44 Years 93 Minutes and 20 Seconds

The Balloon Goes Up

Summoning the last drop of energy at 8am in the morning from the sky blue helium balloons now hanging limply from the tree (where they had a year ago floated and entangled themselves) felt a tad foolish 92 minutes into the most cataclysmic game ever witnessed  in English football.  At that point the apocalyptic tyranny of Manchester United bore down on me and I was gripped by the impending horror of having my insides ripped to shreds and my soul hung out to dry in a vicious gale of perpetual and choking abuse. Manchester City despite everything were still a bunch of shit Jamie Pollocks, lobbing a back pass onto our own forehead and nodding it passed a befuddled keeper into an empty net. The equaliser from Dzeko was a microscopic crumb of comfort on a gigantic plate of wriggling spaghetti. Then at 93:20 time and space warped, veering from a gnat-sized bundle of sinews to a vast echoing chasm of white noise. Sounds from tinkling streams to empty oil barrels being dragged along the Conway tunnel added to the cacophony of confusion. The world turned CGI, colours soared and swirled, went monochrome, shattered then exploded. What was happening to me would have challenged the combined seismic brain power of Dr Brian Cox, Timothy Leary, William Burroughs and even Joey Barton at his most philosophical. I stood transfixed, motionless in this bubble of chemical imbalances, I could see the individual hairs on the heads and catatonic limbs of people in the Kippax opposite but nothing of those around me. A couple of light years later my body went into the spasmic convulsions you would associate with a last minute goal to decide the Premier League for City after 44 years. I grabbed Kids 1 & 2 and unwrapped the placard they’d made for such an occasion. We moonwalked over the heads of the few rows in front and sailed onto pitch like latter day Peter Pans. Now what? We ran around a bit, screamed like banshees, hugged, fell to our knees rolled around and examined Premiership quality turf at close hand (luminous plasticcy green tightly woven strands if you must know). The sun shone and ‘I can see clearly now the rain has gone..’ went round on loop ‘..all around me blue skies’ all around me unfettered joy and love that the Hacienda in its pomp never knew existed.

The Beat of the Ticking Clock and the Cacophony of Silence

A football match of allegedly epoch-making proportions sits with a coquettish smile over the horizon, a siren drawing in followers from all over the football world ready to be dashed on the jagged rocks of a shallow reef of disbelief. City fans the world over and apparently every single household in Stockport are unprepared for such Shakespearean drama in the full glare of prying eyes from every corner of the globe. They have been bought up on titanic grinding failure generating a gallows humour of epic proportions unmatched in sport. The disasters are legion, the on-field successes fleeting always heralding a new era but only delivering layer upon layer of crushing and suffocating silt. But a combination of a visionary investor, deep pockets and a manager of undoubted quality are fracking away at the historical substrates layer by layer. The tear-stained humour will endure as failure is an omnipotent presence for even the clubs operating at the highest strata, but silverware and success will also be woven into a new history of the club. Searingly happy days are but a tantalising step away.

Poznan'ing Over The Hurdles One By One

Simmering tension sprinkled with wrought anxiety, the FA Cup semi-final, a genuinely do or die day against our arrogant and patronising neighbours from just outside Manchester. No Hernandez or Giggs on the team sheet. We're going to win this. Quiet first half hour, Berbatov misses 2 sitters, Barry's near miss puts a stake in the game, the tide turns. Carrick to Yaya, he powers on and slots it. Scholes' red, Zabba's thigh. We're going to win this. Final whistle, Balotelli's very existence causes mayhem, half the stadium evacuates faster than health & safety executives dreamt possible.
Despite what the records will show, this was they day 35 trophy-less years ended. Because there's an inevitability that City will have to beat our nervous neighbours on our way to each and every one of our inuagural trophies, whether that's the Premiership or the Champions League, this year or next. It is written in the desert sand, it's the only way to do it, it's the only way every long term City fan will get true payback for undying and gut wrenching support.

