Owlish
New Member
Since it is more typically Texan, I'm 'borrowing' Petr's intro - apologies Petr!
As stated above, I am indeed from the Lone Star State - specifically Odessa, a small city in the western part of the state, near the 'square corner' New Mexico makes in west Texas. We're largely an oil and gas-based economy here - if there wasn't oil here, there would be very little. I'm a retired engineer who spent a career designing natural gas processing plants. I'm an odd fan of English football, as I've never actually been to an football match in England. We _do_ play a superficially similar game here we call soccer, but we don't in general tend to play it as much or as well as you do. We do have a few pretty good players that have played and are playing in your leagues, mostly because they are too good to play here.
One reason we don't produce that many good footballers is that we have a corruption of the game of Rugby that we call football* (almost all of you have heard of it, and many seen it) that tends to draw off young men that might be good footballers, as the colleges and universities award lavish scholarships to good young players and the professional leagues pay well for top-quality players. West Texas has a reputation for this sport rather than soccer - in fact, Odessa (and the high school I graduated from) is the source for the book (mostly true, with some opinion), the motion picture (somewhat less true, with quite a bit of 'Hollywood glossy' fiction) and the resulting television show (mostly gloss and fiction, with a minor base in truth) "Friday Night Lights", about Texas high school football* and its extremes.
But we do have some soccer here - there is a local team (West Texas Sockers - link: http://www.wtusockers.com/index.html) in the Professional Development League in Midland, 20 miles to the east. Despite the name of the league, this is actually a summer program for college and university players to get some additional experience and coaching with little player continuity from season to season. The local club is run by the local minor-league baseball team, with high school coaches (who are part-time coaches and full-time teachers at the high schools) and attendances in the 700 to 1200 per match (I have season tickets). They use the city's football* stadium, a very nice stadium, IMO (link: http://www.wtsockers.com/imgs/Football Photos 001.jpg) that seats 18,000 and is pretty empty for soccer games, but is filled a few times for football* games in the fall.
I happen to be a fan of the Reading Royals - an accidental fan and almost the classic definition of a 'plastic' - no ties to Reading, never been there but have the kit, etc - a true glory hound type (and you folks know Reading, so you recognize how silly that 'glory hound' part is - it would be ManCity for a glory hound!). Started following Reading FC by accident, found their forum Royals Rendezvous and enjoyed the fans there (not too fond of the HobNob site, but that's just me) and, over several years, became a Forum Assistant. While many football fans use the term 'plastic' as a derisive adjective, I prefer to think that I chose RFC from the rest, but everyone is entitled to their illusions.
In any case, there is far more than you likely wanted to know. I hope to provide some information for any fans planning to make the trip to Reading for the upcoming FA Cup match next weekend, but I know many of you will be very familiar with Reading and the stadium from the number of times the Royals and the Blades have met, especially recently (2002-06 and 2008-10 in the Championship and 2006-07 in the Premier League) and how close the two clubs tended to finish the season (next to each other in 6 of those 7 seasons!).
I ask permission to provide a link to our Match Day thread for our upcoming FA Cup match that contains some information on the stadium for those who might not be familiar with it, and the background information we post on Sheffield and the Blades. I'm not here to create a problem of any kind, but will drop in for a bit of banter and provide information (or get Reading locals to provide it to me to relay here), but I'd also like to invite any Blades fan to visit Royals Rendezvous - you can see most of the threads (including the Match thread, already up). Get a taste of our site, as I'll be sampling yours, and feel free to dive in as deep as suits you - the RR folks have tolerated this crazy Texan, so they are very flexible!
As stated above, I am indeed from the Lone Star State - specifically Odessa, a small city in the western part of the state, near the 'square corner' New Mexico makes in west Texas. We're largely an oil and gas-based economy here - if there wasn't oil here, there would be very little. I'm a retired engineer who spent a career designing natural gas processing plants. I'm an odd fan of English football, as I've never actually been to an football match in England. We _do_ play a superficially similar game here we call soccer, but we don't in general tend to play it as much or as well as you do. We do have a few pretty good players that have played and are playing in your leagues, mostly because they are too good to play here.
One reason we don't produce that many good footballers is that we have a corruption of the game of Rugby that we call football* (almost all of you have heard of it, and many seen it) that tends to draw off young men that might be good footballers, as the colleges and universities award lavish scholarships to good young players and the professional leagues pay well for top-quality players. West Texas has a reputation for this sport rather than soccer - in fact, Odessa (and the high school I graduated from) is the source for the book (mostly true, with some opinion), the motion picture (somewhat less true, with quite a bit of 'Hollywood glossy' fiction) and the resulting television show (mostly gloss and fiction, with a minor base in truth) "Friday Night Lights", about Texas high school football* and its extremes.
But we do have some soccer here - there is a local team (West Texas Sockers - link: http://www.wtusockers.com/index.html) in the Professional Development League in Midland, 20 miles to the east. Despite the name of the league, this is actually a summer program for college and university players to get some additional experience and coaching with little player continuity from season to season. The local club is run by the local minor-league baseball team, with high school coaches (who are part-time coaches and full-time teachers at the high schools) and attendances in the 700 to 1200 per match (I have season tickets). They use the city's football* stadium, a very nice stadium, IMO (link: http://www.wtsockers.com/imgs/Football Photos 001.jpg) that seats 18,000 and is pretty empty for soccer games, but is filled a few times for football* games in the fall.
I happen to be a fan of the Reading Royals - an accidental fan and almost the classic definition of a 'plastic' - no ties to Reading, never been there but have the kit, etc - a true glory hound type (and you folks know Reading, so you recognize how silly that 'glory hound' part is - it would be ManCity for a glory hound!). Started following Reading FC by accident, found their forum Royals Rendezvous and enjoyed the fans there (not too fond of the HobNob site, but that's just me) and, over several years, became a Forum Assistant. While many football fans use the term 'plastic' as a derisive adjective, I prefer to think that I chose RFC from the rest, but everyone is entitled to their illusions.
In any case, there is far more than you likely wanted to know. I hope to provide some information for any fans planning to make the trip to Reading for the upcoming FA Cup match next weekend, but I know many of you will be very familiar with Reading and the stadium from the number of times the Royals and the Blades have met, especially recently (2002-06 and 2008-10 in the Championship and 2006-07 in the Premier League) and how close the two clubs tended to finish the season (next to each other in 6 of those 7 seasons!).
I ask permission to provide a link to our Match Day thread for our upcoming FA Cup match that contains some information on the stadium for those who might not be familiar with it, and the background information we post on Sheffield and the Blades. I'm not here to create a problem of any kind, but will drop in for a bit of banter and provide information (or get Reading locals to provide it to me to relay here), but I'd also like to invite any Blades fan to visit Royals Rendezvous - you can see most of the threads (including the Match thread, already up). Get a taste of our site, as I'll be sampling yours, and feel free to dive in as deep as suits you - the RR folks have tolerated this crazy Texan, so they are very flexible!
