| The ugly side which continues to plague English football, albeit a minority... | |
Monday, December 25, 2006
Hooligans The Untold Story
Gary Neville Interview
Gary Neville: United in my veins
By LEE CLAYTON
'Gary Neville, he's a red, he's a red, he's a red... 'Gary Neville, he's a red... 'He hates Scousers.'
The Manchester United supporters love Gary Neville. And not just because he hates Scousers. He is the ferociously competetive shop steward of a right back who has become the leader of a team hoping to win back the title from Chelsea. It would be his first title as captain.
And here, in a remarkable insight into his love and passion for Manchester United, Neville looks back on the joys of his career and reveals what it takes to become a cult hero at Old Trafford.
--------------------------------------------------------------
'United, Liverpool. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and Milan... they are the clubs with real tradition, history and power. Others may try but nobody else breaks into that and they never will.'
When I stop playing, I’d love just to travel round Europe watching United with my mates. What’s better than watching your team play football and having a few drinks and something to eat after? Criticising them if they lose, jumping around hysterically if they win.
I saw men screaming, with the veins coming out of their neck, on Deansgate the day after we won the European Cup. Nothing in their life made them do that before, nothing in their life made them do it since. You can spend 30 quid on nothing these days, on absolute rubbish. Or you can get the buzz of your life out of watching United.
I always tell the young players here, if you look down at your shirt and see a Manchester United badge, you’re not having a bad day. You’re doing all right. The day I don’t have the United badge on my chest will be a sad one for me. I don’t think I can ever have the same feeling playing for another football club. That is no criticism of anyone else, but I am so ingrained in United and it is such a big part of my life.
I’m not naive enough to think there is only Man United. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Milan and Bayern Munich have more than got enough right to suggest they’re at the very top of the game, with United and Liverpool. Those clubs are the ones with the real tradition and history and power. They have the immense following. Others can try, but nobody breaks into that.
And they never will.
The biggest clubs can have bad seasons, bad decades even, but they will never be abandoned or forgotten. That might be seen as me having a go at others, but it’s the reality. I know because I’ve seen United climb back up from the depths. I didn’t grow up watching United win championships, but that didn’t stop me loving the club or feeling it.
I always say this to the fans when they talk about who owns the club or who the directors are or who the chairman is: when you first walked into that ground at the age of five or 10, you didn’t walk up the steps from the refreshment bar and think, who’s that sat over there in the directors’ box? You fell in love with that team running out in that red shirt, in that great ground, on that green pitch. That was what drew you to the club and made you think, wow, that’s got me. And it’s an addiction you have for life.
Managers are important, so are directors and players, but we all come and go. It was walking into the stadium, that’s what gripped me, the size of it – I was in awe of the whole place. I just love everything; the badge, the history.
You can fall in love with a player but, deep down, you know he’ll leave one day. That’s why I always say that the people within the club are just there to serve it. It’s the club and the badge that matters so much. The players are just adding their little bit to a massive depth of history.
'Medals are great, but the real miracle is that I shared a dressing room with six of my best mates and my brother for more than 10 years.'
You will find a few people around United, influential ones, who weren’t sure I would make 50 games, never mind 500. I spent most of my teenage years waiting for rejection. I still remember my shock at being one of the 16 picked out of 200 kids in the under-11s. That letter through the post was the most unbelievable thing I had ever seen.
I still wonder why I was invited back every year, and it can only have been attitude. If training started at 5pm, I would be there at 4.15, passing against a wall. I knew I had to do that when I saw the skills of local lads like Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt at 13. Then the out-of-town kids joined us, like David Beckham, Keith Gillespie and Robbie Savage. I was a central midfield player and I thought, ‘I’m not as good as this lot, nowhere near’.
People assume that a career in football falls into your lap, that you were always going to play for Manchester United. They don’t see the challenges you have to overcome and they forget the dozens of players who never quite make it.
If you aren’t the most talented player in the world, you have to sprint to keep up. You have to make sacrifices. When I left school at 16, I made the conscious decision that I would cut myself off from all of my mates. It sounds brutal, and it was selfish, but I knew that they would be doing all sorts of teenage things that I couldn’t get involved with, even if that was just having a few drinks.
I’ll always remember my dad telling me: ‘You’ve got two years to give it a real go. Never look back and wish you’d done more.’ Medals are great, but the real miracle is that I shared a dressing room with six of my best mates and my brother for more than 10 years. It sounds like a cliché, but I’ve been living a childhood dream.
There are times when I could have played better, games when I might have made fewer mistakes, but one thing I would like to say for myself is that, from the age of 16 to 31, I’ve given everything. Your best is the least you should give, but we’ve all seen players who have fallen short because they haven’t applied themselves. Players with much more talent than me. And if I ever thought I’d cracked it, that would probably be the end of me.
'Schmeichel used to hammer me, Bruce ripped me to shreds, some of the first team were animals, they were so aggressive and so demanding. It was brutal. Now foreigners don't expect to be shouted and screamed at...football is becoming softer.'
It will go down as a legendary youth side (1992), and that’s not me bragging. It has to when you look at Ryan Giggs captaining Wales, David Beckham captaining England, me winning 80-odd caps, Paul Scholes becoming one of the very best United players, Nicky Butt winning six championship titles, and the same with my brother, Phil.
It was a freak that will still be talked about in 50 years, and not just because of the six of us, but because of all the others who have gone on and are still playing or working in football. Robbie Savage and Keith Gillespie have been Premiership players, internationals.
We were brought up in a hard school. Our youth coach, Eric Harrison, was tough with us, the manager was tough with us and then, when you got close to the first team, you had to deal with Mark Hughes, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and Paul Ince. You couldn’t be a wimp with those lads.
I’ve always said that they saw us as a threat to them as a winning group. Those players had already won medals and they were thinking, is this bunch of kids going to keep me in championships?
Peter Schmeichel used to hammer me. We would be practising and he would just pluck my crosses out of the air as if to say: ‘You’re not good enough.’ It was only three or four years later that he came up to me on a team day out and said: ‘You’ve proved me wrong.’ That is the education that people don’t see.
I still remember Steve Bruce ripping me to shreds at Elland Road, Mark Hughes charging at me just because I hadn’t played the ball into the channel, Eric Cantona giving me the stare, Keaney and Incey snarling. And that was before you had to face the manager. It was a hard school, but the best education imaginable.
It was all about the levels, the standards that you have to produce, and they were incredibly driven. They were animals, some of them. To be honest, you could say that they weren’t nice people to play with at times. They were so demanding, so aggressive. You lived or died by it, but we came through it.
They were brutal at times, some of them, and it is getting harder and harder to be like that now. Generally, you’re talking about a more sensitive player now, a more technically gifted player.
Foreign players don’t expect to be shouted and screamed at. Football is becoming softer.
'I was playing for England and earning £210-a-week, now money has created a distance between the working class and football, but I can't stand it when a fan says "I paid your wages"'
I came into football at the right time, in the sense that the money has catapulted. I’m not going to apologise for that, but it wasn’t why I came into the game in the first place. I signed a contract at 16 which promised me £29.50 a week for two years, so I didn’t come into this for the money. I came here because I loved playing football and playing for United.
At 18 I got £210 a week and I was playing for England. In fact, I was playing for England for £230 a week, because it went up 20 pounds a year. Because it went up to £1,000 a week after that, it didn’t make me a different person, and am I going to turn it down when the club increases it to £5,000?
You can’t tell me that the players of the 60s weren’t earning a lot more than the plumbers or the electricians so, while I appreciate that football has given me a great lifestyle, I don’t think I should apologise for that. But I do accept that, combined with the media coverage and the superstardom of players, the money can create a distance between the working class and a working-class player.
You can see that sometimes when you hear a fan say: ‘I paid this or that, I paid your wages.’ I can’t stand that, to be honest. My dad would never say that when he was taking us to watch United.
Of course we appreciate what the fans spend to watch the club, but I honestly believe you get your money’s worth when you consider the rewards you get. You could spend the same on 10 beers or a family night out at the cinema, and I can’t believe you’ll get the feelings that come from watching United.
If you were watching in the ’99 season, whatever you spent following us around, believe me, you were still well in credit. You have memories that will last you a lifetime. It has given you feelings that made you shiver.
People talk about the crowds changing, especially at United, and maybe it has, but there are still those moments when it is incredibly raw. And you can still sense that passion when you go to the pubs in Salford and you see the MUFC tattoos on the knuckles. This club can enthrall you. That’s what Manchester United does, it grips you and gets you if you really want it.
'No, I don't think another team will ever win the treble... and I say that as part of of a team that hopes to do it again'
The ’94 team is always mentioned as being one of the best United teams, certainly the most powerful, but I think the manager realised in 1995 that it was never going to win the European Cup. They were obviously ageing and they were set in the British way, very powerful.
He needed to bring in a more fluent type of football with elements of the ’94 team still in place, like Keane and Schmeichel. He then brought in the younger players, a couple of foreign ones and then David May, Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, and we went through our European education.
No, I don’t think there will be another treble winning team and if there is, good luck to the team that does it because they will have one hell of a time.
I’m saying that as part of a team that hopes to do it again, but also as somebody who knows what it takes. And everything has to go like you wouldn’t believe. You have to win game after game in the last minute.
Everyone remembers the celebrated matches that season – the European semi-final in Turin, the FA Cup semi at Villa Park and the European Cup final itself – but they forget that there were others like against Liverpool in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
We were one goal down with five minutes to go and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ends up scoring the winner in the last seconds. So many things have to go well. If Dennis Bergkamp scores a penalty against us in the FA Cup semi, Arsenal probably win the Double. But we came away from Villa Park that night thinking something might be happening, and then we knew nothing was going to stop us once we won in Turin.
Even at 2-0 down to Juventus, I remember Becks coming over and saying: ‘C’mon, we can do this,’ and he’s not really the type for that.
To have belief even in that situation was incredible, because the defence had endured a 20-minute nightmare. I was caught out for one goal, losing Inzaghi, and Jaap Stam was being run ragged down that side. Ronny Johnsen was all over the place. We were playing very poorly but we were a decent bunch of lads who managed to pull off a freak. The Treble will be a freak. I just can’t see it being repeated.
By LEE CLAYTON
'Gary Neville, he's a red, he's a red, he's a red... 'Gary Neville, he's a red... 'He hates Scousers.'
The Manchester United supporters love Gary Neville. And not just because he hates Scousers. He is the ferociously competetive shop steward of a right back who has become the leader of a team hoping to win back the title from Chelsea. It would be his first title as captain.
And here, in a remarkable insight into his love and passion for Manchester United, Neville looks back on the joys of his career and reveals what it takes to become a cult hero at Old Trafford.
--------------------------------------------------------------
'United, Liverpool. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and Milan... they are the clubs with real tradition, history and power. Others may try but nobody else breaks into that and they never will.'
When I stop playing, I’d love just to travel round Europe watching United with my mates. What’s better than watching your team play football and having a few drinks and something to eat after? Criticising them if they lose, jumping around hysterically if they win.
I saw men screaming, with the veins coming out of their neck, on Deansgate the day after we won the European Cup. Nothing in their life made them do that before, nothing in their life made them do it since. You can spend 30 quid on nothing these days, on absolute rubbish. Or you can get the buzz of your life out of watching United.
I always tell the young players here, if you look down at your shirt and see a Manchester United badge, you’re not having a bad day. You’re doing all right. The day I don’t have the United badge on my chest will be a sad one for me. I don’t think I can ever have the same feeling playing for another football club. That is no criticism of anyone else, but I am so ingrained in United and it is such a big part of my life.
I’m not naive enough to think there is only Man United. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Milan and Bayern Munich have more than got enough right to suggest they’re at the very top of the game, with United and Liverpool. Those clubs are the ones with the real tradition and history and power. They have the immense following. Others can try, but nobody breaks into that.
And they never will.
The biggest clubs can have bad seasons, bad decades even, but they will never be abandoned or forgotten. That might be seen as me having a go at others, but it’s the reality. I know because I’ve seen United climb back up from the depths. I didn’t grow up watching United win championships, but that didn’t stop me loving the club or feeling it.
I always say this to the fans when they talk about who owns the club or who the directors are or who the chairman is: when you first walked into that ground at the age of five or 10, you didn’t walk up the steps from the refreshment bar and think, who’s that sat over there in the directors’ box? You fell in love with that team running out in that red shirt, in that great ground, on that green pitch. That was what drew you to the club and made you think, wow, that’s got me. And it’s an addiction you have for life.
Managers are important, so are directors and players, but we all come and go. It was walking into the stadium, that’s what gripped me, the size of it – I was in awe of the whole place. I just love everything; the badge, the history.
You can fall in love with a player but, deep down, you know he’ll leave one day. That’s why I always say that the people within the club are just there to serve it. It’s the club and the badge that matters so much. The players are just adding their little bit to a massive depth of history.
'Medals are great, but the real miracle is that I shared a dressing room with six of my best mates and my brother for more than 10 years.'
You will find a few people around United, influential ones, who weren’t sure I would make 50 games, never mind 500. I spent most of my teenage years waiting for rejection. I still remember my shock at being one of the 16 picked out of 200 kids in the under-11s. That letter through the post was the most unbelievable thing I had ever seen.
I still wonder why I was invited back every year, and it can only have been attitude. If training started at 5pm, I would be there at 4.15, passing against a wall. I knew I had to do that when I saw the skills of local lads like Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt at 13. Then the out-of-town kids joined us, like David Beckham, Keith Gillespie and Robbie Savage. I was a central midfield player and I thought, ‘I’m not as good as this lot, nowhere near’.
People assume that a career in football falls into your lap, that you were always going to play for Manchester United. They don’t see the challenges you have to overcome and they forget the dozens of players who never quite make it.
If you aren’t the most talented player in the world, you have to sprint to keep up. You have to make sacrifices. When I left school at 16, I made the conscious decision that I would cut myself off from all of my mates. It sounds brutal, and it was selfish, but I knew that they would be doing all sorts of teenage things that I couldn’t get involved with, even if that was just having a few drinks.
I’ll always remember my dad telling me: ‘You’ve got two years to give it a real go. Never look back and wish you’d done more.’ Medals are great, but the real miracle is that I shared a dressing room with six of my best mates and my brother for more than 10 years. It sounds like a cliché, but I’ve been living a childhood dream.
There are times when I could have played better, games when I might have made fewer mistakes, but one thing I would like to say for myself is that, from the age of 16 to 31, I’ve given everything. Your best is the least you should give, but we’ve all seen players who have fallen short because they haven’t applied themselves. Players with much more talent than me. And if I ever thought I’d cracked it, that would probably be the end of me.
'Schmeichel used to hammer me, Bruce ripped me to shreds, some of the first team were animals, they were so aggressive and so demanding. It was brutal. Now foreigners don't expect to be shouted and screamed at...football is becoming softer.'
It will go down as a legendary youth side (1992), and that’s not me bragging. It has to when you look at Ryan Giggs captaining Wales, David Beckham captaining England, me winning 80-odd caps, Paul Scholes becoming one of the very best United players, Nicky Butt winning six championship titles, and the same with my brother, Phil.
It was a freak that will still be talked about in 50 years, and not just because of the six of us, but because of all the others who have gone on and are still playing or working in football. Robbie Savage and Keith Gillespie have been Premiership players, internationals.
We were brought up in a hard school. Our youth coach, Eric Harrison, was tough with us, the manager was tough with us and then, when you got close to the first team, you had to deal with Mark Hughes, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and Paul Ince. You couldn’t be a wimp with those lads.
I’ve always said that they saw us as a threat to them as a winning group. Those players had already won medals and they were thinking, is this bunch of kids going to keep me in championships?
Peter Schmeichel used to hammer me. We would be practising and he would just pluck my crosses out of the air as if to say: ‘You’re not good enough.’ It was only three or four years later that he came up to me on a team day out and said: ‘You’ve proved me wrong.’ That is the education that people don’t see.
I still remember Steve Bruce ripping me to shreds at Elland Road, Mark Hughes charging at me just because I hadn’t played the ball into the channel, Eric Cantona giving me the stare, Keaney and Incey snarling. And that was before you had to face the manager. It was a hard school, but the best education imaginable.
It was all about the levels, the standards that you have to produce, and they were incredibly driven. They were animals, some of them. To be honest, you could say that they weren’t nice people to play with at times. They were so demanding, so aggressive. You lived or died by it, but we came through it.
They were brutal at times, some of them, and it is getting harder and harder to be like that now. Generally, you’re talking about a more sensitive player now, a more technically gifted player.
Foreign players don’t expect to be shouted and screamed at. Football is becoming softer.
'I was playing for England and earning £210-a-week, now money has created a distance between the working class and football, but I can't stand it when a fan says "I paid your wages"'
I came into football at the right time, in the sense that the money has catapulted. I’m not going to apologise for that, but it wasn’t why I came into the game in the first place. I signed a contract at 16 which promised me £29.50 a week for two years, so I didn’t come into this for the money. I came here because I loved playing football and playing for United.
At 18 I got £210 a week and I was playing for England. In fact, I was playing for England for £230 a week, because it went up 20 pounds a year. Because it went up to £1,000 a week after that, it didn’t make me a different person, and am I going to turn it down when the club increases it to £5,000?
You can’t tell me that the players of the 60s weren’t earning a lot more than the plumbers or the electricians so, while I appreciate that football has given me a great lifestyle, I don’t think I should apologise for that. But I do accept that, combined with the media coverage and the superstardom of players, the money can create a distance between the working class and a working-class player.
You can see that sometimes when you hear a fan say: ‘I paid this or that, I paid your wages.’ I can’t stand that, to be honest. My dad would never say that when he was taking us to watch United.