My Top Ever 30 Players by Kid 1

1. Colin Bell
2. Shaun Goater
3. Bert Trautman
4. Frank Swift
5. Franny Lee
6. Mike Summerbee
7. Georgi Kinkladze
8. Robinho
9. Nicola Anelka
10. SWP
11. Billy Meredith
12. Neil Young
13. Ali Bernarbia
14. Joe Corrigan
15. Trevor Francis
16. Mike Doyle
17. Willie Donachie
18. Stephen Ireland
19. Joe Royle
20. Glyn Pardoe
21. Peter Barnes
22. Paul Lake
23. Martin Petrov
24. Denis Law
25. Tommy Caton
26. Asa Hartford
27. Dave Watson
28. Wayne Bridge
29 Vincent Kompany
30. Brian Kidd

Discuss

Big Mouth Strikes - A Day In The Life Of A Social Media Conference

The Social Media World Forum, big name, big ambitions, big trouble. That's where I went the other day. A gathering of the clans of social media at Olympia in London. On checking out the agenda I decided to go on Day 2, primarly for the conference sessions. There were 4 or 5 sessions all with beautifully copywritten titles to whet the appetite. I got to the event a tad late as I had decided to walk from my 'conveniently located for Olympia' hotel - about 2 miles away as it turned out. Not to worry. The first peculiar thing on arrival at the venue was the only access to the halls was via a rather large lift that was 'manned' all day by a member of staff whose sole job was to 'push the 3rd floor button', not seen the like of that in a while I have to say.

First up was the conference Chairperson and then a keynote speech from someone I can't remember mainly because I missed both of these as I was trudging across West London at the time. I finally sneaked into the theatre style conference hall and settled down into my rather comfy cinema seat. I was awash with technology and vigrously set-up my netbook, iPod Touch and Blackberry in a race to see which would connect to the Wifi first. All set, here we go.

Good grief! I was stopped in my tracks as the sassy tones of Chairperson Penny Power wafted over the auditorium. I looked up from my abundant technology and saw a vision to match the voice and was a immediately jogged out of my morning malaise.

Session One: SOCIAL NETWORK ADVERTISING & MONITIZATION

Good presentation by a guy from COI on the RAF gunner recruitment campaign, where he nicely demonstrated the integration of various SM channels and how they had properly engaged with RAF crew in Afghanistan and the public back home. It was actually a very radical and I have to say brave approach, which was surprising in such a sensitive 'war' situation, for example they used video blogs from gunners in the front-line. Only thing missing was the results, they were trying to recruit 700 or so gunners, I'm not sure if they hit that target and if so how much could be attributed to the SM campaign.

Next up a nice fella whose company did some sort of integrated affiliate style stuff to allow bloggers and others to earn cash by linking from their blogs/twitter acccounts to e-commerce web sites. I presume they would get a small slice of the action for every sale from their link. My only thought was - Bloggers don't give up your day job.

Then a panel of 'experts' who took more time introducing themselves and their wares than most panels take discussing the subject. Penny got stuck into them basically saying 'get a move on' in not so many words. Then my first audible guffaw as one of them used the word 'Glocal' and I more or less sprayed a mouthful of coffee onto the person in front. They talked about something or perhaps it was nothing it was hard to see beyond the blandness. Unfortunately industry experts aren't necessarily good performers on a stage, not their fault.

Panel over, my mind turned back to the fragrant Penny and a rogue tweet slipped out.

Penny Power is a bit foxy I have say and doing a great job hosting the conference too. #smwf

I then think to myself 'it'd be a good idea to say Hi to Penny during the break' but she was much in demand so I didn't bother and got another coffee.

Session Two: SOCIAL MEDIA AND PR

A PR guy gets up and does his stuff which passed me by a bit, something about corporate crises and the Eurostar 'stuck in a tunnel' tweets thing. I think the main point was say your sorry quickly and keep people informed, cant argue with that.

Then comes a guy called Dirk who'd flown across 5 continents just to be there. Unfortunately his brain and mouth were still going at 300mph over Greenland as he machine-gunned stat after stat on the demise of the newspaper printing press. fucking hell Dirky boy SLOW DOWN my pen's melting!!.

There was then a panel discussion before which we were asked by some of Penny's helpers to write down on a piece of paper a question we'd like to ask the panel. I wrote 'How would you have dealt (real time) with the Jan Moir Twitterstorm?'. Now that is a perfect question for a panel but the buggers didn't ask it! I felt cheated.

