It took me fifteen minutes and eighteen seconds to read Clives words. A new PB for me. I thought Clive proffered a very good and balanced account on Saturday's proceedings. He mentioned Hull and their input into the game a fair amount and I can understand why. If we are to stay up this season we need to be and do what they did. They remind me of Wigan in many ways, their set up, tactics and personnel. No single outstanding player but a good group and a good team spirit. The one single fact that I didn't realise until I read Clive's report was this....... ''QPR have now missed their last five top flight penalty kicks. '' Now that is quite alarming. I can remember Taarabt's v Norwich and obviously Austin's yesterday but what were the others?
I forgot about that one. A senior moment or a deliberate but unconscious eradication of bad memories? Some people say to me '' 1986..Lol.'' I have no idea as to what they're referring. It must have something to do with my job.
So that's four. Zamora tapped in the rebound, so that one was easily forgettable. We may well be going back to '96 here. Did we miss one in our survival season? Who was taking the pens then? Helguson? Didn't he miss one v Wigan at home when Tommy Smith smacked in a thirty yarder? That could well be it.
Yeah my take on it too lol. I was scanning over the teams we played those two seasons trying to jog my memory and recalling just how awful we were. Not many good memories. Really think it'll be different this time. 1986? I've still got a VHS copy somewhere. Never had the heart to watch it though. Being there was bad enough. No way we were gonna lose that one eh? Can't think of the other pen.
It was indeed. I was sitting in the Upper Loft for that one Telford. I recall that I wished Al-Habsi was our keeper instead of Kenny or was it Cerny that day? I'm glad that Rob Green's in goal for us now. I think that that was Hughes's first win with us. How times have changed so quickly. A year is a long time in politics. It's even shorter in football.
It was Kenny. Don't tell Flyer (when he comes back) but I liked Kenny! He did go off a bit that season. POTY the season before proving your point I guess. And Green? Yeah I'm happy with him. Defence has a much more solid feel to it now and Isla should hopefully make a big difference going forward down the right. It'll be nice having the out ball and attacking threat on both sides. Early days for a new system against a team with two competetive games behind them, we didn't get the result but it's looking good. Good stuff from Clive. I don't mind the length of his stuff, but Swords is right. Where does he get the time?
Pretty soon it will take 90 minutes to read his reports . I suggest he hires a box and fans of CW could watch the match with him while he commentates He is getting a bit a Alan Bennett IMO
Fortunately, my attention span is greater than that of a gnat - and greater than Swords' - and, therefore, I greatly value Clive's well-written narrative and analysis.
If he was writing in the style of a literary great every week I would definitely read it, rather than scanning rapidly. Guess who I have unforgivably mangled here : "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a manager in possession of £15m, must be in want of a striker" "All successful teams are alike, each unsuccessful team is unsuccessful in its own way". "It was the best of strikes, it was the worst of strikes; it was the age of 3-5-2, it was the age of 2-0-8......." "It was a warm, muggy day in August, and the clocks were striking 15" "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that Iâve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticising any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world havenât had the advantages that youâve had.â (Hmmm, didn't need to change a word in this one) "Shepherd's Bush is a foreign country: they do things differently there" "As Harry Redknapp awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous media whore" "Call me Loic" "Shaun Wright Phillips had that kind of talent which seems to be thrown into relief by poor technique" "Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as the pre match pint" "It was inevitable: the scent of sweaty jockstraps reminded him of the fate of misunderstood tactics" "The manager was leaving the dugout, and no one seemed sorry" "There was no possibility of taking a penalty that day" "Charlie scored today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure" "He was an old man who managed alone in a Range Rover on the M3 and he had eighty four days now without taking a win" "All this happened, more or less" (no change to that one either). Ignore this lads, I've had my fun putting it together.
I may have expended a touch too much energy on that post. The late Alan Coren used to re-write things in different styles, one of my favourites was Winnie the Pooh in the style of Ernest Hemingway. He called it "The Pooh Also Rises".
