Monday 10 March 2008

We won.


FA hypocrisy
Barnsley 1 Chelsea 0

I know accusing the football authorities of hypocrisy isn’t new but here’s my case. Thinking that the game was over (how much extra time was played?) and having seen their team (widely called “little” “small” “homely” by the media) beat a bunch of over paid southern dandies, a few Barnsley fans ran on to the pitch. I won’t use the word “invade”, as when William of Normandy and his lads invaded Hastings he didn’t run on to the beach, find the first Saxon and kiss him, then do a dance and finally turn round to the nearest camera (tapestry weaver?) and gurn at them. This wasn’t an invasion it was a celebration. However fans running about on the pitch is seemingly the worst offence ever committed in football, much worse than £40 match tickets, £5 pound hotdogs, shoddy sweat shop made £60 pound replica shirts, clubs being bought by foreign owners burdened with huge debts and run into the ground, clubs being bought with money stolen from the Russia people or even Motty’s boring commentary. No a few fans celebrating is a terrible terrible thing. Barnsley will be fined for this celebration because rules are rules (well for small clubs anyway Moan United and Arsenal are treated differently).

But this is the same FA who has broken with tradition and is holding the semi finals at Wembley purely for monetary reasons. They are also the same FA who loves the fact that clubs like Barnsley have injected some passion, joy and drama back into the cup brining it back to the people who love it the most the fans. The FA PR team will love shots of fans dancing with players, the same fans who will shell out hopefully twice to go to Wembley to buy overpriced hotdogs etc and bring some passion etc to the cup which the FA can then show to corporate sponsors to get even more cash.

Anyway to reiterate the most important point is Barnsley beat Chelsea one nil by playing better football, they ran them off the park and made them look rubbish,

Barnsley are by far the greatest team the world as ever seen.

1 comment:

al_uk said...

I must admit as of today I still have not seen anything official from the FA about the crowd on the pitch. Have they formally commented? Though it was largely good natured if I had been a chelsea player I might have been worried. I also thought there was a distinct lack of stewarding. There was a brief invasion 2-3 minutes before the end so it was predictable but there was no bolstering of the stewarding at the Barnsley end for the end of the game. I think pitch invasions are unecessary and it spoiled the end of the match, when I was looking forward to seeing all the players come out for a alp of honour.