Yid's Army

Football is a game, a game I want to win- or so a friend once told me, it was something along those lines anyway.

Being a game, though, football very rarely has anything to do with race; of course there is the incident involving England at the Bernabeu, or Mario Balotelli at Chievo and the underlying racism that surrounds black managers especially in the English game and many other stories of racism appearing in football but that doesn't make football about race. Football also rarely has anything to do with religion, of course there is the 4 times or more a season that Rangers play Celtic but that would be about it.

Being Jewish I can also, quite honestly, tell you that football rarely has anything to do with Jews. There is the odd famous professional Jewish footballer; Yossi Benayoun, Tal Ben Haim, Eyal Berkovic and Avram Grant to name but a few (yes they all happen to also be Israeli), there is the wonderful MJSL but that's about it for us Jews.... oh and Spurs!


The good old 'Yid Army' ey! Named so because lot's of Jews support them- so that'll be Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal as well then, and that's just for starters.

Oh, suddenly thought of what Jews are known for when it comes to football. It's not heading the ball. We close our eyes and shy away from the ball, we also can't tackle or play in particularly physical matches.

And so last night Sporting JLGB (remember them?) played their first pre-season friendly of the summer, against a non-Jewish team or just a team. This was no charity peace match or any rubbish, this was a competitive friendly between two sides getting ready for the excitement of a Sunday League campaign, and boy was it a match!

The match started with Britain's Protection on the offensive but Sporting's defence stood strong and gave as good as they got, new signing Blake Englander probably giving better. But Sporting, looking awesome in their new pink kits, struggled to get the ball under control in the opposition half and thus it kept coming back at a well organised Sporting defence. The defending was resolute and tough but it was eventually broken, a left foot shot from the edge of the area beating the keeper.

It was 2-0 before half time, another shot from the edge of the area, this time brilliantly saved, would fall inside the 6 yard box for the Protection's number 9 to slot home. At half time Sporting marched off anything but dejected, they were well in this game and playing well, and it got better.

The 2nd half was an even scrappier, more aggressive affair from both sides, and with plenty of subs being made it was now JLGB on top. Rafi Bloom was finding himself in more and more space upfront and was starting to show the kind of form that left defenders fearful of him in his Westdene days. The partnership upfront between Bloom and Uri Steinberg looked strong, and with Englander and Saul Davies forming a rock at the back, Sporting will go into their season with a solid base through the middle of the team.

Unusually in a friendly there was a red card brandished as the ref had enough of the foul and abusive language he was receiving from Protection's centre back. The away side were all getting fed up of the ref as they constantly thought they were wrongly being punished but the man in black didn't seem to be doing too much wrong. With time ticking away it seemed that Sporting would not get the goal that they deserved, until, with 10 minutes to go, Bloom got the ball just outside the area, danced his way past two defenders and into the 'box' only to be brought down, he brushed himself off and buried the ball in the top corner from the penalty spot.

The ref blew for full time and everyone had enjoyed the run out, from both sides. Hands were shook and pleasantries swapped as the two sides had taken part in a highly competitive match that had ended with a very fair scoreline, a real reflection of the match.

Religion very rarely comes into football, and as Sporting JLGB and Britain's Protection walked off the pitch, it still didn't.


P.S- Apparently Spurs got into the group stages of the Champions League tonight and I fooled you all into thinking that's what this post was about, oh well!

Weather or Not

Bloody Manchester!

Don't get me wrong, I do love this city (yes honestly), but it's the weather- it's all over the bleeding place.

I get up this morning at half 7 and the weather, though not great, was certainly not horrendous. Arrive at work at 10 with no sign of rain despite the odd cloud, by noon the rain was bouncing off the pavement with much aggression. Of course it wouldn't stop there, oh no, by half 1 the sun was out and it seemed to be heading towards a pleasant afternoon, that was of course before it started chucking it down with rain again at 3. It's just ridiculous.

But of course I digress, as usual, for this is not Sidler on Weather, as exciting a blog as that would be.

The weather in Manchester is such that they say you can get four seasons in just one day and that seems to mirror football in the region, it seems we've had at least two seasons in just one footballing weekend.

First up was the blue team of Manchester. City, who have spent upwards of 100 million pounds on players this season, took on their fourth place rivals of last year Spurs. City were absolutely rained upon. Tottenham's soon to be Champions League players were well onto of their much richer rivals and it seemed that the Mancunians multi-million pound squad were struggling to gel.

Out of the melee of shots that was being rained down on them City found a very useful umbrella. Of course it would be that out of all of the mass amounts the 'Citizens' have spent in the last two years it would be a man who cost them a maximum of £1.5 million before the 'Citeh' era who would prove to be their most valuable asset on the opening weekend of the season and most likely the rest of the season.

City of course are hoping to hail (get it) in a new era, and they will be doing so now without Craig Bellamy and Stephen Ireland, the latter seemingly on his way to Aston Villa as part of the deal to take James Milner to Eastlands. But, if their opening day fixture is anything to go by, City's main issue will be getting their team to gel quickly and with two more players coming in since the weekend Roberto Mancini has a big job on his hands.

Over at Old Trafford the sun was shining, despite the driving rain, especially on the evergreens in red. The United of Manchester took on their Newcastle counterparts as they began their quest to wrestle the league title back off the hands of Chelsea and they looked good in their match against the newly promoted Magpies. Chelsea had shone on their season debut against another promoted side, West Brom, putting 6 past the team from the Midlands and United needed to respond with an emphatic victory of their own, and they got it.

There was lots to talk about from the 3-0 win, from Joey Barton's 'moustache' to Dimitar Berbatov's impression of a player playing to his potential. But there was one man who stole the headlines and rightly so. There's snow way one could fail to mention Paul Scholes. He was brilliant. So good, in fact, that his Spanish midfield compatriots, Xavi and Iniesta, would have been watching in wonder and amazement. Near everything that came off Scholes' boot flew to its designated place on the pitch. His passing was immaculate and the most incredible thing was the sheer variety of passes; lofted, drilled, short, long, over the top, through the middle. The man was brilliant, no more so than when he set up Ryan Giggs, his forever partner in crime, for the 3rd goal, a goal which stretched Giggs' record of scoring in every season of the Premier League, a record which may well stop sooner rather than later.

Of course the season is only one week old and we cannot take too much from the first week of the season but we at least know that Chelsea look every bit the favourites they ought to be, City, despite their spending, cannot hope to achieve instant success and United will one day be much the worse for not being able to call on Scholes and Giggs. I guess we knew all this already, all which proves I really haven't the foggiest