Day -635. WorldCup2018
Before I expand my inspiration and material search to the wider football world, I have two happy memories brought on by watching English football today.
I wasn't watching Leicester play Burnley but following the updates online. It was wonderful to see the name Islam Slimani pop up as the scorer of Leicester's first goal today. Slimani made quite a name for himself as part of the very exciting Algeria team at the 2014 World Cup. They were a breath of fresh air with their quick, all out attacking football. I adopted them as my team, using my French Algerian grandmother as my justification. I hope my fellow countryman is a hit in Leicester. Two goals on his debut is a pretty solid start.
While keeping updated on the Premier League scores I was searching online for a stream of Aston Villa's latest shot at not winning or losing, and ensuring they get promoted from the EFL by winning one point at a time. I couldn't understand much of the (what I think was) Czech commentary apart from "Aston Villa" and "Ipswich", but "Villa onslaught" and "Ipswich almost stole it at the death" were probably said. Villa did indeed manage to maintain what the score was at 0 minutes right up until the final whistle.
That Villa were playing against Ipswich didn't just remind of the best goal I saw live at Villa Park, right in front of me: Dean Saunders' lob from a distance against Ipswich in 1993. It took me way back further than that to 1981, when Ipswich Town almost became my team for life. It was my first season of following English football and the headlines always seemed to say, "Ipswich, top of the league". A team to follow was needed seeing as my older brothers already had their teams. They must have used similar selection strategies as me seeing as they were Leeds and Liverpool and given their ages and those teams' corresponding success at the time. So Ipswich it was about to be until that Saturday afternoon in May, at around 4.45pm, 1981 when I walked into a sports shop with my mother having asked her for an Ipswich team shirt. Thanks to the man in the shop listening to his radio and informing us that Villa had just won the league, on his recommendation a Villa shirt was bought and a Villa fan I became. The conspiracy theorist buried in me may try to say that maybe he didn't have any Ipswich shirts and so my timing was very lucky in terms of him making a sale. Also, to take away some of the romanticism of the moment, the "Villa shirt" was hardly the real thing. This was shopping in Malta in the days of socialism bordering on communism and sugar rations and something that was a sad excuse for chocolate. The "sports shop" was part of an appliance shop. You went in and asked for your bad imitation football kits, and football boots that fell apart after a few weeks, while your parents looked at what washing machine they were going to buy to replace the latest one that had stopped working. Which reminds me of the washing machine repair guy.....hmm, but that's a whole other memory.
I was still very proud of my Villa imitation shirt. The colours were right and I loved it. A few years later it was replaced by an authentic 1982 European Cup winners shirt bought by mail from the club shop. I remember walking home from a local match and somebody stopped in a car and asked if I would sell it to him. No way. I was not walking home with no shirt on. No, I was not giving that up. Not only did I wear it way too often, I must have known that it was retro hip when it was current.
Many years later (I'm not counting) I'm sitting on my couch watching the two teams, who those so many years ago battled it out to be crowned English Champions, try to get out of mid-table old school second division mediocrity, with a Czech commentator who for all I know wasn't even born on that Saturday in May 1981. He might have told us a story about 1981, maybe. I wonder if he had Villa and Ipswich shirts in real-Communist Czechoslovakia.
Before I expand my inspiration and material search to the wider football world, I have two happy memories brought on by watching English football today.
I wasn't watching Leicester play Burnley but following the updates online. It was wonderful to see the name Islam Slimani pop up as the scorer of Leicester's first goal today. Slimani made quite a name for himself as part of the very exciting Algeria team at the 2014 World Cup. They were a breath of fresh air with their quick, all out attacking football. I adopted them as my team, using my French Algerian grandmother as my justification. I hope my fellow countryman is a hit in Leicester. Two goals on his debut is a pretty solid start.
While keeping updated on the Premier League scores I was searching online for a stream of Aston Villa's latest shot at not winning or losing, and ensuring they get promoted from the EFL by winning one point at a time. I couldn't understand much of the (what I think was) Czech commentary apart from "Aston Villa" and "Ipswich", but "Villa onslaught" and "Ipswich almost stole it at the death" were probably said. Villa did indeed manage to maintain what the score was at 0 minutes right up until the final whistle.
That Villa were playing against Ipswich didn't just remind of the best goal I saw live at Villa Park, right in front of me: Dean Saunders' lob from a distance against Ipswich in 1993. It took me way back further than that to 1981, when Ipswich Town almost became my team for life. It was my first season of following English football and the headlines always seemed to say, "Ipswich, top of the league". A team to follow was needed seeing as my older brothers already had their teams. They must have used similar selection strategies as me seeing as they were Leeds and Liverpool and given their ages and those teams' corresponding success at the time. So Ipswich it was about to be until that Saturday afternoon in May, at around 4.45pm, 1981 when I walked into a sports shop with my mother having asked her for an Ipswich team shirt. Thanks to the man in the shop listening to his radio and informing us that Villa had just won the league, on his recommendation a Villa shirt was bought and a Villa fan I became. The conspiracy theorist buried in me may try to say that maybe he didn't have any Ipswich shirts and so my timing was very lucky in terms of him making a sale. Also, to take away some of the romanticism of the moment, the "Villa shirt" was hardly the real thing. This was shopping in Malta in the days of socialism bordering on communism and sugar rations and something that was a sad excuse for chocolate. The "sports shop" was part of an appliance shop. You went in and asked for your bad imitation football kits, and football boots that fell apart after a few weeks, while your parents looked at what washing machine they were going to buy to replace the latest one that had stopped working. Which reminds me of the washing machine repair guy.....hmm, but that's a whole other memory.
I was still very proud of my Villa imitation shirt. The colours were right and I loved it. A few years later it was replaced by an authentic 1982 European Cup winners shirt bought by mail from the club shop. I remember walking home from a local match and somebody stopped in a car and asked if I would sell it to him. No way. I was not walking home with no shirt on. No, I was not giving that up. Not only did I wear it way too often, I must have known that it was retro hip when it was current.
Many years later (I'm not counting) I'm sitting on my couch watching the two teams, who those so many years ago battled it out to be crowned English Champions, try to get out of mid-table old school second division mediocrity, with a Czech commentator who for all I know wasn't even born on that Saturday in May 1981. He might have told us a story about 1981, maybe. I wonder if he had Villa and Ipswich shirts in real-Communist Czechoslovakia.
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