Final Preparation Part 2

I fully appreciate that it could now be reasonably expected that I would post an article about the actual Flora London Marathon, now that it has finished and I may or may not have completed it. I don't think I'll be giving anything away by saying I didn't win it.



The cleverly titled previous instalment said very little about the two principle occurences of FA Cup semi-final weekend, which became bizarrely intertwined.



One, those who give a tinker's cuss about my actual training will be pleased to hear, involved positioning myself on a treadmill where I could line up several bottles of Lucozade, carb gels and other energy sources, plugging in my headphones and attempting to run for 20 miles. I only flipping managed it. In under three hours too, which pleased me greatly.



Once again to thank to a large degree were the good people behind Sky Sports 1's Sunday morning scheduling. Goals on Sunday is such an easy watch it's fantastic. There's a very stark contrast to Match of the Day, which seems to have a narcoleptic effect that can be very contageous, much like Chris Kamara. There was an occasion not too long ago when my flatmate and I both did our usual slip into unconsciousness as Lee Dixon or Alan Shearer almost as soon as the opening sequence ended. This was all well and good in the comfort of your own home, but looked plain rude when we had another mate round and he ended up having to pump up the volume to drown out the snoring.



It's a sad state of affairs to be honest as I've apparently always had an affection for the BBC's flagship football property. According to my mum I used to sleepwalk as a kid most Saturday nights, arriving at the lounge door when the music sounded, sitting quietly in front of the television for the duration and disappearing back to bed when the credits rolled. It's entirely possible that I was completely aware of what I was doing, but I have no recollection. It's also more than likely that this is why I have a deep affection for Barry Davies and, for no other discernible reason, Jimmy Hill.



Which brings me very neatly on to the programme formerly known as Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement. I say formerly because the eponymous hero, whose fictional kitchen was the original setting and whose wife we were supposed to believe had provided the bowl of plastic pastries adorning the discussion table, has been cruelly sidelined.



Sunday Supplement, now presented by the improbably coiffured Brian Woolnough and invariably featuring at least one of his Daily Star colleagues, is still eminently watchable. It is, effectively, the only football show not tainted by the inevitably skewed opinions of ex-pros. It is also extremely surreal to watch it on a Sunday morning the day after sitting at a table in the Wembley press room next to a gaggle of Supplement regulars, you've guessed it, eating breakfast and discussing football.



There are a couple of major differences between the organic and the manufactured version. For a start, they swear. Not quite as bad as Stephen Bywater but blue enough. They clearly, to someone from the outside looking in, rule the roost in the press room as a gang. Martin Samuel effectively held court while the pack waited for Harry Redknapp's victorious press conference (incidentally Redknapp waltzed into the plush Wembley press theatre and stuck his chewing gum on the bottom of the table. Bloody peasant), while Woolnough, to the TV viewer the man in charge, is far less assuming than one might expect, resembling instead a coy miniature Clarkson.



The other major difference is that they actually eat the food provided. Obviously they have to eat sometime and who would begrudge a man who has to spend his Saturdays at work having a bit of a feed? As a friend of mine said after watching a particular member of the press get up after 40 minutes of an England international to avail himself of the buffet, "it's definitely not glandular". He's not in a position to publish his line, but I felt it deserved a public airing.



I have a healthy dose of respect for the members of the Supplement panel, as I say, for their honest and comparatively agenda-free appraisal of the events of the day. It presents one with a dilemma, however, when trying to discuss what was said on the programme in a similar setting in earshot of the people you're discussing. It's like when the big screen is showing live pictures and creeps into shot. You just get an endless sequence of shots of a screen showing a screen showing a screen. I could go on. I've plenty of stamina.

Final Preparation

I should do this for a living, I really should. Final preparation refers to the last few days before the marathon and also the fact that I went to both of the FA Cup semi-finals at the brand spanking new, all-singing, all-dancing Wembley Stadium. You see, there's a double meaning. I find people like me more if I explain all my jokes and why I'm clever.

Moving on, I ought to explain myself. Not on the basis of this erratic blog or my main form of employment (obviously my only form of employment if the taxman or indeed my main employer is reading), I managed to secure a position in the press box at Wembley for not one, not two, but, oh, two actually, both in fact, semi-finals of the FA Cup in association with E-On at the brand new Wemlbey stadium swponsored by, among others, Betfred and npower.

To be as tangential as usual, I'm unure as to who to credit the power behind the semis and the final of the FA Cup to. As a sponsor I would be very unhappy if I was npower, the official energy supplier to Wembley (and Rugby League's Superleague, which always seems far more energetic) that E-On are the energy behind the FA Cup. If you consider there can't be more than a dozen or so games at Wembley each season, there's a clash for a quarter of them if all FA Cup semis are to be played there and E-On continue their association.

As someone who buys advertising space for a living, the concept of 'solus' brands, ie the only brand of a certain type to be associated with a certain publication or event at a certain time, is inherent. Quite who at E-On or npower thought that either of their brands could somehow co-exist at an FA Cup semi or final at Wembley is a mystery to me. There's a serious devaluation for all concerned.

My professional opinion aside, we'll move back to the layman's stuff. Not to be confused with the Lehmann's stuff, which this week has involved the throwing off of all shackles into an Incredible Hulk style hissy fit of 'if I'd been in goal we wouldn't have lost to Liverpool' that has been simmering all along underneath the 'I'll wait for my chance and Almunia is a good lad' bravado.

To get the whole Wembley for the semi-finals and final out of the way, there was something slightly incongruous about the whole weekend. Portsmouth fans began to sing 'We're going to Wembley' in Wembley. Irony wasn't exactly prevalent on the day, replaced by 1980s sincerity that usually comes along with any English provincial events that move into the public consciousness (just look at the Shannon Matthews coverage). I genuinely think they were confused. I appreciate the need to milk the Wembley cash cow, but the Emirates would have provided a sumptuous setting for West Brom and Portsmouth, while Villa Park, Anfield or Old Trafford would have done the trick for Barnsley and Cardiff. Much as Manchester United and Arsenal shouldn't have to play neutral games in venues smaller than their own grounds, as they have had to on numerous occasions.

There were a couple of extremely surreal experiences surrounding my Wembley days out, which I will go into in my next missive. Neither of them involved the opportunity to steal Graham Taylor's well-lavelled 'football file' which I had the split second chance to steal three years ago in the press room at Southampton's St Mary's Stadium. I briefly saw the former England boss in the East Media Lounge but the folder was nowhere to be seen. I would suspect he wouldn't have much information in it pertaining to Cardiff or Barnsley anyway, although Kayode Odejayi could have filed himself in the same tab as England's Geoff Thomas (can you believe neither of these is on YouTube?) for ridiculous Wembley misses.