Archive for the 'General' Category
Hi All, well this may be my last post. As you can see it is a month since i have done anything here. I guess writing is just not for me. A good blog needs to be updated and informative or opinionated.
Thanks to those few that read and checked back here from time to time, I am sorry there was nothing here for you to read. I am still a passionate Socceroos fan and will be travelling to the 3 home games next year. I have match tickets and booked flights last night after Virgin released a new sale which encompassed the dates I needed.
I will also be travelling to South Africa after the Aussies get through the current campaign in the top 2 positions of the group.
I will not say “never” to posting again, and perhaps when I feel inspired or have the right reasons I will revive Hands On Football. But for now it is “Talk to ya later”
Cheers
Tezza
November 29 2008 | General | 2 Comments »
Trivia Night
I went to a Trivia Night on Friday night to support 2 young girls who will travel to Thailand in December to do volunteer work for a month.
Halloween
Some of you may know and may even care that Friday night was Halloween. So most people were dressed in black or even as witches etc. I wore Jeans and a nice blue checked shirt.
The first round of the questions were about Halloween, and one question was something like, “Which group of priests celebrated Halloween”? I instinctively said “Druids“. Our team discussed and the appointed scribe wrote down the answer. When the answers were being read out and Druids was indeed correct, I said, “well that’s one to us” and our lovely scribe said “no, I wrote down Jews”.
Gob Smacked.
Apparently in all the noise that was going on , she thought I said Jews, and promptly wrote it down. This was cause for much laughter and jokes were made throughout the night.
Blame the Jews, we have been doing it for centuries so why stop now.
I know it doesn’t sound funny, but it was at the tine
Cheers
Tezza
November 03 2008 | General | 1 Comment »
About 10 weeks ago I had a small accident at Oz Tag. I play for the social aspect.
My right ring finger was pulled very hard and i broke a small piece of bone out of the joint. My doctor asked if I wanted to see an orthopedic surgeon. I said no.
Silly Me
I went back to him last Thursday and he had me into a specialist on Monday. I was in surgery on Tuesday afternoon. I now have my hand in a half cast and will be in a sling for the next 2 weeks at least.
Right Handed
I am right handed and it is now useless to me. I am typing this left handed. I had to sign bank docs yesterday with a left handed scrawl. I can manage brushing teeth and shaving right handed. I am yet to wipe my bum, so that should be interesting.
Take your doctors advice and see the specialist. If I did, it would all be fixed by now.
Cheers
Tezza
October 30 2008 | General | 3 Comments »
What World Cup???
This weekend here in Australia is the Rugby League World Cup. Apart from a bit of advertising on Channel 9 here there is very little coverage of it.
It features a massive 10 teams in 3 pools. I think the organisers are so worried about the domination of the top 3 nations (Australia, New Zealand and England) that they have put them all in the same pool. I have no interest in working out how the next round goes.
Is this World Cup relevant?? I suppose to the Rugby League fraternity it is very relevant and they want it to be successful and have more competitive nations. However on a World scale it is very limited in its exposure and appeal. If Australia loose it will be a shock defeat.
In almost all countries apart from Australia, League is not the dominant football code. New Zealand is totally dominated by that other game, Rugby Union. Another World Cup where a dozen nations turn up and it will be between maybe 4 nations as to who wins it.
Cricket has about 6 competitive nations, although it is big amongst 1/4 of th
e Worlds population. There is even talk of 20-20 Cricket becoming an Olympic Sport.
Americans call the winners of their domestic, Baseball, Basketball, Ice Hockey and Gridiron competitions, “World Champions”. They don’t even invite anyone else from around the world to play except for Canada.
In Football we have 200+ nations playing matches for up to 2 years just to qualify fir the FIFA World Cup where 32 nations battle it out to be World Champions.
South AFrica 2010, here we come
Cheers
Tezza
October 22 2008 | General | No Comments »
Do we Need Video Refereeing in Football?
This was raised here on the weekend after an A-League match between the Qld Roar and Adelaide United. The match ended with a 1-0 away win to Adelaide. The goal scorer was shown to be offside on the video replay. Both the Assistant and Match referee missed it and the goal stands along with the result.
Why do we need a Video Referee?
So these types of things will not happen any more and results of matches in professional leagues will not be affected by an officials mistake.
NO
I am in the NO corner on this one.
Frank Farina came out after the match on Friday night and launched a scathing attack on the officials for missing this one. The effect is that the Roar are now in 6th position, 1 point out of the top four where they could have been equal 4th on points.
My question is, Did Frank Farina publicly blasted Andrew Packer for miss kicking the the ball for Robbie Cornthwaite to run on to and score the goal? No, he would have said something like, “these things happen in Football”. Yes he is right and Cristiano was offside.
The fact is in this particular match Qld had a number of chances to score goals before this happened as well as after this happened. Did he blast his strikers for NOT scoring? NO. It is the game of Football where goals are missed by cm. In this case it was another good display from Qld on the pitch at home but could not score a goal.
Referees are just a part of the game like players and Managers. And they can all make a mistake that cost a team the game.
Video Refereeing stops what is a free flowing game. Should then the referee “STOP” his watch whilst the Video ref takes his time to adjudicate? At the moment the “time added on” is monitored by the 4th official who then tells the ref how much longer. It is always rounded to the nearest minute.
I know Frank is only suggesting this for when a Goal is scored and he wants to check for Handball, offside or if the ball crossed the line, but I think this takes away from the game itself.
Just like every other Australian Football fan back in June 2006, I was livid at the referee decision that lead to the Italians gaining a penalty with a minute to go and eventually won them the game. I was shouting at the TV at a pub in London all sorts of profanity. Did I want a video decision? NO.
