Hello, my friends.
This is not about sports.1
Don’t you just hate it when you go to look for something like a piecrust recipe and you hit a blog that’s got 12 pages of exposition and scene setting and family stories, and then, finally, at the end you finally get the pie crust recipe?
“I’m standing in the check out line at the grocery store, and I just want to make sure I didn’t forget anything. I don’t want to scroll for 10 minutes.”
Well, replace “me” with “you” and “pie crust recipe” with “footy.” I know it’s what you’re here for.2
A think piece
I told a friend of mine I was mulling over this think piece and he said, “oh. Exactly what the world needs. The moderately-qualified opinion of a middle-aged white American guy.”
He has a point, but you went to the trouble of opening this email, so I’m going to go ahead and keep typing.
We went over why I’m a Liverpool supporter here, just last week.
In addition to that, from birth, I was a Dallas Cowboys fan.3 Just shy of my 13th birthday, Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys and fired Tom Landry. That was it. I was done with them.4
My unscientific research says this is how 80 to 90 percent of fandom starts: purely geography.
About the time I was learning how to read a sports page5 an hour West of Amarillo, a kid from an hour North of Amarillo was playing first base for Cleveland. Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove.
I guess you could possibly kind of sort of chalk my Indians fandom up to geography. Sort of. I’d prefer to say something like Hargrove blazed a trail for me to GTFO of the Texas Panhandle.
In my lifetime, they’re the only franchise to lose Game 7 of the World Series in extra innings twice. So I definitely haven’t stuck around for the glory.
The Cleveland team has definitely had some problematic mascots, logos, imagery and other stuff. I stopped buying Chief Wahoo merch years ago. I try call them just “Cleveland” as much as possible, but that sometimes just doesn’t make sense.
But through all of that, they’ve always been my team. I even have Chief Wahoo’s feather tattooed down my left forearm.6
I loved that 1986 Mets team from afar. When I moved to New York 13 years ago, I just kind of adopted the Mets. I needed an NL team and a NY team. It just works. They definitely get more of my dollars. I’ll be pleased as punch when they win their next World Series. But they’ll never really have my heart. Nor any foreseeable tattoos.
I crammed 4 years of college into 5 years at the University of Texas in the mid to late 90s. Then I stuck around Austin 9 more years.
I lived, ate, drank and breathed University of Texas football7. I have a Texas flag in the shape of a Longhorn head in front of a black Texas with a yellow star on Austin tattooed on my right shoulder.
In November of 2016, Tom Herman was hired as the head football coach of the University of Texas. He hired Casey Horny from Baylor as a Quality Control Analyst for Special Teams (a job literally hundreds of high school coaches in Texas could do - no offense). Casey Horny was a vocal, strident, adamant supporter of disgraced former Baylor coach Art Briles. In case you need a reminder on that whole Baylor serial sexual Assault scandal, here you go.
Horny was still tweeting his support for Briles after he’d been fired and after Baylor released a thorough report that skewered and flambeed the Baylor Football Program.
I was not OK with this. I said so repeatedly on social media, and then I made the hard choice and gave up a significant portion of my identity. Totally walked away from Texas football. Cold turkey8. It was hard for about the first half hour. Then I didn’t miss it one bit.
All of this is to say, I have been through some journeys as a fan. And I have made some hard choices about what I will and will not support. The code of conduct I expect from my teams.
It’s with all this in mind that we arrive at last week’s news that Newcastle United have been purchased by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now, all the press releases and mealy-mouthed statements from the Barclays Premier League will tell you it wasn't the Kingdom that purchased Newcastle. That’s completely bunk. It’s an investment fund helmed by the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. You know … the guy that had Jamaal Khashoggi murdered in the Turkish embassy in 2018. Had him dismembered with bone saws by his personal security detail. Great piece from Tifo Football here.
My lawyers remind me that those last three statements are all “alleged.”
But what’s not alleged is the wealth involved. Newcastle’s new owners are wealthier than all the other 19 Premier League owners COMBINED. It’s an insane amount of money that’s about to be flowing through that club.
So you’re probably thinking it’s a lot of complex emotions going on around St. James Park.
