2012 Review

Well the end of 2012 is almost nigh.  It's usually nice to look back over some of the highlights of the year and ponder what there is to look forward to in the coming year.

I'm going to go through a few of my highlights of the year and then review my New Year's Resolutions I set myself in January.  I'll do another blog in the first week of January to do a bit of a 2013 preview.

A personal highlight of mine was finally running the London Marathon in April.  You can read about that in more detail by checking out the post-run blog post.  It had been an ambition of mine for over 20 years and the feeling of achievement as I crossed the line was incredible.

Mile 25

In May, we flew out to Krakow for the wedding of some friends of ours.  The entire day was wonderful and we had a great time.  I'd never been to Poland before but had an amazing time.  We'd managed to rent an apartment right on the Old Town Square and saw so much of the city in just a week.  I also did a day trip to Auschwitz which was an incredible but very sobering experience.  If you're looking for a city break holiday, I'd definitely recommend Krakow.

Saint Mary's in Krakow

I managed to see some incredible gigs in 2012 and picking the best isn't easy.  One of many highlights was the Watch The Throne tour in Manchester over the summer.  To see two of the world's biggest music stars in Jay-Z and Kanye West together on stage for over two and a half hours was incredible!  Watching Pulp play a home town arena show to over 12,000 fans was also pretty special and a great way to round off the year!

Jarvis on stage

The end of the 2011/12 football season was also something to celebrate (for once).  I was at Hillsborough to watch Sheffield Wednesday beat Wycombe to confirm promotion back to the Championship, ultimately at the expense of city rivals United.  Whilst the current season is a bit unpredictable (to be diplomatic), the wild celebrations at the end of the season was incredible.

Some people are on the pitch...

It wouldn't be right to review 2012 without mentioning the Olympic and Paralympic Games and I was incredibly fortunate to get tickets to see events at both.  I took my dad to see Olympic football at Old Trafford, my wife and daughter to see tennis at Wimbledon as well as taking in Handball at the Copperbox and Volleyball at Earl's Court.  It was incredible to see the wave of support our athletes had.  Whilst the summer gave us a lot of memorable moments, I personally won't forget the drive back from Legoland to Sheffield, to get home just in time to see Jessica Ennis in her final event.  Watching her cross the line and win gold was my moment of the Games.

Inside the Copperbox

Olympic Stadium for the Paralympics

Watching the Olympic torch go past the end of our road (and the incredible number of people that turned out to see it) really got me hooked on the Olympic spirit, and getting to hold one of the torches later that summer was an amazing feeling.

Obviously there were a few other newsworthy events in 2012 such as the Diamond Jubilee celebrations (I'll never say no to an extra day of work, thank you Ma'am), but one of the most iconic moments for me was Felix Baumgartner's freefall from space.  I told my wife it was our generation's Moon Landing, and while that might be a bit of hyperbole, I'll remember my daughter sat on my knee on the landing watching it with me on my laptop.

And so onto a review of my 2012 Resolutions...  I posted a half-year review (in that link) but it's worth doing a final summary to see how well this year went:


1. Run the London Marathon

A pretty easy one to tick off - 5:30:41! 

2. Raise at least £1000 for charity

Yes.  People were incredibly generous with their donations and I managed to raise over £1500 this year which I'm very proud of.  Thanks again to everyone who donated - it was very generous of you.

3. Get a photograph published or sold

I'm counting this one as a success.  I mentioned in the half year review that I'd done some promo shots for a great Wakefield band call Skint & Demoralised and I followed that up with the cover shot for their single "When Saturday Comes".  You can listen to and download that song here (as well as seeing the 

4. Carry on training to run the Sheffield Half Marathon 2013

I eased off the running in August after a 10k race as I was starting to feel a bit of pain.  I did however switch to an exercise bike to keep fit (and managed to lose over 30lbs in the process).  I start running again this week and I'm all ready for the Sheffield Half Marathon in May! 

5. See at least 12 gigs

I think I ticked 13 off in the end which is quite a good effort.  Obviously I've mentioned some of the highlights above, but also seeing Ladyhawke at The Leadmill in Sheffield was incredible.  Here's to a few more in 2013

6. Read at least 10 books

I think I said at the time this was a pitiful number to aim for, but at least I managed it.  If I can finish off my current book in the next few days, I'll have a clear 11 to my name for this year.  Must try harder next year!

7. Continue my blog after the marathon

This was a tricky one.  After all the effort of blogging on marathon training, I felt at a bit of a loss for what to write about.  I dabbled a bit over the summer but I feel like I've finally got back into a bit of a groove towards the end of this year.  I've also been really lucky to be able to write a monthly blog for Diabetes UK which I'm really looking forward to continuing next year

8. Support the community via sponsorship/donations etc

I'm chalking this down a success as well, though just barely.  I sponsored a mini festival a friend of mine staged for charity earlier this year.  The amount of work and effort she put in to making the day a success was incredible and sponsoring the event to ensure it could go ahead was a real privilege.