Lunch break: This consisted of an egg banjo and bottle of water at a little mobile cafe consumed sat on one of those bendy plastic garden chairs £2.20 all-in, bargain.

Session Three: B2B SOCIAL NETWORKS: SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUSINESS & POLITICS

Now this was what I was really interested in a session on b2b marketing, my passion. But unfortunately it was just a panel discussion and sort of revolved around what Linkedin is and one or two other 'professional' networks and a few stats with lots of noughts on the end. I was beginning to get amped-up on coffee and my mind was drifting, so I got stuck into some pithy tweets requesting that someone should show us an end-to-end b2b case study with nice tables, charts, plenty of results metrics and insights.

Another rogue tweet slipped out.

I'd like to flirt with Penny Power, just flirt mind #smwf

Session 4: THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Big subject, big ambitions, big success in my book. I guy called Adam did a great job detailing a cracking case study and clearly describing 10 trends to look out for getting me quite excited.

Then some strange goings on started to appear in my Twitterstream. I got this from someone in the conference hall.

RT @Adventurebaby: I'd like to flirt with Penny Power, just flirt mind #smwf I'm telling Thomas

Thomas, whose Thomas? I thought in mild panic as a caffeine overdose sped through my mind I put 2 and 2 together and tweeted back accordingly.

@RebeccaIntuit I'm going to hide now :-)

Then I got this tweet from Penny Power herself!

@Adventurebaby - can you say hi at the end of the day? would be interested to meet.

@pennypower of course

Then this from RebeccaIntuit.

@Adventurebaby he's here, I will show you ;)

Gulp.

AND THEN THIS FROM A CERTAIN @Thomaspower!!!!

@Adventurebaby my wife @pennypower is foxy?

And then my world collapsed, as a rather burly Thomas Power mounted the stage to take part in the final panel discussion chaired by the one and only Mrs Power.

Double gulp. My mind raced as I weighed up the options, all seemingly doomed from my point of view. There I was in second row, hemmed in far left of the stage, Penny Power at the podium and her husband on the panel and then suddenly I realised, I had a train to catch and had to leave the conference during the panel discussion.

I started to very quietly shut down the array of technology and devices I had. Just before I had sent a final couple of tweets in a desparate attempt to recover the situation.

@PennyPower BTW you've done a great job today, very entertaining. Thanks

@pennypower gotta get a train, you're on stage and Mr Power is after me ...eeek he looks handy :-) once again thanks

@thomaspower I'm sure you agree :-)

Now the problem was, how do I leave the conference theatre without drawing attention to myself, an embarassing enough situation in normal circumstances, I was obviously near to heart failure. Mr Power was speaking, Penny was speaking, I cant leave now! So just like I used to do when surfing waiting for a wave surge to jump into the water over some rocks I watched the discussion carefully, bag packed, the conversation ebbed, it moved onto another panel member, this was my moment. So very casually I got out of my seat and walked the full length of the stage, I almost whistled a nervous whistle. I got out of the exit and waited very anxiously for the lift to arrive to make good my escape.

Just to reassure you all, I got a DM from Penny later that evening and had a little e-mail exchange where I'm pretty sure I smoothed over the waters, to be fair I think Penny and Mr Power saw the funny side and took it all as a compliment. I certainly hope so.

Back to the conference. I think the take-away from these things is the seeing art of the possible, not the nuts and bolts mechanics of implementation. No-one will write your strategy and implement your SM campiagn for you. Just get on it with it, be courageous and go for it. Fortune favours the brave, and these are the people prepared to take the stage and present to an audience.

Bull Running For My Life

It’s not often in life you get an opportunity to experience the extremes of another nations’ culture. Think of an Italian at a 5 day test match, barmy army and all and you’ll get what I mean. But on my recent bog standard ‘Costa…’ holiday in Spain I took the opportunity to go bull running. Not without a great deal trepidation and hand-wringing. Firstly I had to persuade the family (wife, 3 kids) I would be careful, whatever that means at a bull run. Then I had to square my conscience, they don’t actually kill the bull by slow torture do they?, it’s part of their culture etc etc. Then I had to steel myself for a late night, it doesn’t start until 12.30am and finishes around 4.00am (way past my bedtime and I wanted to stay sober so it was a long evening). As we walked up to old town Calpe we decided there were no downsides, even getting gorged would in time become a scar and a terrific story you could dine out on for years, death – a rarity – would become a story for the wife and kids to relay.

