Argentina and South London's greatest goalkeeper

It is kind of fitting that with Argentina about to play in the World Cup final that Julian Speroni is celebrating 10 years as Palace's goalkeeper. Actually that is not quite accurate. It is 10 years since Speroni signed for Crystal Palace, a career book ended by very different experiences in the top flight.

In 2003/4 Palace under Dowie had been promoted via the playoffs. For reasons that now escape me Palace were without a first choice keeper and used a number of loan signings, with Nico Vassen doing the job in the play off final. Vassen had made enough of an impression on the supporters to even have his own song. Not complex it was his name sung to the tune of 'Lip up Fatty.' Agsin for  reasons that escape me Vassen didn't want to stick around and we signed the Argentinian from Dundee who wore a pony tail a la David Seaman. 

Speroni's start was pretty shocking where behind a newly promoted defence he made a series of blunders, most famously at home to an Everton side who were themselves struggling up to that point. For a keeper Speroni is small, and in a league where commanding you box matters lots he seemed a bit lightweight.Dowie lost confidence in him and the big charismatic and decidedly odd Gabor Kiraly was brought in. At this point JS disappears from view. I guess I expected him to slip away like so many of the other unimpressive post promotion signings. For two seasons after he hung around playing second fiddle to the increasingly annoying Kiraly and then Scott Flinders. 2007/8 everything changes. Starting the season as no 12 he makes 40odd first team appearances of growing assurance to go with the undoubted reflexes to become player of the year. When Palace went into one of their periods of administration he stayed loyal to further enhance his status as not only a great keeper but good human being. The ultimate reward, a return to the Premiership could have been a double edged sword. Like much of the team he struggled early on, and even when the saviour Pulis arrived the vultures were circling. A contract running out and the Christmas signing of Wayne Hennessey suggested that the future would not be his. But this time he didn't choke on the big stage, instead turned in some of his finest performance to keep Palace in games, and keep Hennessey on the bench. 

He has earned a new contract though in my heart of hearts it won't take much for Pulis to ease him to one side. It has been a wonderful but strange path he has trodden at Selhurst. How many 'big foreign signings' languish in thr reserves foe three years only to emerge to become an ever present talisman for the team for the next seven.

5 Iconic Climbs - Curmudgeonly Grumbling

Cyclosport have put out a perfectly cheery article about the Top 5 Iconic European Climbs. There are some nifty facts and cool photos and the whole thing is just fine. But I felt irritated by it, and had to spend a couple of moments thinking why. The selection is to behonest fair enough given that they are 'iconic, not 'greatest'. Alp d'Huez, check, Tourmalet, check, Ventoux, check. Whst about the a Giro? Oh go on Stelvio, check. A small voice for the corner of the room, 'What about the Vuelta?' Eyes roll, go on then stick in L'Angrilu to keep them quiet. My gripe is that like coming up with a list of 'most influential rock groups of all time' however you game it they always come up with the same answers. Normally these answers are based on a narrow time frame, and become true by repetition. Who is the greatest Opera singer? Maria Callas. Why? Because everyone says so.

The inclusion of Tourmalet and Ventoux are justifiable by their place in Tour history, and Alp d'Huez by its sheer ubiquitousness. Side note, leave the history to one side Alp d'Huez is not in the same league as Ventoux or Tourmalet. But why trot out the same old names again.  It is like having a literary blog telling us that Shakespeare was a great playwrite. Why not a list that can embrace climbs where the iconography comes from the era of the black and white photo? How about the Col'd Izoard there Coppi and Bartalli shared a brief truce and a bottle of water, or Puy de Dome where Anquetil and Poulidour fought, (almost literally) shoulder to shoulder. This Could throw up some unexpected new ideas for us amateurs, rather than another run through the already familiar.

