Stoke City 3 – 2 Fulham

I’m sure most Fulham supporters would wish this game had been cancelled. Not only was the result bad (although it could easily have ended up as a draw after the Whites came back from 3-0 down and had a penalty denied in the last minute), but Hangeland had a relapse of his knee injury and then Zamora dislocated his collarbone.

Hopefully, Bobby will be fit within a few weeks, but it’s a blow for a player who has hit top form of late and was scoring at the rate of nearly goal a game through December. There are replacements in the wings, who have been playing in Europe or as cover when AJ was injured, but Hodgson had been hoping to see Zamora and Johnson working together up front.

January will also see some tough fixtures, with away trips to Blackburn and Spurs, and whoever we get in the FA Cup, while facing Portsmouth at home this Saturday and hosting Aston Villa at the end of the month.

Jeremy Wright – because he’s worth it (800 quid)

I did see this story before Christmas, but I didn’t get around to blogging it until now. Hopefully it won’t be completely forgotten about in the next few months…

Jeremy Wright, current MP for Rugby & Kenilworth, and standing in the far safer seat of Kenilworth and Southam later in the year, was found to have overclaimed nearly £800 in mobile phone charges in his second home expenses. Sir Thomas Legg has determined that this should be repaid, and Wright himself has conceded that the claim was not technically allowable. But still, Jezzer is appealing against it anyway (Coventry Telegraph).

In a couple of weeks we should hear whether our (soon to be ex-) MP will need to cough up, or has been allowed to keep the lucre. Either way, it does seem to be a trend among local Tories to make ‘mistakes’ with their expenses, eh?

On the Martin Heatley case, I have had a full response from my local councillor, John Vereker CBE, to the questions about the standards hearing and here it is, over two emails:

Dear Mr Richards

My apologies for not replying to your earlier email. I should, as you say, have acknowledged it.

I note your views on the matter of Martin Heatley but I can assure you, as a member of the panel which examined these issues in detail, that they are not substantiated by the evidence.

Yours sincerely

John Vereker

and (following a further question about whether ‘not substantiated by the evidence’ means that the report showing all the evidence was incorrect):

Dear Mr Richards

I note your comments. The panel’s decision is final and was based on a thorough examination of the facts. There is no suggestion of errors within the auditors report.
The minutes of the meeting are available on the council’s website.

Yours sincerely

John  Vereker

Well, I guess that’s that then. The guy has been claiming for car journeys that are oddly far longer than necessary, for First Class rail tickets that he shouldn’t have, and all he gets is a slap on the wrist and told to pay back only the £200 most obviously over claimed.

And that must be ok, because his pal from the Masons says so.

The full report on the Standards hearing is available (with notes by the original complainant) here: http://www.greennuneaton.org.uk/wex/kkwp/?page_id=25

FFC roundup

Couldn’t be bothered to post about the Xmas-New Year games, so this is just a summary:

Fulham 0-0 Spurs (26/12/2009)

A tough London Derby for Boxing Day, and neither team seemed to be operating at top speed. However, both teams did create good chances to score, and this is more a reflection of the quality of both teams’ defence than of an inability to convert. A point I’d have taken before the game

Chelsea 2-1 Fulham (28/12/2009)

As in many recent games, Fulham took the lead early, and then let the opposition come back. This time it led to the hosts winning, which is hopefully a wake-up call to the players. Mind you, it did take cunning changes from Ancelotti to get Chelsea playing in a way that released Drogba, and the Whites were searching for a late equaliser to the end. The big negative from this game was not the result, but the injury to Pantsil, which may see him out for the rest of the season.

Fulham 1-0 Swindon Town (02/01/2010)

A solid start to the New Year, with a comfortable win in the FA Cup Third Round (even though only one goal was scored, the game was played at a canter and Swindon presented little danger). The draw for Round 4 sees Fulham playing away, either at Accrington Stanley (“Oo are dey?”) or the less attractive prospect of Gillingham.

Pantsil would be unavailable for a while anyway, at the African Nations Cup where Digkacoi and Etuhu will hopefully be maintaining their form. Senegal didn’t qualify for the competition, so Kamara will be in the UK. The next couple of months are likely to decide how the season turns out, as the weather and injuries take their toll. It’s unlikely that Hodgson will make any major purchases in the January window, but he does have an eye on quite a few players apparently, and we could see further strengthening of the squad.

New Decade, Dead Century

After a restful Christmas and New Year, in which I avoided blogging deliberately, and in which I ate far too more than necessary, drank a fair bit, and played with my new toys (Rock Band full set, an alarm clock that fires a rocket, remote control Caterham 7) while doing not much else, I had to go back to work today.

So, after that ordeal, I thought I’d do what pretty much every other blogger still active does and look back over the last year, and the last decade from my perspective.

