Originally posted by HERMITT
So what did happen to the "all expenses trip"? Will this affect the England team and if it doesn't ie, they are getting more financial help than others then this sucks for it to be truly bad for the game if as many teams as possible weren't represented at the xball trials.
Who can shed some more light on this??
Robbo.................
Cheers
There is a certain amount of crap going down at the moment that I won't go into too much detail about but suffice to say, I am trying my utmost to maintain the original pledge of an all expense paid trip to Pittsburgh (Flights, hotels, entry and paint) but the goalposts have changed as Nick says but I am doing my utmost to reset them believe me.
On another front, certain parties and it doesn't take too much to work out their identity, are endeavouring to undermine my position as England coach for their own ends.
They believe, they should form a major part of the squad, and what I am doing is wrong and until this situation is resolved one way or the other, I'm not really sure of anything at the moment.
These people firstly incited a reaction from me in Amsterdam and are now using this reaction as some sort of justification for my unsuitability as England coach.
Now I want to make one thing clear in this post, I have posted nearly 900 times on this board, written well over 250 articles and 400 smaller items for the magazine and I have never knowingly lied once and I will not break that trend in what I am about to say.
Nobody got hit in Amsterdam, nobody got even threatened, I swore at a player and shoved him out of my face a few times (I thought twice, others say more, whatever).
The reason ?
This guy was pissed off because I had not picked him or any of his mates for the X-Ball squad and reacted badly at some of the things I had written on this board regarding my selection policy for the squad.
I did not believe the existing hierarchy should form a major part of the squad due to their self-evident lack of success Stateside and I was consequently going to hold trials for all players from all teams, to determine who I thought were the best players to represent the UK.
At the end of a game where his team beat some German novice team and I was a spectator, he came over toward me and started hurling abuse at me in front of all the players, judges and the crowd watching.
It was a completely unsolicited and unwarranted attack on me and presumably elicited the reaction they wanted because I waited till the judges called game over and went onto the field to find out what the hell he had said and why.
Things became heated but nobody was hit, a few people got shoved around including me but that was about it !!!
But to believe some of the accounts these guys are putting about you might believe I was frikkin Genghis Khan as the instigator to all this went up to Anthony Jones afterwards and told him it took 14 people to hold me down, damn I thought it was 15.
Moose and Pete Martin arrived on the scene quickly and as soon as I heard Pete and Moose shout in my ear, I stopped, and walked calmly off the field.
But you know politics...and you know people....we'll see what happens
A couple of days time, all will become clear to me and hopefully I can get on with the job but until then......who knows ?
Robbo