World Cup of Equals

Germany and Argentina are familiar names in World Cup finals and the teams they beat in the semis are a huge part of the past. But this World Cup felt more equal. Plenty of heavy hitters fell hard, even those final two had difficult with the so called minnows. It us a globalised game, and it is my guess that this having both centralised club football has democratised the national game. World wide scouting brings the cream to Europe from a cross the globe to be trained and groomed with the best their is. Their clubs dominate the world. But then the winds of nationhood scatter then back across the world. There are no far off talents of which we know little or nieve triers now. Everyone knows the game.
But the works to harm those mighty nations whose club sides bestride the globe. Italy, England and Spain. All gone in the first round. Maybe the secret of international success is to have a weak home league and let your best players fly away to make there living the hard way in foreign countries that care little for them beyond their talent.

Froome and Team Sky's plan B

Having been rather scornful of the value of a plan B Team Sky, like Omega Pharma Quickstep are faced with coming up with one inside the first week. Both Teams left out supposedly superfluous heavy hitters. How much would Omega have loved to have Boonan on the start line today now that Cav is gone? But Sky's omission of Wiggins will capture the headlines, in Britain at least, now that Froome has gone. On the steps of the Team bus  Brailsford looked less than convinced talking up Porte as a realistic substitute team leader. With a following wind he is a fine rider but its hard to imagine that tonight Nibali and Contador are not quietly relieved.

However, given his clear form just how bad must Wiggins be as a team mate that it was safest to leave him out, especially given that he does have recent form on the cobbles. Its debate, that some if not all, will come out diminished. Either Brailsford has made a huge error of judgment, or there was something so toxic in Froome, Wiggins or both that made having them together impossible. 

Here is my guess. Froome is a self made man who resented playing second fiddle to Wiggo, who I suspect he does not really respect. Wiggo, a product of BC, happiest with the individual effort of the TT and pursuit, a man who appears emotionally vulnerable, needs a lot of support around him. My guess is that he has also cheesed off some of the more senior members of the squad, such as Thomas.  However he is more charismatic and popular with the public. Brailsford would have convinced himself that a team needs to be more than the sum of its parts, that a whole sans Wiggo was a better bet. He was wrong. Froome has been vulnerable to crashes in the Tour run in and has had his own health problems. With a stage on the Roubaix cobbles so early it was a huge gamble he did not have to make. Sky have made wrong moves before, but this is far more profound. It brings into question their fundamental strategy and people management. 

What it does mean is that the riders that remain should be liberated to do some harm on individual stages. The team slogging away to put Porte on the podium (a long shot) feels a drab choice, riding in the wheels of Bert and Nibbles. 

BRAGER - the sacking of football's utopia

One could sense shock and awe last night, not just on the faces of the Brazillian's but in the voices of the MoTD team. Hansen in particular seemed inconsolable, wallowing in the short coming of the host nation with a level of feeling he can't muster when Scotland once again fail to qualify. Resentful of Shearer's efforts to talk about how good Germany were, he was even more fixated than usual on what went wrong for the losers.

Last night football's utopia burned, a fantasy land where all that is good in the game still thrives was demolished. It is a place where the beautiful game is played, in the sunshine, watched by beautiful women in a simpler land. This is a wonderful contrast to our blunt soggy nations long balls and hooligans. While Brazil were winning world cups in the 50's and 60's I guess it must have been 1970 when they blazed into the a British psychie. Technicolor football in the first colour TV World Cup. Since then pundits have placed Brazil in a different place to all other teams. Despite their own World Cup pedigrees Italy and Germany come nowhere close. Last night Germany showed the world that Brazil were just another football team, a mediocre side save for the absent genius of Neymar. And that is what was so hard to swallow, that no Santa Claus moment for those grown up kids that still wanted to believe. Like the smell of tear gas told us that the Brazillian's are more complex than the depictions of a childlike nation suggest, this football collapse reminds us that know team has footballs holy grail forever.

But to be honest much of the worshipping of Brazil doesn't stand up to close examination. There have been brilliant Brazil Teams since1970 and some that were just very  good. While in tht Pele era their stars were rarely seen by European players or supporters, now they are just a part of the global football machine. Familiarity should be rendering wish fulfilment impossible. But we still want to believe there is a better place, just too far away to see clearly. Last night we learned it doesn't exist. 

