Completely Gutted: The Death of World Soccer Daily

I know that no one that reads this cares at all about soccer, other than James. I know that you all will see this and skip right past, but my favorite talk show went off-air Friday with no warning and only Jo really knows how low this takes me.

It’s like the death of a good friend.

Within a week of deciding to follow Manchester United and learn about soccer overseas I looked for a podcast to teach me and jumpstart my knowledge. I found these guys and loved the show automatically. It was Steven and Howard “The Prince of Darkness” then. Once Howard left, Kenny stepped in beautifully and became as integral to the show as Steven himself. I attached to them and my love for European football became inextricably tied to World Soccer Daily. The people who called in were regular and familiar. The hosts were like buddies at a pub. It was a daily fix. A place of familiarity. And for fans who’ve given themselves over to the sport, it was a refuge. A place where you could hear people that were as passionate about a fringe sport in America as you. Let’s face it, soccer will never be the NFL. It will never attract impoverished kids from south Chicago like the NBA. And it will never feed the stat junkies like Major League Baseball. But it has made headway, especially this summer! Yes James, soccer in America may be a fad, but that’s for the average sports fan. The average fan needs scoring. They don’t understand that the game is like a flowing version of chess. Not even three days ago, Bill Simmons talked about this exact thing on WSD. He said that he had always been a hater, but the thing that attracted him most was the passing. Passing. A virtual unicorn in the NBA. Not a score of 110-113. Maybe 0-0 or even 4-4. It’s a point either way. It is the tug-of-war. The build-up in the middle of the pitch. The loss of possesion. The gaining of it back. The cross. The counter-attack. The perfectly weighted long pass to a lone striker.

Sorry….

It runs through my veins.

A community has been damaged. A show that has been the major force behind a groundswell is gone. ESPN carries the Premier League now because of this show!! And like that…….

It’s gone.

I’m attaching a blog written by another guy, if anyone is still reading. He explains the whole debacle pretty well.

“Soccer fans in America lost a funny, insightful voice Friday as radio show World Soccer Daily permanently signed off after pressure, including death threats to friends and family, from a group of Liverpool FC fans. The threats began after co-creator Steven Cohen made a series of controversial and erroneous remarks concerning a 1989 stadium disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans were killed. Cohen issued an on-air apology and backed off his tendency to criticize Liverpool and its fans. That, apparently, was not enough.

While he remained vague on the details, Cohen alluded to the fact that his step-daughters had been contacted and/or directly threatened by people who wanted the show canceled. Likewise, threats were received by Steven’s co-host Kenny Hassan, as well as several show sponsors. Much of the hate mail and mongering directed at Steven was also anti-Semitic. The announcement was made at the start of Friday’s show and most of the call-in discussion centered on fans’ expressions of gratitude, shock, and sorrow.

I know how they feel.

The daily show, which I listened to on podcast most times, had become an entrenched part of my life over the past four years or so. Hearing Steven and Kenny pack it in today was a gut check. After the 2006 World Cup, I realized how much I missed watching soccer, but I knew I was out of the loop. Fishing around for some help, I found WSD. The show brought me up to speed and kept me entertained. Over the past few years, it had gotten even better with the introductions of respected commentators and guests from all over the world. While they remained heavy on the English league, there was a real effort to make the show as all-inclusive as possible. I mean, they had a Turkish league correspondent, for Pete’s sake!

What turned me on most about the show, though, was the pure love for the game. Everyone involved was nuts for soccer and they wanted to share that with other people. It didn’t matter if you had been a fan for 50 years or five minutes, they would take your call. I can’t even remember how many times they asked people for stories about how they became fans. At its core the show was about building up the beautiful game in America, and Steven, Kenny, and the rest did a lot to foster a passionate community, and they did it the right way. Even though they were satellite-based, they kept it family friendly (most of the time); some of their regular callers were from the U-14 set. They also didn’t use their broadcast platform to return the hate being directed at them. They could have very easily gone on-air with specifics, called for violent reprisals, made things worse. They didn’t. They tried to deflect as much as they could until it simply became too much.

