Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A Year More Typical

i guess it all depends on where you stand - and the experience of following football can be as different from one person to another - but, if i can compare this year - and not just as a west brom fan - to last year; they were, indeed, very different times.

the FA Cup competition of 2007-08, for example, was like a throw-back to a different era. with 3 out of 4 teams in the semi-finals coming from the championship, and only pompey there to represent the mighty premier league. this means that west brom came up a goal or two just short of being only the second team in history to win the FA Cup and promotion in the same year. the only other team to have done it was, coincidentally, the baggies of 1931. cardiff easily outplayed and disposed of premiership side, middlesbrough; barnsley beat liverpool at anfield with the last kick of the game, and portsmouth - playing sterling defense and counter-attack - upset manchester united at old trafford in the 6th round, before going on to win the cup for the first time in almost 70 years. these two rounds of fixtures alone made it an exceptional year. as well, in the league cup, a tottenham hotspur team that was about to experience a massive nose-dive in terms of form and a wholesale sacking of the management/coaching staff, beat "big four" chelsea in the final.

there was also the case of derby county, where a team that truly did not belong in the premiership set a new record for low points total, garnering only 13, with only one win all year, and becoming the first team ever relegated by march. they then went on to set the record for the longest winless streak in football league history, before settling into their true position as a middle of the table championship club.

nothing of the sort happened this year; the premier league had no bad teams - with the possible, and relative exception of the performance of newcastle united, who - despite their few professional and exciting moments - seem to have rotted right out from their ownership and management, on through to their miserable home fans. a team with this many expensive players on it putting in this poor a performance should be considered pretty bad. and the lack of atmosphere for the last home game after a really exciting win against middlesbrough was baffling. those who come to take things for granted never realize their true value until they're gone.



in contrast, i was so proud to be a baggies fan when we played liverpool; and how, after the second goal - and knowing that relegation was pretty much a dead cert - the albion fans were standing and singing the club anthem, their arms outstretched thankful for at least the three weeks speculative excitement and hope that the team gave us in an otherwise dreary and depressing season and embracing all that they love about west bromwich albion, through the good times and the bad... and being true to form this year, it was a game that the baggies could very easily have won or drawn, based on the play of the midfield and the routine badly squandered scoring chances.

live text replay

although they exhibited moments of reckless defending on a regular basis, and mostly seemed like they just couldn't buy a goal despite creating regular chances born out of real and palpable, quality footballing skill, they had one of the best midfields in the premier league; and their passing and possession proved this week in week out, as they always took the game forward on the front foot, no matter who the opposition, in the style one would expect from an albion team. let's not forget, that the baggies were - with rare exception - good at home this year, and surpassed both teams immediately above them in number of total wins. the baggies had as many wins as hull, who only just managed to stay up by exploiting a strong early season form; then pulling off the one win and one draw towards the end of the year that they needed to stay up.

as well this year, the status quo returned to the cup competitions. everton will play chelsea this saturday in the FA Cup final, in a year that saw the league cup go to a manchester united side who were, to be fair, just cruising at a relaxed pace, in anticipation of the more important competitions and matches to come. it was fitting and accurately reflected their season, i think, that they actually clinched the title in a fairly listless 0-0 draw with arsenal, 2 weeks ahead of schedule. this year... well, it wasn't like i hadn't seen it all before.

it is fascinating living in a world that i could have only dreamed of as a kid - and to be able to access matches on the TV - live and complete; as well as, participate - in some small degree - critically and in creating content for the world of english football. it is part of the marvel of our age that what was once distant and esoteric is now (as with everything else) part of the all-integrated, all-inclusive pop culture which dominates and influences our lives in ways that we don't take time to think about. indeed, my eventual actions, reactions and interactions with the football world at large are a million miles away from the first time i sought out the english football scores on my own, opening a morning paper to locate the mid-week soccer box scores from england, and seeing that blackpool had been beaten by stoke city in an FA Cup replay. it all seemed so distant and exotic... i was still looking for a team to support in those days.

i remember listening to the 70-71 FA Cup final as a neutral - alternately hopeful for two young players, each one on the opposing side: steve heighway and charlie george. while they both scored goals that day, it was charlie george who ended up the hero and i was a declared arsenal supporter - until george, who never panned out into an international or ever recaptured the heroism of that sunny day in early may of 1971, went to play for derby county, and in turn saw an end to my days lending support to arsenal.