Of course we appreciate what the fans spend to watch the club, but I honestly believe you get your money’s worth when you consider the rewards you get. You could spend the same on 10 beers or a family night out at the cinema, and I can’t believe you’ll get the feelings that come from watching United.
If you were watching in the ’99 season, whatever you spent following us around, believe me, you were still well in credit. You have memories that will last you a lifetime. It has given you feelings that made you shiver.
People talk about the crowds changing, especially at United, and maybe it has, but there are still those moments when it is incredibly raw. And you can still sense that passion when you go to the pubs in Salford and you see the MUFC tattoos on the knuckles. This club can enthrall you. That’s what Manchester United does, it grips you and gets you if you really want it.
'No, I don't think another team will ever win the treble... and I say that as part of of a team that hopes to do it again'
The ’94 team is always mentioned as being one of the best United teams, certainly the most powerful, but I think the manager realised in 1995 that it was never going to win the European Cup. They were obviously ageing and they were set in the British way, very powerful.
He needed to bring in a more fluent type of football with elements of the ’94 team still in place, like Keane and Schmeichel. He then brought in the younger players, a couple of foreign ones and then David May, Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, and we went through our European education.
No, I don’t think there will be another treble winning team and if there is, good luck to the team that does it because they will have one hell of a time.
I’m saying that as part of a team that hopes to do it again, but also as somebody who knows what it takes. And everything has to go like you wouldn’t believe. You have to win game after game in the last minute.
Everyone remembers the celebrated matches that season – the European semi-final in Turin, the FA Cup semi at Villa Park and the European Cup final itself – but they forget that there were others like against Liverpool in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
We were one goal down with five minutes to go and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ends up scoring the winner in the last seconds. So many things have to go well. If Dennis Bergkamp scores a penalty against us in the FA Cup semi, Arsenal probably win the Double. But we came away from Villa Park that night thinking something might be happening, and then we knew nothing was going to stop us once we won in Turin.
Even at 2-0 down to Juventus, I remember Becks coming over and saying: ‘C’mon, we can do this,’ and he’s not really the type for that.
To have belief even in that situation was incredible, because the defence had endured a 20-minute nightmare. I was caught out for one goal, losing Inzaghi, and Jaap Stam was being run ragged down that side. Ronny Johnsen was all over the place. We were playing very poorly but we were a decent bunch of lads who managed to pull off a freak. The Treble will be a freak. I just can’t see it being repeated.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
20 Legend
As one of the Strettie End Favourite goes...
You are my Solskjaer,
my only Solskjaer.
You make me happy,
when skies are grey.
Oh Alan Shearer,
Is fucking dearer.
Please don't take,
my Solskjaer away...
After having enjoyed the services of loyal players like Solskjaer, Keano, Giggs, Scholes etc etc etc, can anyone blame us for lamenting the level of commitment of the likes of Richardson?
As one Stretford End banner reads simply>> 20 Legend
Steve Tongue meets a man who really does smile at adversity
Independent 29 October 2006
Amid all the excitement of Manchester United's struggle to evict Crewe Alexandra from the Carling Cup last Wednesday night - two long-serving heart-patient managers, the late winning goal from a teenaged debutant and so on - one significant aspect was understandably overlooked: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer played 120 minutes of football.
During long periods of the little pixie's career, that might have been the ration for half-a-dozen games. Worse, for the past three seasons this time of year has resembled not so much the autumn of his playing days as the grim Norwegian winter. But suddenly, delightfully, Solskjaer is enjoying an Indian summer, the calendar no longer ringed with knee operations.
Ask how many of those there have been and the baby face creases up in concentration. "Let me have a think now. The first one in September 2003, then a major one in August 2004 - that was the [cartilage] transplant - and another one in summer 2005, same type of injury but a different place in the knee. So three decent-sized operations. And lots of arthroscopy and things in between. They've been inside the knee a few times!"
The day after undertaking a full shift like last Wednesday's, rather than one of his famed cameos from the substitutes' bench, he takes things "a little bit easy - swimming, on the bike, no running, not at my age". But there is no apparent discomfort as he bounds up the stairs at United's training centre, where over the past three years he spent so many long, hard days of rehabilitation.
As recently as last December Sir Alex Ferguson looked and sounded wretched when admitting that the prospects of a return to full fitness for one of his favourite sons were not encouraging, and that a testimonial match was under consideration. Solskjaer insists that his own concern was whether he would be able to return to the high standard demanded by himself as well as his club.
"There were times when I had pain in the knee and thought, 'Is this ever going to be 100 per cent again?' After the main operation, it was a test of patience. I had a cast on for three months and was in bed, just moving the knee, eight or nine hours a day. But I never went to sleep thinking I wouldn't play again. I was always positive about that, mentally preparing myself every night.
"There was a woman who worked with the Norwegian Olympic athletes and she made me keep a diary, writing things down about how I felt, which I did during training as well. When you write something negative, you realise that's bad and you must start thinking positively again."
Not that introspection was everything. Typically, Solskjaer was concerned to lift the spirits of fellow sufferers in the treatment room such as Alan Smith, who described his "inspirational" effect in these pages last week.
"I knew that I would be out for a whole season and that I couldn't contribute on the pitch, so trying to be a good example would help the young lads and anyone feeling sorry for themselves. As for me, I knew I would get back to playing but the worry was, 'Am I going to be good enough again?'
"Towards the end of last season, after a few niggles I must say I was a bit more doubtful. I didn't play particularly well in the reserves and dominate the games. But I noticed the difference after this pre-season. I played and trained with the first-team lads all the time and my own performance got up to that level. When you've had it in you before, you can find it again if you're determined and motivated enough."
The enthusiasm has never waned and can rightly be described as "boyish", stretching back as it does to earliest days in Kristiansund, a tiny town situated on three islands just off the Norwegian coast. Such was the hunger there for English football that consignments of Match Weekly and Shoot! would arrive every Thursday, the highlight of young Solskjaer's week.
As a footballer, he was a self-confessed late developer, whose professional career was further delayed by serving in the army for two years; he was 22 before joining a leading club, Molde. Success there led to an international debut in 1995 and, the following year, one of those chance occurrences that change careers and lives.
United wanted to sign Norway's central defender Ronny Johnsen and sent Ferguson's assistant, Jim Ryan, to watch an international against Azerbaijan. Ryan not only got his man, but found his eye taken by a young forward called Solskjaer, who scored two dazzling goals and was recruited as well, at a cost of ?1.5 million.
It was hardly a leap into the unknown for him. "I think I knew everything about Eighties football in England," he smiles. "Match Of The Day was always on and I used to write down all the team-sheets and formations. So I just jumped at the chance. Eighteen months after playing at a very low level with my local team in front of 50 or 60 people, I was playing with Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs and Roy Keane."
Making an early impression at a club who had just done the Double was important. Ferguson gave him a couple of reserve games, then threw him on at home to Blackburn for the first of what are now almost 150 substitute appearances in a total of 345. "I've been asked many times what's the greatest moment of my United career. Scoring that goal in my first game and turning round to see that Eric Cantona was the first one coming towards me celebrating, that just made me realise, 'I'm at Old Trafford now'."
Those questioners might reasonably have expected an answer relating to events in Barcelona on the night of 26 May 1999; United's attempt to make history by completing a treble of Premiership, FA Cup and Champions' League. Despite having finished as leading scorer in his first season, two years earlier, Solskjaer had become less of an automatic choice than a supremely reliable supersub. Many players might have resented the role.
Ferguson knew he had a genuine team player in his hugely popular Norwegian, and would drop in a carefully chosen phrase occasionally as a reminder of his faith. Such an occasion was the final League game of the season, at home to Tottenham, when victory was required to complete the first leg of the Treble.
"The main strikers were Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, who rotated with me and Teddy Sheringham. The last couple of months of that season I didn't play many games, but I was on the bench. We were drawing against Spurs and the gaffer put Coley on for Yorkey and said, 'If you haven't scored with 10 or 15 minutes left don't panic, I'll just put Ole on'. I still remember how my confidence shot up. That was his man-management, and it will always be with me."
As it happened, Cole scored the winning goal and Solskjaer was not needed. His reward, as well as a second Premiership medal, was a place in the FA Cup final victory over Newcastle the following week. Two down and a European Cup final to go.
"I just felt something big was going to happen to me that night. I spoke to a friend of mine before the game who said he was working a night shift and wouldn't be able to watch the last half an hour of it, but I asked him to make sure he did.
"It was one of those stupid things you feel. At half-time, one-nil down, I was looking at the gaffer and thinking, 'Why don't you put me on, I need to get on here,' but he put Teddy on. And eventually I came on and, well, we got two goals in the end."
Right at the end, of course, in quite sensational fashion, the second of them as David Beckham swings in another corner, Sheringham gets the faintest touch on and the slender choirboy with the machine-gun finishes off Bayern.
Best day of your life? "No, I wouldn't say that. But professionally, yes, I would say you can't top the last 10 days of that season, winning three trophies in 10 days. And all in it together, that's the best thing of all. I could never have been an individual athlete, like my dad, who was a Greco-Roman wrestler. I'm so happy to be part of a team, see how people gel together and work for each other and win together. That's one of the things that makes me want to go on in football after I've finished playing, as a coach or manager."
There is more to achieve before then. Aged 33 now, he has a contract until the end of next season, by which time United hope to have pushed Chelsea a whole lot harder than in the past two years and sustained a more lasting challenge in Europe. The boy from Kristiansund wants to play his part, even if he has more reason than most players to welcome the advent of those new, lavishly furnished, substitutes' seats.
"There's no chance you'll get me moaning about being a sub. I'm so proud of having been a part of the history of Man United. To be known as a good substitute at Man United is better than to not be known at all. My dad still says, 'You've been very, very fortunate, you've been at the best club'. It's just fantastic having been a part of it."
LIFE & TIMES: From the fjords to Old Trafford
NAME: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
BORN: 26 February 1973, Kristiansund, Norway.
VITAL STATS: 5ft 10in, 11st 6lb.
POSITION: Forward.
CLUB CAREER: Clausenegen FK; Molde 1995-96 (42 games, 31 goals); Manchester Utd '96-current, fee ?1.5m (345 games, 123 goals);
Premiership title '97, '99, 2000, '01, '03; FA Cup '99, '04; League Cup '06; Champions' League '99. Patron of Manchester Utd
Supporters' Trust.
INTERNATIONAL CAREER: 61 caps, 21 goals for Norway; debut v Jamaica '95; World Cup '98, Euro 2000.
AND ANOTHER THING: His father was Norway's Greco-Roman wrestling champion '66-71.
You are my Solskjaer,
my only Solskjaer.
You make me happy,
when skies are grey.
Oh Alan Shearer,
Is fucking dearer.
Please don't take,
my Solskjaer away...
After having enjoyed the services of loyal players like Solskjaer, Keano, Giggs, Scholes etc etc etc, can anyone blame us for lamenting the level of commitment of the likes of Richardson?
As one Stretford End banner reads simply>> 20 Legend
Steve Tongue meets a man who really does smile at adversity
Independent 29 October 2006
Amid all the excitement of Manchester United's struggle to evict Crewe Alexandra from the Carling Cup last Wednesday night - two long-serving heart-patient managers, the late winning goal from a teenaged debutant and so on - one significant aspect was understandably overlooked: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer played 120 minutes of football.
During long periods of the little pixie's career, that might have been the ration for half-a-dozen games. Worse, for the past three seasons this time of year has resembled not so much the autumn of his playing days as the grim Norwegian winter. But suddenly, delightfully, Solskjaer is enjoying an Indian summer, the calendar no longer ringed with knee operations.
Ask how many of those there have been and the baby face creases up in concentration. "Let me have a think now. The first one in September 2003, then a major one in August 2004 - that was the [cartilage] transplant - and another one in summer 2005, same type of injury but a different place in the knee. So three decent-sized operations. And lots of arthroscopy and things in between. They've been inside the knee a few times!"
The day after undertaking a full shift like last Wednesday's, rather than one of his famed cameos from the substitutes' bench, he takes things "a little bit easy - swimming, on the bike, no running, not at my age". But there is no apparent discomfort as he bounds up the stairs at United's training centre, where over the past three years he spent so many long, hard days of rehabilitation.
As recently as last December Sir Alex Ferguson looked and sounded wretched when admitting that the prospects of a return to full fitness for one of his favourite sons were not encouraging, and that a testimonial match was under consideration. Solskjaer insists that his own concern was whether he would be able to return to the high standard demanded by himself as well as his club.
"There were times when I had pain in the knee and thought, 'Is this ever going to be 100 per cent again?' After the main operation, it was a test of patience. I had a cast on for three months and was in bed, just moving the knee, eight or nine hours a day. But I never went to sleep thinking I wouldn't play again. I was always positive about that, mentally preparing myself every night.
"There was a woman who worked with the Norwegian Olympic athletes and she made me keep a diary, writing things down about how I felt, which I did during training as well. When you write something negative, you realise that's bad and you must start thinking positively again."
Not that introspection was everything. Typically, Solskjaer was concerned to lift the spirits of fellow sufferers in the treatment room such as Alan Smith, who described his "inspirational" effect in these pages last week.
"I knew that I would be out for a whole season and that I couldn't contribute on the pitch, so trying to be a good example would help the young lads and anyone feeling sorry for themselves. As for me, I knew I would get back to playing but the worry was, 'Am I going to be good enough again?'
"Towards the end of last season, after a few niggles I must say I was a bit more doubtful. I didn't play particularly well in the reserves and dominate the games. But I noticed the difference after this pre-season. I played and trained with the first-team lads all the time and my own performance got up to that level. When you've had it in you before, you can find it again if you're determined and motivated enough."
The enthusiasm has never waned and can rightly be described as "boyish", stretching back as it does to earliest days in Kristiansund, a tiny town situated on three islands just off the Norwegian coast. Such was the hunger there for English football that consignments of Match Weekly and Shoot! would arrive every Thursday, the highlight of young Solskjaer's week.
As a footballer, he was a self-confessed late developer, whose professional career was further delayed by serving in the army for two years; he was 22 before joining a leading club, Molde. Success there led to an international debut in 1995 and, the following year, one of those chance occurrences that change careers and lives.
United wanted to sign Norway's central defender Ronny Johnsen and sent Ferguson's assistant, Jim Ryan, to watch an international against Azerbaijan. Ryan not only got his man, but found his eye taken by a young forward called Solskjaer, who scored two dazzling goals and was recruited as well, at a cost of ?1.5 million.
It was hardly a leap into the unknown for him. "I think I knew everything about Eighties football in England," he smiles. "Match Of The Day was always on and I used to write down all the team-sheets and formations. So I just jumped at the chance. Eighteen months after playing at a very low level with my local team in front of 50 or 60 people, I was playing with Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs and Roy Keane."
Making an early impression at a club who had just done the Double was important. Ferguson gave him a couple of reserve games, then threw him on at home to Blackburn for the first of what are now almost 150 substitute appearances in a total of 345. "I've been asked many times what's the greatest moment of my United career. Scoring that goal in my first game and turning round to see that Eric Cantona was the first one coming towards me celebrating, that just made me realise, 'I'm at Old Trafford now'."
Those questioners might reasonably have expected an answer relating to events in Barcelona on the night of 26 May 1999; United's attempt to make history by completing a treble of Premiership, FA Cup and Champions' League. Despite having finished as leading scorer in his first season, two years earlier, Solskjaer had become less of an automatic choice than a supremely reliable supersub. Many players might have resented the role.
Ferguson knew he had a genuine team player in his hugely popular Norwegian, and would drop in a carefully chosen phrase occasionally as a reminder of his faith. Such an occasion was the final League game of the season, at home to Tottenham, when victory was required to complete the first leg of the Treble.
"The main strikers were Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, who rotated with me and Teddy Sheringham. The last couple of months of that season I didn't play many games, but I was on the bench. We were drawing against Spurs and the gaffer put Coley on for Yorkey and said, 'If you haven't scored with 10 or 15 minutes left don't panic, I'll just put Ole on'. I still remember how my confidence shot up. That was his man-management, and it will always be with me."
As it happened, Cole scored the winning goal and Solskjaer was not needed. His reward, as well as a second Premiership medal, was a place in the FA Cup final victory over Newcastle the following week. Two down and a European Cup final to go.
"I just felt something big was going to happen to me that night. I spoke to a friend of mine before the game who said he was working a night shift and wouldn't be able to watch the last half an hour of it, but I asked him to make sure he did.
"It was one of those stupid things you feel. At half-time, one-nil down, I was looking at the gaffer and thinking, 'Why don't you put me on, I need to get on here,' but he put Teddy on. And eventually I came on and, well, we got two goals in the end."
Right at the end, of course, in quite sensational fashion, the second of them as David Beckham swings in another corner, Sheringham gets the faintest touch on and the slender choirboy with the machine-gun finishes off Bayern.
Best day of your life? "No, I wouldn't say that. But professionally, yes, I would say you can't top the last 10 days of that season, winning three trophies in 10 days. And all in it together, that's the best thing of all. I could never have been an individual athlete, like my dad, who was a Greco-Roman wrestler. I'm so happy to be part of a team, see how people gel together and work for each other and win together. That's one of the things that makes me want to go on in football after I've finished playing, as a coach or manager."
There is more to achieve before then. Aged 33 now, he has a contract until the end of next season, by which time United hope to have pushed Chelsea a whole lot harder than in the past two years and sustained a more lasting challenge in Europe. The boy from Kristiansund wants to play his part, even if he has more reason than most players to welcome the advent of those new, lavishly furnished, substitutes' seats.
