Whitecaps FC, English Football and Twitter Tweeps..oh my.

I thought I would go on a little bit of a different direction today covering one of my other passions, football (soccer for the uninitiated) along with a really funny couple of tweets I received yesterday. While my subject order had the latter in last, I think I will cover that first. Yes I know the site is called ComfyCycling.com, but I do have other interests besides cycling.

Tweets and Tweeps

I had an interesting thing happen after loading up TweetDeck and catching up on recent Tweets and fellow Tweeps yesterday. I had received a Twitter mention from another tweep who I don’t know with the following message.

“@vdubber67 I think you should follow @rjedge54. You have the same name and (apparently) the same life.”

Before I had a chance to follow up on this, I received an email notification that “Richard Edge (vdubber67) is now following your tweets on Twitter. ” It seems I am now following myself, but in a different persona….things that make you wanna go hmmm.  Things get a little bit more interesting though. While it is obvious after looking up his Twitter profile that this Richard Edge is younger than myself but it appear that one of his biggest passions is cycling. There’s more…He is also from Nottingham England which is in the east midlands and only about 80 kms from my parents home town of Birmingham. My parents emigrated to Canada in 1952, 2 years before I was born. While I realize that though Edge is not a common surname here (moreso now than when I was growing up) it will be more common in England. Richard is also a fairly common English name so I guess the odds are pretty good that at least in the UK there might be someone else with the same name, but those odds would be much lower that we both would count cycling as our main passion. Now if I find out that is is also a rabid football fan (very likely) and an Aston Villa fan and with a middle name of James as well, then that would be pretty spooky .

English Football

Where does Aston Villa fall into all this? Well they are a Birmingham football team and as a fan of English football it would naturally follow that I would choose a team from my ancestral home to support. I still have very strong ties to the UK and as such while I am Canadian born, at my core I am an Englishman. When it comes to choosing a football team to support this is that way it is done and you support your team no matter what for the rest of your life. It is not considered ‘proper’ to switch allegiances even if your team is relegated to a lower division. Now my team is not in any danger of that, in fact they are doing quite well in the English Premier League but they could be doing better as they are currently in 7th place and in a fight for the 4th and final qualifying position for next year’s prestigious EUFA Champions League. This has been made even more difficult with Manchester City’s win over Birmingham City (5-1) today. This time of the year with only 4-5 games left in the EPL season can be some of most dramatic times of the year as several teams at the top fight for the EPL title, then next several teams fight for European Champions League and Europa positions while the bottom several teams fight to avoid relegation and can act as spoilers for the upper teams. Exciting stuff.

I would of course be remiss in failing to mention the excitement building up to the 2010 World Cup tournament in South Africa where we will see the best in the football world compete head to head for world football’s most prestigious trophy, the FIFA World Cup Trophy. And my team of choice to support? Well that would have to be the three lions, England of course. Was there any doubt?

As of this writing there are only 60 days until the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (countdown timer in upper left corner of home page) and my vacation time for the tournament is already booked. I will not be attending in person but between June 11 and July 11, the TV is all mine all day and night as I try to watch every game being played.  There will be very little distraction allowed during this time including social engagements with only one exception, the Canada Day Populaire bike ride on July 1, but that is what PVR’s are for. This is a well know ritual in our home every 4 years, but one of these years I will be making plans to attend a World Cup in person.

Whitecaps FC

Being a locally born Canadian, my North American professional football team of choice is the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of which I am a season ticket holder.  It is also exciting times ahead for them as today they are starting their last season in the USSF Division 2 (formerly USL1) league as next year they move up to the MLS and into a new stadium as well. Today’s game is the start of the season and I will be there to cheer them on as they build and prepare for their 2011 entry into the MLS along with fellow I5 rivals Portland Timbers. There is a strong possiblity that Canadian rivals Montreal Impact will be joining the MLS in 2012.

There have been a lot of new signings for this season both in the head office and on the field again as the team prepares for the MLS with many players intent on impressing to try to secure a position on the MLS version of the team. It will also be exiting to see the return of former Whitecap and 2009 USL rookie of the year Marcus Haber even if only until June. Marcus scored 8 goals and had 4 assists with us last year and his pace and striker’s killer instinct around the opponent’s goal was not only appreciated by Whitecaps fans, teammates and coaches but it seems by West Bromich Albion of the English Coca Cola Chamionship. They signed him during the January 2010 transfer window. He is back to us on loan from WBA until June 15 when he will return to likely train and prepare with his WBA teammates in preparation for their new year having clinched promotion to the English Premier League next season. This will be an exciting time for us as we get to see one of favourite local boys again, but moreso for him as he breaks into the EPL, a very difficult thing to do. Marcus is a local Vancouver boy and came up through the Whitecap football delevlopment system so kudos again to the Whitecaps for continuing to develop world class footballers.

In other Whitecaps news, all of their USSF D2 games this season will now be streaming live free of charge at http://www.whitecapsfc.com/live/. Todays game is at 4:oo PM PDT so if you can’t be there in person check out the game online. It’s going to be an exciting year of Whitecaps football and I am looking forward to it.