On December 31st we throw a party, we have some drinks and we make promises for the new year. I’m going to eat better. I’m going to drink less. I’m going to get myself on track, baby! If we keep one or two of these promises deep into the year, we feel
good. But the important thing is it’s a new year. A fresh beginning.
So here we are: the eve of the new Premier League season. For most football fans, this is where the year changes over. Happy New Year.
I’ve decided to make some resolutions as a follower, a writer and a fan. Please feel welcome to post your own “New Year” resolutions in the comment section.
1) Fantasy Football…
I’m going to see it through to the end this season. For once.
Here’s how my fantasy football odyssey usually goes: Ethan signs up. Ethan feels great about his starting XI. Ethan does well for a few weeks. Players get injured and booked. Ethan forgets to make changes before the deadlines. Ethan finally trades that striker who’s been doing f*ck all. That striker gets a hat trick and two assists the following weekend. Ethan throws his hands up in the hair mid-December as the notification emails pile up in his inbox and his team becomes a hollow shell of former greatness. Ethan tells, himself: next year, next year…
Well its next year. And I am keeping up with it this time. For real. I don’t care if I end up in the relegation zone of my group with less points than 07/08 Derby County. As long as I am still involved in the spring, I’ll be happy. Must be how Michael Owen feels as well.
2) Watch More of the Matches…
I am always up for watching good football no matter who’s playing. But last season I pretty much just watched Liverpool plus whatever was shown on FSC. Since I don’t have Setanta at home, watching those matches means going to the pub and going to the pub means spending too much. Last season I’d go for Liverpool and maybe stick around for the fixture afterwards. But this season I’m going to try to go both days and catch as much as possible. I’m sure I’ll miss some of the earliest morning matches, but I want to take in more and thus have more to write about, more to complain about, more to over-speculate about in the next transfer window. Besides who needs sleep when there’s football to watch?
3) Drink Less…
(Whispering: “How is he going to manage this? He just said he’ll going to the pub more often…”)
I’m not one to go out at night and drink until the sun comes up. But when watching football in the mornings and afternoons, I’ve been known to take down one or two more pints than I intend. The problem is the sipping of the beer becomes a nervous habit during a tense match. I clutch the glass like a security blanket and continually drink from it not out of thirst, per se, but just to have something to do besides fret. The beers go down fast during a match and head right for my love handles.
The solution is simple. I’m going to put the pint glass down. Set it on the bar or on the table and step away. I can pick up some other nervous habit like drumming my fingers or cracking my knuckles and go back to drinking beer at a leisurely pace. If the beer is not in my hand, I will only sip at it intermittently during pauses in plays. As long as there’s not an overwhelming number of corner kicks, I’ll be fine. I gave this a test run during the Atletico friendly last weekend. It went well. One cup of coffee and two pints got me through the whole ninety minutes. This is my new target. We’ll see if I can keep it up during the matches that matter, where the tension really mounts, but I think I can spend/drink less while watching more this season. It’s just a matter of adjusting my routine.
4) Get Fit…
Now this is starting to sound more like a traditional new year’s resolution list. And this one ties into drinking less. But it also ties into wanting to get in shape and play some regular football. Writing during the day and working in a restaurant at night has made it hard to get together a regular exercise schedule, but as with the cutting back on matchday pints, it is a matter of altering the routine. Besides: I want to look sexy for the day my future wife stumbles into our pub in a Torres kit and asks: “Is this seat taken?”
5) Keep Up With The Championship…
Since the Championship isn’t largely broadcast in the states, this will be harder than watching more Premier League matches, but I’m determined to know more about the teams in the next flight down in the coming season. Even if it just means reading more, I want to have a better grasp of all things Championship.
Last Saturday, I stuck around for the West Brom/Newcastle match on Setanta 2. A Geordie I know showed up (the only Newcastle supporter in the pub that day) and I hung out with him while he watched his side grind out a 1-1 draw. Everytime a Newcastle made a bad pass or a bad play, he groaned and said, “Welcome to the Championship.” But mostly he had a decent attitude considering his circumstances. “I’ll take a draw away,” he said at the end, a lot less glum than I would have expected. Made me think about how I’d act if my club got relegated.
I watched as a neutral, but I admit I got chills when Damien Duff scored. The build-up and the goal looked top-flight and gave me a thrill.
There’s so much drama in the Championship. So much can happen. With relegation and promotion changing the face of the league each year, there is ample room for new teams to become dominant and successful in an ever-changing arena. It is never the same teams coming up every other season. There’s something to fight for on both ends but the quality of football still makes the Championship a good watch. I look forward to seeing which teams fight for promotion and also how John Barnes does with Tranmere. I’d like to see Newcastle come back up for sentimental reasons. Maybe with one or two of the other former top flight stalwarts. Sheffield Wednesday? Nottingham Forest? (Ah, how I’d love to see Liverpool beat Nottingham Forest for old time’s sake.)
6) Read More…
As a writer and as a fan, I like to read as much as possible on the beautiful game. But working, writing and watching often gets in the way of plowing through a good book. (I’ve been chipping away at the mammoth The Ball is Round by Steven Goldblatt for weeks and I’m only an eighth of the way through the thing…) But I’m determined to keep up with the books.
My reading list includes:
Among the Thugs by Bill Bruford, Brilliant Orange by David Winner and Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson are all at the top of my list. I’m also curious about The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl, though I’ll probably look for it in the public library rather than buy it, and I’ll be picking up Bill Simmons’s The Book of Basketball when it comes out for some nice sporting contrast (I like to inject some baseball and basketball reading here and there).
