Mark Ginger - RIP
Mark Ginger died August 30, 1991 in a motorway accident.
He was Aston Villa through and through, travelled everywhere with our lot and was just one of the lads. The trip to Milan in 1990 had been a real highlight for all of us, we'd had such a great time there.
Mark was a Gloucester boy for which we naturally gave him stick, but he gave us plenty back and we loved him to bits. We were totally devastated when he died so young and I can't really believe it's 17 years as I write this now. Seventeen years, where has that time gone? I'll never forget finding out the next morning or having to break the news to some of the lads.
I remember arranging a supporters match in his memory a few days after the funeral - It was always a pain in the arse organising our lot for a game of football but this time everyone was available without hesitation and it showed the respect everyone had for Mark.
We used to create a little fanzine just for our lot who travelled on the coach everywhere and me, Mark and Aaron were the major contributors. I still have the fanzines in the garage and they hold great memories for me. It was called "Marchants Lions" in recognition of the bus company that used to look after us.
Thinking of you mate, if I don't make it down the Crem over the weekend I'm sorry. Miss you like mad sunshine.
Holte Enders in the Sky - RIP.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Stoke away
Gloucester Martial Arts New Gym
Alan Carter has opened up a new gym for the full-contact and MMA fighters at the top end of Barton Street in Gloucester.
I had the pleasure of an hours training today which was fantastic and which I really enjoyed - my hands are still shaking and without my wrist support I think my wrist would just fall off! I'm a million light years away from these talented guys and girls but I can still stick in 100% effort and give all I have - certainly did that today!
Gloucester Martial Arts Extreme (GMAX) will now have it's fighters based there and hopefully heady times are ahead.
Here are some pictures of the new place which is still taking place and will soon be getting a bit bigger. As soon as my main blog is back up (server has been down for ages) I'll pop this info on there.
Stoke City 3 Aston Villa 2
This was probably one of least enjoyable away days in quite some time.
We reached the centre of Stoke (or "the land that time forgot") fairly early and found a pub called The Famous Lion which was pretty good. We should have stayed there - all day.
After walking for ages to get to the ground we found The Harvester which is right opposite The Britannia Stadium. If you fancy waiting 25 minutes to get served and then be faced by the the most useless, gobby, jumped-up female bar-staff on the planet, this is the place for you. The place is a fucking shambles - they should pop over to see how the one near Pride Park run theirs.
Forgot to mention the YTS boy going around getting people to take their caps off. It wasn't to be the only Mickey Mouse performance of the afternoon.
In the first half Villa were pathetic. Not one shot on target, no midfield, no clue. Reo-Coker was lost out on the right and Gareth Barry was dreaming of red somewhere else. Stoke were doing their impression of Watford and just lumping the ball forward at every opportunity.
Mark Halsey does us every year and he started early this time with the ridiculous penalty decision. Fair play to Stoke though, they deserved a lead. John Carew took his goal very well but did precious little else but for me the turning point was their second goal.
Gareth Barry supplied a terrible pass and then stood admiring it while Stoke charged forward and scored a really well taken goal. Gareth can be as professional as he likes - his heart isn't there and yesterday it showed. The sooner we have 11 players on the pitch who actually want to be wear the fucking shirt the better.
Again we came back with an albeit scruffy free-kick only to concede from a fucking long throw in right at the end. We can change the players but our habit of conceding late goals just won't go away. Halsey let Stoke celebrate for a full minute before blowing straight from the kick off.
Whatever I may feel about Stoke's tactics, they deserved the win - they played with heart and passion. Something sadly lacking from the opposition who clearly thought by turning up they would win. The Stoke fans (most of them) deserved their moment - I hope they're as loud and passionate when they play the likes of Bolton and Middlesbrough in midweek games.
Our support was OK, nothing more. Singing "Have You Won The European Cup" to Stoke City fans is embarrassing quite frankly. If we had a MOTM it would probably have been Stan Petrov which is quite frightening.
The best part of the day was getting home earlier than expected, which pretty much sums it all up.
Alan Carter has opened up a new gym for the full-contact and MMA fighters at the top end of Barton Street in Gloucester.
I had the pleasure of an hours training today which was fantastic and which I really enjoyed - my hands are still shaking and without my wrist support I think my wrist would just fall off! I'm a million light years away from these talented guys and girls but I can still stick in 100% effort and give all I have - certainly did that today!
Gloucester Martial Arts Extreme (GMAX) will now have it's fighters based there and hopefully heady times are ahead.
