Pre-season has been like going to a gig of your new favourite band. Not during the tour to support their multi-platinum selling breakthrough album, you couldn’t get tickets for that one. This is the tour for the much-anticipated follow-up; arenas and stadiums only. Like Blur touring The Great Escape, or Stone Roses with the Second Coming, or Nirvana with In Utero.
The 6-2 defeat to Didcot is the new album’s big opening number, not necessarily the best song but one that gives you a sense that you’re listening to something big. The 2-0 victory over Dumbarton is the new album’s first single. A big hit simply off the back of the previous album's success. The band’s artistic input has been curtailed by the record company who want more of what made the first album successful. It’s our Country House, a good song, but nothing new. A reminder of why you’re a fan.
Livingston and Winchester are the songs from the new album that made you realise that the new album is, well, just a bit boring and pedestrian.
As the crowd are thinking about heading to the bar, they play Leicester, the big breakthrough single, our Wonderwall. Suddenly everything is bouncing again.
Brackley is a forgettable ballad, then Manchester United XI is the big anthemic hit. A 12 minute set closer. You’re buzzing, what a tune. The lights go down. Bring on the encore, it’s going to be amazing.
Sadly, the band come back on to play Oxford City, a cover version of an old punk classic involving some guest who is probably the drummer of the support band on mouth organ. It wasn’t really the kick-ass encore you were expecting, but you cheer politely in anticipation of the big finale.
Instead, they play Banbury, a sentimental acoustic number they’ve been writing on the tour bus. It’s a paean to the lead singers’ dead grandma. It doesn’t really have a hook or chorus and nobody’s ever heard it before. Quite frankly it won’t even make the next album, it might, possibly, make the bonus CD of the 10 anniversary reissue of the big breakthrough album. The band depart satisfied they’ve discharged their artistic responsibilities. We, on the other hand, go home a little short changed.
So pre-season has passed me by a little. But so did the World Cup and Tour de France in what should have been a top summer of sport. But then, from time to time, I think of Wembley and still get a little frisson of excitement. And then I realise that in the past the summer has been a break from the drudgery of the season and the pre-season campaign has been for vainly trying to spot signs of recovery. This season, however, the recovery is underway and the summer is just a pause in the story. Screw pre-season, I just want to get going again.
Showing posts with label Oxford City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oxford City. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 13, 2008
News round-up: loan stars
I was going to open this post by making out that I was slapping myself in the face trying to resist the temptation of being optimistic about the coming season. Luckily the Brackley result poured the necessary cold water on that.
Friendlies are horrible; if they’re meaningless then why do all teams play them? Fitness is one obvious reason; which is why Matt Day should expect to play a lot this summer. How do you manage to be a professional footballer and put on (as rumoured) a stone in weight during the close season? Especially shortly after being publicly told that he was on his way out of the club if he didn’t change his attitude. How stupid is Matt Day? Or is this why we love him so?
The other reason for friendlies is an opportunity to walk through some patterns of play – which is why James Constable’s winning goal against Oxford City is encouraging. At least he and the ball were in the right place at the right time to score.
Most of the week was taken up with the flurry of signings 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 although none of them are actually ours. I’m not sure of the ins and outs of the loan system. It seems we pay the salary and get a decent player – but we don’t get to keep them. I’m not comfortable with this idea because it seems to dilute the club’s identity (e.g. its best players aren’t really its players at all). On the other hand, I’ve never professed to being totally au fait with modern football and - like people using lower-case text message language in work emails – perhaps it’s the way things are done nowadays. It is, I suppose, a short term investment in a long term future.
Certainly Lewis Haldane and James Constable seem to have the backing from the fans of their parent clubs, which is a good sign. Jamie Guy, on the other hand, appears to be yet another ‘bad-boy’ (Robinson, Jeannin, Zebrowski). Although if he turns out to be a John Durnin, then who cares? Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers once said of the Italians “As long as the manager wins the title it doesn’t matter if he’s caught sniffing cocaine out of the arsehole of a whore” which is kind of how I feel about Guy. One of the benefits of the loan system is that if he does make us successful, its because we’re a great club – if not, he’s from Colchester.
I wonder whether the signing of Jake Cole suggest that cracks in Billy Turley have started to show. Certainly Turley had is eccentric moments last season, although in the main he was excellent. The length of Cole’s signing suggests that Turley’s injury may be worse than originally perceived. Although goalkeepers are able to play into their forties, you have to question whether an injury that keeps him out for a total of five months throughout the summer and first two months of the new season may actually signal the beginning of the end.
Friendlies are horrible; if they’re meaningless then why do all teams play them? Fitness is one obvious reason; which is why Matt Day should expect to play a lot this summer. How do you manage to be a professional footballer and put on (as rumoured) a stone in weight during the close season? Especially shortly after being publicly told that he was on his way out of the club if he didn’t change his attitude. How stupid is Matt Day? Or is this why we love him so?
The other reason for friendlies is an opportunity to walk through some patterns of play – which is why James Constable’s winning goal against Oxford City is encouraging. At least he and the ball were in the right place at the right time to score.
Most of the week was taken up with the flurry of signings 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 although none of them are actually ours. I’m not sure of the ins and outs of the loan system. It seems we pay the salary and get a decent player – but we don’t get to keep them. I’m not comfortable with this idea because it seems to dilute the club’s identity (e.g. its best players aren’t really its players at all). On the other hand, I’ve never professed to being totally au fait with modern football and - like people using lower-case text message language in work emails – perhaps it’s the way things are done nowadays. It is, I suppose, a short term investment in a long term future.
Certainly Lewis Haldane and James Constable seem to have the backing from the fans of their parent clubs, which is a good sign. Jamie Guy, on the other hand, appears to be yet another ‘bad-boy’ (Robinson, Jeannin, Zebrowski). Although if he turns out to be a John Durnin, then who cares? Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers once said of the Italians “As long as the manager wins the title it doesn’t matter if he’s caught sniffing cocaine out of the arsehole of a whore” which is kind of how I feel about Guy. One of the benefits of the loan system is that if he does make us successful, its because we’re a great club – if not, he’s from Colchester.
I wonder whether the signing of Jake Cole suggest that cracks in Billy Turley have started to show. Certainly Turley had is eccentric moments last season, although in the main he was excellent. The length of Cole’s signing suggests that Turley’s injury may be worse than originally perceived. Although goalkeepers are able to play into their forties, you have to question whether an injury that keeps him out for a total of five months throughout the summer and first two months of the new season may actually signal the beginning of the end.
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