Day -604 WorldCup2018
I'll take a break today from the Maltese football mess. However, before do I will mention that two Maltese men were found guilty today of offering a Maltese player a bribe to throw a local league match. The player came forward and reported that he was approached. A small victory maybe in the big fight?
On to the happier side of football. On August 8th 2015 Aston Villa won 1-0 away at Bournemouth in the opening match of the English Premier League. Optimism for a better season than the previous one abounded. Today, 438 days, 24 league games, 5 managers and one relegation later they won 2-1 away at Reading. After a number of matches this season lost or drawn because of goals conceded in the last minute it was only fitting that today's winner was a penalty in the 90th minute.
A big part of my fun of "watching" football on social media is the live banter. This was a tweet about what the Aston Villa fans were singing after Villa went up 1-0:
"We're winning away, we're winning awaaaay, how sh*t must you be? We're winning away!!!!"
It's been sung many times before but how much dark humour enjoyment must those Villa fans have got out of it? Over 4,000 of them travelled to Reading on a Tuesday night and finally got their reward.
Something else happened while Aston Villa were playing. I discovered Periscope. To be more accurate I discovered a use for Periscope. I came across a Villa fan periscoping the match while standing in the stands. The whole match. The poor girl must have had cramp in her fingers by the end of it, holding that phone up for all that time. The angle wasn't great and it was shaky (really!)but how long before the quality improves to the point that it becomes a good quality live stream. And how long after that will security staff in stadiums be walking through the stands checking that nobody is periscoping on orders of the English Premier League, or UEFA of Fifa.
It did make me think, though, that it would be a great, cheap way to watch Russia 2018. Find a good periscoper and I'll feel like I'm in the stadium.
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