So after 2010 ended in a slightly depressing way, 2011 began in a slightly happier way. New years eve will live in the memory for all the right reasons. New friends, old friends, alcohol, various coloured clothing for the Rubiks cube theme and all of Denmarks frozen fruit, made for a happy new year. Antons Strawberry Daiquiri making skills do leave a lot to desired, with most of it ending up on the windows, radiators and the floor and not a lot in an actual cup.
After new years, we had a few days of training before we embarked on a road trip to the stockholm area were we would play 4 games (2 at Grand prix, a practice game and a league game) in 5 days, taking in 3 different town. So we arrived in Katrineholm after driving through a few snow storms and a car deciding to fall off the road down a ditch, just in time for our evening practice slot to get the journey out of us. The next day was semi final day against Falkenberg. The game certainly wont make any game of the season DVD's, it was a scrap affair with both teams fair from playing their best volleyball, Falkenberg just about managing to step up slightly and ended up beating us 3-1. The dressing room after the game was filled with a lot of frustration, from my point of view it felt like we tried to hard to put in a good performance, which in a logical sense would mean that we would win. However sports not like that, sometimes you have to learn to win ugly and do the things that matter at the right time to get the result. Scraping tight wins when its 'squeaky bum time' is what wins you titles as proven many times by Manchester united and Chelsea in their pursuit for silverware. Only a few of our guys could hold their heads high after the semi final and it was mostly the guys that came in from the bench. So the next day we had a bronze medal game and not the gold medal game we had been hoping for. The bronze game was against Tierp, whom we would face in a few days time in the league so the result would be important psychologicaly. The game itself wasnt a classic, it was played in a smaller hall, the atmosphere was dead and it felt more like a practice game, with both teams trying a few things out, whilst trying not to lose, we ended up losing 3-2 and with it our 4th defeat in a row. After the game the feeling in the dressing room wasnt great, the older players were frustrated that we had lost our winning touch, but most of us had been through spells like this. The rookies on our team i think blamed themselves to much and this was a new thing to them, especially after we had started the season so strongly, mentally they were not used to a run of bad defeats and how to get out of it. After our game, we watched the EVS girls walk there way to another GP title and then Falkenberg upset the odds and beat Sollentuna easily 3-0. We then stayed in Katrineholm over night before making the trip across to Stockholm, we played Sollentuna in a practice game on the friday, then on the saturday we did some touristy stuff and walked around the city. Stockholm was nice, although I swear if you lit a match in the posh shopping centre we went in half the people would melt. After that we traveled north up to Tierp, after an early morning practice and a few hours sleep it was game time and a chance to end our run of 4 straight defeats and try to reclaim 2nd place. Easier said than done. We came under constant pressure from the service line, so it was hard for me and joe to get in to the game in an attack sense, and it seemed only one of our outsides could kill the ball. We lost 3-1, the only highlight for me was getting 7 blocks, 5 of them on the same guy. So the 7 hour trip home to cap off the 6 day road trip wasnt exactly what i would call fun.
After a day off we re-grouped, talked a few things over, and prepared for our first home game of 2011 against rivals Hylte. We went out with the mentality of win at what ever cost i.e if it comes to it win ugly. After half a set we seemed to find our rhythm and before long we had wrapped up a convincing 3-0 win and I won 2 new towels for getting MVP. After the game we received some news that our Physio and ex-Orkelljunga outside hitter had signed with the club to play again as our libero, thus giving us a more experienced player in a position the club has struggled with over the past few years. Buoyed by this news and on the back of win, we headed in to a home show down with Falkenberg with the winner taken over 2nd spot. THe build up was all going fine until friday practice, when i was running backwards after a ball and my ankle gave way. Friday night was spent on crutches, saturday spent lying on the sofa with my foot in a bag of ice. Sunday came around and I wanted to play, i took painkillers and got tapped up, but after a set and a bit i wasnt feeling comfortable and that was my game over. The game itself was a bit strange, Falkenberg seemed to be going through the motions and we couldnt find an extra gear and found ourselves 2-0 down, then suddenly things started to click, the confidence was back amongst everyone and we pulled out our 3rd 3-2 win of the season (all 3 after being 0-2 down). We closed out January with two 3-0 wins against the 2 bottom teams. We now are 8 points from 1st place and 2 points clear of 3rd as the race for play off seedings enter the last month. We have 4 games left and 3 of them on the road, all in difficult place to play.
Moving away from the volleyball and I still cant get my head around Liverpool paying £35 million for Andy Carroll. There is no way in hell he is worth more than David Villa who is arguably the best striker in the world at the moment. There is also no way is worth more than Nedved, Vieri (in his prime) and Buffon who are some of the best players of the generation. My only guess is that who ever made the call to bid for him put the decimal point in the wrong place and actually wanted to bid £3.5 million, either that or Liverpool thought it was a game of Football Manager and accidentally clicked 'make offer' after they got Newcastles response to their enquiry. Another thing, the audacity of Newcastle to knock back the 1st offer was something and to raise the price, but for Liverpool to agree to the raise was something of pure stupidity.
Those calling for Delneri to go after the Udinese game, move a long, give the man some time to build his squad and his system. Think Sir Alex and Wenger (to a certain degree) are good examples of what happens when you give a manager more then 6 months to put together a half decent team.
Think thats about it, cant remember any one doing anything that stupid this month, havent seen the girls so cant say anything about them, Joe has behaved, Lennie will get the car stuck in snow every 5 minutes, Sebbe needs a phone stapled to his face so he doesnt lose another one.
great tackle
average ;)
