Television shops, rugby league, small town mentality and a great win!

[Canterbury Blade]

Living in a small town in Kent means my Sky options are limited to 4 pubs when the magnificent Blades feature. This weekend I walked around 3 of those options and they were all showing England play rugby league. Rugby League watchers in feckin Kent !! This small town mentality, without the identify provided by supporting a local football team, seemingly leads to an unnatural development of support for al things National, even if the viewers don't know the rules. Lesson leant not to assume the magnificent
Blades and my priorities are the same as those in small town Southern England.

This wander through the city centre whilst the first half had kicked off did however lead to a lament for the TV rental shops that once lined our High Streets, The TV rental shops that I remember as a younger man heading to at 445, usually on The Moor or Fargate, in order to to catch the final scores. This was a bit of a ritual for many, killed off by mobile phones, cheap tellies and indeed the price of Sky. Simple things often provide the best memories.

Simple things like finding that the 4th pub was showing the Blades and that Oakham Citra was the guest beer. Equally, simple things like watching United's superb second half performance in a match that I attended two years ago where I was left almost speechless at the fact we had signed Michael Higdon. We have come a very long way in two long years...

UTB

 

[Groucho Blade]

Canterbury...a small town??? Luxury. You should try living in East Peckham...

 

[Esablade]

Town!??? You were lucky...

We used to dream of living in't town...

 

[GreasyChipBeattie]

Or the smell of freshly printed 'Green-uns' as the delivery driver lobbed them on the counter and the shopkeeper started dishing out the pre-paid ones before bundling them into the newspaper boy's bag to do his deliveries......great times!!

 

[pommpey]

I recall trying to find a solitary pub in Gosport which was showing Pigs vs Blades on some daft subscription only channel a few years ago. The only one was a shitty old big pub over in the restricted zone of Elson. My mate and I (and his son) donned our Hazmat suits, Kevlar and UN Peacekeeping helmets and drove over there, parking the Humvee out the back. The landlord was a decent bloke and rebuffed groups of primates who came in, looked at the tiny telly up on the wall and declared, "Faaaacken ew! Woss did nowveern mahnkey shit on? Ay?" I tried to expalin to them that as much as they sit between two warring Hampshire factions of red and blue, back in my homeland there is a similar tribal dispute, and this is the much anticipated outcome.

Fucking musher cunts.

pommpey

 

[GVBlade]

Down here in Herefordshire there's a pub called The Monument that can always be relied upon to show games. They have about 10 screens around the pub, and can show more than one thing, so as I did on Sunday I can wander in and sit there in a corner of the pub on my own like Billy No Mates quietly cheering on The Blades while all the other screens have something else on like the fecking build up to the Formula One!

 

[blade too long]

first time Ive seen the blades connected to Wigfalls in a thread

have a like

 

[Deleted member 875]

Years ago when i spent the summer working in Looe, i went to the local pub to watch United v Wednesday live on Sky, got it all squared with the landlord the day before, i was one of better, more frequent customers. Sat down and watched the first half. At half time a couple of cockney wanker Liverpool supporters came in, demanding the telly was turned over so they could watch the build up to Villa v Liverpool.

Having an all singing, all dancing superior Iphone means that I'm pretty much able to keep up with scores and news more or less most of the apart from when I'm driving at work, and in a way i do miss the old days of standing outside television shops waiting for the scores, miss getting a copy of the Green Un so i can and scrutinise the scores and the league table, and teletext as well. Page 302 for the Football, Page 312 for news in brief and all the little snippets of breaking news. Pages 323-325 for the League Tables.

 

[Grappler]

Years ago when i spent the summer working in Looe, i went to the local pub to watch United v Wednesday live on Sky, got it all squared with the landlord the day before, i was one of better, more frequent customers. Sat down and watched the first half. At half time a couple of cockney wanker Liverpool supporters came in, demanding the telly was turned over so they could watch the build up to Villa v Liverpool.

Having an all singing, all dancing superior Iphone means that I'm pretty much able to keep up with scores and news more or less most of the apart from when I'm driving at work, and in a way i do miss the old days of standing outside television shops waiting for the scores, miss getting a copy of the Green Un so i can and scrutinise the scores and the league table, and teletext as well. Page 302 for the Football, Page 312 for news in brief and all the little snippets of breaking news. Pages 323-325 for the League Tables.

Surely the correct response would have been to explain to these gentlemen that you were from Sheffield, a Sheffield United fan, and then explain to them in no uncertain terms that changing the TV channel would leave you no option but to escort them outside the premises where you would engage in fisticuffs?

The phone bit is incredible isn't it? I was in Los Angeles in June 2007 when the iPhone first went on sale. A bloke I know (English lad who lived in the USA) had just got one and was showing it me over a beer. 9 years ago and it just seems like yesterday (time goes by faster, the older you get!), and now we can do just about anything with a phone, from paying bills to remotely controlling the temperature of your radiators so the house will be warm when you walk in. As for face time, Skype, etc., well they had "video phones" on Thunderbirds, back in the 60's, but no one ever thought they would become reality!

UTB.

 

[Treeton Blade]

Canterbury...a small town??? Luxury. You should try living in East Peckham...

East Peckham, luxury.

This is where I grew up on Wincobank hill, just off the roman ridge.

 

[Groucho Blade]

Bizarrely, I also used to live on Standon Road at Wincobank...during the Basset era. Happy days.

Worked with a load of Wendies who used to give it large about how they were always gonna thrash us. It never happened and I could never find them afterwards to discuss it with them.