Elmore Leonard said: I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''

Saturday 22 September 2007

On Football (or "soccer" to the unenlightened)

I've had a general interest in football for a couple of years now, which has only recently developed into a fully-fledged love affair. I love the game (obviously) but there's the other stuff that I love just as much. I love the sports pages, I love the feuds and the history and the antics of players and managers both off and on the pitch. I love the tea-time football newsletter I get every weekday and my favorite football podcast and of course I love my football team (Manchester United - I know, know, but I love them, I can't help it!) and my favorite Manager (Alex Ferguson) and I loved to hate Jose Murhino; that dark, satanic, provocative imp. Ah, Jose, you will be missed.

This week I entered "Pick the Score," The Guardian's new predictions game. It's devilishly simple (which is a good thing). All I have to do is predict the score for upcoming premiership games. If I predict the score correctly I get 3 points, if I merely predict the outcome I get 1. Simple! So I joined belatedly this week and started with the average number of points accrued by the participants so far - 26.

My current rank: 9,514

Top score currently: 60

I've predicted my first set of scores and those games begin today. I have to be honest, I've checked the latest scores and it's not looking good. At this point if I can get my rank up to 5,000 I'll be a happy camper.

ETA: Congratulations to the United State's women's football team, who soundly spanked England in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. And to England, dammit, for getting so far.

2 comments:

Karen Scott said...

Yay, another Manchester United supporter! There are now four of us in Romanceland!

Meriam said...

You know, if I ever wrote a romance I think I would set it at a football club. And my hero would be a flinty-eyed, granite jawed Roy Keane type hard-man. Ahem.

Anyway, four Man-U supporters? Cool. I thought I was all alone.