Token football blog

It's been quite a week for Bristol City fans, and I simply can't avoid mentioning it.

Firstly, on Tuesday night we beat Northampton 3-1 away, despite one of our defenders getting sent off in the first half for head-butting another one of our defenders.

Then on Thursday's transfer deadline, we sold our Welsh international youngster Dave Cotteril to premiership Wigan for £2,000,000. Yes, Two million pounds. No doubt this outrageous fee was influenced by his best ever performance in a City shirt just a couple of days earlier against Northampton, in a game that was shown live on sky. Normally, he's pretty rubbish, and I reckon our chairman was laughing all the way to the bank.

The very next day, two of our first team players were jailed for a month after getting involved in a brawl with the bouncers at Romeo Brown's nightclub on Corn Street. Not exactly the best news in the build-up to the big game against Brighton that took place this afternoon, especially as one of them was our star striker, Steve Brooker.



Before I get to the Brighton game, I must also mention my team Hope FC's first game of the season, which took place this-morning at Bath uni against bitter rivals FC Santos (who always seem to beat us by the odd goal). Two minutes before kick-off, our manager Nick approached me and told me that I was going to be captain. While I was honoured I was also somewhat unnerved, as I didn't see it coming at all, and didn't really know what I was supposed to do. Did this mean I had extra responsibilities?

Perhaps I was put off by the sound of the ref's whistle in the background, but for some reason I quite pathetically asked "What does that mean?" and was told by both Nick and Chewy simultaneously "It means you've got to lead by example." Our Yorkshire keeper Neil Wright then chipped in: "It also means you've got to go and call heads or tails" and he pointed towards the centre circle where the ref and the opposing captain had been waiting patiently.

I won the toss, and then realised that I had to make a decision. I had no idea what to do. I turned to my team for help but they were still grouped together discussing tactics, so I panicked and said "Oh you might as well kick-off, we'll go that way", and pointed to the direction that we were already facing. Really this was my only responsibility, and I fucked it.

As for my other responsibility of "leading by example"? Well, that didn't go entirely to plan either. I got booked. For the first time ever. For dissent!

In my defence, it was the fourth time during the game that the ref, who looked and sounded like Andy from Little Britain and seemed to have sugar on the end of his whistle, had made the wrong decision about a throw-in. The linesman and the opposing player had both said it was our ball, and despite this the ref still thought he knew best and gave the throw against us. I spit the proverbial dummy and lobbed all the toys from my pram at the same time.

I carried on shouting at him while he was pulling his book out of his pocket, and didn't even stop when he was writing down my name. I actually thought my argument was quite convincing, and for a moment I though he was going to change his mind, much like Andy from Little Britain would. But he didn't. I now have the thrill of waiting for an FA fine to arrive in the post. How much is it again, Jonny?

By the way, we lost 2-1. Typical.

Right. So, it's finally time for my moment of glory. I've waited for this moment for 5 years, ever since H came back from Australia with a Brighton fan. Ironically, Jonny claimed to have become a City fan during those five years, and yet describes his favourite moments of watching City throughout that time as the games when Brighton beat them. Even though they were generally very jammy.

Anyway that's all history now. Here we go. My moment has come:

WE BEAT THE

BRIGHTON 1-0!!



Ahh, I enjoyed that.