"There's no chance you'll get me moaning about being a sub. I'm so proud of having been a part of the history of Man United. To be known as a good substitute at Man United is better than to not be known at all. My dad still says, 'You've been very, very fortunate, you've been at the best club'. It's just fantastic having been a part of it."
LIFE & TIMES: From the fjords to Old Trafford
NAME: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
BORN: 26 February 1973, Kristiansund, Norway.
VITAL STATS: 5ft 10in, 11st 6lb.
POSITION: Forward.
CLUB CAREER: Clausenegen FK; Molde 1995-96 (42 games, 31 goals); Manchester Utd '96-current, fee ?1.5m (345 games, 123 goals);
Premiership title '97, '99, 2000, '01, '03; FA Cup '99, '04; League Cup '06; Champions' League '99. Patron of Manchester Utd
Supporters' Trust.
INTERNATIONAL CAREER: 61 caps, 21 goals for Norway; debut v Jamaica '95; World Cup '98, Euro 2000.
AND ANOTHER THING: His father was Norway's Greco-Roman wrestling champion '66-71.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Bye bye Schumi...
In racing, he will always be my hero....
From The Straits Times
Farewell Schumi
German star thanks fans, Ferrari family for their support after his final race
SAO PAOLO - WHEN the end finally came, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was left struggling for words.
His glorious career had come to a dramatic end at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.
'Today, my racing career comes to an end,' said the German star. 'Obviously it's a special moment for me and I am proud to have lived my career with some fantastic people - namely everyone who is a part of the Ferrari family.
'There is so much to say - I can't find the right words.
'The things I will miss are probably the fans. In every moment, they have been behind me and have always supported me.
'Their support helped me perform, especially in moments when it was difficult.
'Over the years, that was immensely important. I can only say thank you to those people and those fans.'
The seven-time world champion finished his career with one of his most stirring drives. He started in 10th place and worked his way up to finish fourth and just off the podium.
But he still managed to find a metaphor to end his 15 years of extraordinary racing.
'In a way, it's a closed circle now for me because my Formula One career started and finished after 500 metres which was, maybe, a symbol of what happened on Sunday.'
His words referred to his first race and his last, which were hit by problems thatwrecked his hopes of victory.
But his actions on the track spoke volumes for his talent, speed, courage and determination as he stormed from the back of the field after a puncture.
'The race was chaotic, I think that's the right word,' he said, as rival and second-time champion Fernando Alonso began his celebrations.
Alonso finished second behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa, but it was enough to give him the drivers' championship.
Said Schumacher: 'We really had a superb car. From the pure speed, we could have lapped everybody.
'So I have to say it was the perfect end to the season in terms of car performance. But for me, it didn't work out well.'
He needed to win his final race to keep alive his remote chance of another title.
But he punctured a tyre less than 10 laps into the race, dropped into last place, and finally finished fourth.
His plight brought tears to grown men in his hometown in Kerpen, Germany.
Around 750 fans watched the Brazil Grand Prix on giant television screens, many with faces painted in Ferrari colours.
'It's just so sad, sad, sad,' said one weeping middle-aged man after Schumacher suffered his punctured tyre.
'Formula One without Schumacher is over,' added another heavy-set man who was also in tears at the crowded sports arena near Cologne.
Schumacher won his last five world championships driving for Ferrari, for which he also helped win six constructors' titles from 1999-2004.
He added that his best memory was his win in 2000.
He said: 'We had a lot of hard work and setbacks, so when we finally won it, it was the most beautiful championship.'
Any regrets?
'There were things I would do differently. But if I went into that, it would get too intense and we don't have time right now.
'But there is the song 'My Way' and I think that is true right now.
'My dad was happy to see me after the race and he said: 'Finally, it's over'.'
'He was quite happy. I feel more relaxed although I think his heart rate was higher during the race than mine.'
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute to the driver, calling him one of the 'real greats of German sport'.
She said that Schumacher was helped by 'what are called German virtues in sport: hard work, meticulous preparation and, above all, the absolute will to make it.'
She added that he 'enriched his sport with a touch of genius'.
From The Straits Times
Farewell Schumi
German star thanks fans, Ferrari family for their support after his final race
SAO PAOLO - WHEN the end finally came, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was left struggling for words.
His glorious career had come to a dramatic end at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.
'Today, my racing career comes to an end,' said the German star. 'Obviously it's a special moment for me and I am proud to have lived my career with some fantastic people - namely everyone who is a part of the Ferrari family.
'There is so much to say - I can't find the right words.
'The things I will miss are probably the fans. In every moment, they have been behind me and have always supported me.
'Their support helped me perform, especially in moments when it was difficult.
'Over the years, that was immensely important. I can only say thank you to those people and those fans.'
The seven-time world champion finished his career with one of his most stirring drives. He started in 10th place and worked his way up to finish fourth and just off the podium.
But he still managed to find a metaphor to end his 15 years of extraordinary racing.
'In a way, it's a closed circle now for me because my Formula One career started and finished after 500 metres which was, maybe, a symbol of what happened on Sunday.'
His words referred to his first race and his last, which were hit by problems thatwrecked his hopes of victory.
But his actions on the track spoke volumes for his talent, speed, courage and determination as he stormed from the back of the field after a puncture.
'The race was chaotic, I think that's the right word,' he said, as rival and second-time champion Fernando Alonso began his celebrations.
Alonso finished second behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa, but it was enough to give him the drivers' championship.
Said Schumacher: 'We really had a superb car. From the pure speed, we could have lapped everybody.
'So I have to say it was the perfect end to the season in terms of car performance. But for me, it didn't work out well.'
He needed to win his final race to keep alive his remote chance of another title.
But he punctured a tyre less than 10 laps into the race, dropped into last place, and finally finished fourth.
His plight brought tears to grown men in his hometown in Kerpen, Germany.
Around 750 fans watched the Brazil Grand Prix on giant television screens, many with faces painted in Ferrari colours.
'It's just so sad, sad, sad,' said one weeping middle-aged man after Schumacher suffered his punctured tyre.
'Formula One without Schumacher is over,' added another heavy-set man who was also in tears at the crowded sports arena near Cologne.
Schumacher won his last five world championships driving for Ferrari, for which he also helped win six constructors' titles from 1999-2004.
He added that his best memory was his win in 2000.
He said: 'We had a lot of hard work and setbacks, so when we finally won it, it was the most beautiful championship.'
Any regrets?
'There were things I would do differently. But if I went into that, it would get too intense and we don't have time right now.
'But there is the song 'My Way' and I think that is true right now.
'My dad was happy to see me after the race and he said: 'Finally, it's over'.'
'He was quite happy. I feel more relaxed although I think his heart rate was higher during the race than mine.'
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute to the driver, calling him one of the 'real greats of German sport'.
She said that Schumacher was helped by 'what are called German virtues in sport: hard work, meticulous preparation and, above all, the absolute will to make it.'
She added that he 'enriched his sport with a touch of genius'.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Who do you share your secrets with?
Thought that the article below is pretty interesting...
From The Straits Times
Oct 23, 2006
No bosom pal? You're far from alone, study shows
LONDON - LONGER working hours and a growing Internet society have left young men with almost no close friends, a study has found.
Researchers at Duke University in North Carolina repeated research conducted by sociologists 20 years ago and found that the average man has only two friends with whom they feel they can share their closest secrets.
This compared with 3.5 'confidants' in the earlier study, reported Britain's Sunday Times.
A quarter of the men in the study said they had no one in whom they could confide - twice the number of those who felt so in 1985.
These are mostly men in their 20s who have lost touch with their school friends, and pensioners who have outlived their peers.
The study found that close friendships have been replaced by groups of 'semi-detached' work colleagues and 'chatroom chums' on the Internet, The Sunday Times reported.
Duke sociology professor Lynn Smith-Lovin said people typically have as many as 750 acquaintances, but nearly all of them fail the 'trust test'.
'You would only share your most vulnerable secrets with a true confidant if it is already proven you can trust them,' she said.
'Another significant change is who we trust: 20 years ago, a young man might have discussed sports or politics and avoided the personal. Now, the best friend is more likely to be a spouse with whom we share more interests.'
About 38 per cent of the study participants said that they trusted their spouses, compared to 30 per cent previously.
The researchers surveyed 1,500 people and found that middle-aged men in their 40s and 50s had almost three close friends each.
From The Straits Times
Oct 23, 2006
No bosom pal? You're far from alone, study shows
LONDON - LONGER working hours and a growing Internet society have left young men with almost no close friends, a study has found.
Researchers at Duke University in North Carolina repeated research conducted by sociologists 20 years ago and found that the average man has only two friends with whom they feel they can share their closest secrets.
This compared with 3.5 'confidants' in the earlier study, reported Britain's Sunday Times.
A quarter of the men in the study said they had no one in whom they could confide - twice the number of those who felt so in 1985.
These are mostly men in their 20s who have lost touch with their school friends, and pensioners who have outlived their peers.
The study found that close friendships have been replaced by groups of 'semi-detached' work colleagues and 'chatroom chums' on the Internet, The Sunday Times reported.
Duke sociology professor Lynn Smith-Lovin said people typically have as many as 750 acquaintances, but nearly all of them fail the 'trust test'.
'You would only share your most vulnerable secrets with a true confidant if it is already proven you can trust them,' she said.
'Another significant change is who we trust: 20 years ago, a young man might have discussed sports or politics and avoided the personal. Now, the best friend is more likely to be a spouse with whom we share more interests.'
About 38 per cent of the study participants said that they trusted their spouses, compared to 30 per cent previously.
The researchers surveyed 1,500 people and found that middle-aged men in their 40s and 50s had almost three close friends each.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Work blues
My boss is currently attached somewhere else until the end of the year. Which means that he has to do jobs on 2 sides. Which also means that I would also have to do 2 persons' jobs when he is not around. Which totally sucks because I am only a one bar, not meant to do a 3 bar job at all.
As if I am not dying under the pile of work (or rather the level of difficulty of work, I mean you don't ask level 3 hero to go fight a level 20 monster right?), along comes something extremely extremely shitty which creates extra work for me and my guys.
All I can say is, if you can't help, at least don't fucking screw things up. You can ORD happily but people got to clean up the mess after you! BIG FUCKING CHEEBYE!
And NO! I am a fucking normal human being. I am not the boss when you like it and someone whom you can push around when you feel buey song. If you so li hai, go talk to the star and bring my boss back lah!
At the moment, I feel dying is much better than being tortured till I ORD. WHY OH WHY???
As if I am not dying under the pile of work (or rather the level of difficulty of work, I mean you don't ask level 3 hero to go fight a level 20 monster right?), along comes something extremely extremely shitty which creates extra work for me and my guys.
All I can say is, if you can't help, at least don't fucking screw things up. You can ORD happily but people got to clean up the mess after you! BIG FUCKING CHEEBYE!
And NO! I am a fucking normal human being. I am not the boss when you like it and someone whom you can push around when you feel buey song. If you so li hai, go talk to the star and bring my boss back lah!
At the moment, I feel dying is much better than being tortured till I ORD. WHY OH WHY???
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Instinct
You know the kind of feeling whereby you can just FEEL that what you are doing is right?
The feeling whereby you will just smile while doing something, because you know it's going to turn out great?
I THINK I am blessed with that kind of feeling. Somehow or rather, most of the time I can just feel instinctively whether I am doing the right thing.
Like when Tong Leng clicked VJC for me, I did not kbkb and change it back to HCJC, because somehow instinctively I knew it was the RIGHT choice.
Like when I decided to take Economics in JC (and subsequently Uni). No second thoughts needed even though I knew nuts about Econs before I went JC. And no regrets either.
Like when I decided I wanted to be a staff instead of a PC.
Like when I decided to buy that pair of ADIDAS Clima Cool shoes at half price. When I tried them on, they fit just nice and when I went to the cashier, I KNEW I would love this pair of shoes. And I can't stop wearing them since.
Hmm, perhaps then you might be wondering why TosH screws up so many times then. Why are there so many clothes hanging in your wardrobe that you seldom wear because in the end it turned out to be crap. Why are there a couple of pairs of footwear that you bought even though they did not really fit you? Why are there so many wrong decisions that you had taken?
I have been thinking about it too, and I could only think of this explanation. Because that "Ah Har!" feeling is just too rare, just too scarce. It doesn't come all the time you know. And you start to doubt yourself. Have you lost that instinct? Or if it IS your instinct telling you not to buy, is it because your instinct is now NOT accurate?
I felt that today at Top Man. There was a long sleeve shirt going at $35 bucks which was a pretty good deal. I went to try it, but the sleeves were too long for my shorty hands, but there wasn't any smaller size available.
I was in a dilemma. "It's cheap! Buy it!" "The sleeves are too long! Don't buy!" I started to try to imagine the sleeves were not that long. I started to con myself that the style of the shirt is like that. Just to recapture that happy feeling of buying something that really suits you.
And after a while, I got confused as to which was my "real" instinct. But somehow or rather, I knew that if I had gone to the cashier, I would not have that feeling of satisfaction like when I bought the Adidas shoes. In the interest of my bank account, I decided not to buy. But yet now, I am still thinking whether I should have bought it....
Ok this seems to be a damn shopaholic post but that's not my main point...
http://ickleoriental.livejournal.com/591645.html#cutid1
I have been reading this blog for quite a while, and I feel it's one of the better blogs out there. The author and her husband seems to be a picture perfect couple. Newly married, good looking, and into endurance sports for good measure.
Looking at their wedding photos, you can just feel (and this is just my own feeling, whether it is true or not is none of my business...) that when the Father (is he called the father? or priest?) asks "Do you agree to take XXX as your lawfully wedded wife blah blah blah", they instinctively knew it was the right decision to take.
You just feel that they had that "AH HAR!" feeling.
And this made me think, one day, if (and it's a big if...) I ever have the chance to be in that position, would I have that instinct? The "AH HAR!" feeling that tells me that I should say "I do?"
Or would I be struggling just like today to make a decision? Or worse still, would I make excuses to make myself to say "I do", in the hope that everything would turn out just fine as though I had that "AH HAR!" feeling? You know, buying a shirt that doesn't really suit you, just coz you are scared somebody bought it and you will regret that you chose to follow that silly "AH HAR!" feeling?
I suppose I won't really know until that day comes. But I do pray that when that day comes, I can see myself smiling in a mirror somewhere, knowing that I have made the right decision, that she is THE ONE, and we will grow old together....
Just like my Adidas Clima Cool...
The feeling whereby you will just smile while doing something, because you know it's going to turn out great?
I THINK I am blessed with that kind of feeling. Somehow or rather, most of the time I can just feel instinctively whether I am doing the right thing.
Like when Tong Leng clicked VJC for me, I did not kbkb and change it back to HCJC, because somehow instinctively I knew it was the RIGHT choice.
Like when I decided to take Economics in JC (and subsequently Uni). No second thoughts needed even though I knew nuts about Econs before I went JC. And no regrets either.
Like when I decided I wanted to be a staff instead of a PC.
Like when I decided to buy that pair of ADIDAS Clima Cool shoes at half price. When I tried them on, they fit just nice and when I went to the cashier, I KNEW I would love this pair of shoes. And I can't stop wearing them since.
Hmm, perhaps then you might be wondering why TosH screws up so many times then. Why are there so many clothes hanging in your wardrobe that you seldom wear because in the end it turned out to be crap. Why are there a couple of pairs of footwear that you bought even though they did not really fit you? Why are there so many wrong decisions that you had taken?
I have been thinking about it too, and I could only think of this explanation. Because that "Ah Har!" feeling is just too rare, just too scarce. It doesn't come all the time you know. And you start to doubt yourself. Have you lost that instinct? Or if it IS your instinct telling you not to buy, is it because your instinct is now NOT accurate?
I felt that today at Top Man. There was a long sleeve shirt going at $35 bucks which was a pretty good deal. I went to try it, but the sleeves were too long for my shorty hands, but there wasn't any smaller size available.
I was in a dilemma. "It's cheap! Buy it!" "The sleeves are too long! Don't buy!" I started to try to imagine the sleeves were not that long. I started to con myself that the style of the shirt is like that. Just to recapture that happy feeling of buying something that really suits you.
And after a while, I got confused as to which was my "real" instinct. But somehow or rather, I knew that if I had gone to the cashier, I would not have that feeling of satisfaction like when I bought the Adidas shoes. In the interest of my bank account, I decided not to buy. But yet now, I am still thinking whether I should have bought it....
Ok this seems to be a damn shopaholic post but that's not my main point...
http://ickleoriental.livejournal.com/591645.html#cutid1
I have been reading this blog for quite a while, and I feel it's one of the better blogs out there. The author and her husband seems to be a picture perfect couple. Newly married, good looking, and into endurance sports for good measure.
Looking at their wedding photos, you can just feel (and this is just my own feeling, whether it is true or not is none of my business...) that when the Father (is he called the father? or priest?) asks "Do you agree to take XXX as your lawfully wedded wife blah blah blah", they instinctively knew it was the right decision to take.
You just feel that they had that "AH HAR!" feeling.
And this made me think, one day, if (and it's a big if...) I ever have the chance to be in that position, would I have that instinct? The "AH HAR!" feeling that tells me that I should say "I do?"
Or would I be struggling just like today to make a decision? Or worse still, would I make excuses to make myself to say "I do", in the hope that everything would turn out just fine as though I had that "AH HAR!" feeling? You know, buying a shirt that doesn't really suit you, just coz you are scared somebody bought it and you will regret that you chose to follow that silly "AH HAR!" feeling?