i was first attracted to the albion while i was living in england in 1976 and the team was playing in the 2nd division. i used to go to stamford bridge with a group of kids from school - none of whom were chelsea supporters - but it was the biggest of the local teams, and they really geared their club to attract a younger crowd in those days. other than that, i've never really figured out why we used to go to chelsea... although, i do remember everyone uniformly hating QPR - maybe that had something to do with it too? anyway, we never went to the shed end of the ground, and (as i hated chelsea) i was free to chagrin my contemporaries by always cheering for the away team.

the albion were managed by johnny giles that year (75-76) and the team, sporting their famous yellow and green stripes, came to the bridge and beat chelsea 2-1. this caused the most consternation with my friend, tim, who was a lifetime aston villa supporter. ironically, through his example, and many years later - it was my memories of him and his devotion to the villa that impressed and served as one of the main inspirations for my becoming a baggies supporter!



last year, while i watched my full complement of english football over the group of networks that presented me the opportunity - i followed the albion on the live text commentaries that are provided by the BBC - in eager anticipation of seeing the baggies on TV in the premier league the next year. for football fans outside the UK - and for those who use computers - the live BBC text commentaries are the only really free way to follow matches from the lower leagues. i don't know what the ratio is, but many clubs license their home games to be broadcast on local BBC radio and streamed online for UK residents. the clubs in turn are then free to use these streams on their own website and make them available to subscribing users with no international restrictions.

the albion are not one of these teams. they instead create their own content for online audio streaming of live matches. the only problem with this, is that it requires microsoft software to access the stream, and uses DRM to achieve its ends; so, mac, free and open-source softwares cannot use the service. while i believe that we all need to think about the ethics of something like this - it is very hard to get other people to understand this - and as the football league and the BBC are two of the biggest users of DRM softwares on the planet, we should at least be aware of this!

i am a free and open-source software user, and i cannot in good faith, install a microsoft operating system on my computer. while it is possible - and i have had "dual-boot" windows/linux setups before, once i felt that i could do everything i needed without microsoft, i stopped using windows altogether and simply have never installed it on my current computer. with the albion being relegated, my room-mate asked me if i was going to install windows, perhaps on a small partition on my hard-drive, so that i could at least subscribe to ALBION WORLD and get the live audio commentary via the internet.

"no, i couldn't do that," i said, despite desperately wanting to have the opportunity to do so, "i'll follow it on the BBC live text scores before i do that. there's no way that i am going to be coerced by a corporate entity into installing microsoft to my computer! no... there's no question about it!"

"wow, that's really commendable," he said, "most people in your situation would do what was to their benefit and convenience , and that would be enough to justify it."

"no man, i like computers and digital technology too much to allow myself to have to deal with giving up any part of my freedom."

because once you know what freedom is, its hard to give yourself back to malicious restrictions and the rip-off and control of the user by corporate monopolies and neo-monopolies... living in complete fear regarding the potential loss of environment(s). for example, nothing is more frightening to a photoshop user than the idea of losing your photoshop (in fact, there is a free-software replacement that is really, really good). just as chat and webcam enthusiasts are terrified of losing their MSN and YAHOO messengers, no matter how far that those actual environments have deteriorated and previous freedoms and capabilities eroded.

at the absolute bottom end of the table, another team to have won the league cup (and within living memory) has fallen quickly to relegation from the football league, in the likes of luton town - who now join oxford united as a long-time successful league club - with major cup wins to their credit, relegated to the blue-square. this is a new trend that has become more evident this year and ties in with some of the other things that we will begin to see as the face of change that the football media apparatus will have to deal with begins to appear.