2009

Just over a year ago I was on ‘garden leave’, having seen the contract I was working on cut short due to an outsourcing deal, and awaiting reassignment. That came, starting early in the January, but meant that I had to relocate from Sussex to the Midlands. Even though work is in Northampton, we (the gf and I) decided to move to Rugby, as it’s closer to her family in Brum, nicer than Northampton, and houses are cheap. The idea was that she would follow me up as soon as she found work up here, but as yet we are still living apart. We are hoping that gets sorted out soon, so that we can sell the place in Crawley and find a permanent home up here in  2010

In terms of politics, 2009 has been pretty dire. Labour in government seem to be unable to sort themselves out, meaning that the best hope for the General Election is that the Tories shoot themselves in the foot over the next few months. The BNP got seats in Europe, and the Tories joined up with a bunch of far right wackaloons there too, meaning that the UK is less influential where it matters, and in both Rugby and Crawley I saw decent councillors lose their seats while MPs from across the land were staying put despite dodgy expenses claims.

Football was far brighter. Fulham achieved their highest ever league position, finishing in 7th place and qualifying for the Europa Cup. I went out to Basel to see them win a fantastic match that puts them into the knockout phase of that competition, and despite dire prognostications of the effects of a European run, Fulham are having a pretty good season at home so far. Best of all, Fulham have beaten Manchester Utd twice in 2009, both times without conceding a goal.

On a personal note, I am happy to relate that my sole remaining grandparent has fought back against the cancer she was diagnosed with in the year – with the help of the NHS and some pretty powerful drugs – and is fighting fit.

In music, there have been some reunions and reprises from bands I love from years back, with Metallica touring and putting on a great show at the O2, Alice In Chains putting out a new album, and Rage Against the Machine getting a Christmas No 1. Slightly more modern acts have been around too, with Kasabian putting out the stunning West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum being my highlight. I also took a trip down folk-memory lane when I saw the tribute to Ewan McColl in Salford.

The Noughties

Ten years ago, I had just bought my first house, was working in IT support (which meant 24 on call cover, including on the weekend of the millenium), and was preparing to stand for election to Crawley Borough Council. I spent the last night of 1999 in Wandsworth, at a party held by friends from Uni (most of whom are now married, many with kids), while some of them watched systems they support just in case the Y2K bug hadn’t been completely vanquished.

I didn’t know what to expect from the past 10 years at that point – I suppose I was assuming that I’d still live in Crawley, would probably be on the Council for a while, perhaps even take a stab at being MP, and that at work I’d be moving from mainframe to more modern technologies but would still essentially be coding or doing support work.

As it worked out, I’ve left Crawley, stood down from the Council after one term and am not likely to go back to that level, let alone national politics for at least some time if ever, and I barely ever get to look at a line of code at work, now that I’m moving towards Business Analysis.

The most important difference between then and now is that I was single back then, and in December 2009 I’ve been in a relationship for 8 years.

Taxwhores Alliance

Seems that the Taxpayers Alliance (who spend their time backing the Tories nobly standing up for the poor benighted rich) have themselves been trying to exploit the tax system for their benefit.

Seeing as one of their directors isn’t even a UK resident and hasn’t paid taxes to this country in years, and now it seems that they are pretending to be a charity to get extra cash, I hope that the media soon stop printing their usually incorrect press releases as if they are facts.

They don’t speak for me, anyway. I pay taxes, and I want them spent more effectively for sure, but I also want to see better public services and a decent move towards redistribution, not just tax breaks for the wealthy and cuts for the sake of them.

Victory!

Good to see that Rage Against the Machine got the Xmas No 1 ahead of the latest in a succession of talent-show creations from the Cowell stable.

I downloaded the Killing in the Name… this week, and donated a couple of quid to Shelter via the campaign’s link: http://www.justgiving.com/ratm4xmas/ which I would encourage anyone to do because they do a lot of great work for the homeless and it’s below freezing outside this Christmas. Over £72,000 has already been donated, and I heard that the band will add any profits from the single over Xmas to that, which is fantastic.

It was after that I heard in the news that David Cameron was praising Simon Cowell, which just gave me another reason to hope RATM won.

The value of friendship

Further to the Martin Heatley expenses affair (these three posts), I decided to look at who was sitting on the Standards meeting that gave him the stern punishment of having to pay back £200 out of £2800 in overclaimed expenses, and make an apology before doing the training he should have done years ago on how not to be a naughty boy.

The three members were the Independent Chairman, John Bridgeman CBE and County Councillors John Vereker CBE and Tim Naylor. I had seen an allegation that one of these was, along with Cllr Heatley, a Freemason.

Looking at the registers of interest, I see that indeed, Cllr Vereker lists the Freemasons Grand Charity on his interests. Cllr Heatley lists “Grand Charity 281943″ as an interest also. This number is actually that of the Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation, but this appears to be a slip of the pen/keyboard as the Grand Charity run by the Freemasons is 281942 (of course, it may be a deliberate attempt to make it hard to link Heatley with the Freemasons)

This means that indeed, both Cllr Heatley and one of his adjudicating panel do seem to be involved in the Freemasons. This smells very fishy indeed.

