Ultras Bochum 3 - Torpedo Entenhausen 4

This game was postponed due to snow. I therefore dedicate the win to former Blackpool goalkeeper Harry Sharrat, who was booked for making a snowman on his goalline.

Winter has arrived in Bochum, and although there was no snow one week later, the pitch was frozen in one corner. I found this out while trying to turn quickly past a defender. The resulting slip was almost convincing enough to get a penalty. Fortunately I fell on my left knee, which is in much better shape than the right one. And because I fell on ice, the cut wasn't filled with the usual sand and gravel.

This match brought Torpedo Entenhausen an unprecedented (at least in my time) five wins in a row. We thus moved into an unprecedented (at least in my time) fourth place, just in time for the end of the season. The official policy of the team is to play so badly in the first 6 games that we can't get promoted. After that, we are free to win some games. The successful end to the season even brought a goal difference of 0.

Torpedo Entenhausen 8 - Porno Villa 0

I just reread the last entry against SG Sundern, where I wrote

today I managed to land on exactly the same spot just below the knee and reopen the wound.

What I didn't mention is how this happened. There was a goalmouth scramble as the keeper could only block a shot. I pushed past a defender and lunged at the ball. With an injured knee. On a cinder pitch. The resulting wound was quite deep, and had me limping for a good few days. Cycling was also painful, so I sat at home a lot and was bored.

This is part of my problem. I am bored, then start doing something, get completely hooked, start diving around and injuring myself, and am then ill/injured. I then become bored, start doing something...

By this match, which was two weeks ago, I had recovered enough to play against my good friends of Porno Villa. They have made many friends in their first season because of their fair play and occasionally open defense. If there is such a thing as a lucky 8-0 win, this was it. Torpedo took almost all their chances to move to -1 goal difference. I spent the whole of the first half in the submerged half of the pitch, and conceded lots of throw-ins.

Torpedo Entenhausen 8 - Ultras Bochum 5

I've been ill with flu or something over the weekend and am still quite tired, so I was delighted to see that Torpedo Entenhausen had 15 players available for this game. This meant that I could volunteer for bench-warming services. I would like to take credit for the 7-5 goal, where I shouted loudly that our new striker should run towards the goal. He did, and scored, but might have done so without my prompting, as it is the standard thing to do in a football match.

As part of our demoralisation plan, I came on as an "impact substitute" with five minutes left. I slipped and sat on the ball once, wasting valuable seconds. I also drew 3 fouls from the same player within 10 seconds, wasting more valuable seconds and earning him a yellow card. To finish off I distracted the keeper for the 8-5 icing-on-the-cake, as he was beaten at the near post by a fierce shot in the closing darkness.

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In my computer course I've been learning about IP addresses, sub-networks, and CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing). Thus was I damned to have songs by The Wurzels running through my head all afternoon. I don't see why I should be the only one to suffer. Oo aar, Oo aar.



I was worried that that west country farmer Oo aar could be confused for a pirate's exlamation. I just found out that there is a link between the Wurzel's "Oi drinks Zoider Oo aar Oo aar" and the pirate's "Aaaarrrr". According to Wikipedia

Actor Robert Newton, who portrayed Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island and then in the 1954 film Long John Silver, is the patron saint of Talk Like A Pirate Day. Newton was a native of Dorset, and it was his native West Country dialect, which he used in his portrayal of Long John Silver and Blackbeard, that has become the standard "pirate accent".

Ernst Schad 4 - Torpedo Entenhausen 3

No Bundesliga report is complete without a mention of the "Werkself". Literally "factory eleven", it refers to the team of Leverkusen, who are backed by pharmaceutical giants Bayer.

The spare time league of Bochum now has it's own Werkself: Ernst Schad is a leading manufacturar of cogwheels and is based in the neighbouring city of Dortmund. The company proudly claims that it is

Certified by the DNV according to EN ISO 9001:2000

and I'm sure we all know what that means.