So there it is. My resolutions for the year. We’ll see how many I keep.
I’m determined to watch more of the matches as well, which should be easy since I have a DVR. The same problem though always comes up, while I do record all the games that I want to watch I find it increasingly difficult to set aside time to sit down and actually watch them. By the time the next weekend rolls around I usually have two or three games that I still have yet to watch, I guess there just isn’t enough time these days.
I know that feeling, I’ve still got Champions League, FA Cup, and Football League playoff matches from this past season on DVR that I havn’t watched yet. Thought I would use them to get me through the summer, but kind of lost interest since I already know the results. On the other hand I can’t quite bring myself to delete them. God, I need to get a life!
This is a great list, looks strikingly similar to mine, another American Liverpool supporter.
P.S. Brilliant Orange is a GREAT book, I loved it. I’m in the middle of Inverting the Pyramid, and it’s great…just a bit dry, even though I love footy tactics it’s full of dry history.
Great information. great blog. I just started reading all the blogs. This on is really good.
John – Brewmaster.
I just hope to watch enough games in my busy schedule. And maybe find a local pub (the one within walking distance to me opens at 11:30am).
BTW last week I found Inverting the Pyramid in the clearance rack at my local bookstore… cost me a whopping $2! I never find stuff like that.
Another American supporting the Big 4.
I simply hate it. Especially Liverpool.
To be fair, Thomas, I don’t know much about Ethan. I’m sure he has his reasons for supporting Liverpool. I’m an American who supports Manchester United. The reason being that I saw some of their matches whilst I was young and I fell in love with their football. Sure, there are people in the States who pile on the bandwagon that is the Big 4, but those teams are the ones that have been (and will continue to be) the ones shown on television here. I know it’s good to support your local club, but since we don’t have a local EPL club, we choose from what’s available. Sadly, the selection isn’t always the best over here.
You could probably replace “American” with “European”, “African”, “Asian”, etc…. and come up with the same rationale.
But using your logic, it is only Americans that are influenced by a team winning titles all the time. All these kids in Ireland, France, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, would still be supporting Man United if they were finishing middle of the table for the past 20 years.
Are you sure that maybe if you are just anti-American?
[Besides: I want to look sexy for the day my future wife stumbles into our pub in a Torres kit and asks: “Is this seat taken?”]
XD
Love reading your writings, full of wit and the honest, and sometimes sad truths of being a football fan. Btw, check out Espn’s Espn360.com. It looks like they show some Championship matches, among other football leagues / internationals (live + available for replay). It’s how I watched the Newcastle v West Brom match, as I’m also interested in following the Championship this season.
Another excellent topic, Ethan. As far as my resolutions for this year, I’m going to try to get out of the house more to experience games — whether it’s while I’m exercising and following games on my iPhone, or taking the laptop and watching games in different surroundings (outdoors, where the wireless access works, etc).
I’m also going to try to watch fewer games and be OK with that. With four kids and a wife, it’s tough to watch games nowadays so I’m looking for a better balance of work and life.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
I echo the get in shape resolution. Thankfully I’m about halfway there already.
And I too am a big four fan. But I became a fan of Chelsea cause I liked John Terry. I was ashamed once I realized how big of a bandwagoner I was but it was too late to abandon them.
Getting fit so I can get back to playing some real life footy + watching more matches and maybe trying out fantasy football (I’ve played fantasy American football before and I like that) are all goals of mine as well. Cheers to everyone.
(Is an American Liverpool supporter as well)
YNWA
I’d like to think that my absence will help you in some respect Ethan. I mean, did we ever NEED to show up an hour before the knockout stage matches and nervously drink 3 beers…
Should us Americans hate all the people we see in other countries rocking Yankee fitteds and Kobe jerseys?
I’m American. Have a friend from around Liverpool. Everton fan, so it rubbed off. It was more of a dig at Liverpool than anything else.
I don’t doubt that Ethan has his reasons for supporting Liverpool.
And of course it makes sense that the big clubs are going to make more of a splash in foreign markets than some unknown clubs.
@ the assertion that you only get coverage of big clubs, that’s false. Sure Champions League is mostly big clubs, but FSC shows quite a few mid table matches. So if you are following the Prem you are going to get the full variety.
And by the way, I found the article well written and entertaining.
1.Get slightly less pissed off when Fulham lose.
2. Stop bitching that Nike doesn’t make a Fulham kit in XXXL. I should just lay off the pizza.
3. Tone down my maniac goal celebrations in my living room (got a newborn daughter in the house now and I think I scared her yesterday when Charlie Davies scored)
4. Give Bobby Zamora a chance to impress me.
5.Never question the wisdom that is Roy Hodgson.
1. Definitley watch more matches, going to be tough w/o any recording technology. Gonna have to open a couple of windows on the laptop.
2. Not rub it everyone’s face when Man City finish in the top 3.
Kidding about the 2nd one everyone, settle down.
Another American big 4 fan (Arsenal) here. Sorry about that, when I got into watching the Prem in fall 06 I went into it as a neutral and waited for a team to find me, even trying NOT to like big 4 teams, but by Christmas I’d been won over by Thierry Henry and Arsenal in spite of myself. And my girlfriend is from London so I was predisposed to London teams. Plus I love Nick Hornby. So that was that.
My resolution is to try to do more of my watching in the pub and less at home. It’s always more fun there in the company of other fans, but it’s 45 minutes to Denver and there are none showing games where I live, so most of the time I end up watching alone in my living room. When it’s a 6 am game there’s not much I can do, but for 8 am or later games I should be able to make it down there more than I do.