15/5/2007

I'm sorry about last week's gaffer's rant. I wasn't there for the game myself, I went to watch the rugby league up in Cardiff and I'm still awaiting doll bum. Rob's reports from last week. When I recieve these I will update the website straight away.

Ok, so we won, we gained 3 points but lets draw a line under that performance, because lets face it, it was piss poor! The message simply is, must do better. If we continue to perform like that we deserve to be relegated, however we tend to pick up points in our worst performances. We had no control of the game or the ball. Our possesion was of poor quality, which had a lot to do with the opposition and the referee's non punishment of their wild stamp tackles. Lee had an uncharacteristic mare in between the sticks, leaving at least 6 soft goals in, which put pressure on the rest of the team. As usual we missed countless chances, there must be someone out there who can teach us how to shoot! Come on, I'm the second top scorer and I couldn't hit a barn door, don't even get me started on Jay and Brown! Sippy, fresh from sending Rhos down with, what I heard was a screamer of an own goal, up there with Morley's spectacular 30 yard wonder own goal (you wonder how and why he did it), managed to perform to his use usual standard, Despite literally having two left feet! He got stuck into Mean Machine and pestered them all game. Rob picked up his usual handful of goals that kept us going, Morley produced a moment of magic at a key moment in the game and everyone else were solid. Individual performances may have been there, but as a team we were disjointed. We played like we'd never played together before. Next week we have team Samson, who have been getting shocking results but will fancy their chances against us, as we are only one place ahead of them in the table. Let's use this game as a chance to try and get our goal difference back into positive number. I say that, we will probably make it difficult for ourselves and only win by one goal again. I however want a rugby score win and a clean sheet. If we don't achieve both of those goals, then I feel that we will have let ourselves and the supporters down, again.
Rob was not happy with Sippy getting man of the match award again this week.I do see his point after Sippy declared with 10 minutes to go that the whole team is crap and we didn't want to play anymore, only to change his mind when we started winning. But the referee felt he was our best player and we'll have to respect the referee's decision.
Sippy was even greedy enough to grab dick of the day at the same time, with what could be the single stupidest thing that has happend this season. It could even gain him dick of the season all in one go.
Credit to our boys, they didn't bite despite their best, but still feeble attempts to wind us up. "Oh mate, your ugly!" is hardly a scathing comment that is going to make any of the boys lash out, but they kept coming and culminated with "Try that again and I'll knock you out!" to which Sippy replied "He's a hell of a boy isn't he?" Lets be fair, they were hardly the best looking bunch of players we've come up against and most of them had to be around 16. They played as dirty as they could, getting away with all sorts of dirty challenges, but if you gave them a slight nudge in the back or a little ankle bite they didn't like it at all. They could give it out, but they couldn't take it back, which to mind is a cowardly attitude.
Lets start performing now boys. We need 3 wins out 4 if we want to stay up, which we are more than capable of achieveing, however it won't be easy. We won't be able to stumble through those games to gain the wins. Soccer Ets have secured a number of upsets lately and have flown up the table, Partizan DVLA hammered us last time and we all know how good Deportivo are. If we want to stay in this division, (personally I'd rather go back to Leisure Leagues) we have to play out of our skins for the rest of the season instead of being the Jekyll and Hyde team that we've always been.If I was a betting man, after looking at the standings and the remaining fixtures, I'd put my money on Mean Machine to go down, as they are only 2 points ahead of us and 3 of their last 4 games are against the top 3 teams. Any team from 3rd downwards can get relegated, although Soccer Ets are unbeaten since they lost 8-7 to us 6 weeks ago.

