Curva Vox

It's been a while, with much water beneath the bridge. Sadly, poohsticks remains a sore point (metaphorical poohsticks, that is, mm.).

On the morning of the Vale match - last weekend - at which I was due to host various part-time 'loids and hangers-on, I woke up unable to get out of bed thanks to a particularly agonising back spasm. My inner Danny Dire felt like the facking mankey, fer sher.

I'd been waiting five years for Darlo to visit the Potteries. Rather, I would have been had it not been for this worth-rehashing quirk of fortune.... heh - I love the way the Stoke defender just looks embarassed after Carlos Logan's goal- childish giggle, bit of wee .

Premiership, you're having a laugh dum-dee-dum, etc.

In any case, I wasn't going to be perching contentedly on any desolate yellow plastic for 90 minutes anytime soon. Therefore I had to make do with the sounds of Darlo's failings drifting in on the breeze through the open window - an experience brought to you by some left-over Cocodamol, a drug whose opiate qualities might have been handy.

Failing to attend a Darlo game taking place less than a quarter of a mile from my home was a crap experience at the time, but in hindsight I Am Not That Gutted To Have Missed This. Now we can concentrate on survival etc, with a possible trip to Rochdale into the bargain - ooh, now then.

As pain avoidance I considered the great issue of our time whilst listing to the left with the support of some pillows, a true clash of ideologies... That is:

A) Should one watch a match panopticon-fashion? i.e. in a diagnostic stylee and from a detached and elevated standpoint (such as the comparatively enormous Air Products Stand at Gresty Road), or;

B) Should one actively and deliberately seek a position close enough to lose the objectivity? i.e. placing oneself to glare straight into the whites of a centre half's eyes, attaining involuntary synching of heartbeat with the nervy symphony of studs in the 'greasy' floodlit turf.

Hmm - I should point out that most of my football is taken at a modest lower-division dose, and I would assert that there's a strong dichotomy of experience - the atmosphere of an 'end,' home or away, rarely carries to the grandstanders in the way it might do here (actually, Spangly Princess' post did a grand job as a surrogate football-going experience, though the Curva is a long way removed from the Hamil).

Actually, at the football as in any theatre in fact, I tend strongly towards the latter. Admittedly, the lack of anaytical perspective does render me as foul-mouthedly bemused as anyone when some battered old cushion (typically Julian Alsop or Leo Fortune-West, Aldo Serena if you like old-school Serie A) ghosts in at the back stick to shin a last-minute winner.

On which note I'll alt-tab to the epic 'white corridor with office plants and awkward officials' shots that are such an endearing feature of Bet365's half-time Serie A coverage - a refreshing if irrelevant counterpoise to the usual half-time hyperbole.