Baby it's wet outside

When I got the email cancelling the Bec 25 yesterday I was thoroughly pissed off. An hour later seeing Cav scrape himself off the Tarmac and limp over the line did not improve my mood. I went to the garage to tinker with my bikes. With no TT I fettled my lovely Fest road bike for the club run this morning. The forecasts said it would be overcast but dry. I am sure the Yahoo weather app is moderated by a crazed optimist. I can hear the rain, I look through the blinds and can see the wet roads. Now, only now when confronted by this undenial truth the the app accept it is wet. But I won't let it lie, making more empty promises with its picture of a little sun peaking out from behind the cloud.

Get on with it man, its wet outside. Get over it.

Eels Albert Hall and another time and place

There was a strand of Americsn Rock that emerged in the post grunge 90's that would have passed many British observes by, half drowned as it was in the drab thud of Britpop. Sparklehorse, Silver Jews and most successful, Mark E's Eels produce a brand of subtle introspective music that was in many ways so far ahead of what was happening here. Like softly spoken geniuses in a bar full of beered up pole dancing fans they were easy to ignore. Eels first album was bursting with great slices of what Mark E describes a bummer rock. In 1997 I saw them in a tent at the Reading Festival. It was a tipping point year for me. The sun was shining a Palace side featuring Atillio Lombardo were beating Leeds away from home but the music that day felt dead. Bands like Travis, wannadies and The Cardigans confirming that if there had been a party the drinks cabinet was now very empty. Eels were my last big hope for the day.

Then a 3 piece Mark E seemed at odds with the experience from the start. A round peg making itself square just to piss off the hole. The songs were discordant, he was tetchy. Dumping the familiar arrangements of songs from the album they seemed to want to prevent the audience connecting. Novocain for the Soul was almost unrecognisable and to be honest pretty shit compared to the record. This was not a band playing badly, it was a band deliberately seeing to confound. After a long day of standing around drinking lager in plastic glasses I wanted the easy option. I didn't want to be challenged. Ending the day feeling let down by a band I loved came to fit in my nemory with the wider malaise that hung over the day.

Time passes and I end up with a pair of tickets to see Eels at the Albert Hall. Though I had continued to buy the albums, that day in 1997 remained the only time I had seen them live. I kind of guessed that so much time had passed that it bound to be very different, but I wasn't sure how. Based on the experience of 1997 to sound of the recorded work did not make me feel on safe ground. In many ways everything had change yet the core remained the same. E had adopted the raconteur style of  stoner Tom Waites. Self mockery and in jokes with the crowd tipping the wink that there was a smile behind the underbite scowl, at least some of the time. The band had grown and changed. The drummer with the tache and stretson, and the bass player with the comic deep voice had gone. They had probably been gone for 10 years if Ruth be known. But of an artist that has played so often with different persona and styles this set also revealed a very clear trajectory. At set that balanced the bummer with redemptions nod smiles. 'Line in the dirt' opens with 'she locked herself in the bathroom again, so I'm pissing in the yard' a deadpan take on flat lives that brings to mind writers like array mind Carver.

The 48 year old me tapping my foot in thr box in the grand tier wondered what the 18 year old me would have thought of this. But the sound was great, the view was great and it was easy to get a beer. The middle aged me was happy with that. There was a great set up. During the set E bemoans not being able to use the Hall's grand pipe organ. The set carried on through a series of encores, the highlight for he being a tender rendition of 'last stop this time.' When the band finally leaves the stage there was a sense there maybe more. Suddenly the backdrop falls away and E appears phantom of the opera style, manic stage laughter and all, an get to play a few brooding bars on what I guess must be one of the biggest musical instruments in the world, before slipping away once again.

It was a wonderful show from a band that still ploughs their own furrow, but have learnt to love putting on a show.