From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: ambitiouss Ausstrianz/ Chelsea 5 Man U 0
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 12:38:01 +0100




>It wouldn't surprise me in the least if all goals were shot by the United
>team, and you bloody Southerners just showed them the wrong box to shoot
>at [plse add Mancunian accent!]


Regrettably you're part right - one was an o.g. - I think it was Henning
Berg. The highlight though was Nicky Butt getting sent off. The loveable
cockney, Dennis Wise, launched a well-intentioned two footed tackle at
Butt's head, and was booked. As the pair of them rose up from the pitch,
Wise affectionately stuck his hand up Butt's shorts and, in the - almost
certainly euphemistic -words of the newspaper removed a hair from his upper
thigh, whereupon Butt launched his savage and cowardly assault on the
diminutive Wise. [Wonder if Chuck0's team have mastered these finer points
of the game.]

The media have loved it though - everyone's gloating.

>P.S.: You alright, Andy? The news just announced there was a bad train
>accident in London this morning, and apparently there's four dead and a
>still unknown number of casualties as they are still busy cutting people
>out of the debris.


I'm OK - it was on the same line as the Southall crash a year or two ago but
a bit further in, near Ladbroke Grove. As of last night, they're still not
sure how many are unaccounted for. It was near Paddington, so people may
have been moving into the front carriages to get off first at the terminus.
When I use the train, it's one that goes out from Waterloo, and the
privatised operators on that [it's owned by Stagecoach and Ann Cloag - a
company who had previously wrecked bus services up and down the country - I
think they may have been the ones whose crapness gave Manchester the impetus
to re-start trams] cancel so many bloody trains that I doubt whether two are
ever in motion at any one time.

The feeling persists that the separation after privatisation into Railtrack
[lines, signals, infrastructure], and separate companies to run the trains
may be causing problems. Also the franchise holders aren't investing enough
on new equipment, because they not only have to deliver a profit, but also
make up ground for the running down of stock initiated by the Tories.


Andy