Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches

It's been a month since l last wrote a blog entry and you're hero has been found discovering the new world, going on holiday, and another hospital adventure. But first things first... the saints just survived on the last day of the season. We were down 3 times on the last day but we somehow managed to escape. I have whinged about the current state of English football before but there is no harm in having another rant.

The whole game is now about money. Saints find themselves without any, at a time when all other clubs have gone past them. In the space of four years we have dropped from 8th in the Premiership and the FA Cup Final to nearly relegated from the Championship. In the same period we have witnessed Portsmouth travel in the opposite direction, not due to organic growth, or an amazing crop of youngsters brought through from the Academy, but through money.

If you can’t beat them then join them. This has been the problem that Saints have faced. No-one who has been in charge of Southampton has been able to find any investment for a club who have a new stadium, one of the best Academies in the country, and a proven support base if we were back in the Premiership. Portsmouth have millions due to a Russian fisherman, and yet the club remains lacking in all of these three areas. How can Southampton not attract any investment?

A millionaire now owns every single Premiership club, and bank rolled by them. Also, every club has been taken over in the last 5 years. This is the ever-changing face of English football. Loyalty has been replaced by a P&L, and the players who jump around clubs because their agent tells them to have reflected this.

Until we are taken over, the reality unfortunately will be one of survival in the Championship. Without money we cannot buy a team to compete consistently with those that can buy the better players. West Brom and Stoke who have both spent quite enough over the last year have both been promoted. We could rely on organic growth to get ourselves out of the quagmire but if you need examples of why this will not work then cast your mind back to Walcott, Bridge, Bale, Baird. All have played for their countries before they were 20 and all came through the Academy at Southampton. Unfortunately they also left Southampton for MONEY as soon as they could. Surman will be the next to go.

I am aware of how bitter this rant sounds and how envious of other clubs we are, but this stems from the frustration of having clubs like Hull, Stoke, and Bristol City overtake us. The final word on this subject is that we need someone to buy us, and then we can look to the future.

And breathe….

I travelled to the US a few weeks ago for work. I flew into Philadelphia and was then whisked away to the international city of Wilmington in Delaware. In the 3 days that I spent there I have come to the conclusion that it is a town on one road with big blocks on either side that are only differentiated by the corporate logos on the outside. It is as if God, after building most of the world like an elaborate model railway, then came to Wilmington and used Lego to knock it up in a few hours.

Having said that, one observation that I made was that it was all very comfortable. The corridors and doorways are massive, probably due to the oversized nature of its inhabitants, and the facilities all around you are designed for comfort and ease. The bed was big and soft, compared to the average hotel bed in Europe, which is usually quite hard. It would be quite easy to sink in to a Wilmington life where you feel protected by a big cotton wool ball and forget about the problems that are being faced in other areas of the world.

The news channels are all local, the newspapers are all local, and I found it quite tricky to find out the Champions League scores when I was there. You can live in a bubble, and only be interested in the immediate events directly in front of you. The people at work, who spent most of the time talking about local issues, echoed this behaviour. This is culturally very different to anywhere I have been in Europe, or major cities in the US. It is a much more provincial attitude, that has not been affected by the rapid globalisation of other areas in the world.

I personally think that this way of thinking is out dated and the world has changed too much for vast areas of civilisation, like the US, to ignore it. I also think that too much the other way is also a bad thing, where people have no understanding of what is around them and cannot connect with communities. A middle ground must be found where an awareness of the Macro issues affecting the world are juxtaposed with the tolerance and understanding of local communities. But there you go, that was my assessment of Wilmington.

While I was out there I met Pete, and we had a few drinks, a meal and eventually spent the night together. This was all above board, and the tache from previous entries has been shaved off. Wilmington is only a couple of hours away from Baltimore, where Pete lives, and so he crashed at the hotel and then went straight to work the next morning.

Unfortunately on my last day, Sophie was taken into hospital due to another seizure, and so while I was on my way home the wheels were set into motion for the “worst case scenario” plan. While Claire is on her own, it is obviously hard to look after Dylan as well as Sophie in hospital. So the cavalry were called and everything went smoothly. Sophie came out the next day and everything was fine.

Last week we escaped to Centreparcs in the Lake District. If you have never been it can be compared to a village in the woods, where trees hide nearly all other lodges and dwellings, and you have the sense of being secluded. It is very peaceful, but also has a great indoor swimming pool and Spa centre. The kids loved the swimming, and the playgrounds, and we loved the Spa centre. We went with Chan and Woody and their kids, and all had a good time.

Halfway through the week Dylan caught a bug, probably from licking every surface he could get his tongue near, and so he wasn’t very happy for a couple of days. This then made us nervous of Sophie catching it, but luckily she avoided it and there was no major catastrophe. One day we may be able to go away and not worry about the worst thing that could happen, but at the moment we are still being proved right a lot of the time.