Heavy Lay the Judgement

it's been a little less than two weeks now since swansea city brought an end the football season, winning themselves promotion to the almighty PREMIER LEAGUE through play-off final victory over reading f.c., and the transfer market is already starting to buzz with activity and rumour.

in the new world digital millennium, the easiest way to gauge what the supporters are actually thinking is to browse your way through the various websites which host message-boards and fan forums and have a look at what people are posting.

i have recently and regularly been following - and contributing - to several threads at westbrom.com, an independent fan site with quite active forums and a membership of about 4000. while the site is well moderated and there is some surprisingly keen local insights in the writing and contributions to posts, there is still enough ill-conceived thought and unrealistic expectation going on here to support my assertion that the PREMIER LEAGUE can do terrible things to the soul of a football club.





it has long been known that the club's intention - and indeed, its necessity - to strengthen the centre-back positions. with jonas olsson the only defender about whom there is no question as to his place and importance in the squad, the lack of two good centre-backs is otherwise a pretty glaring deficiency in the side. neither does roy hodgson appear too keen on either of the goalies it seems. this is no surprise, as the baggies were simply unable to deal with corner-kicks and set plays going into the second-half of the season, so you can bet there'll be at least a few signings made to address this situation between now and august.

what is evident on the message-boards and online forums is that the expectation of the supporters as to who a club like west bromwich albion can attract (or afford) is largely unrealistic. there's enough talk about the idea of bringing a player like christopher samba to the hawthorns, and plenty of commentary about how gareth macauley and billy jones - the first signings of roy hodgson's tenure - are adequate back-up players to the proven "top-grade" defenders that the baggies' management are apparently going to be buying; and how no one seems to rate andy lonergan as a goalie, blah blah blah...

much of fan posting is quite fanciful, to say the least. as a supporter of a large community based club, what you want is one thing; what you get is another and the truth is always somewhat mundane.

christopher samba has been linked with a move to arsenal. even the top clubs have trouble finding defenders of his quality. andy lonergan is, in fact, one of the better english goalies, and at 27, a fairly long career can still be projected for the current preston north end stopper. more than one or two PREMIER LEAGUE clubs will eventually be seriously targeting him to compete for a place in their starting eleven.





whatever is happening and whoever else the baggies sign over the summer, the club's most recent acquisitions are players being brought in to strengthen the first team and no one is being signed with the intention of playing them in the reserves or as a substitute for someone better. make no mistake, billy jones and gareth mcauley have both been brought in to compete for places in the first team.

one subject that really had me shaking my head were the discussions about danny graham. with expectations that he'd be coming to the hawthorns, the general reaction was, for the most part, pretty lukewarm-to-negative with loads of unenthusiastic assessment promoting the old cliché that a player like graham might've done well in the CHAMPIONSHIP, but is never going to be a proper PREMIER LEAGUE player; and again how he might be of some use coming off the bench for some imaginary proven "top-flight" striker.

well, the fact is that we didn't even come close in getting last year's joint top-scorer in the CHAMPIONSHIP and were out-bid (quite significantly, i might add) by both QPR and ultimately, swansea city. like the albion, these two clubs - both new to the PREMIER LEAGUE for the upcoming season - in pursuing graham, would have hope and confidence that the ex-watford sharp-shooter can be an important player in the PREMIER LEAGUE and an asset to anyone looking at the struggle for survival in the world's top football league.





the days when the big community based clubs, like the albion, could compete financially with teams at the top of the league and playing attractive football was the measure, are long gone. as the money continues to get out of hand and the gap between the top 4 or 5 clubs and everyone else gets bigger, expectations of what is possible will have to continue to change. while there is a historical precedent and the baggies are the 15th most successful side in the annals of english football, the right to claim a place as one of the top 20 clubs in the country is something the albion are going to have to perpetually battle out with 10-12 other clubs of similar size and stature.

my only answer is to have faith in our club. as albion fans, let's hope for and try to inspire a little bit of magic. it's easy to project continued success for all our proven and favourite players; like peter odemwingie, graham dorrans and youssouf mulumbu; but let's also hope that simon cox can become a consistent goalscorer in the PREMIER LEAGUE. let's hope that ishmael miller can finally come back from injury and be something like the player that we all hoped he would. let's have faith that our new signings are successful and can make significant contributions to improving the squad. let's hope that we find a good goalie and another quality centre-half. let's just hope...

Stoke City F.C. 1-1 WBA

live text replay



there was no same day coverage of this match on TV in my part of the world, so i had to wait 36 hours before i had a chance to actually see this one. i did of course listen live on ALBION RADIO.

there isn't a baggies supporter alive who would expect to come away from a match at the britannia stadium with any more than what they got; and this was absolutely the best performance against a stoke city team in the last few years.

tony pulis, besides appearing to be one of the least likable personalities in english football, has discovered a formula for survival in the PREMIER LEAGUE which is generally within the means of resources available to a large community based club like stoke city. it doesn't do much for football - in fact, it' a kind of "anti"-football - but it does manage to procure top-flight survival and the lucrative television contract which goes along with it. after all, this is the real goal for any team who will never compete for anything more than a mid-table finish in the league. the TV money is everything!

stoke city f.c. - one of the 12 original FOOTBALL LEAGUE teams - play a tough, defensive game that would be more generously characterized as "hard" and are unusually reliant on dead-ball situations from which to fashion scoring opportunities. in fact, they have become known in the last few years for their use of the long throw-in as a primary weapon of attack, utilizing the talents of their throw-in specialist, rory delap. tony pulis' main tactic is to slow everything down and protracted possession is relatively unimportant. they are a much physically bigger team than average and it seems at times like they're playing with five centre-halfs. while being a solidly based defensive side, they are long-time proponents of the single striker formation and are most effective on the counter-attack. they also have a very good goalie.



whatever the individual and/or collective merits of these two sides, this match was painfully average, but might have caught the interest of the neutral or passing television viewer as it was a close game with a low score. but in an exclusively audio medium it would have held no interest whatsoever. there were dismally long gaps in the commentary in which dave bowler and chris dunn were simple running out of things to say. i mean, how many times can you have a laugh over rory delap taking the better part of a minute to wipe down a ball and get on with a simple throw-in? stoke city used up so time at every stoppage that the match never really seemed to get going. the ALBION RADIO was lost for words. it would seem that the potters' general tactic is to drag the opposition's game down and instigate a kind of battle of atrition in which they themselves look to just "nick it" in the end. this would seem to be a general outline of any stoke city game plan.

i could be argued that it's been a successful and relatively quick consolidation as a competitive PREMIER LEAUGE club for the potters, but you'd be hard-pressed to find much positive to say about their football.

the TV was much better than it was as audio transmission, but there's no getting away from it: this was by-and-large a dull game.



roy hodgson made some bold and, i thought, intelligent changes to the side which he had put out against wolves. first and foremost was the return of scott carson as the starting goalie. seeing as how there is little to choose between him and boaz myhill, it was probably the right thing to do in regards to carson's rehabilitation after having his confidence evaporate following a string of poor performances.