2/5/2007

I must start by thanking the boys for their superb effort on sunday. You all showed heart in a very gutsy display which we deserved to win. I was proud to play for White Riot for the first time in about a year and I'm gutted that we were robbed by the an absolutely apalling ref. I hate to blame ref's because I know hard it can be, but this can didnt have a clue what he was doing, he didn't know the rules. There's no excuse, football is such an a simple game that even Sippy and lee can play it! I must make a special mention for Morley aho was absolutely outstanding in his first game back from injury. In fact that was his best ever performance for White Riot, he tracked back, read the game well, defended solidly and even grabbed a goal while he was at it. If he can keep that level of performance up, week in, week out, then I would consider him in the same bracket as myself, Rob and Sippy. I dunno how you learned to play football like that while you were injured but I hope everyone starts going to that football school when they get injured because the difference is remarkable. Stephen Brown has even started to gain some respect after a solid performance on the back of a number of nightmare matches and I hope that he can take his game to the next level or go to Morley's amazing football academy. I know Rob was dreading Morley's return but he's certainly proved him wrong.
I don't think any of us will forget Sippy's aweful effort in what i think was more of an attempted ankle tap than a tackle, crawling down the pitch after the man, it was hilarious. It's also strange to note that the man of the match and dick of the day from last week have swapped awards for this week. I'm sure they are just attention seekers and are trying to hog the headlines. It was great to see Jay back after a 2 week absence and his passion was eveident in the way it came throughto the team and how he got the boys focussed before kick off, using his world renowned coaching skills.
It's all well and good being happy with our performance, but at the end of the day, we still lost and we are still bottom of the league, which is a disgrace. An embarassment even. We should use last weekends game to set a minimum standard benchmark, because that's how good we should be and how good we all know we are. Ad individuals we are the best team in the league but it hasn't clicked on the pitch yet for us. It is up to us now to put it right on the field. All this game has done now is gain us some respect in the league, but nothing more. The lepers were a very good technical team and kept us on our toes all game. They were by far the best team we have come accross up in Play leagues. Had we played like this last week we would have hammered the poor team that we got hammered by. It is now up to you boys who are playing next sunday to start getting us to climb back up the table, as I won't be there as I'm going to watch the Super League games in the Millenium Stadium. I know you are good enough to win and frankly I expect you to win. Anything other than a win is just letting yourself down and the team. Lets start winning for each other and make yourselves proud to be White Riot players!

23/4/2007

What can I say about yesterdays game that we don't already know? We lost to a very poor team. No excuses. They barely even touched the ball in the first 10 minutes as we comprehensively out played them, then it all went wrong. You only had to look around the dressing room to see the dissapointment on SOME of the boys faces. That just summed it up for me. Some of us put our bodies on the line and sweat blood and tears while others just wanted to have some fun while playing football. You can see the difference between the same player on the pitch, you can tell who desperately wants the win and who couldn't care less! I know it's a team game and you win together and lose together, but it seems as if there is a division within the team between winners and people who couldn't care less. The winners are carrying the team and if it wasn't for them, the scoreline would be an embarassment every week, they deserve better than that. If everyone is available next Sunday, there will be changes, there are going to be boys coming back who want to play and want to prove what they can do. Hopefully those missing out will be gutted and will fight to get back in the team and gain that mentality. At the moment some of the boys have gone soft. I have to thank Lee again for another great performance, if it wasn't for him, the scoreline could have been very ugly and there would have been riots in the changing room. We are now ebarassingly bottom of the league after Soccer Ets somehow beat Deportivo, this is simply not good enough, we've got the best players in the league. If we go down its up there with Leeds getting relegated from the Premiership, it's something that should never happen. There were a number of times poor communication led to goals being conceded, not least when the man went between Rob and Sippy. They both looked at each other while Partizan raced forward in support, leaving Lee stranded 3 on 1. Rob explained afterwards he thought he'd got the ball and when he looked down he saw a white round thing, so he tried to stride on with the ball only to notice that it was the centre circle and by the time he'd realised, we were another goal down.