Here are some pictures of the new place which is still taking place and will soon be getting a bit bigger. As soon as my main blog is back up (server has been down for ages) I'll pop this info on there.
Stoke City 3 Aston Villa 2
This was probably one of least enjoyable away days in quite some time.
We reached the centre of Stoke (or "the land that time forgot") fairly early and found a pub called The Famous Lion which was pretty good. We should have stayed there - all day.
After walking for ages to get to the ground we found The Harvester which is right opposite The Britannia Stadium. If you fancy waiting 25 minutes to get served and then be faced by the the most useless, gobby, jumped-up female bar-staff on the planet, this is the place for you. The place is a fucking shambles - they should pop over to see how the one near Pride Park run theirs.
Forgot to mention the YTS boy going around getting people to take their caps off. It wasn't to be the only Mickey Mouse performance of the afternoon.
In the first half Villa were pathetic. Not one shot on target, no midfield, no clue. Reo-Coker was lost out on the right and Gareth Barry was dreaming of red somewhere else. Stoke were doing their impression of Watford and just lumping the ball forward at every opportunity.
Mark Halsey does us every year and he started early this time with the ridiculous penalty decision. Fair play to Stoke though, they deserved a lead. John Carew took his goal very well but did precious little else but for me the turning point was their second goal.
Gareth Barry supplied a terrible pass and then stood admiring it while Stoke charged forward and scored a really well taken goal. Gareth can be as professional as he likes - his heart isn't there and yesterday it showed. The sooner we have 11 players on the pitch who actually want to be wear the fucking shirt the better.
Again we came back with an albeit scruffy free-kick only to concede from a fucking long throw in right at the end. We can change the players but our habit of conceding late goals just won't go away. Halsey let Stoke celebrate for a full minute before blowing straight from the kick off.
Whatever I may feel about Stoke's tactics, they deserved the win - they played with heart and passion. Something sadly lacking from the opposition who clearly thought by turning up they would win. The Stoke fans (most of them) deserved their moment - I hope they're as loud and passionate when they play the likes of Bolton and Middlesbrough in midweek games.
Our support was OK, nothing more. Singing "Have You Won The European Cup" to Stoke City fans is embarrassing quite frankly. If we had a MOTM it would probably have been Stan Petrov which is quite frightening.
The best part of the day was getting home earlier than expected, which pretty much sums it all up.
Saturday, 16 August 2008
Levellers / The Fratellis
Levellers - Letters From The Underground Review
The lads have finally tried to duplicate the fantastic "Levelling The Land" album and have succeeded. The passion, speed, fiddles, everything is there - even down to "Behold The Pale Rider" replacing "Another Mans Cause". Plus the production is so much better on this record compared to the last one which had good tracks but sounded not so clever.
After the excellent "The Cholera Well" opening, I was struck dumb by the awful second track "Death Loves Youth" and feared the worst. Fortunately with maybe one exception the rest of the album gets stronger and stronger, keeping up a great pace. Simon is back doing main vocals on two tracks including the final one "Fight Or Flight" My faves at the moment would be "Accidental Anarchist", "Duty" and "Heart Of The Country"
In conclusion, it's the best offering for some time in my opinion and now feel it might be time for the Brighton boys to call it a day. It's obvious that Mark's voice is not as good as it once was and to finish with such a great, strong-sounding record would be a fitting studio end for them.
They've got enough live material now to go on forever!
The Fratellis - Here We Stand Review
Once in a while you buy an album and get very unexpectedly blown away.
This one has done just that for me.
I was never a fan of the band and thought "Chelsea Dagger" was crap to be honest. I bought this on the strength of hearing "A Heady Tale" and have to hold my hands up and say what a great record this is.
Tracks like "Acid Jazz Singer", "Mistress Mable" and "Look Out Sunshine" are favourites, but the whole album is very strong and there is only one track that I tend to skip - out of twelve that's pretty good!
The album is a rocky, foot-stomping good sound - fair play, I think it's great!
Cheltenham Town 2 Swindon Town 0
My first visit to Whaddon Road in absolutely ages and it was a really exciting game of football, almost spoiled by one of the most disgraceful refereeing performances I've seen for a while. Uriah Rennie eat yer heart out - you have a successor.
Step forward Mr Phil Crossley from Kent. What an incompetant twat!
Swindon looked a really decent footballing side in the first half, especially Anthony McNamee, and probably should have been ahead by half time. Their football was a very high quality with the added bonus of getting every decision from the ref! Cheltenham looked disjointed and a bit lacking in belief to be honest.
