Thursday, January 30, 2014

The man with two middle names.

Couldn't think of a suitable subject for this weeks blog, so I've decided to use the suggested theme this week of things that make me smile and / or things about me that most people don’t know. Trouble is, as any who has met me know I don’t smile a lot. It’s not that I'm an unhappy person, it’s just that I have one of those faces that doesn't smile.  I was at my nieces wedding reception many years ago and I was having a good time. Just sat there chilling out, people watching. I was approached by one of the other guests who told me to cheer up. I tried to explain that I was OK but she wasn't having any of it.  A photograph of me with a genuine smile is a rare thing. That's just me.

So what makes me smile and laugh. Well I do love comedy programmes, they are my favourite genera. I’ll quite happy to watch endless repeats of comedy show, even if I have seen them before. I do like and watch other programmes but never too much. I think I've said before about having a short attention span and getting bored easily with stuff. I can’t watch too much other stuff in a row, but I can watch endless repeats of Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

So, on to the section about me that most people don’t know. Well I'm sure through this blog I've released all sorts of information about me, but here goes.

I was born in 13 East Way, Bournemouth. I weighed over 13lbs at birth and I was nearly a month late.  My mum wanted to called me Darrin. My father wanted the name Oliver. Neither could agree. One evening my mum sat everyone down and went through a baby name book. All names were rejected (or used in the family before) until the they got to the name Peter. My sister said that she liked that name and it a fit of exhaustion my mum declared that it was decided. My name would be Peter Darrin Oliver.

One of my earliest memories was standing the class room on my first day of school crying my eyes out as I didn't want to be left there all day. Another parent was stood next to my mum and said that I could be friends with her son and we'll sit together and look after each other. His name was Gordon and we did become friends. We went all through school together, both primary, junior and senior school. At the age of 16 I went to college and he moved up north and we haven't seen or heard from each other since. I often wonder what happened to him.

My first crush was while I was at junior school. I watched the film Whistle Down the Wind. In it was a young girl named Hayley Mills. When the film was made, she would have been about the same age I was when I watched it. I thought at the time that she was the prettiest girl in the whole wide world. I now have a web page about her which needs updating big time. I did see her for the first time last year in a play in Guildford. 

Well there is a few things about me. Maybe if I'm stuck for a blog post topic in future I may reveal more about the man with two middle names. 

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Best fans in the world (part 2)

First of all I must print a correction to my last blog. AFC Bournemouth didn't beat Burton Albion in the last game of the last season to gain promotion to the Championship. But we beat them the last game of the season the year before to gain promotion from League 2 to League 1. Apologies for that.

It would appear that I wasn't the only one talking about the fund raising by Bournemouth supporters to pay for the away fans coach travel. The story has gain interest in the media.  Our local paper covered the story. They lap stuff like this up and are always on the look out for potential stories that will interest the readers and sell more papers.  But the BBC picked up the story and was on the BBC website. I believe a few national papers also ran the story. Even the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera interviewed someone from the Bournemouth Echo about the story.

Its amazing how this story went from local to international is such a short time. In my opinion it shows how much the media loves a good story and how hungry they are for them. One time the BBC invited comments from people on train travel and I sent it a (cheeky) comment about how us train spotters had been getting hassle. The BBC queried my comments and I told them about how I got kicked off the platform at St Pancras in London for train spotting. They ran the story. That afternoon I had phone call after phone call from various newspapers and radio stations. BBC Radio Scotland wanted me for interview the next morning on their breakfast show. About five minuets before I was due to go on air they called to say that they were not going to run my story as Paul McCartney had just announced that his then wife was expecting. Apparently that was a bigger story. 

The moral of the story is that it doesn't take much for a story to go ‘viral’ as they say these days and equally quickly for it to disappear again..


And in case you are wondering, the re-arranged match has been played. At half time some of the Burton fans did a circuit of the pitch carrying a banner thanking the Bournemouth supporters for their generosity.  We applauded them. It was football supporters getting together and I’m glad I witnessed it. It’s a pity that both teams couldn't progress to the next round. Both teams would have benefited greatly from the fourth round tie against some club called Liverpool. ITV thinks this will be a good match as they are going to show the match live. Looks like all media channels want a bit of AFC Bournemouth at the moment,  

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Thursday, January 09, 2014

Best fans in the world?

The FA Cup third round is an important day in many football calendars. In previous years I've dreamt that my team, AFC Bournemouth, would reach the third round and be drawn against a 'big' club. Usually we'd go out in rounds ones or two and so that big prize of a exciting third round tie would never be achieved. However 30 years ago we did reach the third round and did get a ‘top’ club, namely Manchester United. I was there to witness that game. Man U were the cup holders at the time and nobody gave little Bournemouth a chance. But even top teams have a bad day especially on the mud bath that was our pitch at the time. As the Mail on Sunday put in the next day 'The FA Cup, so hard fought for at Wembley last May was thrown away in the mud at Dean Court'. You see, Bournemouth won the match 2-0 and if you ever visit my place, I'll willingly show you the video of the match.  But reminiscing of something that happened 30 years ago isn't the main subject of this blog.

AFC Bournemouth won promotion to the second tier of English football for only the second time in our history last season. Being a championship side we now get a bye in the FA Cup straight to round three. Dreaming of a big tie we got drawn in round three against Burton Albion. A team we beat on the last day of the season last year to secure promotion to the Championship. The cup match should have been played last Saturday but you may have noticed that the weather hasn't been too good of late to say the least and an hour before kick off the ref called the game off.  Most of the Burton supporters would have already arrived in Bournemouth by this time and so what do you think was the reaction of the Bournemouth supporters? Point at the Burton fans and laugh. Tell them that they 'might as well go home' or other such banter that is dished out during the match on the terraces. Yes we are proud to be 'southerners southerners southern-eeeers' who are 'sea sea seasiders'. We live a lovely part of the country away from the 'northern slums'. By the way we consider 'The North' anywhere from Reading upwards!


Anyway back to our reaction to Burton. Well quite simply, we remember how good their stewards and fans treated us when we won promotion last year and this was a chance to thank them. An AFC Bournemouth fan set up a webpage to collect money to pay for coaches to bring the fans down for the rearranged match. They had already forked out money once, it would not be nice for them to have to do it again. Last I heard the webpage had received around £3000, more than enough to pay for all the fans coaches. Any surplus money will go to charity. The spirit  of being part of the football community has reached beyond this small clubs and the webpage received some donations from around the country and abroad. Football fans have long had a bad press but hopefully those days are behind us. For the moment I'm holding my head high and saying that I'm proud to be an AFC Bournemouth supporter because I'm amongst some of the best fans in the world. 

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