I find myself torn ahead of this FA Cup tie for many many
reasons. I could try to analyse my dilemma in depth to reach a definitive
conclusion on whether I should watch the game live on BBC tonight. However, I
would be up all night typing this post, you would get bored reading it after a
while, and I will probably miss the match itself. So to spark your interest for
reading on further, I’d like to list each of the key factors causing me to make
a difficult decision. They include a PS3, my definition of support, the FA, Beast
Mode, a new JVC 32 inch TV, Football Manager 13, Steven Gerrard, and the magic
of the FA Cup.
I don’t know how to class my following of Liverpool these days. In my previous blog, I mentioned that I was once an obsessed fanatical dysfunctional Liverpool fan, the kind that would have flatly believed that Liverpool were wronged if a throw in didn’t go their way. It was a slow process but I began to realise the fallacy of being that blindly devoted to a club hundreds of miles away from me. A massive part of it was personal events that made me take stock of what was important in life. Another aspect was a much more concerted effort to follow the exploits of the Irish national team. I began to travel to home games, and decided to make my first away trip at Euro 2012 in Poland. The experiences of that trip alone have transformed my passion for Irish football tenfold.
That has come at the expense of my passion for club football. Watching live football is a great experience, regardless of who is playing or how a game goes. That experience doesn’t cross over to watching games at home on your TV or in a pub. The average Irish football fan loves nothing more than to sit on a barstool in a pub and roar obscenities directed at an area of the world he or she has never been to. And their apathy towards local football is not only offensive, but highly ignorant and ill informed. Local football is not limited to the League of Ireland. Some areas don’t have a LoI team. Yet I wouldn’t bet against there being a local Junior team nearby they can get involved in. Grassroots football does exist in Ireland, except in the minds of many Premier League fans in this country.
I began to question my own passion for Liverpool. I couldn’t connect so much to them as I could to my own local club, my local League of Ireland team, and of course my country. I found it easier to embrace Celtic in that regard given their strong Irish roots and underdog status in big European games (much like Ireland face in qualifiers). Yet, my fanatical support for Liverpool FC was fading.
Nowadays, if I can watch their games, I will. If I can’t then I can get by, just fine. If they win, great. If they don’t, then so be it. If they’ve been fortunate to get 3 points or progress to the next round, I will call as it is. If they have been on the receiving end of an injustice, I will call it as it is but I won’t join an internet campaign or type endless abuse at an official who just made an honest mistake. I refuse to join in endless wind ups battles between Irish Liverpool and Manchester United fans as there’s no point. Chance is I will take offence to both sets of supporters and their behaviour. No one believes me when I tell them it doesn’t bother me if Liverpool play bad. Because it did, it really did in the past. And I’m happy that today, my emotions are not defined by the fortunes of club teams I follow. That all said, I still like to see Liverpool do well though and will be pleased whenever they win!
Tonight’s game is novel as it’s a rematch of the 1988 FA Cup final. The magic of the FA Cup is by and large, dead. The fact that phrase is overused so much this time of year just proves it. Just ask any Liverpool fan what’s more important; finishing top 4 or winning the FA Cup? The majority will realistically choose finishing top 4. There may be an increased desire to win the FA Cup this season as it could be the final act of Steven Gerrard’s Liverpool career. You can understand the romance behind that thinking, but it’s an isolated example for any fan of a top tier club.
The magic of this competition is reserved for lower league clubs. AFC Wimbledon are not short of magic, or a history. This is the same club that shocked the football world in 1988 by defeating heavily favoured Liverpool in the final. They were dubbed the Crazy Gang during the 80’s and 90’s. And through the initiative, passion, perseverance of its fans, survived a disgraceful attempt of relocation to Milton Keynes by the FA and kept the club alive. They reached the Football League in 2011, 9 seasons after the formation of AFC Wimbledon. It’s not the most prolific rise in football. FC Nordsjælland of Denmark reached the Champions League from its inception 21 years previous as Farum IK. However, it’s still a story that any football fan should appreciate, even those following the franchise in Milton Keynes.
