As I write this, the sidebar on my laptop keeps flashing up an ad from UNICEF asking for contributions to its *Give the World a Shot* campaign, which is pretty apposite as I try to consider the impact of Covid-19 on our beloved world of football.
Here in the now, and good lad that he is, Dean Smith has made no secret of his attitude towards NCFC players getting their vaccinations and boosters. This excellent Pink Un article from Casey Cooper-Fiske shows how Adam Idah, Kieran Dowell and Sam Byram were happy to get their boosters on Friday and also explains Deano’s take on the situation:
Norwich City: Dean Smith on football’s Covid measures | The Pink Un
However, Covid has been running through the Club for some time now. We’re in elite company as Man Utd and Spurs have both been in a similar state of disarray and there are individual cases in just about every football club in the land.
Kenny McLean and others have failed tests so far this season and I understand that Przemyslaw Placheta has suffered from debilitating effects for long enough to put him out of team training for a considerable while, although thankfully he is now back and firing on five or maybe even the full six cylinders – it’s hard to tell with PP 🙂
Five PL matches were been called off this weekend, with our visit to West Ham amongst them. Calls are being made to postpone the Boxing Day fixtures and just like Dean Smith, Mikel Arteta is quite properly pleading for some kind of clarity from the bigwigs at PL HQ as he considers how he is supposed to prepare his Gunners for a Boxing Day trip to the Fine City.
This state of flux is confusing enough for me as a private individual so I can imagine what it must be like trying to manage a football team during these strange times. Nigh on fecking impossible, I would suggest.
We all remember the dark days of lockdown and Project Restart and unfortunately, I fear we are heading back towards them in the very near future. What I am about to say from hereon in is purely my personal opinion, so you lovely MFW folks are more than welcome to disagree with me if you feel differently – let us know what you think. You always do, thankfully!
My attitude starts from the base of not believing a word the Government says. Every time I see Boris Johnson, Professor Chris Whitty or Sir Patrick Vallance on the TV I cringe. The UEA’s Prof. Paul Hunter has the same effect on me whenever I see him on an EDP article.
However, out of respect for humanity, I have willingly had two Astra Zeneca inoculations and very recently a Moderna booster. All in Castle Mall where I was incredibly impressed by the dedication of the volunteers, the nurses and the smoothness of the whole process. The way these guys dealt with a couple of nervous types was a joy to behold.
I chose to have the jabs simply because I have no desire to pose a risk to other people – I really didn’t do it to protect myself.
My reward for this display of solidarity with the rest of the nation was not a great one. I felt like a sack of cack for at least 36 hours after every single injection. So did number two son, who considered leaving work early one day because he felt so bad. He didn’t, but I doubt he produced too much one afternoon in the autumn. He is an electrical engineer and thinks he concentrated but even now isn’t too sure.
Mrs P felt no after-effects whatsoever. Men are from Mars and all that ol’ squit.
If I were a young footballer there is no way I could have trained after those injections. Of course, it was a case of right as rain again quite quickly afterwards but it would be potentially debilitating even for young lads like Adam, Kieran and Sam.
I continue to wear a mask in shops and a couple of places I have to go to on business. It doesn’t bother me so I continue to do so. I’d rather err on the side of collective safety.
However – and please understand that this is purely from personal experience – I, like a lot of us, know an awful lot of people and none of us are aware of anybody at all who has ever contracted Covid. Some of you might have very different experiences of course, which I totally respect.
I look at it this way. I sit with 27,000 people at Carrow Road and many are coughing, sneezing and sometimes exhibiting even viler habits.
And that’s just the players.
Over the years I have continued to put so much rubbish into my system [alcohol and nicotine mainly] that I have little fear of the lurgy.
But I’ll continue to go along with the rules, although just like Dean Smith and Mikel Arteta I wish I understood the reasoning behind them.
Sometimes we have to realise that a little bit of selflessness does nobody any harm.
There are people out there who are worried but I just don’t happen to be one of them.
This from the mighty, marvellous Manic Street Preachers from 30 years ago might not sum it up for you, but it sure does for me.
An excellent article in these uncertain times and I too have had my full quota of vaccines, but I know a couple who steadfastly refuse, so I just avoid getting too close to them.
We ALL (managers, players and last but not least – the fans) need some clarity as to whether or not the next round of fixtures should be postponed, but what hope is there, when we see so many cases of rule bending coming out of number 10??
I’ll end by saying that someone somewhere needs to bring Mike Riley and the goons at Stockley Park to heel, before everyone associated with the PL loses all trust in the joke decisions by match officials and VAR referees..
