Add comment October 30th, 2007 The Right Result
Archive for October, 2007
HOW DOES ‘FEVER PITCH’ STACK UP?
I don’t read much. Only two books – both football – from start to finish in one sitting since ‘Janet and John’ at Infants’ School.
Last year, the biography of top non-league manager Geoff Chapple lasted from tea-time till Newsnight. Not because it was compelling, just short. At 7,000 words, more pamphlet than proper book. Author Clive Youlton did excellently within that limit. But given that Chapple managed my team, Kingstonian, and that I knew a number of the book’s protagonists, it simply wasn’t enough.
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LIVERPOOL vs ARSENAL - All square at Anfield
Saturday 27th October 2007
Most neutral observers agreed that a draw was the fair outcome of the compelling contest between Liverpool and Arsenal.
That’s the result we agree with but with each team having a goal added for their efforts.
Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher was magnificent at the heart of the home defence but, once again, his increasing habit of holding attackers around their shoulders should have been penalised with a penalty when he grappled with Cesc Fabregas in the closing stages of the game.
Already with a goal advantage, Liverpool should also have been awarded a pen in the 28th minute when Bakary Sagna handled during the melee that preceded Manuel Almunia making a brilliant save to deny Steven Gerrard a second goal.
The Right Result is a 2-2 draw.
3 comments October 29th, 2007 The Right Result
BOLTON WANDERERS vs ASTON VILLA - Mega’s big deal
Saturday 27th October 2007
Bolton Wanderers manager Gary Megson has received a mixed reception following his appointment this week but the cheers should have been ringing around the Reebok after his debut game.
The new boss wasn’t best pleased with ref Martin Atkinson after he, correctly, over-ruled his assistant in the build-up to Aston Villa’s equaliser.
However, his ire should be directed at the Yorkshire official from a different direction.
Bolton should have been awarded an early penalty when Villa defender Wilfred Bouma – with his hand at head height and making a definite movement towards the ball – committed a handball offence in the area.
The Right Result is a 2-1 win for Bolton Wanderers.
Add comment October 29th, 2007 The Right Result
READING vs NEWCASTLE UNITED - Michael makes a point
Saturday 27th October 2007
Newcastle United boss Sam Allardyce has admitted that his team’s away form is a huge concern although we think it’s not quite as bad as he fears.
The Toon have struggled on their travels since the opening day win at Bolton but they should have come away from Reading with some reward.
With the score at nil – nil, in Big Sam’s word’s, Michael Owen was ’cleaned out’ by Royals keeper Marcus Hahnemann as the England striker threatened the home goal.
The resultant penalty would have given United a share of the spoils.
The Right Result is a 2-2 draw.
Add comment October 29th, 2007 The Right Result
WHEN THE (SIR) CHIPS (KESWICKS) ARE (LOCKED) DOWN
“This kills any talk of takeover” said managing director Keith Edelman at Arsenal’s Annual General Meeting.
He was referring to the ‘lockdown’ agreement whereby shareholders on Arsenal’s board have pledged to sell their 45.45% stake to no-one but themselves until 2012. ‘Lockdown’ is a new word to football and finance. The dictionary definition: “confining prisoners to cells, typically to regain control after a riot” was probably what Arsenal’s Old Etonian chairman Peter Hill-Wood had in mind for ex-vice-chairman David Dein, who started Arsenal’s long-running ownership struggle…
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Add comment October 22nd, 2007 The Right Result
MANCHESTER CITY vs BIRMINGHAM CITY - Kelly’s arm saves Blues
Saturday 20th October 2007
Steve Bruce believed a ‘blatant foul’ had been committed in the build-up to the goal that keeps Manchester City at the top of the Right Result table – but we’ve got bad news for the Birmingham City boss.
TV replays later showed that the alleged game-changing decision was a correct call from ref Mike Dean.
Michael Johnson got his foot to the ball first as he challenged Fabrice Muamba and the Blues midfielder only fell because he lost his footing.
The visitors should, in fact, have suffered a heavier defeat.
Although it wasn’t immediately obvious, shortly before City did score, somehow Stephen Kelly managed to block Vedran Corluka’s shot and divert the ball over the bar.
