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2 days, 2 games. surely, if you care, you already know the outcome of this game. beware, spoilers ahead.

what a match. you just can’t say enough. packed house. chelsea looked like that same average team that lost to barcelona. they had opportunities, but never really seemed like they were going to get on the board. mcbride was dominating terry on most headers. after fulham’s goal, mourinho made a double substitution at 25 minutes. are you kidding? no. he pulled joe cole and swp for drogba and duff. probably because the fulham defense was eating their lunch. no bocanegra though, not even on the bench. i don’t know why. then he subbed huth at the half completely using all subs. i can’t wait to hear what mourinho has to say tonight on “match of the day”. it should be classic. you can read a match report elsewhere. easily, it was the best match so far. onto the pictures.

this is approaching craven cottage, the stadium, from bishop’s park. that’s the back of the putney stand where i was sitting.

this is the, oddly named, riverside stand from the outside. the river is the thames.

this is the stevenage road stand outside, also oddly named. this is where all the entrances are. a few things to note, the mobile krispy kreme vendors (sure i’m going to pay p2.50 for 2 not even hot off the grease donuts?), mobile coca-cola vendor and that same religious nut with the megaphone (man she gets around). it was a little dissapointing that they didn’t have the same street vendor atmosphere like arsenal and west ham. i may not be able to support fulham.

this is a shot of the field from my seat. riverside stand to the left, stevenage road to the right. the far stand is the hammersmith. the warning sign on the field reads, “beware flying footballs”.

this is craven cottage, where the stadium name comes from, from inside the stadium. i believe it and the riverside and stevenage road stands are the original structures. you can even eat there or something. i think the 2 behind the goal stands were added as the expansion. the stadium only holds around 20,000. it’s a very cool stadium and one of fulham’s best features. too bad if they get big they’d have to tear it down or move. there was apparently an attempt to figure out how to build a new stadium to replace it, but it’s blocked by bishop’s park, the thames, and a neighborhood. no real room to expand.

rosenior: “man is swp short.”

i think john terry might have a thing for mcbride.

the goal celebration.

poor lamps, down a goal at half time.

maybe this’ll cheer him up. it’s the sw6es, the dance team. what are those girls doing? i think billy the badger might want to join in.

there’s more pictures and some videos. it turns out that i only took video of the celebrating after the game. a fair number of fulham fans ran out onto the pitch and taunting the chelsea fans. some chelsea fans started coming out onto the field and there were a few minor scuffles, but the police seemed to get it in check before anything major errupted.

what a fantastic day. i’m 3-0 for the homeside.

randomness

on the way to the match in the tube station some guy punched one of those posters of george bush that i posted the other day. i think he may have been french. i couldn’t really hear him talking very well.

it looks like i’m locked in for the apartment starting the 27th. i’m supposed to go tomorrow to meet them and give some sort of deposit. the other good news is that i found somewhere to stay until then. it’s a holiday rental studio apartment (i think it’s small, but has to be bigger than my current room). it’s supposed to be right in the middle of stratford-upon-avon. i just have to figure out how to get there. hopefully, there’s a train. maybe i’ll go ahead and try and buy a ticket tonight. hopefully, it will be nice and relaxing for 6 days. the pictures definitely look good. i needed a nice romantic getaway. it would appear that the only bed may be a sofa bed. although, it’s claimed to be “state of the art”. i wasn’t aware that making sofa beds was an art? the one thing i don’t know is if i’ll have any internet access once i get there. surely there’ll at least be a coffee shop or something. i guess i’ll have to go visit the birthplace of that hack. what was his name?

see, if you have patients, everything just seems to fall into place. let that be a lesson boys and girls.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 19th, 2006 at 20:53 and is filed under eurotrip-2006, football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.