The Bochumer Cliche reports:

The factory eleven suffered from teething troubles in the first half, but after a 3-1 half-time deficit they stepped up a gear and had Torpedo on the rack. The 4-3 decider was a typical clutch goal.

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A football related story from the Daily Telegraph, about some posh totty getting a cab to the wrong Stamford Bridge. When I studied in York I cycled to the Yorkshire Stamford Bridge. It was a very nice little village, but could have used a few marauding vikings to add realism to the battle site.


Größere Kartenansicht

Torpedo Entenhausen 2 - Blue Star Oblomow 3

At the final hurdle we lost for the first time in the Rückrunde, despite leading 2-0 at half-time. The Blue Stars had a chance of promotion, and overcame their nervous start to secure the points, but to no avail: Red Star Fussek won their last game to clinch the second promotion spot and join Black and White Bochum, the second division champtions, in division one next year.

Torpedo Entenhausen finished in eighth place, making up for a disappointing Hinrunde with fourth place in the Rückrunde table. A full statistical analysis of the spare time league can be found here

FC Polterberg 2 - Torpedo Entenhausen 2

I'm undergoing therapy for depression, and trying to see things in a more positive light, so I'm not going to worry about terribly miskicking a tap-in which would have cancelled Polterberg's early lead. The goalkeeper was on the floor, the goal was gaping, the ball wasn't even coming fast and nobody was near me, yet somehow my shot dribbled past the far post.

But enough about that. I've made a habit of scoring with tap-ins and rebounds, and it was time for something better. So two-nil down and with five minutes left, I made a run down the left, passed and got the return, and shot from the edge of the area into the bottom corner. Things got even better in injury time as Markus, our goalkeeper, sprinted upfield to take control of the ball. Seeing the resulting confusion in the defence, he had time to feint one pass, then play in Georg, who shot into the corner of the goal for the equaliser. It was his first shot of the match and his first goal of the season. There wasn't even time to restart the match.

I've never seen a goalkeeper help save a game like that. Usually in professional games they just go forward for corners or freekicks, looking for a header. The difference between the spare-time league and higher leagues is probably in fitness levels (all except the goalkeepers are tired out by the end) and ability (a goalkeeper can be just as good an outfield player as the rest). It's a tactic that we may try repeating.

Torpedo Entenhausen 4 - Megalomaniacs Herne 0

In my absence, my teammates have kept the unbeaten streak of Torpedo Entenhausen intact with two 3-3 draws, helping to consolidate our slow but steady rise into mid-table mediocrity (see graph above, showing league position throughout the season, courtesy of SG Sundern). That green stripe shows the promotion slots, from which we are safely removed.

My travels saw me relegated to the bench for the first half of tonight's game. The Torpedo Fanblock tried winning the affection of the sole WAG[1] of the Megalomaniacs by opening her flask of tea, but without success: we couldn't open the flask, and she seemed happy with her present love, even though he played in a woolly hat.

After the first half ended goalless, our substitutions turned the match, with all four goals coming from the bench, including a rare left-footed finish from me. The Megalomaniacs played the whole match with 10 players who looked a bit tired by the end, so I suppose it's no surprise that we turned out winners.

[1] I suppose that when only one footballing partner arrives, it should be a Wife Or Girlfriend, but I decided not to pursue that acronym.

p.s. The first edition of this post had the word mediocracy instead of mediocrity. The latter is the correct word in this context indicating a state of being mediocre. The former is a rare word meaning "rule by the mediocre"; compare to democracy (rule by the people), aristocracy (rule by the nobs) and plutocracy (rule by a cartoon dog).

BW Bochum 0 - Torpedo Entenhausen 1

There's no better feeling in football than watching your opponent throw himself to the floor in an attempt to tackle you, skipping past, waiting for him to catch up with you and repeating the trick. Most top players only get the pleasure of doing this on grass, but on a cinder pitch it is even more fun. I got some bruised ankles for my troubles, but I guess that the defenders of Black and White Bochum got some bloody legs from the hard cinder pitch.