I suppose I won't really know until that day comes. But I do pray that when that day comes, I can see myself smiling in a mirror somewhere, knowing that I have made the right decision, that she is THE ONE, and we will grow old together....
Just like my Adidas Clima Cool...
Friday, September 22, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
If you are bored to tears like me....
As you can probably see by now, TosH is rather free these few days. Reason being that he is SUPPOSED to be on off for the whole week. Hmm, but somehow that doesn't stop him from having to go to camp for some work today... But oh well, better get used to using free time for work now... Seeing how teachers work nowadays...
Anyway this post is purely to link to some sites for your reading and/or entertainment.
1) http://www.oikono.com/wordpress/?p=204
This story is basically about how one of the writer's friends manages to escape from NS. The writer's friend calls himself a conscientious objector to forced conscription. While admiring the courage to actually hatch a plan and successfully get away from the MPs, I cannot condone such an action. Yes maybe I do have a sour grapes mentality, I did my share of NS, why can't you? But it isn't just about that. Without any female presence outside (stop it Shihua!!!!! ), the only thing left for me to pull through NS is to think rationally about why NS was necessary. I don't like it, but I appreciate its importance. And fundamental to the success of forced conscription, taking into account our Singaporean kiasu mentality, is that everybody MUST serve unless you are medically certified unfit. We can't even AFFORD to start considering letting all these so called "conscientious objectors" serve in a "lesser" way because given how "niao" we are, everybody (ok maybe 80%) will start to use it to siam the combat vocations. Maybe the NS term can be shorter, maybe the training phase could be more dignified, but running away is not going to help Singapore in the long run. At least I now know that I can kill at least a few mother fuckers who try to invade lim bei's homeland with my SAR 21. (No, don't remind me I failed my shooting....)
2) http://rudesingaporeans.blogspot.com/
3) http://parkingidiots.blogspot.com/
Hmm, and the above 2 links are blogs to shame people that I have been reading. Slept in the library? Occupied 2 seats on the bus? Talked loudly on your handphone? Beware the power of the internet! You may find your picture on the first website the very same night when you go home and log on to laugh at other people!
The second one is more for drivers. How often have you felt super duper du lan when you finally found a parking lot in a crowded car park, only to find the idiot next to the lot had eaten into half the space? Well, with your handphone camera, fear not! Snap and post and the bugger will be shamed in double quick time! But of course there's a catch. PARK YOUR OWN CAR PROPERLY! (And believe me, you never know when you will be snapped... the amount of posts is amazing...)
4) http://www.petrolwatch.com.sg/
5) http://www.petrolwatch.com.sg/carpark_main.php
Ok, maybe should give some better links. Here's 2 websites that are GODLIKE for drivers. The first one tracks petrol prices in pretty much EVERY station in Singapore, for EVERY BRAND. (But god damn it they are in tacit collusion, their prices are the same!) The second one has car park prices but A LOT of car parks around Singapore. Really helpful for you to plan which car park to park your bao bei in. With it, you will never be fooled by the $8/entry at CHIJMES again!
Lastly,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDx1GLqvBO8&search=loose%20change > Loose Change Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=loose+change&mode=related&v=wJZlZP0vbCE > Loose Change part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7ipvgBLGc&mode=related&search=loose%20change > Loose Change part 3
Because everyone loves a good conspiracy theory! While I don't necessarily think what is being said in the video is true, it is certainly true that there are too many question marks over the whole thing... And similar to the Michael Moore (did I even get his name correct?) film, it is disturbing to say the least... (And yes I know Loose Change was damn long ago but I only watched it a couple of days ago ok?)
Anyway this post is purely to link to some sites for your reading and/or entertainment.
1) http://www.oikono.com/wordpress/?p=204
This story is basically about how one of the writer's friends manages to escape from NS. The writer's friend calls himself a conscientious objector to forced conscription. While admiring the courage to actually hatch a plan and successfully get away from the MPs, I cannot condone such an action. Yes maybe I do have a sour grapes mentality, I did my share of NS, why can't you? But it isn't just about that. Without any female presence outside (stop it Shihua!!!!! ), the only thing left for me to pull through NS is to think rationally about why NS was necessary. I don't like it, but I appreciate its importance. And fundamental to the success of forced conscription, taking into account our Singaporean kiasu mentality, is that everybody MUST serve unless you are medically certified unfit. We can't even AFFORD to start considering letting all these so called "conscientious objectors" serve in a "lesser" way because given how "niao" we are, everybody (ok maybe 80%) will start to use it to siam the combat vocations. Maybe the NS term can be shorter, maybe the training phase could be more dignified, but running away is not going to help Singapore in the long run. At least I now know that I can kill at least a few mother fuckers who try to invade lim bei's homeland with my SAR 21. (No, don't remind me I failed my shooting....)
2) http://rudesingaporeans.blogspot.com/
3) http://parkingidiots.blogspot.com/
Hmm, and the above 2 links are blogs to shame people that I have been reading. Slept in the library? Occupied 2 seats on the bus? Talked loudly on your handphone? Beware the power of the internet! You may find your picture on the first website the very same night when you go home and log on to laugh at other people!
The second one is more for drivers. How often have you felt super duper du lan when you finally found a parking lot in a crowded car park, only to find the idiot next to the lot had eaten into half the space? Well, with your handphone camera, fear not! Snap and post and the bugger will be shamed in double quick time! But of course there's a catch. PARK YOUR OWN CAR PROPERLY! (And believe me, you never know when you will be snapped... the amount of posts is amazing...)
4) http://www.petrolwatch.com.sg/
5) http://www.petrolwatch.com.sg/carpark_main.php
Ok, maybe should give some better links. Here's 2 websites that are GODLIKE for drivers. The first one tracks petrol prices in pretty much EVERY station in Singapore, for EVERY BRAND. (But god damn it they are in tacit collusion, their prices are the same!) The second one has car park prices but A LOT of car parks around Singapore. Really helpful for you to plan which car park to park your bao bei in. With it, you will never be fooled by the $8/entry at CHIJMES again!
Lastly,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDx1GLqvBO8&search=loose%20change > Loose Change Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=loose+change&mode=related&v=wJZlZP0vbCE > Loose Change part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7ipvgBLGc&mode=related&search=loose%20change > Loose Change part 3
Because everyone loves a good conspiracy theory! While I don't necessarily think what is being said in the video is true, it is certainly true that there are too many question marks over the whole thing... And similar to the Michael Moore (did I even get his name correct?) film, it is disturbing to say the least... (And yes I know Loose Change was damn long ago but I only watched it a couple of days ago ok?)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Roy Keane interview
Sunday was one of the worst performances I have seen by United recently. Arsenal was much better with their fluid passing and possession football. You would have been hard pressed to believe that the game was played at Old Trafford, not Ashburton Grove. Yet I wasn't disappointed by all that, what made me more upset was the lack of heart, the lack of fight, that look of fire in the players' eyes. Only Scholes, Fletcher (though he was found rather wanting in the ability department) and Gary came out of the game with any sort of credit. The game was crying out for one man to sort it all out, the one man who would have inspired all the red shirts to die on the pitch with him for that badge. And that man is Roy Keane. Yet he will never be back in that famous red shirt again....
Sunday Times September 17, 2006
Sir Alex Ferguson called him Manchester United's 'most influential player'. Yet Roy Keane is always in trouble. On the pitch he's belligerent. Off it he's reclusive. Now he is the new manager of Sunderland, things have got to change. Will he learn to play by the
rules?
By David Walsh
An evening in May, 1999; Manchester United is winning everything and Timmy Murphy is standing at the bar in the Metropole Hotel on Cork's MacCurtain Street, calling for a pint of stout. He had come to reminisce about a young lad he once trained, a kid not as talented as some of the others but, my God, you should have seen the attitude. "Ah, Roy," said Murphy, "Roy Keane."
Murphy was the manager of Rockmount boys team, and in Cork schoolboy football, they were kings. The club scouts came - a contract in one hand, a dream in the other. Keane wasn't their first choice, nor their second, not even their third. He was small, gritty rather than gifted. But when you patrol the touchline, as Murphy did, every training session, every game, you know. Better than the scouts, you just know. "Even then, at the age of 11, Roy was the leader."
During the evening, Murphy pulled out a photograph. "See this? First trophy Roy Keane ever won in football." Rockmount U11s, seven boys sitting, seven standing; their statuettes lined up in front of them. Keane is the smallest - but the look on his face is unremittingly hard. The statuette could have been a dead fish by his feet.
What made him like that? He came from a country once described by the businessman and former rugby player Tony O'Reilly as being dogged by an "it'll do" mentality. "Sure, it's not great, but it'll do." Keane comes from a part of Cork city where boys learnt to look after themselves in the early hours of Sunday morning: a world where you dreamt for a while, then got battered by reality. He did the drinking, the fighting. He has always loved his home city; "Irish by birth, Cork by the grace of God" is his verbal passport. Few exiles come back as often as he does, to stay at his parents' house.
To be what he has become, he had to separate himself from so much that he was: the fry-ups, the drinking, the fights, the things that eat him inside that made him lash out. Perhaps, most of all, he had to survive being Roy Keane, the Roy Keane. Sir Alex Ferguson described him recently as Manchester United's most influential player. How did he come to be that? Perhaps because he was the one who said "it'll not do".
He doesn't easily agree to interviews. Two letters in the past 18 months produced nothing. A third letter was sent six weeks ago. You write it, post it and forget it. A week later, the day before his 35th birthday, my telephone rang. "This is Roy Keane. I got your letter, I don't mind having a chat. Can you get to Manchester tomorrow by 11 o'clock?"
There had only ever been one face-to-face interview between us, four years before. The first time, he had shown up 15 minutes before the appointed time. It made me think of poor Mark Bosnich, the Australian goalkeeper who turned up late on his first morning at Manchester United's training ground. "What do you mean, you got lost?" Keane snarled. Back then you could get past security but not past the team's guard dog. Now he walks into the Marriott Hotel near Manchester airport at a minute past 11. It is hard to be sure it is him, but once he is through the revolving door he puts his right hand to his face, instinctively shielding himself from the
outside world. It's a dead giveaway.
Not many adults have this shyness.
Something Martina Navratilova once said came to mind. Asked why she won nine singles championships at Wimbledon, Navratilova said it was because every time she walked on Centre Court, she felt like a little Czechoslovak girl playing people better and more advantaged than her. Keane came with that same mentality: "Roy, they think they're better than you."
We sit in a room at the back of the hotel. There is coffee and water. He chooses water and though three months have passed since he last kicked a football, his pencil-thin physique remains untouched by retirement. He talks about the way he changed his diet. "When I changed my diet, I went from the player with the highest body fat to the one with the lowest body fat. Typical me, has to be all or nothing."
He tells about a recent visit to Ireland and an invitation to speak to the Cork hurling team: how he sensed a bond among these amateur sportsmen that you don't get in professional football. He spoke of the togetherness; a natural occurrence, he thought, among men who had played together in underage teams and grown up together.
When he watches them play, he can see that camaraderie and it pleases him. I ask: "Were they not intimidated?" He pauses briefly: "Intrigued. Always trying to get inside my head." So, then, the Cork hurlers are no different from the rest of us.
What went on inside his head when Sir Alex Ferguson let it be known he was no longer wanted at Manchester United? Twelve years of his life at the club, his wracked body became an offering, his soul became the team's soul. Then, at the end of one bad week, it was over. The exit was quietly played out. Not much was said. "I just knew it was time to go. Everybody knew. Sixth sense, I suppose."
First thing he wants you to understand is that his body wasn't up to it any more. Which is the same as saying he wasn't up to it any more. Right side, from his hip to his knee; the severed cruciate ligament, the operation to repair the hip, they had taken their toll. He explains his decline with the lack of sentimentality that is his way.
"When I first went to United, Bryan Robson was somebody I looked up to, still do. But I was young, and when you're young, you smell blood. It was like, 'Robbo, I'm after you, I'm taking you.' That's the name of the game, otherwise things don't move on. And I just felt over the last couple of years with the younger players at United, I was losing that influence. They were the ones smelling blood. In terms of dominating, I was definitely losing it. It might have been something the normal fan wouldn't recognise, the manager wouldn't even recognise it, but I recognised it. I was always my own judge, sometimes harsh, but in the end, I wasn't quite at the races."
It was never going to end with a kiss. Not with Keano. He left because he was told to go, cleaned out his locker the evening before the last meeting with the club chairman David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson. You can call Keane what you wish, but not stupid. Going into that meeting, he knew. The ranting, the raving, the swearing; in the end it all dissipated, replaced by Gill's sadness, Keane's resignation, Ferguson's determination.
He holds onto the good times, the good days: "I was fortunate to play for United. I enjoyed all my days there, had a good time, met some bloody good people, good characters, good men. I go back to the fellows that were there when I arrived: Robbo [Bryan Robson], Brucie [Steve Bruce], Sparky [Mark Hughes], Andre [Kanchelskis], Incey [Paul Ince], Giggsy.
"My first few years at United were very sociable. We'd agree to meet in Mulligans bar and 10 or 12 lads would show up. You were the exception if you didn't, now you're the exception if you do. The game has changed that much.
I liked the change when it came, the way the foreign players looked after themselves. I thought, 'Yeah, I want to play for them as long as I can.' So I changed more than anybody: new diet, knocked the drink on the head, stopped cutting corners and accepted you can't have the best of both worlds. It wasn't as much fun after that, but it lasted longer."
When Keane's United were good, they were very good. For years only Arsenal could live with them. Keane missed one entire season through injury and, of course, that was one of the leap years when the title went south. Still, they were good years. Beckham, Keane, Scholes and Giggs, and you would have travelled a long way, paid a lot of money to watch them. Millions did. Success corrodes, though. After winning the European Cup (now the Champions League) in 1999, United were in gradual decline. The player who innocently said on the night of the victory that he didn't care if they never won another match foretold the stagnation that would follow.
And that evening in Barcelona, Keane was still the 12-year-old with the dead fish. "The good teams come back and win this trophy again and again," he said, at the Nou Camp stadium. "That's what we've got to do." Just as success chipped away at the resolve of teammates, it was repeated failure in the European Cup that did for Keane. Forget his last traumatic week at the club, or at least see it in context. Deep beneath the mountain, the volcano had been bubbling for years.
You ask him about this and it is like Hamlet, alone in a room. "People look back on my career and think the injuries and leaving the Ireland team at the World Cup were the disappointments. None of that stuff comes into it. The biggest disappointments were the games we lost in Europe.
"Years when we just got sucked into the bull, 'the final is in Glasgow this season, the manager's home city,' as if that entitled us to a break. 'The final's in Old Trafford this season, made for us.' People got sucked into that.
"Even that night in Barcelona, it was a great night in the history of the club, and it will be hard to beat it, but you knew some people had reached their height. It's human nature. I was frustrated by this. I wanted to get back there again, because as much as I thought we were a good team, until you get to a second or third final, you don't confirm it. It disappoints me that I didn't win the World Cup. People say 'but Roy, you played for Ireland, you were never going to win the World Cup'. I never saw it like that."
What did he feel at the end? Anger, sadness, resignation? "You've covered it all there. It had been coming. There were no tears. None. It was done. It's the people around you that get upset. Family members, wife, parents. They care about you, so they worry. For me, it was mostly acceptance. It had been coming and then it happened. It was the right thing for United, maybe not the right thing for Roy Keane, maybe not for Alex Ferguson, but for the club. I always said, when the day came, I'd be ready. Locker cleaned out the evening before: I was ready."
But did the end have to be that painful? "I think so," he says. "I cared too much. If things weren't going well, if new signings weren't working out, if the reserves were having a bad time, if the youth team wasn't doing well, I was taking it all on board. That's what I am. I can't be flippant about these things. This is who I am, like it or lump it. It doesn't mean I'm not a nice person."
He then talks about the last week, the 4-1 defeat at Middlesbrough on the Saturday afternoon, his return from Dubai, his performance as pundit for the MUTV analysis of the game on Monday, and the ructions that followed. The club opted not to broadcast Keane's comments, which they felt were too critical of teammates. A leaked and inaccurate account of what he said was printed in several newspapers and United was portrayed as a club tearing itself apart.
"I took that defeat personal, then there was the video that was leaked and everything snowballed. That defeat still hurts me; not that we got beaten 4-1, but the way we got beaten. I didn't even bloody play, which was even more frustrating, because part of me is saying, 'Roy, stay out of it, it's not your business,' but I'm a player in that dressing room, and this affected the dressing room.
"I was seeing players doing stuff off the pitch, had the feeling it was affecting them, and it came to a head with that defeat. That feeling, I'll take it to the grave. And yes, I nailed certain people. This was a match I watched in a pub in Dubai. I had a foot injury, the club said take a break. I walked out at 3-1, I couldn't take any more. I took the publicity with a pinch of salt, senior figures at the club should have done the same. Everyone got sucked into it, when they should have known better. I think, in the end, the manager was swayed by certain people he works with."
A number of people at Old Trafford believe that at a difficult meeting involving players and coaches following the public airing of Keane's criticism of some teammates, there was some sharp swordplay between the then skipper and assistant coach, Carlos Queiroz. The coach accused Keane of disloyalty, a brave accusation at the best of times. To use an expression he likes, he then nailed Queiroz by reminding him it was he who ran off to coach Real Madrid and only came back to United when things didn't work out in Spain. The feeling is that Queiroz went to Ferguson and made it "him or me". Since Keane's time was almost up, it was him.
One United player, asked if he had spoken to his captain in the aftermath of his departure, complained he didn't have his number. I ask Keane if this wasn't unusual? "My brother works in a factory, I doubt if all his workmates have his number. When I was at Celtic, some of the players said, 'Can I have your number?' I said, 'No, I don't want you annoying me with banter.'
