The Dark Time Begins

Football is as good as over. There are a couple of European Nations Cup qualifiers in the next ten days but that's it for a few weeks. Next season has already begun: I’ve already renewed my season ticket. Not surprisingly, it cost more than last season but I'm not going to moan about it.

Anyway, here are some round ball loose ends.

The last places in the Premier League, Championship and League Two were decided over the Bank Holiday weekend. Derby, Blackpool and Br*stol R*vers went up and Madame Zaza decided to place a bet on the Gas to win. It came in. I’m still not sure about how I feel about that but it does mean that I have some extra cash to make bad decisions with next season ;-)

What a dilemma. If they lose, I'm happy. If they win, I get a tenner.

Nottingham Forest weren’t among the play off finalists though, having been memorably destroyed over two legs by Yeovil in the semis. I’m still slightly incredulous that Forest blew such a big lead (five points in December), but I do remember talking about their frailty at work.Oddly enough, looking back to April 7^th, the play off teams are in the wrong order but the top six was pretty much how it finished. Oh the benefit of hindsight.

I said ‘promotion before the last game of the season must be our aim’ but it didn’t quite work out that way; well it almost did. The three game sequence (Swansea, Forest and Yeovil) that I tagged as being vital to the overall outcome of the season ended in a win and two draws, but looking back to the rather ridiculous set of results at Christmas, it now seems pretty obvious that all those draws probably cost us a shot at the championship. Ah well.

I supported AC Milan against Liverpool in the Champions League final - to the extent of buying a Milan jersey - and that came out right. This morning I’ve been reading about how their fans are the worst in Europe, but I’m not getting into that debate.

Footage from ESPN Deportes (check out the ticker...)

‘Middlesbrough won’t win the FA Cup’ – they didn’t. Chelsea did in a rubbish final.

JPT final: was in Cardiff that weekend for Anna and Andy's wedding, woken up by Gasheads singing their stupid bloody song about Irene (great) and went downstairs to be confronted with loads of Donnie Rovers fans. Andy had been out for a walk and had run into some blokes he’d been to school with.

Unresolved: despite saying that I never wanted to be stuck at Southampton station again, we play them next season. Also pretty weird that we hadn’t played Coventry City for donkey’s years then we have them at home and away next season in the league for the first time in something like 27 years.

Annoying: all the James Brown videos I posted after his death at Christmas are no longer on YouTube. Here's one that still is!

But finally for this season: I've published slide shows for other successful teams in this blog, so it only seems appropriate that ours is here. Very difficult not to get emotional about it; next posts will be dealing with 2007/2008 might bring, as well as a very bizarre fantasy baseball situation (I'm top!?!) and an introduction to the world of Playmaker Football.