Other good things about the match: we won the game with our only good shot on goal, the opponents were top of the league, and we are now their bogey team, and our winning goal, a left-footed strike from outside the penalty area by youngster Michael somehow flew high into the net in slow motion.

Torpedo Entenhausen 6 - VfL Linden 2

It's been a successful "English week" for Torpedo Entenhausen, with seven points from three games in eight days. Someone asked me what an English week was called in England, and my reply was "a week". Germans seem to think that once a week is enough, when it comes to playing football, and I do admit to feeling quite tired now.

Luckily I didn't have to do too much today as Andy, our midfielder with a good left foot, scored the first five goals. He was on such a hot streak that he even netted one with his right foot.

Right on the final whistle I fired a shot from just outside the box high into the goal for our sixth. The goalkeeper was lying on the floor having just made a save, but it was a nice feeling anyway.

Taxi Zentrale 1 - Torpedo Entenhausen 1

"So why are you called Taxi Zentrale?"

"We drive taxis".

The game was about as good as the pre-match banter above, and would have ended goalless if it hadn't been for two goalkeeping mistakes. We gave the Taxi Zentrale the lead early on through a miskicked clearance, and their goalkeeper made a mess of a free kick in the last minute. Not too much happened in between.

Video Analysis

Monday's match of Torpedo Entenhausen has been recorded for posterity.

Watch the highlights by clicking here.

Torpedo Entenhausen are in the orange shirts, FC Porno Villa in black. It wasn't a great match, but you can see my Carlton Palmer style trapping of the ball (0:43), a header so bad that all my teammates and one of the opposition throw their heads into their hands in disbelief (5:50), and my point-blank range goal including a "running into the goalpost" celebration (6:00). I think the ball was already over the line from the original shot, and Amin had aleady run off to celebrate, but the whistle hadn't been blown so I'm claiming the goal.

The best bits don't involve me at all, though. At 4:30 the guy filming suggests that the Porno Villa midfield "retreat somewhat so that the goal kick doesn't go over them all". Of course, by the time he's said this it's too late. Next time a less intellectual "GET BACK!!!" might be more effective.

The top scene is right at the start of the video, as our striker, Mario, decides to give the ball to the opposition as a sign of friendship. Check out the double take from Andy, who was expecting the ball and stays rooted to the centre circle, before beginning to philosophise.

FC Pr0n0 Villa 1 - Torpedo Entenhausen 2

Porno Villa are new to the league, so we welcomed them with a good kicking, apparently. We picked up three yellow cards, of of which was for me, although I think it was more clumsiness than anything else. One of the other two yellow cards was for suggesting that the referee was in need of a new pair of glasses, so I don't know where all their injuries came from.

It wasn't a great game, but I scored the winning goal from point-blank range. Normally this is a cliche to say "somewhere very close to the goal", but the limit of point-blank range is quite easy to calculate.

The term comes from the days of cannons. The normal procedure was to estimate the range to the enemy, look up the correct angle of elevation in a table, point your cannon up in the sky, and kill them with a beautiful parabola. Alternatively, if you could already smell the garlic on the enemies breath, you just pointed it straight at them and fired quickish.

Taking the equation from the wikipedia article, a shot speed half of David Hirst's record shot speed (57 mph) and an allowable drop in trajectory of half the height of the goal (4 feet), then point-blank range becomes about 12 metres. This makes sense, when you think about it, as few people bother to adjust for gravity when taking a penalty kick (although maybe some overadjust), but it is common for a free-kick to be shot up and over a defensive wall and into the goal.

So technically, almost all people shot by guns are hit "at point-blank range". It is rare that the killer has to adjust for gravity, but in common usage the term has come to mean "from a distance at which you can't miss the target". So my goal yesterday, scored from a range of zero yards (it was already on the goalline) fulfilled both the original meaning and the newer one.

