West Ham 'Fans delighted with new kit' shocker

Looks like West Ham have got a decent reto design for the new season's away kit. Lovely photo ad with players eating at a "traditional greasy spoon" cafe (spot the sauce bottles) looking back to the days of Bonzo, Lamps, Trev and Devo and the traditional pre-match fry-up (load them carbs!).

Looking forward to the new home kit too:

The new home shirt - which will also feature a welcome return to a more traditional design - is to be revealed later this month.

via Knees up Mother Brown - West Ham United FC Online: News.

Train Buffet joke - made me lol

Funny - via Martin Kelner's Guardian column:

[set on a british inter-city train] a passenger gets a cappuccino, a cheese and tomato sandwich, a packet of crisps and a Kit Kat and hands over payment, saying: "I'm sorry, I've only got a twenty-pound note."

The buffet car steward replies: "Well, you'd better put the Kit Kat back then."

The column also discusses ESPN's "Free View Weekend". I watched (some of) their coverage of the Milan Derby. An eventful and quite interesting game. I don't understand why anyone would want to PAY FOR a subscription though... especially when they subject you to long (4+ minutes?) of ads in the breaks. Pay a subscription and still get bombarded with (stupid!) adverts - How is that supposed to appeal?

Charlie's Card for his teacher (photos)

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In these modern and enlightened times of kids and their teachers being.. erm.. friends - it is a new tradition for the kids  to give their teachers a card (and sometimes a present!) at the end of the school year.

Charlie and his friends have gone crazy on the Match Attax footy trading cards (whither Panini stickers... sigh) - and recently have taken to making/drawing their own for their favourite players and themselves.

So I helped him design and make some cards for his lovely teacher (Miss Taylor) and TA (Mrs Illingworth).

Village Gala Day (Sunday)

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It's our village's annual Gala Day tomorrow. It's an important fund raiser for our village Sports Association which controls the playing fields and pavilion - providing sports facilities to local kids and adults - primarily football, cricket and bowls. After some problems and disappointing Galas in recent years this year's event should be back to full strength (info here)

Ali & I are helping by running a mini-soccer tournament for local U8 & U10 teams in the morning.

I've also been involved in some of the organisation - there's some very talented and comitted people working together to get this done - and I've been helping with some promotion.

We made a formal press release and were helped by Richmondhsire Council distributing it to local media - it's delivered us articles in local/regional press (see here - although they did manage to print the wrong day!) and promotion on local radio - with one station recording an interview with the Sports Club chairman (BobT) for broadcast on Sunday morning.

Here's hoping for decent weather tomorrow.

CVJFC Presentation Night

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We had our footy club annual presentation night yesterday evening. All our U8's Saturday morning Soccer Club go medals and took part in a penalty competition.

CVJFC Website News Item

Photos on Flickr

Best pictures of the football season

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="364" caption="Tom Jenkins's best pictures of the football season"][/caption]

I enjoyed this selection of the best pictures of the football season by the Guardian's photographer Tom Jenkins.

I particularly love this one of Messi with his European Cup winners meddle. I was thinking how childlike he looks - just like a 12 year old kid - Jenkins' own comments reflect this too:

"At this moment as he wraps his winners medal round his head, the best footballer in the world looks like a proud, little boy showing off his prize from the school sports day."

Link to Tom Jenkins's best pictures of the football season

Bah Bah Bah... Ba-ba-ba Bah Bah....

Just watched West Ham 5 vs 0 Newcastle (Div 2 - 1979) with Charlie....

Yes we should have been doing spelling or reading I suppose... but.. it's Friday.. and... er...

Brooking, Devonshire, Bonds, Lampard.... Pop Robson.... standing on the terraces... jumpers for goal posts... Brian Moore... marvelous.

Even the Cardif City fans singing "We'll see you all outside" during their game with Stoke City had a bit of a nostalgic ring to it. A young Garth Crooks poaches a goal.

Interactive/User-generated content in 1979...?

Brian Moore holding the original letters sent in by viewers asking "just what was Alan Ball doing at the end of last week's League Cup final" (Answer - nicking a piece of turf as a souvenir)

The Big Match Revisited (The Big Match - Wikipedia)

Great Nostalgic 80's football video

The Guardian's online sports pages have a weekly selection of sports video clips (plenty of football) with a mix of nostalgia and current weirdness/sensational stuff - usually decent picks and worth a look.

This week's:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/mar/26/youtube-bbc-liverpool-lewis-hamilton

is a corker...:
"Featuring a Brian Clough left hook, Manny Ramirez swapping baseball for cricket and a belting simultaneous double KO"
And the very nostalgic: "...1987-88, the BBC did a Goal of the Season competition just for Liverpool."