Flairwatch
By Tom Stewart
I want to marry Gus Poyet. There, I’ve said it. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love that man. I want his babies, I want to make him his packed lunch, I want to go for long walks in the countryside, I’d buy that man a Unicorn- that’s how much I love him.
He’s just amazing isn’t he? I mean, I’m not sure I've ever been this happy supporting the Albion. We’re absolutely destroying everything in our path, it’s just too easy.
We’re INSANELY flair. We must be the most contiMental team outside the Premiership. The way we absolutely spray the ball around, forcing our opponents to chase shadows all game, I mean, EIGHTY per cent possession is just obscene. I’m convinced this is all some kind of erotic dream.
Comparison’s with Arsenal are rife, and it’s clear to see why. We both have intelligent foreign managers who like things done their own way (note Poyet’s ambition to get our youth team playing in an equally flair manner), both Wenger and Poyet like to protect their own players in the media and both love foreign players.
Poyet’s love of foreign players is really pleasing me. Especially as some of them are actually quite good. Calderon is definitely my favourite (I’d like to proudly reveal that it was I who invented the nickname “the matador”). Watching his long flowing locks rampaging up and down the right flank is simply a joy to behold. Also, has anyone else noticed how all opposing fans seem to absolutely despise him? It’s amazing how much he appears to wind up everyone, a definite flair attribute. My favourite thing about him is that he ALWAYS seems to be seen out and about with our two Argentinians, like he’s their Dad or something. Baz and Battipiedi are really exciting me lately. When they were signed I had hopes for both of them, and they’re both showing signs of being pretty darn good players, as they gradually adapt to the English game.
One thing that is worrying me slightly, however, and I do apologise for possibly putting a dampener on our euphoria, is the thought of our flairtastic passing game getting ruined by horrible League 1 winter pitches. Our style of play should be gracing the finest arenas known to man, not getting bogged down at some northern hell hole. It might not be an issue at all, as Gus is a clever man and a brilliant tactician, and he always seems to have a decent plan b, I just think it’s a shame that our superior style of football will ultimately suffer. Also, there’s the possibility that some of our flairniac players won’t like the winter. Memories of Paul Brooker are flooding back to me. That man was absolutely useless every winter, almost without fail, but put him on a decent pitch in the summer, and he’d run rings around full backs. It was like two completley different players. Could Kaz be the new Brooker?
Anyway, that’s all for me this month, take care disciples.
Friday 26 November 2010
belated tslr articles- oct
Flairwatch
By Tom Stewart
Hello fans, a busy month has been had by all down here at flair towers HQ.
I’m sure you’re all as excited as I am about the Gus Bus being on an inevitable path of destruction towards the Championship. Wait, no, not the Championship, the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!
HOWEVER, i do have several complaints.
As a connoisseur of flair, I would like to remind you all what actually constitutes flair.
-Preferably foreign (Federico Turienzo)
-Possible underachievement of some sort (ie Lee Hendrie)
-Alternative career of interest (Stephen Bywater- Cage fighter/erotic artist)
-Drug/Alcohol/Sex/General Scandal (Roman Bednar)
It is point two that i take issue with. In my mind, Gus just isn’t doing enough to help us underachieve. What’s all this top of the league, playing great football nonsense?! In my mind he has sold out on his flair values and has betrayed flairniacs everywhere.
True flairniacs, or “Original” Flairniacs as they’re known, don’t demand success on the pitch, all they crave is flair players, in white boots, alice bands who underachieve. The flairest team of all time, in my view, is Kevin Keegans 1995-96 Newcastle side. This was a team who paid little to no attention to defence whatsoever. They had the ultimate choice of goalkeeper- Pavel Srnicek or Shaka Hislop. They had Phillipe Albert. They had Peter Beardsley. They had Faustino Asprilla, and of course, They had David Ginola.
However, this team would’ve been nothing in the flair world were it not for the complete capitulation that they managed to pull off. I’m not sure anyone has collapsed in such style. The Toon were 12 points clear at the top of the table, before a dramatic loss of form saw them lose out on the title on the last game of the season. During this time, Keegan completely lost the plot, refusing to strengthen they obviously weak defence and instead splashing out on erratic striker Asprilla.
Not only was this a collapse of epic proportions, it also raised expectation levels on Tyneside to monumental proportions, meaning that no manager has ever been able to match Keegan’s accomplishments. Newcastle do, however, consistently perform in the race for the flair title.
An example of a club selling out on it’s flair ethics is, and this has a link to Gus, Chelsea.