"By the time I left there, two guys had my number. But it's not something you're going to give away. One or two of the United lads - actually, seven - have my number. People are going to be surprised by this, so I will name them for you. Ruud -obviously he's gonenow, Ollie [Ole Gunnar Solskjaer], Gary [Neville], Butty [Nicky Butt] - he's gone too, Shaysie [John O'Shea], Quinton [Fortune] and Giggsy."
Not long after his exit, Keane went back to United's training ground to return his company car. "The players gave me a lot of respect. I said goodbye and there were no hard feelings.
"United wanted me to have my testimonial, and showed their class as a club in the way they did everything for me. That brought closure. By the end of my time, a lot of the players didn't like me. I'm convinced of that. Possibly they wouldn't admit it, but there's no doubt in my mind, the players had just had enough of me; they were just ready for a change. Ready for a different voice in the changing room. I was losing that influence."
How is his relationship with Alex Ferguson?
"I wouldn't have a clue. He's a manager I played under, he taught me a lot, gave me a chance, and hopefully I repaid that with some decent performances. Then it came to an end."
Affection? "No, I wouldn't say affection. Respect. The bottom line is, he'd always look at the bigger picture. Whatever he does, and maybe he's upset a few people, he will always do what he thinks is best for the club. I'll give him that."
He says you were the most influential player in the club's history. "I don't agree. I've never believed one individual can have that much influence on a team. People used to say this about Eric [Cantona], but I didn't get sucked into that. Eric was a major influence at the club, but I saw him as the final piece in the jigsaw. He wouldn't have worked if the other pieces weren't in place. You can't look to one player, a Rooney or whoever. You can't have other players thinking, 'Okay, Wayne, go and do it for us.' Different people have different jobs, some more glamorous than others."
So how good is Rooney? "For me, the jury's still out on Wayne. I think he's got a hell of a lot to do. Wayne has achieved nothing - would probably say that himself. I would judge players over a few years, rather than one or two. He's got potential, like I've got potential to be a good manager. Potential is one thing, doing it is another. I feel this season could be a good one for him."
Will the scrutiny hurt him; diminish him? "A lot of players bring it on themselves, they and the people who are advising them. When I see young players doing deals for five books, I scratch my head. I did a book when I was 31, after a few years of half-decent success. A book deal worth 2 or 3m is not going to alter the lifestyle of a player who could earn 50 to 100m, but it can be a distraction."
He moves effortlessly into anti-celebrity mode; for here was the man who preferred not to attend the celebrity wedding of his friend David Beckham, who now says he would rather be back drinking cider behind the school wall than sell photographs of his wife and children to OK! or Hello! magazines. As a young manager, he knows it is something he will have to confront.
"They say managers are losing control over players, but there are times when you can put your foot down. Players get away with things now they wouldn't have been allowed to do a few years ago. My answer would be no. And it would annoy me if one of my players did a shoot for a celebrity magazine. Can you do anything about it? First time, maybe it happens before you can stop it, but there can be consequences, something to make them think twice before doing it again.
Though they are different people, he got on well with Beckham. "Becks was always going to go down the celebrity road once he got married. Not in a million years could I live that lifestyle, but I'm sure he couldn't live mine. You give people the freedom to live it their way, but first time you see it's affecting their football, you put your foot down. There's loads of people who get sucked in: Jonny Wilkinson and Michael Owen always spring to mind. The day after Owen broke his foot, he's doing an article and I'm thinking, 'Work on your recovery, man. Do that article next week, next month, next year.' Wilkinson, the same. When you get an injury, the early days are vital. I've done it both ways, where I've had an injury and been out on the town that night, and later on, when I focused properly. They're kidding themselves, but that's the name of the game these days."
He talks about the future and his decision to become a manager. At first he wasn't sure. The football life wasn't so wonderful at the end. For all his resignation, he didn't plan to leave United by the back door. The affair with Glasgow Celtic didn't do it for him. Parts of the experience he enjoyed, and it surprised him how much he enjoyed the Celtic dressing room. Better than United's? "Less nasty", he says. "In every changing room, players get ripped. People have taken the piss out of me; ripped me for not drinking, ripped for doing yoga, ripped for my diets, for my clothes, for my Irishness. But you give it back.
"When I say the Celtic dressing room was better, this is not a criticism of the United lads. I was as bad as any of them. We ripped people for the wrong things; the car, the house, the way you dressed. In Scotland it was more old-fashioned. I enjoyed that. Maybe you don't get the bull up there that you get in the Premiership."
He learnt, too, about living out of a suitcase, without a family. He spent three months in an Edinburgh hotel. Cinema in the afternoon, long, anonymous walks in the evening. "Here I was, a 34-year-old man going to the pictures on his own in the afternoon. It made me think about when I came to England first, the 18-year-old in Nottingham who went to the pictures in the afternoon. Here I was, 16 years on, back at the pictures. My life had come full circle."
While in that Edinburgh hotel, travelling to and from training, missing his Manchester-based family, he thought about Sebastian Veron, his one-time Argentinian teammate at United. "Celtic couldn't have done enough for me, but it was a lonely life and I wish now I had been a bit easier on some of the foreign lads who came to United. I always thought, 'You're on the pitch now, do it.' I regret that now. I was very hard on Seba, and I was wrong. When he came, I was expecting miracles. When they didn't happen, I was always homing in on him, and I now know it takes time." He wanted to play his best for Celtic but he didn't; his body wasn't up to it and, without his family, it was tough.
Through the traumas, Theresa and their five children have been his anchor. "The bad times, that's when you need a family. I read a book recently about the loss of identity sportsmen feel when they stop. 'Roy Keane, Manchester United.' 'Roy Keane, Ireland.' 'Roy Keane, Glasgow Celtic.' There's always something after your name. With your family, you have an identity that's separate from that."
The decision to become the manager of Sunderland was taken while with his family in the Algarve. They would not have discouraged him: they know he is a better father, an easier husband, when spending his intensity on football. He thinks he will be a good manager but he reminds you; so does everyone starting out. The key for him is he has to find out. Two lines from Julius Caesar could have been written for him: "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."
And so we talk about management. He has watched Jose Mourinho's arrival into the Premiership, the way he has taken on Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. "Mourinho's got something. A blind man could see that. And he has the edge at the moment. He plays games and I think they can have a big effect on his team and on the opposition. Do you remember when Chelsea played United at Stamford Bridge, end of last season, and there's two minutes to go in injury time, and he gets up, walks up to where the United lads are, and he's shaking Alex Ferguson's hand and the game is still going on? Two years ago no one would've done that to Alex Ferguson.
"The manager would not have liked it. But Mourinho is saying, 'The game is over, the league is over, 3-0 to us.' But Alex Ferguson would have taken that on board. That's what good managers thrive on, that kind of slight. People love to criticise Mourinho, but I like watching Chelsea. They're well organised; they know their jobs."
That last part came easily to Keane. Perhaps his last great performance in a United shirt came on that February evening in Highbury last year. Facing down Patrick Vieira in the tunnel before the kickoff and then dominating the game.
He remembers it clearly: "Arsenal started it that night with Gary [Neville]. Vieira had a go at Gary. Gary's not really a fighter." So, what did you say to him? "The Sunday before, there was a two-page spread about Vieira in The Sunday Times, and he was bragging about all the good things he was doing in Senegal. He's building this academy, saving kids from the street. It irritated me. Self-praise is no praise. And so I said to him, 'If you're that worried about Senegal, why didn't you f***ing play for them?' [Born in Senegal, Vieira moved to France and played for his adopted country.]
"A week or so later he said I didn't understand the history of what he'd come through. And he's right about that, and I was probably wrong."
We talk about the World Cup in Germany. He went to one of the games and felt it was a wasted trip. As for England, he knew before they went there: "No chance." Too few world-class players. "I like Gerrard, Lampard and Wayne, but they still haven't done it on a world stage, and then there's all this bull around the team." He didn't find the Wags amusing. "What kind of person wants to be pictured going out for a meal? They were annoying me, and they're not even my wife."
He then talks about the sending-off of Zinedine Zidane in the final. "I could understand what he did 100%. I could sense his frustration: he'd just missed a header before that, then a pass went astray; you could see he was getting a bit tired, and all you need is a flippin' comment at that moment. That's what used to happen to me.
"You see, at that moment it doesn't matter who is watching, doesn't matter that it's a World Cup final. It could be a park field. That moment comes and it is 'F*** you, f*** everybody,' and bang! Zidane's got that streak in him; if he didn't, would he have been a brilliant player?
"I think of the last game I played for Celtic. I gave away one or two passes. Two stray, silly passes, and it eats away at me. All you need then is someone to say something." He doesn't want to return to his collisions with the Norwegian Alf-Inge Haaland, but this train of thought drives him there: "I remember at Leeds, when I'd done my knee [in a lunge at Haaland]. He irritated me, that's all it was. If a certain person says it at the wrong moment, then 'bad day'. At Old Trafford, when Haaland was playing for City, he had been mouthing off in the media, slagging off the club. I took that personal. We'd lost the Wednesday before to Bayern Munich in
the European Cup, and it was a case of 'Sod it, just sod it.'"
He thinks about what he has just said, realising there is a part of him that we will never fully understand, and he begins to laugh.
"Anyway, they're my excuses," he says.
"Very genuine excuses."
Sunday Times September 17, 2006
Sir Alex Ferguson called him Manchester United's 'most influential player'. Yet Roy Keane is always in trouble. On the pitch he's belligerent. Off it he's reclusive. Now he is the new manager of Sunderland, things have got to change. Will he learn to play by the
rules?
By David Walsh
An evening in May, 1999; Manchester United is winning everything and Timmy Murphy is standing at the bar in the Metropole Hotel on Cork's MacCurtain Street, calling for a pint of stout. He had come to reminisce about a young lad he once trained, a kid not as talented as some of the others but, my God, you should have seen the attitude. "Ah, Roy," said Murphy, "Roy Keane."
Murphy was the manager of Rockmount boys team, and in Cork schoolboy football, they were kings. The club scouts came - a contract in one hand, a dream in the other. Keane wasn't their first choice, nor their second, not even their third. He was small, gritty rather than gifted. But when you patrol the touchline, as Murphy did, every training session, every game, you know. Better than the scouts, you just know. "Even then, at the age of 11, Roy was the leader."
During the evening, Murphy pulled out a photograph. "See this? First trophy Roy Keane ever won in football." Rockmount U11s, seven boys sitting, seven standing; their statuettes lined up in front of them. Keane is the smallest - but the look on his face is unremittingly hard. The statuette could have been a dead fish by his feet.
What made him like that? He came from a country once described by the businessman and former rugby player Tony O'Reilly as being dogged by an "it'll do" mentality. "Sure, it's not great, but it'll do." Keane comes from a part of Cork city where boys learnt to look after themselves in the early hours of Sunday morning: a world where you dreamt for a while, then got battered by reality. He did the drinking, the fighting. He has always loved his home city; "Irish by birth, Cork by the grace of God" is his verbal passport. Few exiles come back as often as he does, to stay at his parents' house.
To be what he has become, he had to separate himself from so much that he was: the fry-ups, the drinking, the fights, the things that eat him inside that made him lash out. Perhaps, most of all, he had to survive being Roy Keane, the Roy Keane. Sir Alex Ferguson described him recently as Manchester United's most influential player. How did he come to be that? Perhaps because he was the one who said "it'll not do".
He doesn't easily agree to interviews. Two letters in the past 18 months produced nothing. A third letter was sent six weeks ago. You write it, post it and forget it. A week later, the day before his 35th birthday, my telephone rang. "This is Roy Keane. I got your letter, I don't mind having a chat. Can you get to Manchester tomorrow by 11 o'clock?"
There had only ever been one face-to-face interview between us, four years before. The first time, he had shown up 15 minutes before the appointed time. It made me think of poor Mark Bosnich, the Australian goalkeeper who turned up late on his first morning at Manchester United's training ground. "What do you mean, you got lost?" Keane snarled. Back then you could get past security but not past the team's guard dog. Now he walks into the Marriott Hotel near Manchester airport at a minute past 11. It is hard to be sure it is him, but once he is through the revolving door he puts his right hand to his face, instinctively shielding himself from the
outside world. It's a dead giveaway.
Not many adults have this shyness.
Something Martina Navratilova once said came to mind. Asked why she won nine singles championships at Wimbledon, Navratilova said it was because every time she walked on Centre Court, she felt like a little Czechoslovak girl playing people better and more advantaged than her. Keane came with that same mentality: "Roy, they think they're better than you."
We sit in a room at the back of the hotel. There is coffee and water. He chooses water and though three months have passed since he last kicked a football, his pencil-thin physique remains untouched by retirement. He talks about the way he changed his diet. "When I changed my diet, I went from the player with the highest body fat to the one with the lowest body fat. Typical me, has to be all or nothing."
He tells about a recent visit to Ireland and an invitation to speak to the Cork hurling team: how he sensed a bond among these amateur sportsmen that you don't get in professional football. He spoke of the togetherness; a natural occurrence, he thought, among men who had played together in underage teams and grown up together.
When he watches them play, he can see that camaraderie and it pleases him. I ask: "Were they not intimidated?" He pauses briefly: "Intrigued. Always trying to get inside my head." So, then, the Cork hurlers are no different from the rest of us.
What went on inside his head when Sir Alex Ferguson let it be known he was no longer wanted at Manchester United? Twelve years of his life at the club, his wracked body became an offering, his soul became the team's soul. Then, at the end of one bad week, it was over. The exit was quietly played out. Not much was said. "I just knew it was time to go. Everybody knew. Sixth sense, I suppose."
First thing he wants you to understand is that his body wasn't up to it any more. Which is the same as saying he wasn't up to it any more. Right side, from his hip to his knee; the severed cruciate ligament, the operation to repair the hip, they had taken their toll. He explains his decline with the lack of sentimentality that is his way.
"When I first went to United, Bryan Robson was somebody I looked up to, still do. But I was young, and when you're young, you smell blood. It was like, 'Robbo, I'm after you, I'm taking you.' That's the name of the game, otherwise things don't move on. And I just felt over the last couple of years with the younger players at United, I was losing that influence. They were the ones smelling blood. In terms of dominating, I was definitely losing it. It might have been something the normal fan wouldn't recognise, the manager wouldn't even recognise it, but I recognised it. I was always my own judge, sometimes harsh, but in the end, I wasn't quite at the races."
It was never going to end with a kiss. Not with Keano. He left because he was told to go, cleaned out his locker the evening before the last meeting with the club chairman David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson. You can call Keane what you wish, but not stupid. Going into that meeting, he knew. The ranting, the raving, the swearing; in the end it all dissipated, replaced by Gill's sadness, Keane's resignation, Ferguson's determination.
He holds onto the good times, the good days: "I was fortunate to play for United. I enjoyed all my days there, had a good time, met some bloody good people, good characters, good men. I go back to the fellows that were there when I arrived: Robbo [Bryan Robson], Brucie [Steve Bruce], Sparky [Mark Hughes], Andre [Kanchelskis], Incey [Paul Ince], Giggsy.
"My first few years at United were very sociable. We'd agree to meet in Mulligans bar and 10 or 12 lads would show up. You were the exception if you didn't, now you're the exception if you do. The game has changed that much.
I liked the change when it came, the way the foreign players looked after themselves. I thought, 'Yeah, I want to play for them as long as I can.' So I changed more than anybody: new diet, knocked the drink on the head, stopped cutting corners and accepted you can't have the best of both worlds. It wasn't as much fun after that, but it lasted longer."
When Keane's United were good, they were very good. For years only Arsenal could live with them. Keane missed one entire season through injury and, of course, that was one of the leap years when the title went south. Still, they were good years. Beckham, Keane, Scholes and Giggs, and you would have travelled a long way, paid a lot of money to watch them. Millions did. Success corrodes, though. After winning the European Cup (now the Champions League) in 1999, United were in gradual decline. The player who innocently said on the night of the victory that he didn't care if they never won another match foretold the stagnation that would follow.
And that evening in Barcelona, Keane was still the 12-year-old with the dead fish. "The good teams come back and win this trophy again and again," he said, at the Nou Camp stadium. "That's what we've got to do." Just as success chipped away at the resolve of teammates, it was repeated failure in the European Cup that did for Keane. Forget his last traumatic week at the club, or at least see it in context. Deep beneath the mountain, the volcano had been bubbling for years.
You ask him about this and it is like Hamlet, alone in a room. "People look back on my career and think the injuries and leaving the Ireland team at the World Cup were the disappointments. None of that stuff comes into it. The biggest disappointments were the games we lost in Europe.
"Years when we just got sucked into the bull, 'the final is in Glasgow this season, the manager's home city,' as if that entitled us to a break. 'The final's in Old Trafford this season, made for us.' People got sucked into that.
"Even that night in Barcelona, it was a great night in the history of the club, and it will be hard to beat it, but you knew some people had reached their height. It's human nature. I was frustrated by this. I wanted to get back there again, because as much as I thought we were a good team, until you get to a second or third final, you don't confirm it. It disappoints me that I didn't win the World Cup. People say 'but Roy, you played for Ireland, you were never going to win the World Cup'. I never saw it like that."
What did he feel at the end? Anger, sadness, resignation? "You've covered it all there. It had been coming. There were no tears. None. It was done. It's the people around you that get upset. Family members, wife, parents. They care about you, so they worry. For me, it was mostly acceptance. It had been coming and then it happened. It was the right thing for United, maybe not the right thing for Roy Keane, maybe not for Alex Ferguson, but for the club. I always said, when the day came, I'd be ready. Locker cleaned out the evening before: I was ready."
