Tag Archives: crystal palace

When Harry met Ally.

harry the hornet, sam allardyce, watford, crystal palace, premier leagueI’m not generally a fan of mascots, at least not British ones. Not because I find them pointless, but because unlike those in the US where it is pretty much an art form, our versions tend to be either scruffy or embarrassing (often both).

But more importantly, it’s usually obvious that the people who inhabit these costumes are not actually performers. Indeed, having seen mascots at all kinds of events over the years, I often get the impression that the only reason they have donned the outfit at all is because they drew the short straw that day.

There is however, one exception and he happens to be the mascot at my club. His name is Harry the Hornet, and entertainer doesn’t do him justice. I would even go so far as to say that there have been plenty of times over the last few season when he’s been the most entertaining thing on show at Vicarage Road.

Central to this is the fact that the guy who inhabits that strange yellow outfit has a fantastic sense of humour and is not afraid to use it. Be it with home fans, visiting fans, officials or even players. Which brings us nicely to the events of last Saturday and the mocking of Wilfred Zaha for diving. An offence for which he was rightly booked.

To his credit, Wilf eventually saw the funny side and the two exchanged a series of tweets (yes, Harry has his own Twitter account) but sadly, the same cannot be said of the former England and now Crystal Palace manager, Sam Allardyce who seemingly took grave exception to one of his players being ‘abused’ in this manner. He even suggested that the FA intervene which, given the subsequent social media piss take, has to go down as one of the great managerial PR own goals of our time. Given what happened with England, you’d have thought that he’d have been wary of anything even closely resembling a sting.

But whilst there is a huge amount of humour to be found in all this, there is also a very serious point. For the truth is that Harry was only mirroring the feeling of the home support and that was a frustration at the antics of certain players in the Palace team. Diving is cheating and a number of Palace players were guilty of that and more on Saturday.

As a former England manager who is now back at the helm of a Premier League side, maybe Mr. Allardyce should be focussed not on the antics of a man wearing a large yellow head, but on those of his team.  

This will be my last blog of 2016 so I would like to say a huge thank you to all of those who have continued to support me in any way shape or form.

independent film, screenwriting, screenwriter, script, writing, indie, RAFWhilst I haven’t been exactly prolific on the book front these last 12 months, a lot has been happening behind the scenes, primarily on the movie front. Indeed, as some of you may have seen, my next movie, Three Greens, has recently been announced.

So can I take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy and productive New Year.

Keep the faith!

@dougiebrimson

sex, lads romance, love, vibrator, george clooney, fart

football, soccer, comedy, cost of football, manchester united, liverpool, derby, watfordJust in case you didn’t already know, all of my books and DVD’s are available from both Amazon and iTunes.

Further information at dougiebrimson.com

screenwriting, author, ebooks, kindle, green street, writing

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Watford FC: so close but thankfully so far.

watford, zola, football, soccer, brimson, wembley, crystal palace, top dog, green street, premiership, englandOK, the dust has settled so my thoughts on yesterday and Watfords trip to Wembley for the richest game in football, for what they’re worth.

As a Watford fan, it pains me to say it but we didn’t turn up on the day, pure and simple. Anya, big Al and Lloyd Doyley (I know shock horror, praise from me!) are the obvious exceptions with the addition of Fess who should have been brought on at half-time, if not at the start.

Crystal Palace were average at best with the exception of Zaha who was different class. How many times did he take the piss out of our defence? Phillips… well you just knew he would do it but fair play, I wasn’t the only one to notice that he didn’t give it large in front of us as many would have.

The Palace fans were awesome, ours less so. Ok, much less so. Indeed, if yesterday highlighted one thing it’s the issue of our support and the lack of any cohesion. I know that there are plenty who have tried to sort it out but clearly, it has failed badly and so maybe it’s time for the club to actually step in and become directly involved with the fans to see what can be done. With so much good will toward the team and the owners, I think that we could potentially do something really creative if there was the will on both sides to actually do it so let’s use this moment to kick start some proper open dialogue. After all, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Wembley… amazing stadium but the transport situation away from the place is dire. Not simply because of the logistics but because the organisation is so poor and information so lacking.

But however down we feel today, it has been an amazing season and the journey from the horrific event that was the game against Wycombe to walking up Wembley way yesterday proves that being a Hornet is always going to be eventful and certainly never dull.

