Paul Birch RIP (20 November 1962 – 2 February 2009)
Johnny Dixon, Vic Crowe and now Birchy. Without meaning the first two any less important, the news today that Paul Birch has died at the young age of 46 has left me very, very sad.
Paul Birch was there when I started supporting Aston Villa and I probably saw him play most of his games for the club. He had the heart of a lion and was never less than 100% committed to the cause.
He had some fantastic games, great goals, like Arsenal away in the League Cup 86, - but the over-riding one for me was popping Lothar Mattheus in his pocket for 90 minutes against Inter Milan at Villa Park. Kent Neilsen and David Platt got the plaudits for the goals, but one little man's huge effort in stopping the German captain was the main reason we won that game.
Birchy came down to Cheltenham after winning our Player Of The Year award - he was an honest, down to earth, humble, normal guy. I'm honoured to have my picture with him.
I'm happy the all the pain is over now Paul. Thankyou for being an ever present part of my Villa memories.
Today we had to pop over to Whaddon Road first thing to grab some tickets for the Doncaster FA Cup game. The day's game with Millwall had been called off the night before due to freezing conditions and we got there just before the ticket office opened.
We took a couple of photo's as this was Daniel's first proper visit to a football ground as he was fast asleep when we were outside Villa Park a few months back!
After noticing an open gate we asked if we could nip in and show Daniel the inside and were told that was fine. To be fair there was no-one outside the ground except us anyway! The pitch was covered in frost and a third of it was covered by a huge black cover - we told Daniel where his Grampy normally sits and then went back out to get the tickets sorted.
His after match interview with Jeff Shreeves saw him answering like a spoilt child, to the point where you could hear Shreeves getting totally pissed off with the pathetic one-word answers.
No need to look at your tactics Arsene, the ones which leave less defenders than attackers in injury time of a game - no, just come out with some completely pathetic excuse that John Robertson influenced the referee at half time! The only person influencing penalites was William Gallas!
We absolutely battered them in the first half - three attempts against the woodwork, Luke Young and Steve Sidwell going close - something else Wenger incredibly failed to acknowledge. It was a joy to watch us putting them under so much pressure and I felt we were quite superb. Then they score - it couldn't have been any more against the run of play and it was their first attempt at goal.
Robin Hood clearly wore an Arsenal shirt.
When they got the second, and a really good goal too, I felt that might be it. Then we get the "oh so debatable" penalty, smashed in by GB, and it's game on! Fair play to Zat Knight for being in the right place and keeping his strike on target as well, especially being at the critical last stage of the match.
It would have been nothing short of a travesty if we'd lost that game.
Happy Christmas Mr Wenger - you really are a complete knob.
..and finally.
Phil Brown sees his team getting smashed 4-0 at half time and decides to conduct most of the team talk in front of the travelling Hull City supporters.
This seems to have got Brown alot of criticism. Why? Because the little overpaid prima-donnas had to sit in the cold for a while? Because they had to do it in front of fans who gave up their Boxing Day to see their team barely make the effort.
Fair play to Phil Brown - once in a while that's not a bad thing to try. Anyway, I like what Hull are doing - long may they continue to prosper at this level (apart from Tuesday night of course!)
Apart from some freakish possible scores involving other teams and play-off rankings, this is it. The last ever game for the Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium will be against the Baltimore Ravens and the way the season has progressed, it's turned into a must-win game as well. The Cowboys really need a victory to keep their chances of playing in the post-season alive.
I've been three times to the old place, the first time in 1997 for an amazing game against the Washington Redskins. Aikman, Smith and Irvin were all playing - but not playing well! With just minutes remaining the Cowboys has scored just 2 field goals and had to start a drive on their own 3 yard line.
People started to leave, fans gave up - knowing a team that had played so badly would never do it. We held on and stayed having travelled this far we wouldn't leave before the end - Troy Aikman then led the team the 97 yards before converting the 2 point conversion as well. 14-14 - the Cowboys stopped Washington instantly and got the ball back and with 4 seconds remaining Chris Boniol kicked the winning field goal!
Crowd erupts - those who left couldn't believe it!
The other two games were against the Reskins again, and the Buffalo Bills in 2003, both resulting in wins but a bit less exciting. 21-14 over the Skins and 10-6 over the Bills where Drew Bledsoe got pounded time and again by the Dallas defence!
The day after we went on the fantastic Stadium tour where my proud moment came when I kicked two field goals on the hallowed turf.
