So October came and went and it went pretty quick. Thankfully for us it was a good month, as Novemeber rolls in, we sit top of the league with a perfect 3-0 record, and are 2 points ahead of second place. Obviously nothing is decided in the first month of the season, but it is good for confidence to have gotten off to a good start, especially in comparison to the start we had last season.
After me and Joe had been given the freedom of Hylte to hit and score all day in the middle, it was on to our home opener agaist Tierp, who the previous week had beaten the defending champions. So it was set to be a good game, in front of a good crowd 400+. Unfourtantly for Joe and myself the Tierp game plan was to shut us down, so we didnt get a lot of ball, but it enabled our outside's to score for fun and we ran out comfortable winners 3-0, a good win and more importantly a good win infront of the home crowd. This past Friday we made the short trip up to Falkenberg (via Engelholm, if you were in the car with Joe). Falkenberg have been one of the best teams in Sweden for the past 5 years or so, and they beat us 3 out of 3 times we played them last season. So we prepared for a difficult game, we won the first set, mainly because they couldnt keep out of the net, the second set they bombed us from the service line and we had no answer, after a bit of 'hair dryer' treatmeant fergie style from our coach we closed out the 3rd set to win after battling back from a few points down mid-set, the 4th set we had more control and wrapped up the set to win the game, although match point we won on a yellow card, which was slightly bizarre, I have never experienced this as a player or watching a game.
So onwards to November, we have a local derby at home, a trip to the stockholm area, a trip to uppsala for swedish cup final fours and the chance to win the first silverwear of the season and we close the month out with a visit from the volleyball high school. Hopefully we will carry on our positive start to the season.
Thankfully the Rooney saga has been put to bed, although he has a lot of making up to do when he returns. The way he went about everything was wrong although i think his so called 'advisors' didnt help the situation. Nani's goal was comical, it was harsh on Spurs, but Gomes must take some of the blame, the 1st thing you learn in any sport is play to the whistle, maybe they teach something else in Brazil.
Other highlights, Zlatan and milan losing to Juve in the san siro and Alessandro Del Piero scoring his 179th serie A goal to become Juve's top serie A goal scorer.
A previously mentioned non-swedish team mate taking a shot of sambuca after it had been set on fire and burning his lips on the glass. He now has blistered lips.
Whilst sat in the resturant at the Ice hockey arena eating lunch, the polish EVS girl looks at the ice rink and ask's if the big white thing is ice.
a few random videos
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Monday, 18 October 2010
Let the fun begin
So i have been back in Sweden for just under 2 months now, and everything is back in full swing, my dislike of zlatan, my dislike of various swedish foods, and now my dislike of swedish road works. Also back is my poor attempt at speaking and understanding the swedish language although i have learnt a few new words and they are not even rude ones. Any way, the past month or so has seen us in pre-season training, and playing 9 pre-season games, including 5 in one weekend at the Hylte tournament. The highlight of the trip to Hylte was on the way back, when my american team/room mate, decided to fill up the car at the petrol station, the only problem was that he put diesel in the petrol car. Cue complete melt down on his part, and hysterics on the rest of the teams part. After what seemed 3 days of deciding what to do, we drove on and all seemed well, the car didnt blow up and we made it home, just a bit later than planned. He will never live this down.
So fast forward to yesterday afternoon and 200 days since that disappointing night in Linkoping, we where back to the scene of the diesel crime , and our opening game of the season away at localish rivals Hylte, the team that we knocked out of the play offs last season. They have had a considerable makeover in personal on the court and off it with a new coach coming across from Habo. We knew they would come out all guns blazing in the first set, we talked about before the game, but we didnt really prepare for it on the court and we lost the first set 25-21, onto the 2nd and we had settled into a bit more of a rhythm, and managed to squeeze out the 2nd 27-25, after that we controlled the game and won the next 2 sets with out much danger and a satisfying away win and 3 points to kick off the season. Now on to our home opener next weekend against Tierp who beat the defending champions Linkoping 3-0 in there opener, so it has the potential to be a good battle.
Comparing things to this point last season, I feel the team we have know is a lot more settled, even with the new guy coming in, we have had a good month to get used to each other and get into the grove. We have had some off court drama's in the run up to this season just like last season, but we havent been rattled by it and have just got on with it. The temperament of the squad is a level above last season and there is a good team spirit which makes it a pleasure to play in. That team spirit shone through last weekend when we had a kick off party with our sister club EVS, and we were victorious in the party games, including a dance from our coach that MJ would of been proud of. But know pre-season and party season are over at the main business is off and running.