Barry Hayles was playing a sound game up front but when Paul Connor came on things really changed and they both played a part in Ben Gill's great goal. Gill celebrated his first league goal and was booked - a few minutes later after a challenge only barely worthy of stopping play, he was off. Mr Crossley only stopped short of having a shot for Swindon.
With 10 men though, Town actally got stronger and Jennison Myrie-Williams scored after a lovely cross by Alex Russell. Shane Higgs played his part too and made some fine stops including a stunner in the first half. It was a real end to end second half though and a really enjoyable freebie afternoon - almost 5000 were there to see our boys get a welcome 3 points!
With 10 minutes left the Swindon fans gave up on their team and left in droves, safe in the knowledge it wouldn't take long to get back to the five magic roundabouts.
The lads have finally tried to duplicate the fantastic "Levelling The Land" album and have succeeded. The passion, speed, fiddles, everything is there - even down to "Behold The Pale Rider" replacing "Another Mans Cause". Plus the production is so much better on this record compared to the last one which had good tracks but sounded not so clever.
After the excellent "The Cholera Well" opening, I was struck dumb by the awful second track "Death Loves Youth" and feared the worst. Fortunately with maybe one exception the rest of the album gets stronger and stronger, keeping up a great pace. Simon is back doing main vocals on two tracks including the final one "Fight Or Flight" My faves at the moment would be "Accidental Anarchist", "Duty" and "Heart Of The Country"
In conclusion, it's the best offering for some time in my opinion and now feel it might be time for the Brighton boys to call it a day. It's obvious that Mark's voice is not as good as it once was and to finish with such a great, strong-sounding record would be a fitting studio end for them.
They've got enough live material now to go on forever!
The Fratellis - Here We Stand Review
Once in a while you buy an album and get very unexpectedly blown away.
This one has done just that for me.
I was never a fan of the band and thought "Chelsea Dagger" was crap to be honest. I bought this on the strength of hearing "A Heady Tale" and have to hold my hands up and say what a great record this is.
Tracks like "Acid Jazz Singer", "Mistress Mable" and "Look Out Sunshine" are favourites, but the whole album is very strong and there is only one track that I tend to skip - out of twelve that's pretty good!
The album is a rocky, foot-stomping good sound - fair play, I think it's great!
Cheltenham Town 2 Swindon Town 0
My first visit to Whaddon Road in absolutely ages and it was a really exciting game of football, almost spoiled by one of the most disgraceful refereeing performances I've seen for a while. Uriah Rennie eat yer heart out - you have a successor.
Step forward Mr Phil Crossley from Kent. What an incompetant twat!
Swindon looked a really decent footballing side in the first half, especially Anthony McNamee, and probably should have been ahead by half time. Their football was a very high quality with the added bonus of getting every decision from the ref! Cheltenham looked disjointed and a bit lacking in belief to be honest.
Barry Hayles was playing a sound game up front but when Paul Connor came on things really changed and they both played a part in Ben Gill's great goal. Gill celebrated his first league goal and was booked - a few minutes later after a challenge only barely worthy of stopping play, he was off. Mr Crossley only stopped short of having a shot for Swindon.
With 10 men though, Town actally got stronger and Jennison Myrie-Williams scored after a lovely cross by Alex Russell. Shane Higgs played his part too and made some fine stops including a stunner in the first half. It was a real end to end second half though and a really enjoyable freebie afternoon - almost 5000 were there to see our boys get a welcome 3 points!
With 10 minutes left the Swindon fans gave up on their team and left in droves, safe in the knowledge it wouldn't take long to get back to the five magic roundabouts.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Nicky Shorey
Nicky Shorey
Welcome to Villa Park to Nicky Shorey, a really decent left back and someone we badly needed after Freddie Bouma's awful injury. Reading's loss is our gain.
It looks as if Luke Young is also joining from Middlesbrough - I always felt we should have been in for him last year - £2million was nothing then. Both these guys hould help solidify things at the back with Brad Friedel in goal too now.
...and hours later Young was with us too!
Welcome to Villa Park to Nicky Shorey, a really decent left back and someone we badly needed after Freddie Bouma's awful injury. Reading's loss is our gain.
It looks as if Luke Young is also joining from Middlesbrough - I always felt we should have been in for him last year - £2million was nothing then. Both these guys hould help solidify things at the back with Brad Friedel in goal too now.
...and hours later Young was with us too!
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