Monday 21 July 2014

"A disaster waiting to happen..."

Unfortunate current phraseology from the Mail-Online, but that's their summary of Charlton Athletic's prospects this year. I have to say that I am quite pleased with that given how far out the Mail usually is when it comes to football. I'm not ready to even consider the P word but our squad is strong enough to compete this season and any relegation scrap will reflect very strongly on the manager and I don't believe the Mail have any knowledge or consideration of Big Bob's capabilities but are simply working off the amount of players changes and the fact that we "binned" Jose Riga.

Pre-season continued in Spain last week where the squad put five past a Gibralter XI (Scotland need to take note as they face Gib in their Euro 2016 qualifiers) and then put in a sound performance to see Atletico Club de Portugal off 2-0 in the hills of Mijas where Johnnie Jackson and George Tucudean scored the goals. George also helped himself to one against Gibralter, so he's settling in quickly by the look of things.

Everytime I hear Mijas mentioned, I am reminded of a story I heard second-hand from Gareth Hale and Norman Pace, yesteryear's knockabout funny act from south-east London. Both have (or at least had) holiday properties at La Manga and they were out with an estate agent looking for somewhere further afield. The brief to the agent was that they wanted somewhere they wouldn't be recognised so often by holidaying Brits who often ruined their days out.

Anyway, the agent takes them up to Mijas (or thereabouts) and after viewing a few places, decides to take them for lunch to a local restaurant so they can see how few British holiday makers make the trip up into the hills. Seated at their table with a cold glass of vino, their attention is drawn to a large table of boozy Brits who, thankfully, haven't noticed them but who are loud and just what they want to avoid. Mid-way through service, they hear one of the adjoining crowd shout "oi Pedro" to which the waiter hurries over. "Mateus!" the loud demanding voice slurs and off trots the waiter. He returns moments later with another chilled bottle of Mateus rose adorned with a serviette, only to be met with "no you soppy ****, a box of matches!" Plans for Mijas were abandoned.

1 comment:

  1. Unfortunately, the Mail is printed with runny ink on harsh paper. Otherwise it could be a money-saver in the bathroom.

    ReplyDelete

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