I did it again. A combination of lovely weather, the prospect of being able to spend another Sunday with my brother and his family (which I no longer take for granted after him going through cancer treatment) and my very modest hopes for anything resembling a respectable result of our boys against the Champions of England made me decide against live football yet again, at least partly.
I managed to watch the first half of the Cordi U23 vs. Bergedorf West game. With Cordi 3:0 up at halftime my brother rang me up, asking if I fancied a day out with him, my sister in law and nephew in a nearby zoo out in the countryside, with an invitation thrown in afterwards for our traditional summer dinner treat of choice, cooked fresh asparagus, new potatoes, Sauce Hollandaise and local ham.
I can tell you, it was a quality afternoon and certainly more appealing than watching Cordi’s first team stumbling to a meaningless 2:1 victory in front of 72 paying customers (as I read online later that evening). It was also more entertaining than watching our game against Manchester City live on the telly what with the sun doing a splendid job of creating a Caribbean vibe across the flat plains on the southeastern outskirts of Hamburg.
That zoo was a weird mixture of species, all kinds of bovines (including Galloways), horses, donkeys, pigs, llamas, raccoons, coatis, pheasants, peacocks, parrots, ostriches, zebras (!!!), a massive python, sheep and goats. Weird combo, but wonderful regardless!
It was good fun and there was some fighting going on as well in the animal kingdom, ostriches chasing around some goats, boars fighting over territory and raccoons having a heated argument over their respective position in the feeding line.
Again, as contests these were much more even and fun to watch than what was to follow when I sat down for the rerun of the Manchester City game later in the evening.
As a sidenote I also heard that my nephew is through with judo now, he has found himself a new sporting extravaganza, unfortunately not football, but tennis!
(How did that happen ? Then again, I wouldn’t mind watching my nephew playing in a Wimbledon semifinal one day! Probably better chance of that happening than him making it to the World Cup as a footballer with the Germany team…:-))
As for the highlights of the West Ham game, well, they were few and far between. Cresswell’s freekick was class obviously. I also cannot fault the effort by our players.
But to be brutally honest, apart from a five minute spell just after we scored, it was never really a contest – and Manchester City didn’t even have to break sweat.
It was men against boys. Man City broke through our midfield and defence at will almost.
I had seen goats earlier in the zoo, here in the shape of the Man City players I saw different goats, as in “greatest of all time” – they surely have some tremendous players.
In contrast we seem to have a fairly high number of donkeys.
There is nothing wrong of course with donkeys, but if the Premier League is the Grand National you are unlikely to compete in that riding a donkey.
A major overhaul is required at our club from top to bottom, on and off the pitch. In that respect the summer dealings should tell us a thing or two…
Back to the game, early in the second half I stopped counting how often we gave back possession immediately after winning back the ball or losing possession after having a throw-in.
To be fair, I don’t think it would have really mattered much if we had played a different formation or starting XI on the day. We were never likely to get anything from this game and maybe it was a small victory we only lost by a three goal margin. Goals could become vital as we are closing in on the finishing line.
It’s tough that we still need to keep our eyes on several other clubs in terms of league survival, but the reasons for that have been debated on here back and forth.
I didn’t expect that our final game against Everton would still hold any significance for our fate, but now it increasingly looks like things may well go down to the wire.
On the one hand of course it’s exciting to attend a game with potentially so much riding on it. On the other hand I could do without seeing us getting relegated on the last day of the season. In any case I shall be meeting some of you good people again and that in itself is always pretty much a win-win situation.
To finish on a positive, I heard the Cordi U23s finished their game with a 4:1 scoreline which means they will definitely be promoted to the next level (Kreisliga).
Which is good news for the lads as they are a bunch of smashing guys, playing football the right way. That promotion will also guarantee that there will be far more interesting games next season for the fans as the competing teams will be of much better quality so the fixtures will be proper contests.
Unlike far too many of West Ham’s games throughout the current season unfortunately. Let’s hope things will get better for The Hammers somehow! COYI!!!