Champions of the World

Just to finish up a truly remarkable year, Rooney bags the winner for United against Quito in the World Club Championship! I'm absolutely buzzing!

Champions of England. Champions of Europe. Champions of the World.

Update

Haven't been on here in a while. Work seems to be taking over my life at the moment. At Old Trafford yesterday for game against Sunderland. 90 minutes of sheer frustration turned to absolute pandemonium when Vidic banged in the winner in injury time. A great end to a very cold day in Manchester.

About to start reading Jim White's new book on United, should be a good read as his writing whether in the Telegraph or in UWS is always top notch.

Other happenings of late include planning travels for next summer, probably back to the USA. The 2009 baseball schedules have been released and the Jays are playing in Philly and Washington in the middle of June......me thinks I'll go on the road with them and maybe hit New York on the way back. To hell with this credit crunch shit I say!

Congrats to the Phillies and Pat Gillick

A belated congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies who were crowned 2008 World Series Champions last week. My eternal memory of the Phillies will always be from 1993 when Joe Carter drilled a 3 run home run in the bottom of the 9th inning of game 6 of that year's World Series to win it all for the Toronto Blue Jays. I still sort of feel sorry for the Phillies, there is no worse way to lose a game of baseball than the fate that befell them that night so I was glad to see them finally bag the title after a 25 year wait. Congrats also to former Blue Jay GM Pat Gillick, who guided the Phillies to their title this year. He's off to retirement now, a very astute individual who has a ton of respect throughout MLB and especially in Toronto where he guided us to back to back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993.

Here's to Spring Training in March 2009....

West Ham

Was at the game vs. West Ham last night, good result with some astounding skill from that new Bulgarian of ours. Could of and should of won by a bagful but we never seemed to get out of 2nd gear all night.

Atmosphere in our end was fairly muted, not sure why. Probably cause it was f**kin freezin and its only the end of October. And that lad Ronaldo even managed to acknowledge us as he walked off the pitch at full time....how lucky were we. I said during the summer that we should have shown him the door, I'm getting sick of his petulant behaviour while he's playing and also his severe lack of respect for us schmuks who happen to pay his bloody wages. Its no wonder he's not getting the same backing as in previous seasons.

Brand, Ross scandal = nonsense

Have to say I'm sick to death of this whole Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross crap. Talk about non-news making all the news.

Two things to note here.

1) Only two people actually complained after the show aired on BBC Radio 2. It took the UK national press to pick up the story before thousands of the middle classes reacted in "outrage" over the skit.

2) Andrew Sachs' granddaughter, after hearing about the skit, immediately employed the services of one Max Clifford as her PR guru and then all of a sudden appreared in the offices of The Sun to voice her outrage at the skit. Fair enough, the skit was in poor taste but it didn't take her long to start using it to earn some tabloid cash for selling her story and to further her (ahem) 'career' at the same time.

Utter f**king nonsense if you ask me.

The Green Marine

Picked up a copy of a book entitled, "The Green Marine", written by a lad called Graham Dale who is originally from Raheny in Dublin. It chronicles his time in the US Marines and his tour of duty in Iraq in the last few years. Very interesting book, a no holds barred insight into his motivations for joining up while living in Austin, Texas and going all the way through boot camp training in California and his deployment in Iraq. Have to say its still a bit weird contemplating a lad who is roughly the same age as myself and who originally only lived up the road from where I live, joining up with the Marines and going to Iraq. I highly recommend it though, a completely different perspective on the whole Iraq conflict and an at times, funny insight into the day to day lives of the Marines in Iraq.

Leeds, West Brom, Michael Bolton, a nightmare flight and a new book

In Manchester this weekend for our home game vs West Brom. After a disjointed first half, we pulled away in the 2nd and ran out 4-0 winners. Have to say that Wayne Rooney was the catalyst for everything yesterday, simply outstanding.

We flew into Leeds and then had to suffer with one of the worst taxi drivers I've ever come across. The bloke couldn't even operate his sat nav, the fact we made it to Manchester was in itself a miracle! The flight back today was just as eventful. For some bizarre reason, Michael Bolton was on the flight?! Very bizarre. I didn't spot him until my mate pointed it out as we boarded. We then had a nightmare descent/landing in Dublin, brutal headwinds and flying from side to side as we approached the runway. Somehow the captain landed it but I was a tad freaked out walking off the plane!

I also managed to pick up the new book by Jim White (sports columnist for the Daily Telegraph) called "Manchester United The Biography". Really looking forward to reading it as his writing is first class (and he's a Red which is no bad thing!).

Currently I am.....

reading 'This Monster Lives' by Joe Berlinger which details the making of the documentary movie, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Interesting enough in parts, though you do have to laugh at some of the therapy sessions that the band went through and the fact they paid their therapist $40,000 a month over two years! Its a pity the subsequent album was such a letdown save for maybe 2/3 songs. At least their new output (Death Magnetic) is a great return to form, highly recommend it if you are a fan of the band.

Here goes....

Well, after much consideration, I've decided to give this blogging lark a go. Have absolutely no idea if there will be any real theme to the content but its sure to feature plenty of inane ramblings about day to day life, football (which will no doubt feature my observations from going to watch Manchester United every other week), baseball (Toronto Blue Jays), North American sport in general, work, music, comments on my travels and randomly stupid arguments that you get into over a pint on a Friday night and such and such.....

Any comments/abuse are more than welcome.....until I take it the wrong way and take you to task for your response!

Cheers.