I think from day one of this project, I knew that learning to like the Premier League was going to be as much about absorbing my adopted club's culture as it was about watching their matches. And what better way to learn about a Welsh club than to drink Welsh beers!
Don't judge me. For the record, I did first try to watch one episode of Gavin and Stacey...
Smithy: "Oh, the guilt. She stuck things in...oh...look can you ask Stacey coz' if it's a Welsh thing I don't have to see a doctor."
I'm shelving that series until someone tells me that Nessa never again puts things up poor Smithy's bum. Thus began my quest to find Welsh beers in Massachusetts.
My brother-in-law gave me an assist in this journey in the form of the phenomenal, though liver-punishing, "1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die." Thanks, Kev! The book recommends the following Welsh beers, by all means drop me a comment if you know where I can find any of these in America: Brains, Buddy Marvellous, Otley, Snowdonia, Ysprid y Ddraig.
Already this Welsh journey has become a Greek tragedy. I've been shot down by eight liquor stores so far. Most recently, I received the following gem of an email reply to my beer inquiry...
Liquor Store Rep: "My understanding of Wales, England, UK, etc isn't clear. I know beer not geography, but we have..."
He proceeded to list sixteen beers: thirteen from England and three from Scotland. I'm not at all Welsh, but I found myself feeling oddly insulted.
Enough about beers, let's talk about tigers. Hull City Tigers that is...
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| Curtis Davies is a Tiger. You can tell, because he's dressed in a tiger costume. |
Hull City 1 - Cardiff City 1
- Davies (HUL) 40'
- Whittingham (CAR) 59'
Yep, another draw. This one is particularly unfortunate because as best I can tell if you hope to avoid relegation you must at a minimum beat up on the other newly-promoted teams. But to their credit, Hull City does seem pretty formidable this season. Which is understandable, because they play "Eye of the Tiger" during their matches.
Defensively, Cardiff City looked pretty good. New acquisitions Kevin Theophile-Catherine and Gary Medel both shined. I was most impressed by the performance of backup goalkeeper Joe Lewis. Lewis played the entire game instead of David Marshall who was injured during a Wold Cup qualifying match for Scotland. It's encouraging to know that the Bluebirds have legitimate depth in that position.
Marshall wasn't the only Cardiff City player who had international duties last week. The following were the other starters who played during the break and their home nations:
- Medel (Chile)
- Bellamy (Wales)
- John (Wales)
- Conway (Scotland)
- Caulker (England)
- Kim (South Korea)
- Gunnarsson (Iceland)
- Gestede (Benin)
One could argue that Cardiff City wasn't at its best due to so many exhausted starters, but Hull City also had players in World Cup qualifiers so I'm not buying that argument.
In terms of offense, it seems like the Bluebirds come back from behind or they don't come back at all. Thankfully, this was one of the times that they came back...
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| Campbell and Whittingham Celebrate, Bad Guys Facepalm (Image Credit: Sky Sports) |
Hopefully next week Cardiff City will start their new forward Peter Odemwingie and the offensive production will go up. And maybe in another month big money signing Andreas Cornelius will finally come back from his ankle injury.
All that said, a point is a point and the Bluebirds are now in 12th place with 1 win, 2 draws, and 1 loss. The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 09/17/13. The table columns are: Club Name, Matches Played (Pld), and Ranking Points (Pts).
That's it for reality...let's talk about fantasy! I'm of course speaking of the Cardiff'rent Strokes and their finest week ever. Here's the summary of my FPL status:
- Rank (Last Week): 2,163,420
- Rank (This Week): 1,427,085
- Total Players: 2,915,190
I'm going to try my best not to bore anyone with fantasy sports minutiae in this blog. But one recent transaction is worth mentioning. This week I had to fire Cardiff City captain Craig Bellamy from my squad. It wasn't just because he was benched against the Tigers due to a World Cup qualifier injury. I've been reading a lot of interviews lately in which he is VERY vocal about retiring at the end of this year due to persistent knee issues. Felt oddly bad about cutting him, but he's still in the running for when I buy my Cardiff City jersey.
Here's hoping that if this truly is Bellamy's final season, he makes it a memorable one for Cardiff City.
On the plus side, I've hopped on the Whittingham bandwagon and he'll be starting for the Cardiff'rent Strokes next week!
That wraps things up for this week. Cardiff City's next match is at home against Tottenham Hotspur on September 22nd.
Thank you as always for reading Dragon and Bluebird! You can find me on Twitter as well, @dragon_bluebird.
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