Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts

Monday, 27 February 2012

If you want your football team to do well, don't let me live there.

It was last weekend when a mate of mine pointed out to me: "Butler, wherever you move, the football team always gets worse."

He provided me proof and evidence of the statement, and I had to agree. I think I'm a curse on the football teams I follow and support.

Let's look at the evidence:

1989-2005 - East London era

I grew up in East London, Forest Gate followed by Walthamstow. I'm an avid Leyton Orient fan, and during this time they spent the first six years in Division Two. Not bad, but in 1995 Orient were on the brink of bankruptcy, after chairman Tony Wood lost his tea-making money in the Rwandan genocide. This led to relegation, and sitting in the duldrums of fourth division football for 11 years.

2005-2010 - The Southampton years

I moved down to Southampton with my family in 2005. At my new school, my new mates would joke that I supported Orient, a club very few had heard of. I would try to defend myself, and in fact would joke with them that in 'a couple of years we'd be playing you (Southampton)'. Incredibly, the first year I moved down to the South coast, the Saints were relegated from the Premiership, after a 13 year stint there.
Fast forward a year, and lo and behold Leyton Orient, the area I had left, got promotion for the first time in 11 years. Just one division between O's and Saints, and my prediction soon became an incredible reality, as Saints were relegated at the end of the 2008-09 season, to League One.

2008-2011 - Oxford, the university era

Probably the only area to buck this trend. Oxford, who ironically Orient relegated at the same time as they got promoted in '06, were langushing in the Conference until the end of the 2010 season, when they got promoted. The only time I went to see Oxford United play was at the end of the the 2010-11 season, when they actually beat Lincoln 2-1.

2010-present - Nottingham

My family moved up from Southampton to Nottinghamshire in February 2010, with immediate impact. Southampton, in League One for two seasons, got promoted at the end of last season, and are now flying high at the top of the Championship. But what about the clubs I now live around? Well, Nottingham Forest, who had finished 3rd and 6th in the respective previous seasons, now lie 20th in the Championship - having lost two managers (Billy Davies and Steve McClaren) in the past 12 months.
Notts County? Fair slightly better, though just avoided the drop last season.

So, in conclusion. Where am I now? Still in Nottingham - Orient lying stable in League One, Southampton flying high in the Championship, and Oxford in the play-off places in League Two.

If anyone from Nottingham wants to have a whip-round and pay for me to leave the city, feel free.

Saturday, 19 November 2011

Omozusi - Paying the price.

On Thursday Leyton Orient right-back Elliot Omozusi was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after being found guilty in his part of intimidating a witness.

He becomes the second Orient player in only two years to be banged up, after former-O's left-back Aidan Palmer was jailed for 22 months in 2009 for his part in a violent disorder.

As much as the details are fairly blurry, it sounds as if Omozusi was with a group of mates, who belong to the feared London Fields gang, when they were up in Liverpool. The London Fields gang was responsible for the killing of innocent schoolgirl Agnes Sina-Inajoku, for which two members of the gang were imprisoned for life last year. The gang, when in Liverpool, by chance saw one of the witnesses from the murder trial, who was part of a witness protection program - they chased him down the road, before he fortunately ran into police.

The trial of Omozusi concluded that he was part of the group and was found guilty of witness intimidation.

As a professional footballer, Omozusi is meant to be a role model, for fans, for children. A lot has been made recently of the importance for footballers to be good role models, but I sincerely think this is one of the biggest failures by a professional footballer through all your Tevez's, Terry's and Suarez's.

Prison. It's not somewhere you expect a professional footballer to end up. Which is why it's quite hard to make something of it.

I suppose it does show how footballers are not as invincible as they seem. It's baffling how when you are so focussed on playing for your club, all your time consumed on fitness, that you still have time to get involved in gang activities.

Of course, partly is just what group you fall into. Omozusi is originally from Hackney - he's got friends there, but unfortunately the wrong sort - and now he's paid for being part of it.

It's not to say I don't feel sorry for him - he's the same age as I am, and he was a bright footballer. Orient got him from Fulham, and he certainly had a future. But talk about being a professional, this is the exact opposite.

Who knows what the future may hold now for Omozusi - he's had a glorious chance to distance himself from gangland membership, but he didn't. Will he learn now? Or will he give up on football completely? For the sake of football and himself, I hope he returns.

Learning from others who've been in a similar position to him, Lee Hughes, someone I've seen a number of times over the last year, spent three years from 2004-07 after causing death by dangerous driving. He returned to football, and is currently putting his best in for Notts County, where he commands a huge amount of respect from the fans.

The aforementioned Palmer was released from prison and signed for Chelmsford City, who he scored for last weekend in their FA Cup game.

Both of these have shown there is life after prison for footballers, and I hope Omozusi can follow this example.