Note: If you are interested in reading about the parts of England that do not have to do with football, you can do so at http://oxford-girl.blogspot.com. Be forewarned, I am bad at updating.

Well, I have finally carved some time out of my insanely busy schedule to give you all an update on what it is like being a football fan on the other side of the pond. Since I don't know when this rare occasion might strike again, I must carpe the diem. Nor can I promise that this will be a regular series, as Guru asked, but I will file dispatches whenever there is something interesting to report.  Theoretically, I am going to my first official “football” match this coming Saturday (Oxford United vs. York City) and will have to report back on the intricacies of crowd craziness here. I’ve heard it’s quite something to behold. I’ll also have to chase down a rugby match at some point, as it’s technically more like what we know football to be like. This can likely be found in Scotland, as it’s the sort of game that appeals to them. (Key: lots of head-smashing). But it's popular in England as well, so I just have to find one first.

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Hullo all, First, I would like to extend a very large CONGRATULATIONS!!! to you for beating That Team (you know the one. The one cashing in with a vengeance now that God doesn't hate them any more and seem to think they get to do this every year now. The team who sadly ruined my team's magical Rocktober run last year. The guys with the idiot fans who follow them in packs. Yeah, those guys). Secondly, this is exciting for me as well. I started following the Rays relatively early this year once it became apparent that the Rockies were going to suck again, and while I didn't pay close game-by-game attention to them the way I did (to bad results) with the Rox, I was always pleased to hear that they did well and was so excited when they were consistently in first place, seeing as I hate the Red Sox and Yankees (and imagine that  you feel likewise). With the Angels, Sawx and W. Sawx, and you guys represented for the AL playoff teams, it was a no-brainer as to who I'd like to see go for the Junior Circuit. (I was backing the Brewers in the NL, since they helped the Rockies out big at the end of last year, but sadly that ended rather quickly).

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So, as I've mentioned once or twice before (and was the topic of my diary soliciting requests as to however in the world I was going to keep up with REAL football) I am headed to England for a year. (I am leaving tomorrow, which means that my last 24 hours at home are filled with a lot of last-minute errand-running, mindless kabitzing, and fruitless urging for the clock to go faster, all the while tempered with moderate nervousness and wild excitement).

BUT on the more relevant side of this, Guru has kindly asked if I would be willing to write a weekly/semi-weekly feature chronicling my experiences as a football fan on the side of the pond where they think that soccer is football, and I have agreed to do so. Since I don't have my schedule yet, I don't know which day of the week would be most convenient, but once I do, I shall do my utmost to, you know, meet deadlines. So, if this sounds even mildly interesting, WATCH THIS SPACE for undoubtedly fascinating tales of comments on my Cutler jersey, the British reaction to the Saints/Chargers "match," my mad scramble to watch midnight games,  my lack of sleep due to doing so, my random whooping from watching the little orange-and-blue line getting into the endzone at 2 in the morning, and any arguments (and searches for bomb shelters) I may have with the local hooligans, PLUS my impressions of English, uh, football (are they as crazy as Philadelphia fans? Raiders fans? Crazier?) since I will be sure to go to a game or two. Assuming I can get tickets. And not get assassinated for unknowingly wearing the wrong colors. (I have heard you have to watch out for that in Glasgow. Might make spring break interesting).

In short, stay tuned...

Hey Brew Crew Ball! Hope you're feeling damn good about clinching that wild card on the last day of the season (I know we were, last year....) Rockies Nation, however, will never forget the instrumental part that you guys played in beating the Padres twice to force our epic playoff, and it seems as if our team felt the same way (I know they wanted to send victory cigars and champagne to Gwynn Jr., but thought the Players' Association might frown on that). I've developed a bit of a liking for the Brewers based on how much our teams seemed to be proud of their joint effort, and now that our season has ended in, um, less than rousing fashion, I come to offer my hat at your service for the soon-to-be-commenced postseason. The Mets did a typical Mets, and you recovered from your early September swoon to pop up on the last day and get that last playoff spot. (Playoff tiebreakers are an awful lot of fun, but murder on your heart). You also got to fire your manager, for which we are all very jealous.

And so, since I do not have a team in this postseason, I'll take the Rays from the AL and be a Brewers backer for the NL. (I think we can all agree that absolutely nobody wants the Cubs in there). I am a friendly and oftentimes odd person who means no harm, with a rather dark sense of humor, and should you allow, would be happy to join you for the '08 postseason.

So, in about a week and a half, I will be leaving Colorado to head for Oxford, England, for a year. While I am insanely excited about this and am counting not only days, but hours (well, pretty much) there remains the small problem that I will be missing out on watching the rest of the season live (the last game I will be able to catch on TV is the Chiefs) as well as all of the playoffs. I'll be 7 hours ahead of MT, which means that I may be able to check in on the game threads, but will only have Gameday (a poor substitution, as I am sure you know). And once the night games start, I am doomed (HAVE TO MISS BRONCOS VS. PATRIOTS ARGH ARGH, it will start at 1:30 am in the morning. I'd be even more furious if it was Cutler vs. Brady, as I've been looking forward to that matchup for so long, so I suppose it's a cruel consolation prize that at least it's Cutler vs. Cassel).Not to mention I won't get to watch the Super Bowl or any of the playoffs live, so how am I supposed to see Cutler and Co. tearing it up? (Knock on wood). I will also have to miss college bowl season. Maybe there is one TV in all of England I can hijack for its God-given purpose.

So, what do I do? Become a soccer fan? (It is not football, and I don't care if calling it soccer will get me jumped by hooligans, I know what football is and that is not football, it's soccer). Invest in some black-market Internet TV that will record the games for me? Buy some off iTunes to salve my yearning for live football, and not just multi-colored lines going one way or another on a dinky little field diagram? I cannot afford tickets for Chargers vs. Saints at Wembley, although that did occur to me. (I am, as a matter of fact, redonkolously poor).

