Foreign Support

sorry Chinasaint I am not sure how I can quote you, I am still finding my way around the site!

 

SydneySaint that is brilliant! Nigel's words of wisdom can't fail to get the blood pumping - good luck in the football competition!

 

I live in Turkey had a season ticket west stand at the dell and the Itchen stand ST Marys .So the Saints IPLAYER keeps me up to date.
Noebar

 

Totally agree. I got an overnight train to Anhui province, going to a few of tiny villages and it was fantastic. No-one spoke any English so when I managed to communicate with them, it felt very rewarding. 'Real China' as you say. However, being a big city man myself, it was too far from civilisation and a week was enough! We went to a lovely water village shaped like a water buffalo and climed Hua Mu. There was a nice village near Shanghai called Zhu Jia Jiao as well.

 

I do enjoy taking the overnight or thirty hour train journeys to get anywhere here, a great way of chatting to the locals. It always amazes me how friendly it is here and how they are interested to know about the world through our eyes.

I have travelled quite a lot inside China and do prefer the climate where I am now. It was over 40C here at the beginning of September, down into the 20's now. It never gets down below about 3C in the height of winter in this area although I worked for one winter in 2007 in the north east in the city of Harbin, the average winter there is -30C. A great ice and snow festival up there every winter, a real highlight of that cold winter.

 

Nervous about this result now.

 

I'm a bit nearer home, but as the word "Welsh" actually means "foreigner" in Old English, then I'm definitely in foreign parts! Most people here do speak a sort of English. They're too busy chuntering about Irish rugby refs at the moment, to think of football!

 

What are the chances of finding a Lickie Rambert to import?

 

The Chinese Super League as it is called, is in reality not very 'super,' the majority of the forwards playing here appear to be Eastern European or Brazilian imports that no one has ever heard of. This relates into the Chinese national team not having any decent forwards so they struggle to beat Singapore recently. They also lost this summer to Oman, hardly considered big teams in Asia let alone on the world stage. The only decent players in Asia seem to be from South Korea, Japan and Australia (how they come to be Asian is one of convenience for getting into the World Cup), the standard over here I would say is no better than league one. So do not expect any imports from here anytime soon.

 

Here is a report on the Chinese national teams latest loss at home to Iraq and it sums up the way they can dominate games yet not score goals.

http://www.cfateamchina.com/en/news/all/china-0-iraq-1

 

I had the pleasure as they say of being invited to the Australia v Oman game last Tuesday. To say Oman were shocking was an understatement, so that doesn't say a lot for China!! although Australia weren't too much better (definately correct it is for there convenience and ease of qualification!!).
Update on today's footy we lost 3-0, so nigel's motivational speeches ddin't work!! Although we did play the team that have won the league for teh last 3 seasons and usually win by 5 or 6 apparantley. Will have to see how next week goes.
Hopefully its not an omen for tonights result!! Hopefully be able to get a dodgy live stream somewhere, if not listen on Player. Up the Saints