However, the truth is that we aren’t ready for the premiership yet -I think anyone with a brain in their head will acknowledge that- and the idea of a season being spanked week in week out is not one that held an appeal for me. And that’s how it would have almost certainly been. As I said, Zaha ran us ragged at times, imagine what 10 of him could do.

So it’s onwards and upwards and all eyes on the 13/14 season in the championship which arguably, is the best league anyway if you like your football in the blood and guts style as I do.

The loan situation and the forthcoming rule changes to that side of things is going to mean the close season will be eventful (aren’t they all for Watford?) but I have faith in the owners and in Zola & Co so I have no doubt we’ll be stronger as a consequence so then watch us go! Who knows, we might even finish our stadium!

Come on you Horns!

football, self publishing, soccer, money, inheritance, premiership, england, watford, zola, football, soccer, brimson, wembley, crystal palace, top dog, green street

Thanks to everyone who has been posting reviews of my books lately. They really are hugely appreciated and extremely useful. On which note, thanks to a huge demand, I’m delighted to tell you that my most recent book, Wings of a Sparrow, will shortly be released in paper format.

I’ll post further details nearer publication date but this will be the first in a series of re-releases with The Crew and Top Dog following shortly after.

The rise and rise of Udinese B (better known as Watford FC)

pozzo. zola, watford. udinese, granada, football, soccer, elton john, chelsea, England, championship, premier league,

I am a Watford fan. That’s not an admission of guilt, it’s a fact. One of which I am especially proud and always have been.

Now as some of you will have noticed, after a slightly shaky start, the Golden Boys have gone on something of a run. Indeed, as I write this we sit in second in the championship after beating Derby 2-1 yesterday albeit with a somewhat dodgy performance.

However, despite our success this season we are, as a club, currently facing something that we have rarely faced before. You see in the past we have always been regarded as ‘the family club’ and as such, have been thought of in many circles as being either neutral or even bland. That is not the case at the moment for everyone seems to hate us.

The reason for this change stems from the takeover of the club by the Pozzo family who also own both Udinese and Granada. For with amazing foresight, when they took over they decided to bolster our squad by sending some of the fringe players from their other teams to Vicarage Road on loan. And by some, I mean quite a few.

This was apparently fine whilst we were losing 5-1 at Derby early on in the season, but when the side began to gel together people began to take notice. When we started winning (and scoring for fun) it began to wind people up. Big time.

Things came to a head when Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway ranted on Sky Sports about our loanee’s prior to our live game a few weeks back and seemingly within hours, various journalists at TalkSport had jumped on the bandwagon. By the middle of the following week, Watford had taken on the mantle of everything that was wrong with the English game and my fellow Hornets, many of whom had jumped to the stout defence of their club, were bordering on scum because they could not, or would not, listen to ‘reason’ (sic).

I won’t go into the hypocrisy of the statements made by Holloway whose own team is full of loanees including one he only sold on the proviso that Palace could borrow him back for the rest of the season, nor the ridiculous statements made on the terminally ill station that is TalkSport, most of which were only made to chase listeners. Nor will I provide a breakdown of the actual Watford team to disprove much of what has been alleged or even talk about the phenomenal youth academy at Vicarage Road which is already churning out a steady stream of quality young players. All of whom have benefited markedly from working with world class players. I won’t do that, because it would amount to my appearing to defend my club, and the reality is that there is nothing to defend.

What I will do however, is make three simple points on this issue;

  1.  Neither Watford as a club nor the Pozzo’s as our owners, have done anything wrong.
  2. Almost every single club in the English game (including Palace and Peterborough) would welcome a ‘Pozzo’ to their club and would not hesitate to do so.
  3. We don’t care. In fact, we are loving it.

And that about sums it up.

football, self publishing, soccer, money, inheritance, sex, orgy, oral, vibrator, penguin, monkey, giraffe, racism, green, pennant, royalMy latest novel, Wings of a Sparrow, continues its climb up the fiction charts and continues to attract excellent reviews so could I say a huge thanks to all those who have so far purchased a copy. 

And for those who have asked, yes, it was originally written with Watford and L*t*n in mind but our near neighbours wouldn’t give me permission to use their name in the text and so to avoid any potential legal issues, I had to switch to two more generic clubs.

If you would like a copy, please click on the cover to the left and it’ll take you to Amazon. It is however, also available from all online retailers including iTunes.

Finally, work on the movie adaptation of Top Dog continues apace. Watch this space.