I’d be interested to read justification for Kane not being shown a straight red card yesterday!! 😡
Hi Ed
I’m sorry to say it so brazenly but to me ALL politicians are liars’ Everybody who contributes to MFW in whichever way has one thing in common. We all comment on the evidence in front of us while those in power pick and choose their moments, particularly should they choose to turn their coat. We are better than them in every sense.
The derivation of the word politician from the original Greek says it all for me.
Cheers & Merry Christmas
Hi Martin
Everyone in my family except my youngest son is fully vaccinated, his choice as he says the reasoning behind it us that fir the people his age there us no benefit but he is stubborn at times.
Yesterday someone said putting players in a football bubble prior to games then letting the go home to their doesn’t work and not letting them be with their families seems like they are being picked out for special treatment there is no happy medium.
Will we see a full lockdown I really hope not I just don’t think as a country we can keep doing it especially with all the illegal day trips from France still coming over in droves with the French police waving bon voyage to them.
To Ed I will say that Kane should have seen a Red card but Klopp shouting about a penalty not give then Deli Alli should have had one too, I have lost all respect for most Premiership managers as they all like to re-referee games if they don’t go their way and Klopp is the worst at it.
Have a good Xmas one and All
You’re wearing your Spurs glasses, there, Alex. Deli Ali went down with no contact, I think he realised the keeper was going to get his slightly heavy touch, so he was looking for the penalty. One that Mr Atkinson and VAR did get right among a host of errors in this weekend’s games. MOTD2 commented on the way the referees and VAR game a lot of “easy” penalties last week (just our luck!) and this week seemed to be compensating by not giving them, as in the case of the Liverpool and Newcastle ones.
I still think the Newcastle penalty should have been given.
Yes, so do I, Martin. That was one of the “host of other errors” I referred to, but the Ali one wasn’t. Probably in previous years, VAR would have disallowed one of Liverpool’s goals because of Salah’s handball in the build up to it, but this season it apparently depends on whether it’s in the same “phase” of the game. I know I’m getting old (got old, my wife says), but I can’t keep up with all the tinkering they’re doing, and I don’t think the referees can either.
I find it SO frustrating all round, really.
HI Jim
The Sky TV shows that he get pushed from behind by Aronld so he like the Liverpool player went down and as usual Klopp thinks he should get every decision
Klopp certainly gets animated = Liverpool fans get full value for money!
You can bet your bottom dollar Martin that had it have been Ben Gibson’s or Grant Hanley’s whose hand flapped at Dele Ali’s back with all the force of a slightly irate butterfly the dear old ref would have pointed to the spot quicker than you can say, cough, cough Big Club😡
I do feel the situation lacks fairness as I feel our game against Villa should have been called off and I actually felt sorry for Leeds United. However did that game get the green light ? Oh it was …LIVE on Sky !!!
Like you I am double vaxed and had my booster and still wear a mask where necessary. But after the dire warnings on Sky last week my wife felt, as it turned out correctly, that it best we give the Arsenal game a miss as I am immunosuppressed and to protect our loved ones.
Much to poor Marty’s sadness.
I really do not understand why people just don’t get it done, personally I might be wrong but I think it is fear and that is hard to make sense of if you don’t share those thoughts.
Wait until someone puts into your arms intravenously something they have to wear bloody thick gloves for, that’s the time to panic.
But players in Germany and Italy are nearly all fully vaccinated compared with awful figures for the Prem and EFL. ( which I really do not get with athletes ) And German and Italian football has carried on relatively well.
Trouble is with a World Cup next winter the wriggle room the english football authorities had with the accursed Project Restart just isn’t there this time.
I don’t know about you Martin but I do listen to what Chris Whitty says, not at all what that Tory backbencher Steve Brine says. He would want you to go about your normal business in Norwich if there was a sniper running around the City.
Finally I do not know the answer to this but I hate to say it “behind closed doors” looks on the agenda to me.
One last thing, as you said the other day it will be the height of stupidity to ask supporters to wear masks outside in the ground when you can go to a nightclub without any need to wear one in a inside setting.
OTBC
Hi Tim
Yes you make some good points there, not least the one about the Leeds game being live on Sky.
The Wold Cup certainly means there is little leeway for a Project Restart scenario as you say – behind closed doors again is definitely possible.
I can honestly say I have never heard of Steve Brine but seem to have drawn the shortest of straws as my constituency MP is Duncan *Tory Boy* Baker, whose family shopkeeping background puts him on a par with the late Mrs Thatcher. ‘Nuff said!
