…they’d be pretty bland. England played on Wednesday night. No really they did. They flew all the way over to Copenhagen to face Denmark in a friendly. Naturally, it being a friendly most of the senior stars conveniently got injured again. Steven Gerrard I’m looking at you. The match itself featured all the young talent England has to offer. In other words: Aston Villa.
They won the match 2-1, it wasn’t the most exciting football game you’ll watch, in fact I got more interested in figuring out the advertising boards. If you were watching on ITV you’ll have noticed that all the advertising boards around the side were promoting British brands such as Northern Rock, webuyanycar (grr), and Carlsberg. Yes it’s a Danish brand but the stuff you drink in England is more likely to have been brewed on your doorstep than in Denmark. Why do beers want to be foreign anyway? What's wrong with being British? Fosters is as Australian as a British bulldog wearing a busby whilst sheltering from the rain in a red phone box reading the Daily Express.
Anyway, the adverts around the pitch were all English, but that got me thinking: what about the Danes? Don't they care about their national side? Maybe they don't spend money like we do, so advertisers don't bother with them. Right then it struck me, could it possibly be that there are two feeds, one for English viewers and one for Danish viewers, with the Danish cameras being on the opposite side to the English ones. So whilst English viewers watch England kick from left to right, the Danes would watch us kick from right to left. Astonishing!
My theory might well have been confirmed when I noticed in the lower corners there were different adverts, Danish ones. Yeah I was looking way too much into this, but hey this is what happens when you watch England play football, you start to look forward to Gareth Southgate's analysis! I have fond memories of England vs. Algeria in South Africa, when that bird landed on the Algerian net, one of the highlights of the whole tournament that. The poor thing probably thought it had flown into a hive of angry bees!
So yes England won. But there was much better news to come. After the match news broke of West Ham’s success in securing the backing of the Olympics committee over their proposed move to the Olympic stadium. Now, I don’t actually think any football team should be moving in, I would personally like it to be a dedicated stadium to British athletics as we do desperately need one. But yeah money is in football so I concede defeat.
The two options were West Ham, or Tottenham, and it really was a complete no-brainer for the committee on who they should pick. West Ham, who said their plans were to use the stadium for more than just football, keep the athletics track and enable the Olympic legacy to continue. Or Tottenham, who proposed moving in from North London, knocking down the stadium and rebuilding a new one, without a running track.
Yes, I must admit it is a tricky one. Everyone agrees it should be given to the Hammers, well everyone except Alan Sugar who says West Ham getting the stadium represents a big waste of money and that Spurs bid was for “an iconic anchor centrepiece.” Now, I’m no business expert but I would think that razing a stadium that is already there and then spending more money on building a new one from scratch seems like a slight waste of finances to me. He says that you can’t run an athletics stadium and a football stadium together but I don’t think they’ll be using it at the same time; be really good if they did though, if you get bored, which you so often would watching West Ham, you can watch the track events! Brilliant!
I think West Ham’s bid does offer more for the Olympic legacy. I will give Lord Sugar one thing though, it wasn’t handled very well at all. Hopefully the Hammers win it, they should now, although it will be a difficult stadium to fill in the Championship.
Speaking of the Championship, Shefki Kuqi signed with Newcastle United today. After selling Andy Carroll to Liverpool on deadline day for a staggering £35 million, manager Alan Pardew has been forced to bring in a replacement. That man is 34 year old Shefki Kuqi, former Ipswich, Crystal Palace, and Stockport striker. Hey, if Giggs can go on until he’s 37 then Kuqi can make it at 34. Maybe he’s been using Giggy’s new fitness DVD. Iron men should be using that!
The Toon fans are moaning quite a bit about it, but realistically he’s as good a free agent as anyone else out there. Newcastle probably should have had someone lined up in January just incase Carroll did move on but instead they just cashed the massive £35 million cheque.
They’re probably thinking they’re safe now, that if they can just survive this season in the Premier League then they can go shopping in the summer when prices aren’t as extortionate. They probably could have done with bringing in someone on loan just to make sure they stay up but they obviously haven’t bothered. Who knows we might see a few trademark belly-flops between now and the end of the season. I don’t think Newcastle will go down though, on the basis that there are far worse teams in this year’s Premier League.
Most of them beginning with the letter W.
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