Unfortunately, whilst almost laid on the floor, the remarkable diversion was caused by the shot hitting his arm so a penalty should have resulted.
The Right Result is a 2-0 win for Manchester City.
Add comment October 22nd, 2007 The Right Result
EVERTON vs LIVERPOOL - Toffees Clattered
Saturday 20th October 2007
As usual the Merseyside derby was packed with drama and controversy and, on this occasion, all the major decisions appeared to go against the blue half of the city.
New England defender Joleon Lescott will feel particularly hard done by.
With the game evenly poised in the second–half, ref Mark Clattenburg turned down his penalty appeal when he tangled in the area with Steve Finnan.
If that decision remained dubious, there was little or no doubt about the incident in the last seconds of the game when Lescott was wrestled to the ground by a guilty-looking Jamie Carragher in front of the Gwladys Street goal.
Unfortunately for Everton, just about the only doubt that remained was in the mind of the Tyne & Wear whistler and the seemingly certain penalty wasn’t given.
To make matters worse, moments earlier, Liverpool’s match-winning spot-kick was converted by Dirk Kuyt. How he remained on the pitch after an earlier airborne tackle on Phil Neville remains a mystery.
The Right Result is a 2-2 draw.
33 comments October 22nd, 2007 The Right Result
BLACKBURN ROVERS vs READING - Marriner in a corner
Saturday 20th October 2007
Blackburn Rovers enjoyed a convincing win against Reading at Ewood Park, but it would have been even more convincing if referee Andre Marriner had more confidence in his assistant.
As Rovers’ Brett Emerton and Royals’ Brynjar Gunnarsson battled for possession near the corner flag, the linesman – stationed inches away – correctly flagged for a goal-kick when the ball went out of play.
However, the distant ref erroneously signalled for the corner that directly led to Kevin Doyle and Reading’s second goal.
The Right Result is a 4-1 win for Blackburn Rovers.
Add comment October 22nd, 2007 The Right Result
MY WEMBLEY WAYS
Between June 1984 and October 1991, I went to all but five of England’s twenty-nine home games. Yet, to quote old-time comic Harry Worth: “I don’t know why but there it is.”
I was no England fan even then. Very much a wearer of the green when an insipid Republic of Ireland side watched from a distance as Gary Lineker opened his England account in 1 BC (before Charlton). Likewise later that year when Northern Ireland were England’s opposition.
And the green-shirted Germans got my – covert – support during the Italia ’90 semi-final, as I sat among the ill-fitting England shirts (mediums on XXL bodies), all “two World Wars and one World Cup.” The irony here being that I’d probably been to more England games than any of them – maybe even the rest of them put together – including all bar one of that very tournament’s Wembley qualifiers.
So maybe England were just my best option of seeing Wembley, a place you always wanted to go to until you got there. My clubs offered little hope. Main team Kingstonian had never ventured beyond the FA Trophy’s qualifying rounds. I wasn’t regular enough at Spurs to get a sniff of Wembley tickets. While Celtic’s only route was European finals. And their mid-80s sides would have struggled to make a Glasgow Cup final.
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Add comment October 15th, 2007 The Right Result
THE NON-LEAGUE PEOPLE’S FRONTS
To many, the split in the national non-league press is one notch below arguments about how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin. Or the most popular peoples’ front in Judea. The emergence of Non-League Today (NLT) as a rival to the seven-year-old Non-League Paper (NLP) has come from internecine strife not supply-and-demand. And it could scarcely have come at a worse time, as the Blue Square (ex-Conference) League’s Setanta TV deal puts the non-league game in the spotlight as never before. Whether the benefits of increased competition will overcome this turmoil remains to be seen.
The split has been coming, though. The NLP has had a fraught financial history, having taken chapters out of the Peter Ridsdale book of economics, with more owners than Milan Mandaric has had managers. Former Express head of sport David Emery set up the NLP in 2000, after his plans for incorporating a non-league section into the Sport First publication covering professional football were rejected. But despite the NLP’s early success, with sales approaching 50,000, its parent company Non-League Media went into administration in June 2002, £272,000 having fallen down the back of a (for reasons of legal dispute) unidentified settee.
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1 comment October 8th, 2007 The Right Result
