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Blues v Nancy Pre-season Friendly - 1-1

We started as I expect us to start against Colchester



Sadler ran his nads off. Him and Dunn look good on the left. Had to laugh at the idiot who told Dunn to "get stuck in". Ignore Dunn's injury history, the fact it's a friendly and that the ball was 8 yards from him and 1 from a Nancy player, and the bloke might have had a point.

Overall we looked a bit rusty but that's just a comment, not a concern. Nancy pass the ball well and have some good players. Number 26 on the left looked promising. blues played some good stuff with the ball but struggled to win it back. Both Dunn and Nafti made some poor passes to give away possesion in the wrong 1/3 rd of the park. Danns got forward a lot more and hinted at his ability to run with the ball and to chase down what appear to be lost causes. Forse looked very comfortable and it was a typical Mighty Finn goal when he appeared to have run into 5 defenders, only for the ball to pop out of the melee and end up in the back of the net.

They say white guys can't jump, but that doesn't mean black guys can, judging on Jerome's attempts today. He seems to jump way too early, making easy to defend against. On the plus side, Bruce might tell our players not to lump it to his head. Jerome is a good player but I can see him splitting Blues fans' opinions in the same way Heskey and Morrison did.

DJ and Nafti got on with things, as did Kelly who didn't see too much of the ball today.

Central Defense looked creaky. N'Gotty is a couple of weeks behind in fitness and Tebs has only just returned. I can't see too many CCC teams being level with Nancy so perhaps we've got some time to sort out the back line.

The second half was pedestrian so it's hard to judge the subs - DJC, Kilkenny, Gray and Bruce. Some twats decided to boo when Gray came on. Nice touch guys. DJC used his pace and was unlucky to have his best moment ruined by a shirt tug which went unnoticed by the ref.
posted by kwacky at 5:58 pm

 

Beirut stands on the site of a very ancient settlement going back at least 5,000 years. Its name appeared in cuneiform inscriptions as early as the 14th century B.C.
In the first century B.C., Berytus, as it was then called, became a Roman Colony and under Roman rule was the seat of a famous Law school which continued into the Byzantine era.
But the power and the glory of Berytus were destroyed by a triple catastrophe of earthquake, tidal wave and fire in 551 A.D. In the following century Arab Muslim forces took the city and in 1110 it fell into the Crusaders. Beirut remained in Crusader hands until 1291 when it was conquered by the Mamlukes. Ottoman rule began in 1516, continuing for 400 years later until the defeat of the Turks in World War I.
The French Mandate Period followed and in 1943 Lebanon gained its independence.

Reconstruction

The 1.8 million-square-meter reconstruction project for Beirut's Central District includes hotels, office space and residential areas. But not all the buildings will be new. Some 256 structures were restored by 1998, plus historic mosques
and churches. Beirut's souks or markets were reconstructed in the traditional
style by 1999. Solidere, the private company who took on the challenge of the 25-year project, planned a modern infrastructure of roads utilities, public areas and marine works. More than half a million square meters of landfill provide land for two marinas, a seaside promenade and a green park.






posted by kwacky at 8:18 am

 












Israel has, with the full backing of the US and the silent support of the UK, continued to carry out attacks across Lebanon, targetting civilians, civil infrastructure and the economy of the Lebanese people. This has nothing to do with Hezbollah and everything to do with Israel flexing it's muscles. Nothing has been said about the 2 missing soldiers who are supposed to have been kidnapped, the event which triggered this display of force. Even one of the soldier's father is amazed that his son's capture has been used as an excuse. Kidnappings happen all of the time.

The US drag their feet when it comes to diplomacy but expedite a delivery of bunker busting bombs. They hand out $2m in aid to the Lebanon but continue to sell arms and fund the Israeli offensive.

Thos bombs supplied by the US were no doubt used against UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon who contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them. The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling. The silence from the West on the issue speaks volumes.

German newspapers on Wednesday aired a number of arguments for and against sending German soldiers to the Middle East, with the "burden of history" looming large.

"History is the past, but the history of the Holocaust belongs to the German present," said the Frankfurter Rundschau.

No German soldier should, even theoretically, "be brought into a situation where he has to aim his weapon at an Israeli", it added.

The Suddeutsche Zeitung said it was "astonishing" that politicians were discussing the idea, while Austria's Der Standard said it was "unthinkable" that the grandchildren of Holocaust perpetrators might find themselves shooting at the grandchildren of victims.

So Israelis are allowed to adopt the tactics of 1930 Nazi Germany but Germany has to be ashamed for wanting to restore some semblence of order in the region? We shouldn't forget the slaughter of countless innocents at the hands of the 3rd Reich's henchmen but let's not allow Israel to continue to use history as an excuse to slaughter civilians in their thousand and reduce a recently rebuilt country to rubble.



posted by kwacky at 6:45 pm