I kind of get the refusal arguments which I totally disagree with but can see that not having the jab might give a certain type of character a sense of triumph over their concept of the Government trying to exert complete control. Some people are simply afraid of needles as you suggest, of course, although I think they would very much in the minority of refusniks.
Cheers
Hi Alex
Both my two are around the same age as your youngest. Rachel is in NHS management [and gets some stick for it] while Josh is a Social Services case worker with Portsmouth Council.
Doing those jobs they felt they had no choice but to get jabbed although some of their collective colleagues flatly refused and continue to do so. No diktat from above.
As for the one-way day trippers who will stay forever MFW is not the forum for me to discuss that particular issue.
Cheers mate
Morning Mr P good read as usual, Like you I do not believe very much that spews out of the government, especially when a egg-headed minister proclaims their job is to challenge scientists. I tend to listen and read the nurses and docs on the front line, when they say it is bad then I believe it is bad.
I had my 2 jabs and now have to postpone the booster tomorrow as I have caught the new ruddy variant. Covid likes me as it is the 2nd dose of the buggar I have had. This one stems from from niece and anti vax who has got her come tuppence with horrendous bout. I have little sympathy for her, as I stand and see the knock on effects, her Mother )(my Sister) is in her early 80’s very immobile due to breaking her hip in the early days of lockdown. A repair job rushed, no doubt as that repair has broken. She can barely walk or stand. she is now left to fend for herself while her daughter suffers. I have been traveling a couple of times a week to help out around her place. She rings me up and informs me she has tested positive 3 days before me. So because of her daughter, we are laid up along with a couple of others she has had close contact with. Lovely selfishness first hand, plus she was charging her own Mum a heck of a lot of money (just short of £200 pm) to cook a few meals and give her showers..
When I meet her again I will have a few choice words to give her.
As to football, Kane should have seen red, but that’s Harry Kane, England’s golden b*lls . Although I must admit to enjoying the game, Spurs should have been down the hill and out of sight 3 good chances possibility more. As to Klopp, should have been sent to the stands as so many others should have been in past matches, to see players trying to get others booked or red-carded. That isn’t football anymore. Referees are not consistent and part of the blame must rest on VAR, which has given totally stupid decisions, like a toe offside.
I admit I do not like the way the Premiership has grown, they call it the best league in the world, I personally prefer the German games, also supporters get far better treatment than us over here.
The clubs need some serious guidance, testing is good at City, should imagine at other clubs as well. There needs to be a number set of players down with the virus that automatically calls off a game.
On to supporters I am not saying a total lockout, but a workable way of dealing with it, it will need to be done for the future, as this thing is here to stay. Perhaps, using every other seat, half the supporters for one game and the other half for the next. Perhaps limiting away support. I do not know there are those in the game who are paid a dream amount to work this out.
That’s my semi-rant of Monday over while I now concentrate on having another nap as I feel like I have been hit by a van, as opposed to a lorry for the first bout of this fricking virus
Mr P, Hope you and your loved ones enjoy a very good and safe Christmas, my thanks for your contributions over the last year. Also to all the other writers on what for me is the best City site by a good ole Norfolk country mile
Hi Lad
I guess we all have our own tales to tell but I found yours particulary poignant.
My mother went blind virtually overnight through giant cell arteritis. We never, ever got on but as a semi-retired only child I felt I had to do what I could to help her. It was utterly horrendous as she wouldn’t let anybody from social services in, although my son and ex-wife would see her at Christmas which helped a little bit.
Four years that went on for and if my Mrs wasn’t so understanding about my asence for a couple of hours every single day I hate to think what might have happened to my mother.
Thank you for your very kind words about MFW – they are much appreciated and I’m sure Editor Gary would join me in that sentiment.
Have the very best Christmas you can.
Cheers
Marty, if we want a decent caring society then we have participate, go the extra mile, just as you are doing. No one likes having injections and many of us wouldn‘t have lived beyond childhood if it wasn‘t for the jabs we and everyone else had, we humans are an unhealthy bunch. I‘m buggered if I know what we should do collectively other than what you are doing, stay safe and maybe one day we and the lads can have another jar or three in the Ribs.
Hiya Cutty
I’ll never forget the BCG at school when I was 13/14 or whatever. The nurse told everyone to come out holding their left arm in agony and moan.
Looking back it was quite comical. Long covered by tattoos I still remember the little imprint on my arm which stayed with me until I was about 25!
We WILL have that jar in the Ribs. Moaning about football online is never the same as face to face and never will be.