But did the end have to be that painful? "I think so," he says. "I cared too much. If things weren't going well, if new signings weren't working out, if the reserves were having a bad time, if the youth team wasn't doing well, I was taking it all on board. That's what I am. I can't be flippant about these things. This is who I am, like it or lump it. It doesn't mean I'm not a nice person."
He then talks about the last week, the 4-1 defeat at Middlesbrough on the Saturday afternoon, his return from Dubai, his performance as pundit for the MUTV analysis of the game on Monday, and the ructions that followed. The club opted not to broadcast Keane's comments, which they felt were too critical of teammates. A leaked and inaccurate account of what he said was printed in several newspapers and United was portrayed as a club tearing itself apart.
"I took that defeat personal, then there was the video that was leaked and everything snowballed. That defeat still hurts me; not that we got beaten 4-1, but the way we got beaten. I didn't even bloody play, which was even more frustrating, because part of me is saying, 'Roy, stay out of it, it's not your business,' but I'm a player in that dressing room, and this affected the dressing room.
"I was seeing players doing stuff off the pitch, had the feeling it was affecting them, and it came to a head with that defeat. That feeling, I'll take it to the grave. And yes, I nailed certain people. This was a match I watched in a pub in Dubai. I had a foot injury, the club said take a break. I walked out at 3-1, I couldn't take any more. I took the publicity with a pinch of salt, senior figures at the club should have done the same. Everyone got sucked into it, when they should have known better. I think, in the end, the manager was swayed by certain people he works with."
A number of people at Old Trafford believe that at a difficult meeting involving players and coaches following the public airing of Keane's criticism of some teammates, there was some sharp swordplay between the then skipper and assistant coach, Carlos Queiroz. The coach accused Keane of disloyalty, a brave accusation at the best of times. To use an expression he likes, he then nailed Queiroz by reminding him it was he who ran off to coach Real Madrid and only came back to United when things didn't work out in Spain. The feeling is that Queiroz went to Ferguson and made it "him or me". Since Keane's time was almost up, it was him.
One United player, asked if he had spoken to his captain in the aftermath of his departure, complained he didn't have his number. I ask Keane if this wasn't unusual? "My brother works in a factory, I doubt if all his workmates have his number. When I was at Celtic, some of the players said, 'Can I have your number?' I said, 'No, I don't want you annoying me with banter.'
"By the time I left there, two guys had my number. But it's not something you're going to give away. One or two of the United lads - actually, seven - have my number. People are going to be surprised by this, so I will name them for you. Ruud -obviously he's gonenow, Ollie [Ole Gunnar Solskjaer], Gary [Neville], Butty [Nicky Butt] - he's gone too, Shaysie [John O'Shea], Quinton [Fortune] and Giggsy."
Not long after his exit, Keane went back to United's training ground to return his company car. "The players gave me a lot of respect. I said goodbye and there were no hard feelings.
"United wanted me to have my testimonial, and showed their class as a club in the way they did everything for me. That brought closure. By the end of my time, a lot of the players didn't like me. I'm convinced of that. Possibly they wouldn't admit it, but there's no doubt in my mind, the players had just had enough of me; they were just ready for a change. Ready for a different voice in the changing room. I was losing that influence."
How is his relationship with Alex Ferguson?
"I wouldn't have a clue. He's a manager I played under, he taught me a lot, gave me a chance, and hopefully I repaid that with some decent performances. Then it came to an end."
Affection? "No, I wouldn't say affection. Respect. The bottom line is, he'd always look at the bigger picture. Whatever he does, and maybe he's upset a few people, he will always do what he thinks is best for the club. I'll give him that."
He says you were the most influential player in the club's history. "I don't agree. I've never believed one individual can have that much influence on a team. People used to say this about Eric [Cantona], but I didn't get sucked into that. Eric was a major influence at the club, but I saw him as the final piece in the jigsaw. He wouldn't have worked if the other pieces weren't in place. You can't look to one player, a Rooney or whoever. You can't have other players thinking, 'Okay, Wayne, go and do it for us.' Different people have different jobs, some more glamorous than others."
So how good is Rooney? "For me, the jury's still out on Wayne. I think he's got a hell of a lot to do. Wayne has achieved nothing - would probably say that himself. I would judge players over a few years, rather than one or two. He's got potential, like I've got potential to be a good manager. Potential is one thing, doing it is another. I feel this season could be a good one for him."
Will the scrutiny hurt him; diminish him? "A lot of players bring it on themselves, they and the people who are advising them. When I see young players doing deals for five books, I scratch my head. I did a book when I was 31, after a few years of half-decent success. A book deal worth 2 or 3m is not going to alter the lifestyle of a player who could earn 50 to 100m, but it can be a distraction."
He moves effortlessly into anti-celebrity mode; for here was the man who preferred not to attend the celebrity wedding of his friend David Beckham, who now says he would rather be back drinking cider behind the school wall than sell photographs of his wife and children to OK! or Hello! magazines. As a young manager, he knows it is something he will have to confront.
"They say managers are losing control over players, but there are times when you can put your foot down. Players get away with things now they wouldn't have been allowed to do a few years ago. My answer would be no. And it would annoy me if one of my players did a shoot for a celebrity magazine. Can you do anything about it? First time, maybe it happens before you can stop it, but there can be consequences, something to make them think twice before doing it again.
Though they are different people, he got on well with Beckham. "Becks was always going to go down the celebrity road once he got married. Not in a million years could I live that lifestyle, but I'm sure he couldn't live mine. You give people the freedom to live it their way, but first time you see it's affecting their football, you put your foot down. There's loads of people who get sucked in: Jonny Wilkinson and Michael Owen always spring to mind. The day after Owen broke his foot, he's doing an article and I'm thinking, 'Work on your recovery, man. Do that article next week, next month, next year.' Wilkinson, the same. When you get an injury, the early days are vital. I've done it both ways, where I've had an injury and been out on the town that night, and later on, when I focused properly. They're kidding themselves, but that's the name of the game these days."
He talks about the future and his decision to become a manager. At first he wasn't sure. The football life wasn't so wonderful at the end. For all his resignation, he didn't plan to leave United by the back door. The affair with Glasgow Celtic didn't do it for him. Parts of the experience he enjoyed, and it surprised him how much he enjoyed the Celtic dressing room. Better than United's? "Less nasty", he says. "In every changing room, players get ripped. People have taken the piss out of me; ripped me for not drinking, ripped for doing yoga, ripped for my diets, for my clothes, for my Irishness. But you give it back.
"When I say the Celtic dressing room was better, this is not a criticism of the United lads. I was as bad as any of them. We ripped people for the wrong things; the car, the house, the way you dressed. In Scotland it was more old-fashioned. I enjoyed that. Maybe you don't get the bull up there that you get in the Premiership."
He learnt, too, about living out of a suitcase, without a family. He spent three months in an Edinburgh hotel. Cinema in the afternoon, long, anonymous walks in the evening. "Here I was, a 34-year-old man going to the pictures on his own in the afternoon. It made me think about when I came to England first, the 18-year-old in Nottingham who went to the pictures in the afternoon. Here I was, 16 years on, back at the pictures. My life had come full circle."
While in that Edinburgh hotel, travelling to and from training, missing his Manchester-based family, he thought about Sebastian Veron, his one-time Argentinian teammate at United. "Celtic couldn't have done enough for me, but it was a lonely life and I wish now I had been a bit easier on some of the foreign lads who came to United. I always thought, 'You're on the pitch now, do it.' I regret that now. I was very hard on Seba, and I was wrong. When he came, I was expecting miracles. When they didn't happen, I was always homing in on him, and I now know it takes time." He wanted to play his best for Celtic but he didn't; his body wasn't up to it and, without his family, it was tough.
Through the traumas, Theresa and their five children have been his anchor. "The bad times, that's when you need a family. I read a book recently about the loss of identity sportsmen feel when they stop. 'Roy Keane, Manchester United.' 'Roy Keane, Ireland.' 'Roy Keane, Glasgow Celtic.' There's always something after your name. With your family, you have an identity that's separate from that."
The decision to become the manager of Sunderland was taken while with his family in the Algarve. They would not have discouraged him: they know he is a better father, an easier husband, when spending his intensity on football. He thinks he will be a good manager but he reminds you; so does everyone starting out. The key for him is he has to find out. Two lines from Julius Caesar could have been written for him: "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."
And so we talk about management. He has watched Jose Mourinho's arrival into the Premiership, the way he has taken on Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. "Mourinho's got something. A blind man could see that. And he has the edge at the moment. He plays games and I think they can have a big effect on his team and on the opposition. Do you remember when Chelsea played United at Stamford Bridge, end of last season, and there's two minutes to go in injury time, and he gets up, walks up to where the United lads are, and he's shaking Alex Ferguson's hand and the game is still going on? Two years ago no one would've done that to Alex Ferguson.
"The manager would not have liked it. But Mourinho is saying, 'The game is over, the league is over, 3-0 to us.' But Alex Ferguson would have taken that on board. That's what good managers thrive on, that kind of slight. People love to criticise Mourinho, but I like watching Chelsea. They're well organised; they know their jobs."
That last part came easily to Keane. Perhaps his last great performance in a United shirt came on that February evening in Highbury last year. Facing down Patrick Vieira in the tunnel before the kickoff and then dominating the game.
He remembers it clearly: "Arsenal started it that night with Gary [Neville]. Vieira had a go at Gary. Gary's not really a fighter." So, what did you say to him? "The Sunday before, there was a two-page spread about Vieira in The Sunday Times, and he was bragging about all the good things he was doing in Senegal. He's building this academy, saving kids from the street. It irritated me. Self-praise is no praise. And so I said to him, 'If you're that worried about Senegal, why didn't you f***ing play for them?' [Born in Senegal, Vieira moved to France and played for his adopted country.]
"A week or so later he said I didn't understand the history of what he'd come through. And he's right about that, and I was probably wrong."
We talk about the World Cup in Germany. He went to one of the games and felt it was a wasted trip. As for England, he knew before they went there: "No chance." Too few world-class players. "I like Gerrard, Lampard and Wayne, but they still haven't done it on a world stage, and then there's all this bull around the team." He didn't find the Wags amusing. "What kind of person wants to be pictured going out for a meal? They were annoying me, and they're not even my wife."
He then talks about the sending-off of Zinedine Zidane in the final. "I could understand what he did 100%. I could sense his frustration: he'd just missed a header before that, then a pass went astray; you could see he was getting a bit tired, and all you need is a flippin' comment at that moment. That's what used to happen to me.
"You see, at that moment it doesn't matter who is watching, doesn't matter that it's a World Cup final. It could be a park field. That moment comes and it is 'F*** you, f*** everybody,' and bang! Zidane's got that streak in him; if he didn't, would he have been a brilliant player?
"I think of the last game I played for Celtic. I gave away one or two passes. Two stray, silly passes, and it eats away at me. All you need then is someone to say something." He doesn't want to return to his collisions with the Norwegian Alf-Inge Haaland, but this train of thought drives him there: "I remember at Leeds, when I'd done my knee [in a lunge at Haaland]. He irritated me, that's all it was. If a certain person says it at the wrong moment, then 'bad day'. At Old Trafford, when Haaland was playing for City, he had been mouthing off in the media, slagging off the club. I took that personal. We'd lost the Wednesday before to Bayern Munich in
the European Cup, and it was a case of 'Sod it, just sod it.'"
He thinks about what he has just said, realising there is a part of him that we will never fully understand, and he begins to laugh.
"Anyway, they're my excuses," he says.
"Very genuine excuses."
Global warming... *gasp*
Oh my goodness, has global warming got so bad since my sec sch days (when I last touched on the topic...) that such drastic measures are actually being considered? Oh God/Allah/Buddha/Whoever, please don't destroy my beloved Earth yet, for I haven't found THE girl =P
From The Straits Times
Sep 19, 2006
Global warming: The solutions are out there
Scientists debate wacky ways of manipulating the environment
New York A NEW controversy is brewing in the world of climate science - over a once obscure strand of study that involves manipulating the environment to counter global warming.
Proponents, who include a Nobel prize-winning scientist, say it is the best chance to save the world while critics decry the proposals as wacky ideas that distract from curbing greenhouse gases that cause the problem.
Some of the ideas include having trillions of tiny sunshades orbiting in space and a mirror 240km high stationed between Earth and the Sun.
Such plans for cooling the planet are now rapidly gaining credibility in the world of climate science, says Britain’s Sunday Telegraph.
The newspaper says that geoengineering is a word which the world will doubtless be hearing much more of as a small but growing band of scientists points out that the time is looming for emergency action. The group says the world cannot wait for the row over the causes of climate change to be settled before taking action.
'Ideas that might have been seen as totally wacky even a year ago are now being actively considered,' says Dr Roger Angel, a leading British astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society. Based at the University of Arizona, Dr Angel has proposed putting trillions of small lenses - wafer-thin, light as a butterfly - into orbit to deflect sunlight.
Mr Wallace Broecker, a pioneer of geoengineering at Columbia University, believes the mood is changing.
'Geoengineering offers the prospect of an insurance policy. It could buy us some breathing space while we decide how to capture and get rid of carbon dioxide and reduce emissions,' he says.
'But the reality is that conservation and alternative energy sources are never going to solve the whole problem. We need to look for other solutions. For too long, we have been talking and debating and time has been slipping by.'
Alarmed that man could begin to attempt to tinker with the environment, The Telegraph says, many mainstream scientists still view geoengineering rather like climatic eugenics.
They have argued that it is no answer to pollute the atmosphere with contaminants. which would exacerbate the situation - turning blue skies forever grey. That strategy could also distract industry and aviation from cutting back on the fossil fuel emissions that help to form heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
But supporters of geoengineering have just received a major boost from Mr Paul Crudzen, a highly respected Nobel prize-winning German scientist.
He threw his considerable academic weight behind the idea of injecting sun-blocking sulphates into the stratosphere in a key paper published last month in the journal Climatic Change.
Various other proposals are also being floated, some more outlandish than others.
Low-level flat clouds over the oceans deflect sunlight back into space. So Mr John Latham, a Briton, is one of a group of scientists at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research who proposes spraying tiny droplets of seawater at cloud level to make them better mirrors for the sun's rays.
Over at the Star Trek end of the spectrum, there is the suggestion that a huge 240km-high mirror could be positioned millions of km out in space on a direct line between the Earth and Sun to fend away sunlight.
Among the more down-to-earth proposals is one to cover swathes of the desert with giant plastic sheets to reflect sunlight. Then there is one to fertilise the sea with iron to create blooms of plant life to suck up carbon dioxide.
Dr Crudzen says he does not see geoengineering as a stand-alone solution to climate change but that it should be investigated as a fall-back option.
From The Straits Times
Sep 19, 2006
Global warming: The solutions are out there
Scientists debate wacky ways of manipulating the environment
New York A NEW controversy is brewing in the world of climate science - over a once obscure strand of study that involves manipulating the environment to counter global warming.
Proponents, who include a Nobel prize-winning scientist, say it is the best chance to save the world while critics decry the proposals as wacky ideas that distract from curbing greenhouse gases that cause the problem.
Some of the ideas include having trillions of tiny sunshades orbiting in space and a mirror 240km high stationed between Earth and the Sun.
Such plans for cooling the planet are now rapidly gaining credibility in the world of climate science, says Britain’s Sunday Telegraph.
The newspaper says that geoengineering is a word which the world will doubtless be hearing much more of as a small but growing band of scientists points out that the time is looming for emergency action. The group says the world cannot wait for the row over the causes of climate change to be settled before taking action.
'Ideas that might have been seen as totally wacky even a year ago are now being actively considered,' says Dr Roger Angel, a leading British astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society. Based at the University of Arizona, Dr Angel has proposed putting trillions of small lenses - wafer-thin, light as a butterfly - into orbit to deflect sunlight.
Mr Wallace Broecker, a pioneer of geoengineering at Columbia University, believes the mood is changing.
'Geoengineering offers the prospect of an insurance policy. It could buy us some breathing space while we decide how to capture and get rid of carbon dioxide and reduce emissions,' he says.
'But the reality is that conservation and alternative energy sources are never going to solve the whole problem. We need to look for other solutions. For too long, we have been talking and debating and time has been slipping by.'
Alarmed that man could begin to attempt to tinker with the environment, The Telegraph says, many mainstream scientists still view geoengineering rather like climatic eugenics.
They have argued that it is no answer to pollute the atmosphere with contaminants. which would exacerbate the situation - turning blue skies forever grey. That strategy could also distract industry and aviation from cutting back on the fossil fuel emissions that help to form heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
But supporters of geoengineering have just received a major boost from Mr Paul Crudzen, a highly respected Nobel prize-winning German scientist.
He threw his considerable academic weight behind the idea of injecting sun-blocking sulphates into the stratosphere in a key paper published last month in the journal Climatic Change.
Various other proposals are also being floated, some more outlandish than others.
Low-level flat clouds over the oceans deflect sunlight back into space. So Mr John Latham, a Briton, is one of a group of scientists at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research who proposes spraying tiny droplets of seawater at cloud level to make them better mirrors for the sun's rays.
Over at the Star Trek end of the spectrum, there is the suggestion that a huge 240km-high mirror could be positioned millions of km out in space on a direct line between the Earth and Sun to fend away sunlight.
Among the more down-to-earth proposals is one to cover swathes of the desert with giant plastic sheets to reflect sunlight. Then there is one to fertilise the sea with iron to create blooms of plant life to suck up carbon dioxide.