In the late 90’s/early 00’s, Chelsea were a cosmopolitan, swashbuckling flair unit. The likes of Poyet, Gianfranco Zola, Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo, Jody Morris, Frank The Beef, Marcel, Ed De Gohjakhkjfaknfanf and of course, Tore Andre Flo lit up Stamford Bridge with a combination of beautiful football and regular defeats to rubbish teams. This was fine, they were cool, they were sexy, they were fabulous. But something went wrong somewhere along the line. Almost overnight Chelsea, under the management of an uber-flair boss, turned into an efficient, well oiled, negative victory machine. Sound familiar? They quickly became the most hated team in the land as they swept aside all before them. My only hope is that the same doesn’t happen to us. I want us to be admired, but in a sympathetic flair way (think Arsenal), not feared and loathed.
Anyway, thank you for reading my words of Wisdom
Your Eternal Leader,
Tom Stewart
By Tom Stewart
Hello fans, a busy month has been had by all down here at flair towers HQ.
I’m sure you’re all as excited as I am about the Gus Bus being on an inevitable path of destruction towards the Championship. Wait, no, not the Championship, the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!
HOWEVER, i do have several complaints.
As a connoisseur of flair, I would like to remind you all what actually constitutes flair.
-Preferably foreign (Federico Turienzo)
-Possible underachievement of some sort (ie Lee Hendrie)
-Alternative career of interest (Stephen Bywater- Cage fighter/erotic artist)
-Drug/Alcohol/Sex/General Scandal (Roman Bednar)
It is point two that i take issue with. In my mind, Gus just isn’t doing enough to help us underachieve. What’s all this top of the league, playing great football nonsense?! In my mind he has sold out on his flair values and has betrayed flairniacs everywhere.
True flairniacs, or “Original” Flairniacs as they’re known, don’t demand success on the pitch, all they crave is flair players, in white boots, alice bands who underachieve. The flairest team of all time, in my view, is Kevin Keegans 1995-96 Newcastle side. This was a team who paid little to no attention to defence whatsoever. They had the ultimate choice of goalkeeper- Pavel Srnicek or Shaka Hislop. They had Phillipe Albert. They had Peter Beardsley. They had Faustino Asprilla, and of course, They had David Ginola.
However, this team would’ve been nothing in the flair world were it not for the complete capitulation that they managed to pull off. I’m not sure anyone has collapsed in such style. The Toon were 12 points clear at the top of the table, before a dramatic loss of form saw them lose out on the title on the last game of the season. During this time, Keegan completely lost the plot, refusing to strengthen they obviously weak defence and instead splashing out on erratic striker Asprilla.
Not only was this a collapse of epic proportions, it also raised expectation levels on Tyneside to monumental proportions, meaning that no manager has ever been able to match Keegan’s accomplishments. Newcastle do, however, consistently perform in the race for the flair title.
An example of a club selling out on it’s flair ethics is, and this has a link to Gus, Chelsea.
In the late 90’s/early 00’s, Chelsea were a cosmopolitan, swashbuckling flair unit. The likes of Poyet, Gianfranco Zola, Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo, Jody Morris, Frank The Beef, Marcel, Ed De Gohjakhkjfaknfanf and of course, Tore Andre Flo lit up Stamford Bridge with a combination of beautiful football and regular defeats to rubbish teams. This was fine, they were cool, they were sexy, they were fabulous. But something went wrong somewhere along the line. Almost overnight Chelsea, under the management of an uber-flair boss, turned into an efficient, well oiled, negative victory machine. Sound familiar? They quickly became the most hated team in the land as they swept aside all before them. My only hope is that the same doesn’t happen to us. I want us to be admired, but in a sympathetic flair way (think Arsenal), not feared and loathed.
Anyway, thank you for reading my words of Wisdom
Your Eternal Leader,
Tom Stewart
belated tslr articles- sept
FLAIRWATCH
by tom stewart
Greetings disciples.
Anyway, what a few weeks it has been! Starting this season off with a barrage of ill discipline and schoolboy errors meant that our status as the flair kings of League 1 was looking to stay intact. Apart from that though, was anyone else a trifle bit disappointed with our progress on the flair signings? What on earth happened to Diego Camacho?! He fitted the bill perfectly. However, Gus, not one to disappoint whipped two beauties out of the bag. Kazenga LuaLua rejoins us on loan to pace the shit out of any right back unfortunate to get in his path and, best of all, all of my prayers have been answered, FINALLY a latino striker has joined!
Francisco Sandaza has got me all flustered, could he be the one to rid me of my lust for Federico? There was a time that I thought that no man could ever compare, could ever compete with my Fed. But I feel that Franco el Tanco could exorcise a few demons for me.
He’s made me go all nostalgic so I reckon it would be appropriate to unveil my WITHDEAN FLAIR ALLSTAR XI........(including opponents)
So, starting with the boss....well, this is a tough one so i’ve gone for a power share between Mark McGhee and Gus Poyet. These two fine gentleman have been responsible for bringing some of the Albions finest ever flair hero’s, without them, i’d be nothing and I owe my life to them.
