Calm your mind

The premiership finally got under way and it was extremely satisfying to see Manchester City get well and truly stuffed. They are much more likely to go down than us, in my hapless opinion. Tomorrow is D day for us and I am getting somewhat excited by the prospect. Everyone has written us off but I think we prove to be solid and dependable, if unexciting. It is well within our reach to survive, although I would like to see us aim higher. Teams in France, Spain and Italy have shown in recent years that there is no need to be overly deferential to your supposed betters; with the will, the organisation , talent and luck you can go far. Our owner paid himself a salary of £7 million last year and his co owners trouser similar amounts, so we are not short of resources. Our stadium is pretty poxy really but holds about 30,000 and our fans are as passionate as they come, we should not approach the enterprise timorously, I believe we are where we belong and we should go out and show the bastards we have finally come home and not be apologetic about it.
Its a bit of a pity in one way I suppose that we not only have to play the champions but we have to play them away as well. Nevertheless, it may be to our advantage. I remember 1972 when we were promoted after a similarly lenghty absence, (it was a better team I think) and something like 40,000 people poured into the ground, full of expectation and very confident of an easy win. We were well beaten by a fairly prosaic Sheffield United. As wake up calls go it was pretty loud and quite rude. It cast a pall over proceedings which took some time to get over. Tomorrow is likely to represent a steep learning curve and it might do us good to experience it away from home at a ground where we can realistically expect nothing. At the end of that season in 1972 we finished 10th, which is their highest placing in the 36 years I have been supporting them, so there will be no need of despair if we are stuffed.
A tenner says we we will win though.

The struggle continues . I don't really know what to say about this. I found it on metafilter and if you have delicate sensibilities you should give it a miss. It's about love, sort of.

I knew Ragamuffin would find something on John King. This interview from 1996 is about the best. So far.

A Telegraph article on Blues and West Brom. Clearly biased towards the baggies and with a blatant misrepresentation of the facts regarding shit on the Villa at the Millenium stadium, it's worth a look anyway.

More stuff on ours and our nieghbours prospects here.

This spellchecker is a handy little thingy; it recognises bugger.