for example, it may just be that with the teams like manchester united and chelsea able to do just about anything they want due to their status and money available to them - and with projections for nothing but continued success for this class of teams (the so-called "big four"); and, coupled with the relative freedoms that the blue-square has in terms of broadcasting (both TV and radio) as well as freedom to stream video and audio commentary live on the internet - the teams in leagues 1 and 2 are going to feel the squeeze of having to observe the same licensing and broadcast regulations as manchester united, while ebbsfleet united offers live streaming video online and the unrestricted streaming of cambridge united matches through BBC online audio commentary is available to an international audience. it is already quickly becoming a reality for some of the smaller clubs, that playing in the blue-square offers much more potential opportunity than a place in league 2 does! the most obvious example of this, is that the blue-square matches that are broadcast on BBC local radio as well as streamed live online - unlike the league games online at the BBC - are available to all international listeners. i have spent many an afternoon listening to the cambridge united or histon match live online; while the brentford or leyton orient game is simply unavailable outside the UK by virtue of corporate licensing, DRM and geography. it seems like something that nobody has noticed yet, but will serve as a basis for swift and essential change to the setup of professional football media in england once somebody does.

while i believe that middlesbrough and newcastle are really going to suffer in the championship - and newcastle more than the 'boro - because they were not expecting this - and after a long time in the premiership, you can't help but have picked up a lot of premiership baggage as well. the baggies, on the other hand, have never been in the premier league long enough to make the deals and get the signings intended to consolidate the club's place in the premier league; so unlike their companions in relegation, they still have an infra-structure that is more prepared to support a championship campaign, and have recent experience with what it's all about playing in that division. i will be very surprised if the albion are not successful in making a return to the premier league within 2 years - at the most. in fact, i'm fully expecting them to gain an automatic promotion place next season along with cardiff city, at this point. newcastle might make the play-offs, but it will take deft management to do so, i believe.

this year's most pleasant surprise was brentford gaining promotion with a team that was truly dominant in its division. it will be interesting to see if the bee's can continue with more upwardly mobile progress. as an ex-south west london suburbanite - i have a real soft spot for brentford and would love to see them get to the premiership one day - even for just one season. it's one of those things i would feel privileged to have witnessed in my lifetime... football has such a massive scope; not just as the most popular and universal of all sports, but in its extensive and varied history; and the fact that it is capable of reminding us so easily of the relatively short span of our own lives, and the things in which we invest faith that may never come to pass, yet we are inexorably drawn to the hoping...

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Relegation and the Football Media Wars

as an overseas supporter - and someone who blogs on english football from an international perspective - the medium by which i receive matches is all important, and is therefore more than just passing subject matter in my journey into - and literary assessments and pronouncements on - west bromwich albion the current state of the "beautiful game" in england. i won't wait until the last game to summarize the season... the baggies are going back to the championship and SETANTA has lost half its premier league schedule to SKYSPORTS; and very little is apt to change with the BBC online or otherwise. since these facts are pre-determined and inevitable, at this point, there is nothing that can be changed by the last day away to blackburn, except the number of wins, losses and draws chalked up on the season's record.

it has been 2 years now (hence, 2 seasons of football), where i have had a subscriptions to SETANTA SPORTS CANADA, as well as a "sports-pack" - which includes GOLTV, FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA, TSN and SPORTSNET. this is the optimum amount of international football that i can subscribe to through my current cable provider. a basic "no-frills" cable subscription gets you 2 or 3 live premier league games a week through SPORTSNET, but there are no repeats. likewise, there is 1 or 2 broadcasts of the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE matches on game-days; and again, there are few or no repeats. this includes independent, local italian and spanish language broadcasts of CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, as well. so the only way to comprehensively follow english football via cable TV in toronto is to have a subscription to SETANTA.

this year, there was no english football on FOX SPORTSWORLD; as opposed to last year when they broadcast half the FA CUP games, as well as a weekly premier league or championship game. for example, i remember getting up at 7.30 AM on one occasion to watch the "steel-city derby" at hillsborough won 2-1 by the wednesday, on FOX. at this point in time i had not seen sheffield wedneday play since their relegation from the premier league. just as i had realized that i had not seen an FA CUP game since the inception of the premier league. in fact, the last final i remember seeing (probably on TSN) is the wimbledon victory of 1988. after that - and with the formation of the premier league a few years later - the competition seems to have been relegated to the outer-limits of specialty cable sports broadcasting and its TV licensing agreements. i know, for example, that like last year i will be watching the final on SETANTA; but, i have no idea where it has been broadcast before that... i never saw the chelsea win of 2 years ago...