I get wanting to see your team win. I do. Again, I’m an Indians fan and at least 3 random times a year I’ll catch myself thinking about the Indians winning a World Series and I’ll tear up every time.
But I do not want any of my teams owned by a murderous regime just trying to distract the public from all their atrocities.
American Exceptionalism
Yeah, we just had an International Break with 3 World Cup Qualifiers.
Yeah, we won two of them.
Yeah, we lost the other one.
Yeah, Pulisic is still injured from the last International Break.
Yeah, we’re still in position for automatic 2022 World Cup Qualifying. (Just gotta finish in the top 3.)
Yeah, we’re still going to win that World Cup.
And those are the only things I am certain of right now with this USMNT. I felt great Jamaica. I dad napped straight through their 1-0 loss to Panama. Beating Costa Rica should always make the stomach acid level drop a little. But giving up a goal in the first minute? WTF?
Hard to really complain that this M*A*S*H* unit is sitting in second, but then again. I’m cranky as a 45 day old kid with a dairy allergy.
Speaking of International Break …
Due to some crummy scheduling, lots of players look to be unavailable for their Premier League sides this week:
Liverpool - Alisson and Fabinho
(Just to give you some reference, Brazil and Uruguay kicked off their match at 1:30 AM London time on Friday morning. Liverpool and Watford kick off at 12:30 London time on Saturday. That’s rough.)
Man City - Ederson and Gabriel Jesus
Tottenham - Emerson Royal, Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso and Davison Sanchez. Spurs have also reportedly just had 2 players test positive for Covid; requiring a 10 day quarantine. Yeeesh.
Man U - Fred and Edinson Cavani
Aston Villa - Douglas Luiz and Emi Martinez
Everton - Yerry Mina
Newcastle - Miguel Almiron
Chelsea - Thiago Silva
Leeds - Raphinha
This week
It’s gotten late, and my 4 am Daddy Magic shift is coming too soon. So instead of giving you a write up for each match, I’m just going to guess the outcome.
Saturday, 16 October
07:30
Watford 2 - 4 Liverpool (The Cock)
10:00
Aston Villa 1 - 1 Wolves (NBCSN)
Leicester 3 - 4 Man United (USA - Universo)
Man City 4 - 1 Burnley (The Cock)
Norwich 0 - 3 Brighton (The Cock)
Southampton 2 - 1 Leeds (The Cock) I’ll be buying a Southampton shirt if they pull of this win. Yeah, this is the third week in a row I’ve said that.
12:30
Brentford 1 - 0 Chelsea (NBC/Universo)
Sunday, 17 October
9:00
Everton 2 - 1 West Ham (NBCSN / Telemundo)
11:30
Newcastle 2 - 0 Spurs (NBCSN / Telemundo)
Monday, 18 October
3:00
Arsenal 2 - 2 Crystal Palace (The Cock)
Speaking of Monday, my father in law gets here for the kid’s first grandparent visit. Who knows what happens with Kop of Coffee next week. I don’t know how to explain to my “two tours with the Marines in Vietnam” father in law that I need to hole up for a while to write my free English soccer newsletter.
Take care of yourself. And each other.
-Colby
Shout out to our celebrity subscriber.
So, yeah. My 6 week old kid was diagnosed with a pretty strong dairy allergy. At least. Could be other allergies, too, as soy seems to go hand in hand. But it’s definitely causing LOTS of SHRIEKING.
The most effective weapon to fight her guerrilla warfare is holding her and walking around and bouncing and just sing songing things over and over. We’ve been through a 30 verse version of “Baby Shark.” Moved on to “Baby Shart,” and added in about 50 hours of just freestyle scat type singing about anything and everything that pops into my head. Yeah, I think I’ve composed an entire musical about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
This leaves about 5 productive minutes an hour. At that pace, it’s taken me 2 days to clean the kitchen, and my father in law gets here Monday.
Also, in the last week, I started pills for a little toe nail fungus. The pills affect liver function. So no booze or meat for the the next three months for me!
I’ve become the sober, vegan Brooklyn dad with the screaming kid and the wife that asks if everything on the menu has dairy in it. Get your own dream, folks. This one is mine and this one is taken!
