Mr Bowyer...learn your lesson or leave!

Ten years ago, just before I moved to the Czech Republic, I worked as a McDonald's manager. I remember one new employee we hired called Josh. He was a really nice guy. Josh always turned up on time, worked hard and wanted to do well. Unfortunately he kept making mistakes and wouldn't learn from them. He dropped things on the floor, broke things, lost money and almost got us sued when a customer scolded his arm due to Josh not putting the coffee lid on properly. We wanted him to do well but the mistakes added up and we didn't keep him on after his probation was up. It's a strange analogy I know but Gary Bowyer is Josh with the only difference being he has at least done some good for Blackburn Rovers.

Gary Bowyer is a nice guy, we know that. Gary Bowyer hasn't done a bad job for Blackburn Rovers. He kept us up when we looked like certainties for relegation to league 1, he's made some good signings and steadied the club, helping us recover from the shambles of recent years. Blackburn fans will always be grateful for that and I'm sure he will always be welcome to work at Rovers in a coaching role.

The problem with Gary Bowyer is he simply doesn't learn from his mistakes. This was forgiven in his first full season as we viewed it as progress but now it's just ridiculous. Time and time again we see him being completely outdone by his opposite manager's tactics. Bowyer has a plan A, that's it. In almost every game we play the outcome can be predicted at half time. He is incapable of changing a game.

The tactic issue is old news. What really winds me up is his recent attitude and baffling team selection. The alarm bell went off for me after the defeat away at Bolton when Bowyer, in his post match interview, instead of criticizing his defenders decided to childishly comment on Emile Heskey's eligibility to play in the game which makes a mockery of his comments this past week that he 'was brought up not to throw his toys out of the pram'.

Bowyer openly criticised fans not too long ago for 'jumping on the bandwagon too quickly' and he dared mention the way fans acted during the Steve Kean era. He was an employee at the time and should have known more than anyone what the fans had to put up with during that terrible two year spell.

There were times when Josh looked like he had grasped what was needed and we thought "great! he's slow but he's getting there'' before he made the same mistakes again. Bowyer has had some good results and will probably get some more but consistency is key and that's something he's been lacking since taking the job. His decision on Saturday to leave our two top goalscorers in Rudy Gestede and Jordan Rhodes on the bench for the visit of premier league Swansea was surprising but perhaps understandable. Maybe he wanted to surprise them by throwing a spanner in the works and keep the strikers fresh for the big league match three days later against Derby County. That's what most of us assumed until the teams were announced yesterday and the players were again left out of the starting eleven. It can't be about 'frame of mind' because despite the transfer interest both players have shown a good attitude. Equally as baffling was his decision to replace the man of the match from Saturday's 3-1 win, Shane Duffy, with capatain calamity...Grant Hanley. It's clear to everyone that Hanley and Lowe are complete weak links in our team and will never play at the highest level with any success but they have both been brought through the ranks by Bowyer and he seems to refuse to accept they aren't good enough.

I don't think Blackburn will get relegated with Bowyer in charge but they have no chance of promotion either. Bowyer refuses to take the shackles of a very talented bunch of players. He refuses, or is incapable of changing his tactics when needed and has a dangerous stubbornness regarding players he has personally brought through the youth teams.

Blackburn have no right to believe they are a premier league club. There are bigger clubs above and below us. All we ask, as paying customers, is that we get value for money. We want our manger to try and win games and entertain us. The team selection yesterday was a disgrace and it smacked of a manager admitting defeat before the game. What other manager of a supposed promotion chasing club would leave his two top goalscorers on the bench for an important league match?

It's all well and good saying Bowyer is a nice guy but at the end of the day he's a nice guy who gets paid a very healthy salary to do a job and he simply isn't getting results.

*Update...

Here are the championships longest serving managers. Only one of them is going backwards in terms of progress. Guess who?

1. Steve Evans (Rotherham) - League 2 runners up 12/13 and League 1 Playoff winners 13/14, currently 21st, five points clear of the relegation zone. 

2. Eddie Howe (Bournemouth) - League 1 runners up 12/13, currently 1st in the table, one point clear of 3rd place, 7 points clear of 7th.

3. Mick McCarthy (Ipswich) - Guided Ipswich to safety in first season, 9th last season, 4 points off playoffs, currently 4th in the table, 1 point off the top, 6 points clear of 7th

4. Gary Bowyer (Blackburn) - Guided Blackburn to safety, 8th last season, 2 points off playoffs, currently 10th in table, 11 points off playoffs.

5. Kenny Jackett (Wolves) - League 1 Champions 13/14, currently 7th, 3 points off the playoffs.

6. Steve McLaren (Derby) - Lead Derby to 3rd in the league, and playoff final. Currently 2nd, level on points with Bournemouth, 7 points clear of 7

To the village!

It's almost 9 years since I left England and moved to the Czech Republic. I started in Prague, the capital city with a population of just over 2 million. In September 2007 I moved to Litoměřice, a small town with a population of around 26,000 and 7 years later I find myself here, in Byšice, a village which now boasts 1054 people.