i started following english football at around the age of 11 through the newspaper box scores that appeared with the league tables in the monday morning paper, and my first exposure to the excitement of the game was a live radio broadcast of the liverpool/arsenal cup final in 1971. i have been a fan, in varying degrees - and as the communications media has afforded me - ever since.

i have been watching english football, here in canada (barring the week delayed CBC TV broadcasts of the FA CUP finals in the early 70s), ever since a fledgling, local independent TV station started broadcasting week old reruns of MATCH OF THE DAY in the early 1980s. this was also the last of the live FA CUP finals seen on broadcast (as opposed to cable) TV. After this, the FA CUP final disappeared completely. even the live broadcast on CBC radio had long gone, and the effects of cross-licensing derived from the creation of "specialty" channels on cable TV was felt very quickly and profoundly. i remember as recently as 1990, that i took it for granted that the FA CUP final would be live on CBC radio, tuning in only to find an early morning jazz show on the main network.

there is no doubt that the premiership - and most especially its use of television as a medium - has had the most profound effect on football, not only in england, but in the rest of the world, as well. FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA seems to have serie A as its centrepiece. the only thing that ever got my attenton on GOLTV was their bundesliga matches... la liga never really grabs my interest; south american football is pretty awful compared to what it used to be and i can't tune in with any interest wherever and whenever i see it. i watch the ligue 1 matches from france - even sometimes on the french language broadcast later on saturday afternoons. of course, there are two league matches on weekly offer from SENTANTA, one each on saturday and sunday respectively - and after the premier league broadcasts have finished. i like watching the french matches - but have no real emotional attachments like i do with english football.

i don't know what next year will bring - or how much or what kind of football i'll be seeing (never mind listening to) with SETANTA losing half its schedule to SKYSPORTS; and the BBC unlikely to change its policies in regards to the online streaming of radio broadcasts and their international restrictions. this year, the only thing that i know i can say that i really missed (as in "didn't see") was the Masters Indoor tournament and somewhere between 5-10 championship matches - which, was - without a doubt - the result of some TV licensing deal or lack thereof. As may have been the case with the League 2 playoff-final - which was listed as being broadcast "live" on SETANTA at 10.00 AM EST. surprisingly, this did not happen and SETANTA couldn't show the match here, except on 8 hour delay. i couldn't find out why this was, but when i tuned in for the live broadcast in the morning, they were showing super 14 rugby from new zealand!!!

this is pretty minor stuff compared with what we might be getting next year. all i know - and as far as the baggies are concerned - after sunday when i will watch their last game against blackburn on an 8 hour delay - and depending on what is being planned for SETANTA CANADA, it is more than likely that i will not see the albion play again until i make my pilgrimage to the hawthorns on my visit to england in september.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

WBA 3-1 Wigan Athletic

well, as an optimist - albeit one who does a lot of bitching on the negatives of football's media infra-structure - it would seem that the "great escape II" is definitely on and distinctly more of a possibility - it would seem, now that we're down to the last 2 games of the season - than it has been for months. the baggies have looked on their way out and back to the championship since before christmas; and now the possibility of premiership survival is definitely on.

of course, this is another game that i didn't get to see - not because there was no broadcast (which there wasn't live); but because the game wasn't shown until the next day - and at a time that i would be out; also, with the playoffs making for a good amount of televised live football this week, it rather looks like that will be my only chance to see it. i just hope SETANTA CANADA needs to fill some football time this week and squeezes in a second repeat. that sometimes happens...

even at that, it was a great joy to follow, even on just the BBC live text:

live text replay

delighted that the baggies scored first - and fortune, i thought really deserved to score after the way he's been playing lately; and of course, i was suspicious that everyone was just cranking up the same old tune when wigan equalized. but when brunt scored from the penalty i knew it was going to be the albion's day. when the 3rd goal went in i was ecstatic as i now knew that a second great escape had suddenly opened up for the baggies, quite fortunately and ultimately unexpectedly.

