Some major(ish) site news first : there is a remote possibility that I may have to reduce the amount of time I spend on this site within the next couple of months. Don’t worry, I’m not going to close SW19 down or anything, but some of the features are decidedly looking dormant. Therefore, I’m considering this : I am going to stop doing the John Fashanu Elbow Award and What If?? because frankly I have not had any time or inclination whatsoever to even contemplate writing these up. The JFEA will probably be renamed anyway because the award itself is looking a bit wanky now, and What If?? is a pretty hard concept to do. So, I’ll probably consign them to the archives. This will leave a nice little gap in the SW19 schedule, so, suggestions please. And if you want to start helping me out by contributing a little bit, then I may be accomodating……
Anyway, onto proper news. The fixtures are out, and it’s quite interesting. OK, so not seeing us play against Man U and Celsi may to some people suck, but actually there are some quite good matches there. Obviously the last “away” game of the season (at Fulham) stands out, as does the Boxing Day clash (literally) between us and Pompey and the New Years Day game at Watford, but even so the wet February day at Grimsby could well see a perversely large turnout.
Already Sky are planning to alter the fixtures but from what we hear so far, only one game looks certain to be moved anyway – the Barnsley away game to the Sunday 5 November. Saturday night in Sheffield, anyone? The other game being televised is the humdinger against Huddersfield at the McAlpine, which is scheduled for a Tuesday night anyway. One other thing about the fixtures here – they also seem to play on Bank Holiday Mondays which actually suits me better. And the prices should (theoretically) be cheaper, so maybe this season will turn out to be the most enjoyable we’ve had for a few years. And at least we’re not predicted to go down for once.
Anders Lund and Dry Martini are now on loan back to Molde which did actually surprise me. On the surface of it, it makes sense – it’s considered only a loan anyway and even Lund himself reckons that if they do well enough they’ll both return to England, but half of me has this horrible feeling that it’s some sort of ethnic cleansing going on.
You know what I mean – Lund and Dry Martini seemed to be nastily singled out for abuse last year simply because of where they came from (some of the comments I heard during the Arsenil game by quite a few WFC fans has forced me to reconsider where I sit next season), and hopefully this isn’t seen as a “victory” by those people. Actually, at last years Drillo Day it was suggested by a certain Politically Unsound WFC fanzine that WFC should loan out some of our players to Norway just to get them experience. Didn’t think that it would actually happen…..
Speaking of Norwegian, Double H (who is actually Icelandic but most people think he’s from Norway) has been listed in the South London Press as our player to watch next season. Didn’t actually do that badly last year in truth, especially when you consider our midfield went AWOL for most of it.
The Lebanese Asset Stripper is linked with Cardiff City, who have told him to piss off. Well, they obviously looked at what he did with us and got cold feet. After all, Ninian Park is ideally situated to have a supermarket on it isn’t it? And I doubt whether the inevitable groundshare with Swansea will go down that well. Not too sure that SH is ideally suited to Cardiff come to think of it – when asked what he thought of the Bob Bank he reportedly said that it didn’t matter because he stores his finances in the British Virgin Islands anyway. Hmm.
Did a bit of lurking around the main Palace chat board recently, just to see if I could get any leads which will tie up with BRG’s comments (below) re: SP. Interestingly enough, there is talk of Palace building a brand new stadium in Croydon or Gatwick (hey, that sounds familiar…) after the Lim (or Jordan) takeover, which if it was to happen would take about 4 years. Which definitely fits in with what BRG said. So, is SP to be sold to somebody like Sainsbury? It would actually tie in nicely – you can’t actually redevelop SP that well, remember Uncle Ron’s problem with trying to redevelop the SP Main Stand. I doubt whether BRG would accept it and you can bet your life that with the problems Palace have had with Uncle Ron thus far I bet the new owners would like to stich him up for once.
Which leaves a question – what about us? Could WFC be invited as joint owners of this new stadium in Croydon? Would make economic sense, but again would BRG buy it? Especially as it would probably mean that he won’t get to keep all the profits from it. And remember, he seems quite keen on the “community” thing. One thing about the Palace board though – they still find our small attendances as a great source of amusement (although somebody reckons that we won’t survive on our first division gates : then again neither are Palace). Yeah, I suppose having about 75 years more league history in a higher plain in a more concentrated area of London WITHOUT having to move anyway would give you loads and loads more support. Just remember that CP’s average attendances since the 70s have hovered around the 16,000 mark. That’s before we came in the league and they haven’t really grown…. dear oh dear.
Meanwhile, from today you can’t buy the club shirt in either the club shop or on the OS. And here’s why – well known Womble and chief merchandise purchaser Peter Bowles contacted the SP club shop and was told “we hardly have any Wimbledon stock in because they’re moving to their new shop”. More on this later……. (for legal reasons, I have to tell you that this is NOT an SW19 exclusive and is in fact information available to all WFC websites. OK Pete?)