Blogger Given Free Transfer
By: Stephen |
1 Comment
Due to my upcoming work commitments, I can’t keep up this blog.
So You Want to Write for The Offside…
…here’s what we’re looking for:
Basics: You must be able to write in English. You don’t have to be perfect, but we want accurate spelling and complete sentences that actually make sense. Readers like sentences they can read.
Swearing is fine, in moderation. The odd cuss word will add power to a sentence, but too much makes it look like you don’t know any other words. It’s called the f-bomb for a reason: It should be devastating when you drop it.
You’ll also need to know how to do it bloggy style. That means inserting images and using hyperlinks. If you don’t know how then we can show you (it’s easy) but it’s essential that you’re willing to learn. Just so you know.
Content: Blogging isn’t just reprinting the news. That’s what newspapers are for. You need to be confident enough to state your opinion and write something interesting.
Sense of humour is important too. We like to have fun on The Offside, and hopefully the posts and comments on the site reflect that. Funny is good.
And as long as it’s football related, pretty much anything goes. If you think Landon Donovan needs to grow some balls, we’re with you. If you think Paolo Maldini is overrated then feel free to say so. You’d be wrong (about Maldini, not about Landycakes) but that doesn’t mean you can’t say it. You can say pretty much anything you like.
But there is one Golden Rule: We don’t tolerate any insults based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation. No exceptions.
Teams we want to cover: All of them. We love the English Premier League, but it’s not the only league in the world (even if it thinks it is.) We love La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1. We love MLS too. We love all football leagues and all football teams, no matter who and where they are. And if international football is your thang, then pay a visit to our international sister site World Cup Blog.
Commitment: Some bloggers post multiple times a day. Some bloggers post once or twice a week. The bloggers who post more often usually have a bigger audience, for obvious reasons. Multiple bloggers per team are acceptable, provided everyone’s happy with the arrangement. We appreciate enthusiastic, consistent and passionate bloggers.
Community: We’ve worked hard to build a community atmosphere on The Offside, where all bloggers and commenters are friendly and supportive of each other. Even from rival teams. Debate and discussion is the name of the game, but we expect everyone to keep it friendly. We won’t fire up a blog for anyone who can’t.
How to apply: If you’ve made it this far, then you must be keen on writing for The Offside. Here’s what you do to apply.
1) Send an email to daryl[at]theoffside.com
2) Write Potential Blogger: [team you want to write for] in the subject line.
3) Please submit a sample post or two for the blog you would like to write for. Keep in mind our editorial guidelines above. If you’ve written for other football blogs, then feel free to include links.
If you do those three things then we guarantee we’ll get back to you. And if you’ve got what we’re looking for then we might be able to set you up with a team blog here on The Offside.
Category: Birmingham Team News
Opps, Summer has made me forget about Birmingham
By: Stephen | 3 Comments
Sorry about it folks, but I work for my current side here in Buffalo NY (Buffalo City FC). And my blogging time has been limited to nothing. Ah such the life of working in football. But some big things have happened here.
First Birmingham stole Barry Ferguson from Rangers recently. The manager Alex McLeish said” For me Barry is a midfielder at his peak. I don’t think 31 is too old for a central midfielder of great experience.
“Players like Gordon Strachan and Gary McAllister continued playing into their late 30s and these were guys who were not afraid of the ball. I think Barry can play on for a good few years yet.
“He’s a guy that always turned up for work. By that I mean that his appearances over the years have always been fantastic.
“Barry has got the culture of the true-grit Brit, who will go through brick walls to play football. He has a winning mentality, and that is proven by all the winners medals he’s won.”
It’s a great pickup for the guys, Ferguson has played in the EPL before going to Scotland, turning out for Blackburn until 2003. I think now that he’s played for a top club, he can teach some of these guys for the Blues who haven’t had the chance to. Also all the talent that the Blues can collect the better chances they have to stay up.
Pictures and reaction to the Promotion (stolen idea from Toby)
By: Stephen | 1 Comment
From Alex“I think we’ve deserved it over the season. We’ve ground results out when we’ve needed to and I think it’s been over-talked that we’re not a good team.
“I know there are a lot of great teams in the Championship who have been in the Premier League and struggled to get back up and the fight to get up makes it probably the most difficult divisions possibly in the world and I don’t say that lightly.
So how’s our man of the week going to celebrate this?
“I’ll definitely have a little glass of wine or champagne to celebrate before I get back home but after that I think it’ll probably be a case of getting on that settee and sleep for a week!”
