I have been writing this blog for more than three years now, and am aware, as are my regular readers, that there is a certain rhythm to it. During the football season I feel obliged to pick up on Charlton's most recent outing, and manage to do this even if it means frantically writing something just before their next one. Outside the season, there is always rumour and speculation about the transfer market, and one or two other related football matters, and the BBC News and Sports pages are always good for a bit of slagging off, and, in line with my own self-imposed mission statement, there is the quiz, and my team, and how we are doing.
None of the foregoing, as I say, is likely to come as much of a surprise to Harry or Rory or Steve or David, nor to those regular readers whom I don't actually know personally. But there are other things which seem to determine what happens. I do occasionally get ill, mainly ailments of the colds and flu variety, and then the time I might have spent during the Madrid Nights writing the blog is reassigned to lying in bed with hot lemon drinks and good books. Then there is the thrice-annual end of term work overload, when approximately 400 exams or tests have to be corrected, annotated, results entered on a spreadsheet, and a report for each of my students (usually about 100) written. This also has a negative effect on time available for writing. But it is beginning to dawn on me that a sure-fire guarantee of the blog not appearing for a while is when I sign off with a promise to write about something or other, or comment on something 'soon'.
My last appearance in the blogosphere was on 27 May, which is 3½ weeks ago, and during that time, the end of term has approached, been dealt with and happened; I have had a very bad cold which even now is only just beginning to lift, and worse still, I promised to write about something specific at the end of my last piece.
So, on what is the third day of a two-week break before the summer courses begin next month, and finally feeling a bit better, I survey the situation and look at scraps of ideas for blogs which never got off the ground, and present three resumés.
Farewell to Gay Meadow (pictured at top, and below)
I mentioned Shrewsbury Town at the end of my last, mainly because of the fact that, like so many other clubs in recent years, they are moving to a purpose-built ground somewhere further out of the town centre. I have been looking at online editions of the Shropshire Star, and cannot find any particular reason for this. However, the one fact that struck me was that the old name, Gay Meadow, having in recent years been the butt subject of a lot of silly jokes, will not be retained. Well, no surprises there, I thought, no new ground continues the name of the old one. New grounds are either cynically named after a commercial enterprise (Reebok, Britannia Stadium) or in one case a nation (Emirates) which might be presumed to have financed the building thereof, or some other boringly pious-sounding name (Pride Park) or something just plain silly (Stadium of Light) is selected. What, I wondered, would be the name of the new Shrewsbury ground? And swipe me, as Tony Hancock used to say, it is to be New Meadow, thus in some wise continuing the old name but dropping the 'Gay', which must have been annoying them for some time; indeed for all I can tell, this might well be the very reason for the move. Though there is also the perennial problem of a waterlogged pitch caused by the adjacent River Severn. And of course the retirement of the man who would sit in midstream in his coracle and handle stray balls.
Peter Tatchell was being arrested during Moscow Gay Pride Week when the last match was played at Gay Meadow, otherwise no doubt he would have been there waving something or other and demanding that the new stadium should be called New Gay Meadow, and for once, I wouldn't disagree with him; it seems a trifle pathetic to drop the Gay and not the Meadow. All or nothing. They could have called it Consignia or something, after all. Shrewsbury's final game was a 0-0 draw against Milton Keynes in the first leg of the play-off semis, and Shrewsbury won the return leg and went on to appear at Wembley against Bristol Rovers, but lost, so it's League 2 fare at New Gay Meadow next season, after all.
Darren Bent
Darren Bent scores from a penalty against Liverpool in happier times
Charlton's relegation set off a whole series of stories about Darren being 'poised' or 'set' (verbs which replace the future tense in modern sports writing) to join various clubs, the names being shuffled about being Tottenham, West Ham, Liverpool and Valencia, and there was also a quite attractive notion circulating, that Charlton might send him to Arsenal on loan so that we can have him back again next year when we bounce straight back (without his help, of course). These stories started appearing while Darren was reported to be on holiday in Jamaica, and thus were not likely to be anything more than idle speculation designed to fill the sports pages in the absence of any actual football going on. But then it emerged that West Ham had met Charlton's £17 million valuation (or it might have been £18 million) and had been given permission to talk to Darren. Deal done and the sports pages confidently announced that Darren would sign for West Ham later that day. But Darren hadn't read his script properly and turned West Ham down. There was no explanation, either, and there still hasn't been, but one fact is standing out, and that is that Charlton will not accept less than their original valuation, and it is unlikely that they will accept say, £11 million plus a couple of supernumerary reserve players (whose wages, after all, they would have to pay), either. So reports on today's pages that Tottenham are 'set', 'poised' or whatever, to sign him for £14 million looked decidedly like wishful thinking on someone's part.
This wishful thinking has its roots in the belief of many commentators that good players are only allowed to play for a handful of clubs, and this mindset leads in turn to the belief that unless you play for someone like Liverpool, you won't be picked for England. Remember the fuss when Sven Goran Eriksson picked Chris Powell for England? "But he plays for Charlton!" the media gasped as one, outraged at the breaking of a rule which they themselves had in fact invented. So in the absence of any definite statement from Darren himself, they have now invented the reason for his refusing to go to West Ham, and it is that he wants to go somewhere from where he might be selected for England, and of course West Ham definitely isn't such a place, despite having produced illustrious figures like Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst.
Down the Pub
The quiz has been trucking away, down the pub, though numbers are dwindling somewhat and we are down to our basic three teams, which, as we are evenly matched and know each other well, is not so bad, but individual team strengths also seem to be on the wane. I know it is that time of the year, and we will come to a halt for the summer some time next month as we always do, but there is a lot of talk about how we can inject new life into it. As we are an expat Madrid pub quiz, rather than the Church of England or BBC Radio 4, there has thankfully thus far been no talk of attracting more young people; they wouldn't be able to answer many of the questions, anyway, and there are enough dumbed-down quizzes in other expat locations in Madrid. No, I think what would be much better would be to attract some old people, which would maintain the standards we all know and love. Anyone who knows any, let us know. The Guardian's wonderful Nancy Banks-Smith, whose entire online oeuvre I am slowly working my way through, would be quite brilliant, were she available.