans now instead of watching overpaid has-beens, not even caring, to Wolves players now giving their all for team, ‘putting in a shift’ as McCarthy would regularly say in his press conferences. The fans appreciated it, and even during a 6-0 thrashing at home to Southampton, the players left to a standing ovation, and good humour as Mexican waves got flowing around the ground. During this season came the shrewd signing of Michael Kightly for £25’000, who would become one of the outstanding players over the next two years.
In the Summer of 2007, came the arrival of Steve Morgan. Buying the club for £10, but promising to invest at least £30 million into the club. This brought a new dawn in the history of Wolves. Already showing he could make a shrewd signing, now given a warchest with the ultimate aim of promotion, the future was promising. In came signings, some not working such as Freddy Eastwood, but those who came into the club with the ethos of Mick McCarthy, of ‘putting in a shift’, all became heroes to the fans. Unfortunately, Wolves finished 7th, missing out on the play-offs on the last day. Leading Steve Morgan at the end of season player of the season awards after the final game of the season to declare ‘We won’t need to worry about the play-offs next year, we’ll have won the Championship’.
So huge expectation was placed on Mick McCarthy to deliver the goods. With the signing of Chris Iwelumo to complement Ebanks-Blake, and sinings of David Jones and the brilliant form of Michael Kightly and Matt Jarvis, and with only a few hiccups during the season, Wolves won the Championship, and quite comfortably too. Securing promotion at home against QPR with a Ebanks-Blake winner, and securing the title with 1 draw at Oakwell against Barnsley. In three years he had took Wolves from relegation contenders, to Championship winners, all done with a transfer policy of signing a majority of ‘young and hungry’ players.
In the first season in the Premier League, avoiding relegation was again the aim, with many believing McCarthy didn’t have what it took to keep a team in the Premier League, and was just ‘a good Championship manager’. But with again shrewd signings such as Kevin Doyle, Ronald Zubar, Marcus Hahnemann, Nenad Milijas, and the continuance of hard-work and development from many from the Championship winning squad, Wolves managed to survive, comfortably as well om 38 points, 8 points ahead of the relegation zone, in 15th place.
With new summer acquisitions, £7.5 million signing Steven Fletcher being the key transfers, who although had a slow start to his Wolves career, his goals towards the end of the season ultimately saved Wolves from relegation. The signing of Stephen Hunt, when fully fit also coincided with some of Wolves’ best result, a player symbolic of McCarthy’s ethos of ’putting in a shift’. Also the loan signing of Jamie O’Hara in January pushed Wolves on to scrape survival in the Premier League. Surviving on the last day, although losing 3-2 at Blackburn, Birmingham and Blackpool also lost. Stephen Hunt’s goal effectively ensuring survival, with his goal moving Wolves ahead of Birmingham on goal difference, which meant they had to push for another goal, ultimately leading to a Tottenham winner. But progress had been made, finishing on 40 points, but the main thing being a third season in the Premier League, hopefully where Wolves can push on from and begin to cement themselves in the Premier League.
With the early Summer Transfers of Roger Johnson , Jamie O’Hara, and Dorus De Vries, and maybe more to follow, hopefully Wolves can survive again, and for me the priority of the season has to be staying-up, 17th will do, just hopefully a bit more of a less nervous finish to the season!
But for me looking back on the five years McCarthy has been in charge has been the best years I have had as a Wolves fan. The club seems to have such a bright future ahead of it, with the three M’s in charge (Steve Morgan, Jez Moxey and Mick McCarthy), new stadium plans, new training ground facilities, each M envisages a big future for Wolves, and hopefully McCarthy can be a part of that, hopefully for at least another 5 years. He has done wonders for Wolves, he has brought in a new ethos, you know each player is giving their all, and you know the club is so well run. But taking us from relegation candidates in the Championship, to a third consecutive season in the Premier League, McCarthy deserves all the praise he gets from many fans who realise the wonders he’s done, and the fickle fans who are on his back, need to look where he’s took us from and what he’s done for us and the City as whole.
The only thing I can pick a bone with McCarthy is, is on his first press conference when he joined. I think he was completely wrong when he said he wasn’t Merlin the Magician, because of the past 5 years, what he’s done is nothing short of magic, I hope the magic continues at Molineux for a while yet!
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Anfield. Moving Away?
As I’ve followed Wolves all over the country, but having to stop for the past couple of years due to University, meaning a lack of money to attend games home and away since we’ve been in the Premier League. So instead of visiting the stadiums such as Anfield, Emirates, Old Trafford. I’ve seen the likes of Oakwell, Priestfield, Carrow Road (Premier League ground this season), and Glanford Park.
While on a visit to my ‘significant other’, a family of Liverpudlians mad about the Red team on Merseyside. So what better way to mix pleasing the girlfriend with a bit of shopping around the shopping center ‘Liverpool One’ (with Everton having a club shop inside named ‘Everton Two’, showing they still have a sense of humour, although seen by many as the small team in Liverpool, behind Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves, as the great Bill Shankly remarked), but also going on the Stadium Tour of Anfield it self.With an easy enough bus journey to the stadium dropping you right outside ‘The Kop’, the history and the aura of the stadium is evident at fist glance. With the back of ‘The Kop’ coming back over you while you stand, awestruck underneath staring upwards and the sheer magnitude of the place, while the tourists, including myself swarm around the club shop and the Bill Shankly statue.