Category: Birmingham Team NewsUP WE GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By: Stephen | 1 Comment
Yeah, I know doesn’t make sense with Birmingham, but they’re going up and the song is called up. (Stretch). But still, it’s a huge accomplishment for the club to go up again. Now Alex’s next trick, is to keep them up. Be better than Wigan, or West Spam United.
Reading (4-4-2): Marcus Hahnemann; Liam Rosenior, Andre Bikey, Michael Duberry (c), Dan Harding (Kevin Doyle 56); Jimmy Kebe, Jay Tabb, Jem Karacan (Marek Matejovski 54), Stephen Hunt; Shane Long, Dave Kitson. Subs not used: Adam Federici (GK), Kalifa Cisse, Brynjar Gunnarsson.
Blues (4-4-2): Maik Taylor; Stephen Carr, Radhi Jaidi, Martin Taylor, Djimi Traore; James McFadden (Sebastian Larsson 65), Damien Johnson, Lee Carsley (c), Keith Fahey; Cameron Jerome (Garry O’Connor 80), Kevin Phillips (Hameur Bouazza 72). Subs not used: Colin Doyle (GK), Marcus Bent.
Bookings: Jaidi (40), Traore (67)
Booked: Jaidi, Phillips, Traore.
Goals: Fahey 19, Phillips 60. Matejovsky 61.
Att: 23,879
Ref: Howard Webb (S Yorkshire).
Category: Match ReviewsOne more than we go up
By: Stephen | Add Comments
Venue: Madejski Stadium Date: Sunday, 3 May Kick-off: 1315 BST
Coverage: Score updates on BBC Radio 5 Live & BBC Sport website. Full match commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra and BBC Radio Berkshire.
From the Manager
(bcfc.com)
“It was a hard couple of days after Preston where we had to stew on it but I’ve been through highs and lows in football.
I know the euphoria of winning and I know that if you lose such a top level game how disappointing that can be but mostly I’ve had highs in this professional sport of ours but when I get knocked down I’m pretty good at getting back up.
We’ve emphasised that to the players this week that throughout their careers they’ve got to bounce back and show their characters and guts.
Category: Birmingham Team NewsMcLeish Ahead of Reading
By: Stephen | Add Comments
I was sitting around shooting the breeze with my boss before watching a match, and it dawned on me, I haven’t written about the Blues for a while. So when I saw on the BCFC website that the gaffer had his weekly press conference, what a good reason to do have a blog out.
From the Gaffer“We spoke to the players on Monday and quickly told them about the disappointment of being a professional sportsman at times and that it was about bouncing back,” said the Blues boss.
“They’ve done that many times this season and have shown great resilience and steel and other managers have even commented that there’s something about Birmingham in that they keep going right to the very end.
“Now we’ve taken it to the very last game that’s what we must do and I want the players to go and play with freedom in their minds.
“Other people outside the club will say possibly ‘Birmingham must be down now’, but if we’d had a bad start in the season and then won ten games in a row to get to this point it would be a different mindset, but it’s still exactly the same situation.
“We’re ahead by one point and that situation doesn’t change.”
Ok, who told Preston to Show up? Not me.
By: Stephen | 2 Comments
Ugh, why couldn’t the Blues show up and clinch promotion? WHY? Well probably the fact that Preston isn’t that bad of a side. They are getting close to a playoff spot! How fun would it be if Wolves, Birmingham and Preston all went up? Pretty damn fun.
Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Carr, Jaidi, Queudrue, Traore, Larsson (Jerome 54), Johnson, Bowyer, Fahey, O’Connor (Phillips 72), McFadden.
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Martin Taylor, Carsley.
Sent Off: Bowyer (60).
Booked: Queudrue, Bowyer, Jaidi.
Goals: Fahey 57.
Preston: Lonergan, Jones, Mawene, St. Ledger, Nolan, Sedgwick (Whaley 75), McKenna, Williamson, Wallace, Parkin (Brown 58), Mellor (Chilvers 90).
Subs Not Used: Neal, Carter.
Sent Off: Williamson (60), Wallace (90).
Booked: Parkin, Wallace.
Goals: McKenna 69, Wallace 89.
Att: 24,825
Ref: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire).
From the Gaffer
BBC Sport
Birmingham manager Alex McLeish: “We know that we blew this opportunity and we have one left to get up to the Premier League automatically.
“They were two brilliant goals and sometimes you can start splitting hairs to analyse why you lost.
