Stewart was an amazing
person - A wonderful husband, a fantastic brother, a loving son and an
adored uncle. He was also a brilliant friend and colleague and will be
missed by so many people. His family are determined that his death will never
be in vain and are doing their part to beat bowel cancer for good. We are fundraising for the Bobby Moore Fund
which is part of Cancer Research UK and specialises in research into bowel
cancer. If you wish to donate to the
fund, you can via https://www.justgiving.com/Geraldine-Smith3
.
If you haven’t already
done so, please read the article which recently appeared in the Daily Record
and learn from Stewart’s story that you must never be complacent. It makes grim reading for us, his family,
even though we were beside him throughout his ordeal, or battle; call it what
you will. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/heartbroken-widow-geraldine-smith-raises-3452997
Stewart’s wish was that The
Grambler should continue after his death and I have been happy to oblige. Welcome to The Grambler, the most
ill-informed blog you are ever likely to see. Read on and enjoy…
May I begin by
giving you some very sad news. Stuart
McCall has resigned as Motherwell manager.
He came to the club four years ago and presided over, possibly, the most
successful spell in the team’s history – Scottish Cup finalists in 2011 and top
three league finishes three years running.
This season…Aye, well, mm. The
less said about this season, the better.
The rumour is that he is heading to Crystal Palace to assist Neil
Warnock [By pinning eyebrows on him, perchance? – Ed.]. As I write this, assistant manager Kenny
Black is in charge, but the bookies reckon Derek Adams (who was a player at the
club for six years) is the man who will take over. Derek Adams.
You know. The one who got sacked
from Ross County because they were struggling even worse than Motherwell. Hmm.
Apparently,
there have been over fifty applications for the vacant manager’s job. Mine’s in.
Wish me luck.
I see the
postbag has been inundated with a letter…
Dear Grambler,
I recall seeing
a football film years ago which was rather good. I think it was called ‘Fever Pitch’. It was about a football fan whose team won
the league title in the very last game of the season. I just cannot remember the team he
supported. Can you help?
Yours sincerely,
R. Snell.
I have just seen
a rather silly advert. It makes no sense
and whichever ad agency came up with it should have their contract
terminated. No, better still, they
should give up trying to make ads as they are clearly useless. It is an advert for something called the
House of Bruar. No I don’t know what a
bruar is either. Apparently it lives in
a house. Oh, it’s a place is it? Actually it is just a fancy shop selling
(expensive) country clothing, (expensive) food and all manner of (expensive)
things. A reviewer put on line that…
‘This is the most amazing place for Scottish tat’. I’d agree with that but would add the word ‘expensive’
before the word ‘Scottish’.
Any road up…The
advert. It begins with a husband and
wife getting into a rather posh car; a Range Rover, no less. It turns out this is Mr and Mrs Gareth
Edwards. Yes, the Gareth Edwards; Wales’ most famous-ever rugby player. Gareth drives and his wife is in the passenger
seat. As they are motoring along she is
nagging him about his obsession with rugby and reminding him to stop at the House
of Bruar. I am assuming it is his wife,
it might just be an actress playing the part. Although the acting is so wooden,
it probably is his wife. Poor
Gareth. Not for being married to this
lady, just for being in this dreadful advert.
First problem about the whole ad is that even though this is Gareth
Edwards driving the car and his name gets a mention, you are not really made
aware that this is the case. It could be
just some rugby-daft Welsh man with an annoying wife. It is a long time since Gareth was on our
screens and his hair was a different colour then; you would be hard-pushed to
recognise him. Anyway, the picture cuts
to an outside shot of the car, then back to the interior which shows the wife now
sleeping. We then have an outside shot
and see the said (expensive) shop as the car speeds by it. Cut back to car interior with the wife waking
suddenly. We then have an outside shot
of the car screeching to a halt. Cut to
another scene of the car driving into the car park with this voiceover…
‘As Gareth
Edwards is to Wales, the House of Bruar is to Scotland.’
What does that
fn mean? How can you possibly compare a
famous Welsh rugby player to a shop? I
don’t recall any Scots rugby player called House of Bruar. The whole advert is just utterly, utterly
senseless. You could use that line for
any ad… As Gareth Edwards is to Wales, black pudding is to England. As Gareth Edwards is to Wales, the Palace of Versailles is to France. They don’t make any more or less sense than
this awful advert.
Even more
senseless is the fact that the ad shows the car screeching to a halt followed
by it entering the House of Bruar car park.