I grew up in West Texas in the 1980s. The first 10 years of my life, I thought Tom Landry actually was God. A large part of that might come from his regular appearances in the sermons at church. Not always as content, or examples, but as timing guidance when the Cowboys were kicking off at noon. The preacher knew if it got to about 11:55 and he didn’t have it wrapped up, people were going to start sneaking to the exits.
Always with a bit of a flair for the dramatic, I actually burned my Cowboys pennant in the fireplace. Which got me a talking to. Not sure if that was more about fire safety, familial ties to the Cowboys or me being an asshole. But I was out.
The Amarillo Globe-News had a metro edition for subscribers in Amarillo proper, and a regional edition for the rest of us schmucks. In case you don’t have a background in newspaper production (you’re really missing out, btw) regional editions are made first so you can get them on the trucks and delivered to the hinterlands.
For most of the news, the difference is minimal. But that’s not true for sports sections. That’s especially a thing if you’re talking about teams in the Central time zone (say … The Rangers and Astros) who play in the Western Divisions of the Leagues (yes, children. This is back when there were only two divisions). So, say the Rangers are playing the A’s in Oakland. You’d be reading the game story, and you’d get to the end and it would say, “At the end of the 6th inning, the Rangers were trailing the A’s 6-5,” and it would just end. The story. Not the game.
But you could read the game story for the full game the day before to get the closure you needed for the game two days ago that you’d been on pins and needles about since yesterday’s Golden Grahams. Same thing for the Astros.
So, to sell some papers and keep up with the local kid, they’d run Indians’ game stories. And because the Tribe was in the AL East, most of their games would be done in time to make the regional edition of the paper. So you only had to read one game story.
Good news: It looks like the wings on the Guardians helmet, too!
I missed 2 home games in those 14 years.
I attended 10 straight Texas-OU games in Dallas.
I travelled to see games at every (original) Big XII stadium.
I was at that 1995 game at Kyle Field where the 16-6 win over the Aggies gave us the last Southwest Conference Championship.
I was in St. Louis at the 1996 Big XII Championship where we beat two-time defending National Champions Nebraska.
I went to a Sugar Bowl, Alamo Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and yes, I was at THAT 2006 USC-Texas Vince Young Rose Bowl.
There was one exception: A friend was in NYC from Austin and wanted to hang out. The only time that worked for him happened to be during the Texas game, so we watched it together in a bar. I did not cheer, nor did I enjoy myself. The company was great, though.
I jumped aboard here because we're both Liverpool fans. It's only now that I discovered we're both Cleveland baseball fans too! How many people in the world do you think are fans of both of those teams without being from anywhere near Liverpool or Cleveland? There can't be many of us.
Speaking of Liverpool, our version of "Allez Allez Allez" is one of the songs I've sung to my son a lot when trying to get him to sleep. I like that I can sing "We've won a fucking lot" to him because he's not yet old enough to make anything of it. I also have my own version of the tune, with lyrics ABOUT my son. Anyway, if you get sick of "Baby Shark," go to the Liverpool songbook.
I'm the resident idiot Newcastle supporter, but I have no real permanent allegiance to the club - I only started in 2018 and so I have no legitimate ties to the community. I've been annoyed to see fans immediately jump to "What about <X>?" when anyone mentions the slimy nature of the new Newcastle ownership.
But realistically, what should I do here? I am watching these matches from a continent away, and basically nobody in the world even knows I'm watching other than NBC, who I pay for Peacock access. I think the only tangible action I could take would be to cancel my Peacock subscription and stop watching the Premier League altogether. What's the alternative? I continue to watch Newcastle but I root for them to lose? Or maybe I could watch soccer except for any match involving Newcastle?
After all, the PL is the entity that allowed the sale to happen - and it's even slimier that the Premier League's "concern" wasn't the murder of journalists, or human rights abuses - it was the fact that the KSA was complicit in pirating Premier League matches. "We care about things, but those things are limited to our money" seems to be their position.
I'm not trying to be a buzzkill or an asshole (although I'm probably both, lol) but I really don't know what can be done. What I really hope is that Newcastle fans will protest the new owners as strenuously as the protested the previous owner. It probably won't happen, but I'd like to see it.