My interest in AFC Wimbledon began with their fascinating rise from the ashes in 2002, but the love affair began with my purchase of Football Manager 13 almost 2 years ago. I wanted a challenge to start off with but couldn’t decide what lower league club I should choose. That was until I saw a vacancy for the manager’s job at Wimbledon and the romance blossomed from that moment on. Again, if I were to go into detail about this saved game I have, I would almost certainly miss the game and possibly the 4th round of the competition. In short however, Jack Midson became a club legend. Seb Brown fought off 5 different competitors for the No.1 spot in goal before losing out to Colin Doyle in 2015. Pim Balkestein, who spent one season at the club in real life, became a mainstay in my team. His final act in a blue jersey was to lift the Premier League trophy in 2022, the culmination of what was rollercoaster of emotions, promotions, last day survival, spending 22 million on a Brazilian goalkeeper and reaching the Champions League quarter finals.
Nowadays I keep an eye on their fortunes, contrasting their current situation with how they were doing at the same time period in my Football Manager career. There’s a sharp contrast between the two (one being real life, the other being a game) but I never had the experience of playing Adebayo Akinfenwa up front in my game. I can only imagine the damage he would have caused as the focal point of my attack. I can only imagine the damage he will cause to Liverpool’s defence this evening. Tonight’s game represents the highest profile game AFC Wimbledon will play in 13 years and while I still maintain the magic of the FA Cup is dead, it should prove to be a great occasion for all concerned.
It will be fascinating to see Beast Mode take on Martin Skrtel. I’m also looking forward to finally watching a game of football on our new 32 inch JVC widescreen TV, which I bought as Christmas present for my parents. We had awful hassle with our old standard definition TV watching football as we couldn’t score-line in the corner of the screen half of the time! The atmosphere at should be electric at Kingsmeadow. However, I can’t say I’m looking forward to all the attention focused on Gerrard with this being his 1st game since his decision a few days ago. I’m sure the magic of the FA Cup will be mentioned at least fifty times over the course of BBC’s coverage. I’m torn between wanting both teams to do well, and between watching this game or playing PES 15 online on the PS3.
It’s about half an hour til kick off. I need to make a decision lively!
I don’t know how to class my following of Liverpool these days. In my previous blog, I mentioned that I was once an obsessed fanatical dysfunctional Liverpool fan, the kind that would have flatly believed that Liverpool were wronged if a throw in didn’t go their way. It was a slow process but I began to realise the fallacy of being that blindly devoted to a club hundreds of miles away from me. A massive part of it was personal events that made me take stock of what was important in life. Another aspect was a much more concerted effort to follow the exploits of the Irish national team. I began to travel to home games, and decided to make my first away trip at Euro 2012 in Poland. The experiences of that trip alone have transformed my passion for Irish football tenfold.
That has come at the expense of my passion for club football. Watching live football is a great experience, regardless of who is playing or how a game goes. That experience doesn’t cross over to watching games at home on your TV or in a pub. The average Irish football fan loves nothing more than to sit on a barstool in a pub and roar obscenities directed at an area of the world he or she has never been to. And their apathy towards local football is not only offensive, but highly ignorant and ill informed. Local football is not limited to the League of Ireland. Some areas don’t have a LoI team. Yet I wouldn’t bet against there being a local Junior team nearby they can get involved in. Grassroots football does exist in Ireland, except in the minds of many Premier League fans in this country.
I began to question my own passion for Liverpool. I couldn’t connect so much to them as I could to my own local club, my local League of Ireland team, and of course my country. I found it easier to embrace Celtic in that regard given their strong Irish roots and underdog status in big European games (much like Ireland face in qualifiers). Yet, my fanatical support for Liverpool FC was fading.