So, help me out, MHR. What are your brilliant ideas for feeding my football addiction when TV and live games are not an option, and my budget is miniscule?

Okay, so here's the deal. I am jetting off to England on September 30, where I will be in residence until June 22 next year. My best friend/sister/partner in crime, Squeaky, has already left me for the bright lights and big city of New York, which means that I have no one to go with for my farewell Rockies game, and going alone is lamesauce. Since I will be 7 hours ahead of Mountain Time, that means I will only be able to make an appearance in game threads if the Rox are on the East Coast, which means I will basically miss out on half the season next year. Which means I will be having withdrawals. Which means I have to get to one more game in person before I leave. Which leads me to ask if any of you fine denizens of the Row are interested in going to a game with the resident (but very charming!) pessimistic asshole. I promise I am not that scary. Seriously. Strange, yes, but terrifying, no.

I was thinking one of the LAD/SD games from next week, and probably on the weekend. I prefer the Saturday night games, which would mean Sept. 13, 6:05 pm against the Dodgers, but I am willing to negotiate. I am a well-behaved, house-trained female who a) will not shriek "OMIGOD TROY I LOVE YOU!" b) am an amusing person to watch a game with due to my demonstrated, um, interesting sense of humor, c) has the financial means (barely) to provide for my own ticket, parking, and meal, and d) am interested in meeting up with someone to enjoy my last excursion to 20th and Blake for quite a damn while. As long as I don't pay $78 to watch the Rockies lose, as happened with Squeaky's farewell game. Bastards. Also, if you plan on doing and/or endorsing the Wave, I have to warn you right now, we will have problems.

If you're interested for the Sept. 13 game, let me know, and we can meet up outside the statue at Coors, 4:30 pm, and then we can just go over to the window and get our tickets then. Look for the tall and strikingly beautiful (yeah, I wish) glamazon in Rockies playoff sweatshirt and cap. Yeah, well, that could be any number of fans, but you will know it is me by the distinctly offbeat aura I emanate.

(This is something I've been mulling on for a while, and I was curious to hear what MHR has to say).

I, like everyone here, count myself under the "rabid, tending to dysfunctional due to extreme emotional attachment' brand of sports fans. I watch spring training and preseason games, whether on TV or on Gamecast. (My plans for Saturday night tomorrow consist of: Get pizza. Watch Broncos game. Heckle the Cowboys even though they can't hear me through the TV screen. Make unimaginative cracks about Jessica Simpson. Yell at Jay to throw the ball to the open guy in blue (or orange, as the case may be). You get the idea). I read every stats sheet in existence. I check an average of five or six different sites a day, five or six times, for news on my teams. My evening is planned around how I can check on the games in progress -- or avoid them, if they are currently too painful to be endured. (This April, I went to a big dance party at college. During breaks on the sidelines, I was constantly texting MLBscores to keep updated on the progress of the Rockies game). I am happy if the team wins, and feel as if life is all a sham and should be disallowed in the (sadly all too common) event that my teams get their behind handed to them on a platter. This is a routine that likely sounds very familiar to all of you, since I'm sure all of us have similarly proudly displayed our lack of social skills and bizarre emotional swings all having to do with a bunch of guys in matching colors.

This can make you do strange things. As an example, I work at Starbucks, and today a guy came in wearing a raiders hat. My first impulse was to ignore him, or pretend to throw holy water on him, or make more cracks about Al Davis. (Earlier this year, I recounted my triumphant encounter with a raiders fan while leaving the Rockies game, in which wit wasn't even needed to outmaneuver the poltroon -- just a simple stating of his team's crappy record). Of course, it is my job to be nice to the guy, so I just took my sweet time finishing the drink I was working on and eventually got around to him, where I was very nice indeed. So nice he might have suspected something was up. So nice that I certainly didn't spit in his drink or anything... (As a matter of fact, to be perfectly honest, I didn't. Mainly because he didn't GET one. Nope, he just stood there with a bagel, one bagel, for me to ring up. And couldn't have gone somewhere else. Nope, needed the bagel. One bagel. Right then, raiders fan). And the guy wasn't even wearing a chargers hat. I wonder what I might have done if that was the case. (Although a kid did come in wearing a chargers shirt a while ago. I decided not to tell him that his choice of football allegiance sucked harder than Phyllis on dollar drinks night. Being as poor as I am, I can take no chances with losing my job).

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So, Russ asked me/someone to open a FanPost for the extra once the main thread hit 400, and since we're at 440, it's time to move over. Hopefully that will give us some new mojo, as we are clearly showing every sign of being in for it again. Russ has to get up in 2 hours, and since I am exhausted but don't know what's best for me, here I am doing it again. Bring your charming personages to these new premises.

Since I don't even know what day it is, and Russ went to bed... and we've gotten close to 1,000 comments in the existing thread, I figured I should do this instead. And since it needs to be 75 words long, I'll babble so we can move here, since breaking SB Nation would not be preferable. I expect that we'd get peeved about that, since we would then have nowhere to do said babbling.

 

Post here, all.

Sitting here in my NL champs T-shirt, watching the Rox take on the White Sox, a week or so before the regular season starts, slavering for baseball. This is my first diary -- er, excuse me, FanPost -- on the new Purple Row, so hopefully I have everything figured out. I was looking at my recently enhanced iTunes Rockies playlist, and decided I could both share my favorite songs as pertaining to the purple and ask about yours. So, what songs give you the best memories of our boys? Here's mine.

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