I watched a lot of the FIVB world championships over the past few weeks, and overall it wasnt a great championships. The system the Italians and fivb put in place was stupid and it basically gave Italy a free pass to the semi-finals and screwed over better nations such as poland and bulgaria. As a result there where teams trying to lose on purpose so they had an easier draw. In the 2nd phase Bulgaria played there bench, so Brazil put out there bench team and used there second opposite as a setter. Bulgaria won 3-0, but got knocked out in the next phase, Brazil went all the way and won the championship. Lots of people are slagging off Brazil, but if a system this bad is put in place then it is open to be abused, and Brazil did it for the best result for themselves. It was also suggested Serbia lost a first round game on purpose and they ended up 3rd in the championship as a result. After the opening week only Russia and Cuba looked like decent teams, but russia bottled it late on, Cuba got to the final but lost to Brazil. Brazil turned it on when it mattered. For cuba this was there first major final with this generation so big game nerves played a part, but now the young guns have experienced it, they could we worth a bet for Olympic Gold in 2012, providing they hold on to this group of players.
In other news, United sort yourself out, Rooney sort your life out, and the Liverpool saga is just to stupid to comment on. Yanks should just stick to their own sport, and leave ours alone. Nice to see Price doing his Halak impression as well, could be another run to the finals hopefully.
So fast forward to yesterday afternoon and 200 days since that disappointing night in Linkoping, we where back to the scene of the diesel crime , and our opening game of the season away at localish rivals Hylte, the team that we knocked out of the play offs last season. They have had a considerable makeover in personal on the court and off it with a new coach coming across from Habo. We knew they would come out all guns blazing in the first set, we talked about before the game, but we didnt really prepare for it on the court and we lost the first set 25-21, onto the 2nd and we had settled into a bit more of a rhythm, and managed to squeeze out the 2nd 27-25, after that we controlled the game and won the next 2 sets with out much danger and a satisfying away win and 3 points to kick off the season. Now on to our home opener next weekend against Tierp who beat the defending champions Linkoping 3-0 in there opener, so it has the potential to be a good battle.
Comparing things to this point last season, I feel the team we have know is a lot more settled, even with the new guy coming in, we have had a good month to get used to each other and get into the grove. We have had some off court drama's in the run up to this season just like last season, but we havent been rattled by it and have just got on with it. The temperament of the squad is a level above last season and there is a good team spirit which makes it a pleasure to play in. That team spirit shone through last weekend when we had a kick off party with our sister club EVS, and we were victorious in the party games, including a dance from our coach that MJ would of been proud of. But know pre-season and party season are over at the main business is off and running.
I watched a lot of the FIVB world championships over the past few weeks, and overall it wasnt a great championships. The system the Italians and fivb put in place was stupid and it basically gave Italy a free pass to the semi-finals and screwed over better nations such as poland and bulgaria. As a result there where teams trying to lose on purpose so they had an easier draw. In the 2nd phase Bulgaria played there bench, so Brazil put out there bench team and used there second opposite as a setter. Bulgaria won 3-0, but got knocked out in the next phase, Brazil went all the way and won the championship. Lots of people are slagging off Brazil, but if a system this bad is put in place then it is open to be abused, and Brazil did it for the best result for themselves. It was also suggested Serbia lost a first round game on purpose and they ended up 3rd in the championship as a result. After the opening week only Russia and Cuba looked like decent teams, but russia bottled it late on, Cuba got to the final but lost to Brazil. Brazil turned it on when it mattered. For cuba this was there first major final with this generation so big game nerves played a part, but now the young guns have experienced it, they could we worth a bet for Olympic Gold in 2012, providing they hold on to this group of players.
In other news, United sort yourself out, Rooney sort your life out, and the Liverpool saga is just to stupid to comment on. Yanks should just stick to their own sport, and leave ours alone. Nice to see Price doing his Halak impression as well, could be another run to the finals hopefully.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Sweden Part 2... a humbling experience
So after a summer of not a lot of sun back in England, I have returned to a surprisingly sunny Sweden. I have been back for just over a week know, after traveling for what seemed an eternity via Bus, Plane, Train and Ferry I finally made it to Helsingborg, which will be my new home until April time. I have upgraded from living in the small town of Orkelljunga to the bigger city of Helsingborg, where there are actual things to do after 5pm. After sleeping on one of my team mates sofa's for a few days, I got the keys to my new apartment that I am sharing with my American team mate. Its a decent apartment and has a dishwasher in so can't complain. So obviously we had to have a house warming party as the weekend just gone is our last free weekend for a month or so. Party was good fun, got to meet/bully/take the piss out of the two new oversea's players that have joined the Engelholm team. Including a wannabe geography teacher from Canada not knowing her US states. Was good to catch up with the other girls that I had become friends with over the past year and find out how their summers had been. After the Friday party, Saturday was a lazy day and Sunday we had been invited to take part in an event organised for children that have cancer or have had cancer.
