We had a quick visit to the stadium today ahead of the first ISL 3 game between North East United and Kerala Blasters.
Everybody was going through last minute preparations or rehearsals prior to the opening ceremony. Along with my Aussie commentator, Andy Paschialidis, we did a quick check of our commentary position, got our bearings around the stadium and got out of the heat and humidity as quickly as possible.
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It was a 5.15 departure from the hotel this morning, 7.25 flight from Mumbai and checked in at the Radisson Blu Hotel Guwahati, by midday. We are now in the state of Assam and if you go on the Wikipedia page it states that Asian elephants, pythons, Tigers and rhinoceros are part of the wildlife up here! The opening game of the India Super League 3 season is between North East United and visitors Kerala Blasters FC. Kerala Blasters, co- owned by Sachin Tendulkar and managed by my old England team mate Steve Coppell, have someone even more dangerous than the wildlife with them,,,Wally Downes ex Wimbledon Crazy Gang FC etc and it didn't take him long to let me know he was there, climbing all over me in reception as they returned, all sweaty, from a training session in the 85 degree heat. Wally is a great character and a fabulous football coach and the players will need to be on there toes at all times, on the training ground and everywhere else,,,with Wally around things are never dull!! Maybe we should all be on the new Foster's Lager for a 'Go Sober October'. Somebody asked me how you manage to live out of a suitcase for 86 days, traveling by air to eight different cities continuously, with a change of hotel every 3 days on average? Well,,,,, this is all my gear. Clothes vacuum bagged, medicals in one small toilet bag, toiletries in another. iPad phone keyboard and spare phone ( on Indian SIM card) in canvas folding briefcase.
Mid sized bag carries a bit of heavier gear, shoes and Handycam, but goes on board along with the canvas briefcase. Vacuum bags give you plenty of room to work with but all the gear still weighs the same obviously. The two smaller bags can fit in the big one on the flight home where the weight allowance in around 30kg. We are limited to 15kg of hold luggage per internal flight, which is pretty tight, and I can only just clear that by loading some extra gear in the hand luggage bags. At every hotel we have a daily laundry allowance so the best practise is to use it for a little bit a gear every time you check in to a different hotel therefore giving them at least 24 hours to return it before moving on again. Simple hey! Well after a lovely night at The Bombay Cateen the morning got off to a nice peaceful start then suddenly changed with an emergency call to get into the production office at StarSports asap. The car is on the way they said and getting across Mumbai at lunchtime is the same as trying to get across central London but with a lot more scare factor to it, just from the driving perspective!
Anyawy 4 hours this afternoon doing production and programme checks followed by seven lots of flight details to process plus player and team stats to compile before leaving to head back across Mumbai in the rush hour traffic. This will be a short piece tonight as it is 21.50 here and the car picks up in the morning at 5.15 to take myself, commentator Andy Paschialidis and presenter Leeza to the airport for the 7.25 flight to Guwahati. Only problem has been juggling 30kg of luggage into a 15kg allowance hold bag, a hand luggage bag of 8kg max and a laptop bag,,,might be fun at check in!! If you don't know where Guwahati is it is worth searching out, right in the top right hand corner of the map of India, just above Bangladesh and below the Himalyan mountain range. Time for a quick six hours sleep. Goodnight. Before anybody asks,,,I agree totally with what the majority are saying about our latest ex England Manger, I don't think any more needs to be said apart from 'what a bloody mess the FA are in now'!
After a day of workshop experience at StarSports it was chance to chill out with all the production staff, commentators and presenters at Bombay Canteen. A little bit of local food and a few Kingfisher beers complements of Guarav Gala, Head of Content, and now back in the hotel at 1.20am, a bit later than hoped for.
Here we go then off to a quick workshop at StarSports, chance to meet up with all the production staff etc, and then onto the Bombay Cateen for a welcome dinner.
