Thursday, 2 June 2016


RIP David. Texas Brewer. 

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Saturday, 21 November 2009

Darlington 1 Burton 0

On the way to the match we got stuck on the M1. Closed between junctions 29 and 31 due to an accident. Must be serious. Southbound is also closed due to another accident at the same place. Coincidence? Hardly. It's your typical rubbernecking accident. I very nearly ran into the back of bloke's car on the M42 the other day because he STOPPED to look at someone being removed from a car on the opposite carriageway. What do these people hope to see? A severed head rolling across the road? A body splattered against the back of a truck? Burning severed limbs being scattered over the hard shoulder? If you want to look at that sort of stuff then why not look it up on the internet? Being a sick pervert is OK as long as you don't hurt anyone else, so stop at home on your own and look at mutilated corpses if you like but DON'T HOLD UP MY JOURNEY!

Little was I to know that the Burton performance today was destined to be a road accident of a very different kind, and that i would have to watch the whole damn thing in multi-technicolour 3D.

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Boldmere St Michaels 0 Burton 3 (BSC Round 2)


'Twas a cold and misty night and your our intrepid blogger did venture into the West Midlands. St Michaels of Boldmere was our destination; a land of sloping pitches and funny accents in the deepest and darkest corners of non-league football.

Yes, it's my favourite cup competition, The Birmingham Senior Cup 2nd Round which follows our scintillating display at the mighty Coleshill Town. I'm amazed at how unpopular this competition is for most Brewers fans - local games, cheap admission and an opportunity to watch players you have never heard of, exposed to the elements in true grass roots tradition.

Boldmere is a lovely little ground; the club house behind one goal is built next to the pitch so that there is a strange covered standing area where you can view the match through little brick windows. The only other cover is a seated area down one side, the other two sides being exposed. Like Coleshill, it's basic but welcoming. There are few Brewers here and I take my place next to the dug outs, resplendent in suit and club tie. (I'd been to court earlier, something to do with pretending to run Bury fans out of town? I plead insanity).

Earlier in the evening, I popped into the Bishop Vesey Pub up the road and enjoyed a delightful pint of Adnams Special Pale. 3.2% well-balanced, refreshing and tasty. It has nothing to do with the football, but I just thought I would mention it.

OK. Let's be honest here. I could have taken a pen and pad and actually listened to the PA announcement. I could have looked at the chalkboard which listed the players. I could have asked for a copy of the team sheets. But I didn't. And I don't know ANY of the Boldmere players (0ne was called Stu. I'm sure I heard someone shout "Stu!") and I know hardly any of the youth teamers and/or trialists who featured heavily in tonight's team. I know. I'm crap.

Having said that, if you are reading this blog for accurate information, then you're in the wrong place anyway. The fact both the official site and CTMD appear to have got the scorers wrong for this match makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Ha!

So here goes: Shane Redmond in goal, Darren Stride at Centre Back and I think Grocott was also in the back four. Freeza Goodfellow on the right wing, Serge Makofo in midfield and up front, James Knowles and Greg Pearson. The others and the subs - I forget or didn't bother to even think about. They look like youth teamers to me.

Boldmere start the brightest, and it's a busy opening 30 mins before Goodfellow is brought down in the box and Pearson scores from the resulting penalty. One Nil.

5 minutes later, one of our lads is fouled and the BSM player gets a straight red (I thought it was a second yellow at first but the bloke next to me insists it's a red), possibly for kicking out after the foul.

On the stroke of half time, Pearson heads wide, but James Knowles deflects the ball in with a header of his own to make it 2 - Nil. NOT a Pearson goal as reported elsewhere.

Second half, Boldmere get a penalty for a handball, but they hit the post and the ball is cleared. Burton are now on top of the game. The Boldmere manager maons and groans at every decision which doesn't go his team's way. "He's [the ref's] giving nothing" he shouts to one of his players "You've got the wrong colour shirt on". Didn't he just award you a penalty you bloody idiot?

20 minutes into the second half, Pearson scores a lovely effort; back to goal, he half turns and volleys into the roof of the net. 3 nil.

My man of the match was Goodfellow who always looked dangerous going forward on the right wing, but Pearson was instrumental in all of our attacking plays. A decent night out and we are now into the draw for the quarter finals. Yippee!