So on Sunday morning we made the drive to a farm in the south of Sweden. The event its self is run by the guy who owns the farm and this was its 8th time of hosting it. Apart from our team being their, their was Malmo fc who are top of the Swedish football league, rally cars, motorbike display team, a robin hood play, live bands, entertainers, face painting, an orchestra, emergency services and the Swedish airforce. The whole point of the event is to put a smile on the kids face's and let the parents have a good time to. Their was 400 kids and 900 people in total at the event, they had come from Sweden, Poland and Lithuania. The language barrier was a bit tough but we got by and it was good to see all the kids enjoying themselves and getting them involved with volleyball. It was a humbling experience for myself and the rest of the team, and it put a lot of things into perspective and made me realise a lot of every day problems are superficial when you hear about the stories of the kids such as one girl has had to fight cancer twice and she has just turned 11 and another girl who has gone blind at the age of 6 and thankfully we seemed to make a good impression (especially our captain) on her and her family. Am glad that for the 6 or so hours we where their we brought a lot of joy to the bravest kids I have ever met.
So on Sunday morning we made the drive to a farm in the south of Sweden. The event its self is run by the guy who owns the farm and this was its 8th time of hosting it. Apart from our team being their, their was Malmo fc who are top of the Swedish football league, rally cars, motorbike display team, a robin hood play, live bands, entertainers, face painting, an orchestra, emergency services and the Swedish airforce. The whole point of the event is to put a smile on the kids face's and let the parents have a good time to. Their was 400 kids and 900 people in total at the event, they had come from Sweden, Poland and Lithuania. The language barrier was a bit tough but we got by and it was good to see all the kids enjoying themselves and getting them involved with volleyball. It was a humbling experience for myself and the rest of the team, and it put a lot of things into perspective and made me realise a lot of every day problems are superficial when you hear about the stories of the kids such as one girl has had to fight cancer twice and she has just turned 11 and another girl who has gone blind at the age of 6 and thankfully we seemed to make a good impression (especially our captain) on her and her family. Am glad that for the 6 or so hours we where their we brought a lot of joy to the bravest kids I have ever met.
Glädje
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Hello's, Goodbye's and carrying on
Well it has been a while since I blogged, so might as well get back in to the swing of things. It seems an age ago that I left Sweden and finally made it back to England! The summer (if you can class it as that) has so far been an enjoyable one, after 3 weeks at home not doing much, I ventured back up to Sheffield to start 2 months of training with the Hallam team that was going to Poland to compete in EUSA as the Great Britain representatives. It was good to be back with the boys and the ensuing banter-fest for the past 2 and a half months. No offence to the swedes/danes/rest of the world, but it was good to be back people of the same understanding of humour as myself. The past 2 months has provided many memories from days and mostly nights out, including certain jokes that made me cry with laughter, an interesting game of never ever ever, casino's, Mcdonalds at 5am, Callum's 'quiet' birthday celebrations, house mate's fighting, broken beds and living room carnage. Oh yeah there was also a world cup..... I could probably go on for days on end about the world cup so will try to keep it short. In short England were gash, Rooney wasn't fit, for the 100000000000000th time we found out fat frank and stevie g CAN'T play together, for the 3,000 good centre backs we churn out each season, not many of them can stay fit for more than 5 minutes, the world cup confirmed John Terry is some what of defensive liability against any half decent team, Midget wright phillips will run and run and run, even if he lost the ball 2 minutes prior, Heskey should not be classed in the 'striker' section of any squad list; carrick, dawson and joe hart's tickets where a waste of money, even though i think Hart should of been 1st choice GK, countries that went further than us had younger/inexperience keepers and it worked for them, Joe cole should of played more than the 5 seconds he got over 4 games. I was shocked at the calls for Capello to go, the players need to face up to the fact that they need to shoulder most of the blame, people questioned Capello's various methods, but they seem to have worked for him during his time as England coach, people weren't calling for his head after they battered Croatia, not once but twice. I dont understand how the players mentality changed from the style in which they qualified to the abject world cup, the group they had, they played against teams that were the same calibre as teams they brushed aside in qualifying. The Manager can only do so much, his record speaks for it self, 6 Serie A titles, 2 la liga titles and a champions league. When the whistle blows, its up to the players to put into action what they have been told and England just didnt. Think thats enough ranting about england. To be honest the world cup wasnt great, my highlights were Diego Forlan, Luis Suarez's handball the guy is a hero and anyone who says they would not have done what he did is a liar and the French doing what they do best and giving up.