Why? Because the House of Bruar
is on the notorious A9 road. One of the
busiest roads in the country, it is known as ‘Scotland’s deadliest road’ - over
a thousand accidents in five years resulting in 67 fatalities. A driver who performs a maneouvre like the
one shown in the advert would put lives at risk. That emergency stop, for a start… Do you see
what I did there?…would probably trigger a multiple car pile-up and, as the
road is single carriageway at this point, cars travelling in both directions
would be involved in the collision. And
the only way the car could have changed direction as it did was for Gareth to
have performed a very dangerous three-point turn. This is on a stretch of road where vehicles
are bombing along at 60 miles per hour (96 kph in new money), It would be
madness to even attempt such a maneouvre.
What were the ad agency thinking when they came up with this one?
The advert is,
at best, irresponsible, but far worse than that, it is dangerous in that it
encourages reckless driving. I just
cannot imagine how any commissioning editor accepted such a piece of shi… work
from the advertising agency involved.
But the worst thing of all? That Gareth Edwards has allowed himself to be utterly humiliated by being involved in what I would rate as the worst advert in a long time…even worse than Bertha’s caramel shop one. If you don't believe me, take a look at old Gareth for yourself.
Right, rant
over. Any birthdays today, the 8th
of November? Loads. Vlad the Impaler 1431 (prince with a very
warped sense of humour), Edmund Halley 1656 (inventor of rock and roll), Bram
Stoker (garlic salesman), Herbert Austin 1866 (car manufacturer whose car, the
7, was built by fledgeling companies such as BMW, Nissan and Jaguar. Whatever became of them, eh?), Margaret
Mitchell 1900 (authoress who ate nothing but beans), Christiaan Barnard 1922
(played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz), Ken Dodd 1927 (inventor of Scottish
measurement), Roy Wood 1946 (bet he wouldn’t), Minnie Riperton 1947 (Minnie
Mouse clone), Richard Curtis 1956 (man who gave Hugh Grant a career), Leif
Garrett 1961 (man who was made for dancing), Gordon Ramsay 1966 (man who is a bully),
Joe Cole 1981 (footy bloke) and Jack Osbourne 1985 (Ozzy’s lad).
Anything good
for gramblerising there? What about
Leif’s I was made for grambling. No, I
think we will go with Miss Riperton’s Grambling you…
Grambling you is easy 'cause you're beautiful,
And grambling with you is all I wanna do.
Grambling you is more then just a dream come true,
And everything that I do, is out of grambling you.
And grambling with you is all I wanna do.
Grambling you is more then just a dream come true,
And everything that I do, is out of grambling you.
All together now…
La la la la la, la la la la la, la la la la la etc. etc.
Let’s move on, shall
we? How did The Grambler’s predictions
fare last week. Very well. Four out of five went as predicted which
resulted in our best return for a long time.
For our £2.20 stake we got a return of £5.36 which means we actually
won…
£3.16
It means that our
deficit for the season isn’t as bad as it was and, if we repeat this result a
couple of times, we might be in profit again soon. So which match let us down? Read on…
Hull vs Southampton – Prediction Away win
Result – Hull 0 Southampton 1
Yay!
Victor
Wanyama's superb chip was enough to extend Southampton 's stunning start to the Premier
League season and keep the pressure on leaders Chelsea.
The Kenyan midfielder capitalised on a poor clearance
from third-choice Hull keeper Eldin Jakupovic after only three minutes.
Victory was Saints' seventh in eight league games and
kept Chelsea 's lead at the top to four points.
"The team hesh incredible shpirit and very good
embition. Thet makes it an eashy job.
"We hed a lot of changesh [in the summer] but we
brought good playersh in and they are adepting very fesht. I em proud of thet
becaushe thet meansh a lot for the coach." Suffolk last week, Dutch this week… Is there
no accent I can’t do? [Yes, Suffolk and Dutch. – Ed.]
Result – Cardiff
3 Leeds
1
Yay! Again
Cardiff City earned a fourth
successive Championship home victory and their third under manager Russell
Slade with a convincing win over troubled Leeds United
Bruno Manga made the big
breakthrough for Cardiff, guiding a header into the corner from 15 yards after
61 minutes before Federico Macheda and substitute Kenwyne Jones sealed the win
either side of a goal from Alex Mowatt.
The opener came after Leeds had
cleared a corner, but Craig Noone lifted the ball back in and Sean Morrison was
strong as he beat two Leeds players in the air and headed across goal. Manga
was in position to steer the ball home.
Macheda made it 2-0 just six
minutes later when he went for goal from 20 yards. The ball struck a defender,
bounced down into the ground and up over the keeper into goal.
That was Macheda’s third goal in
the last four games and he went off soon after with Jones, fit again after a
foot injury, taking over.
Mowatt gave Leeds hope on 78
minutes, but Jones wrapped up the points when he chased through and won
possession from goalkeeper Marco Silvestri to slot home into the empty net.