Time has caught up with the old place, even at only 37 years old. Even five years ago you knew it needed a facelift or replacing. The hole in the roof and probably the wealth of superstars that played there gave it an edge it otherwise wouldn't have had. Of course, it used to feature on the opening credits of the soap opera Dallas too!
I hope I see the new Stadium one day - it looks incredible (with incredible ticket prices no doubt too) - well, maybe one day.
There's plenty of nostalgia here too at the Farewell To Texas Stadium website.
As for the amazing new Stadium - Check this out! Wow! Ready for the start of next season, where has the time gone?!
Aston Villa v CSKA Moscow
What a tough draw.
I still feel it was a huge mistake for M.O.N to play such a weak team against Zilina at Villa Park in the third game. With 3 or 4 more experienced players we could have got into a winning position and started taking them off but ended up chasing the game and obviously losing.
That's what cost us this ultra-hard draw - not fielding the even weaker side against Hamburg which I could understand.
Anyway, I have bad memories when I was a kid of seeing the other side from Moscow (Spartak) getting a last minute winner at Villa Park and knocking us out after we'd drawn 2-2 over there. Anyone remember Mark Walters fantastic strike in the away leg?
I was expecting hell so anything less than that would be a bonus. It was good to be grading with people we knew and had trained with for ages - plus the examiners - though fearsome in their suits - were all familiar to us all too.
Everything was there and it was so tough physically. We all had moments where we were either sick or totally gasping for breath but everyone battled away and did what they had to do.
So much of the grading is mentally based - about 90 mins or so in we were sparring and maybe knew the "2 onto 1" section was coming up where we expected to spar everyone else in survival mode. No! In walk 3 fresh full-contact fighters ready to whip our knackered sorry butts!! That was harsh!
It's easy to forget things you've been taught when you're cornered and taking shots from two angles. I ended up covering up too much but moved about reasonably well apart from that. I was happy with the wood-breaking at the end and fortunately broke first time with an elbow strike and a spinning back kick.
As I sit here now I'm in much-expected pain all over. My knee was worrying me but it ended up being a hip bone which gave me the most problems - it started getting really painful just 2 hours before the grading when shopping in Tesco - Oh great, thanks alot body!
Anyway, everyone did so well and it was a real good team effort with everyone encouraging and helping when others needed it. Well done to all concerned! Mr Champion said at the end that we'd all worked very hard and it had been a pleasure to grade us - great words for us from someone such as himself!
My main goal was not to let myself down and more importantly Mr Paradine and Mr Carter. I've trained hard all year but in the last six weeks I've been down the GMAX gym every Wednesday night for extra work which I know helped me during the grading. I'm going to relax now for a few days and get back into it next Saturday.
Now, much like the Taekwondo black belt grading, we sit and await our news - it could be a long wait.....
Daniel's Rapid Progress
At 3 years and 7 months, his progress is pretty amazing.
His level of speech is unbelievable at times - whilst eating tea the other night he was after some of my food and had forgotten to say please. I said "what's the magic word?" to which he replied - "Abracadabra". Couldn't really refuse could I?!
Daniel is still enjoying training on a Saturday at the club and continues to do well under Kate's watchful eye! He doesn't realise that it's an English champion training him (after Kate beat Louise Tanner in their re-match last weekend). Anyway, he got his first first official GMA t-shirt the other week which he doesn't like taking off!
We got his school application form this week (how's that for making you feel old?) - another reminder of his progress. Now Christmas is approaching and he's aware of Santa, Advent calendars and all things festive!
Everton 2 Aston Villa 3
I walk in, I'm knackered after three hours of torture - but it's 1-1 and I've got the whole second half to watch.
Ashley capitalises on a defensive howler and we're looking good but for the last 15 minutes we're under the cosh and taking a battering. I still thought we'd hold out but with 40 seconds left Lescott bangs one in after Martin Laursen missed probably his only header of the game. I'm gutted, I just cast believe we've done this again!
Lescott feigns throwing his shirt towards the Villa fans and their players spend the next 45 seconds celebrating for which the referee rightly adds on time. Daniel asks me "whats wrong Daddy" as I'm holding head in hands!
Some seconds later were jumping around the room as Laursen wins another decisive header and Ashley beats a defender and whips in a winner. Mass celebration! Daniel shouts "It's a goal!!"
Lescott isn't offering his shirt to anyone anymore now and wonders off the pitch - such a shame. A fantastic ending and three points in a game where overall we've been under pressure - that's the way to do it!