Dead Trousers 0 - Torpedo Entenhausen 9

Yes, believe your eyes, that is 9 (nine, 0b1001, 0o11) goals. Torpedo Entenhausen are a few matches into the Rückrunde, a typically German concept. German football leagues, from the Bundesliga down to Bochum's spare time league, are arranged so that each team plays all the other teams (the Hinrunde) and then plays them again in the same order, but at the other ground (the Rückrunde). So, because we played against the Dead Trousers at our ground in the sixth match of the season, we played the return fixture at their ground in the nineteenth match. If you are good at maths, you will have calculated that there are 14 teams in the league, so Hinrunde and Rückrunde consist of each 13 games, and over the season we play 26 matches.

This will all seem terribly obvious and boring to any German reader, but being English I find it most wonderful. In England, the fixtures are calculated by that mysterious entity, the fixtures computer. Nothing causes more paranoia than this dreaded calculating device, which makes sure that Chelsea always get away games in freezing Bolton after european ties and that sacked managers meet up with their old club exactly twice a season. People even get paranoid about non-existent computers.

The Rugby League does not have a fixtures computer, but, if it had, it would be one that does not like Widnes.

There is some just cause for this dread, fear and misunderstanding of the fixtures computer. Take Sheffield Wednesday, for example. This season they will have played Hull City twice before the year is out, but will first face local rivals Sheffield United in January. They will then play them home and away within a month. Why? This computer seems to be an exercise in Chaos Theory. A single flower show, balloon fiesta, or gay pride march anywhere in the country can throw the whole system into imbalance and result in millions of people up and down the land going to somewhere completely different, and their team getting badly beaten by someone else instead, which brings me back to the match yesterday.

The first game (in the Hinrunde) ended 2-2, but we continued our strong Rückrunde form by winning by 9 goals to zero. Their goalkeeper was of the William Foulkes mould, and initially, despite our dominance, we struggled to beat him as he quickly closed the angles. By closing the angles I don't mean that he rushed out of goal (too much effort), I just mean that he turned to face you.

Martin, our stalwart supporter, suggested that we aimed for the bottom corners of the goal in an attempt to exploit his immobility. The scoreline suggests that this tactic worked in the end, and I scored too with an unchallenged run from midfield and a shot into the bottom left-hand corner from just outside the box.

Torpedo Entenhausen 1 - Team USA 1

We should really have won this game against one of the few teams which are below us in the league table. Reading their website, it seems that they have had trouble getting a full team out on some occasions. Against us, though, they had enough for a full team and two substitutes, whilst we were down to the bare bones: our eleventh player was still putting on his boots as we kicked off.

We started the match strongly, and took the lead halfway through the first half. Team USA tried to clear the ball, but gave it straight to me. I passed to Aziz who beat one player and scored with a low shot. We should have added another goal or two before the break, but didn't. The advantage of a couple of substitutes was seen in the last half hour as we tired and Team USA scored an equaliser. They could have even gone on to win the match.

Update: Team USA have put up their version of events. It's good to see that the babelfish translation is as amusing as ever. Please be reassured that nobody really suffered shell shock in the match.

Duck-live vs. team U.S.A. 1:1 (1:0). In a combatstressed portion the ducks went by right after quite chaotic first 20 minutes into guidance. To appropriate speech and some restructuring we came better into the play and had numerous hochkaraetige gate chances. Janni refuelled itself in the 65 min by the strafraum... peng reconciliation. Afterwards run on a gate, unfortunately without victory. One point with which we first times can be so content.

I saw a psychologist this morning, and he diagnosed me with mild depression with ups and downs, or something like that. I will start a therapy course soon.

This music video is worth watching, if only for the mindless violence.

Red Star Fussek 0 - Torpedo Entenhausen 2

You don't have to take my word for it; you can read that Torpedo Entenhausen won their first away match of the season as written by the opposition (in German).