9. Expand the smaller areas of my company

This is my first failure, partially through lack of effort and partially through lack of time.  I realised that diversifying from my main business can be good, but the amount of effort required compared to the return doesn't really make it viable.  I'm having a rethink and a re-plan for next year so we'll see what comes of it...

10. Make some friends

Another tricky one.  I've definitely built up some excellent relationships over 2012 - no doubt about it.  I think what's proved trickier is to make those mainfest themselves in a non-digital environment.  I do feel lucky to count some of my Twitter acquaintances as friends but should possibly try harder to turn some of those into "real life" friendships.

So there we go - 2012 in a nutshell.  A fairly large nutshell, but nevertheless.  If you made it this far, then thanks a lot.  I hope you've had a look back at your 2012 and remembered some of the good times you've had.

I'm still pondering what 2013 might hold but I'll be back again in the first week of January to talk about that.  In the mean time, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy New Year

Speak soon

Andy x

Tika Taka Tock

I was at Hillsborough on Saturday to watch Wednesday take on Leicester.  We had a vague stab at it for the first 40 minutes or so (and again for 5 or 10 minutes in the second half) but I think you'd have to be moderately deluded to say that we deserved anything from the game.

Before I go on, there's a couple of points worth making.  Firstly, I don't usually blog about football as I don't like to live with an uneasy feeling that some of the more..."enthusiastic" (crack pot) fans will forgo all sense of social norms in an attempt to vilify me for having a different view to theirs.  I also tend not to blog about football because it's only a game.  I've mentioned before that for the time I'm in the stadium I'm as elated/frustrated (delete as applicable) as the next fan (though I'd like to think I'm not so bonkers as some).  But by the time I get home and explain to my wife and daughter that, no, we didn't win, I'm over it.  Wednesday might be in my blood, but it's not the be all and end all of my life.

So to Saturday.  I'd said to my Dad (who was spared the performance by a prior engagement this week) that I'd take a point before kick off (something I'm saying more and more).  Having thrown two new loan signings into the team I was hoping for a bit of a fresh look to the side.

I think that for most of the first half, we were "not terrible".  But I think we looked scared of passing the ball once we advanced beyond the centre circle.  Having switched to a 4-4-2 playing with actual strikers and actual wingers, I was hoping we'd get the ball out wide and put crosses in for strikers.  But we didn't.  We passed the ball across the defence and let the two central midfielders have a touch every now and then.  Going in one down at half time was a blow, but not unexpected.  Apart from a brief period in the second half, we didn't look at the races - disjointed rather than rubbish.

So what can you do to change things?  I'm not entirely sure, and it's certainly not my job to figure it out, but a few things seem obvious:

1.   Use wide players properly.  Get the ball to the wingers and tell the strikers to get in the box.  It might not be Total Football, but it's using what we've got effectively

2.   Play in position.  Seeing strikers drop back to basically stand next to midfielders seems, to me at least, to be Not A  Very Good Idea.  Bothroyd was guilty of it a lot on Saturday

3.   Change things around a bit.  Loan signings coming in is good for competition but signing another when we already have 4 seems odd to me.  I don't take training sessions every day so I don't know how the players perform but I'm not sure blindly persisting with the same players that aren't scoring goals is a perfect solution.

4.   Make a bit of effort.  An elderly lady who'd been outside collecting for St Luke's Hospice ended up sitting next to me on Saturday.  She admitted to being a Spurs fan brought up on Bill Nicholson's team in the 60s, but, living in Sheffield she followed both clubs.  She remarked at one point that "they seem to be waiting for it [the ball] to come to them rather than go and get it".  And she was right.  Often you'd see a ball played into feet but a Leicester player would nip in front of our waiting player and intercept

5.   Keep the ball.  Admittedly we do this pretty well when we're not being pressurised.  I've no idea if there are stats to back this up, but I suspect our centre halves had as much of the ball as our centre midfielders at the weekend.  I'm not suggesting we try and imitate Barcelona but keeping hold of the ball in the final third must surely improve our chances of getting a goal or two (see also Point 2 above)

6.   Relax.  This is for fans more than anyone.  It is only a game, and whilst other promoted sides like Charlton and Huddersfield are acquitting themselves a lot more than we are, ask yourself if it really matters that much to you that you're prepared to wage a war from the comfort of our laptop about it.  It's pretty obvious that the team aren't doing as well as we'd all like (and we'd all hoped we would) but mercilessly laying into every player for 90 minutes isn't exactly a constructive way of supporting your side.  You may not be a big fan of Jay Bothroyd, or think Dave Jones has lost his marbles (and you're entirely within your rights to think that), but surely you support the shirt more than you "can't stand" certain individuals...