but the big surprise on the day was the return to the team of abdoulaye meite, one of the albion's forgotten men. while he did the job when he was asked to in contributing to last year's promotion campaign, he had been largely over-looked as "unsuitable" to play in the PREMIER LEAGUE and was not a particular fan favourite. hodgson, however, remembered that meite was indeed an experienced top-flight centre-half who had not only seen a couple of patchy periods where his confidence was shot, but had also played some very good football at this level during the course of his career.

the baggies looked much better all around for the changes. meite was the best partner that jonas olsson has had all year; and another partnership, that of youssouf mulumbu and paul scharner has definitely begun to gel in the midfield holding positions.



as it had been against wolves, it was the predatory instincts of carlos vela that saved this one late on for the albion. he has proved an instant hero at the hawthorns and given meaning to the idea of west brom being a team who plays with intention for the full 90 minutes.

the important thing at the end of the day is that the baggies got a result and have started a small run of games unbeaten. however, if the albion are to survive, this was the signal that they're going to do it the hard way... theoretically, at least. after three straight home draws against wigan, west ham, and wolves, it will be arsenal, chelsea and liverpool who will be visiting the hawthorns next, and the baggies will have to target at least one win from this set of home fixtures.

in the meantime, it is a trip down the road to st. andrews next, and another chance for the baggies to do their first double of the season over local rivals birmingham city.

i'm glad that roy hodgson's taken over and i think he's in for the long-haul. he's brought back meite and shown interest in the progress that ishamel miller is looking to make at QPR. these are players that i think roberto di matteo had just about discounted outright, so i think that hodgson already may see more potential in his resources than the previous gaffer did. let's hope he can use them to the desired effect.

WBA 3-3 West Ham United

live text replay





this was unbelievable, and once again, a fascinating comparison of the differing and inherant qualities of football as audio commentary and football as TV content.

this match didn't get a first TV airing until 8 PM EST in the part of the world where i live. so i had been living with the result and my own experience of the match for several hours, as i had heard it on the ALBION RADIO before i actually saw it.

i am always amazed that radio, or digital audio commentaries on the internet create an environment of more intense involvement on the part of the "user"; that is to say, the "viewer" or "listener". the drama is heightened, the mistakes more crucial, the experience more critical, the level of attention more immediately demanding in an audio environement. audio commentary, tending to be more diverse and playing to smaller, more specialized interests, is also, therefore, more inclined to be partisan. radio has always been the medium of propaganda.



television is a cool, detached, objective scanning of visual information. it is the medium of the short attention span and constant diversion. it also the medium of the mainstream and this creates an environment where the presentation tends to be non-partisan, non-judgmental and wholly less critical. it is also more concerned with entertainment rather than the straight dissemination of information and user involvement.

for example, i always feel better watching a TV replay of a disappointing result after having heard it first on the ALBION RADIO. where the baggies' biased commentary on the ALBION RADIO transmissions often has me hopping up and down at the injustice perpetrated by a referee, or a missed penalty kick, the televised match gives me an objective vantage point - and presented as such - with a chance to assess in a cool, detached manner what i've seen (or even what i think i've seen), finding both sympathy and condemnation therein.

any of those of us who thought that michael appleton - by virtue of his long-time involvment at the club as well as coaching badges and accreditations acquired - might make as good a manager as any number of other young candidates, were as naive as appy himself in thinking he might be able to do the job.

michael appleton's managerial debut was a painfully schizophrenic experience that ran the gamut from merciless attacking football to completely inept and gutless defending. it was so extreme that it took me several hours to figure out what had happened after having listened to it. by the time the game came on TV it was merely a confirmation of what i had imagined.

appleton picked more or less the same team that di matteo has been playing - and given the current injury situation - but his substitutions were absolutley ludicrous.

the baggies started off like a pack of hunting dogs unleashed. in what might later turn out to be the most significant moment of the match, graham dorrans opened his PREMIER LEAGUE scoring account inside of three minutes with an effort that just doesn't get any better. taking a pass into space from peter odemwingie, and a full 25-30 yards out, the young scottish international confidently struck an unstoppable ball past west ham keeper, robert green, burying it in the top corner of the net.

it was a spectacular start.

with barely seven minutes gone, it was then jerome thomas' turn to add to his season's tally. the albion winger took a ball which was layed back from marc-antoine fortune and attacking from the top corner of the box had a good enough angle to side-foot the ball past wayne hennessy in the wolves goal. the hawthorns was jumping and the albion were 2-0 up.



four minutes later, thomas, once again looking menacing at the end of a quick and incisive counter attack, looked to be have been pulled down by winston reid in the west ham box after having gone round goalkeeper, hennessy. however, play was waved on and the baggies once again look to be victim of a referee's reluctance to give a penalty which would necessitate a red-card.

peter odemwingie should have made it 3-0, as he was allowed a free-header on a graham dorrans' corner-kick, but unfortunately put the ball straight at wayne hennessy.

it was at this point, however, that the match began to change complexion.

youssouf mulumbu, arguably the baggies most important defensive player in the current team formation, was forced to come off due to a tightening hamstring. while it would still take some time before the woeful west ham defending started to close down better, carlton cole would have had a goal but for a questionable offside decision in the 23rd minute.

a certain justice was served in regards to the earlier non-call on the penalty appeal, when in the 31st minute, the baggies did go 3 goals up through a winston reid own-goal. the west ham defender completely midjudged another dorrans' corner-kick and directed the ball into an open net whilst coming from the back to defend it.

as good as the baggies attacking game was, the hammers' defending was every bit as bad. it was training ground looking stuff.

with a a 3 goal lead, and watching from the stands, roy hodgson must have been feeling like he'd walked into an absolute dream job, and that keeping this group of players in the PREMIER LEAGUE would be little problem once he got hands on the reigns.



the baggies even looked good defensively in the first-half. boaz myhill made a fantastic save from hammers' striker demba ba - after the hammers started to come back into the match a little - which bounced off the post and was ultimately cleared off the line by james morrison. the albion looked like tight, together and dangerous.

the second-half was a completely different story.

youssouf mulumbu's early exit began to reveal just how much of a turning point it had actually been.

following what quickly became a legendary half-time talk delivered by west ham captain, scott parker, the hammers came back from the break and within five minutes had their first goal. mark noble delivered a perfect chip ball into demba ba that backfooted the albion defenders, and was controlled and brought down well by the hammers' striker - albeit with a hint of handball - and finished for the away team's opening goal. even at this early point in a match that had heretofore been dominated by the baggies, there was an uneasy feeling that started to go round the hawthorns. every albion fan over the age of 15 remembered the famous 4-3 win at upton park which had seen the baggies down by the same 3 goals-to-nil margin at half-time and was won eventually by a lee hughes' goal.