Federico Macheda auditions for
the next series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Bournemouth vs Brighton – Prediction Home win
Strictly speaking, this match
should not have been selected as it had a 5.15 kick off. Now, you know the rules Grambler – all games
should be selected from those that have a 3 o’clock kick off. However, on this occasion, I will turn a
blind eye because…
Result – Bournemouth 3 Brighton 2
Ya beauty!
Yann Kermorgant’s 76th minute
penalty ensured the Cherries made it six consecutive wins in all competitions
with another three points at the Goldsands Stadium.
A Gordon Greer own goal gave the home side the lead, only for Adrian Colunga to equaliser three minutes later.
Marc Pugh put the Cherries in front once again with a well-taken half-volley just before half-time, but the Seagulls fought back with Sam Baldock making it 2-2.
Kermorgant [That’s a sea bird, isn’t it? – Ed.] then came off the bench to convert from 12 yards out to conclude an entertaining encounter.
A Gordon Greer own goal gave the home side the lead, only for Adrian Colunga to equaliser three minutes later.
Marc Pugh put the Cherries in front once again with a well-taken half-volley just before half-time, but the Seagulls fought back with Sam Baldock making it 2-2.
Kermorgant [That’s a sea bird, isn’t it? – Ed.] then came off the bench to convert from 12 yards out to conclude an entertaining encounter.
Sheffield United vs Barnsley – Prediction Home win
Result – Sheffield United 0 Barnsley 1
Damn!
The home side went close to scoring after only eight
minutes when Craig Alcock's header was scrambled off the line by Tykes keeper
Ross Turnbull.
Sam Winnall sent an effort over and had a shot
deflected wide before getting the winner after 56 minutes.
The Barnsley striker met a James Bailey corner and scored with a firm
header.
Oxford United vs Wycombe – Prediction Away win
Result – Oxford United 1 Wycombe 2
Woo hoo!!!
Peter
Murphy's third goal in as many games sunk local rivals Oxford United as Wycombe
went top of League Two.
Danny Hylton, having already come close once, scored a
first-half penalty for the U's after Joe Jacobson's foul.
But the introduction of debutant Hogan Ephraim after
the break lifted the visitors and his cross fell to Paul Hayes, who struck the
equaliser.
Murphy headed in Josh Scowen's cross for Wycombe's
second, and they survived a scare as Hylton missed a penalty.
The striker hit his late spot-kick way over the bar
and into the car park. That is some
miss, but I know why he did it. He must
have read thegrambler.com and thought, ‘I can’t possibly score this, it’d mess
up The Grambler’s predictions. I know,
I’ll do my best David Beckham impression.’
Thanks Danny.
Okay that was a no’ bad week for The Grambler; can we
equal or even improve on it this week?
[Doubt it. – Ed.] Let’s have a
look what he/she/it has come up with this week…
Game – Result – Odds
Peterhead vs Dunfermline
– Prediction Away win – 21/20
Arbroath vs Queen’s
Park – Prediction Home win – 4/6
Now, before you ask why there are three Scottish games
and only two English, remember The Grambler’s selections are random and it just
so happens there are only 14 games in the English senior leagues and 17 in the
Scottish leagues. So only 31 games that
The Grambler had at his/her/its disposal.
The main reason for so few games to choose from is that this is the
first round of the FA Cup weekend. Another
reason is that there are 10 games on at various times over the weekend rather
than the traditional (and correct) time of 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon thanks to
the telly companies. Any road up, how
much will be winging its way to the Bobby Moore Fund via The Grambler’s Kick
Cancer’s Backside Fund if all results go our way?
The rather substantial amount of…
£19.51
That is pretty substantial, I am sure you will
agree. Will it happen? Hey, let’s be positive here. Of course it will…yeah…definitely…maybe.
What about an answer to last week’s teaser do I hear
you ask? Of course I don’t, I am not
with you. I’ll tell you anyway, just in
case I got that right and you do indeed want to know.
Last week I asked you which club had been relegated
from the Premiershit the most times. The
answer is Crystal Palace who have dropped out on four
occasions – 1992-93, 1994-95, 1997-98 and 2004-05.
This week’s teaser now. The
Scottish Football League was founded in 1890 with 10 teams. Only five remain in senior leagues. Can you name them? Even better, can you name the five who were
voted out at various times? If you know
the answer to that without having a quick googlie, well done.
And finally, Cyril. And finally Esther, if you recall last week’s
edition of thegrambler.com made reference to tribute acts in which it was
suggested that orchestras were just tribute acts because they performed the
music of composers who were too dead to perform it themselves. Well, here is the ultimate orchestral tribute.
Happy grambling.
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