For £8 Student Discount the Stadium Tour was a bargain. Taking you through the history of Anfield and there is a lot, to the use of still just basic changing rooms for the home team, and even more basic for the opponents. You can see the tradition that is everlasting in the club since the days of Shankly. A continuation of the basic dressing room, the players sitting in order in their respective position next to the player they’d be next to on the pitch. To the building of a new ‘Boot Room’ ordered by Rafa Benitez to re-create the glory days of those before for the club, a time in which I was not even born yet. But even for someone like me, relatively young, with Chelsea, Man Utd. and Arsenal being the dominant forces of my lifetime, the history of Anfield, around the ground, down the tunnel, into the dugout and standing in The Kop, is all palpable. You understand the history of the club and of the ground, and why it is so important to many Liverpool fans.
As a neutral it was refreshing to see such a historic ground, compared to these like-for-like stadiums of just round bowls, with no character, made for multi-purpose uses, even places like Emirates as impressive as it is, it is like many new ground before it, The Walkers Stadium a round-bowl. Yes it will help Arsenal financially as they, but you just wish grounds like Anfield are here to stay. But talking to Liverpool fans, many realise that for the club to move forward with the World’s greatest, and challenge for honours again in English football, and with ever increasing financial income of football’s richest, to get on an level platform, moving away to a new ground seems like maybe the only possible solution, as seeing first hand, expanding Anfield just wouldn’t be possible.
But it will be a shame, for when the time comes, which I’m sure it will, that Liverpool F.C has to move away from Anfield. Leaving behind such history and a legacy that will last forever. But luckily the pitch will always remain due to the many Liverpool faithful who have had their ashes spread on the pitch after death. But it seems modern football will have it’s way with Anfield, as it did with the old famous ‘Boot Room’ which was destroyed to build a press conference room, due to Sky procedures for every top-flight club when they created the Premier League.
But I am so happy that I have finally seen the ground, as many never will, and sat on The Kop, and took in the ground, one that I will never forget. I can see why Liverpool fans are going to find it so hard to move away, but as a neutral I can say they should be so proud of their stadium now, of their history, and of their club, which I’m sure they already are.
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The Continuance Of Football Ruining My Week
Football, well maybe it’s like what all tattoo enthusiasts say it’s painful, but it’s addictive, and they can’t wait for the next one.
Well that just epitomises how I feel right now about football matches. After what can be called a battering from Stoke City, my team Wolves are left with a spade in a gun fight, in there battle to avoid relegation to the Gas & Electric Championship, I just want the next match to happen, just to either put the final nail in the coffin, or give me that hope that not all is bad. I don’t know which I’d prefer right now. After drawing with Fulham in a game where we were outplayed, and somehow managed to pick up a point, and prior to this having been beating by Everton (0-3) and Newcastle (4-1), we are looking like we have come into our worse form of the season, not a great time for it. But as all football fans know, and suffer from worldwide, I still maintain hope. And as we know, it is the hope that ultimately kills us.
I can’t help but get more and more involved. It gradually takes over your life. Everyday constantly checking the league table, the fixtures, each day coming up with a new prediction of how Wolves will ultimately stay in the league. Then there’s the part of the day when I come to accept that inevitably Wolves will be relegated. I accept it. I try to move on. But I again a couple of hours later check the fixtures to come not only for Wolves, but for those teams around us, West Ham, Wigan, Blackpool, Blackburn. Plotting their demise, plotting our turn in fortune. If I’m feeling adventurous I may even go onto ‘BBC Predictor’ and predict the remaining fixtures, and trust me I am being biased, and Wolves finish up the relegation zone, each and every time I do it. Surely that counts for something right?
I wish I could withdraw myself from it all. Just accept we’ve lost. Accept we’re bottom three, four games to go, there’s nothing I can do to change this. But I can’t help but play through all the scenarios in my head. I’m sure I’m not the only Wolves fan, let alone football fan, to be doing this.
SO what has this obsession led to? Well, just a procrastination of work that needs to be done, despair at times of losing, reading useless forums on everyone’s opinion of times at Wolves, reading opinions on who the bottom three is, reading football columnist who supports Wolves with a encouraging nod of my head, thinking ‘this guy knows what he’s on about’, and greeting each pundit who thinks Wolves are heading for relegation with a ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’. I get all defensive even to the Wolves fans about the team, trying more likely to convince myself that all is not lost, if not them.
My mate asked me why do I get so bothered? They obviously have never been a football fan. I said I don’t wish to be like this, but I just can’t help it.
Is it worth all the despair? The anger? The ruining of not only your day, but the week until the team can either make your week or leave you with another week of depression? Is it worth the false hope and the waste of money and hours following your team? No it’s really not. I can’t control what goes on. I can only sit back and watch, and that is probably the worst thing, you just can’t do anything about your left back having a shocker, or the open goal the centre forward missed, or the striker the centre back wasn’t marking.
But with 4 games to go, I’m gripped, and no matter what happens, good or bad, I and all the football fans around the world will all be back again next season. I just hope for me, and my well-being, that we win the last four, and breeze our way into Premier League status. But just in case it’s not like that, I’m preparing myself for the worst, along with each Wolves with their spade in hand in the relegation gunfight.