Czech Airlines left on time, we had a half empty flight so plenty of room to stretch out and we arrived late afternoon. Thanks to Frank on the H&V discussion pages, we bought a 3 day transport pass and this served us well. We finally got dropped of at Lapansky but a bit tired we trudged around for ages getting directed everywhere towards our seemingly invisable Seifert hotel!
We found a local bar showing the football on Wednesday and then went for some food - it was very late and the fog had really set in so we called it a night.
Thursday was great. We saw the much more beautiful side of Prague as opposed to where we were staying - the buildings, the river - just a fantastic place and huge as well as we negotiated all the various metros and buses. We looked round quite a few shops and it was soon clear that Prague was maybe not the cheap place for shopping that it once was! We stopped at Rocky O'Reillys for a couple of hours but by 1.30ish everyone seemed to be moving on elsewhere.
We found places with cheap beer and obviously the more tacky English ones like the George & Dragon in the Old Town Square although it was worth it to see all the tourists lining up to take photo's and videos of Aston Villa fans singing. Amongst all these people's treasured memories will be the hour they watched foreign football fans singing away outside a bar. Strange.
It was all good natured and the police were in full force but kept a very low profile. There must have been about 9 or 10 vans full of them so everyone knew they were there - I have to say I was impressed with their handling of it all.
Clearly alot of our fans were unsure of how to get to the ground but we were primed in advance and got to the ground in time to have a couple more drinks in the hotel that was part of the stadium Eden. It was strange because to be honest it didn't really look like a football ground from the outside.
The atmosphere before kick off was fantastic as the Slavia Prague and Villa fans mixed easily with no problems at all. Even the hotel kept it's doors open when it would have been easy for them to close up - Everyone in Prague from beginning to end were extremely friendly (apart from one bus driver!!). We had a very quick look inside their shop and were a bit surprised at how pricey their scarves and shirts are! One shop in town earlier had a home Slavia shirt for £70!
As for the game itself, we feared the worst when we heard the team Martin O'Neill had picked but we shouldn't have worried. Salifou was probably Man Of The Match closely followed by Brad Guzan who made a fantastic first half save that I don't think Brad Friedel would have stopped. Their fans, as well as our own were really noisy and laid on some pre-arranged stuff to get behind their team.
We were excellent in that first half and had to sit tight during the second when the expected Slavia onslought arrived. They had plenty of opportunities but we were holding on as the fog began to come down around the ground, just as it had the night before.
We just held on for a great win - after the game the Slavia players sat down in front of their supporters while they chanted away and then walked around the ground to applaud the fans, something that I was amazed to see. The Villa fans generously applauded back which capped a good natured day. Apparantly this is something they do all the time so the fans can tell them they are behind them whatever the result!
The security and riot police had been very heavy-handed during the final few minutes of the game when they really didn't need to be but it certainly didn't spoil the time I had there. Not surprisingly we were kept inside for about 20 minutes after the game - I'm sure there was no need though. The atmosphere had been great all day and wasn't about to change.
The number 22 tram ride after the game was a right laugh. The Carlos Cuellar song must have been done about 30 times on the long ride back into town - sort of! Again we knew the Metro needed to get back into the Old Town square but everywhere was strangely quiet - we arrived just as the Midnight bells were ringing out which was a nice cultural moment and headed off for another drink - only to find we couldn't get in as they were shutting up. Still, it had been an excellent day.
We were flying fairly soon the next day so we were up early and on the 133 bus into Town. Quick stop to buy Daniel a souvenier t-shirt and then it was the Mustek metro to Dejvicka before getting the 119 bus back to Prague Airport. Again, Czech Airlines were all on time and another half full flight headed back to Heathrow.
All the thanks to my good buddy Hatemanu who went up in the early hours to get the tickets from Villa Park, booked all the flights & hotels and got his mate to drive us to Heathrow & back. Top stuff mate - I think I repaid him fully by buying him an extra large Twix at Prague Airport!!!!
An excellent trip, one of my favourites actually, and I think I'll adopt Slavia Prague as my favourite Czech team - even if their shirts are expensive!
The After Match Slavia Prague Ritual
This is what I was trying to explain earlier about the players going over to their fans after our game. There is even a translation on this explaining exactly what they're chanting at the players. Just after this film stops the players did a shortened version with the supporters on the side stand and then came round by us where they were probably surprised to be applauded by us too.
Fantastic support by Slavia fans. Over here if your team loses 1-0 they get booed off and dozens of "fans" ring up various radio phone-ins asking for managers to get sacked. Anyway, Czech this out...(sorry)
There is a YouTube one from their 4-1 derby win over Sparta which they seemed to enjoy!