Their pitch, as you can see in the picture which I nicked from their website, has an odd mixture of cinder fairway down the middle and deep rough grass on the flanks, as if their groundsman did his apprenticeship on a golf course. You can see it even better on google maps.


Größere Kartenansicht

Click here if the embedded map doesn't work

Our first goal was a wind-assisted 3-iron down the middle followed by a crisp 25-foot putt by striker Amin. The Red Stars then put us under quite a bit of pressure, but our defence held firm until the 55th minute, as we broke away down the right wing and then switched play to the left. I played Amin in behind the defence and he floated a cross to the back post which was headed in by Aziz for the second goal. Despite having no substitutes to replace some tiring legs (our spare striker is possibly still driving around Bochum looking for the ground), we just about kept going until the end to secure the points.

The occasion was lifted by the vocal support from the terraces (it's that thin grey strip at the side of the pitch outside the running track). Usually we are watched by the proverbial canine-assisted trio, but there were a couple of dozen supporters yesterday.

Torpedo Entenhausen 3 - FC Polterberg 1

or

Welcome to the Porno Villa

The football season has restarted after a short summer break, and the league position of Torpedo Entenhausen received a massive boost. To quote from the news page of the spare-time league (second class):

NEW. The team of Soccerteam Bochum is no longer taking part in the spare-time league. Their place has been taken by FCP Villa. The schedule (date, kick-off time and pitch) remains unchanged. All games, for which FCP Villa replace Soccerteam have been classified as 0-2 defeats and have been updated in the table.

Now the funny thing is that we lost our home game to the Soccerteam in a disgraceful 12-3 ignomony. Miraculously, this has now turned into an automatic 2-0 win, boosting our goal difference by (do the math) quite a lot.

The other funny thing is that the P in FCP Villa stands for porno. I play with some of them on thursdays, and they explained that the nucleus of the team live in a house together, which was pimped up by the landlord so that it looked like a porno villa. Maybe Aston Villa and Villareal had some influence in the naming too.

Last night we won another match in the more conventional manner of scoring more goals than the opposition. For our first goal, I played a perfectly weighted 30 yard pass with the outside of the foot, which striker Aziz headed past the goalkeeper as he belatedly rushed out of his goal. I made up for this uncharacteristic poise and vision with a couple of foul-throws and lots of hacking around in the corners of the pitch, where rain has caused ruts which have been baked hard by the sun, so the ball now bounces around unpredictably. Whilst in the lead, I decided that kicking the ball into the unplayable corners was a good method to frustrate the opposition. Somehow they equalised with a scrappy effort.

Andy, our attacking midfielder with a good shot, drew a couple of fouls and eventually a penalty, converted by Aziz, and he then sealed the win with a good counter attacking goal. FC Polterberg put down the loss to poor fitness after the summer break due to excessive barbecueing.

So over the course of one match we gained 6 points (more than doubling our previous total) and boosted our goal difference by 13.

Blasphemy

At the end of a disappointing football season, the usual excuses are rolled out: injuries, suspensions, poor refereeing decisions, the state of the pitch, etc. I present my excuse for Torpedo Entenhausen's low league position: Herbert Fucking Grönemeyer.

Today we should be playing a "basement duel" against Megolomaniacs Herne, but crucial members of the squad are watching Bochum's favourite son in a live concert, so we had to concede the match.

I'm feeling a bit down, as these matches are usually the highlight of the week. I'm not getting anywhere fast with my job, and none of the publications or theses I'm told to read make any sense to me.

Today I managed to go through an entire lunch break with my colleagues without uttering a word. They were deep in conversation about abstract rating scores and conference hotels, something I don't care about. So I just ignored them all for 45 minutes. They probably now think I'm a boring fucker too.

Football hooligans ain't what they used to be.

