About Me: Finally a story without Balotelli

About Me:

So I can be as creative as I like I guess about Milan, Balotelli etc etc… but it is perhaps about time that I write about myself, and if it goes down well I might try and make it a regular thing.

Me and SM:

I found SM back in 2009, when my daughter was about 4/5 months old, it was my cousin Ryan Chisholm introduced me to this amazing management game and to be honest for many years I was just ‘a result checker,’ my favourite gameworld always was EC2 (ID: 4) where I was Portsmouth for 350+ matches but it was one day in August 2014 when everything changed and I got offered by SM the Man Utd job… as a lifelong United fan from Burton it was a chance I could not pass up… and the rest is history.

My development into a blogger and avid SM addict is not only attributed to EC2 and Man Utd but also a fair amount of credit has to go to the unlikely friendship that I struck up via chat with Mr Frank Hirst, I say unlikely as he is a Scouser and I despise Scousers more than the useless mother of my kids… but over time Frank and I realised that online golf games and work were not as interesting as SM and it is fair to say we have collaborated quite well to create some cracking blogs for certain gw’s, in particular Gold 279 and SM Top 100 to name a few.

My love of football:

Football has always been my first love, my love of United actually pre-dates the glory years and as such I can gladly say I am not a glory hunter :0)

My Dad was never really into football, but when I was 5 my auntie got married to Ryan Chisholm dad, who was United made, he took me to my first two United games in 1992/93… the year football began J and I was looking enough to see two pivotal games that season my first the 2-1 win against Southampton, Giggs scoring twice and the Sheffield Wednesday game, Bruce scoring twice, both matches being won in the last 10 minutes.

Been to Old Trafford a lot over the years and been lucky enough to have seen United play in the USA and Italy as well… this season I have been unfortunate enough to witness both those memorable LVG performances against Norwich and Sheff Utd J

My daughter at The Greatest football ground in the World v Norwich

My 2^nd team without question is Burton Albion, been watching them since I was 7 or 8 and what has happened at that club in truly phenomenal. Dr Martens Prem to League 1 in 15 years. Clough and the Chairman Mr Robinson absolute geniuses IMO (and Rowett and JFH). I think that St George’s Park being in Burton conspires to help make the team a success. They are allowed to train there and in all honesty the facilities are excellent, I play rugby and we get to train there and so does my step-son with his football side. I do think that in the long-term it will have an impact on the success of English football.

Persephone with new QPR signing El Khayati

Then my third team – which is actually why I decided to write this particular blog – who in the last 3 weeks IMO typify everything that is wrong with football – Derby County.

Derby, like Burton and United I have been watching for many years, not as avidly as the latter two but still follow them.

My children both play for the local team, Winshill FC, and every year the club get invited to Pride Park to get to be flag bearers, go on the pitch blah blah. This season it was scheduled to be the game v Preston, on 30^th January. Back in November I paid my money, £36 for 3 tickets, and the kids getting to go on the pitch etc.

Then the FA Cup draw – Derby draw United – Derby had promised that as a club we could still get to go to the game blah blah blah… but after ignoring the Winshill Club sec for days, he had to go directly to the club and ask Derby if they were going to keep their promise.

Derby said yes they would but as it was Man Utd it would be more expensive.

No problem. I have no problem as I recognize that the tickets would be more expensive as it was Man Utd – BUT from £36 it would become £86 – AND Derby were charging for the kids to go on the pitch £20 – so £36 became £106 – IMO disgraceful behaviour from Derby and as such why I hope they fail miserably this season and end up facing Burton Albion next season which would be the ultimate achievement for Burton and embarrassment for a club the size of Derby.

RANT OVER… J

About my kids

both kids ready to play

So I have two kids, a 15 year old step-son Alessandro, who is in Year 11 and doing his gcse’s. I met his Mum when I worked in Italy and we used to live in Milan (hence my affiliation to Milan in Top 100). She wanted to come to England and then got pregnant with my daughter and we are still here in the UK…

He naturally loves his football and I converted him to be a United supporter, to be fair he wasn't into football when I met him, he only liked Dragonball. He is a good little player as well, slightly quicker than me. I have him play for my 6 a side team (see below), and love watching him play and have on occasions taken over management of his teams as and when other managers have been unavailable, but my managerial win record in Youth football is pretty poor tbh, I think they drew once J

Last season he finally finished top scorer (he is a winger), going into the last game he was one goal ahead of his best mate and in that game he scored 1 and gave his best mate 2 assists so they finished level for the golden boot.

As for my daughter, Persephone, she is a handful, highly strung and very demanding and she is only 6! I have also naturally encouraged her to love football and she also plays (although over the last month or so she seems to losing her interest.)

However in her first ever tournament prior to it I said to her “If you score a goal I will buy you some new shoes” (she loves shoes) and in the first match she scored, in the second match she scored again and then she scored again! Safe to say I kept my promise and eventually brought her ONE pair of shoes.

In her first ‘league’ season she has 4 goals so far this season and I hope she sticks at it but we will see. The only issue I have with her is she thinks that her favourite teams are in this order, Barcelona, Liverpool, Chelsea and then United. I have explained to her that this is not acceptable and we are working on eroding 2 names from that list at present.

About my football career:

I am now 31 (getting on) but I would say I am at the peak of my football powers. I have always loved football as is clearly displayed above, and in 2011 after getting married I decided that the day after we would do a match – England (my family) v Italy (my other’s half’s family). It was a cracking match and naturally I scored on my international debut – it was 8 a side and even though the Italian’s had two players under the age of 14 in their ranks they ran us close with England winning on penalties, with Ryan Chisholm (I think) scoring the winner.

From that great international showpiece DCA United were born, a 6 a side team and we play in two local leagues on Wednesdays and Sundays, founded in 2011 we are still going strong, and as you can imagine I have a spreadsheet with all the stats from our very first game, number of wins, appearances per player, goals etc.

At present I have played (I think) 306 games out of our 315 total and finally late last year got my 50^th goal. It was a special moment. I especially love playing with Alessandro which I think every dad should do if they ever get chance to play football with their kids in a competitive environment.

That’s it – my first serious piece about me that doesn’t involve Balotelli.

I might write about my love affair with Balotelli that has a genuine history to it next time :)