again, it was a set piece that was the baggies' undoing on the second west ham goal. it came a mark noble free-kick that was floated across the albion penalty area, where a completely unmarked frederic piquionne headed back across goal for carlton cole to score the simplest of headers. a few minutes later, piquionne himself put a deftly crossed header off the bar and away for a goal kick. the baggies looked lucky to be hanging on.



not that they didn't create more chances themselves, but peter odemwingie was guilty of some weak finishes, especially two missed chances towards the end of the game. but more than anything it was michael appleton's ludicrous substitutions and decision to defend using a narrow formation, allowing the west ham wide players room to operate down the wings and ignite positive attacks that cost the baggies full points. it's no wonder that the albion central defenders were terrified and constantly caught backpeddling.

the final score in west ham's redemtion came in the 83rd minute from a shortly taken corner-kick that caught the baggies out. mark noble once again floated in a cross that was flicked on for demba ba to score the equalizer and his second of the game.

michael appleton, dean keily and anyone else who was temporarily elevated to a position of increased responsibilty for this match, as the club wait for monday and for roy hodgeson to take over, must have had a real learning experience and it was certainly was a baptism of fire.

roy hodgson has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of what he's got to work with, in a situation that cannot escape its parellel comparisons to the conditions of his taking over at fulham, where he was similarly brought in to rescue the team's PREMIER LEAGUE status following the sacking of lawrie sanchez.

it's not an impossible task, but hodgson has less time than he did at fulham, and a tough schedule to oversee. with his initial match in charge being the hawthorns leg of the black country derby, the baggies are running out of what would seem to be winnable matches with a trip to stoke city to follow and a local derby away to blues after that.

The Premier League Upon Us...

as one of the few - and perhaps the only - non-UK bloggers who writes extensively about the baggies, i am reminded by the pre-season of my relative isolation from my subject material.

there are fans who post to online forums, as well as professional journalists of all kinds - and including bloggers - who live in the birmingham area, attend the training sessions and reserve matches, as well as keep an eye on the comings and goings at the hawthorns' parking lot. chris lepkowski - whose blogging, journalism and audio/visual work can be found in the birmingham mail, is probably the most pre-eminent west brom journalist, and his name comes up quite often as a source of accurate news amongst the baggies' online community.

my main source of information - as well as my primary access to most baggies matches this last year - has been the ALBION RADIO transmissions, through the club's website; and featuring dave bowler, west brom's head publications editor, with either duncan jones or chris hall doing the match commentary. i write about west bromwich albion and their coverage through live digital-audio commentaries, overseas television broadcasts and wide ranging, diverse online media resources.





in short, i am the first person i know of to report on west bromwich albion football club through a daily analysis of online digital media - and from an overseas perspective. while the myriad disadvantages to reporting on the baggies from 3000 miles away should be evident enough, there are several advantages that might be easy to overlook. while the quality of "objectivity" is not necessarily a virtue, in and of itself, being removed from the pessimistic humour of the black country - which often converts to an unnatural, painful despair over the subject of football - there is a negativity that never colours my writing. i consider myself the quintessesntial, naive optimist as far as my support for the albion goes - a stance that is much easier to maintain from a distance.

my devotion to the albion aside, there is absolutely nothing black country about me, and i look on my visits to the hawthorns as a day-trip to a strange and exotic corner of the world where one goes for no other reason than football. it is a singularly spiritual experience in a suburban industrial wasteland.

while i do always hope for the best, i don't start every premier league campaign projecting a comfortable mid-table finish. for example, when kevin phillips left and the next signing the club made was gianni zuiverloon, i wasn't particularly filled with confidence as i knew that the club had lost a player that they weren't going to be able to replace, and this wasn't going to be as good a team going into the premiership as the side that had won the championship title the previous season. things just didn't feel right. i still hoped for a mid-table finish, but by late october - and after a good start to the season - it was clear that the club was in trouble. i still remained positive on the issue of survival right up until the loss to liverpool saw them dropped back down to the championship for the following season.





while i have been a bit worried by the lack of goals in this past pre-season - and i have to keep reminding myself that defensive organization was probably the gaffer's main concern. i mean, why else would di matteo play chris brunt as a defensive mid-fielder?!?! ishmael miller knocked in a couple of goals, but more crucially the baggies didn't concede more than one goal per match in any of their pre-season friendlies, so in that sense, it has probably been a fair success for the head-coach and his team.

most educated pundits haven't foreseen the baggies having any trouble with their attacking game at premieship level anyway, and are generally more positive about the albion's ability to find goals - and from a wide ranging source of players - than many of their most die-hard supporters. west brom boasted 19 different scorers last year, 4 with 10 goals or more. the defence, on the other hand, has been a different matter althogether. it has been evident, however, that RDM has focused quite specifically on this long time problem and addressed it with a group of successful summer signings that will go a long way to making the baggies more solid at the back.

it's expected that a large number of teams will be playing a variation of the continental 4-5-1 attacking formation this season, and it's become pretty evident from the recent signing that west bromwich albion will be one of them. football seems to be moving into a new era as teams playing the standard 4-4-2 formation become fewer and far between. indeed, variations of the 4-5-1 were decidedly predominant among teams at this year's world cup; and the success of these tactics in recent UEFA competitions suggests it will soon be the preferred formation of most top professional clubs. the albion had already started playing this system under tony mowbray, who abandoned the idea after ishmael miller's injury. it was, however, revived by roberto di matteo after last year's defeat to nottingham forest. with a free-scoring mid-field, it was something that worked well and was still an enterprising and entertaining prospect when going forward.

there have been more popular teams at the hawthorns over the years than the club as it is now. and i've never really felt like the supporters were behind roberto di matteo the same way they were with either gary megson or tony mowbray at the heighth of their successes with the club. it is a wide held belief, for example, that there hasn't been a really solid all-around team since bob taylor and darren moore were with the club and the baggies began their long-time flirtation with the premier league. while more recently, many supporters have yet to come to terms with kevin phillips' departure for blues, which came about largely due to the chairman sticking to his guns on club policy towards terms of contracts offered to older players.





this year, however, i am expecting a mid-table finish, and i believe this to be the best albion team yet to be going into the premiership. by virtue of the process of elimination this probably makes the current squad the best west brom side since some time in the early 80s before the baggies were relegated from the old 1st division, not to return to the top-flight again for 16 years.

enough of the current team has seen life in the premier league before, and no doubt it will be much less daunting than the last campaign. expecially when everyone involved realizes the quality and potentials of this particular albion side compared to that of previous premiership campaigns.

while the management has made a number of excellent signings that will make the baggies a decidedly more defensive team, they still need another striker who can play the 4-5-1 formation. ishmael miller is still a bit of an unknown quantity at premiership level, and if simon cox can get into position he's capable of finishing with the best of them. players like gianni zuiverloon might even have an easier time with the decidedly less physical game of the premier league than that played in the championship. and there are many new faces in the squad that we have yet to see how the whole thing gels. it could all be a bit of a surprise!