It is one of the great freedoms of this country that we can disagree. It means you can voice your opinions, but it also means you have to listen to other people as well, especially when they’re wrong. If something upsets you that much, don’t listen. Tell everyone you know not to listen, but don’t threaten people’s children. There’s never an excuse for that, ever. I find Rush Limbaugh offensive, so guess what? I don’t listen to his show. I loved listening to World Soccer Daily, but that choice has been taken from me.

To Steven, Kenny, Howard, Rafa, Adam, and all the rest: Thank you. Thanks for giving me and thousands of other football fans two hours a day to think about and talk about the sport we love. You’ll be missed and I hope you find a way back soon.”

Concrete, Steel & Cajun

Let me preface by saying that my father-in-law does check my blog, so for the sake of family harmony I won’t write every thought I had about certain things. I’ll just leave those between me, Jesus & JoAnn.

Returning to the idea that Houston is a moose of a city, I was definitely a little out of my depth with a place that size. Like “The Blob” but made up of a mass of glass, steel & concrete and massive expanses of land on the outskirts to devour, this city seemingly has no limits. Obviously there are other cities that may dwarf it by comparison, but they don’t take the phrase “everything’s bigger in Texas” lightly. If you’re gonna be bigger, you’ll have to put in some serious effort. Matt Vana had gone for an interview for a residency there and came back exclaiming how things there were so massive. The roads. The stadiums. Everything in between.

“Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’”

If he wasn’t exactly a scout coming back to report to Moses, he was pretty close.

Anyway, we went out the next day to see Jo’s half-brother and spend the day at the pool with various parts of the family. As with even the spring and fall there, it was sweltering. So, being near water was a good idea.

We spent the afternoon there talking and letting family catch up. As with most family gatherings of that sort, the in-laws huddled together for protection in numbers. Even if they don’t really know one another! JoAnn & Dave. Me & Joe Harris. And on this day, me and Paul, the husband of Jo’s cousin.

Paul is Houston PD, so I spent the majority of the afternoon being entertained by colorful stories of theft rings, drug busts & bust ups between local soccer supporter groups. It was all good fun and I interjected only when I had some knowledge on a particular subject or had a story of comparable entertainment value.

I had hoped, being in a completely different part of the country, that we would eat something other than Olive Garden or everyone’s standby, Outback. Luckily, we were with a former local that had better ideas of what real food in East Texas tastes like. So, that night we went with Jo’s parents to a little joint on the west side of town known as the Ragin’ Cajun. Everyone that day had raved about it and said they even had boudain (boo-dan).

Webster’s entry says:
\bü-ˈdan, -ˈdaⁿ\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural bou·dins \-ˈdanz, -ˈdaⁿ\
Etymology:
Louisiana French & French, sausage
Date:
1845
1 : blood sausage
2 : a spicy Cajun sausage containing rice and meat (as pork) or seafood

We were going for something more along the lines of the second option! Not the blood sausage as much.

I had eaten boudain for the first time a few years back at a cookout in Creedmoor when Jo’s uncle Don came to town with a case of it. I only ate a little since there was only a little to be eaten. Before this trip though I swore to gorge myself on as much as possible. We also hoped to devour pound after pound of boiled crawfish, but the little red delights just happened to be out of season. I had eaten those for the first time on a trip to New Orleans in ‘98 and loved them! Jo hadn’t had them, so I was a bit disappointed to say the least. They had fried crawfish because they can freeze them, but it’s not the same at all. It was more of a softer version of a clam strip. But, out came a massive bowl of red beans & rice with andouille, and I was happy once again! Throw anything at me that contains pig and I’m good to go.

So, we ate fried shrimp, fried oysters, fried crawfish, jalapeño hushpuppies, fried catfish, sides of chicken & sausage jambalaya & a double order of boudain. The platter was massive and within half an hour, it was clean.

There may be fewer things in life that compare to the satisfaction of beer & real Cajun food. Even taking the chance of passing a kidney stone from all of the fried food seems worth it in the long run.

Gullets full, we eventually waddled our ways to the car to head back to the Hyatt & our beds in our 64-degree rooms. Life was good!

Getting to Houston

One of the things that Jo and I have wanted to do before having kids is be able to travel a bit. We really haven’t since our honeymoon though. It’s one of the pitfalls of having a family beach house. You feel guilty if you do anything other than that. But, this past week we finally got a chance to do something different and went to Houston for her dad’s family reunion.