“We had our opportunities, we had some of the game at 1-1, but it didn’t go for us.
“We have to go and win at Reading and I’ll make sure that every player is aware of my feelings on that and the positive side of things in the coming week.”
Beating Watford aint what it used to be.
By: Stephen | 2 Comments
And that’s sad, they have a hell of a history, too bad they are just horrible right now. 
But I’ll take the win, if and only because it gets the Blues one more step close to the EPL.
Watford: Loach, Mariappa, DeMerit, Williamson, Doyley, Cork, Jenkins, Rose (Harley 59), McAnuff, Smith, Hoskins (Rasiak 46).
Subs Not Used: Lee, Cauna, Stepanov.
Birmingham: Doyle, Carr, Jaidi, Queudrue (Traore 84), Murphy, Bowyer, Larsson (Phillips 64), Johnson, Fahey, O’Connor (Jerome 70), McFadden.
Subs Not Used: Lyness, Bouazza.
Goals: Jerome 73.
Att: 16,180
Ref: Tony Bates (Staffordshire).
From the Gaffer *From the official club site*
“Watford were always going to be a tough nut to crack but we started with the right approach and had it not been for some tremendous saves from the keeper we’d have gone in ahead at the break.
“After the interval the home side came back at us but we defended resolutely and what shone through, and what I’m extremely proud of, was how we dealt with the pressure. We kept calm heads, kept working hard and Cameron’s goal won it for us.”
“As I’ve said, I’m extremely proud of the performance and result today but we put that behind us now and concentrate entirely on preparing the players for the Preston game.
“Hopefully St. Andrew’s will be full and be rocking like it was when we played Wolves recently and we can go out there and put in an equally impressive display.
“We may not necessarily need to win our last two games but make no mistake about it that is our aim. We have to fully focus on picking up our results and not worry about what’s going on elsewhere – and that’s what we intend to do.”
Well, it was a point.
By: Stephen | 1 Comment
Charlton:
Elliot, Butterfield, Ward, Hudson, Youga, Sam (Ambrose 90), Racon (Dickson 79), Zhi, Bailey, Shelvey, Kandol.
Subs Not Used: Randolph, Holland, Burton.
Booked: Bailey.
Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Carr, Jaidi, Ridgewell, Murphy, Larsson (Phillips 49), Bowyer, Johnson, Fahey, Bouazza (McFadden 65), Jerome (Bent 59).
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Queudrue.
Booked: Murphy, Jaidi.
Att: 20,022
Ref: Lee Probert (Wiltshire).
Well it’s always good to get points, and move up. Though I would have liked to get the full out of this match. I mean, for shame Birmingham this should have been the three pointer we needed. Charlton is the bottom of the Championship. We have more than half the total points that they have. And we only got 1 point out of them. Not funny. This needs to be worked on.
From the Gaffer
Birmingham boss Alex McLeish:
“It’s in our hands. I’m challenging the players to win all our games. We’ve got to believe we can and have a strong mentality.
“Sheffield United have hard games, the same as us. Nobody has an easy game.
“But it comes down to temperament and how much the players want it because there is nothing between the teams.”
Wow, Beating the League Leaders!!!!!!!!
By: Stephen | 2 Comments
(For more analysis on the match, read the Wolverhampton blog here, as done by Toby).
Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Carr, Jaidi, Ridgewell, Murphy, Larsson (Bouazza 87), Carsley, Bowyer, Fahey, Phillips (McFadden 46), Jerome (O’Connor 57).
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Queudrue.
Sent Off: Carsley (37).
Goals: Jerome 45, O’Connor 69.
Wolverhampton: Hennessey, Foley, Craddock, Berra, Hill (Jarvis 46), Edwards (Vokes 62), Henry, Jones, Stephen Ward, Iwelumo (Keogh 40), Harewood.
Subs Not Used: Higgs, Stearman.
Booked: Henry.
Att: 25,935
Ref: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).
Does this mean that we are better than Wolves? Probably not, but I’ll use a common sport jargon from the States. “Throw the records out the window when these two teams play”. (ok substitute side for team). 
I don’t think that this will clinch the Championship for us, I still think Wolves have separated themselves from the pack.
Though if they continue to play like they did today, the gap might be erased. That, I don’t think will happen either, there’s just something about Wolves that I can’t put my finger on it. But my compadre Toby sure can.
Let’s just hope that the Blues can keep playing this well, on Saturday against bottom feeders Charlton.
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