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Burton 3 Oxford City 2 (FA Cup 1st Round)


There was a time when an FA Cup match at Burton would bring in the crowds. All of the casual, armchair supporters would usually make the effort to come, watch the match with the biggest crowd of the season, watch Burton lose, moan about how Burton are "bloody rubbish" and then bugger off back to their armchairs never to be seen again until the next FA Cup match. Now it seems that unless we are playing Man Utd no-one is that bothered. Our part-time supporters have been spoiled. Chelsea in the 3rd round? "Oh I'm not going to watch that rubbish", Real Madrid in the European Cup? "I'll watch the highlights on the telly", Boca Juniors in the World Club Championship "Why are we playing Boca's Youth Team?".
Our automatic entry into the 1st round proper should have been a cause for great excitement, but alas only the usual hardy couple of thousand made the effort. On a Sunday as well. Who does anything on a Sunday? "Fucking bunch of apathetic wankers." is what I heard someone say about the Burton public, but I'm not sure I'd use such offensive terminology myself.

This was an opportunity for us to be "Giant killed" as opposed to "giant killers" which makes a change. Burton Albion? Giants? Hardly. But the boot was on the other foot and the game almost went to plan in that respect.

Oxford City are the the "other" little non-league club in Oxford, although they have four sides to their ground, which is unusual in that part of the world. Three leagues below us and I feared the worst. We should beat them, but cup football has a funny way of biting arrogance on the arse.
As it happened, they were the better team on the day - they passed better and looked the more dangerous throughout. Their travelling band of supporters (no doubt with a few United fans to make up the numbers) were more vociferous and The Brewers looked out of sorts all game.

They score first after only a few minutes, former Brewer (well for 20 minutes) Michael Alexis hitting one from 18 yards which Polski let run through his grasp. The equaliser came a little while after; Harrad had no chance of getting up to a high ball in the box but his marker pushed him in the back as he jumped and, although soft, a clear penalty. A pointless challenge right in front of the ref. Harrad takes it and scores for a change.
Burton start to look like they might take control of the game (in a hit it and hope sort of way) and "What's that coming over the hill? Is it Maghoma? Is it Maghoma?" Yes it is! Burton finally get the ball on the floor for a bit and start to move it around, Michael Simpson slots a through ball and Maghoma finishes well to make it 2 - 1 at half-time. This is where you think, "Ok, they have started brightly, that's to be expected. We're back on track now, we should get another second half and finish this game off"

But Oxford City are made of much sterner stuff. After the break it is they who take control of the game and the so-called better players of the Albion spend a lot of time chasing shadows as wave after wave of City attacks have to be smothered out by an over-worked Albion back four. Their goal when it comes is well-taken, but resulted from very soft defending. Burton completely fail to deal with a long throw, the ball is crossed and Jamie Brooks is completely unmarked to simply head into an open goal; keeper Krysiek doesn't move.

So it's a well-deserved replay at Oxford? We fear they will get another and it's all hands on deck to keep them out. 5 minutes of injury time and in the final couple of minutes, Oxford do what all non-league teams are expected to do and screw it up.

Serge Makofo is running for the corner flag. If they had seen him play before they would know that leaving him to fall over his own boots would be the best option here. Like the push on Harrad in the first half, doing nothing would have been better. Ballard, already booked, makes a suicidal tackle - not nasty or dangerous, but late and clearly meant to stop the runner. He is walking off the pitch before the red card is produced. The resulting free kick is a text book training ground set-piece. Simpson flights the ball in from the left and Ryan Austin rises just like a rhino doesn't to glance the ball into the net. 3 - 2.

Oxford deserved a draw at least. But despite their dominance for long periods they were there own worst enemy at crucial moments. Still, they should feel proud of their achievements. Burton breathe a sigh of relief. To play badly and win is actually a good sign so they say. A great game for the neutral but a pain in the arse for a Brewers fan.

