King Sentenced To 18 Months

Today I was admittedly shocked to see Wigan striker Marlon King receiving a jail sentence of 18 months after being convicted of sexual assault and actual bodily harm whilst he was out in London's 'Soho Revue Bar' during his loan spell at Hull City last December.

The former Watford striker pleaded not guilty in the court room, claiming this was a case of mistaken identity, however the jury voted unanimously against the Jamaican international. Before the sentencing itself, it is said King was told he was facing a jail sentence, but it is unclear as to whether18 months was expected by many.

King made a name for himself in his three year spell at Gillingham, scoring 40 goals in 101 appearances. Proceeding this was a relatively dry spell at Nottingham Forest, during which time he went out on loan to both Leeds United and Watford, both of which in 2005. A great strike rate at Watford on loan led to his purchase, and he boosted his reputation with an impressive 3 years at the club. During which time he scored 24 goals in 60 appearances, and played a pinnacle role in Watford's promotion to the Premier League in the 2005-2006 season, as he was named top scorer in the Championship with 21 goals.

Inevitably, the attackers contract with Wigan has been terminated, with Latics Chairman Dave Whelan expressing his bitter disappointment at King, as he is a role model for the children. Publicly, people seem to agree with the sentence on the premise of footballers not being exempt from the law and being punished like everybody else.

Whilst it may be good to see his lack of exemption from the law based on his career, it is still saddening, especially after I myself worshipped him for 3 years at Watford, and he has been one of my favourite footballers of the last 6 years. The only question remaining is if he will be able to return to football after his brush with the law. Cases such as Lee Hughes do suggest that King will back back playing, but that is clearly an issue that will be sorted out at a later date.

England 3-0 Belarus. Ready for World Cup?

There was a degree of comfort present in Englands performance tonight against Belarus, and despite the fact that you may say it was not a 'full squad' there were definitely stages in the Match that, not so much disheartened me, but slightly curbed my enthusiasm for the World Cup.

Whilst its true I am counting the days until our campaign begins, i feel that there are times in every England match where we switch off, and it is because of this that i dislike scoring early. Peter Crouch scored after 3 minutes following a clinical pass by Gareth Barry onto his ex team mate, the notoriously pacey Gaby Agbonlahor and his pass across goal was almost luckily finished by a stretching Crouch. However, it was after this that England seemed to simply deteriorate, and granted; it was not to a costly degree, but still enough to concern you about our consistency and seemingly our inability to keep out heads up for 90 minutes.

Retrospectively, it was a very comfortable win and Belarus didn't look much like scoring, largely thanks to a moment of inspired goalkeeping from Manchester United's Ben Foster after some creative play.

There are a mere 4 games remaining for England before our world cup campaign starts in South Africa and i am optimistic we will enter the tournament with our heads held high and brimming with confidence. In my view, the world cup starts when the teams are drawn in December, but the biggest indication of my own self doubt is the fact that i am praying we avoid any team ranked 15 or above by Fifa; notably Spain, Brazil, Holland and Italy.

England are chasing there 500th win in their next match, which incidentally is against Brazil, on a neutral ground. A game that i believe most England fans would settle with drawing. But in Capello we trust and if he says we an win; he has made a believer out of me.

This being provident on Steve Bruce having no part to play in our campaign, i think his decision to make Beckham man of the match had 98% of Wembley, and viewers at home in a shared state of confusion; this including Beckham himself.

However things turn out, we all know and love that we are "England til' we die"

Total difference in class.

Watching 'super Sunday' today and witnessing the sheer class that was on display in the Premier League; it puts reality into perspective so to speak. Championship teams fight and race to finish in the top 6 but how much of chance do they have of survival?

To fight as hard as possible for all of 46 games and then to make the swift transformation from being favourites to get 3 points every week to being the biggest underdogs in the country. And what can you actually do. I guess the controversial F.A '6+5 regulation' may make the countries top league a bit easier and more competitive for the smaller teams. Arsenal was a great example today. Short of having Theo Walcott on the bench there were no English players in sight, and their exotic foreign talent danced around Blackburn.

Now as a Watford fan i realise that i get emotionally involved and overly passionate about our games each week, just for the smallest imaginable chance of reaching the top flight, but even if we were able to get there, through some divine intervention or miracle i wonder; how long would it last. Watford's pre match entertainment really highlighted the problem as i heard that fact that we can boast 2 international players in our team. On the other hand, Arsenal would struggle not to player international players, as is the case with at least half the premier league teams.

Despite all of this we know that the lower leagues are more physical, less technical, but undoubtedly more passionate, but you must wonder: for what cause?

Hit the ground running - post match analysis

Whilst there are disadvantages of going to see Watford f.c every Saturday, there are obvious advantages, and one of these being the opportunity to write about what I see after each game. And thus I begin my first post match report on what can only be described as a dyer game at home to Cardiff City.

From the very beginning of the game there was a feeling of concern omnipresent around the ground, and with the statistics being as best ignored as possible, we knew that Cardiff were on form having scored 6 passed Derby a mere 4 days ago.

When playing against a form team you can always rely on the referee to be, in lehmans terms; dreadful. And so it began, an innocuous penalty conceded by a Manchester United loanee and we are 1 down. Followed closely by the most bizarre goal i have seen since Paul Robinson put one over on fellow England competitor Ben Foster, back when we had our heads held high, all be it in the clouds, out of our league in the Premiership.

2-0 down at half time and the worst was still to come.

Without going into too much detail we begun as we had finished the first half: on the back foot. If Watford were to summarise their last 2 seasons into a DVD title it would almost certainly be titled "On the back foot" ironically enough.

By the time extra time comes about we are a mere 4 goals down. Misery, despair and even a sense of comedy in the air as we literally face our own comic like performance and wonder what the season has in store at WD18.

An inability to rattle our opponents back line and a worrying fear of stopping the other team from scoring all adds up to a bad day in football.

And then you remember we played a team from Wales.

Bad times.

As i suspected

Yes. It is very different to facebook. I feel that many months of committed social networking should have prepared me for this, but it is like starting a completely new course or learning a completely new sport. I am good at football but would be lost if i spontaneously begun fencing. And in the same way i am good at facebook, but '.blogspot.com' is a bit like fencing for me at the moment.
Live and learn i guess.

Starting off

Basically this blog is here for me to practice, get used to and share with you my experiences in writing and hopefully helping me break into the tough industry of journalism. I will probably have a browse around and try to get used to it. Suspecting it will be a bit more formal then facebook or mypsace, might take some time getting the hang of it.
here goes. enjoy!