Craven Cottage Newsround

I have to admit this video made me a bit misty and put a lump in my throat. Some scenes I had forgotten or tried to forget and others gave me the chills. Warner’s bobble, McBride’s knee, the wink, three times off the bar, and finally Rich and the gang in a blurry and distant parting shot. It’s all here in the best produced video I’ve seen yet of the season. And how can you go wrong with The Verve? Enjoy!

Here.

To borrow from the Blake Babies:

“I was only talking when I said to you, whatever it was I said.  It didn’t mean anything, so put it out of your head”

Sorry.  It just seemed like…. well, anyway.  It doesn’t much matter now does it?

For whatever it’s worth, I think Stefanovic was another player who was probably 95% good enough for the division.  Which is generally alright, but we may have had a few too many of those.   He was terrific in the home win over Reading though, and noticeably helped young Nathan Ashton through a nerve-wracking debut.

Make of it what you will.  Warner’s numbers would be even better if he hadn’t thrown two in.

More great stuff from the best general football blog out there.   This time it’s a look at the Euro 2008 away kits.

The Turkey efforts are intriguing.

Sweden (who Mart and I are supporting this summer) have gone a shade darker than I would’ve.

And as the man says, Austria’s black away kit is slightly sinister.

Part 1 - the home kits - is here.  Great stuff.

Also, rumours abound that Fulham will have new kits next year.   Wasn’t there a directive that we had to keep the same one for a while?   That hasn’t happened for a bit has it?  Suits me, I get quite excited at new kits, but perhaps a bit much for families who have to buy several.

The Independent just emailed and asked if I’d link to this.

I really don’t know how our commenter can give us 3/10.   We were bad for a while, true, but after all we went through to pick up the pieces I reckon 5/10 would be more reasonable.  More perhaps.

And Villa at home our best performance?  Really?   Did he go to any away games?  Reading away surely trumps everything else for sheer dominance, and Portsmouth and City are notable for guts.  The Villa game is worthy because we won it, but it’s not like we did particularly well or anything.  Some strange choices in there I think.

I was walking home last night when Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” came onto my iPod. I turned it straight off. We’ve had too much of all this tub-thumping and emotionally stirring stuff recently. It has been exhausting, even as a spectator.  A good rule of thumb in life is to avoid any music that might appear on an compilation album with “Ibiza” in the title, but I needed something peaceful so turned to FC Kahuna’s “Hayling”, which is both very relaxing and geographically relevant to our trip to Portsmouth (near to Hayling Island). Much better. The break from football will be quite welcome.

Jimmy Bullard is allowing himself to dream:

“I know it’s early but if we can start next season in the form we’ve finished in, God knows what might happen.

“You’ve got to get off to a good start in this league.”

The Guardian has a report card.

More Franck Queudrue, this time from the mouth of Brum Chairman David Sullivan:

“We bought a pile of rubbish last season and Franck Queudrue has disappointed me the most,” Sullivan told Sky Sports News. “We also brought in a third-choice keeper, Richard Kingson. He was a waste of space, too. I could go right down the list. Nobody has really shone out.”

This is, to put it mildly, very unprofessional. Franck Queudrue’s a comedy favourite of mine so I’m obviously going to disagree, but whatever your opinions, you don’t talk like this if you own a football team. And poor old Richard Kingson too!  Kingson - Ghana’s regular goalkeeper - is not a waste of space. He made one appearance and made a bad mistake, but that happens to goalkeepers. He may or may not be Premiership quality, but I’d suggest that his international record is in his favour on this one. It must be a difficult time to support Birmingham.

Everyone’s jumping right into the summer squad rebuilding thing, but I haven’t the energy for that now.  We have no idea what’ll happen and there aren’t even any rumours yet.  We all have our own ideas about who should stay and who should go, but I’m going to let the dust settle for a few days before getting into that sort of thing.