It’s all gone quiet…

Following my posts about Cllr Martin Heatley’s expenses claims, and the easy ride he’s been given over them, I looked up who was on the panel making the decision on the matter.

It turns out that one of them is John Vereker CBE, who happens to be the councillor for the area where I’m living. So, out of  sheer curiosity, I sent him an email to ask (among other things) why overpayments of over £2,500 merit only a repayment of £200 and an apology.

Thing is, I don’t expect to get full answers, as I daresay that Cllr Vereker would not be allowed to go into some of the stuff that the council claim is to be kept from the public. But the guy has not even acknowledged receipt of  my email after 10 days.

Nothing.

Has Cllr Vereker got something to hide? Or is he just too busy to answer a constituent’s email?

Fulham 3 – 0 Man U

ha ha ha ha ha. So much for European football weakening teams for the weekend games!

Danny Murphy again had an excellent game, and opened the scoring after nabbing the ball from Scholes and taking a simple shot from the edge of the box. It was clear that the Man U defence – featuring few of the regular starting players – were finding it tough to deal with the Whites, and at times they could not get the ball away. Even so, the Man U reserves are no pushovers, and Fulham had to be on their top form to come out on top.

Within seconds of the kick-off for the second half, Duff put a cross in from the right wing, for Dempsey to nod down into the path of Zamora for his fifth goal in four games. Bobby later set up the third goal for Duff to slot in, and had a shot saved near the end, to cap yet another fine performance.

Before the weekend, looking at the fixtures over the Christmas period (this one, Spurs on Boxing Day and away to Chelsea on the Monday after), I would have been happy with three points out of them in total. Now I’m not sure if we should be satisfied with less than 9. The league table is looking good as well. We have a game in hand (away to Stoke early in January), which means we could go above Liverpool – who were humiliated at Pompey yesterday afternoon – and there’s also a gap opening up behind Fulham, which should give the Club some confidence.

FC Basel 2 – 3 Fulham

This was my first trip away to Europe, and it certainly turned out to be a fantastic couple of days. The locals were very friendly, although the prices are pretty steep for everything (even Swiss stuff like the Army knives or Swatch watches costs more over there than in the UK). We had plenty of time to look around the city centre, with the Christmas market, the mighty Rhine passing through and the winding streets up to hilltop churches. Oh, and the bars were good too.

The Basel ground, St Jakob’s Park, is a really good venue – big enough to seat 40,000 but still with a nice close feel, and even though the away fans were in the corner, the view of the pitch was pretty clear. The home fans are certainly enthusiastic – all the way through the game the Ultras were singing, waving flags and jumping up and down. With only 1500 there, the Whites fans were never going to outsing them.

After one initial Whites chance from the start, Basel came forward in the first few minutes and Fulham were under some pressure until they settled in. Over time, the midfield of Murphy, Greening and Etuhu started to gain control, and the defence looked pretty solid. Zamora’s two goals at the end of the first half were well taken – classic six-yarders from Riise crosses, the first poked to the keeper’s right and the second headed in to his left. Bobby Z could have had a hattrick by then, having been given offside when he first found the net after 15 minutes.

The second half started well for Fulham, with less signs of the recent trend of pulling back after taking a lead. However, Basel had made two substitutions, and Alex Frei started to pick up his game, so the contest became far more even. Basel were given the chance to come back after Aaron Hughes had apparently handled the ball (although the ref initially pointed to the corner, and from our position it looked like it was accidental if anything. Frei made no mistake with the penalty, and the stadium came alive.

Shortly afterwards, Greening was replaced by Dempsey, and almost straight away the American was making his darting runs through the Basel defence. Zamora was still hunting for a third goal as well, trying to get through the offside trap. However it was Gera, having picked up a lovely chip ball from Kelly who’d moved up the wing, who took Fulham 3-1 up with 15 minutes to go. By that time, the travelling supporters were going barmy.

But we couldn’t bank on a win yet. Basel had nothing to lose, and still chased every ball. Duff replaced Zamora (who like Greening had been booked earlier), which did signal a slightly more defensive approach, and the Whites were relying more on Schwarzer to make some great saves. One of those led to a corner which saw the home side claw another goal back.

On 86 minutes, it was 3-2 to Fulham. If Basel equalised, they’d be through and Fulham would be knocked out. That last seven minutes (three added for stoppages) seemed to last about an hour, as Basel pushed forward – their keeper running up for corners at times. Dempsey almost killed the game off with a well-taken strike, but the RotBlaus did not give up until the last second.

It was an amazing game, and while it would have been more comfortable to have won 3-0 or 4-2, the close nature of the match and the quality of the opposition did make it worthwhile.

After the game, we took the tram back to the city centre (as it’s Switzerland, they were well prepared on public transport and everyone got away pretty quickly), to continue the celebrations. Cigars and Schnapps!