Dr Crudzen says he does not see geoengineering as a stand-alone solution to climate change but that it should be investigated as a fall-back option.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
That 6 year old kid...
Just saw the 10pm news on the telly and there was the report on the mass sit in protest against Chen Shui Bian. Was quite impressed with all the anti-Bian support, like one company even sponsored mobile toilets?
But the ultimate had to be this 6 year old kid reciting his 3 anti-Bian poems that he supposedly wrote himself to the masses gathered on the streets. If he had really wrote all that on his own then I am really damn impressed. I didn't even know what is "腐败" and "贪污" when I was 7 lah! never mind 6 years old.
I got no opinion on this anti-Bian issue coz I am a cock at politics.... but I can only hope that years later, when this boy grows up, he will look back and felt that what he did was correct. And not feel that he had been used as a political pawn to bring down somebody, (In the media, it really sounds rather impressive that even a 6 year old is composing anti-Bian poems) for there is nothing more du lan than to feel duped WMD style...
But the ultimate had to be this 6 year old kid reciting his 3 anti-Bian poems that he supposedly wrote himself to the masses gathered on the streets. If he had really wrote all that on his own then I am really damn impressed. I didn't even know what is "腐败" and "贪污" when I was 7 lah! never mind 6 years old.
I got no opinion on this anti-Bian issue coz I am a cock at politics.... but I can only hope that years later, when this boy grows up, he will look back and felt that what he did was correct. And not feel that he had been used as a political pawn to bring down somebody, (In the media, it really sounds rather impressive that even a 6 year old is composing anti-Bian poems) for there is nothing more du lan than to feel duped WMD style...
Monday, September 11, 2006
When in Rome, do as the Romans do
http://newsinfo.inq7.net/breakingnews/world/view_article.php?article_id=20134
Singapore clampdown casts shadow over IMF-WB meet
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 11:51am (Mla time) 09/10/2006
SINGAPORE -- Singapore's uncompromising clampdown on free speech has tarnished efforts to showcase itself as a modern Asian financial center during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (IMF-WB) meetings, activists say.
The city-state is going all-out to exploit the presence of the global financial elite to highlight its claim to being a "First World" economy.
But a ban on protests and the blacklisting of "undesirable" foreign activists has soured the atmosphere ahead of the Sept. 19 to 20 meetings and related events starting this week.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz told the BBC over the weekend that Singapore made a "bad" decision when it blocked activists invited to the event as part of an established dialogue process.
"I hope Singapore's authorities will change their minds and allow the people in that we have accredited, as originally agreed," he said.
"We may not always agree with what they (the activists) have to say, but it is very important to have that discussion," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.
Lidy Nacpil, international director of Jubilee South, a non-government group campaigning for greater debt relief for poor countries, said "what this shows is that the Singapore government is afraid of democracy."
"Our activities are not even directed at the Singapore government but at the IMF and World Bank," she told Agence France-Presse by telephone from Manila.
Both lending institutions have for years engaged "civil society" groups critical of their policies in a frank dialogue.
But Singapore, citing security reasons including fear of terrorist attacks, has refused to waive a longstanding ban on outdoor protests despite an appeal from the World Bank.
Police have also banned a number of overseas activists from entering the country during the meetings. Local press reports said about 20 names are believed to be on the blacklist.
With demonstrations forbidden here, foreign activists decided to hold protests and an anti-globalization conference in the nearby Indonesian island of Batam, which is 45 minutes away by ferry from Singapore.
Critics say Singapore has merely reinforced its image as an authoritarian state despite its phenomenal economic progress.
Nacpil blamed the IMF-WB for picking Singapore to host the meetings despite knowing its track record as far as protests are concerned.
Sameer Dossani, executive director of the activist 50 Years is Enough Network, said: "If the Bank is interested in accountability and preventing corruption, why are they holding their meetings in a police state that has openly said it plans to cane protestors?"
While a recent World Bank survey ranked Singapore as the easiest place to do business, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) gave it dismal marks for press freedom.
Singapore placed 140th out of 167 countries in RSF's 2005 World Press Freedom Index, ranking below countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Russia, Sudan and Yemen.
Yet it is also Singapore's reputation as an oasis of political and economic stability in often volatile Southeast Asia that has made it a key destination for foreign investment.
A low crime rate, a clean environment and an efficient and reputedly incorruptible bureaucracy have also won worldwide admiration.
"By now, people know what the image of Singapore is, and they realize we are who we are," said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
"We're one of the most disciplined societies in the world because the environment we live in is special," he was quoted as saying in the local newspaper Today.
---------------------------------------------------------
Balls to those protestors. I am just glad that my government has the courage to say this is lim bei's country, please respect our rules if you step onto this land! Hey when some bomb goes off, it's my friend and my brother who is out there risking his life to save people! Most of you can just fuck off back to your families back home. This is my FUCKING COUNTRY. I am just glad that I can still go to Suntec City if I want to without having to face a shitty demonstration blocking my way. Balls to you.
Singapore clampdown casts shadow over IMF-WB meet
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 11:51am (Mla time) 09/10/2006
SINGAPORE -- Singapore's uncompromising clampdown on free speech has tarnished efforts to showcase itself as a modern Asian financial center during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (IMF-WB) meetings, activists say.
The city-state is going all-out to exploit the presence of the global financial elite to highlight its claim to being a "First World" economy.
But a ban on protests and the blacklisting of "undesirable" foreign activists has soured the atmosphere ahead of the Sept. 19 to 20 meetings and related events starting this week.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz told the BBC over the weekend that Singapore made a "bad" decision when it blocked activists invited to the event as part of an established dialogue process.
"I hope Singapore's authorities will change their minds and allow the people in that we have accredited, as originally agreed," he said.
"We may not always agree with what they (the activists) have to say, but it is very important to have that discussion," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.
Lidy Nacpil, international director of Jubilee South, a non-government group campaigning for greater debt relief for poor countries, said "what this shows is that the Singapore government is afraid of democracy."
"Our activities are not even directed at the Singapore government but at the IMF and World Bank," she told Agence France-Presse by telephone from Manila.
Both lending institutions have for years engaged "civil society" groups critical of their policies in a frank dialogue.
But Singapore, citing security reasons including fear of terrorist attacks, has refused to waive a longstanding ban on outdoor protests despite an appeal from the World Bank.
Police have also banned a number of overseas activists from entering the country during the meetings. Local press reports said about 20 names are believed to be on the blacklist.
With demonstrations forbidden here, foreign activists decided to hold protests and an anti-globalization conference in the nearby Indonesian island of Batam, which is 45 minutes away by ferry from Singapore.
Critics say Singapore has merely reinforced its image as an authoritarian state despite its phenomenal economic progress.
Nacpil blamed the IMF-WB for picking Singapore to host the meetings despite knowing its track record as far as protests are concerned.
Sameer Dossani, executive director of the activist 50 Years is Enough Network, said: "If the Bank is interested in accountability and preventing corruption, why are they holding their meetings in a police state that has openly said it plans to cane protestors?"
While a recent World Bank survey ranked Singapore as the easiest place to do business, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) gave it dismal marks for press freedom.
Singapore placed 140th out of 167 countries in RSF's 2005 World Press Freedom Index, ranking below countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Russia, Sudan and Yemen.
Yet it is also Singapore's reputation as an oasis of political and economic stability in often volatile Southeast Asia that has made it a key destination for foreign investment.
A low crime rate, a clean environment and an efficient and reputedly incorruptible bureaucracy have also won worldwide admiration.
"By now, people know what the image of Singapore is, and they realize we are who we are," said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
"We're one of the most disciplined societies in the world because the environment we live in is special," he was quoted as saying in the local newspaper Today.
---------------------------------------------------------
Balls to those protestors. I am just glad that my government has the courage to say this is lim bei's country, please respect our rules if you step onto this land! Hey when some bomb goes off, it's my friend and my brother who is out there risking his life to save people! Most of you can just fuck off back to your families back home. This is my FUCKING COUNTRY. I am just glad that I can still go to Suntec City if I want to without having to face a shitty demonstration blocking my way. Balls to you.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Shameless
Costs of owning a 1.6 litre car in Singapore is approximately $1000/month...
Fixed Costs
Date Amount Remarks
26/03/2006 54300 Car price
26/03/2006 1359 Insurance
26/03/2006 765 Transfer fee
17/08/2006 488.5 Road tax
Price of car per month 502.7777778
Insurance per month 113.25
Transfer fee per month 7.083333333
Road tax per month 81.41666667
Fixed costs per month 704.5277778
Running Costs
March/April
Date Amount Remarks
27/03/2006 20 Cashcard
27/03/2006 20 Parking coupons
28/03/2006 71.73 Petrol
04/04/2006 299.75 Servicing
09/04/2006 47.43 Petrol
23/04/2006 58.96 Petrol
517.87 Total
May
Date Amount Remarks
13/05/2006 70.9 Petrol
26/05/2006 20 Cashcard
90.9 Total
June
Date Amount Remarks
17/06/2006 63.02 Petrol
17/06/2006 71.69 Petrol
17/06/2006 20 Cashcard
29/06/2006 73.37 Petrol
228.08 Total
July
Date Amount Remarks
08/07/2006 150 fine
08/07/2006 67.79 Petrol
08/07/2006 20 Parking coupons
27/07/2006 6 fine
21/07/2006 74.9 Petrol
318.69 Total
August
Date Amount Remarks
19/08/2006 25.8 petrol
25/08/2006 73.93 petrol
99.73 Total
Average running costs for 5 months is approximately $251. Add $705 fixed costs and you get around $956 per month. No shit!
Implications
- It is probably advisable to get a car smaller than 1.6 litre (for better fuel economy) if you are earning less than $4000 per month (going by a general rule of thumb that expenditure on car should not exceed 1/4 of your income...)
- You would need to earn above $3500 to have a car to be comfortable (I feel...)
- Fines are not worth it!!!
- Parking in SAF camps is free, can you imagine if you had to pay $300 per month for season parking in CBD? I hope schools don't implement cashcard parking =S
- Touchwood but there are also no repair costs in case of accidents factored in yet...
But yet one can't deny the convenience of having your own set of wheels. Without my wife,
- I would have needed to wake up at 530am everyday to get to Boon Lay (or even stay in) during my course.
- I would have needed to carry the stack of 20+ books out of Pasir Laba camp to take a cab for my course.
- I would have needed to carry the air weapon papaer and pellets on public transport for every training.
- I would have to depend on the goodwill of others to fetch me to and fro my house if there was an outing at night...
- I would have needed to transport the speakers for Air weapon competition in a cab, AND thereafter go to CMPB to collect the trophies for the same competition. How to make the uncle wait or to put the speakers at a safe place while I go collect the trophies?
All the above might sound like excuses, but after commissioning, I am expected to be much more independent, and to do a lot more things (i.e. run around Singapore more) and having a car really really helps. And one can't deny the fact that as you get older, the timings of outings also get later and later, meaning you either take cab or drive...
And so there goes my dream of owning a Honda Integra or even a Honda Civic, which woulld double the fixed costs of the car. Hopefully, I won't get sacked in future so that I can comfortably afford a Honda Fit (1.3 litre) (and no Cherry QQ thank you very much) in future.
But you know what's the worst thing? It's that you feel utterly ashamed of yourself because you are so lucky to even to be able to think about a car, while others around you got to grapple with much bigger problems. Stuff like rents and utilities to think about, or even the possibility of going blind, and having everything taken away from them if they go blind...
Shihua Shihua, you are a very lucky boy... Don't always complain that you have no girlfriend, at least you have *stop reading here if you are female AND sensitive* 5 best friends and FHM =P
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Where's the 25 million pounds transfer fee a season?
http://www.squarefootball.net/articl...e.asp?aid=3444
Manchester United: Glazers turn transition into decline
The Glazer family has owned Manchester United for around fourteen months now, and finally the reality of that purchase is starting to be felt by even the most optimistic of the 'wait-and-see' fans. The majority of match going fans were concerned about the purchase but somewhat reassured by the business-as-usual stance at the club. The management team largely remained and Sir Bobby Charlton urged people to be guided by results and not emotion.
2005/6 was a mixed season - with a good league finish of second (Chelsea were always going to win it last season), and a League Cup win balanced by an early Champions' League exit and an insipid FA Cup exit at Anfield. This was probably around the level that was expected for a team that had ceded its right to be considered the best in the land and was deep (if not lost) in transition.
But 2006/7 is barely three weeks away and transition is now being replaced by decline.
As we approach the end of the third transfer window of the Glazer reign, it is clear that the club is being squeezed so hard that decline is now inevitable.
Firstly the Glazers have dumped much of their personal debt arising from the takeover onto the club, the rearrangement of the finances last week rolled ?63m interest into the debt - but cunningly - the same amount was additionally secured against the football club. In simple terms all the interest that was piling up on the Glazers has simply been pushed onto the club. Anyone with the glib argument of 'why would they sink so much of their own money into the club only to run it into the ground' needn't bother repeating it, it won't be long before the Glazers will have no financial risk attached to this deal.
Secondly as a result of annual interest payments now reduced to, reportedly, 'just' ?42m per season the squad cost cutting is rampant. As many reserves as possible are being farmed out on loan, and fringe players are being sold or released. There are fewer professionals at Old Trafford than there have been for the length of Sir Alex Ferguson's stewardship. Increasingly Ferguson is being forced to draw the wagons around his first team squad and (very much like the dog-days of Ron Atkinson) to hell with the rest.
Revenues have been driven remorselessly up with a few million extra from sponsorship, plenty more from TV - and a big increase in ticket prices (up 25% in two seasons), so the cost cutting is a policy not a reaction to falling revenues.
The cost cutting and penny-pinching is indicative of a structure that is short of cash. I've always believed that The Glazers bought the club with the intention of selling it within three years for a big profit - and the abject transfer market dealings this summer simply support this theory.
With Liverpool spending ?20m and Chelsea another ?50m, Manchester United have actually become nett sellers. A team that so obviously needs two high quality central midfielders has spent the summer not buying anyone. To my knowledge only one bid has been made all summer - around ?10m for Michael Carrick - with United spending more energy in trying to flog Ruud van Nistelrooy than in trying to buy in anyone. It certainly seems that the orders from on high are 'sell-before-you-can-buy' - hardly what you expect from a billionaire and his boys, and not a policy designed to improve the club.
United stand on the cusp of the season likely to lose their serial top scorer - without replacing him - and without a midfield to dominate anyone but the relegation candidates. Looking dispassionately at the midfield only Ronaldo is international or world class - the rest are solid Premiership quality players, but hardly world beating. Chelsea can choose from Essien, Makelele, Robben, Lampard, Ballack, Wright-Phillips, Mikel and Cole - any three of which could stroll into the United midfield.
Last summer two small purchases (van der Sar, Park) were offset by similar sales (Neville, Kleberson); in January the gaping defensive holes were iffily plugged with Vidic and Evra costing around ?12m.
This summer the sales of Mikel, Spector and probably van Nistelrooy, balanced by the probable purchase of Carrick, will leave United with a nett transfer budget of nothing since the arrival of the Glazers. At a time when United need completely rebuild the midfield, Ferguson is expected to fund it from sales. Can anyone seriously expect Ferguson to compete with Chelsea or Liverpool on that basis?
Most Premiership clubs spend millions and even tens of millions oper season (Chelsea are an exception); while United stroll everyone else is sprinting - extrapolate this for a couple of seasons and Manchester United will be in mid-table.
The number of United fans who believed in some mythical ?25m annual transfer budget must now be falling daily. The reality is that United are being run at about break even in their transfer dealings regardless of the need. This would explain the reason that Ferguson is refusing to countenance Ronaldo leaving. Despite the winger's obvious difficulties with English football, Ferguson knows that he will probably not be allowed to use the proceeds of a sale to replace him.
Next summer when ticket prices go up ?100 for the third season running, with a team in decline and every penny from a support that is being soaked remorselessy going to pay off debt hoisted on to the club by their 'owners' everyone can draw their own conclusions. A club that was self-reliant, debt-free and funded by its fan-base two years ago is now a debt-driven monster.
As Ferguson's hands are tied in the transfer market it may be unfair, but expect the 'Fergie out' chants to start ringing round the stadium as soon as he has celebrated twenty years in charge - with the nasty songs about the Glazers expected to be resumed somewhat sooner.
Antony Melvin
26 July 2006
Manchester United: Glazers turn transition into decline
The Glazer family has owned Manchester United for around fourteen months now, and finally the reality of that purchase is starting to be felt by even the most optimistic of the 'wait-and-see' fans. The majority of match going fans were concerned about the purchase but somewhat reassured by the business-as-usual stance at the club. The management team largely remained and Sir Bobby Charlton urged people to be guided by results and not emotion.
2005/6 was a mixed season - with a good league finish of second (Chelsea were always going to win it last season), and a League Cup win balanced by an early Champions' League exit and an insipid FA Cup exit at Anfield. This was probably around the level that was expected for a team that had ceded its right to be considered the best in the land and was deep (if not lost) in transition.
But 2006/7 is barely three weeks away and transition is now being replaced by decline.
As we approach the end of the third transfer window of the Glazer reign, it is clear that the club is being squeezed so hard that decline is now inevitable.
Firstly the Glazers have dumped much of their personal debt arising from the takeover onto the club, the rearrangement of the finances last week rolled ?63m interest into the debt - but cunningly - the same amount was additionally secured against the football club. In simple terms all the interest that was piling up on the Glazers has simply been pushed onto the club. Anyone with the glib argument of 'why would they sink so much of their own money into the club only to run it into the ground' needn't bother repeating it, it won't be long before the Glazers will have no financial risk attached to this deal.