16/4/2007

I hope sunday's game comes as a wake up call for the team as it only goes to highlights the deficiencies in our game that I have highlighted for the past 3 weeks. When we were winning it was rubbished because we were winning, however tonight we were found out, big time. They were stronger, faster and more intelligent than us in everything they did. They wanted it more than us. At the moment there seems to be a lack of hunger in the team and a lack of confidence. The senior players in the team (I don't mean as in oldest), seem to be carrying others who are seriously underperforming and who don't look they are trying. It's only a small pitch and with only 5 players, if you don't work hard, you will be a liability to your team. There's no room to hide, you have to step up and give everything for the team. Play like a man, not a boy. Play for the jersey and earn the respect of your team mates. At the oment there are players who'se performances don't warrant any respect from their team mates and as a team, our performances don't warrant the respect of the opposition. We have a pretty big squad and soon there will be a demand for places as players will be coming back into the selection equation. This means you have to earn the right to play, as if this current form continues, there will be changes! There is no pussyfooting around anymore, this team has become a soft touch and there is a lack of mental toughness which means players go missing when the going gets tough. I want winners playing for White Riot, not wimps. If we continue to play to this piss poor standard, we deserve to get relegated. If you are only playing for fun, then go back to the park, because this isn't what this team is about.
The second half performance did give me some heart however. We were competitive and showed glimpses of our old Leisure Leagues form. We have allowed ourselves to drop to the poor level of play we are coming up against every week at PlayFootball.
I am glad to see the Dick of the Day award getting off the ground, with everyone understanding that it is awarded for the single stupidest moment of the game by a given player. I'm sure this will gather momentum in the coming weeks and drive players to play better in order to avoid the award.

12/4/2007

Well it's due for a comeback isn't it. After 9 months away, the gaffer's baby is reborn! I'm sorry it's been so long but you can't help technical issues can you?Strictly speaking Rob should be writing this now, but lets face it, he's not the most articulate person on the team and gaffer's rant would probably read....Everyone else bar me is effing sh1t! I should join a team of players who have learned how to kick a ball etc....So I thought I'd better stick to writing it for now.
Anyway to the game, despite the fact that the ref can't count, I thought I was going crazy when i said the scoreline was 11-8 and not 8-7 as the referee claimed and the result which went down on paper, but afterwards it was confirmed that between myself, Rob and Pasky we had scored 11 goals, so I can count. I'd have to look to study another degree if I couldn't count. Yes we won and yes it was three points, but I have never seen such an inept White Riot performance in my life! Not taking anything away from the opposition, who deserved a first win of the season against us. I must admit, pulling both you quads and both hamstrings doesn't make life easy and I'm sure Sippy would add that his broken nose didnt help either, but we looked like we had forgotten how to play football. No movement, shoddy aimless passing. The only thing that won the game for us, apart from me bailing you out for the second week running with a spectacular wonder goal...best White Riot have ever seen :-p, was using the top two inches. Sneaking goals that we shouldn't have had, like redirecting poor pass backs by the opposition into their own net. We showed that we have the know how to win but we only use it for the last five minutes of a game. Three weeks running we have led for most of the match to leave the opposition straight back into the game. Never has it been because they were better than us for a period of play, but because we play stupid football. We shouldn't take our foot off the gass when 5-0 up, we should go for the kill, make it 10-0, 20-0. Make teams regret playing White Riot. As a team we are getting lazy and we need to change that.
We have got league leaders Deportivo on sunday and we know we have got the ability to beat them and they are probably the only team in this league that currently respect us for how good we are/should be. They consider us their bogey side and they are always great games between the two sides. Lets keep that going and gain the respect of the rest of the league. Lets use the top two inches again and play with our heart on our sleeves. Make it three out three. Lets see the Dream Team game as the real start to our season after the embarassment of the first three games.
On a lighter note, some of you may have noticed a new statistics section to the website. This is to record all the important facts about White Riot, like man of the match, top goal scorer and most importantly dick of the day. This will really take off next sunday, where the ref or the opposition will pick the player they think was the stand out performer on the pitch for the team. The players then get to chose dick of the day and it doesn't necessarily have to be about something that happend on the pitch. I have awarded the first man of the match to myself after the Dream team game and the second to the only player who actually played well on sunday and that was Lee.This gives everyone an extra incentive to play well, if not to get man of the match then to avoid dick of the day! The scoring chart isn't right at the moment and this will be sorted following sundays game v Deportivo. Hopefully we can add a fair few more goals to the list after that game.

 

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