Retreat!

The farlieonfootie crew prior to attending World Beer Fest. Correspondent Ed is on the Bottom Right.
photo by brizzle born and bred	via PhotoRee

Correspondent Ed checks in with a report from farlieonfootie's first-ever annual corporate retreat, held at the World Beer Festival in Durham, North Carolina last weekend:

Georgie Thompson of Sky Sports News (Bigger, Better and – would you believe it – in HD!) is smiling tonight, sitting in her tight black cocktail dress and telling us the straight story on some exciting new rules regarding the FA.  Oh that’s right, they’re not exciting, they’re just excruciatingly and painfully boring.  But boring has become the new fun because we’re still in the midst of a seemingly endless two week international break, a break so mind numbing that I might just accidentally drive that fork into the back of my hand and --  Ouch!!!! – please let it end, PLEASE!!

And what have we at www.farlieonfootie.com been doing over the break?  Is it research?  Is it in depth interviews?  Well, actually the boss-man decided to have our first company retreat to North Carolina for a weekend full of events that would culminate in the annual World Beer Fest celebration.  All of this with our farlieonfootie colleagues and some “friends” from our well-known “aren’t they just the bees knees” sister site, www.farlieonfracking.com. 

Upon arriving in beautiful Chapel Hill, we were treated to a rigorous twelve minute thirty second game of footie.  When it was over, we sat down for some dinner (it's seemingly always pork in North Carolina) and drinks.  I’m not sure if it was the weather, the footie, or the realization of some twisted dream, but the bossman got a little bit ahead of himself that first night and found himself as wicked hammered drunk and confused as a Northeastern co-ed at a Northwestern frat party – a curious decision considering this was the night BEFORE the Beer Fest celebration that he’s been waiting to attend all year.  Of course, it all came to a rather predictable end when he sputtered out a few profanities, then started laughing hysterically, and then fell to the floor in tears, screaming:  “No, Bobo, No!!!!” 

Like we all haven’t seen that before.

Carbonated Footie

Some of farlieonfootie's newest fans, from the World Beer Fest
photo by pink_fish13	via PhotoRee

In addition to the usual football column, today's version of the blog will include several observations from a recent trip to the World Beer Fest in Columbia, South Carolina. After all, what could be better than a weekend full of footie, unless it's a weekend full of footie and beer? Now how the World Beer Fest happened to choose Columbia, South Carolina as its winter home I'll never know, but I'm guessing the event was rather optimistically named....

First off, regarding the football I saw: Liverpool looked better on Saturday than they have in many weeks, although I wouldn't be getting too carried away about the rest of the season if I were a fan of the reds (which I am decidedly not). True, Torres appears to be finally waking up from his somnambulistic state, hitting the back of the net twice yesterday, but even I could have scored the two goals he did -- and I'm not very good. For his second goal, which capped a 3-nil win over a downtrodden Wolves side, the goalkeeper wasn't even in front of the net, leaving Torres nothing to do but spank the ball home from three feet away.  And true, also, that Raul Meireles is finally showing a bit of the form expected when the Scousers bought him this summer from Porto [Ed. Note: Have any Liverpool supporters thanked Uncle Roy for signing Meireles, or is it not appropriate to show even the smallest sign of gratitude to their former boss man?].  But let's be completely honest here: that was Wolves the reds beat, a side currently sitting one spot north of the southernmost spot in the league, and Wolverhampton turned in an absolute stinker yesterday afternoon after several strong recent performances. So let's not get too hot and bothered over King Kenny's triumphant return. The team he inherited will not be relegated, but they're right where they belong: this Liverpool team is a mid-table club.