Burton 0 Bury 0



I remember the last time we played Bury. FA Cup 1st round in 1979. I was 11. I probably didn't tell my mum and dad where I was going that day. Good job really. I don't remember much about the game except we lost. My most abiding memory was the violence. And sadly I remember being very excited by it all. It all started, I think when the Bury fans tried to "take" the Brook End (this was at Eton Park of course and there was indeed a brook which you had to cross to get to the turnstiles. Now of course, you have to cross the same brook to get into the Pop Side at Pirelli. Perhaps we should call it the Brookside).
Well "taking the brook end" was not going to happen and there were runs and scuffles and all manner of nastiness and the police were greatly outnumbered. After the match people ran onto the pitch towards the Bury fans and I joined in. I'm not sure what I thought I was going to do or what might happen by it seemed like a good idea at the time. Leaving the ground at the gates which opened onto Eton Park rec we spilled out onto the Road, through the Eton estate, up Derby Road, and up Waterloo Street towards the rail station. "Running them out of town" I think it is called. One bloke, clearly a Burton "fan", grabbed a brick off an open backed truck and hurled through a front window in Waterloo Street. Right in front of me. Even at 11 years old, I thought this was senseless. Perhaps that's why I never really got into that sort of thing.
Looking through the forums (not the CTMD Forum of course, or "Twat Forum" as I like to call it) prior to the match, there were signs that some of the older Bury fans remembered that day. Comments about "going to Burton in a tank" and "wear a bullet proof vest". Funny how you can get a reputation in 1979 and still keep it. Not that it put many Bury fans off - they were spilling onto the car park at the Beech before the match. And a friendly bunch as well from what I could see and contributed to our biggest home attendance of the season at 3,373.

Nil -Nil draws often sound like they might be drab, boring affairs but this was something different entirely. Two extremely well-drilled defences and attacking shaped midfields battled for 90 plus minutes. The play went one way and then the other and, although scoring opportunities were limited, either side could have got the goal which may well have won the match.

Shaun Harrad should perhaps have scoredon 38 mins when Walker's shot was parried by the Bury keeper but Shaun was unable to get much on the rebound and shot high. Two defenders perhaps were the stars of the show: Efe Sodje for Bury was immense and we could get nothing past him. The fact we spent most of the 1st half firing balls at Walkers head rather than to his feet meant that Sodje perhaps had an easier time of it than he should have. For Burton, Guy "The Beast" Branston once again proved his early season doubters wrong with an almost faultless performance - his one error cleared by the ever improving Ryan Austin. My man of the match though was Jacques Maghoma who was creative and industrious all day and kept Bury on their toes throughout.

At the end of the game, I ran down Derby Road towards the Rail Station, my scarf tied to my wrist, chanting "All I want is a walking stick, a hand grenade and a building brick..."

No-one got hurt.

Sunday, 1 November 2009

Halloween


Halloween is now something which we traditionally celebrate in this country even though most of us haven't got the foggiest idea why. The current "trick or treat" celebrations appear to have crossed the Atlantic from the United States where they go for it in a really big way. Which is somewhat surprising, given that USA has an abundance of population who think that the world is 6,000 years old, Jesus' mum never had sex and that brown people go to hell for being, well, brown.

Halloween or "All hallows eve" does of course fall before the Christian "All Saints Day". Not content with having a special day for each of these minor deities, they have one big PAR-TAY for the whole lot of them. And why not? You don't become a Saint for nothing - you have to die first for a start - and all that stained glass doesn't come cheap.

So Halloween is a celebration of what? The early Christian church's persecution of young female rape victims as witches? A demonstration of the evil on earth, from which you can only be saved by being buggered by a Roman Catholic priest?

There is, of course, the early Pagan festivals from this time of year, like Samhain, Calan Gaeaf and Hop-tu Naa, which celebrate the coming of darker days and remembrance of the dead. These were days when people would worship whatever the gods they liked in whatever way they liked. This usually involved drinking, smoking intoxicating herbs and having sex with each other. And jolly popular such festivals were.

Of course the Christians couldn't have all of this enjoying yourself, so they promptly hijacked all of our pagan festivals and invented Christian ones to fall at the same time, so that the drunken, illiterate and frankly stupid population could just get on with it but apparently in the name of this new monotheistic entity who will forgive all of our transgressions, or send us to burn in eternal hell depending on whether you say the right thing or not.

As Tom Jones used to say, this sort of thing was not unusual. The winter festival of Yule - oh we'll call that Christmas ("Wasn't Jesus born in June?" "Shhhh!"). The Spring Equinox? We'll call that Easter (they even move the date depending on the sequence of the moon - VERY biblical that. What date did Jesus die exactly?) and there are many more.

There are still quite a few "fundies" who get all hot and bothered about Halloween, exposing our children to "evil spirits" and the like. Now frankly, I couldn't give a rat's 'nads about it. But anything that upsets fundamentalists from ANY religion gets my vote. In your Pumpkin face, god!