Fridays hopes & d - reams

1. Sean Ryan pole vaults into history books by breaking irish national record. He is quoted in the papers "one giant pole vault for galway people everywhere"
2. Liverpool give chelski the hammering the so richly deserve
3. Roy Keane stuns football world declaring his interest in playing next season for little know 6 - aside outfit penarol
4. Chris Baker loses his passport in Venice and is held indefinitely till his mam can drive out with a new one.
5. Sunderland start a run that will see them unbeaten for rest of league .. prompting FAI big wig John Delaney to make and audacious bid to bring Mick McCarthy back to the Rep of Ireland hot seat
6. Wanderley Luxemburgo rings me up asking for advice on his formation for this weekend s ' match.
7. Michael Mcdowell escapes a botched assassination attempt
8. bertie/blair/bush all resign simultaneously
   

Bounce back

After last weeks loss we really had to win this one. Once again we had the advantage of an extra man for the first 15 but we really didn't make it count, going one up (a cool finish by Chris) but then conceding a softish goal, it looked like it would be 3 -1 going in at the break but once again we conceded a soft goal at the back stick. The second half was a much better display from us as has been the pattern so far. We press hard all half with paul rounding out the scoring with a brillant individual effort to make it 6 - 2 , this was no more than paul deserved for his second half display in particular. in the last minutes we did give up another goal but at that stage it was academic. Special mention to noel for stepping between the sticks and coming to the teams rescue once again.

Note : The referee was nothing short of shocking barely taking interest leaving almost everything go.

Noel
Dave Mark
Paul Chris
Sean

Both Donogh and Steve were away

ClonStock 05 .. declared a success

Things got off a to a great start in "De Barra's" .. a place that is all at once in the now yet firmly rooted in the past. Keith was to liven things up early doors by jumping up on stage and giving the crowd a taste of his own unique stylings. In the mood for more hi jinx we eventually ended up at the doors of the imperial hotel .. Noel literally pulling out all the stops to get us in ( IE : produced his cork examiner card) . Once inside we entered "fat frog heaven". From here we made our way to a house party .. chatting the night away with some of the locals. Eventually we would wander back to our lodgings. On sunday we went down to the inchadonney beach which was the perfect way to round off a mighty weekend of roistering and merriment.

Note : a big thanks to the Baker family for making it all happen

Friday Dreams

• Chelski Lose .. Jose gets poleaxed by an irate fan for being a "bit of a tool"
  
• Kerry hammer tyrone .. forcing the end of that "blanket" football thing
• It doesn't rain in clon
  
• Sean Ryan says nothing in a sarcastic manner all weekend telling all he is thinking of devoting his time and engeries to the "pioneers"
  
• Noel has a nervous breakdown caused by the stress of orgainsing "ClonStock 05"
• KM speaking fluent japanese , saying it was part of his intensive induction into his new job
• Cormie nev announces plans to build a "skateboard heaven" in ballyclamsey, youghal .. it will be called "CormoTown"
  
• Penrol disband , sources close to the camp suggest friction between teamates had become unbearable. A harsher assessment was there were just going nowhere so decided to pack it in.
• CB tells everyone how tired he is and how hard it was with the kids this week .. no one listens (this is hardly a dream .. it will definietly happen)
• The US military ask me to participate in a top secret "six million dollar man" type project thus turning me into a super man .
  

And now for something completely different

Net Bound ?

My little brother giving it everything (in the lead .. naturally)

Down but not out

A loss of 4 - 1 sounds bad i guess but is in no way a reflection i think of the game, considering we were 3 - 0 after five minutes, we rallied well but could not seem to get the ball in the net, unfourntunately i personally had one of thoes games where it was just not going to be, try as i might i was guilty of missing at least 3 good chances (which gurantees i will be in foul humour for the next 24 hours) . In the second half we really went at them and had them on the back foot from the off, they then scored probably the luckiest goal i have ever seen , one of thoes lobs into the sky from the back that just went all the way through. Eventually through sheer determination we got a goal through paul, but only after the post and crossbar had been scraped several times. In fairness to them they are tough and held out against us but we will look forward to meeting them again. Hopefully the next time we meet there will be alot at stake.
Also last night steve came in and had to find his feet quickly between the sticks i think he will be pleased enough though it was a tough match to start out in.
One other note was noel getting what might be his first proper out field experience in a long long time, afterwards he was to say it was far more enjoyable than any time between the goalposts, which is also what we want to hear.

Steve
Mark Noel/Dave
Paul Chris
Sean

Donogh was a sub and played but he was injured.

