Hard drives, hard win, hard cash...
Thursday, 21 September 06, 02:35 AM · Comments (10)
First off, apologies for the lack of activity 'round these parts. Late last Saturday I switched on my PC to post a preview of the Liverpool game only to be presented with an ominous-looking error message. I didn't panic at first because in recent years I've become somewhat obsessive about keeping regular backups of my primary hard drive. But, upon further investigation it became apparent that something borderline catastrophic had occured: according to a number of 'rescue' disks there was no longer any data on either my primary or backup drive. At this point I think I experienced what can only be descibed as shock: the thought of losing five years' worth of personal and work data, including nearly ten thousand mp3s, left me reeling.
Sunday morning was spent staring at what I thought was a kaput PC wondering what on earth to do next. I must confess that I strongly considered missing the Liverpool game - which isn't surprising I guess given that at this point I assumed I'd lost everything - but finally came to the conclusion that it would at least take my mind off things for a while. All I can say is that I'm very glad I didn't miss it! More of that later.
To cut a very long story short, after increasingly desperate attempts at persuading either hard drive to boot into an operating system (I had both Windows Vista RC1 and Mac OS X installed on partitions on my backup drive, which in hindsight was a tad silly and no doubt contributed to the problem) I decided to bite the bullet and reformat my primary drive and reinstall Windows XP, then concentrate on attempting to recover the latest backup image from my second drive. At 5am yesterday morning I finally completed a full recovery using Runtime Software's GetDataBack, to which I am eternally grateful. Some people believe football is more important than life and death; I'd like to suggest that hard drives are too.
Anyway, football. Sunday's hard-fought victory over Liverpool was immensely gratifying, not because it was the Blues' fifth successive Premiership win over Rafael Benitez's increasingly goal-shy side, but because of the manner in which it was achieved. Didier Drogba's 42nd minute goal, his fourth of the season, was nothing short of extraordinary; and then to hold that one-goal lead with ten men for the majority of the second half after Michael Ballack had been rightly sent off was sheer drama, all topped off by a great atmosphere. It was just what I needed at that moment in time. Rumours are circulating that Drogba is to be rewarded for his great start to the season with a much improved four-year contract.
Last night's BBC Panorama exposé of the 'bung' culture in football left a lot to be desired. The BBC's claims that the programme would 'rock football' were wide of the mark. Obviously it was interesting to see the 'culprits' in action, but any serious fan of the game knows that varying degrees of corruption keep the football wheels turning and I'd be very surprised if anything comes of the subsequent Football Association 'investigation' - although the results of Lord Stevens' independent inquiry could ruffle a few feathers when they're published on October 2nd.
A one-hour programme on corruption in football was certain to mention Chelsea FC and so it proved. Frank Arnesen was filmed discussing a 15 year-old Middlesbrough player with agent Peter Harrison, who it seems is going to be the fall guy in all this after Boro's chairman Steve Gibson said that "many discussions go on between clubs and agents and I saw nothing unusual about the discussions with the agent and Chelsea ... I didn't see any great wrongdoing. [However] I am very disappointed with the action of that agent [Harrison]. I think football will deal with him and I hope they deal with him harshly." Sam Allardyce, Harry Redknapp and Kevin Bond will more than likely escape punishment because there doesn't appear to be any physical evidence of wrongdoing: no paper trail, no hard cash.
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Clive - I will heed your advice and lay off the beta versions of Gates' software! I thought I was playing it safe installing Vista on a seperate drive to XP, but obviously I wasn't - especially conisidering the drive in question held my backups too. I've since ordered a large capacity external drive.
Advice for people in a similar situation: don't panic! I can't describe how bad I initially felt, but on reflection I panicked too early. There are so many things you can try before giving up data as lost.
I agree that Riley had a poor game.
Lordmorf - Yes, quite a few extra grey hairs!
I don't think Ballack can have any complaints. It'll certainly be interesting to see if Lamps' form improves slightly. Any improvement would please a few journalists no end; there's nothing they'd like more than 'evidence' that Ballack and Lamps can't play in the same team.