Nowadays, if I can watch their games, I will. If I can’t then I can get by, just fine. If they win, great. If they don’t, then so be it. If they’ve been fortunate to get 3 points or progress to the next round, I will call as it is. If they have been on the receiving end of an injustice, I will call it as it is but I won’t join an internet campaign or type endless abuse at an official who just made an honest mistake. I refuse to join in endless wind ups battles between Irish Liverpool and Manchester United fans as there’s no point. Chance is I will take offence to both sets of supporters and their behaviour. No one believes me when I tell them it doesn’t bother me if Liverpool play bad. Because it did, it really did in the past. And I’m happy that today, my emotions are not defined by the fortunes of club teams I follow. That all said, I still like to see Liverpool do well though and will be pleased whenever they win!
Tonight’s game is novel as it’s a rematch of the 1988 FA Cup final. The magic of the FA Cup is by and large, dead. The fact that phrase is overused so much this time of year just proves it. Just ask any Liverpool fan what’s more important; finishing top 4 or winning the FA Cup? The majority will realistically choose finishing top 4. There may be an increased desire to win the FA Cup this season as it could be the final act of Steven Gerrard’s Liverpool career. You can understand the romance behind that thinking, but it’s an isolated example for any fan of a top tier club.
The magic of this competition is reserved for lower league clubs. AFC Wimbledon are not short of magic, or a history. This is the same club that shocked the football world in 1988 by defeating heavily favoured Liverpool in the final. They were dubbed the Crazy Gang during the 80’s and 90’s. And through the initiative, passion, perseverance of its fans, survived a disgraceful attempt of relocation to Milton Keynes by the FA and kept the club alive. They reached the Football League in 2011, 9 seasons after the formation of AFC Wimbledon. It’s not the most prolific rise in football. FC Nordsjælland of Denmark reached the Champions League from its inception 21 years previous as Farum IK. However, it’s still a story that any football fan should appreciate, even those following the franchise in Milton Keynes.
My interest in AFC Wimbledon began with their fascinating rise from the ashes in 2002, but the love affair began with my purchase of Football Manager 13 almost 2 years ago. I wanted a challenge to start off with but couldn’t decide what lower league club I should choose. That was until I saw a vacancy for the manager’s job at Wimbledon and the romance blossomed from that moment on. Again, if I were to go into detail about this saved game I have, I would almost certainly miss the game and possibly the 4th round of the competition. In short however, Jack Midson became a club legend. Seb Brown fought off 5 different competitors for the No.1 spot in goal before losing out to Colin Doyle in 2015. Pim Balkestein, who spent one season at the club in real life, became a mainstay in my team. His final act in a blue jersey was to lift the Premier League trophy in 2022, the culmination of what was rollercoaster of emotions, promotions, last day survival, spending 22 million on a Brazilian goalkeeper and reaching the Champions League quarter finals.
Nowadays I keep an eye on their fortunes, contrasting their current situation with how they were doing at the same time period in my Football Manager career. There’s a sharp contrast between the two (one being real life, the other being a game) but I never had the experience of playing Adebayo Akinfenwa up front in my game. I can only imagine the damage he would have caused as the focal point of my attack. I can only imagine the damage he will cause to Liverpool’s defence this evening. Tonight’s game represents the highest profile game AFC Wimbledon will play in 13 years and while I still maintain the magic of the FA Cup is dead, it should prove to be a great occasion for all concerned.
It will be fascinating to see Beast Mode take on Martin Skrtel. I’m also looking forward to finally watching a game of football on our new 32 inch JVC widescreen TV, which I bought as Christmas present for my parents. We had awful hassle with our old standard definition TV watching football as we couldn’t score-line in the corner of the screen half of the time! The atmosphere at should be electric at Kingsmeadow. However, I can’t say I’m looking forward to all the attention focused on Gerrard with this being his 1st game since his decision a few days ago. I’m sure the magic of the FA Cup will be mentioned at least fifty times over the course of BBC’s coverage. I’m torn between wanting both teams to do well, and between watching this game or playing PES 15 online on the PS3.
It’s about half an hour til kick off. I need to make a decision lively!
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