In the end Football is a game played by humans and refereed by humans, and humans make mistakes.
What do you think? Leave a message.
Cheers
Tezza
October 20 2008 | General | No Comments »
4-0 to the Socceroos
A very important home win to the Aussies which sees us sitting at the top of the group 2 points ahead of Qatar and Japan, who surprisingly had a Home draw to Uzbekistan.
We had a lot to be excited about on Wednesday night.
Tim Cahill – Returned after a lengthy injury and just like he did for Everton, Timmy slotted the first goal in for the Socceroos. He will be such an important player for us in this campaign.
Craig Moore - Out of retirement and looked like he had not missed a game. Along with Lucas they were rock solid in defense and Quintana had no answer other than to fall on the ground.
Brett Emerton – Just keeps getting better in the right midfield position and although his penalty was not that convincing he slotted goal no 3 with class.
Josh “Jesus” Kennedy - His height was absolutely dominant against the Qataris and the rest of the group should be worried. As well as scoring the 4th goal of the night he had a touch in the first 3 as well.
The squad played very well. We played the ball out of defence and were very patient. I think Pim has been a very settling influence on the team and all looks well for the rest of the group matches.
New Families to Football
In my group on Wednesday night there were 8 of us. 4 of who had NEVER seen a Football match outside of their sons club matches. The Sinclair s came along and I think had a great night despite being dumped on by a huge Thunder Storm pre match. Brendon and Jack just finished their little bike ride across Australia last Friday.
John and Rebecca also came along for their second Socceroos match. They came with me to the Iraq match earlier this year.
New Football Families
It is great to see new faces at the ground and increase the awareness of the sport accross the Aussie public. I would have liked to see more than 34k there on Wednesday night. Pull your fingers out Brisbane and support our National Football team.
Cheers
Tezza
October 18 2008 | General | No Comments »
Hi all, I know it’s been a while. In fact it has been a whole month and looking at my Google Analytics it appears I am writing for myself. I have officially reached Zero readers.
WHY?
I started writing this blog to spread my enthusiasim for watching the Socceroos and hopefully encourage others to follow them or whatever team that interested you. It is harder than I thought it would be and combined with a disrupted employment regime in the past few months, I have just dropped the ball all together here.
WHAT NOW?
What I will be doing is writing for myself in the future. It will be a release. I have always cared what people think about me and what I say. I know I don’t say things just so I don’t make waves. I think a 40 something man just has to be able to say “stuff it” and say what I damn well want to.
AFTER ALL IT IS MY BLOG
So if you have comments, please leave them. I may agree or disagree with you, but rest assured, this is NOT a democracy here, it is MY opinion.
Cheers
Tezza
October 13 2008 | General | 4 Comments »
Glory In Tashkent
There are many Australians tonight saying to their friends, family and partners “where is Tashkent?”. And there are about 100 or so Aussie fans who can tell them exactly where it is and how to get there.
Heather, Pablo and the GGA will be heading home in the next few days with a huge smile on their faces. A 1-0 victory to the Aussies has us sitting on 3 points from 1 match with 7 to go. This was a match where 1 point would have been considered a victory. Possibly one of the hardest away trips in World Cup Football and we came away with 3 points.
I know I wasn’t the only person up watching at 1:30am this morning and it was well worth it. I was first met with an interview with the travelling fans. A fantastic effort form the Aussies all over the park. Lucas Neil and Chris Coyne were outstanding and it was like Scott Chipperfield never missed a game, and he scored the only goal of the game. That came by another cross from our new Mr Consistency, Luke Wilkshire.
This all bodes well for our next match against Qatar in Brisbane on October 15. It is so much better for us going through this Asian route to WC glory than in Oceania.
Let me know what you think, leave a comment.
Cheers
Tezza
September 11 2008 | General | No Comments »
Perth to Paradise
I have mentioned here before that a mate of mine and his son are riding across Australia on push bikes to raise awareness and funds for Big Brothers Big Sisters, a mentoring organisation for troubled youth.
Well tomorrow is the day Jack and Brendon Sinclair head off on their adventure. If you can donate, please click here or the link to the side of this page.
Below is a caricature of Jack and Brendon by Phil Spratt. This guy is a brilliant caricaturist, check out his web site.
4500km in 30 days, a truly inspirational journey and it was Jacks idea. He is dragging his ugly father along for the ride. I am thinking that after 4500km it might just shut him up for a day or two as well. Who am I kidding. Good Luck Brendon and Jack.
I am Inspired
This morning i got up and went for a run. Being 40+ and overweight I sure need the exercise and if a 15 year old is motivated to ride across Australia then surely i can get of my fat arse and do something for myself. Thanks again Jack.
Cheers
Tezza
September 10 2008 | General | 1 Comment »
Where the hell is Tashkent??
It is great to read stories about travelling Football fans. The number of Aussies travelling to watch the boys play around the world has increased over the years especially with a group like the Green and Gold Army leading the way.
The Grandmother of All Fans
Heather Kayatz is a 70 year old Grandmother from Sydney who has been following as many Socceroo matches as she can after travelling to Germany in 1974. There is a good article on The World Game about our intrepid supporters in Tashkent.
I certainly hope I am still following the Socceroos at 70. Great effort Heather.
GGA member Paul Bareston has even orgainised a welcome party for our travelers. It is great to see some wider media interest in our fans. The great thing about our fans is we are nothing like the travelling hoards of some countries that are going to give us a bad name.
It is a privilege to have met Heather on a number of occasions now and to mingle with such a happy bunch of like minded fans before, during and after Socceroo matches.
And for those of you who do not know where Tashkent is, click here.
I just Love being a Socceroo Fan
Cheers
Tezza
September 09 2008 | General | No Comments »
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