And We're Off

Alright, so I've just about recovered from my trip to Nevada Smiths for the first game of the English Premiership season. Adorned in my 2006/2007 Tottenham Hotspur jersey, I set out with my friend Fuz at 6 AM. We arrived without incident, walking into the bar just after the start of the Arsenal-West Bromwich Albion game. I realized quickly that I'd miscalculated in my choice of wardrobe and our arrival time. Nevada Smiths at the time was filled entirely with Arsenal fans, and I do mean entirely. There Fuz and I were, he in his Manchester United jersey and me in my Tottenham Hotspur jersey, in a bar filled with Arsenal supporters. The unspoken hostility was palpable. We stayed until halftime, whereupon the fatigue that comes with five hours sleep and a trip into the City hit us. We made our way out of the bar and spent the next forty-five minutes recovering on a stoop around the corner. When we returned, we found a much more diverse crowd for the next round of games. We settled in for the Spurs-Middlesbrough game. No, I don't want to talk about it. After the game, we again made our way outside. There we met a Liverpudlian Everton supporter who I can only describe as a thirty-year-old Harry Potter if he drank and smoked. After confessing to smoking a significant amount of marijuana before coming to Nevadas, he showed us an impressive scar that ran the length of the underside of his arm. Naturally, I asked him how he managed that. He confessed that he had gotten it in an altercation with Liverpool supporters back in England. A box cutter appeared and with it came a fourteen-inch gash. Interspersed throughout our conversation, he told any and all Liverpool supporters entering the bar to 'fuck off'. Truly a memorable character. We stayed for the Liverpool-Sunderland game out of a masochistic desire to see Robbie Keane playing for Liverpool. It was as painful as could be expected. He hasn't clicked with Torres the way he did with Berbatov and who knows if they will. Their partnership was truly something special. Our hunger for English football satiated, we found our way to Amore Pizza, just around the corner from Nevadas, where we satiated a different kind of hunger. We somehow wound up on a subway train to Queens, which is, unfortunately, in the opposite direction of our New Jersey homes, not realizing our mistake for several stops. We managed to rectify our error and found our way back to Hoboken and an NJ Transit train for home.

My Final Table Prediction
1 - Chelsea
2 - Manchester United
3 - Liverpool
4 - Arsenal
5 - Aston Villa
6 - Tottenham
7 - Everton
8 - Newcastle
9 - Man City
10 - Middlesbrough
11 - Portsmouth
12 - Sunderland
13 - West Ham
14 - Blackburn
15 - Bolton
16 - Wigan
17 - West Bromwich Albion
18 - Fulham
19 - Hull City
20 - Stoke City