Well Monday morning started early with a 5.30am departure from Bristol to Heathrow Terminal 5 for my 10.30 BA flight to Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
Flying business class, compliments of StarSports, will make the 9 hour flight a pleasant experience. Nine hours of peace and quiet, before the hustle and bustle of India, will give me plenty of time to do some research on the squads of players that are competing in this years India Super League. Just time now for a bit of breakfast in the BA Galleries Lounge before getting the train across to Gate 56. Arrival time in Mumbai is 23. 55, and in case anyone is interested Mumbai is four and a half hours in front of UK BST. Next post will be from another continent, till then,,, Monday September 26th is departure date from London Heathrow to Mumbai, 10.30am British Airways, and the start of India Super League 3. The Trident Nariman Hotel on Marine Drive will be home for the first couple of days before moving up to Guwahati, right up in the north east of the country, for the opening game of the season on 1st October, North East United v Kerala Blasters. This year the Manager of the Blasters is Steve Coppell, ex Man Utd and an England colleague of mine. For the next few days I will be checking that I have got everything that I will need over the next 3 months. This ranges from the normal stuff like clothes and toiletries to a long list of add on requirements. Spare phone, Handycam for blogging video (!) iPad and keyboard, Chargers, glasses, binoculars (some of the commentary points are a long way from the pitch side), stationary equipment, medical bag containing malaria pills, antibiotics, sterile wet wipes, bathroom clothes line, sunglasses, contact lenses, Imodium (will def be needed sometime), dioralite, anti inflammatory pills, probiotics etc etc. I have double checked the paperwork, visa details, contract, Tax Residency Certificate and all jabs are up to date. £225 worth of malaria tablets as we will be entering the malaria high risk zones on a regular basis over the next 12 weeks. After the the first game in Guwahati on the 1st Oct we will be flying back to Pune on the 2nd Oct for Pune v Mumbai, the closest of any two clubs in the league. Then it is down to Kerala v Kolkata on 5th Oct before heading back to Mumbai on Friday 7th Oct. Four games in the first 7 days in 4 different cities. This is going to be the routine for the next 12 weeks. Criss crossing India every couple of days, north to south and east to west, 14 internal flights in October alone, checking into to a hotel 14 different times visiting each of the eight franchise cities. It is going to be a blast,,#let'sfootball Just to clarify my thought process for my next selection means that I need to consider what shape this team is going to play. Well, thinking ahead of the difficulty that I have created for myself when it comes down to choosing strikers, I think this team will be more balanced playing in a 4-3-3 formation. So I have to consider two attack minded midfield players who would compliment Warkie who would be doing the central holding role. Starting on the left side of midfield, or wide left, was Clive Woods when I started at Ipswich. Kevin O'Callaghan came in during the early 80's from Millwall and was also more of an old fashioned left winger like Clive. In between those two came Arnold Muhren with the most wonderful left foot ever to grace Portman Road, a bit more subtle than Kevin Beattie's left foot. At Leicester City we were always short of a natural left sided midfielder, Ian Wilson did a good job for us at times but was more effective through a more central position, but the magestic Laurie Cunningham, during his short stay at Leicester, did like playing down the left and cutting inside to play off the strikers causing havoc that way. Similarly when I went and joined Southampton in 1988 Rodney Wallace played a similar role down the left wide position, very attack minded, exceptionally quick and a very good goal scorer. I think in my first season there both Rodney down the left, and another young lad call Le Tissier down the right, both ended up with over 20 league goals apiece. Rodney, his twin brother and right back Raymond and elder brother Danny were great lads and soon Danny was off to Manchester United. It was such a shame that his career was cut short due to MS. After three and a half years at Southampton, and being surplus to manager Ian Branfoot's requirements I moved to Ashton Gate and Bristol City. A couple of years later I was the Manager and signed a terrific left sided midfield player from Bradford City. His name was Brian Tinnion and he went on claim his five minutes of fame when he scored the goal for Bristol City that knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup in January 1994. Tinnion was similar in style to Muhren but Arnold had a bit more guile and finesse than Brian. Getting back to who is playing alongside Warkie and you might have guessed that on the left it would be Arnold Muhren. I don't think many Ipswich Town, Manchester Utd or Holland supporters would disagree with that choice. On the other side it comes down to two players in my opinion. Both these players suffered from insecure England Managers restricting their appearances for the national side. Glenn Hoddle played 50 odd times for England and I played with him from the U18 group up to full international level. I played in Australia with him in 1980 when he scored as we played across the cricket square at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Glenn probably could have had another 20 to 30 caps but somewhere along the line both Ron Greenwood and Sir Bobby thought him a risk to play, not defensively minded enough. Amazingly then that Matt Le Tissier suffered as a player in the same way as Glenn did, but this was when Glenn was the England team Manager. That was something I never understood. I played with Matt for three seasons at Southampton and seeing him score incredible goals became part of your daily routine on the training ground, so when he did it on a match day most of us were never really that surprised, and Matt definitely wasn't. A truly gifted player who could ride tackles and challenges with a balance and grace that belies his playing diet of crisps, Mars bars and coke. Matt has a very sharp footballing mind, a soccer specialist on not only the modern era and his own, but just about any game game played anywhere in the world, Matt would be my choice to play alongside Johnny Wark and Arnold Muhren in a midfield three with John playing his normal holding role. The team is now starting to come together, a recap soon.
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AuthorRussell Osman is a former England & Ipswich Footballer, 4 Handicap Golfer and Father of 3. Archives
April 2018
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