Everton beat Manchester United on Monday and they did it with a little bit of class. It looks like they are starting the season the right way this time and they come to Villa Park on Saturday. Should be interesting to see how the manager deals with this.
I write that because they will be full of confidence and while I think, or hope, that he will factor that in but still try and play his way, that is me just guessing and hoping, we will have to wait and see.
But more on Everton tomorrow or Friday, today is about a song and about a competition winner. First up, the song and I've just read somewhere that Paranoid by Black Sabbath is possibly going to be the song that the players walk out to at Villa Park.
Read the words
Finished with my woman 'cause she couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time
All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify
Can you help me occupy my brain?
Oh yeah
I need someone to show me the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind
Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel and love to me is so unreal
And so as you hear these words telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life I wish I could but it's too late
What will we put above the badge from that song; 'oh yeah' or maybe 'people think I'm insane'. An online poll, of songs pre-chosen, isn't how a song becomes sung at Villa Park and is wrong.
Liverpool adopted the Gerry and the Pacemakers version of You'll Never Walk Alone, originally a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, because Bill Shankly liked the song (reported at the time that Shankly had adopted it as the club song) and because when it was no longer top of the charts, the Liverpool supporters continued to sing as if it was (Liverpool used to play the top-ten in ascending order, with the number one single shortly before kickoff at every home game).
Manchester City fans also didn't get a poll. According to the Manchester City website Blue Moon was first sung by supporters as they were leaving Anfield after the first game of the 1989-90 season and it just organically developed.
Do you see where I'm going with this? A list of pre-chosen songs and then a poll. Madness. It has to happen naturally and there has to be a reason. It seems to me as if what we're trying to do is force something because we think we should have something when actually, we already do. The sung above, that is apparently winning, is also extremely depressing, if you read the words. Is that what we want to listen to right before a match?
Competition winner
Anyway, we had a competition to see win the shirt and we have a winner that goes by the username VillaPanthers9 - I'll be sending an email to them later, but if you are reading this, by all means send an email in and we'll get the shirt off to you. The winning guess was 344,444 and the actual attendance of the opening ten games was 344,124.
And before anyone mentions is, there was a second guess of 344,444 but I had to take the first. Also, attendance figured were taken from the BBC website because if you can't trust the BBC you can't trust anyone. They're listed below with capacity in brackets (just for fun) and those numbers were taken from Wikipedia.
- Everton - 38,415 (40,157)
- Wigan - 19,738 (25,133)
- Manchester City - 46,190 (47,405)
- Arsenal - 60,078 (60,361)
- Fulham - 25,062 (25,700)
- QPR - 18,072 (18,439)
- Reading - 23,973 (24,169)
- West Brom - 26,039 (26,360)
- West Ham - 34,172 (35,303)
- Newcastle - 52,385 (52,409)
On that, I'm off to do some work. Have a long day on the phone in front of me. I used to love these days, but trying to get hold of people these days is tougher than it used to be, especially when you need the people you are calling to make decisions.