Good to see you again. I was thinking that my feed reader is not working or something. Anyway let's talk about 'bung'.
So, if an agent wants to ensure that his client his bought by a club, he pays the manager of the buying club, a bribe that would fix the deal. It all sounds like things associated with mafia, drug-dealing etc. But, let’s get real. There’s so much money in football that these things are unavoidable. This is not to justify the ‘bung culture’; but to understand the reason for its existence.
How are the fans affected by this? I dont see any manager buy a crap player just to pocket his bung. May be the manager gets his scouting done, sees the videos, watches the matches and when he buys him get some pounds from the player’s agent as a ‘token of gratitude’. This is certainly illegal as these are not accounted money and there would be a tax evasion attached to such dealings.
BBC has also exposed some big names in Premiership who have received bungs, notable one being Sam Allardyce, Frank Arnesen and Harry Redknapp. Some say that these exist in football for decades and this is no big discovery.
I’m happy that at least this not as stinking as the Serie A match-fixing!
Cup Specialists, Liverpool are nothing but Cup Specialists....
Hi guys what do you think about tomorrow game? Isn't it time for payback ?
Good to see you back Nick Mate, i check this site everyday! no lie! love it!
Think today an agent came out and said he lied about the bung so i think Big sam is in the clear and his KN*B of a son aswel.
As for Toms game Mikel - With robben back a battering is in order i go for 3-0, should get sweet revenge.
I still think *sigh* we should play 4-3-3 but with drogs playing so well atm, i guess we cant take him out and obv sheva needs as much time as he can get to adapt. I STILL do think however no matter how good drogs goal was (amazing) he still needs to prove he can finish at 1-1 situations, and easy chances, if he converts them i will be convinced he belongs here, if it was sheva, everyone knows that the goals would have flown in, if he had drogs chances. Im not hating on drogs, i think he is quality but still think he can improve, and i look forward to him banging them in for us regualary and converting easy chances.
Cheers
Nick, glad all is back to normal. GJ has been slumbering but is slowly coming to the boil again and will have his season ticket back for the Villa game.
Let's talk about shite programmes masquerading under the noble current affairs marque of Panorama.
A programme designed by, run by and presented by a bunch of football f**kwits. To me it sounded like a couple of fresh out of college rugger-playing close friends coming up with a "jolly wheeze" to wind up the "soccer boys". Since when did someone approaching you and hawking a "product" whilst the product was 400 miles away make you guilty of tapping up... if that was the case then surely every door-2-door salesman is guilty of making you tap up a product. They have taken everyday normal business practice and made it look like something corrupt is going on. You might as well nick everyone on a golf course then because a vast amount of "business" is done there.
The whole thing was unsubstatiated rubbish based on innunedo and the only person that looked iffy was Craig Allardyce and even then he never took any money "on screen".
GJ (too pissed to write any more).
10 Comments · Add yours
Hi Nick
Glad everything is back up and running, I totally agree with you, when your PC fails big time it ruins your whole day. Perhaps you might give "Beta" versions of Mr Gates software a wide berth, I have, as I've encountered similar problems with his creations.
Anyway quick mention of the game, I wasn't there,but you could cut the tension with a knife in my lounge in the second half. Reading some Liverpool supporters views on various sites, you think we were totally outplayed and outfought, but hey I suppose they have to console themselves somehow. On saying that I thought Mike Riley had a crap game with some qustionable decisions for both teams, but as they say "that's football"
Again, glad you're back up and running, looking forward to the usual informative articles the site produces.
Good to have you back Nick, though no doubt with a few extra grey hairs!
Great win on Sunday, and yes it was a terrific atmosphere - just like the good ole days! Only bad point is now we will be without Ballack for 3 games. Finally Jose gets a full week of training with the squad, so he is able to show Lamps and Ballack how to operate together and work on this, and sadly they will not be able to try it out on the pitch for a couple of weeks. Nevertheless it may give Lamps a chance to shine again as the most forward-thinking midfielder. Step up to the plate Frankie!