| The Warky Premier Report: Man City (A) 10:42 - Aug 26 with 958 views | Warkystache |
Bank Holiday weekends. They are sacrosanct for most office-based workers. That Friday feeling is never better than when faced with a three-day hiatus, a long weekend over summer filled with possibilities. Friday at 4.30pm-ish, the lunchtime pints just starting to lose their affability, the throat begging for a few more, the eye on the slow-moving clock and the tip-tap of computer keyboards becoming more of a slowing metronome than an incessant clatter.
I work in Birmingham. I might have told you before? It’s a painful commute, involving long stretches of A14, M6 and A38, passing easy temptations; the McDonalds drive-thru in Kettering, the giant Cafe Nero near Rugby. I have used both frequently. I don’t really submit to McDonalds any more; the one in Kettering deals grease in brown paper and wrappers. They attract the sort of people you don’t remember. Their ordering system is nearly always slow and the staff are that dangerously off-putting mix of acne, braces and in-jokes dressed in too-tight black trousers and olive coloured tops. I’ve had warmer food from the fridge at home. Thursday’s double sausage and egg McMuffin repeated like episodes of Only Fools on Dave.
The beauty of working in Birmingham is, without doubt, my colleagues. An egregious mix of folk who all live reasonably local to the site and who giggle at me for not. “Thassa long way tercom fer work” is the usual reaction when I explain my commute, as if I live in the Outer Hebrides. My Essex Farmer rustic accent amuses, even if my habit of packing up and leaving at 4pm has stirred pointed remarks about staying til five like they do. Then they understand and the embarrassment glints briefly and then dies, hopefully unnoticed. I don’t get home until nearly eight pm if I leave at five. Sadly, my car is not equipped with the famed flux capacitor.
The ones that like football (usually the men, although more of the women actually play the game at weekends, another sign of progress in this modern life) support Birmingham-based sides. True, we still have the odd Liverpool and Chelsea and Man United smattering ( no Man City, strangely, but then I guess even glory-hunters can have too much of a good thing), but in the main, it’s the benighted Birmingham City, now languishing in League One like we did but holding us up as the Grail of hope. A lot of Villa. They’re bound for the Champions League. Few are coming to Ipswich on the 29th of next month (‘wife wants some DIY doing’, ‘my day with the kids’) but all are determined I’ll join them in February for the return (watch someone decent for a change).
The Coventry fans bemoan their lot and are openly jealous of our progress. ‘Shoulda been oos, like’ is the main refrain. They sold their two best players and have built, albeit slowly and without visible improvement. Last season, the Villa fans were the disinterested, remote ones. Now that we’ve made the promised land, it’s the former Championship clubs who glower and grumble. Interestingly, there’s been no real banter with the Brum and Cov lot. It’s all the Villains and the Prem glory boys who take an interest in us now.
I din’t go to City on Saturday. I don’t much like Manchester for one thing. The other was financial. I’m due to meet Terry later for lunch and desultory chat. A trip to the Etihad would’ve involved hotel stays and petrol costs, and I didn’t fancy those this late into the month, when my next payment from work isn’t due until Wednesday. Plus, I never really thought we’d do much in the game. Possibly a few half-strangled attacks, the rest watching them pass it through and around us like peak Barcelona. Watching us defend for large parts of a game is a novelty.
So I spent the weekend walking, and shopping, getting wet on Saturday, it drying and resolving to decidedly nippier warmth yesterday. Walks around the Stour and up around Kersey, parking the car in some culvert, like a mass murderer looking for a shallow grave amongst the browning fauna and the stubble of the corn. Legs pumping, then aching, then longing for a local pub bench that never came. Glorious solitude, broken only sporadically by cyclists and a few maniacally-speeding cars. The birds sang, I saw a few skylarks take the air in fright and ascend to remembered strains of Vaughan-Williams.
Not much Tel this week. He went to London with the wife and Tony and Sandy to see a matinee and then go for dinner somewhere expensive and slightly tourist tatty. No joyous away days for him at City. But he can make Fulham at home next Saturday. Meeting for a few about tennish. They can pick me up from home. Be ready. Ever ready.
The result didn’t mean much after all this. I was pleased we scored first. I think Fulham may be more a barometer of where we fit into this league. It’s just that with new players comes new hope, and though they’ll need time to adapt, it’s genuinely more positive than I’ve felt for a few seasons, possibly more than ten.
Here’s hoping. |  |
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| The Warky Premier Report: Man City (A) on 21:48 - Aug 26 with 622 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
Nice read Warky but Miss Slave nodding off as I read it to her suggests you may need a new love interest! 
I just read my comment to her and she said,
"Bring back Paula!"....don't listen to her, I don't! |  |
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