Watford tomorrow night will be tough and whilst I might be frustrated to see the same XI again (seriously, Rodri can't get a start anymore??), I'll be utterly delighted if Bothroyd scores a winner - I genuinely don't think I could say the same for everyone.  I read an article recently about Arsenal fans wanting "their" Arsenal back.  If you're the kind of fan that thinks that, then think about what that really means as a Wednesdayite....

As long as you're happy I suppose that's all that matters.  Up the Owls.

Andy

Wednesday, bloody Wednesday

Apologies to regular readers for finally succumbing to writing about football.  In my defence, we had a good year before it got to this.  Apologies too for invoking Partridge with the title.

I guess the audience for this blog is a bit niche in that I'll end up writing whilst assuming you know something about football and/or Sheffield Wednesday.  (Disclaimer - going to Hillsborough does not automatically qualify you to know something about football as we shall see below).

I contemplated whether I should write this whilst trudging back up the hill to the car after last night's game against Huddersfield which we comfortably managed to lose 3-1.   We weren't our best last night and despite making a few chances and missing them) up front, our defence made them look like Barcelona.

As a football fan, I think I'm quite lucky in that my entire existence doesn't revolve around Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.  I live and die with each kick during the game, but the result washes over me an hour or so after the match.  It's only a game right?

Some people are a lot more fanatical than I am and whilst I respect their choice to be that way, I will make a point of not being tarred with the mad brush to a certain extent.  Most of my football related conversations take place on Twitter, where a certain proportion of our fanbase believe that being a Wednesday fan means we're all mates.  This is definitely not the case.

After last night's game (our 6th of 46 this season) the same old tired tribe took to their phones to start bashing the team and the manager, floating all manner of hysterical observations.  On the surface, it's easy to see why.  Football is an emotive thing.  There's a tribalism in supporting your team and wanting to beat whoever's in front of you.

It's easy to lambast the manager for "changing a winning team" (Wednesday had lost two on the trot before last night) or to blame the keeper (for conceding one penalty and the rebound from another that he'd saved).  It's easy to be critical and suggest that our right back last night looked horribly out of his depth and that our centre midfield looked uneasy every time they might have to pass the ball forward.  It's easy to bemoan players for not being able to take a corner without kicking it straight to the opposition (I'll hold my hand up as being guilty of that one).

And in the heat of the moment, you can forgive it to a degree.  But an hour or so afterwards it's surely time to be objective and reasonable.  Wednesday got promoted last season and are now adapting to a new level of the game where things are done faster and more mistakes are punished than they were last season.  Three of the starting XI last night were fairly new to the club and looked a little short of fitness.  Given their recent signings, they also haven't had much opportunity to play together as a team.

I realised last night that what makes my blood boil about football is other fans.  The people on Twitter who make ridiculous statements based on nothing factual.  The same people that can dish out abuse to players with one tweet and then send them a message praising them with the next.  The old guy 4 rows behind me who dished out a non-stop expletive tirade at the referee after 80 minutes despite there being kids nearby.  The idiot who threw something onto the pitch last night.  The bloke at the side of me that got up and left his seat 5 times to smuggle a beer into his seat (North Stand, row 26, seat 31, you know who you are).  Those people need to experience the real world.  Watch the news or read a book.  You're entitled to your opinion the same as me and every one else.  But to do it in such an ignorant manner is appalling.

Calling for the manager who presided over (almost all of) our joint longest unbeaten run in history after 6 games is mind numbingly stupid.  Blaming the keeper because you personally like the other goalie more is insane.  Booing your own players is ridiculous.  Maybe I should just stay off Twitter after the match.

I don't believe for a second that Wednesday have any right to go out and win a single game of football - you have to earn your points and accept the defeats when you weren't good enough.  Sadly, last night was the latter.  Finishing 4th bottom this season will be an achievement.  I quietly predicted we'd finish 14th in May and I'll stick to that.  Last night's game is over and all anyone can do is look forward to Saturday against Bolton.

I don't to rant.  Last night was just a bad day in the office.  It's a long time until May and I have no doubt the same lunatics who were ready to explode with rage last night will be eating their words in a few months (and will have conveniently forgotten all their hysterics by then).  This is my 27th year visiting Hillsborough and stepping out of the concourse never gets tiring, regardless of how we play.

But I'm glad the club isn't my only reason for being.

Up the Owls.

P.S. Credit due to all 25,000 there last night for impeccably observing a moment's silence (and applause) for the Hillsborough Families and the 2 lads from the Yorkshire Regiment who died in Afghanistan