So who would these two legends choose as their custodian? Well, they both like a foreigner, and they both like to pack as many ethnicity's into a roster as possible. So all time flair icon Michel Kuipers will start between the sticks, before being replaced by former Portsmouth ‘keeper Yoshi Kawaguchi at half time. Kawaguchi was an unused substitute against the Albion in a 1-1 draw, but watching him warm up was a dream come true.
So who’s playing infront of them? Former Plymouth stopper, Taribo West is an ideal candidate. As a 93-year old the Nigerian international made his Withdean bow in style and will captain this side. McGhee was a fan of playing players out of position, so Paul Ince, Sebastien Carole and Nick Ward will join West in defence.
Infront of them, who else but Steve Melton? He would operate as a continental style withdrawn playmaker, bossing the midfield and controlling the tempo. Stoke’s Peter Hoekstra shares the left midfield role with South Korean superstar “Seol” and Doudou, with each man playing 30 minutes each. Gary McAllister partners Melton in central midfield with Warren Aspinall rampaging up and down the right flank
“Yeah, that all sounds great Tom, but where are the goals coming from?” Well, Turienzo obviously starts upfront, but who to partner him with? Well, Mcghee and Poyet have gone for the extreme tactic of introducing a power sharing procedure, where 9 superstars will play 10 minutes each. These nine are Colin Kazim-Richards, Leroy Lita, Mark McGhee, Leon Knight, Dirk Lehmann, Georges Santos, Yakubu, James Beattie and Dave Beasant
So there we have it, perhaps the greatest line up the world has ever seen, or will see.
See you soon comrade, VIVA LA REVOLUCION!
by tom stewart
Greetings disciples.
Anyway, what a few weeks it has been! Starting this season off with a barrage of ill discipline and schoolboy errors meant that our status as the flair kings of League 1 was looking to stay intact. Apart from that though, was anyone else a trifle bit disappointed with our progress on the flair signings? What on earth happened to Diego Camacho?! He fitted the bill perfectly. However, Gus, not one to disappoint whipped two beauties out of the bag. Kazenga LuaLua rejoins us on loan to pace the shit out of any right back unfortunate to get in his path and, best of all, all of my prayers have been answered, FINALLY a latino striker has joined!
Francisco Sandaza has got me all flustered, could he be the one to rid me of my lust for Federico? There was a time that I thought that no man could ever compare, could ever compete with my Fed. But I feel that Franco el Tanco could exorcise a few demons for me.
He’s made me go all nostalgic so I reckon it would be appropriate to unveil my WITHDEAN FLAIR ALLSTAR XI........(including opponents)
So, starting with the boss....well, this is a tough one so i’ve gone for a power share between Mark McGhee and Gus Poyet. These two fine gentleman have been responsible for bringing some of the Albions finest ever flair hero’s, without them, i’d be nothing and I owe my life to them.
So who would these two legends choose as their custodian? Well, they both like a foreigner, and they both like to pack as many ethnicity's into a roster as possible. So all time flair icon Michel Kuipers will start between the sticks, before being replaced by former Portsmouth ‘keeper Yoshi Kawaguchi at half time. Kawaguchi was an unused substitute against the Albion in a 1-1 draw, but watching him warm up was a dream come true.
So who’s playing infront of them? Former Plymouth stopper, Taribo West is an ideal candidate. As a 93-year old the Nigerian international made his Withdean bow in style and will captain this side. McGhee was a fan of playing players out of position, so Paul Ince, Sebastien Carole and Nick Ward will join West in defence.
Infront of them, who else but Steve Melton? He would operate as a continental style withdrawn playmaker, bossing the midfield and controlling the tempo. Stoke’s Peter Hoekstra shares the left midfield role with South Korean superstar “Seol” and Doudou, with each man playing 30 minutes each. Gary McAllister partners Melton in central midfield with Warren Aspinall rampaging up and down the right flank
“Yeah, that all sounds great Tom, but where are the goals coming from?” Well, Turienzo obviously starts upfront, but who to partner him with? Well, Mcghee and Poyet have gone for the extreme tactic of introducing a power sharing procedure, where 9 superstars will play 10 minutes each. These nine are Colin Kazim-Richards, Leroy Lita, Mark McGhee, Leon Knight, Dirk Lehmann, Georges Santos, Yakubu, James Beattie and Dave Beasant
So there we have it, perhaps the greatest line up the world has ever seen, or will see.
See you soon comrade, VIVA LA REVOLUCION!
belated tslr articles- august
Flairwatch
by tom stewart
Greetings comrades, I hope you have enjoyed your summers and are raring to go for another 10 months of joy/agony as Gus Poyet’s Flair Orchestra destroy/get destroyed by League One.
