No booze and you lose

A fine win on Saturday gives Rot Weiss Essen a great chance to qualify for Bundesliga 3 next season but a win for Magdeburg at Union Berlin (which I attended) makes it more difficult.

Magdeburg currently lie in the coveted 10th place on 50 points. RWE are in 11th on 48 points, level on points with with Dortmunnd Reserves.

It's all in the mathematics (as Sir Mark Prescott would say) and it leaves Essen basically needing six points from their last two games. The crunch game is against Magdeburg next Saturday 24 May and I hope to be attending my first match since nearly missing my brother's wedding to watch the cup defeat against Hamburg in January.

It was my second time at Union but the experience was disappointing due to them selling non-alcoholic lager. WTF (I've learned that recently). Yet another human rights abuse. It was all a bit shady because they advertised it as 'Leicht' and the signs were not clear. The colour just didn't look right.

I can imagine them selling non-alcoholic beer at a Who concert but not a football match. Therefore, the crowd were a bit subdued. It's all wrong. The good thing to come out of the day was that Magdeburg were pretty poor.

So anything less than a victory, like the one we secured against Magdeburg in November, will make it a very long 1hr 40 mins journey back to Berlin on Saturday evening especially with the non-alco piss water swilling through my body and the likelihood the toilets on the regional German trains will be out of order. Wasserlassen ist verboten!

Rot Weiss top of the league

Yes, Rot Weiss are top of Regionalliga 3 (Nord) however it is not Rot Weiss Essen but rather Rot Weiss Ahlen. Second place is filled by Rot Weiss Oberhausen and it would have been a near clean sweep if Rot Weiss Erfurt had not conceded a late equaliser against Dynamo Dresden last Saturday.

Rot Weiss Essen scored an important away victory the same day to give them a slight chance of reaching 10th place and the soon to be formed Bundesliga 3. They now trail the team in 10th place by six points with five games remaining.

Results needed this week are for RWE to beat the struggling Hamburger SV II at home on Wednesday, Braunschweig to lose at home to the struggling Lübeck, Wuppertaler also to lose at home to the struggling Cottbus and Madgeburg to be beaten away at struggling Babelsburg.

If these unlikely events take place, I may go and watch Union Berlin play Dynamo Dresden on Thursday evening.

**UPDATE** Struggling Lübeck managed a 3-3 draw with Braunschweig on Tuesday evening.

Pay for poker with Paypal, pal?

Well you can buy stuff on Ebay, pay for subscriptions and even by someone a drink but I never knew you could pay for playing poker with Paypal but you can!

I've heard some horror stories about the company but I've never had a problem with them. A colleague of mine will tell you, as often as you want to hear, how somebody tried to steal $600 from his account and how it's still limited and how fucking useless their support is but he's Scottish and is always complaining about something.

I'm surprised more sites don't use it because once a person has caught the ebay bug, bought a couple of items and realised how convenient Paypal is then there is no reason not to use it for having a bet or indeed a game of poker.

Once thing that concerned me from the link above is the picture used. Have a close look and it is a picture of a wallet with playing cards inside them. Seems like cheating to me....

Wetten, dass..?

Wetten, dass..? (German for "Wanna Bet..?") is a German language game and entertainment TV show. It is the most successful television show in Europe.

The shows are broadcast live six to seven times a year from different cities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and can easily attract 50% and more of all German speaking viewers on that evening. It's rubbish.

Snooker 147 Ronnie O'Sullivan

Ronnie O'Sullivan completes his third Crucible break at the 888.com World Championship on April 28 2008. Read more about Ronnie at Betfair Snooker.

Referee cost Arsenal a place in the next round

I wouldn't normally quote from the Times with Murdoch primarily being responsible for the death of English football (from a working class spectating point of view) but I found the following comment left on one of their stories highly quotable.

Arsene Wenger (The Goat) and multitudes of Arsenal fans have been complaining about the penalty decision. They fail to see important stuff like Liverpool totally dominated their team in the second half and that a 2-2 result would have been a travesty.

Anyway, here is a comment left after a biased Times article.

I totally agree that the referee cost Arsenal a place in the next round because :
a. He should have done a better job marking Hyppia for the first goal
b. He gave Torres too much time and space for the second goal
c. He got nowhere near the penalty strike from Gerrard
d. Showed no bottle in holding off Babel ( who apparently falls over easily ! ) for the fourth

Don't get me started on his team selection (especially at he heart of Arsenal's defense) or his inability to beat Reina from point blank range.

With referees like this, no wonder the game is going to the dogs

P.S. While I am at it, I would also like to pin the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the Credit Crisis on Wall Street and the oppression of Tibetan monks on the bloody referee.

P.P.S. Is it ironic that the same people crying about the "better" team going out are also complaining about Liverpool's automatic right to win the CL?

P.P.P.S. The best team DID progress to the next round... 5-3 over 2 legs says so!

4. Liga, Essen ist dabei!

It showed how much attention I've been paying to Rot Weiss Essen when I discovered they had sacked their trainer a couple of wekks ago and I did not even notice.

The change has not had the expected positive effect. First a 4-0 defeat against Rot Weiss Erfurt and then a 3-0 home defeat - ironically against Union Berlin (the team I should be watching now I'm in the German capital).

The depressing thing for fans of the club is that the result leaves them seven points adrift from 10th position. Finishing 10th would mean Essen would play in the new Bundesliga 3. A finish outside the top ten would mean a season in the regional 4th division -and with only one team per season getting promotion from that league it is a very dangerous position for the club. Sponsors will leave and it is possible it could be the start of the end for the former German Champions.

It's all very depressing and I'll do anything to change things around.