Secondly as a result of annual interest payments now reduced to, reportedly, 'just' ?42m per season the squad cost cutting is rampant. As many reserves as possible are being farmed out on loan, and fringe players are being sold or released. There are fewer professionals at Old Trafford than there have been for the length of Sir Alex Ferguson's stewardship. Increasingly Ferguson is being forced to draw the wagons around his first team squad and (very much like the dog-days of Ron Atkinson) to hell with the rest.
Revenues have been driven remorselessly up with a few million extra from sponsorship, plenty more from TV - and a big increase in ticket prices (up 25% in two seasons), so the cost cutting is a policy not a reaction to falling revenues.
The cost cutting and penny-pinching is indicative of a structure that is short of cash. I've always believed that The Glazers bought the club with the intention of selling it within three years for a big profit - and the abject transfer market dealings this summer simply support this theory.
With Liverpool spending ?20m and Chelsea another ?50m, Manchester United have actually become nett sellers. A team that so obviously needs two high quality central midfielders has spent the summer not buying anyone. To my knowledge only one bid has been made all summer - around ?10m for Michael Carrick - with United spending more energy in trying to flog Ruud van Nistelrooy than in trying to buy in anyone. It certainly seems that the orders from on high are 'sell-before-you-can-buy' - hardly what you expect from a billionaire and his boys, and not a policy designed to improve the club.
United stand on the cusp of the season likely to lose their serial top scorer - without replacing him - and without a midfield to dominate anyone but the relegation candidates. Looking dispassionately at the midfield only Ronaldo is international or world class - the rest are solid Premiership quality players, but hardly world beating. Chelsea can choose from Essien, Makelele, Robben, Lampard, Ballack, Wright-Phillips, Mikel and Cole - any three of which could stroll into the United midfield.
Last summer two small purchases (van der Sar, Park) were offset by similar sales (Neville, Kleberson); in January the gaping defensive holes were iffily plugged with Vidic and Evra costing around ?12m.
This summer the sales of Mikel, Spector and probably van Nistelrooy, balanced by the probable purchase of Carrick, will leave United with a nett transfer budget of nothing since the arrival of the Glazers. At a time when United need completely rebuild the midfield, Ferguson is expected to fund it from sales. Can anyone seriously expect Ferguson to compete with Chelsea or Liverpool on that basis?
Most Premiership clubs spend millions and even tens of millions oper season (Chelsea are an exception); while United stroll everyone else is sprinting - extrapolate this for a couple of seasons and Manchester United will be in mid-table.
The number of United fans who believed in some mythical ?25m annual transfer budget must now be falling daily. The reality is that United are being run at about break even in their transfer dealings regardless of the need. This would explain the reason that Ferguson is refusing to countenance Ronaldo leaving. Despite the winger's obvious difficulties with English football, Ferguson knows that he will probably not be allowed to use the proceeds of a sale to replace him.
Next summer when ticket prices go up ?100 for the third season running, with a team in decline and every penny from a support that is being soaked remorselessy going to pay off debt hoisted on to the club by their 'owners' everyone can draw their own conclusions. A club that was self-reliant, debt-free and funded by its fan-base two years ago is now a debt-driven monster.
As Ferguson's hands are tied in the transfer market it may be unfair, but expect the 'Fergie out' chants to start ringing round the stadium as soon as he has celebrated twenty years in charge - with the nasty songs about the Glazers expected to be resumed somewhat sooner.
Antony Melvin
26 July 2006
The Day a legend left...
Best of luck Ruud...
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=374600&cc=5739
Ruud blames 'painful' Man Utd exit on Ferguson
Ruud van Nistelrooy believes the breakdown of his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson prompted his exit from Manchester United.
The Holland striker, 30, joined Real Madrid on Friday after five years at Old Trafford in which he became the club's greatest European goalscorer.
And he admitted his exit had been 'painful'.
'The relationship with the manager had ended and this was painful for me because I owe him a lot,' said Van Nistelrooy, whose move to United from PSV Eindhoven was delayed for 12 months in 2000 when he suffered a serious injury.
'He waited for me during my injury and allowed me to play at the highest level.
'I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to the manager yesterday because when I left the training ground in Manchester yesterday afternoon the deal had not yet been completed but I'm sure I'll meet him again.'
The striker was quick to thank the United fans and club for their support during the previous five years.
'My affection for the fans and club is total. Manchester United will always be a part of me,' said the striker.
Van Nistelrooy was presented to the Real fans only moments after signing his three-year contract with the club after a whirlwind 24 hours which had seen him take part in both of United's two training sessions yesterday.
But the 30-year-old was clearly relishing the challenge and was looking forward to the chance of being reunited with his former United team-mate David Beckham.
'It will be great to play with David again,' said Van Nistelrooy.
'I4ve really missed him because he's both a wonderful person and a great player'
Van Nistelrooy is a key element in the plans of Ramon Calderon, the new Real Madrid president, to create a competitive team following the club's three-year period without silverware.
'Van Nistelrooy was a key target for us during the election campaign. He's an important player, with great presence in a team, and scores lots of goals,' said Real's new manager, Fabio Capello.
But - with a squad including the likes of Ronaldo, Raul, Antonio Cassano and Robinho - Van Nistelrooy does not necessarily have a guaranteed place in the starting line-up.
'Ronaldo and Van Nistelrooy may be able to play together, but we'll have to see if that works. We'll have to decide but it depends on a lot of things,' stated the Italian coach.
And competition for a place in the new Real Madrid team may yet become tougher if the president's election promise to bring in AC Milan star Kaka becomes a reality.
As the Dutchman completed his brief sortie on to the Bernabeu pitch to meet the two thousand fans which had gathered to greet him, a chorus of chants of 'where is Kaka' erupted from the stands.
Asked about the incident at the press conference, the striker was unfazed, saying: 'Any team or player would welcome a player like Kaka.'
The Dutchman described coming to Real Madrid as a 'dream come true' but the striker and his team-mates will clearly need to perform at the highest level if they are to overcome the current Primera Liga and European champions, Barcelona, and avoid the dream turning into another nightmare for Real fans.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=374600&cc=5739
Ruud blames 'painful' Man Utd exit on Ferguson
Ruud van Nistelrooy believes the breakdown of his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson prompted his exit from Manchester United.
The Holland striker, 30, joined Real Madrid on Friday after five years at Old Trafford in which he became the club's greatest European goalscorer.
And he admitted his exit had been 'painful'.
'The relationship with the manager had ended and this was painful for me because I owe him a lot,' said Van Nistelrooy, whose move to United from PSV Eindhoven was delayed for 12 months in 2000 when he suffered a serious injury.
'He waited for me during my injury and allowed me to play at the highest level.
'I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to the manager yesterday because when I left the training ground in Manchester yesterday afternoon the deal had not yet been completed but I'm sure I'll meet him again.'
The striker was quick to thank the United fans and club for their support during the previous five years.
'My affection for the fans and club is total. Manchester United will always be a part of me,' said the striker.
Van Nistelrooy was presented to the Real fans only moments after signing his three-year contract with the club after a whirlwind 24 hours which had seen him take part in both of United's two training sessions yesterday.
But the 30-year-old was clearly relishing the challenge and was looking forward to the chance of being reunited with his former United team-mate David Beckham.
'It will be great to play with David again,' said Van Nistelrooy.
'I4ve really missed him because he's both a wonderful person and a great player'
Van Nistelrooy is a key element in the plans of Ramon Calderon, the new Real Madrid president, to create a competitive team following the club's three-year period without silverware.
'Van Nistelrooy was a key target for us during the election campaign. He's an important player, with great presence in a team, and scores lots of goals,' said Real's new manager, Fabio Capello.
But - with a squad including the likes of Ronaldo, Raul, Antonio Cassano and Robinho - Van Nistelrooy does not necessarily have a guaranteed place in the starting line-up.
'Ronaldo and Van Nistelrooy may be able to play together, but we'll have to see if that works. We'll have to decide but it depends on a lot of things,' stated the Italian coach.
And competition for a place in the new Real Madrid team may yet become tougher if the president's election promise to bring in AC Milan star Kaka becomes a reality.
As the Dutchman completed his brief sortie on to the Bernabeu pitch to meet the two thousand fans which had gathered to greet him, a chorus of chants of 'where is Kaka' erupted from the stands.
Asked about the incident at the press conference, the striker was unfazed, saying: 'Any team or player would welcome a player like Kaka.'
The Dutchman described coming to Real Madrid as a 'dream come true' but the striker and his team-mates will clearly need to perform at the highest level if they are to overcome the current Primera Liga and European champions, Barcelona, and avoid the dream turning into another nightmare for Real fans.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Sunday, July 09, 2006
World Cup is boring
Waiting for the World Cup final to start. Not too sure whether I should go sleep first then wake up or just stay awake all the way. Hence writing this entry to pass time. Not really very keen on this World Cup. Certainly not as keen as I was in 1998. Perhaps once again it's due to the fact that I find international games boring. The only way that I can enjoy such international tournaments is to be there in person to enjoy it. Not to sit in front of a flickering TV screen (all thanks to Starhub's pay per view policy...but more about that later...). I enjoy the carnival atmosphere which comes with such tournaments, and there is no way that I can feel the same thing in front of a TV screen, even with lots of people in front of a big screen.
But even with the carnival atmosphere, I am also consciously aware of the fact that a large part of it is fabricated. It's false, it's not the real deal. And that is why I cringe whenever I happen to watch the Chinese soccer programs on CCTV. Topics covered range from choosing the best looking 11 players (there was even a competition for people to guess which 3 players had been chosen as the bestl ooking forwards!) to having French and Portuguese "die-hard" fans debating with each other. FOR FUCKS SAKE YOU ARE CHINESE SUPPORT YOUR GOD DAMN CHINESE NATIONAL TEAM CAN?
Certainly there are some who feel deeply about their national team, but there are even more who are there for the ride, just to be IN. Hey I am cool, I watch the World Cup. Is that passion? Hardly I think. Passion is when you still pay 30 quid, in the cold wintry conditions of January, and travel God knows how many hundred miles to Teeside to watch your crap team draw 0-0 with Middlesbrough. To me, the success that comes after an entire season, 10 months worth of joy and pain, is so much sweeter than that which merely comes after 7 matches. Give me the Premier League and Champions League any day.
And there is the Singaporean in me too. I just can't find a team that I can hands on heart say that I support. In the beginning I had predicted Portugal to go all the way, and so I sorta supported them. But hey, I liked Holland too, and so I was quite LPPL when the two teams met. Even worse was to come when I supproted Portugal before Rooney got sent off and England after that. All this is too LPPL for me. You should only support one team! That's the way it is. And that one team can only ever be Singapore...
And no thanks to Starhub too. In 98 it was free to air, in 02 you had to subscribe to Starhub. All that is fine, but now you have to pay additional even though you are an existing customer. I say screw you Starhub. Pay per view is an evil that should never be allowed to enter Singapore shores. Even though going to other places to watch, buying antenna to receive Indonesia channel ultimately cost more than your 15 bucks price, I much rather do it than to give that 15 bucks to you. FUCK YOU for introducing pay per view. To other football fans, I say: beware of this evil phenomenon.
On another note...
You TosH are charged that you on XX June 2006 at about 4.27pm along XXXXXX Ave S'pore did drive a motor vehicle no. SFS XXXXX at a speed of 95kmph, such speed bring in excess of the imposed speed limit of 70kmph of the road and you have thereby committed an offence under section 63(4) and punishable under section 131(2) of the Road Traffic Act, Chapter 276.
Crap, and that means 6 points left and $150 gone.... Sigh. Gotta walk on a tight rope for the next 9 months. And it happened coz I was eager to go back TO CAMP to finish my work. So much for being enthu about work. So if you happen to sit in my car, please pardon me for being niao and asking you to buckle your seat belt (you need it when I am driving...serious..). If not don't blame me for scolding the shit out of you.
Next week marks the start of the xiong course that I have to go for. Somehow I am just not eager to learn. at least back in school I could understand all the shit even if i wasn't aprticularly interested...Physics for example. But this SAF shit is really not my cup of tea. I can't understand, nor am I arsed enough to make an effort to understand them. I just don't wanna have anything to do with operations... period. Sigh, it's gonna be a long 6 weeks. May post- ATEC period come soon.
If you had read until this point, you would have noticed that my Ingerlish have negatively improved to perhaps pre school level. Alas, what happened to me in NS? Sigh.
But all is not negative though. The course has actually introduced me to this really cool program CMAP. Go to
http://cmap.ihmc.us/
to download it. It's FREE! It's kind of like a mind mapping program but it gives you the additional tool of putting in linking phrases between the different concepts so that others can understand your mind map. And they thus call this a concept map instead of a mind map. Doesn't matter to me, all that I know is that this program is fucking cool lah. I never liked mind maps, not because I don't like the concept per se, but that making mind maps by hand is a pain in the ass. You need to have a basic idea of how it's going to look like in the beginning, even when you are organising your thoughts, if not it's gonna be damn messy. How many times have you started out on mind maps before realising you had run out of space in one corner of the paper while the rest of the paper is empty?
But now with CMAP, fret not! You can shift everything around and fit everything nicely after you have typed out everything. Seriously, if I had this program like erm since JC, I would have learnt so much better. And to all you MOE people out there, this thing is being introduced to trainees in NIE, so don't say I never tell you! haha. I am going to learn to be so expert at this program and go and xian the xiao mei mei in NIE next time. Sounds like a plan eh? =)
But even with the carnival atmosphere, I am also consciously aware of the fact that a large part of it is fabricated. It's false, it's not the real deal. And that is why I cringe whenever I happen to watch the Chinese soccer programs on CCTV. Topics covered range from choosing the best looking 11 players (there was even a competition for people to guess which 3 players had been chosen as the bestl ooking forwards!) to having French and Portuguese "die-hard" fans debating with each other. FOR FUCKS SAKE YOU ARE CHINESE SUPPORT YOUR GOD DAMN CHINESE NATIONAL TEAM CAN?
Certainly there are some who feel deeply about their national team, but there are even more who are there for the ride, just to be IN. Hey I am cool, I watch the World Cup. Is that passion? Hardly I think. Passion is when you still pay 30 quid, in the cold wintry conditions of January, and travel God knows how many hundred miles to Teeside to watch your crap team draw 0-0 with Middlesbrough. To me, the success that comes after an entire season, 10 months worth of joy and pain, is so much sweeter than that which merely comes after 7 matches. Give me the Premier League and Champions League any day.
And there is the Singaporean in me too. I just can't find a team that I can hands on heart say that I support. In the beginning I had predicted Portugal to go all the way, and so I sorta supported them. But hey, I liked Holland too, and so I was quite LPPL when the two teams met. Even worse was to come when I supproted Portugal before Rooney got sent off and England after that. All this is too LPPL for me. You should only support one team! That's the way it is. And that one team can only ever be Singapore...
And no thanks to Starhub too. In 98 it was free to air, in 02 you had to subscribe to Starhub. All that is fine, but now you have to pay additional even though you are an existing customer. I say screw you Starhub. Pay per view is an evil that should never be allowed to enter Singapore shores. Even though going to other places to watch, buying antenna to receive Indonesia channel ultimately cost more than your 15 bucks price, I much rather do it than to give that 15 bucks to you. FUCK YOU for introducing pay per view. To other football fans, I say: beware of this evil phenomenon.
On another note...
You TosH are charged that you on XX June 2006 at about 4.27pm along XXXXXX Ave S'pore did drive a motor vehicle no. SFS XXXXX at a speed of 95kmph, such speed bring in excess of the imposed speed limit of 70kmph of the road and you have thereby committed an offence under section 63(4) and punishable under section 131(2) of the Road Traffic Act, Chapter 276.
Crap, and that means 6 points left and $150 gone.... Sigh. Gotta walk on a tight rope for the next 9 months. And it happened coz I was eager to go back TO CAMP to finish my work. So much for being enthu about work. So if you happen to sit in my car, please pardon me for being niao and asking you to buckle your seat belt (you need it when I am driving...serious..). If not don't blame me for scolding the shit out of you.
Next week marks the start of the xiong course that I have to go for. Somehow I am just not eager to learn. at least back in school I could understand all the shit even if i wasn't aprticularly interested...Physics for example. But this SAF shit is really not my cup of tea. I can't understand, nor am I arsed enough to make an effort to understand them. I just don't wanna have anything to do with operations... period. Sigh, it's gonna be a long 6 weeks. May post- ATEC period come soon.
If you had read until this point, you would have noticed that my Ingerlish have negatively improved to perhaps pre school level. Alas, what happened to me in NS? Sigh.
But all is not negative though. The course has actually introduced me to this really cool program CMAP. Go to
http://cmap.ihmc.us/
to download it. It's FREE! It's kind of like a mind mapping program but it gives you the additional tool of putting in linking phrases between the different concepts so that others can understand your mind map. And they thus call this a concept map instead of a mind map. Doesn't matter to me, all that I know is that this program is fucking cool lah. I never liked mind maps, not because I don't like the concept per se, but that making mind maps by hand is a pain in the ass. You need to have a basic idea of how it's going to look like in the beginning, even when you are organising your thoughts, if not it's gonna be damn messy. How many times have you started out on mind maps before realising you had run out of space in one corner of the paper while the rest of the paper is empty?
But now with CMAP, fret not! You can shift everything around and fit everything nicely after you have typed out everything. Seriously, if I had this program like erm since JC, I would have learnt so much better. And to all you MOE people out there, this thing is being introduced to trainees in NIE, so don't say I never tell you! haha. I am going to learn to be so expert at this program and go and xian the xiao mei mei in NIE next time. Sounds like a plan eh? =)
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