**This is where I wanted to put a picture of the village but I googled it and it's about as pretty as a war torn town in the Ukraine so I will take my own camera and try to take some soon**

I still work in Litoměřice so I have a daily commute of around an hour. That's something I wasn't looking forward to but four weeks in and I really enjoy it. I'm actually fresh when I get to work as opposed to before when I woke up 20 minutes before the school bell and walked up the street. The commute is something I look forward to now because I decided to switch the radio off after discovering podcasts. I'm listening to around 7 hours worth weekly. My current playlist is:

606 phone in with Robbie Savage
The Football Ramble
Guardian Football Weekly
Justin Moorhouse - about 30 minutes never more than 45
WTF with Marc Maron
Real Time with Bill Mayer
Stuff you missed in history class

Brilliant. If there are some good podcasts I don't know about please tell me!

The downside to the commute is I'm on the road more which means I have to deal with Czech drivers. Now, we all know I'm a very calm and relaxed guy and it takes a lot to wind me up but MY GOD the drivers here manage it at least 6 times a day. I've driven hundreds of thousands of miles over the last 13 years in/through 23 countries and 2 continents. Hundreds of miles up the coast of Australia, all through Europe from non existent Serbian roads to landmine infested Bosnian country roads and none of those countries have a driving standard as bad as the Czech Republic. It's embarrassing. It's not everybody of course, I know some good drivers BUT it's a ridiculous majority. The women are actually much better than the men. For some reason they think they are amazing drivers but they are so dangerous. Overtaking on corners, driving 80kmph above the speed limit. Even today I saw about 3 near misses with oncoming traffic. Then you have the cyclists who don't use lights in the dark, wtf!? Seriously one of these nights I'm gonna hit one and I won't feel guilty. It's funny because every time I speak to an expat with a car one of the first topics is how bad the drivers are. You really have to experience it to believe it.

Enough moaning. So the village is small, nice and in a great location. It also has a big factory in the middle. Vitana. It's the Czech version of Bachelors. We've spent the last 8 weekends reconstructing the bathroom and toilet and re-wiring the entire flat. I say we, it was mainly Radka's dad. He worked ridiculously hard and taught me how to do stuff like dig a hole in a wall for the cables, plaster the walls and some other stuff. I expected to hate it because it's really not my kind of thing but after a 60 hour work week it was actually refreshing to do something different and I enjoyed it. We lived with Radka's dad for 3 weeks because of the dust and final touches before finally moving into the flat last Saturday. There are a few pubs in the village and I still haven't had the time to try one but it's on my list. That's about it really. There's a post office and a football pitch. Still, it's 5 mins from Mělník, 20 mins to Prague and 25 mins to Mladá Boleslav so it's really handy.

I don't know how village life will work out for us but at the moment we both really like it. I like the flat, we have a garage, a cellar, 2 balconies and now a brand new bathroom. The kitchen is the next project early next year. I'm also enjoying the peace and quiet, especially early mornings, at least until the milk truck comes through. It's like an old English ice cream van with chimes but instead of a song it has a cow going 'moooo, fresh milk and yoghurts'. I tried the milk once, tasted like shit.

I went to the doctors last week because I've been having asthma issues (mainly as a result of the dust when breaking into walls). I haven't been able to stop coughing for about a month. I like my doctor, he's friendly enough and always looks so relaxed. He wears his doctors coat with bright orange rejoice shorts, woolly socks and sandals (all year round). It's strangely comforting as most of them are like robots. We usually have a very informal chat and check up, I get a new inhaler, some pills and I'm on my way. Not this time. My doctor had professional looking clothes, there were 2 nurses and another doctor in the room with him. The other doctor looked very serious and my doctor stood up and asked me what the problem was. He was speaking very formally. I quickly realised he was being assessed by the other doctor. I froze and forgot what my problem was. I don't mind speaking Czech to people I know and I'm comfortable with but when there are strangers listening to me explain something important, for example at the doctors, hospital, bank, town offices etc I hate it. I told him the cough was bad and he knew what to do and what to give me because it's on repeat prescription but I also wanted to mention another issue. I had played squash 3 weeks earlier with Vita and I ran into the wall sideways, at pace, when trying to reach a shot. I didn't think much of it at the time but later in the pub it was sore and hurt when I sat in the car etc It was around the chest area. I explained it badly in Czech because of the other people in the room. I wanted to say I played squash and hurt my chest but i said I played squash and my chest hurt. I wanted him to send me for an x-ray but he assumed I was talking about a heart attack type problem and immediately instructed the nurses to hook me up to some machine. I had to strip to my boxers, lie on the bed and have about 7 different instruments suctioned onto my chest. The other doctor came over for a closer look, they studied the results on the computer before coming to the conclusion that my heart was fine. I wanted to say "ok but that's not what I meant" but I think I said something like "ok that's good, phew, thanks". Idiot.