I’ve only ever been to Texas when laying over in Dallas/Ft. Worth on my way to Northern California, so this was going to be something totally new for me.

To save money we drove up to RDU Thursday afternoon and flew out that evening. I was tweaked and had borrowed a handful of Valium to help me get through the whole process of flying. I had never struggled with flying until Jo and I went out to California and had a horrible descent on our layover in Denver. From that point on I turned into a little girl at just the thought of flying. I had 4 pills and 4 flights since we were laying over in Atlanta both ways. Nervous and not thinking straight, I took two leaving Raleigh. Honestly though, I wanted to be unconcious, like B.A. Baracus!

Obviously, I made it through the first flight fine with a double Crown & Coke along with my two Valium. Other than getting “the spins” and seeing a couple of pink elephants, I was good to go! But, the pills only lasted a couple of hours and by the time we were to take off from Atlanta they had already worn off. I really wanted to take the other two, but better heads prevailed and I didn’t take any. Jo convinced me to just wait for the drink cart and get something stiff there to get me through the remainder of the flight. The only problem there is that I struggle the most with taking off and landing.

So, I tried to just brave it! We took off through some clouds, made some dips and swerves and I consequently almost ripped the headrest off of the seat in front of me. Jo held my arm until we got above 30K and I got a good dose of Jack coursing through my veins.

From that point on I was able to relax a little and enjoy the lights of the various unknown cities we passed over. As we passed over east Texas it was dark with only the occasional sprinkling of lights from tiny towns when suddenly on the horizon rose up a line of lights that stretched completely across the width of my window. We were obviously there.

Putting both Charlotte and Atlanta to shame and being landwise bigger than any other city I had been in, Houston was gargantuan and covered everything for as far as I could see as we began to land. Even for someone like myself that has an awesome sense of direction no matter where I am, Houston left me turned around all weekend.

Coldplay

I just started a run-through of the entire Coldplay anthology this afternoon. I’m in the process of prepping myself for tomorrow night. Jo, Steph, Braun, Morgan & myself are all going to see them in concert. It’s my first time seeing them and has been 4 years in the making.

I’m not going to try and act like I followed them from the beginning or anything! The summer Jo and I moved back to Wilmington we went one night to see Wedding Crashers with my friend Miccah from UNCW. On the way home she asked if I listened to Coldplay much. I told her I only knew “Yellow” and “Clocks”. They were ok, but didn’t really trip my trigger. She put in their album that had just come out and told me to listen to this one song that she was playing over and over at the time. It was “Fix You” and I really dug it. Wasn’t blown away, but it was good. I asked if I could rip it off her. She said she had all of their albums plus a couple of others I might enjoy. So, I ripped all of them and let them sit for a couple of weeks without thinking much about them.

I was working at Porter’s Neck at the time and spent a lot of hours on a 72″ mower in the woods surrounding the course. I eventually started carrying an old CD player with me and once I started tiring of old worship music and Toad I finally decided to take all of the Coldplay albums with me one day.

Even though she had played a few songs for us off of X&Y I decided to start from the beginning. When I heard the first song, “Don’t Panic”, I was done. I wasn’t sure if they could do anything to top it. Of course, that first album has other tracks that are just as phenomenal.

I listened to all 3 albums in consecutive order. Then I started over and listened again. And again….

I was in a great place in life! I had left trucking, gone back to finish school, was living in Wilmington again but married this time, was back at Port City, in a good small group and even though it didn’t pay well I was working at an incredible golf course where I played for free. Things were just good. And there became an unbreakable connection between that whole situation and the new music I had found.

I love all of the music that they put out, but when I listen to those first three albums I see myself riding that mower singing at the top of my lungs because no one could hear me over the mower, just as happy as I could possibly be. I see myself between #9 green and Porters Neck Road anytime “In My Place” comes on. I see myself up in the woods near the par 5 #15 tee box when “The Hardest Part” comes across or sitting behind the green of #12 in the shade near this massive handmade metal windchime in a tree of someone’s backyard when “Don’t Panic” plays.

I could go on and on, but know that while I’m at the concert tomorrow night, a big part of me will be in some tall pines elsewhere.