Anyway, after the world cup came the trip to Poland, 9 days of volleyball fun. The trip started well, being delayed for good 5 hours, meant we got to Warsaw at about 3am the next day. Then we got to enjoy 2 days of +38 degree heat, and training in a greenhouse, i have never sweat so much in a training session. Then it decided to rain for the majority of the trip so we felt more at home. We ended up finishing in 9th spot, which was a good achievement for us, as our goal was to finish top 10, we lost to Lithuania, Poland and Turkey whilst beating Finland (the hard way), portugal and giving the Germans an absolute kicking, was a very sweet way to end the competition. I think we did our best for international relations, and we seemed to forge a bond with the serbian male and female teams and some of the boys took a shine to the swiss girls. Also one of the highlights was a wonderful perfomance by callum, tim, bake and kendray on an out door stage. The other stories can be left for another day(what happens on tour, stays on tours and all that pish). Then it was back to Sheffield to pack my life in my bag and return home, it was strange leaving sheffield as I don't know when i will be back, it has been my 'home' for almost 3 years and i have made a lot of good friends through out my time there and it seems strange that i don't know when i will see them again, hopefully in the near future, but who knows. So now i have a few weeks to relax, then back to Sweden for the new season and to see my friends that i made over the past year, and maybe even make some new ones, although it will be sad not to have Carlos and Jen around.
Quotes of the summer
"Damn girl"
"This isn't the first time the Germans have marched through Warsaw"
"Shmeeeeee"
any stuttttttttttttter abuse to millsy
"moleeeeeeeeeee"
"yeah, pish laugh"
"Lemon chicken?"
If i find any good videos will put them up
#41 Thanks for the memories
RIP fat cat
The End
Anyway, after the world cup came the trip to Poland, 9 days of volleyball fun. The trip started well, being delayed for good 5 hours, meant we got to Warsaw at about 3am the next day. Then we got to enjoy 2 days of +38 degree heat, and training in a greenhouse, i have never sweat so much in a training session. Then it decided to rain for the majority of the trip so we felt more at home. We ended up finishing in 9th spot, which was a good achievement for us, as our goal was to finish top 10, we lost to Lithuania, Poland and Turkey whilst beating Finland (the hard way), portugal and giving the Germans an absolute kicking, was a very sweet way to end the competition. I think we did our best for international relations, and we seemed to forge a bond with the serbian male and female teams and some of the boys took a shine to the swiss girls. Also one of the highlights was a wonderful perfomance by callum, tim, bake and kendray on an out door stage. The other stories can be left for another day(what happens on tour, stays on tours and all that pish). Then it was back to Sheffield to pack my life in my bag and return home, it was strange leaving sheffield as I don't know when i will be back, it has been my 'home' for almost 3 years and i have made a lot of good friends through out my time there and it seems strange that i don't know when i will see them again, hopefully in the near future, but who knows. So now i have a few weeks to relax, then back to Sweden for the new season and to see my friends that i made over the past year, and maybe even make some new ones, although it will be sad not to have Carlos and Jen around.
Quotes of the summer
"Damn girl"
"This isn't the first time the Germans have marched through Warsaw"
"Shmeeeeee"
any stuttttttttttttter abuse to millsy
"moleeeeeeeeeee"
"yeah, pish laugh"
"Lemon chicken?"
If i find any good videos will put them up
#41 Thanks for the memories
RIP fat cat
The End
Monday, 3 May 2010
Good things come to those who wait.
What a load of bollocks that statement is. I am still in Sweden. I am still waiting on some swedish goblin to send me my cheques. It as been more than 2 months since i sent all the paperwork off, they said the money would come in 2 weeks. Well it has been a bloody long 2 weeks, everytime I talk to them they say it is in the post, well they are taking the phrase 'snail mail' to the extreme. I know most of my blog has a lot of 'anti-swedish' things in it, but 95% of it is tounge in cheek, and hopefully people understand that. But the swedes dont help themselves in giving me ammo, to slag them off, when there system does this to me. Anyway not a lot has happened, since my last post, just had lots of time on my hands and nothing much to do apart from wanting to go home. The whole world came to a stand still as a country that not a lot happens in, decided to have a volcanic eruption and cause havoc to pretty much everyone in northern europe, lucky for me I still dont have a plane ticket home, so it didnt effect me.
