Day -426 WorldCup2018.
April is not my favourite month. It used to be when the third term of school would start, the third term that seemed to last forever and was like the wall in my head that was preventing summer from starting. And that wall couldn't be climbed over until end of year exams were tackled, always a time of great stress. Of course, if I started studying for them in April then June would have been a lot easier. But then, as now, April was too much of a nothing month to do anything of significance. The weather can't decide what it wants to do. It's even more true now where I go from days of "oh, summer's here" to "good thing I didn't take the winter tires off yet". We want to be done with winter but it keeps being thrown at us. And there's nothing to look forward to. Nothing happens in April. The world is getting ready for May.
Champions League final, FA Cup Final, final day of the league season, French Open tennis. And there is sun everywhere and fans are in t-shirts and tennis spectators, and cricket players, are wearing big sun hats. And supporters are crying all over the place; tears of joy for a last minute winner to secure a league win, and desperate tears for a last minute winner that was meaningless in the end and relegation is confirmed. There are permutations to be worked out, combinations of results needed, the what if's, so much to keep your mind distracted from final exams.
But in defence of April it does give us a little taste of the joys of May. There are Champions League quarterfinals and FA Cup semifinals which are very often better than the finals. And the lists of "who could get promoted or relegated this weekend" start. In England Sheffield United already had their day. Promotion out of League One was secured while mathematics confirmed Rotherham's misery as they return to where Sheffield United are coming from. And today Coventry City dropped into League Two, into the lowest division for the first time since 1959.
In 1987 Coventry beat Tottenham 3-2 in a very memorable FA Cup Final, with one of the memories the Keith Houchen flying header for Coventry to make it 2-2. In the weeks after the final I remember reading about Coventry's long term plan to become a force in English football, how this win was to be the catapult for further success. Sure, they hung around the old First Division and Premier League for a while but they never came close to doing a Leicester. Talk of future greatness based on a couple of good results reminds me of Rory McIlroy. After he won 4 majors he was talked about as being better than Tiger Woods and likely to dominate gold for longer than Tiger did. Since his last major win in 2014 he's been in the news more for letting down Caroline Wozniacki almost at the altar, and for not letting down Donald Trump when the President asked Mcllroy to accompany him on a round of golf.
At least last season when Leicester did the unimaginable nobody had the bad foresight to say they would be the new masters of English football. This season has gone about according to predictions. Except for the Champions League. They're still playing in April and only have a 1-0 deficit against Atletico Madrid to overcome to reach the semifinals. But it's not like they're going to win the whole thing, is it? Were we not saying that at the beginning of last April and the Premier League.
Aston Villa will have nothing to look forward to in May, other then that the season will be over and they can look forward to the next. All the other teams in the Championship played today and Sheffield Wednesday and Fulham both won, meaning they are even further ahead in the battle for sixth place and the last play-off spot. And why did Villa not play today? Because I support a lovely club that cares about its community. The club agreed to not play today to not be disruptive to the Good Friday services at the Aston Parish Church. The church has had to deal the traffic of thousands of fans in the past making it difficult for worshippers to get to the church. Villa will play Reading tomorrow and because of this generous switch will only have 48 hours rest before playing away to Fulham on Monday. And there's the sign that they have definitely given up on promotion.
April is not my favourite month. It used to be when the third term of school would start, the third term that seemed to last forever and was like the wall in my head that was preventing summer from starting. And that wall couldn't be climbed over until end of year exams were tackled, always a time of great stress. Of course, if I started studying for them in April then June would have been a lot easier. But then, as now, April was too much of a nothing month to do anything of significance. The weather can't decide what it wants to do. It's even more true now where I go from days of "oh, summer's here" to "good thing I didn't take the winter tires off yet". We want to be done with winter but it keeps being thrown at us. And there's nothing to look forward to. Nothing happens in April. The world is getting ready for May.
Champions League final, FA Cup Final, final day of the league season, French Open tennis. And there is sun everywhere and fans are in t-shirts and tennis spectators, and cricket players, are wearing big sun hats. And supporters are crying all over the place; tears of joy for a last minute winner to secure a league win, and desperate tears for a last minute winner that was meaningless in the end and relegation is confirmed. There are permutations to be worked out, combinations of results needed, the what if's, so much to keep your mind distracted from final exams.
But in defence of April it does give us a little taste of the joys of May. There are Champions League quarterfinals and FA Cup semifinals which are very often better than the finals. And the lists of "who could get promoted or relegated this weekend" start. In England Sheffield United already had their day. Promotion out of League One was secured while mathematics confirmed Rotherham's misery as they return to where Sheffield United are coming from. And today Coventry City dropped into League Two, into the lowest division for the first time since 1959.
In 1987 Coventry beat Tottenham 3-2 in a very memorable FA Cup Final, with one of the memories the Keith Houchen flying header for Coventry to make it 2-2. In the weeks after the final I remember reading about Coventry's long term plan to become a force in English football, how this win was to be the catapult for further success. Sure, they hung around the old First Division and Premier League for a while but they never came close to doing a Leicester. Talk of future greatness based on a couple of good results reminds me of Rory McIlroy. After he won 4 majors he was talked about as being better than Tiger Woods and likely to dominate gold for longer than Tiger did. Since his last major win in 2014 he's been in the news more for letting down Caroline Wozniacki almost at the altar, and for not letting down Donald Trump when the President asked Mcllroy to accompany him on a round of golf.
At least last season when Leicester did the unimaginable nobody had the bad foresight to say they would be the new masters of English football. This season has gone about according to predictions. Except for the Champions League. They're still playing in April and only have a 1-0 deficit against Atletico Madrid to overcome to reach the semifinals. But it's not like they're going to win the whole thing, is it? Were we not saying that at the beginning of last April and the Premier League.
Aston Villa will have nothing to look forward to in May, other then that the season will be over and they can look forward to the next. All the other teams in the Championship played today and Sheffield Wednesday and Fulham both won, meaning they are even further ahead in the battle for sixth place and the last play-off spot. And why did Villa not play today? Because I support a lovely club that cares about its community. The club agreed to not play today to not be disruptive to the Good Friday services at the Aston Parish Church. The church has had to deal the traffic of thousands of fans in the past making it difficult for worshippers to get to the church. Villa will play Reading tomorrow and because of this generous switch will only have 48 hours rest before playing away to Fulham on Monday. And there's the sign that they have definitely given up on promotion.
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