The experience was absolutely mind-blowing. 3,000 people (pretty much all Spanish), small kids, mothers, grandmas and granddads, young Spanish lads trying to make a name for themselves and vetran bull runners with the scars to match. Non-existent Health and Safety, no police, marshalls or stewards, one ambulance…! The smallest village fete in the UK would have all this and more. Over 4 hours 6 bulls were let loose into one street, 150 yards long sort of fenced off either side with prison cell cages with bars just wide enough for a relatively slim man to slip through unhindered, and that’s about it. The whole audience just taunts, goads and generally try to wind-up each bull, even the little kids have their toys dangling from the end of poles trying to whack the bull as it goes past. Bottles, glasses, sticks are thrown at the bull, blokes hit them with long sticks and everyone dances about in front of the bull trying to get it to charge. When it does everyone rushes to the nearest cage and jumps through the bars to relative safety, the bull still butts the cage repeatedly (and they’ve got long horns), the bravest few never go into cages and dance around until it gives up and moves on to easier targets. We started of like wuss’s but by the end of the night high on adrenalin and a Spanish sized brandy we were going for it side by side with the locals (still with an eye on the cage of course). Oh by the way, the final bull was bought out and had fireworks attached to its’ horns, now that made it very very angry and me a little bit sick and ashamed for being there.

We saw a gorging and a few flippings which are unbelievable to witness live.

I’ve surfed some pretty big waves, walked about Moss Side at the wrong time of night, had some running battles with various football hooligans over the years, but the adrenalin rush, fear, excitement, disgust of your first bull run tops them all.

As an experience of culture there’s nothing so un-British.

Ice Cold In Whitby and Other Gloriousness-ness

We in Britain have just about had enough of the nagging cold we've been enduring for nigh on 3 months now. I know it's called Winter and a daytime temperature ranging from 0-4°C is nothing to write home about, but we really aren't comfortable as a nation with consistent weather over a sustained period of time - like a week. Sunshine, rain, wind, snow, ice, fog they are all equal imposters on the British pysche if they hang round long enough.

Joy abounded in the nation's hearts as we woke up this Sunday morning to a beautiful bright blue sky, early March sunshine with enough power to actually make it feel warm, even though a sharp frost greeted us to. Everybody I spoke to was alive with the possibilities of walks, lunches, outdoor games and trips out. Even the grumps who would spend such a day curtains drawn, curled up in bed watching telly or pulling up floorboards to throw on the fire recognised the gloriousness-ness of the day.

I then asked myself where would I most like to spend a day like today?. Well, one of the most beautiful, mesmerising and horrifying places I've ever had the pleasure to spend time in is Whitby, that chipped but still perfectly formed piece of coal perched on the North Yorkshire Coast.

I first came across Whitby whilst exploring the N. Yorks coastline in the hope of finding un-discovered surfbreaks, sleeping in the dead of winter 4 up in a Fiesta, breaking ice off our wetties and going for a Dawn Patrol at Sandsend, Staithes, Scarborough or Runswick. Whitby doesn't have it's own surfbreak, but it makes for a convenient break from the surf, which is how I discovered it. We'd often chug up the hill from Sandsend desparately trying to get some warmth into our near hypothermic bodies and stumble into town like a bunch of desparadoes from a Wild West film.

And Whitby has everything. From barnacled alleyways where you can still feel the breath of the Press Gangs on the back of your neck to a magnificently ruined 9th Century Abbey - a steep climb up 1,365 (this number is made-up) foot polished steps. Whitby is rammed full of ancient echoes, the Vikings had a few parties here, there's been hundreds of years of coal shipping and fishing marked by giant whale jawbones and the Captain Cook statue atop the north side of the Esk estuary. And more and more re-invention with a virtual Bram Stoker theme park weaved into the fabric of the place, plus a genuine working port that conjures up the possibilities of adventure beyond the horizon and foreign lands. And before you've finished it's also a 1950's English seaside resort with the accompanying fish, chips, arcades, candy floss, iffy characters and tat shops. A most perfect weekend away, any longer mind and you might end up stowing away on a steam packet back to you're own world.