Over the past month has been the finals of the championship, so we have been supporting our sister club Engleholm, who were favourites to win, however they lost 3-2 in games and had to settle for silver after going 17-1 in the regular season. Now people may say that i am biased in the fact that I have many good friends on the engelholm team and of course i wanted to them to win, yet I have to go back to my comments from my previous post about sporting officials. The scene was perfectly set, the 2 best teams in sweden, and it comes down to effectively a one of game, winner takes all (insert more cliches if you want) game for the gold medal, the scene was set, the swedish volleyball federations were licking the lips, it couldnt have been scripted better. And then along came the refs to ruin it. I talked about refs not being strong in the games that matter, and it happened again in the biggest game of the season, with the whole of Swedish volleyball watching. The say that a ref has had a good game if they are never mentioned, yet after the game all the talk was about how poor the officials were (and not just from me) I mean whats the point in having line judges if you always over rule them. A big thing is the first few calls the ref makes, as it is supposed to set the standard for the rest of the game, yet they didnt do this, and made poor decisions at crucial times, and unfortunately it was always against Engelholm. I am not taking anything away from Katrinholm, they were the best opponent i have seen EVS play against all season, and stepped there game up from when i saw them at Grand Prix, when they got picked apart in the final. Although the setter is still bad, how she got MVP i will never know, it should of been the libero hands down. In my eyes EVS is still the best team, they were the most consistent team over the regular season losing only one game, but thats the upside/downside to a play off format not always the 'best' wins.
And with that, the seasons are over. I have said goodbye to some people that have become good friends to me, and hopefully i will be seeing them sooner rather than later, but who knows what the future will bring for me and for them. Either way they have made my experience here a great one and I thank them for that, I hope i returned the favour to them.
Ok enough of the soppy stuff, havent really got much else to say, The cherries are going up, Jaro Halak is my hero, Stevie G obviously wants to play for chelsea, Berbatov and Zlatan are the same person and couldnt score in a brothel. Some videos that have kept me amused over the past few weeks, enjoy
Over the past month has been the finals of the championship, so we have been supporting our sister club Engleholm, who were favourites to win, however they lost 3-2 in games and had to settle for silver after going 17-1 in the regular season. Now people may say that i am biased in the fact that I have many good friends on the engelholm team and of course i wanted to them to win, yet I have to go back to my comments from my previous post about sporting officials. The scene was perfectly set, the 2 best teams in sweden, and it comes down to effectively a one of game, winner takes all (insert more cliches if you want) game for the gold medal, the scene was set, the swedish volleyball federations were licking the lips, it couldnt have been scripted better. And then along came the refs to ruin it. I talked about refs not being strong in the games that matter, and it happened again in the biggest game of the season, with the whole of Swedish volleyball watching. The say that a ref has had a good game if they are never mentioned, yet after the game all the talk was about how poor the officials were (and not just from me) I mean whats the point in having line judges if you always over rule them. A big thing is the first few calls the ref makes, as it is supposed to set the standard for the rest of the game, yet they didnt do this, and made poor decisions at crucial times, and unfortunately it was always against Engelholm. I am not taking anything away from Katrinholm, they were the best opponent i have seen EVS play against all season, and stepped there game up from when i saw them at Grand Prix, when they got picked apart in the final. Although the setter is still bad, how she got MVP i will never know, it should of been the libero hands down. In my eyes EVS is still the best team, they were the most consistent team over the regular season losing only one game, but thats the upside/downside to a play off format not always the 'best' wins.
And with that, the seasons are over. I have said goodbye to some people that have become good friends to me, and hopefully i will be seeing them sooner rather than later, but who knows what the future will bring for me and for them. Either way they have made my experience here a great one and I thank them for that, I hope i returned the favour to them.
Ok enough of the soppy stuff, havent really got much else to say, The cherries are going up, Jaro Halak is my hero, Stevie G obviously wants to play for chelsea, Berbatov and Zlatan are the same person and couldnt score in a brothel. Some videos that have kept me amused over the past few weeks, enjoy
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
If's, But's and stage fright
So it seems like ages since I last updated this. To be honest a lot has happened in the past 3 weeks or so.