Cheers
Hi Martin, my wife and I were lucky, and had 3 doses of Pfizer, with no ill effects at all. My son and daughter-in-law went down with it in the first wave, but fortunately have no apparent long-Covid effects. I currently have a grand-daughter down with it (she’s a nurse). Like you, we’ve continued to wear masks in shops, for the benefit of others as much as ourselves. Good job there’s not too many Piers Corbins around, who apparently tries to keep a fart in his trousers, for some reason.
Hi Jim
Glad to hear you share my general views on the topic – whoops that word harks back to Daniel Farke I suppose, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
If I expressed my views about Piers Corbyn Gary G would kick me off the site so it’s probably all for the best that I don’t!
Cheers
Completely agree Martin. From about spring 2020 the data showed that for the vast majority of people COVID poses little threat. Its been a massive over-reaction from the Government and the ‘experts’. “Its only a bad flu”…
Hi Dan
I’m no medico so won’t give an opinion on how bad or not it might be but I have never felt threatened by it at any time.
I don’t think Bill Gates is after my DNA but I’m sure there’s something more to this situation than we are being told.
Equally if I were really elderly or vulnerable maybe I would be worried. Knowing me probably not, but I understand why some other folks might feel concerned.
Cheers
Although we knew no one who’d caught Covid in the early days, we now have 12 friends and acquaintances who have contracted the virus, and one family member who died as a result. The limited funeral was beyond a shame. We fortunately have avoided it so far.
I see vaccination as everyone’s social responsibility for the greater good – a sacrifice, if you like – and strongly feel that role models (professional footballers, for example) who choose not to have it are responsible for far more than just their own bodies. If just one person caught the virus and died following their example, how well would that sit with their conscience? Also, if they are not vaccinated and, gosh forbid, catch the virus and have to go to hospital, they should be in no position to complain about being left in a corridor because there are no beds available.
Non-vaccinators take up beds that could be used for people with maybe other terminal conditions who are currently being denied treatment because of other people’s selfishness.
Footballers are incredibly fortunate individuals who by a quirk of fate live at a point in history where kicking a back of wind round a field is inexplicably and astonishingly rewarded with riches beyond the dreams of the average healthcare professional. My thoughts on it are: appreciate your privilege and use it well.
Hi Chris
Really good to hear from you in the sense that you have personal knowledge of Covid. I knew somebody would.
Social responsibility says it all for me.
I guess if you have any kind of conscience having a few injections on behalf of other folks is a very small sacrifice to make – even if it is any kind of sacrifice at all.
Jeez I can’t wait to write about a football match again – while it needed to be said this type of stuff is a bit heavy for me 🙂
Cheers
There is something what bothers me and its things what are obviously uncertain and for some reason governments are still just pushing as only possible truth. Only accepted vaccines in several countries are americans mrna vaccines. I do know that there is vaccines made for covid which are “unactive” and because of that they are surely safer. Its just impossible to get them.
Finland last week made decision about next military aircrafts, after several options winner was not surprisingly american ones. What im trying to say that in case after case everything seems very onesided. American war industry and medicine industry are huge and their importance to USA economy is vital. Situation in Ukraine is very bothering and actually very scary. War in Europe is not anywhere near of USA area, if you look history USA has been very willing to play Rambo or John Wayne as long as its nowhere near their own living area and basically both Rambo and John are mostly willing to sell their war industry products and let others play with them. And Putin? No idea what does he want? Russia has plenty of area already. How is it possible that possibly or likely unstable people are some countries leaders?
Problem is that if you say that news in western world are very one sided and some countries are always bad and there is nothing good on them never, you get called as communist. If you have concerns about vaccines you get called as foil hat.
Hi 1×2
Yes I understand exactly where you are coming from on these topics.
Throughout history there has always been an obvious motive for every political or military conflict, like the US Civil War or English Civil War, Garibaldi in Italy or Bismarck in Germany.
From Gengis Khan through Attila the Hun to the Viking era it was always about money grab, land grab or quite frequently both.
But in the days of MSM and social media conspiracy theories abound and it is rarely 100% clear exactly what is motivating some of the power-crazies that there are in the world.
Social media causes a lot of division, often really quite personal and privacy invasive which is why I have never used it.
Thanks for your comments throughout the year – much appreciated.
Hyvaa jouloua!
While I know this may not be the forum for it, the idea that day trippers or refugees are somehow the major cause of this spread are incredibly naive, cases are being spread by the average individual not taking proper precautions or carrying on as usual. 100,000+ cases a day seems to suggest that there’s no end in site. Wish everyone the best and that they stay safe