"C"MON YOU BAGGIES!!!"



the tough one here - in fact the toughest test in the whole lot would seem to be the liverpool game on the weekend. any result from that is all that's needed. although, i find an irony in this match, in that albion will absolutely need to put an end to liverpool's title contention; and liverpool will - with equal urgency - need to put west brom out of the league. it is potentially as dramatic a match as i can remember. of course, it does well to remember that it could all be over for liverpool by the the time of sunday's kick off; just as a hull or newcastle win would finish the baggie's aspirations. luckily, it doesn't look like there's one of those in sight, and i really think that it is much more likely that liverpool will be the one's showing up with only second-place to play for. the baggie's intention will more than likely remain unwaivering with hull away to bolton and newcastle home to an on-form and superior fulham side the day before.

with the last match at blackburn, the rovers have only the sake of entertaining the home crowd and professionalism to play for; the baggies might still have premiership survival to be playing for. so it's not crucial who wins - or if anybody wins, for that matter - the tyne-tees derby, because the baggies will need 35 points to stay up, at this point anyway. but that would have to be the last result that either hull, newcastle or middlesbrough can produce in any of their last two games... 2 draws, 1 win and 6 losses - not impossible!

Posting After Tyne-Tees


i have waited, however, until after the tyne-tees derby - which saw newcastle out of the bottom 3 and sank hull into it - before posting this article. a draw would have sat better with me, but the newcastle victory reminded me that it's not enough to go for a draw with liverpool and hope that we can take it to a last game. we're going to have to go for a win as if it were any other team.

the greatest irony in the last two games is that the baggies may be playing at home against a liverpool team that has already lost the title, and an away against a blackburn side playing for the sake of the fans, professionalism and a good final show for the season. if indeed, manchester united have already won the title by the time that liverpool and albion have kicked off on sunday, it is the away game against the rovers that may very well be the more perilous of the two - and is the factor that would make it the not only a great escape, but the greatest escape. as the years have told us - and excluding the all-defiant capabilities of the so-called "big four" - an away game for anyone on the last day of the season is likely to be a rough ride no matter who the opposition.

i had stated in a previous blog that i thought that tony mowbray had finally found the team that would have seen the baggies clear to survival. the gaffer said pretty much the same thing himself, after the wigan game. i did hope that he would find that balance within the last 10 games of the season instead of leaving down to the last 4. but in all fairness, TM has had as hard a year as any manager in the premier league. to have to work on new team formations with a 21 year old leading the line was a challenge that took half the season to get right; and five minutes after it all starts to come together and months of baffling management strategies are suddenly coalescing in an evident and tangible manner, his main striker is hurt and out for the season. it was like working on something all year and then suddenly and unexpectedly having to change direction with precious little resources from which to draw.

while the albion have showed that beautiful football can be a very fragile proposition at best, and have endured heartbreak all season, it is definite credit to them that they can have showed as much spirit as they are showing at the moment. anyone else else would have had any residual character long since squeezed dry - as hull city is now showing us.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Next Year and the Football Media Wars

i am so back logged in my blogging that i have 2 or 3 articles ahead of this one that have yet to be completed and published. however, i just watched the spurs match live - via a video stream on my computer - so i have an immediate experience that addresses both the plight of the albion and an experience with digital media to comment on.

firstly, i found the link at one of my regular resources for such things: footyfansforum, and the person who was streaming the page did a first class job. the first half was all stop and go and the service that was being used to stream the media as flash-video was laden with ads and needed to be restarted constantly. at halftime, the host switched servers, changed the embedding source and started streaming the match through another site - with a slightly higher screen-resolution. this stream was far superior and i was able to see the whole 2nd half really smoothly, and without interruption. it was good example of what is possible - and although a restricted (in terms of licensing and copyright) video sharing site and proprietary player (adobe-flash) was used for the actual streaming, the significant philosophical idea here is that the link i was given and watched the match on was to a private web-site, which hosted a series of other such pages. it would appear that the webmaster of this project is aware, at least in part, to the idea of ethics in terms of use of content. after all, i'm merely someone who followed a link that was posted in a message by someone with whom i share an acquaintance through an online community... just sharing access to a file with a friend of mine from the UK.

i have had to deal with the issues of how information is shared in the digital millennium. besides constantly seeking out resources by which to follow english football; things as they are available - as well as things that are soon to be available... i am working on a film (actually, i am working on several films) where i posted the first chapter to YouTube. i also posted it to Google video and my Myspace account. after about a year and a half, the audio track was stripped from the video on YouTube due to copyright issues, and a note from YouTube advising me of the situation and giving me the name of both the work and the "owner" of the publishing. i do not acknowledge their right to do this, merely their ability to do so, and would encourage people to watch it on Google video over YouTube anyday as well as the embedded video on my website:


"image nation (pt.1)"




anway, onto the football...

Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 WBA


the pressure was on, the stage was set, the potential heroes were in place, and quite incredibly west brom was (and is still) not (as of this minute, anyway) mathematically resigned to relegation; although, only an incredible alignment of results from other matches, and 7 points minimum in the last 3 games might see a highly unlikely salvation. of course, nothing happened on the day...

the albion have not been good under pressure this year. they have too often had to work too hard, don't get any of the breaks, and decidedly lack an air of danger. this is all creditable to inexperience. the baggies, having lost their veterans at the outset of a premiership campaign and were simply unable to mount anything in terms of results. certainly not re-signing kevin phillips was A-1 mistake, but i am covering that extensively in another post. i think it comes down to the reality of simultaneously having to rebuild a team and deal with a fresh promotion and premiership campaign that is the fairest and most concise judgment of the baggies challenges this year.

there was nothing different to distinguish this game from many others played this year. aside from the several drubbings they have received this season, the baggies win and generally control the ball in mid-field and create chances that should be seeing them 1 or 2 up most of the time, but the general individual inexperience is letting them down and the pace with which one is required to finish in the premier league has too often taken them by surprise and seen open-headers come smashing back off the crossbar, and clever movement into space producing balls that ricochet back of the post... and there's that intangible feeling of a lack of danger, as if their skills alone will put the ball in the net... i dunno' - it's hard to explain...

anway, and we still might see some entertainment by way of these young men yet, as i expect the baggies to psychologically take the pressure off after today's loss - and that can't be anything but a good thing for the sake of their football, and i hope they play well for the last 3 games and at least entertain us with some all too-late results. a home win over liverpool would be a real treat after a season of undeserved poor results, eh? it's all one can really ask for at this point of the day.

but today, chris brunt was poised to be the hero by virtue of his recent scoring run. if someone was going to ignite a great escape, it would seem like it was going to be the play of chris brunt. since his goal in a losing cause against arsenal, he has become the team's leading scorer on the year and impressed that he will improve and provide increasing offensive power to the team, as both attacking midfielder and set-piece specialist. the team played well today - as they have much of the year - but the heroics - as has also been the case all year - were limited to chances missed, lost outcomes dictated in the space of no more than few unlucky inches, and made by young men, enough of whom are playing in a position of responsibility at a level for which they are not yet ready. there was only moments of the drama and promise we saw last week.

live text replay




the battle for media coverage is what i am looking forward to as far as next year goes. with the baggies back in the championship - and despite all my expensive cable TV subscriptions, i may not get the chance to see any televised baggies matches at all next year. a cup run would probably be the most likely chance i'll get. and given the current state of affairs, i will be spending my saturday mornings perhaps being lucky enough to find an audio commentary stream, or the odd championship TV broadcast that someone'll stream online - or i will be following the match by live text updates on the BBC.

west brom is also one of the teams that do not license their games for broadcast on radio with the BBC as many league teams opt to do - some of them using this as content for the streaming audio offered through paid membership to the club's website. the baggies, instead, create and stream their own audio commentary. i won't go into it here and now, but all this content is highly restricted through licensing and copyright - as reflected by the use of DRM uniformly on every site; all maintained by the same company - and requiring a microsoft operating system and the Internet Explorer browser in order to access the material.

being a free software user (GNU-Linux) this is unacceptable and i have had an ongoing email correspondence with a Mr. John Simpson, who holds a position at the club dealing with product and consumer relations. he has been a charming enough correspondent, however, he absolutely defends the necessity of DRM, and will not directly answer my question as to whether i believe that a practice such as that which i have just described, is ethical? as it coerces me to use microsoft software, which i refuse to do, because it is not secure (prone to viruses and hacking), intrusive and socially irresponsible, in that it promotes the near monopoly that microsoft now enjoys over the PC computer market.