The biggest thing was that we lost 3-2 in games in the semi finals, which felt heart breaking, after losing the first game away 3-0, we come home and won 3-0, it was possibly our best performance of the season, we served them off the court, we then traveled away and lost 3-2 in a tight game that could of gone either way, unfortunately it didnt go for us. So it was back home for game 4 and a must win game, we managed to pull out a 3-1 win after losing the first, then winning a tight 2nd set. So then it was to game 5 on april fools day, winner goes to the final. So it was time to get out the gret quotes an listen to motivational speeches. The first set we played like rabbits caught in headlights, there was no pressure on us, we were the lowest ranked seed left playing the top ranked seed, yet it felt like everything as on us. The second set was tight until a few mental errors at the end of the set cost us, so then to the 3rd set that was a must win, to cut the story short we were 24-17 down and fought back to even have set point at 26-25, but there was to be no fairytail ending as we lost 28-26 and with that the season was over. It was one of the most gutting feelings I have ever had playing sport, that the work for the past 7 months that we had put in had come to an end as the ball hit our defender and sailed in to the stands, then to look over and see the celebrations of linkoping and there fans. Its a feeling i hope i dont have to experience again anytime soon. After the pain come the "If's" and "buts", what if this had been different, what if this had happened etc. Looking back on the season it has been a good season for us, we have battled through a whole lot of issues, especially at the start of the season, being constantly over looked by the media in favour of the Engelholm girls, and some toss ice hockey team from engleholm that has just got relegated, yet they get more pages in the newspaper than a Wags night out and only slightly less pages than Zlatan breaking a nail. However, the way the season ended still hurts, the ideal of course would have been to win the gold, but the manner in which we played game 5 sort of tarnished the past 7 months of hard work, i think the pain would be less if we had gone out and laid it all out so there wouldn't have been the if's and buts. Yet it seemed something was missing on that thursday evening in Linkoping.
So now it means no more volleyball for a few months, and the chance to chill and relax for my last few weeks in sweden, party a bit, and go and support the lovely ladies in Engelholm as they are in the final. I enjoyed a good two days of partying this weekend for my birthday, I have been extremely lucky in the friends I have made in the short period of time that I have been here, so it made me happy that a lot of them came over to help celebrate my birthday, even if my Birthday twin and the rest of the Engelholm girls could only stay on the soft stuff as they had a game the day after. Playing 'arrogance' with swedish people is fun, they seem to enjoy the game, yet are grossed out by it at the same time.
This summer is yet a mystery for me and where i will be and what i will be doing, although watching the world cup will be top of the list. I will however miss the people that I have become friends with in sweden and the people that have made me feel welcome since day 1. I may never see them again, as they may move on or I may move on, but they have still made my stay here amazing.
One thing that has bugged me over the past few weeks is sporting officials mainly in football and volleyball, am not using this as an excuse as to why we lost, but when it comes to play offs you expect strong, down the middle officiating, yet it didnt come, in both series against Linkoping and Hylte, for all teams involved there were terrible calls, these people have players, teams and coaches fates and futures in their hands and they dick about like it doesnt matter and it pissed me off even more when you ask the ref after the game about his calls and he just smiles and winks at you, Knobhead. In football united where piss poor in the first half against chelsea, and deserve to be 1-0 at half time, Drogba's goal was a world class finish that all you could do was applaud, however he was 3 yards offside, stood infront of the linesman, how did he not flag, his job is to put his flag up and he couldnt manage that, in possibly the game that has decided the title race. I dont understand how fifa keeps putting off the development of technology in football, but how can they ignore it when so called officials are making more and more mistakes in big games. So in the past few weeks, my season has come crashing down, and so has Uniteds, all i need now is England to lose the world cup on penalty's to Portugal and that will be the hat-trick.
I think karma has caught up with me, and my laughing at children, yesterday at school, the first day out in the sun with the kids, i was chasing after a tennis ball, slipped and sprained my ankle, this was after a kid, twice in a row went to catch a ball missed it and hit him in the face. Obviously I laughed, maybe I used up all my 'laughing at children' points and it was there turn to get back at me. Oh well could be worse, could be in the finals and have to sit out....
