Come on you Blues!!!!

Final Score – Birmingham Ladies FC 2, Husker Soccer 1.

Obviously, it’s disappointing to lose, but honestly we were the better team the second half and easily could have put in 2 more goals. Their keeper blocked a penalty shot and had an amazing save in the final 10 minutes, otherwise we might have won. The first half was rough; we were a little intimidated and not used to such a high level of competition (let’s be honest, our Spring Games weren’t exactly against professional level teams) and gave away two cheap goals off of miscommunication and defensive blunders. But for a team that was at the top of the league and featured former starters for the English National Team, I’ll say a 2-1 loss with a very solid second half isn’t too shabby (certainly not “getting our $#&%! kicked liked the guy at the airport suggested). I played the final 25 minutes and did pretty well, and even got a nice turf burn out of it (GET SOME!).

           

Nerd Warning

We didn’t actually play in Birmingham, but in Stratford-upon-Avon. If that doesn’t sound familiar, then it’s because you didn’t pay attention in any of your English Literature classes – it’s where William Shakespeare was born! I was actually really excited about this, and the town looks like Shakespeare should have been born there – lots of vintage 14^th and 15^th century stone churches, bridges, and houses that just scream “Ye Olde England Towne.” Also, a lot of the houses say things like “Shakespeare’s father born in this house” or “Shakespeare’s friend born here” or “In this spot in 1573, Shakespeare’s uncle’s cousin’s friend’s neighbor’s dog got hit by a horse drawn carriage…”

After the game, we travelled into Birmingham to watch them play Fulham, which was really sweet because I got to see Clint Dempsey from the U.S. National Team play. Fulham pretty much dominated the game and won 2-0, which meant that we were subjected to plenty of new English phrases from the Birmingham fans. Some of them were pretty mild, like “Come on you Blues!” and “Oh what are youse doing!” (with “doing” pronounced with a very hard g at the end). Some of them, however, were a little more, shall we say, crude. Some of favorites – From the Fulham fans (sung) “I want to go home, I want to go home, this place is a $#!%hole, I want to go home” …and the inevitable response from the Blues fans – “Then f%#@ off ya bloody wankers!” it was quite entertaining, actually.

On the POTS side of things, I found out another little tidbit of information that makes my whole life make a little more sense. Apparently, a lot of us suffer from “coat hanger pain,” or pain and tightness that runs down the neck and shoulders and crosses the back underneath the shoulder blades, kind of in the shape of a hanger. I always used to just assume that my back and shoulders were so sore and knotted up all the time because of soccer and training, but a lot of it could also be that when I stand up for long periods of time, poor circulation above the heart means that those muscles get starved of blood and tighten/cramp up, causing the pain and knots. That’s interesting to know, especially because it’s ice, not heat, that’s supposed to make it better in the long run, because heat actually opens up the blood vessels and makes circulation worse.

Another random tidbit of information – English drivers are crazy and driving etiquette here is completely different than in the U.S. If you’ve ever been in a situation where a ton of cars are all trying to get out of a crowded space and people are merging into the same place, like the outside of stadium parking after a big game, then you should know that in the U.S. the unspoken rule is that you go every other car, rotating around the different merging lanes. There is some method to the madness, and generally if you make it obvious that you’re trying to merge or switch lanes, then pretty soon someone recognizes it and lets you in, knowing that karma will see to it that someone let’s them in the next time they’re in that situation, and you give them that little thank you wave and head nod gesture of goodwill. There are also usually some traffic lights or traffic cops to help alleviate some of the chaos. Well, apparently in England, neither of those two things happen. Coming out of what amounts to the RedSox playing the Yankees at the end of the regular season, and in parking lots no more than 100 yards from the stadium, there were no paved lines, no traffic cops, and no traffic lights for thousands of cars trying to merge onto a two lane road. And in England, it’s every man for himself. Literally. People see you trying to merge, and they give you an evil glare and get right up the next person’s bumper so that there’s no way you can weasel yourself in. They honk and speed up and generally weave and inch their cars so close together in an attempt to win the parking lot war that I swore it was bumper cars. It took us almost an hour to get out of the parking lot, much less out of town. CRAZY! Also, one of our British coaches explained the whole  highway traffic circle “why didn’t they just put in exits like normal countries” thing….and it actually makes sense. Basically, all of these places were here long before the roads and cars, so the traffic circle was the only way they could get roads to split to different places without having to pave brand roads, because the dirt roads to the cities and towns just gradually were built over hundreds of years and they just had to adapt to cars as best they could.

So now we’re just chilling in our cottages eating pizza (yeah our coaches bought us all frozen pizzas because we got back so late and they didn’t want us to have to really cook…never thought I’d see the day!) We’re about to watch Shawshank Redemption, and then sleep in tomorrow. Game against Bristol Ladies FC at 7 pm, GO BIG RED!