also, the radio broadcasts by the BBC; for which they have independent deals with each and every club for the rights to their home games - are all available online as audio commentary streams, but these streams are unavailable outside the UK. this is technically true for every organization in the football league. however, where a similar deal has been made with a blue square team, the audio commentary is unrestricted and available internationally. what this means, is that from a starting point, a team like cambridge united, histon, and several other notable blue square teams have an international market readily available to them that anyone in the football league or premiership does not. i don't believe they have realized how to use this market, or that they have even identified it as a "market" yet; and not realized how many people might become interested in cambridge united, histon or kettering town as a result; but i can definitely see the beginnings of some interesting potentials in the existence of such a market.

a traditional and mainstream television based commodity will continue to do what it has always done, constantly becoming a bigger, a richer, more extravagant and centralized market; ever appealing to the ritual of victory, and less focussed on a general passion for a team that isn't a multi-million dollar corporation. eventually, i believe there will be a multi-tiered premiership which will be based on the logical continuation and extension of "top-flight" football with television as its perennial citadel of power; while an equally extended set of lower divisions and blue square league will build a smaller, more localized international market based on the potentials of digital media and the internet. whatever happens to ebbsfleet united, and to their revolutionary experiment of a member-owned club, their content is like-wise revolutionary. they try to do live media streams of some of their matches (as finances will allow), and they offer whole matches archived for downloading or playing online in an embedded flashplayer.

i don't know how it will all go down, but if you extend something far enough it is inevitable that to some extent - and at least with some aspects of the the thing - you will encounter a reversal of form. i can't help but imagine that the practical freedoms created by the use of digital media that now exist at the bottom of the football pyramid in england will create a demand for those same freedoms at the top.


The Baggies and the Championship




it's quite obvious that it all happened too late, but if the season started today, i think that the current version of the baggies would do well enough to survive - and at least good enough to stay out of the bottom 4 or 5 - and with ishamel miller back next year, mowbray will have a pretty well rounded team to work with. we've heard that morrison is thinking about leaving if the baggies are relegated; and simpson'll want to go back to arsenal to see if he can at least find another premier league loan deal. there's probably one or two others as well (scott carson, comes to mind) who may want to try and stay in the premier league. but i think the virtue of this team, is that it is young and there is at least 1 or 2 key veterans who'll stay, no matter what. i've always assumed that greening is looking to stay in football after his playing days, and there are few better places than west brom to stick it out with. tony brown has worked for the albion his entire life - since he was 15!

i hope fortune stays, i can see him becoming an extremely useful forward in tandem with someone like miller. he has really been working at learning how to hold the ball up going into the final third. i can really see something good developing between him and miller - and i hope that bednar can find his place in the team again too.

if mowbray sticks with is curent back four: zuiverloon, olsonn, martis and robinson, and find adequate backup, they will become a really good defensive unit, and more than capable of stout, effective defending in the championship. in fact, i think the team looks a lot better in terms of handling a championship campaign than one might think. much like albion teams in the past, once they have found their spark-plug player - the ronnie allen, bobby robson, jeff astle, tony brown, cyrille regis, or bob taylor; they'll gain a confidence and settle into a pattern where all the scorers will start to contribute consistently - especially the midfielders. koren, morrison, and greening should all be chipping in with goals if not with prodigious frequency then at least regularly. i hope we see dorrans stay and make a starting place for himself; although he hasn't shown it yet, he might be good for 5 or 6 goals a year.

after all, we've got tony mowbray, who must have learned enough this year that it will take him 2 or 3 years to implement much of what he has absorbed about the game at the highest level in a practical way. at any rate, we might not have had the gods of football on our side this year - that was plainly evident. but there was a time - around when miller got hurt - that i believed the baggies would have trouble going back down to the championship; but that is no longer true. the gaffer's previous experiences with this level of football will be evident fairly quickly, and the baggies will be back in the premier league within 2 years... and that's just about the time when the current veterans will be at their wiliest and most dangerous; and the young, inexperienced and over-anxious will be maturing into hardened, knowledgeable and confident veterans; and as long as we remember the important details, we will have found another veteran striker!

of course, i could be completely wrong - and the baggies might even still stay up. middlesborough, newcastle and hull all come away with the minimum points from the last 3 games; which would leave them on 32, 32, and 34 points respectively; and the baggies would need only to beat wigan at home, draw with liverpool at home, and then beat blackburn away on the last day of the season to stay up on 35.