The biggest thing was that we lost 3-2 in games in the semi finals, which felt heart breaking, after losing the first game away 3-0, we come home and won 3-0, it was possibly our best performance of the season, we served them off the court, we then traveled away and lost 3-2 in a tight game that could of gone either way, unfortunately it didnt go for us. So it was back home for game 4 and a must win game, we managed to pull out a 3-1 win after losing the first, then winning a tight 2nd set. So then it was to game 5 on april fools day, winner goes to the final. So it was time to get out the gret quotes an listen to motivational speeches. The first set we played like rabbits caught in headlights, there was no pressure on us, we were the lowest ranked seed left playing the top ranked seed, yet it felt like everything as on us. The second set was tight until a few mental errors at the end of the set cost us, so then to the 3rd set that was a must win, to cut the story short we were 24-17 down and fought back to even have set point at 26-25, but there was to be no fairytail ending as we lost 28-26 and with that the season was over. It was one of the most gutting feelings I have ever had playing sport, that the work for the past 7 months that we had put in had come to an end as the ball hit our defender and sailed in to the stands, then to look over and see the celebrations of linkoping and there fans. Its a feeling i hope i dont have to experience again anytime soon. After the pain come the "If's" and "buts", what if this had been different, what if this had happened etc. Looking back on the season it has been a good season for us, we have battled through a whole lot of issues, especially at the start of the season, being constantly over looked by the media in favour of the Engelholm girls, and some toss ice hockey team from engleholm that has just got relegated, yet they get more pages in the newspaper than a Wags night out and only slightly less pages than Zlatan breaking a nail. However, the way the season ended still hurts, the ideal of course would have been to win the gold, but the manner in which we played game 5 sort of tarnished the past 7 months of hard work, i think the pain would be less if we had gone out and laid it all out so there wouldn't have been the if's and buts. Yet it seemed something was missing on that thursday evening in Linkoping.
So now it means no more volleyball for a few months, and the chance to chill and relax for my last few weeks in sweden, party a bit, and go and support the lovely ladies in Engelholm as they are in the final. I enjoyed a good two days of partying this weekend for my birthday, I have been extremely lucky in the friends I have made in the short period of time that I have been here, so it made me happy that a lot of them came over to help celebrate my birthday, even if my Birthday twin and the rest of the Engelholm girls could only stay on the soft stuff as they had a game the day after. Playing 'arrogance' with swedish people is fun, they seem to enjoy the game, yet are grossed out by it at the same time.
This summer is yet a mystery for me and where i will be and what i will be doing, although watching the world cup will be top of the list. I will however miss the people that I have become friends with in sweden and the people that have made me feel welcome since day 1. I may never see them again, as they may move on or I may move on, but they have still made my stay here amazing.
One thing that has bugged me over the past few weeks is sporting officials mainly in football and volleyball, am not using this as an excuse as to why we lost, but when it comes to play offs you expect strong, down the middle officiating, yet it didnt come, in both series against Linkoping and Hylte, for all teams involved there were terrible calls, these people have players, teams and coaches fates and futures in their hands and they dick about like it doesnt matter and it pissed me off even more when you ask the ref after the game about his calls and he just smiles and winks at you, Knobhead. In football united where piss poor in the first half against chelsea, and deserve to be 1-0 at half time, Drogba's goal was a world class finish that all you could do was applaud, however he was 3 yards offside, stood infront of the linesman, how did he not flag, his job is to put his flag up and he couldnt manage that, in possibly the game that has decided the title race. I dont understand how fifa keeps putting off the development of technology in football, but how can they ignore it when so called officials are making more and more mistakes in big games. So in the past few weeks, my season has come crashing down, and so has Uniteds, all i need now is England to lose the world cup on penalty's to Portugal and that will be the hat-trick.
I think karma has caught up with me, and my laughing at children, yesterday at school, the first day out in the sun with the kids, i was chasing after a tennis ball, slipped and sprained my ankle, this was after a kid, twice in a row went to catch a ball missed it and hit him in the face. Obviously I laughed, maybe I used up all my 'laughing at children' points and it was there turn to get back at me. Oh well could be worse, could be in the finals and have to sit out....
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Bits and Bobs
So after the drama of the quarter final series against Hylte, the start of the semi finals was a bit of a let down on our part. We traveled up the day before, then practiced the morning of the game to get used to the hall, Linkoping has the biggest hall in the league, where as we have the smallest, also they play with the old Mikasa balls, where as mostly everyone else around the league uses the new ones. After all this we where sent packing from the big gym on the back of a 3-0 lose. All the hype and excitement in the build up turned into a damb squip as we were served off court by two Australians named Aiden and Hamish. Saturday wasnt a great day in my sporting world as all results didnt go in my favour, however sunday did. The little dog eating korean, Ji sung park popped up and scored the winner against the scousers to make my sunday a happy one, made even happier when el hadji diouf, decided for once in his life not to punch or a spit on people, and scored against chelsea. He is not a 100% retard after all.