Return to the Hawthorns

when i came to england this last september, i visited the hawthorns twice and saw the baggies play a pair of home games against plymouth argyle and doncaster rovers respectively. they won both matches by a score of 3-1. on my last full day in the country, i listened on the internet as the baggies thrashed middlesbrough 0-5 at the riverside and i returned to canada (where i saw the match repeated on TV) leaving the albion in first-place and on a nine-game unbeaten run.

i had come to hawthorns as if a pilgrim on his knees to mecca. i stood at the astle gate looking at the stadium in awe. i came out after the match and walked around the parking lot in a state of grateful elation. i felt as if the albion were invincible and that being involved with the club, these qualities were manifest in myself as well as all those who followed the baggies. as a supporter, i had a feeling of pride in my team the manner of which i just knew could not be available to those who follow the really big clubs like chelsea or manchester united.



on the eve of a huge premier league derby between the city's two biggest teams, aston villa and birmingham city, being played just a few miles away, it was truly amazing that 25,000 supporters - all sporting some variation of the navy blue-and-white stripes as a measure of devotion - should turn out for a match in english football's second-tier against a small team from the south-west coast.

blessed are the faithful, for they shall inherit promotion...

the atmosphere was great and without having ever been there before i could sense there was a real buzz around what was happening at the hawthorns in those early days of september. you could feel it in the parking lot, the stands, the club-shop... you could feel the excitement of people at the box-office picking up their tickets for the next game. the feeling followed me out onto the birmingham road, down holymore, into a taxi and on to new street station.



on the train back to bath - well away from birmingham and approaching bristol - i heard a group of teenagers, likewise returning home from the hawthorns, talking about the match. they were discussing how marek cech had just fallen short of a hat-trick when what appeared his third goal had been called back for off-side. the buzz was following me everywhere and everything with the world was right! the feeling was truly palpable!

it's been a long season and much has happened since then. the baggies have managed to hang on to second-place for the better part of the season, and have even managed to climb back into first for a few days on a couple of occasions. they have likewise found themselves briefly down to third in the table; but with a long-standing game in hand, they've always remained in control and reclaimed second spot at the first available opportunity. above all - and thus far - the baggies have met all the requisite challenges at the most crucial moments and it's been a good season.



on march the 13th, i am coming back to hawthorns, and will be there for the following two home games against preston north end and coventry city. i am also planning on going to the away match at swansea. in fact, i'm going to set my alarm and be awake tonight (tomorrow?) at 4.00 AM so i can get a jump on ordering tickets online.

for me this is a special year; and while i will be at the hawthorns for a couple of games next year, its unlikely that i will travel to england twice. i think the baggies are going to be promoted this year. whether they finish the season in first or second is the most pressing question. even if it were a playoff scenario, i have faith that the albion are going up. the baggies will be in the premier league next season and i will only be planning one football vacation next year.

first off, with the season reduced by a full eight games, it is unlikely that there will be any period that would see west bromwich albion playing three home fixtures in the space of two weeks. and while i like to think that its probable that the baggies will certainly be competitive in the bottom half of the table in the premier league, it won't be as enjoyable as the possibility of a championship title and won't yield a great deal of wins on any consistent basis.





i've learned a lot about football, and like to think that i've learned a lot about writing about football - from following the baggies this year. this was the first season that i was able to subscribe to their live internet audio commentaries, and along with the fairly healthy number of matches that have been televised, i have been able to follow every match live without having to resort to the text commentary on the BBC.



next year, i fully expect to see the baggies in the premier league and back on TV on a weekly basis. between my subscription to SETANTA SPORTS and its extensive coverage of the premier league with both live broadcasts and same day repeats, along with the regular two or three weekly live premier league games on SPORTSNET, i get every match that the premier league has on offer. still, i'm going to keep my subscription to ALBION PLAYER, and continue to listen to the albion matches live. it will be interesting to write about the comparative experience of football on TV and "internet radio", and exploring the relative qualities of both "hot" and "cool" media.

through it all my passion for the baggies will endure.

i will continue to enjoy this season for all it has to offer and suffer in attending its final outcome. i'll now to the hawthorns and see that things be well done there...

C'MON YOU BAGGIES!!!

Ipswich Town 1-1 WBA

in his analysis of late-20th century communications media, marshall mcluhan had assessed that radio was emphatically a "hot" medium. on the other hand, he rated TV as "cool". he contended that there was no better way to "hot things up" and get a war going than using radio propaganda targeted at specific and localized geographical areas. following the albion through streaming digital audio transmissions (internet radio) online tends to bear out the professor's hypothesis for me, week in and week out. indeed, the ALBION RADIO commentary supplied through the PLAYER service on the club website has had me hopping up and down, furious with referees, cursing players, managers, chairmen, owners and any other football functionaries you care to think of more than a few times this year.

i can't remember which match it was, but an offside call that pulled back what would have seen a winning goal for the baggies had me uncharacteristically steaming at the ref and pronouncing how much i'd really like to see a replay of that on TV in order to examine the extent of the injustice perpetrated by such irresponsible officiating. the commentary had me convinced that west brom had been blindly and blatantly robbed in the most obvious and controversial of fashions.

live text replay

this, however, turned out to be a combination of perspective (on the part of the commentators) and the media being decidedly "hot". when i actually saw the play in question on the football league highlights show, there was no real controversy - as the player was indeed offside and the call by the referee correct - and routinely so - with little question as to the fact.

audio commentary has its own particular qualities to incite and inflame the individual.

as "radio" fare goes, the baggies' league clash with ipswich town at portman road was very entertaining, accurately described and everything about this match eventually "hotted-up" through circumstance and the medium.

on an evening that saw all of the albion's "contemporaries" in the challenge for automatic promotion gain maximum points and - in several cases - substantially improve their goals against averages, the albion once again ran afoul of a stingy defense from the lower part of the league.

the tractor boys, while not playing the most beautiful football in the world, are very organized at the back and have become expert at avoiding defeat by creating a lot of low scoring draws. the baggies have not done well under these kind of circumstances this year, and - as against QPR at home - the team had to dig deep and exert their style of skillful, attacking football until the death in order to manage a draw.



once again, di matteo started the same eleven as the last two matches and kept the 4-5-1 formation seeing roman bednar as the lone striker with graham dorrans and robert koren in the midfield as his attack force. gabriel tamas, the club's new romanian centre-half showed that he possesses an extra degree of skill that we couldn't have been aware of from his performance against nottingham forest and has proved a much needed acquisition by the baggies.

the controversy of this one began with the penalty awarded against jonas olsson, which was quite inexplicable. the big swedish defender was - by all accounts - harshly penalized for routine jostling and shoving for position on an ipswich corner kick. even the mainstream press reported it as a poor decision on the part of the referee.

there was nothing particularly distinguished about this match. the baggies just couldn't break down yet another well organized and pedestrian defense. it was clear why the town have been involved in a lot of low-score or no-score draws of late and the baggies were eventually forced to gamble on a 2-5-3 formation that was absolutely hilarious to listen to.

