Attending The Church Of Scholes...

it was certainly not the prettiest of opening league matches, but as they say, 2 points is 3 points. no, they don’t say that. 3 points is 3 points. yes, that’s it. regardless, getting to the pub at 8:30 am on a sunday after drinking all day on saturday following a grey-goose soaked friday was no small feat. luckily, a few magners over ice is the world’s greatest hangover remedy. that is until leftover turkish food ushers in a case of food poisoning followed by a medically inexplicable case of heat/bad turkish food-propelled hives on one’s torso and arms. no, magners is no match for food poisoning or hives. it’s cider, not cipro. but do you know what is? benadryl. yes, after spending three hours at a hospital monday thinking i had a triumvirate case of ebola/sars/swine flu, the friendly physician at nyu hospital on first ave did some tests and told me to simply take benadryl, go home, sleep, get up, take more benadryl, sleep some more, and drink bucket loads of water. well, that shit knocked me the fuck out, but now my stomach feels more normal, the hives are mostly gone, and i’m ready to tackle the workday like robbie fowler ninja-kicking australians while trolloping on his head in a suspended state of gravity. quite a back-story eh? well, now it’s tuesday and i’m finally in a proper state to write about sunday’s match.

lethargy. this word could both describe my physical state the past 4 days as well as manchester united’s opening of their premiership title(s) defense. as stated above, 3 points is 2 points or something, and it’s well known that united are habitually slow starters (last year we tied newcastle on opening day while i was watching from a friend’s summer home in connecticut, the horror(s)). sure, we won, but it was hardly convincing to me or the boys. i sat with two twenty-something irish construction workers and an older korean man at the pub, and all of us were having minor heart palpitations each time our distribution-challenged keeper ben foster put his feet anywhere near the ball. yes, he did make 1 classy fingertip save, but the team’s performance overall just seemed so unemphatic. rooney worked hard, scored a nice sitter after skying past three birmingham defenders who all appeared to be a least 6 inches taller than him for a header into the post.

some randoms in the pub as well, in addition to a few of the irish regulars who did not make it to the chelsea match the week before. said randoms included a balding man with crusty short shorts and a gnarly unkempt chest hair-flouting wife-beater with a heavy queens accent who kept asking me about the boundaries of the neighborhood and propositioning me for a cigarette. since i had no cigarettes and kept telling him i was a quitter, he did not get very far on the nicotine quest but still found it necessary to tell me that he lived in flushing and was around the ‘hood doing his laundry and decided to stop in and see what all the fuss was about. why not do your laundry in flushing, i thought. “socca is gettin’ big, huh? eight in tha morn’ and all tees guys in here boozin’ huh?” um, yeah man. you are scaring me, please go talk to someone else. thankfully, he eventually did. other standout pub happenings of the morning included the jovial chinese woman who came in just past half time hawking high-quality bootleg dvds (i’m still mad at her for selling me a perfectly good copy of che 2 with dutch subtitles), the pay phone ringing and ringing until the tender of the bar answered it, and the seemingly out of place 12 year old sitting at the far end of the bar drinking what appeared to be a pint of something light. it’s best to not ask questions about these things. he seemed like a mature chap anyhow.

however, more pressingly than pre-teen minors downing pints at the bar, questions still linger about our attack. rooney drifting out wide and berba not working hard. also, we are certainly in an early-season defensive injury crisis already with rio and vidic both out. perhaps the best thing that happened for united on sunday was liverpool losing to spurs 2-1. next up, mighty burnley on wednesday, which, due to employment handicaps, will have to be watched via illegal iraqi streaming sites on a work computer and, sadly, not from the pub.

scholes sighting: started and played the full 90. looked quite youthful commandeering the midfield. i think the new 4-4-2 system suits him better in his older age. he got forward quite a few times and hit a some blinders that got (painfully) deflected on their way to goal, resulting in one of my drinking buddies yelling at the top of his lungs “scholesy barcelona!!!” in a west-irish yelp each time the ginger ninja cracked a shot.

most terrifying bottle noticed behind the bar: crystal palace vodka, “a high-quality vodka, made to satisfy discriminating tastes.” righty-o.