This will turn into randomness now as i have different things to ramble about.
Fernando Torres, good striker, looks gash in a liverpool shirt though, as a good as he his, he turned into a whining little bitch on sunday, and kicking the penalty spot just made him look like a spoilt little tit.
Swedish press on volleyball, before i continue i would like to point out to any people that play for Engelholm women's team this is not slagging you off!!! The press around here love them, maybe love them more than there own children/families. Dont get me wrong the girls deserve there praise, winning grand prix, Nevza, and winning the league season with 17 wins and only one lose. But the press seem to cream over anything and everything they do, they won the gold last year, so where once again favourites this time around, however we have been slagged off by the press since day 1 of the season starting and the bias is starting to grate a bit. The girls setter, won player of the season and setter of the season and rightly so, she is unreal and head and shoulders above anyone else, our setter also won setter of the year for the men, yet in the press article got one line compared to mucks two paragraphs. The mens league is far closer than the women's league, the difference between top and bottom in the mens was 25 points, in the women's it was 43, and the top 4 in the mens were separated by 8 points, in the womens 19. Yet it feels like when ever we do well the press count it as lucky, we where written off for grand prix yet took the silver, we were written off against Hylte in the play offs yet won 3-1 in games, and yet again we have been written off against Linkoping, with out the consideration that we had the best results against them in the regular season. I have full respect for the girls in engelholm they train there arse's off and our deserving of the medals they have won this year. The journalist that slagged us off before xmas, a few weeks ago decided, that instead of coming to our game against the defending champions, and the 1st game in there new hall, he would go to engelholm and watch them play bottom of the league. We ended up losing 3-2, 16-14 in the final set in front of a Swedish record 1531 people, the engelholm game was canceled because of the weather. Yet he still couldn't be bothered to cover the game. You can be lucky in some games, but when we keep being 'lucky' it annoys me that they dont realise that we may actually have the talent and can achieve results like the girls down the road.
The retards i spoke of last week still haven't figured out how to write numbers on a piece of paper and send it in the mail.
Yesterday at school, kid jumps up in the air, other kids throws a ball in his face, kid is off balance and lands on his face, starts to cry, the kid was fine, was it cruel that I laughed slightly?
Now that is commitment and a desire to help your team win
I just like this
This will turn into randomness now as i have different things to ramble about.
Fernando Torres, good striker, looks gash in a liverpool shirt though, as a good as he his, he turned into a whining little bitch on sunday, and kicking the penalty spot just made him look like a spoilt little tit.
Swedish press on volleyball, before i continue i would like to point out to any people that play for Engelholm women's team this is not slagging you off!!! The press around here love them, maybe love them more than there own children/families. Dont get me wrong the girls deserve there praise, winning grand prix, Nevza, and winning the league season with 17 wins and only one lose. But the press seem to cream over anything and everything they do, they won the gold last year, so where once again favourites this time around, however we have been slagged off by the press since day 1 of the season starting and the bias is starting to grate a bit. The girls setter, won player of the season and setter of the season and rightly so, she is unreal and head and shoulders above anyone else, our setter also won setter of the year for the men, yet in the press article got one line compared to mucks two paragraphs. The mens league is far closer than the women's league, the difference between top and bottom in the mens was 25 points, in the women's it was 43, and the top 4 in the mens were separated by 8 points, in the womens 19. Yet it feels like when ever we do well the press count it as lucky, we where written off for grand prix yet took the silver, we were written off against Hylte in the play offs yet won 3-1 in games, and yet again we have been written off against Linkoping, with out the consideration that we had the best results against them in the regular season. I have full respect for the girls in engelholm they train there arse's off and our deserving of the medals they have won this year. The journalist that slagged us off before xmas, a few weeks ago decided, that instead of coming to our game against the defending champions, and the 1st game in there new hall, he would go to engelholm and watch them play bottom of the league. We ended up losing 3-2, 16-14 in the final set in front of a Swedish record 1531 people, the engelholm game was canceled because of the weather. Yet he still couldn't be bothered to cover the game. You can be lucky in some games, but when we keep being 'lucky' it annoys me that they dont realise that we may actually have the talent and can achieve results like the girls down the road.
The retards i spoke of last week still haven't figured out how to write numbers on a piece of paper and send it in the mail.
Yesterday at school, kid jumps up in the air, other kids throws a ball in his face, kid is off balance and lands on his face, starts to cry, the kid was fine, was it cruel that I laughed slightly?
Now that is commitment and a desire to help your team win
I just like this
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