Champions League Final: Barcelona 2 - Manchester United 0

Above: Lionel Messi scores Barcelona's second goal.

Below: Thierry Henry shows off his new trophy.

Above: Barcelona players celebrate their success by tossing rookie manager Josep Guardiola into the air.  In his first season, Guardiola won La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the Champions League.

Below: Sir Alex Ferguson walks off the pitch after the game.

Picture of the Day

What I have been reading lately #27

I just finished reading Dave Roberts' book The Bromley Boys: The True Story of Supporting the Worst Football Team in Britain.  This book is a fine example of a genre that they don't really publish here in the United States-- fan memoirs.  Roberts writes all about the 1969-70 season for Bromley, a time when he was 14 years old and completely obsessed with the local amateur squad.  

Checking back through my records, I count five separate books that I have read that fall into the category of football fan memoirs.  Here is my ranking of these five books.

1.  Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby.  I know that this book is quite well-known (even here in the USA), is all about Arsenal, and was even made into a movie about the Red Sox!  But it's still a fantastic book-- any fan of any sport could relate to Hornby's account of the completely ridiculous interconnection between his own personal life and the success (or not) of his team.

2.  My Favourite Year, edited by Nick Hornby.  This collection was published by When Saturday Comes a number of years ago and consists of short essays by a number of writers about their favorite seasons of their favorite teams.  I picked this up for a few dollars in a remainder bin at the University of Washington bookstore a few years back, and it has gone on to be one of my favorite books.  Because of this, I now spend way to much time scouring through remainder bins at bookstores hoping that lightning will strike twice.

3.  The Bromley Boys by Dave Roberts.  He makes my sports obsessions seem mild in comparison.

4.  Manchester United Ruined My Life by Colin Shindler.  A great title, obviously, but it was hard to have a lot of empathy for a Manchester City fan (and a whiny one, at that).

5.  Believe in the Sign by Mark Hodkinson.  This book is about a young man obsessed with Rochdale, his local, hapless Division 4 team.  I actually really liked this book when I first read it.  In fact, I liked it so much I contacted the author via email.  But when I pointed out an inconsistency involving the television mini-series Roots, Mr. Hodkinson claimed that it was part of a "fantasy sequence."  I'm not really interested in reading fantasy sequences in fan memoirs.

Movie Preview: Looking for Eric

Fun at work: bears and crawdads

From this week's parent bulletin--  BEAR UPDATE:...Please talk with your children and let them know, if they ever do see a bear, to walk quietly away.  Don't run, and don't make noise.  If they think the bear has seen them, they should walk slowly backward, keeping their eye on the bear as they move away.  Running will encourage the bear to chase, so remind them never to run...

On another animal-related note--  One of my students spent this week bringing his pet crawdads (aka crawfish, aka crayfish, aka "clawfish") to school...over and over again despite my instructions to stop.  Finally I gave up and had the students do some crawdad-related activities.  A different student has now threatened to start bringing in chickens.  Stay tuned.

Picture of the Day

Source: Futbolita

What I have been reading lately #26

This book covers in great depth all that is corrupt, dishonest, scandalous, and wrong in Italian football.  This would include the clubs, fans, owners, journalists, referees, league officials, politicians, financiers, players, and others as well.  Kind of depressing, actually.