"i think olsson's wondering who's playing left back and he's being told, 'you are mate!'" one of the commentator's noted.

truly, with bednar, miller and simon cox all playing up front supported by brunt and thomas on the wings, the albion had indeed gone into something resembling a 2-5-3 formation like a team from the 1940s or 50s. even scott carson came up on one of the last corner kicks as the baggies fought to the end for a draw in this one.

the overall effect of the commentary - and with the gross injustice of the penalty decision as its focus - got this match sufficiently "hotted up" that when chris brunt dramatically equalized in stoppage time, it all felt as good as a win and the point taken vital to the baggies' promotion campaign.

Leicester City 1-2 WBA

live text replay

i started writing this blog as a therapy for having become obsessed with the albion and as a way to deal with the misery of last season in the premier league. it was a terrible disappointment after the expectation that this team had created through their brilliant footballing performance in winning the championship and reaching the FA cup semi-final the year before.

ron atkinson even said earlier this year that he had thought that the baggies would go up and achieve what would become a long-term consolidation as a premier-league club. their utter failure to do so has had a special frustration from the point of view of the club's overseas supporters, among whom, i have the privilege to count myself.

you see, up until this year it was pointless and impossible for me to subscribe to the ALBION WORLD audio commentary service offered on the club's website. it wasn't so much a technical or regional problem that prevented me the ability to do so, but rather, an ethical consideration. the problem was that the service would only work for WINOWS operating systems. i do not use microsoft products; nor am i a MAC user. i use a regular PC, but several years ago (and after years of using "pirated" WINDOWS operating sytems) i started playing around with several FREE and OPEN-SOURCE operating systems, commonly known as LINUX.

it is possible - and a great many people do this for practical reasons - to have a PC run multiple operating systems. you can have multiple versions of WINDOWS and LINUX variants on a single machine; and for the first few months i ran both WINDOWS 2000 and SLACKWARE LINUX on the same PC. as soon as i had figured out how to do everything in the LINUX environment that i could in WINDOWS, i abandoned microsoft completely. i came to adopt this idea as a philosophical concept. there are many reasons other than the practical consideration of having a faster computer not to use WINDOWS, most of which are, in fact, ethical in nature. but i won't get in to that here and now...

while i am able to pay expensive cable television subscription fees and get a full complement of premier-league games, championship matches were few and far between. in 2007-08, i saw the baggies 4 times: 2 league matches, and the FA Cup quarter and semi-finals. the rest of the season was followed on the BBC live text commentaries. but with the baggies back in the premiership and on weekly TV, i had the greatest hopes for the next season.



after the home fixture with portsmouth last year, and ishmael miller was gone for the season, i knew the albion were in trouble so i started to blog. a great deal of my early blogging had to do with the fact that i was going to "lose" the baggies as they would be back in the championship and limited to 2 or 3 televised matches a year; and as a committed free software user i couldn't justify installing WINDOWS on my computer for any reason!

two things changed drastically this last year though. first, the service that most clubs in the premier and football leagues use for live audio commentary on the internet changed so that it was now compatible with MAC and LINUX operating systems. as well, the football league had made a deal to broadcast 60 championship and league 1 matches on TV this year, and they're all being carried on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA. this means that all west brom matches would now be available to me, either on TV or through the internet as live audio commentary. besides that, i was lucky enough to have been in england this last september and had the most fortunate opportunity to see the baggies play twice at home in the space of four days.

anyway, the point of this rumination is to wonder what i'm doing here anymore? does anybody read me? does it matter? is what i've got to say - besides expressing the woes of trying to follow a team like the albion from overseas - worth the time i put in? can one accurately assess a situation from thousands of miles away and with radio commentary as their main receiving medium?

actually, i'm surprised at how much i'm able to understand about what's going on with the club. i heard two points made by the commentary team on ALBION RADIO prior to the leicester city match that were almost verbatim observations as i had made them in my blog of the previous week reviewing the watford match. it seems that what had been obvious to me had also been obvious to the commentary staff - and worthy enough to mention on the broadcast.



of course, i'm not sure that it would be the same had i not been to the hawthorns in september, or seen the first few matches of the season on TV. there are details that can only be fully received through direct visual information. for example, when i saw the baggies play at the hawthorns it was pretty clear that the left-back, joe mattock, consistently came up very high in attack and was often in danger of being caught out of position. in fact, on the tuesday night match that i attended v doncaster rovers, the albion gave up an early goal precisely as a result of the young full-back's poor positional play. this was a weakness in the team that persisted, was consistent and definitely cost a couple of goals along the way. in the last few games, however, it seems like he's learned his lesson and is keeping his position much better. you need at least an initial visual experience to make a fully informed assessment of a simple situation such as this one.

while life is not perfect, in that i still don't believe in DRM, which is the various intrusive forms of controlling information online so that it can't be downloaded or copied - as is the case with all premier and football league video and audio content - the situation is at least now a reasonable compromise. i have a paid membership account - made through the albion website - which allows me to access any of the live audio streams of premier and football league clubs that have opted in to the PLAYER setup.

still, the question goes unanswered. should i be writing about football if i'm not saying anything different from any other football writers?

i'm not sure. but i will, at least, chronicle this season - and at the end, make an accompanying video as well - as it has become possible for me to keep up with and gather the information needed to do so; and ultimately, i guess, because i can't get the albion out of my head!

Digital Media: Nature and Speed

well, well, no sooner does one finish an article in defense of his own activities in the field of digital multi-media - and being highly critical of others for theirs - than large sections of that same article, relevant in both content and context at the outset of composition - are rendered absolutely, irrevocably and suddenly obsolete between the time it took to write and the time of publication. such is the nature of change in the world of digital multi-media. within 24-48 hours of my perusing the official west bromwich albion website just one final time prior to beginning my last blog - the whole setup of digital multi-media presentation as maintained by various members of both the premier and football leagues - through their official websites - has changed and they have made a definite move away from their employment of Microsoft specific DRM software. this is not true (as of yet, anyway) of the entire premier and football league WORLD website setup. brentford f.c. have scrapped BEES WORLD and also have a new setup, for example, but swindon town are still using the WORLD services - at the time of writing this, anyway.

