The Merseyside Derby

With the past few weeks being surprisingly hectic (for reasons i am not able to ascertain myself), and with six drafts languishing half-finished on my wordpress account, i switched my pc on. I turned the volume bar on as high as it would go, and opened firefox. The music was at full blast, i could almost see my speakers tremble – “The Black Halo” by Kamelot was playing, Winamp told me. Roy Khan was screaming “betrayal” at the top of his voice, and the haunting guitar sounds were swamping my head, but it did little to lift my spirits.

The past week or two had not really been uneventful, but my interest in local events was at an all time low. A decent sunday Carnival, an above-average FSIS and a boring Panel Discussion apart, i had little to write/whine about. Besides, just what could i say on these events? I managed to see just the first part of the Sunday Carnival – not nearly enough to dedicate a whole post to it. The FSIS was about the best FSIS i have seen in recent times, and that is no great achievement, given how dull most of them are. The faculty had answers to many questions, and i would go so far to call a reasonable amount of them “satisfactory“.

The Panel Discussion was … erm … bearable, but noone focused on the right thing, and little came of it. You know a panel discussion is not really of great quality when the best thing you can say about it is – “The Moderator spoke well“. But when that is the ONLY good thing you can say, it doesnt provide nearly enough material to rant/write about. Eh, well, atleast the faculty seem willing to try discussing about students issues, have to give them credit for that.

So, to continue where i left off, i opened firefox. The time it took to open prompted me to reflect on the past week. The day had been downright horrid, till then. Just like the week before was.

I had spent my whole life staying as far from the bottom of the class as i could, academically of course. All of a sudden, on two seperate occasions, i had the lowest marks in the class in a midsem. Just a few days before that, i had discovered that the Curse of the *******y was on me (the next post dedicated to this, dont get any strange ideas).

And a bit after that, i had to spend a good six hours cleaning up my room and my pc, as my parents were visiting to check on their “investment“. (Well, after what seemed to be an eternity, atleast i managed to get my hands on some PROPER food). On top of that, it takes about an hour to download the filelist of someone on DC. WLAN speeds are killing me. (Take my life, even take my freedom, please, pretty please, spare my WLAN connection ).

These and several other events left me feeling disgusted with the week (not the fact that my parents were visiting mind you, but that i had to clean my room). As i have already stated, a truly horrid week, it was.

Where was I? Oh yes, i opened firefox and after a bit of crafty navigation (which invloved opening a couple dozen tabs), i came upon a page which i frequent – just one glance at that page, things suddenly started looking a whole lot better. It was the page which showed Liverpool’s fixtures for the rest of the season. The next match – Everton vs Liverpool.

“Its a bloody football match, you tw4t!!” – i can hear people say (in the alternate world in which i try to simulate reality). “Everton arent a big club, and Liverpool arent exactly world beaters with a score of stars!!” they add for good measure. But this match (called the Merseyside Derby) was the ONE match which transformed me from a “casual football fan” to a “football fanatic” a few years ago (not to be confused with “football hooligan“, please ). Of course, while playing football myself, i am little more than hopeless, and i honestly could have done better with two left feet, so to speak.

But the passion and the drive i saw in the players and the supporters – the sense of anticipation before the match, the atmosphere in the stadium during even the dullest moment in the match, the way they were willing their team on to win, their shoulders dropping when a player shot at goal and missed, the agony on their faces when they conceded a goal, the sheer joy when they scored one, and the jubiliant faces celebrating a victory over their fiercest of fierce rivals – all this compelled me to find out as much as i could about football. And i was nowhere near the stadium, i was sitting and watching this on TV.

All i knew about footbal then were the basic rules and the star players of top half teams in the EPL. After seeing this match, i decided to learn as much as i could about football. (not for MY playing, of course). So after visiting six websites-a-day, slogging 1500+ hours through five Football Managers (comp games, of course), playing eight FIFA-series games and watching atleast three hundred live games, i finally know enough about it to talk about it at length.

And this is my verdict – Liverpool to crush the blushite.

-> Badrinath.S

P.S. : Chant with me “Dirk Kuyt, Dirk Kuyt, Dirk Kuyt….“. Dont know who he is? Doesnt matter. What a height of fodality performance he put in against West Ham!

P.P.S. : West Ham *eyes reflect total contempt and disgust*. Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez joined them! Can you believe that? Two of Argentina’s brightest starts (bar Messi of course) joining a mid table team, who now think they can challenge for the title. I guess *cough* Abramovich *cough* is behind this.

P.P.P.S : Some new blogs on blogroll are pretty darn decent. Yaay! More proper stuff to read!