Wish You Were Here?!

Ahhh Long ball football…the very name of this blog. Those days are gone, right? Well, after yesterday they might be back. Did anyone who has seen our games so far expect that type of display after witnessing our largely encouraging start to the season? The answer of course is no. Of course we could lose to Norwich, but the manner of the defeat was truly awful. If that baseball cap wearing imposter had presided over such a performance this blog would have been in a high state of dudgeon – ok, so it’s the first bad performance under Mark Hughes so we have to give him that, but anything more that bad and the jury will very much be out.

Of course, after one more game, a match which is looking fairly crucial against Fulham - who are as it stands one of the few teams that are below us in the table – we have another break. Usually, I hate these international weeks, but this one….well this one is a bit different.

This one sees Longballfootball decamp to Crete to embark on something that might seem odd at first but makes perfect sense. We are going to the miniEURO2013 event. What’s the miniEURO, I hear you ask? Well, the miniEURO is the European Minifootball Championships, and if you still need some clarification after that, in England we call it 5 or 6 a side. In short, there will be passing at this event than there was in the second half of our game with Tranmere, skills and flicks and tricks abound as the best 5 a side players in the country take on their counterparts from across the continent. TP would not approve!

This has gone on before – the miniEURO in its current form first took place last year in Moldova, where a crowd of 3000 people saw the final in the main city square. I wasn’t there. I didn’t work for the United Kingdom Minifootball Association then, and thus missed out on the trip. I do work there now and next Wednesday am overcoming my fear of flying (as documented elsewhere on this blog) to go to Rethymno City in Crete and if you had seen it you would know why.

                                                 Tough job to be here, eh?

The football matches are taking place on the beach on a specially constructed pitch, the weather is gorgeous and the city appears beautiful. Fear of flying? You must be joking! This is one of those incredible opportunities that come along very occasionally in a working life, where you can actually do something that will be exciting and fun.

Don’t believe me? Check out this: http://www.incrediblecrete.gr/ and have a look.

Maybe its because I am not very well travelled (again documented on this blog previously) the last time I went abroad at all was to watch our game with Thun and the time before that was an Iron Maiden concert in Dublin, but this is going to be special. So after the Fulham game on Saturday, if you find yourself worrying about a fortnight of footballing desolation, then you could head to the Euro Minifootball Federation website: http://www.eurominifootball.com/ and watch the games live online, failing that you could book a flight and cheer on England, Wales or Scotland!

If not, Ill be back for the Albion game to tell you all about it.