I'm looking forward to being back in England for Christmas. We have one year here one year there. It's the fairest way. I've only been to Blackpool once in 14 months. That's sad. It's costing an absolute fortune to get over there this year. I tried to book flights back in August but they were really expensive so I checked every month and nothing had changed. In the end they wanted 16,000kc for two tickets on easy jet. We usually pay 2500kc each. I know it's christmas but that's just taking the piss. I can't pay that much, sit down and have to pay three quid for a coffee. I wouldn't mind paying 16,000kc for British Airways or Czech Airlines but I'm not paying £600 for two tickets on a budget airline which gets me to England at midnight. We decided to drive. It's fine and I always enjoyed driving from here to England. We have planned the route and are gonna stop at a hotel in Dunkerque on the way over and Essen on the way back. Not the best towns but it's just somewhere to relax. We are leaving Sunday morning, ferry Monday morning and should be in Blackpool Monday afternoon.

Can't wait to see you all next week!!!! Enjoy your pre-christmas stuff and please buy mini pork pies and mini scotch eggs in preparation for our arrival.

Why plastic Sparta fans make my blood boil...

I remember my first ever Sparta match. It was about a month after I had moved to the Czech Republic towards the end of the 2005-2006 season and they were playing Viktoria Plzen at Letna, or the Toyota Arena as it was back then. I didn't know much about Czech football and I'd never heard of Plzen but I was shocked. There were about 5000 fans in the stadium and Sparta were 3-0 down at half time. Mr Repka conceded two penalties. Plzen needed to win as they were third bottom so there were a few mumblings after the game that indicated there might have been some foul play involved somewhere. Imagine if Plzen had gone down that season...things might have looked quite different these past few years! Anyway, my point is I was shocked at the lack of atmosphere and small crowd. It wasn't what I had been expecting, at all. Maybe my expectations were a bit high. I had been watching Blackburn Rovers every weekend home and away for many years and obviously the crowds and stadiums in the Premier League are on a slightly different level but still, despite a tepid introduction to Czech football, I liked the place and chose Sparta as my team. I left Prague and moved up north towards Teplice about a year later and only managed the odd game before finally becoming a season ticket holder in 2011. After almost 9 years watching Sparta I now understand why there were only 5000 in the stadium that day, and it pisses me off.

I have discovered that there are too many Czech football fans (not only Sparta fans) that are 'plastic'. They pick and choose when to be a fan. If you ask someone in the pub who they support the majority will reply either 'Sparta' or 'Slavia' with some of the younger generation throwing 'Plzen' into the ring due to their recent success. The majority of these people don't have a clue when, where and who 'their club' is playing unless it's a big game. The average attendance this season is almost 2000 lower than last season. Why? Sparta won a league and cup double last season. It seems strange to see your team win 2 trophies, qualify for the champions league and say 'nah I won't bother'.

If Sparta play Plzen, Slavia or a top European team the stadium is sold out. A week later they play Slovacko and you would be lucky to have more than 7000 in the stadium. It's a disgrace. Who are these so called fans!? I remember when we played Chelsea two seasons ago in the Europa League. I went to both matches. The away match was great but the match at Letna was awful. I was surrounded by Sparta 'fans' wearing suits who were there just to see Chelsea. The attendance that night was 18,952 and I remember wondering how many would be at the following league game after such a good performance where we were eventually undone by some individual brilliance from Oscar. The game after Chelsea was a home league match against Slovacko. I remember it being a boring match which sprung to life when Sparta scored 4 in the last 20 mins, including a Vaclav Kadlec double. There were 4566 fans in the stadium that day. Pathetic.

So what's the reason?

Money? No chance. Czech football is extremely affordable even to those of us earning a Czech salary. My season ticket for Sparta costs about 1300kc. That's the same price as ONE match in England.

Unimportant matches. This is a common excuse. People seem to think a match against Plzen means everything and matches against smaller clubs don't warrant a visit to the stadium. I disagree. In England we follow our team NO MATTER who the opposition. Every match is important. You are a fan so you follow your club. I remember the 2011/2012 season where we missed out on the title and Liberec took the trophy. We had the usual sell outs that season against Slavia and Plzen. An important home game against Přibram attracted very few fans. We lost 0-2. We would have had a better chance in that match with 15,000+ fans in the stadium cheering the team on. Instead we lost with a whimper and the title became an uphill struggle.

Hooligans, Kotel, Idiots. Ok, I agree that there are some Sparta fans who embarrass the club. They aren't real fans. The players hate them, the fans hate them. It's an absolute minority of idiots.The recent trouble in Bratislava...it was started by 2 idiot kids with their faces covered. The racism...it's about 5 idiots in the stand and nobody else joins in. So these fans who use this as an excuse are going to let a couple of brainless kids scare them away? Pathetic. I've met a few people from the kotel and they are real fans. These people live and breathe Sparta. They meet about 8 hours before kick off on match days just to prepare banners. They watch the team home and away. I played at a fan club football tournament in Týnec nad Sazavou back in July and there were good people everywhere, no idiots. We should be proud to have these fans because it's a rarity in Europe these days...especially in England. When the kotel have a stadium full of fans they can create one of the best football atmospheres in Europe, absolutely no doubt about it. We need that!

What next? Who knows. We have been knocked out of the Europa league which will cost us about 12,000 fans until the derby game so we will probably have around 5000 in the stadium when we play Přibram on the 21st February. Retaining the title is going to be extremely difficult.

Stay at home Sparta fans need to support the club. Everyone is in this together.