Saturday, November 14, 2009

Wales 3 Scotland 0

What a thing to wake up to on a wet Saturday morning.

It gets worse:

"Scotland have not beaten Wales since 1984 and that did not look like altering here as the Scots suffered their fourth successive away defeat - and their fourth road trip on the trot where they have not scored." [BBC Report]

25 years since beating Wales? Frankie were number 1 in the charts with Relax, for christ sake.

What makes it even more depressing is that when you dig out the stats for that Scotland win way back in February 1984, the scorers that day were Davie Cooper and Mo Johnston in a 2-1 win. To have that sort of quality in the team today.

I'm away out to drown my sorrows in a Chinese.

9 comments:

mikeovswinton said...

The only horse I've got in the Wales/Scotland race is that Sammy Ricketts is a Trotter, so I'd cheer for Wales if he was on. But as a pretty much neutral I might be tempted to say that there something spookily karma like going on here. Anfield 78?

Imposs1904 said...

It's pretty small fry karma if that's the case.

Would that be the same Sam Ricketts who was born in Aylesbury? I've noticed that Wales have gone in for a lot of that sort of stuff in recent years.

mikeovswinton said...

Yeah well, he's got a Dragon tattoo on his chest like Joey Jones had. And Scotland would never do that sort of thing, would they? You'll be telling me that half the England cricket team is South African next. Or that Pedro Almunia isn't a cheeky cockerney geezer who might just solve England's rather strange emberasse de pauverte for the No. 1 shirt. (If only they had naturalised Jussi when he moved to Bolton. Or Shay Given for that matter.)Seriously, judging from the highlights I just saw, doesn't look like the Scots are going to be up to beating the Welsh for quite a while to come.

mikeovswinton said...

Is Aylesbury farther from the Welsh border than Shrewsbury is from Hadrains Wall? I rather think not. In fact, didn't Shrewsbury use to play in the Welsh Cup?

Imposs1904 said...

Yep, they all do it and they're all out of order for playing that particular game. I see Fox was playing for Scotland yesterday. (And don't forget that numpty McGeady declaring for the Republic.)

Let's be honest, with a few exceptions - the '70 and '82 World Cups and the '84 European Championship spring immediately to mind - club football will always be better than International football but if we have to go through the whole rigmarole of International football, the players should at least be from their respective countries.

It look like half the Welsh team were born in England. (It turns out that Church is from High Wycombe so maybe the Welsh First Minister should annex Buckinghamshire at the first opportunity?)

TBH, I wouldn't really give that much of a shit about it if it weren't all the nationalist bombastic bullshit that surrounds so much international football today. It's a bad joke.

mikeovswinton said...

Its also a damned nuisance for teams in the top two levels of English football. Even at Bolton we have guys flying all over the world for internationals - Korea, the captain of Jamaica (Bibi Gardner, reggae record producer as well as top footballer). The Oman goalkeeper against Brazil will be a Trotter, Ali al Habsi. He was actually born at Bolton Royal, off Plodder Lane in Franworth. No, he wasn't really. And my comment about Sam Ricketts' dragon tattoo was a joke, tho' he may just have got one to cover himself. Seriously, I'm sure Sir Alex will have something to say about it. With the volume turned up to 12 as per.

Imposs1904 said...

Didn't Vinny Jones get a dragon tattoo when he got called up by Wales? My caffeine addled brain may be playing me tricks but I'm sure that was the case.

International matches irritate me so much because of the international weekends when there's no footie on the telly. The only compensation with internationals is that every two years we got footie during the summer months.

mikeovswinton said...

Over here we get "The League Show" where you can watch games like Brentford-Millwall (which according to the report I read in a paper was a cracker) or Bury-Notts County which saw one of the most bizarre 'almost goals' ever, where an open goal was stopped on the line by water/mud. It'll be on youtube - I think it Nardiello who 'missed'. We also had the Oz-England rugby league. It went to one of the 2 pre-programmed results. You either have (a) total wipeout and disaster or (b) plucky performance by young side presaging possible victory in years to come. We had (b) this year. The pity is that (b) is usually followed by (a). Hope not this time. PS The League Show is probably on BBC Player if you need your fix.

Imposs1904 said...

Unfortunately BBC iPlayer doesn't work for people outside the UK, but I do watch the League Show from time to time.

My problem with that show is that the two main presenters annoy the hell out of me. (I can't be arsed to google their names.) And the bald headed bloke who does the 'from the ground' excerpts come across a bit of a prick, as well.

I don't mind Steve Claridge, though. He's ok.