I Don't Know How to Put This, but I'm Kind of a Big Deal.
This past weekend was an exciting one for yours truly as I met up with long lost friends and watched two terrific goals being scored, one on TV and the other live. To start off the weekend, I headed up to Houston to hang out with my younger sister while the wife and kid went to the in-laws (smart move #1). I have my wife drop me off at the Richmond Arms pub (smart move #2) where I could wait for my sister, sip beers, and talk football with the locals. Only downside to the Richmond Arms was that the bartender was a Spurs fan (Tottenham Hotspurs that is, Arsenal’s north London arch rivals, to those not in the English football know), but he was a good enough chap so I let it pass. After spending too long downing pints on an empty stomach (started at 3 pm) the sis and I loaded up the car and headed to one of Houston’s oldest icehouses, the West Alabama Icehouse. Great place with cold beer and a wide variety of patrons from construction workers and Harley riders to lawyers in suits and yuppie kids. Anyway, I go to the bar and the bartender is a girl I went to high school with (in Tulsa) and haven’t seen in 16 years! Crazy stuff and it was fun to catch up a bit. The night continued with picking up a buddy near Rice Village then heading out for some Thai food and a few more pints.
Saturday morning. Woke up not feeling the best I ever have, but how do you get feeling better? Why, you head straight back to the pub, which is what we did. Sis and I went back to Richmond Arms to catch the Arsenal v. Charlton Athletic match. As I waited for the match to start, I noticed a guy walk in wearing a blue away jersey and looking like he just rolled out of bed. I thought to myself that this somehow seemed familiar and realized it was a guy I knew from the Playwright Pub in Miami Beach! So we chatted for awhile and turns out he has been in Houston off and on for nearly a year. Hopefully I’ll see him at the pub again, which is pretty much a sure bet if the Arsenal are on. So after a full English breakfast, a pint to steady the nerves, and a goal by Darren Bent (of Charlton, 21’) our favorite Dutchman Robin van Persie leveled the match in the 32nd minute with a nice score off a wonderful cross from Hleb. The Belarusian winger is really starting to get stuck in, set up nice goals, and even shoot as we saw last week. 
The second half started out OK but soon Henry (EDIT: and by Henry I mean Eboue. Sorry. Thanks to Judy for calling me out!) was flying up the right flank and sent in a cross to just outside the Charlton penalty box. It looked like the pass was to nobody in particular when all of a sudden you see van Persie come flying into view and off the volley he knocked in a cracker of a goal. This was one of the best strikes I’ve seen in a long time. If you missed it, go here and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.With an Arsenal win under the belt and a few pints in my belly, it was time to pull up stakes and watch the Texas A&M football match. A&M started OK and ran back a kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, but in the 2nd quarter Texas Tech really started rolling. To avoid the agony, I took a little nap through half time and when I woke up, the Aggies were starting to come back. They eventually pulled level and were then driving towards goal near the end of the 4th quarter. Now, I personally felt they had momentum on their side and really needed to press it and get a TD. Instead they played conservatively and got only a field goal to go up 3 points with 2 minutes to play. That turned out to be too few points with too much time on the clock as the Red Raiders got fired up and marched down the field. The Aggies had a chance to stop them on a fourth and long, but failed and eventually lost the game to a Tech touchdown with 8 seconds on the board. Oh well, it is a tough loss, but what can you do.
The end of the Aggie match meant it was time to gear up once again and head over to the University of Houston’s Robertson Stadium to catch the Houston Dynamo v. DC United match. After touring the U of H campus because we got off on the wrong exit, my sis and I finally made it in, and with beer in hand we went to look for our seats. Unfortunately we were on the DC United side and not the Texas Army side, but we could see the dancing and the band playing. Looked like the locals were having fun and I’ll just have to walk over next time. Anyway, the match was OK but ended with a spectacular Dynamo goal by Brian Ching who after a cross and flick-on header, pulled off a bicycle kick that went in to the right side of the goal. Another one for the highlight reels. The win put the Dynamo into the playoffs, which is great for their first season in Houston. Freddy Adu didn’t really do much to impress me either. Seemed OK but never really put in any good runs. Another highlight was at halftime a bunch of the Texas Army fans came over with drums and set up camp right in front of the DC United fans. The Barra Brava was silent for the first time all night. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have challenged a bunch Mexicans all painted up and dancing around either! A good time though and it was good to see some football in person again.All in all it was a successful weekend, which made the drive home a bit of a task. But I’m alive and hope to do it again soon. Big props to my sis for setting it all up.
That is enough for me today. I’m still a bit wiped out.
Adios.
posted by Cameron at 1:13 PM
5 Comments:
Blimey - clearly a LOT of beer was taken. It was Eboue who put in the cross, not Henry. ; )
unNot only was my eyesight a bit blurry, but the TV wasn't that great either. Guess I need to pay more attention!
Post corrected.
Geez Cam! What a weekend!! Don't you have a kid to raise? What kind of example are you trying to set? ;-)
Hey now, we totally respected the Houston group that came over to sing and chant in front of us, and we sang and chanted back with a smile. The security guys nearly crapped themselves though, I think they were expecting a full-fledged riot. Took a few of our female supporters going over to chat with them to get them to back down and not go Rodney King on everyone in sight.
The Houston supporters were actually about as cool as you can get--before the match the head of one of the groups came over to us and saluted us. Apparently he'd been in DC long before Houston had a team, and the Barra had taken him in for a few games. He presented us with a very old, ratty DC United shirt that he said was given to him in 1996 or so when he went to a few games with the Barra. Very cool. A welcome change from a few weeks before in Chicago where we had to be escorted to our car by stadium security to avoid the mob of Fire fans waiting to assault us.
I won't make excuses for DC's play, though I would note that in the 65th or so when the scores came through as final showing that DC United had won the Supporter's Shield and thus a berth into the CONCACAF Champions Cup, Nowak pulled our best players out within 5 minutes to save them from injury.
That said, major props to Ching for that goal. Amazing stuff. Unfortunately, due to the hipocrisy of your security goons at Roberston, most of us DC supporters were busy being evicted from the stadium for waving our flags, much as the Houston supporters had done all game long, and missed seeing the goal. We unfurled our flags in the 80th minute and by the 82nd half of our group had been thrown out and the rest were fighting the security to prevent them from confiscating the flags.
That said, I had a blast traveling down there for the game, and was pleasantly surprised by how accomodating and cool the Houston fans were, the Dynamo staff were, and how great the stadium was. Now if ya'll could just sort out that security situation!
Congrats on your playoff berth. Perhaps we'll see you in Frisco.
barrabravafan, thanks for the comment and I agree that your lot was a good one. The back and forth between the groups was civil and good natured for sure. I also saw the guards escorting some of your supporters out and couldn't figure out what was going on. I only noticed when they brought over some coppers about the language and you guys switched it to friggin to avoid issues. Class IMO. If the security wants to know what real problems are, they should have been with me at White Hart Lane last year. That was dodgy!!
As for the match, both sides had decent chances, but I never saw either really producing, though DC did have a few good stretches of play. I figured it would end in a draw and the goal was not only great but out of the blue as far as I was concerned.
Thanks for reading the blog and feel free to comment anytime!
Cam
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