The Big One

Look Kids Big Ben .. Parliament

It took us ages to get the pigeon to pose aswell

Tonight we come up against sideshow's (so called because until he cut his dreadlocks he bore more than a passing resemble to side show bob .. it should also be pointed out that to my knowledge it was only us who called him this .. ) outfit in the league, after last weeks' good win tonight will probably give us a more realsitic assessment of our worth ... we also blood a new keeper tonight .. steve freeing noel to take on the crouch/alonzo/morrientes/carragher role

Ecet Auditions

Jill

Matt

Me

Chris

reproduced here with kind permission of the Mckinley Foundation

These priceless photos were part of a set taken to be included in the ecet product brochure (two actually made the cut), fortunately/unfortunaltely there seems to be no pics of ted/dan/mike in existence

With the exception of Jill the rest of us really do look pretty dopey/dozy

Here comes the weekend

westlawn's version of the Stone Roses ("the pansies")

did marcus ever take off my t-shirt ?
in fairness it was a classic

On Fridays' i am introducing a weekend prediction/hope/dream slot and i am hoping along with the match report on wednesday that it will be a regular post. Considering how successful last weeks' predictions went .i.e. none came off ( predictions were very outlandish at best though ) here goes ..

• galway beat kilkenny in the u21 Hurling (depriving kilkenny of any silverware this year)
• Liverpool really kick start season by giving manyoo a Whupping
• Chelski loose (this will always feature in the hope category)
• I run a four minute mile .. roger bannister style
  
• Myself and my dad get invited personally by Bertie to sit next to him at the all ireland football final he tells the papers "he wants to be around the real people"
  

The many faces of ....

What's that in Sean's left hand ?
Does Noel think he's cool ?

Sir Edmund Hillary (on a recent visit to mayo)

saying more than words ever could
I think this was one of the first ever photos my camera took ..

Penarol are back !!!!

POTSKI !!!

Penarol after 12 matchs losing streak hit back in style last night winning 8 - 0, the scene was set early as they were short a man and before there full compliment had arrived we had already billowed the "onion sack" , we then went on to 2 -0 but started to wobble a little requiring sticksman Baker (noel) to be at his best , arriving at half time we were 3 to the good , seconds into the second half we got the decisive goal baker (chris) scoring from a an acute angle,
rounding out the scoring ccoleman(donogh) bagging a superb goal, a left foot strike to the top corner. we have to be pleased with this start and with * "sideshows" team coming up on the horizon quickly it should be a great league if we can keep the momentum going.

* We own them one for nicking the league off us a few seasons back

Team :

Noel

Mark Donogh

Chris Fergal

Sean

The Sweden Files

Tom displaying the skills that made ebay break the bank to get him

Tom and Noel obviously very thirsty

why is marcus wearing my t-shirt ?

Also Tonight we resume league action, we are lining out in div 3 and enter the league with some hope , for the first time in a long long time we have a "bona fida" keeper .. anywhoo i will endeavour to keep a log of all our results and displays here ....

In a Galaxy far far away

Setting off to tackle Everest (The North Face)

Boldly going where no man has gone before

At Base Camp

Rod Johnson and helper creating the first spring prototype aka Ted and Eric in Killarney

Then it rained ...

the coolest guy in the world ? Nevie in rock star mode

Things I really want to happen this weekend

• Chelksi to loose 5 - 0 to mick's boys
• Galway to hammer Cork (Sean Og is still great though)
• to wake up on sat morn and feel "bloody great"
• Pat Jennings to come out of retirement and tog out for penrol for the duration of the winter league saying " he wanted to give it one more go"
• find my current account has a legitimate lodgement of 1 million euros
• Aliens land and declare me there "man on earth"
  

Weekend at Bernies (Electric Picnic)

RB and Andy take time out to enjoy some well earned refreshments



The Legendary De La Soul


The Robots

Kraftwerk were/are truly Brillant

Last weekend I went along to the Electric picnic music festival held at Stradbally Hall Co.Laois .
It turned out to be a brillo weekend of Music and general merriment.
Upon arrived and walking what seemed like 200 miles to the furthest reaches of the campsite I and RB spent a ridiculous amount of time "trying" to pitch the tent , what the hell is a "Guy Line" and how do you "peg something out ?" we got it up in some fashion and as luck would have it the weather was great so out rickedy shack was not tested.
The vibe was great I have to say, naturally if you had money to spend there were any number of ways to spend it.
I spent most of the weekend scrambling between stages and the various food and drink stalls.
The strangest occurance of the entire weekend was on my journey home i drove into the Tallow horse show, I think it is fair to say you haven't lived until you have seen this truly unique event.

Three of the best

An unseen until now Andy Warhol masterpiece


Continuing the "Hat" theme



I think its fair to say no words can do this photo justice

something in the Galway air ?

Daniel obviously prepared for all eventualities

These archive photos come courtesy of the Sean Ryan Collection

The times they are a changin

The Theme is Hats ..


Mr Humphreys to the extreme right


Westlawn circa 98' a young Frank Lampard and Joe Cole

For thoes of us who had the honour to live in westlawn this picture will surely bring many memories flooding back , landlord Brendan "Brendeezey" Pearse, his like will surely be never seen again, not forgetting the many emotional champions league nights that were had in that front room.