ALBION WORLD - the premium services on the west bromwich albion website, through which one accesses full, live match commentaries, as well as highlight and video news clips - has been discontinued in favour of a service now called ALBION PLAYER. they have changed the necessary access software from Windows Media Player in conjunction with Internet Explorer to a regular embedded ADOBE flashplayer which (like YouTube or any other video hosting site) runs in any browser that has the flashplayer plugin installed. also, they have made it easy enough to check out and reasonably sample the product, as international users can now use credit/debit cards to pay for a simple 1 month (recurring, i believe) membership at the reasonable price of £3.99. i am now able to access the full services of the west brom website, and i will look forward to using it and taking out a longer subscription - providing that it proves a worthwhile service in a GNU-Linux environment.



i have been complaining so long and hard about DRM - and how it has been a major point of alienation and frustration in the relationship between myself and my beloved baggies - as well my relationship with the BBC and both the premier and football leagues, in general. last season was the first time in my life that i was able to see more than 90% of the baggies' league matches. this was due to two significant factors: 1) for the last 2 years i have been subscribing to SETANTA SPORTS CANADA, GOLTV, and FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA; which - along with the one-off broadcasts carried by TSN, and SPORTSNET - gives me TV access to over 95% of the matches played in the premier league; and 2) the baggies were promoted to the premiership - returning them to this particular TV forum. in fact, the only albion matches that i didn't see last season were home to blackburn, away to wigan, and home to middlesbrough.

i was aware from postings on the albion website that they were preparing their ALBION WORLD services to become available to mac users for the first time - but there was (as usual) no mention of any necessary compatibility with GNU-Linux or Unix software. luckily - and when i got a chance to look around at the new setup - the demo clips seemed to work fine, and they were now offering monthly membership to international users; who were previously limited to full year subscriptions. so i took out my credit card and subscribed for a month at £3.99... and so far, so good. while the system is still a little glitchy (and that might be its reaction to FREE software), and i need to refresh the page to remind it that i am signed in and have full access rights; i have ultimately been able to access everything that is currently posted, and i will find out next week as to the live audio commentary (my main point of interest) when newcastle united come to the hawthorns for the season opener.


there is still some employment of DRM technology present; as the video streams leave no temporary file in the /tmp folder that is copyable, and the browsers native downloading tool does not react to the embedded files as it would if it were simple and unrestricted flash video file. however, my biggest concern, the incompatibility of their old system with anything but Microsoft, has definitely taken a marked change for the better - and i think - a fairly significant one.

i don't know why they did this - perhaps flashplayer technology has advanced sufficiently in terms of security features that it would allow the governing bodies to move away from the Windows specific technology? however, BBC has been using this kind of setup for content protection of audio/video for a long time now, so i doubt this was a consideration. what i'd like to think is that enough of us spoke out and either emailed or phoned our respective clubs complaining that not being Microsoft users, we were excluded from being able to subscribe to services that - for the most part - we'd be happy to pay for as long as we could access them.

similar to the BBC, while the video and audio files are freely viewable - i've never been able to figure out how to copy or download the content from this type of setup. YouTube's content, for example, is downloadable. the firefox downloader software can be used for direct download (and i assume IE has a similar plugin or function); or, you can wait until the video has fully buffered in the browser, then copy the temporary file (it will have a name like FLASHXox0xX, and can be found in your system's temporary files folder as long as the browser stays open) to your hard-drive and rename it to include the flash video extension (i.e. filename.flv). despite the fact that this is a freedom i would certainly like to have - i am pleased enough that i can now subscribe in good faith (although, and with my criticisms of DRM still intact) to my club's premium online services confident now that i can access the media content.

while i still believe that online audio commentary - like radio - should be free; i'm having fun reading the news articles and flipping through the news clip videos and photography looking forward to the first live match. for the time being, though, this feels like a real victory, and (for the moment) is a reasonable compromise to what has long been an unacceptable situation.

C"MON YOU BAGGIES!!!

In Search of a Cultural Underground

what am i doing here? why do i spend the time i do on pursuing my overwhelming interest in the baggies? what is a native born north american doing blogging, making videos, posting photographs, joining websites; as well as managing and subscribing to e-mail groups in the name of a team he's never seen play at home; who play in a place that is 1500 miles away from where he lives, and that he's never actually been to; and in a country he hasn't visited in 35 years? what's it all about, eh?

i recently read a book called the cult of the amateur by a guy named andrew keen. basically it is a propaganda piece that proposes that blogs, wikis, social networking, and the digital world are destroying our economy, our culture and our values. in fact that is the sub-title of the book: how blogs, wikis etc. ... this is a book for people who are familiar enough with computers - and may come in contact with them at work and in basic home use situations - but are otherwise not particularly knowledgeable users, who are often enough frustrated by these environments and who might be predisposed to mistrust or dislike the computer, internet and digital media in general. in other words: there is a fair market waiting to hear such a critique. the trouble is, this impulse and interest is essentially borne out of fear, and creates a desire for critically biased attitude toward its source. in this case: that which we don't understand.

he made some basic mistakes, i think, or rather omissions in his thesis. i agreed with many of his starting points and foundation criticisms. for example, wikis - that is, user editable information, in the form of online compendiums, such as an encyclopedia, are - by nature - an unreliable source of information. the problem, as he rightly points out, is that editors with opposing agendas may delete and replace good information with bad information - or express an opinion in their entry that conflicts with that of a previous editor and their contribution.

with a major entry about something like McDonald's restaurants, or Wal-mart, for example, you are apt to find constant and highly biased edits and re-edits, made by those who have vested interest in one side of a propaganda message or another. what he failed to point out, is that where articles and information concerning large corporate and political organizations are often inaccurate, poorly written and/or misleading; the minutiae and localized information concerning the purely cultural (literature, music, sport, science, film, TV) is very often excellent - and the fact is, the more esoteric the subject, the better and more accurate the information. in fact, it is sometimes the only place that this information appears - such is one effect of the digital media revolution: the expansion of content and detail.

but mr. keen is not particularly interested in the localized (what he refers to ironically and sarcastically as: "democratized") or the esoteric. while he is careful to not promote particular corporate brands over others, it is clear enough that he thinks disney does a fine job giving us entertaining and high-quality cultural products. for him, this level of excellence is what our culture is about; and, therefore, needs to be protected from those who would make inferior product, or edit new material from it. for example, mr. keen, calls file-sharing "piracy". when you can't make your point by discussing or referring to something by its proper name; and thus need to bestow upon it a title which is designed to plant specific, highly charged images (either negative or positive) in the perception of those receiving the message, you are then engaged in flagrant, unadulterated propaganda. what sounds better to you: "let's discuss the ethics of file-sharing?" or "let's discuss the ethics of piracy?"

i also agreed with him that blogs are not efficient - or accurate - at delivering news - and certainly a home-blogger could never compete with a professional news agency at delivering news from its geographical source. but here again, he has missed the point: blogs are not for reporting news, but are (or rather, should be) personal, diverse and engaged editorials on culture. at their best, they are localized opinion about the news, and report on otherwise unnoticed effects of that news in localized areas of the culture. for example, what's it like trying to follow a team that regularly plays outside the premiership when you do not reside in the UK? this situation presents concerns and questions of freedom, accessibility, ethics and culture that the average supporter of manchester united or real madrid never have to deal with.

so, who else is better prepared - or sufficiently engaged, for that matter - to report on the problems of following the baggies from an international perspective, and in a world where digital media and FREE software are a major issue, than someone who is engaged specifically in these questions? by his omissions, the reading of someone like mr. keen helps one to define what one is actually doing when engaged in these endeavors. i may only be read by a handful of people, at the moment - and i am not a professional writer of any sort - but the point is (and i can only hope) that what i say has meaning to this handful of people... but then again, i don't do a lot of mainstream promotion of my activities. football may seem to be a funny place to be looking; but i am seeking a cultural underground - i want to see a revolution... a genuine and authentic experience! i want freedom! i want what is possible and in all of its constituent integrity. in other words - and specifically in terms of digital media and technology in general: let software be unencumbered and let it be free to do its natural work!