Last night Torpedo Entenhausen took on the Bochum Ultras. These are the hardcore fans of VfL Bochum, and I thought that they would be a bunch of violent thugs. It turned out that they were very well behaved. They told the ref not to give them a corner he was going to award, and left their dressing room in perfect condition. The only slightly annoying thing they did was to take the three points with them.

We played the cunning trick of starting with 10 men and bringing on the 11th after 15 minutes, and at times we played some good football. I scored a header direct from a corner; the ball flew into the net and the keeper didn't even bother to dive for it. Somehow we conceded 6 lucky goals and lost by the even 2 goals in 10.

Today we had a meeting at work. The only topic of discussion which generated any debate was the plans for the car park. It is possible to spend lots of money on new electronics without anyone disagreeing or asking questions, but any discussion of parking places causes uproar. The car park for our institute is going to be flattened (don't ask) to build a new building. I made no friends by suggesting that a brisk walk across campus from the other car park wouldn't do anyone any harm. I was tempted to say that this development may delay the point at which the number of chins in the department double the number of employees, but I refrained.

SG Sundern 1- Torpedo Entenhausen 1

We secured our first away point of the season in a match which neither team deserved to lose (if you're being generous) or win (if you're being realistic). Lots of long ball punting, some poor finishing (I headed over from 6 yards, but I wasn't the worst culprit), a few nice moves, one great save from our keeper, and two hittings of the woodwork.

I wasn't sure if people still say that they hit the woodwork (germans say that they scored an Aluminium goal, Alu Treffer), but apparently the bbc do.

Skip this bit if you neither know nor care what Matlab is

I've cheered up since yesterday, and had quite a useful day at work. For a while I have been trying to work out what to do with Matlab. There are two major problems with this program: it costs a lot of money and lends itself to terrible programming.

I know that if I was to program something well, and document it well, then the main beneficiary would be the mathworks, for my successors would be doomed to keep buying Matlab licenses in order to use my program. This combination of vendor lock-in and awful programming caused me to question what the point of it all was, but now I understand that the two problems cancel each other out. By writing awful (but quick) Matlab code I can positively encourage my successors to use anything but Matlab. I will therefore do my best to confuse imaginary numbers with loop variables (i=1), to assign floats as numbers (sin = 3) and to find further ways of making fast but unreliable code.

Skip this bit if you don't care about my toenails

Yesterday I cut off two toenails. On one toe. The outer layer was about to fall off, so I gave it a good tug, only to find a second shrivelled toenail beneath. This I cut off too, leaving a small toenail which is growing slowly upwards and outwards and some hard skin. I had to vent the room for a few minutes to remove the cheesy smell of mouldy toenail, but now things are fine, and the toe stood up to a full game of football.

Torpedo Entenhausen 4- BW Bochum 3

BW stands for "Black-White", as the opposition played in black and white. Some related footballing two-tone colour facts:

1/ Teams from Essen, Oberhausen and Erfurt all call themselves Red-White and play in red and white strips. (see here, scroll down to "teams which say what they mean on the tin).

2/ Essen is the german word for food, and many Germans like to eat chips with ketchup and Mayonaisse: Red-White chips. Thus if you are not too fussy about your adjective endings, Rot-Weiss Essen is possibly the only edible football club.

3/ Except for the Hamburger SV.

4/ A favourite song of Arsenal fans, directed at rivals Tottenham Hotspur, is "You won the league in black and white". Still, their fans have had a shorter wait than those of FC Schalke 04, who claim to have been wearing blue when they last won the league in 1958.



5/ As far as I can tell, no team is named after the same colour twice. The governing coalition in Berlin, however, is called the red-red coalition. Maybe the politicians could form a football club and play in red and red stripes (or maybe hoops would look better).

Anyway, we won the first match of the season yesterday! I scored a stunning 12 yard looping header from a free-kick. Sadly it was an own goal, but I like to think of it as the killer goal-scoring instinct prevailing.

Black-White Bochum were down to 9 men by the end of the match due to two red cards for "pulling the emergency brakes", and we managed to force the win in the final minutes.