Regardless of whether we live up to the lofty expectations and enable us to open Falmer, sorry, The American Express Community Stadium, with Championship football, there is no denying that we are going to be League One’s flair side, and for today’s Flairwatch I aim to examine, in true Donal McIntyre style, the reasons for this.
Let’s start at the very top- look at our ruddy ground! Withdean Stadium is clearly the flairest stadium in League 1. For a start it has SIX stands, five of which are temporary, Gok Wan would be proud of it due to it’s ability to “ACCESSORISE GIRLFRIEND” with a long jump pit, running track etc. and it’s next to a NATURE RESERVE. Whilst we might all hate it due to it being depressing, horrible etc., I for one carry a bizarre fondness for the place. Leaving it will feel a bit like a funeral of a close relative (perhaps Brother) who was a really horrible person (perhaps mass murderer). You’re obviously sad to see him/her go, but really you know it’s for the best.
Next on our list is our management team. No League 1 outfit can come close to matching us on this front (perhaps Exeter City actually). Having a Uruguayan/Argentinian manager/assistant puts us ahead straight away regardless of the individual personalities of the men. But Gus’ broad grin and chiseled jawline coupled with endless stereotypical South American gesticulating, and Tarrico’s coy little face with his flowing locks make them the ultimate flair management duo.
But a flair management team would be nothing without flair players, and boy, have we gone to town on this front. The signs were good last season with the likes of Calderon and LuaLua coming in, and Gus has not disappointed this summer. Never in my wildest, erotic dreams did I envisage so many nationalities at the Albion. We’ve got Eastern Europe sewn up with our Slovakian netminder and our mega-capped Bulgarian, plus not to mention our “Austrian” striker, Ashley Barnes. Latino stallions are represented by super icon Inigo Calderon’s return PLUS the insanely exciting arrival of not one, but TWO Argentinians. I have yet to see the duo in action, but i’m hoping that Battipiedi is a proper Argentinian central midfielder (ie. utter FILTH) and Baz is a flairmongous Latino winger, with an Arsenal of tricks and diving. We also have a Scotsman who looks like the Fonz and we’ve had several potential flair icons on trial, including a Norwegian Luke Chadwick tribute act.
With more signings possibly on the way, the future is looking bright on the flair front. Poyet has made it perfectly clear that he wants to win, but in style, which suits us perfectly fine, comrades.
by tom stewart
Greetings comrades, I hope you have enjoyed your summers and are raring to go for another 10 months of joy/agony as Gus Poyet’s Flair Orchestra destroy/get destroyed by League One.
Regardless of whether we live up to the lofty expectations and enable us to open Falmer, sorry, The American Express Community Stadium, with Championship football, there is no denying that we are going to be League One’s flair side, and for today’s Flairwatch I aim to examine, in true Donal McIntyre style, the reasons for this.
Let’s start at the very top- look at our ruddy ground! Withdean Stadium is clearly the flairest stadium in League 1. For a start it has SIX stands, five of which are temporary, Gok Wan would be proud of it due to it’s ability to “ACCESSORISE GIRLFRIEND” with a long jump pit, running track etc. and it’s next to a NATURE RESERVE. Whilst we might all hate it due to it being depressing, horrible etc., I for one carry a bizarre fondness for the place. Leaving it will feel a bit like a funeral of a close relative (perhaps Brother) who was a really horrible person (perhaps mass murderer). You’re obviously sad to see him/her go, but really you know it’s for the best.
Next on our list is our management team. No League 1 outfit can come close to matching us on this front (perhaps Exeter City actually). Having a Uruguayan/Argentinian manager/assistant puts us ahead straight away regardless of the individual personalities of the men. But Gus’ broad grin and chiseled jawline coupled with endless stereotypical South American gesticulating, and Tarrico’s coy little face with his flowing locks make them the ultimate flair management duo.
But a flair management team would be nothing without flair players, and boy, have we gone to town on this front. The signs were good last season with the likes of Calderon and LuaLua coming in, and Gus has not disappointed this summer. Never in my wildest, erotic dreams did I envisage so many nationalities at the Albion. We’ve got Eastern Europe sewn up with our Slovakian netminder and our mega-capped Bulgarian, plus not to mention our “Austrian” striker, Ashley Barnes. Latino stallions are represented by super icon Inigo Calderon’s return PLUS the insanely exciting arrival of not one, but TWO Argentinians. I have yet to see the duo in action, but i’m hoping that Battipiedi is a proper Argentinian central midfielder (ie. utter FILTH) and Baz is a flairmongous Latino winger, with an Arsenal of tricks and diving. We also have a Scotsman who looks like the Fonz and we’ve had several potential flair icons on trial, including a Norwegian Luke Chadwick tribute act.
With more signings possibly on the way, the future is looking bright on the flair front. Poyet has made it perfectly clear that he wants to win, but in style, which suits us perfectly fine, comrades.
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