so, what i am doing here - with my blogging, video editing, e-mail and forum posting - is to report on something - in a highly editorial fashion - that no one else can, and define (at least in some small part) who i am in all this! i am taking an active part in a major cultural shift - as digital technology increasingly creates a folkloric culture from that which once was all big business. while by mr. keen's definition of the word - i am indeed a "pirate", as - and at very least - much of my blogging consists of photography, video and graphics that i have taken from news agencies, DVDs, the internet, etc. and reused here without permission. as well, i often remove the copyright stamp on an image in order to improve the quality and usability of the photo to the public at large. while i freely admit to all the things i have done - i have never hijacked a ship, nor taken part in bloody thievery, murdering, kidnapping or mutiny on the high seas, so i would suggest that mr. keen's description of my cultural behavior in the world of digital media is a prejudiced, unnecessarily dramatic and flowery; as well as wholly inaccurate characterization.

the other thing that mr. keen pointed out in his book - and where we do not diverge at all - was the functional uselessness of DRM (digital restrictions management) software; in that most "piracy" occurs not through the posting or copying of un-protected files on the internet; but direct peer-to-peer sharing of purchased (and subsequently "ripped" or copied to hard-drive) files acquired from a licensed commercial purchase or rental.

the only sector of main-stream culture that has found any extensive use for DRM is in the distribution of broadcast materials which have a short, high-impact first life, but are of relative little interest in second-life. this would be a characteristic of most news and sporting events.

what i mean by this is, a film has a first life - that is the market into which it is initially released. nowadays that could be theatrical first run, or straight to DVD rental and/or pay-tv markets. after this, it has its second life: rerun in repertory movie-houses, distribution on broadcast TV, and the re-selling of the DVD as "used" and also made available for private use home rental. in this sense, the second-life of cultural information is usually much longer than its first, although of a diminished impact and dispersed interest. news, sports... this is media content that has the most high impact in its first life, as it demands immediate attention to receive the content. this kind of information rarely has much of a second life, and when it does, it is invariably by virtue of a specific event having been exceptional or out of the ordinary: landing on the moon, a president's assassination, a substantially unexpected result in a sporting event... this all happens quickly, and the information goes into varying levels and forms of second life almost immediately.

a top-flight english football match has - with the greatest and most notable of exceptions, and up until quite recently - had a fairly non-existent second-life. in the world cup, with time-delays and games played half-way around the world, a big match might have a global first life of about 16 hours; provided that the local news agencies do not report scores from games ahead of time, so that people watching are able to enjoy the experience of a time-delayed match during its first-life. i remember world cups where this was common practice and you would be warned on the regional news if they were going to show the score before the broadcast of a game. because once the report of the final score is received, the information has entered second-life and is immediately and massively diminished in worth. anyway, i still think the real money (and focus) should be TV, shirt-sales and general merchandising. everything else should be free access - like the traditional radio broadcast. just as the online live text commentaries are on the BBC - so should their audio commentaries be available to an international audience. i could even accept the idea of a small licensing fee payable online for the right to listen. they should just not be using DRM that ties accessibility of a stream or file to a particular software; because, as a computer user - you should always be free in what choice of software you care to use, and how you care to use it. anything less is a kind of tyranny.

which is why i am so surprised that the premiership, football league, and the BBC guard their information products so diligently; and don't differentiate when thinking about an information product's first and second life. i try to remain faithful to the albion, and am always hopeful and put trust in the idea that they will do things more authentically and ethically than other organizations. for example, i am so proud that my team - and uniquely so among professional teams - wear sponsor-less jerseys; proving the worth of shirt-sales over advertising. however, in terms of media licensing the albion use a slightly more restrictive model of content control than most other clubs. in the premiership and football leagues, each club has a website for which they - as a group and in a collective agreement with their governing bodies - employ the services of a content management company called performgroup; who develop and maintain the cookie-cutter WORLD template websites for all clubs that operate under this agreement. that is to say, almost every premiership and football league team; as well as six or seven conference teams, who must have private deals with them, and who also use the WORLD website template.

the focus of their content control is DRM encoding of their streams and files so that they are only supposed to work with Windows Media Player in conjunction with Internet Explorer. this is true of their live audio commentary, as it is for their video highlights and news reports. despite the fact that i could make the ALBION WORLD demo page play the audio content using the native GNU-linux media software, and i could make some of the video work the same way - it seemed that ultimately i could not make most of the video work. anyway - and as i said in a previous post, i'm still not ready to spend the £39.99 to find out if i actually can access their live audio commentaries.

a fair number - perhaps even enough to constitute a majority (i've never counted) - of teams in the english premiership and football league have a licensing deal with the BBC, whereby the local BBC radio stations broadcast the home games of the club (or clubs) in their area. these broadcasts are all streamed live online through the BBC website, linked to the corresponding local home pages. for example: BBC Derby, BBC WM, BBC London, BBC South Yorkshire, BBC Suffolk, BBC Solent etc. etc. however, the BBC employs a type of DRM that restricts these streams from working outside the UK. in turn, the football club then uses this stream as live audio commentary available to subscribers of the team website's WORLD services. it is only through the club's website that the stream becomes available to international users.

matches from the blue square premier are not restricted in this manner. so, for example, cambridge united's home games are streamed all over the world through BBC Cambridgeshire; however, the peterborough united matches that are also carried on the same local, are not. i have no idea how the licensing works for scottish football, as my experiences with the SPL online streaming of audio commentary has no consistent nature. while inverness caledonia thistle and motherwell seemed to have their matches stream unrestricted to all international users - as i could always access their audio commentary online, and no restrictions warnings are posted; the majority of the other teams, like rangers, celtic, hearts and hibs, all had the same "UK listeners only" restrictions as the english leagues.

the baggies have opted for even further control than this, and do not have their home matches broadcast on their local BBC network. instead, they take full responsibility for creation of their site content and do their own audio commentary - or commission it from a licensed broadcast in the private sector (i.e. commercial or satellite radio)... perhaps they even use the beaconradio broadcast, for example? i've no idea, really, and would have to research it further to say. although, the impression i had from corresponding via email with a representative of the albion once, was that they themselves create a non-broadcast streaming audio commentary specifically for their own and unique use online.

my initial inquiry as to the use of DRM and the ALBION WORLD services was prompted by my own interest in the possibility of subscribing. with the baggies relegated again - and not much in the way of the football league championship on TV - i was motivated to look for a way to follow the matches other than the live BBC text commentaries. one of my questions - since i use no microsoft software whatever - was: did they believe it was ethical to make their content available only to Windows users? the albion representative - an otherwise prompt and pleasant correspondent - did not really answer the question, other than to state that DRM was an essential tool needed to protect the rights of paying subcribers (what?!?!); and that since microsoft operating systems are used by an overwhelming majority of computer users, they were obliged to cater to this market. i can only conclude that he did not understand the question, or believes "practical consideration" a component or necessary definition of the word, "ethical". as far as i understand - and with apples's new capability for running windows applications - the WORLD service will, for the first time, be available to mac users... still nothing mentioned for FREE software, though.

