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.
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