i may not have to worry though. we shall see, but it appears that SETANTA SPORTS CANADA will be broadcasting primarily championship matches this year. this will mark the first time that second-tier football has ever been broadcast extensively in canada. i have seen the listings for the opening weekend, and having lost a substantial percentage of its premiership rights, it seems they are going with the championship as their main content, and the rights for broadcasting the premier league appear to have been dispersed and re-assigned. i wouldn't be surprised if a new "soccer-specific" ESPN affiliate shows up on the airwaves soon. on the opening week of the season SETANTA SPORTS CANADA is broadcasting the season opener (middlesbrough v sheffield united) live on the friday evening. then, a live TBA early on the saturday morning followed by a live broadcast of west brom v newcastle united; with a time-delay repeat of the southampton v millwall match later that evening. on sunday, the coventry v ipswich match is to be broadcast live. nothing has really been posted in the way of listings for the premiership matches, yet; but, i'd be willing to bet that someone, somewhere is thrashing out the details right now.

yes, it's going to be another interesting year in english football and digital multi-media; and sometimes armed with nothing more than the BBC live text commentaries with which to follow the baggies in real time, there's still every reason for me to blog about the challenges of being a west bromwich albion supporter living in toronto... even if just for the sake of my own sanity!!!

Football Media Wars

amongst the big news of the week in english football is that SETANTA sports has lost its entire roster of premier league matches. while the company was positively leaking money and had already lost a block of broadcast rights to SkySports, it is expected that the remaining rights, on which SETANTA has defaulted on its payments, will now go to SkySports or ESPN. for me, i don't know what this really means; although, i understand that the SPL is potentially in trouble over its TV rights that are held exclusively by SETANTA, and are a major source of income for them. SETANTA SPORTS CANADA, does not broadcast very many of these SPL matches - i see maybe 10 games a year - so, this must be of more concern in other regions that do have a more extensive coverage of the scottish top-flight than we are afforded here. same goes for the english championship: we only get a few games later on in the season, and we seem to see more of the lower league teams during the various stages of the two domestic cup competitions than we do of them in the league; so i am assuming that SETANTA and SkySports also make their broadcasts of the football league championship available in regions other than where i live. we also do not get any of the extensive coverage of the blue-square premier matches that i constantly see being announced and advertised. we don't have a red-button to hit, and no multiple broadcasts to choose from.

i am a cable TV subscriber - and the lease on my home does not allow for satellite. we don't have a local SkySports network, and the canadian ESPN affiliate is TSN. traditionally, SkySports events are licensed variously to FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA and SETANTA SPORTS CANADA. for example, i see plenty of adverts on british websites announcing the british & irish lions tour of south africa as being exclusively on SkySports. well, i am seeing these matches broadcast only on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA, obviously territorially licensed from SkySports. i can tell this by the SkySports logo in the top corner of the screen. so naturally, i am curious about what i will be seeing next season and who will be showing it to me, and by which medium!?!?

in fact, i wonder if i will see any changes at all - other than a reshuffling of what i already get. ROGERS SportsNet and TSN have traditionally broadcast live premier league matches on saturday and sunday mornings. they used to do a one-off repeat at about 2 A.M. the ensuing evening, but i don't think that they still do that. these broadcasts are otherwise, not repeated. the rest of the premier league schedule is picked up by SETANTA and (some years) as well, by FOX SPORTSWORLD CANADA. although, this year - and unlike last year - SETANTA SPORTS CANADA had all the rest of the premier league matches - as well as exclusive broadcasting rights for both the FA and League Cups - and there was no english football at all on FOX this year.



this meant that they (SETANTA) would broadcast 2 live matches on both the saturday and sunday, and the rest would be broadcast as repeats throughout the rest of the day and at various times throughout the ensuing week. this means that i was able to see something like 95-99% of everything that went on in the premiership last year - and the year before - which is as long as i have been subscribing to these networks. for years and years i got by only on soccer saturday (co-hosted by craig forrest) and the 2 matches on saturday and the 1 match (sometimes 2) on sunday that have been regular fixtures on TSN and SportsNet since the inception of the premier league. however, this means that for years and years it seemed as though i was stuck watching liverpool, manchester united, arsenal, and newcastle united endlessly playing tottenham hotspur!

other than the always extensive TV coverage of the premier league, and the broadcasts of the domestic cup competitions after the 3rd round, we don't see a lot of other english football. as i said earlier: perhaps 10 championship matches a year - no broadcasts from league 1 or 2. as with the championship, they also show a few of the blue-square matches; but towards the end of the season and not many. they do, however (and to their credit), provide full coverage of the playoffs at all levels.


the most alarming thing - and in the post-internet age - is the lack of streaming audio commentary outside of the UK. while a certain number of teams make a licensing deal with the BBC to broadcast their home games, and matches are freely accessible on BBC local radio, as well as live audio streams on the BBC website; these same streams are blocked to listeners outside the UK, and are used by the clubs as content for paid subscription, available through the clubs' websites which also offers video highlights. where the club does not have a licensing deal with BBC, they create their own audio content for the same purpose. if you've read any of my previous posts about this, i have a major critical issue with this particular setup - not that i don't believe in subscription-only-access, necessarily - although with radio (and now its digital equivalent: "online streaming audio"), it has always been a free access media that operates either as a public facility, funded by grant programs and donations; or, as a business that sells advertising time in order to generate revenues... but that is another question. someone wanting to charge me a membership fee to be able to login and listen to a particular event broadcast is one thing; but to have this run only on applications that interfere with the constituent nature of that particular technology in order to retain control over it is another thing. asking me for money - while i believe there are better alternatives in the traditional avenues of advertising funding - is ok. but to ask me for money to access something, and then dictate what software i have to use to the point of denying me access unless i comply to terms that require using a complete microsoft system, is corrupted and compromised, besides being unequivocally unethical. i am a free/open-source software user, currently running UBUNTU-8.04 (64 bit) on a 1.6 MHZ intel duo-core processor. i have not used a microsoft system in almost 3 years. in fact, my current computer was custom ordered to come without an operating system - so it has never even had windows installed on it!

as i write, it appears that ESPN will be taking this block of games - with the monday night games - which i forgot to mention - probably going to BSkyB. actually, it is the monday night games where i sometimes see the football league championship matches. anyway, at least i know, that with affiliate stations already here, and plenty of cross-licensing to be dished out - i probably won't miss any of the premiership games that i'm used to seeing - and, i've no doubt that this particular status quo will be maintained; but i do kind of wonder when they are going to diversify and show us more of the championship and the rest of the football league?