"We're Goin' to Wembley!"... & Maybe The Elbow Room

This is neither the "royal 'we,'" nor the "collective 'we,'" but rather the "quotatative 'we.'" This is only vaguely connected to the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, but related none-the-less.As people were talking about it this week, it got me thinking about where I was when I heard about it: Mr. Harvey's 6th grade math class in Petoskey, MI. I wasn't the greatest student as a middle-schooler, believe it or not, but he was an alright guy... aside from his odd proclivity towards jamming Glenn Frey in class. I remember 1 day we had to listen to his new album, the 1 which was featured on Miami Vice w/ "Smuggler's Blues" & "You Belong to the City." WTF? Remember all the Christie McAuliffe jokes? I know they were horrible. In fact, even as a 6th grader, I knew they were a little inappropriate, but here's the 1 I just wrote. When I say "just," I mean while I was looking up how to spell her last name.

Q: Who's the only person who fell further than Christie McAuliffe in 1986?
A: Glen Frey... I mean really! What ever happened to him? One minute he's on top of the world w/ Miami Vice; the next minute he's begging Don Henley for an Eagles reunion.

Anyway, I didn't log in to take cheap shots @ The Eagles... that's too easy. I logged in to meander down 6th grade's memory lane. Other than the Challenger, the other things that stand out are WWF (we were in the heyday of Hulkamania), Garbage Pail Kids (these stupid stickers that combined the charm of Cabbage Patch Kids w/ the aesthetic of "What's grosser than gross?" jokes), & the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. As you remember, France knocked Brazil out in the 1/4 finals after a hard fought 120 minutes when the game finally went to penalties & Fernandes scored during the penalty kick shoot-out. of course, they ended up losing the 1/2 finals to Germany when the ref left his brain in the cab, causing France to go out 2 World Cups in a row against Germany in Semi-Final matches due to sub-par reffing.
In fact, & I know this will come as a shock, many of my Petoskey memories revolve around soccer...

... Which is how we can relate all of this to Wembley. The title of the post come from the chant often sung by fans of the winning team during the semi-finals of cup competitions in England seeing as the finals are held there. This only interests me because on Tuesday, those fans happened to be fans of Arsenal, which brings me to the point of this post: Jean asked why I hadn't written about this yet.

Arsenal are going to the Carling Cup Finals at Wembley on 27 February, 2011. The main reason I hadn't mentioned this yet is because it's only the Carling Cup... & they're only playing Birmingham City. They should win so they'll probably lose 1-0 which will then spell the end of their strong run as they lose confidence, crash out of the FA Cup & barely qualify for Europe. All of those other competitions are more interesting... & more prestigious. That said, it's nice to see them back chasing a trophy since they haven't done this since they lost to Chelsea in the finals of the same tournament in 2007. They lost to Barcelona in the Champions League finals in 2006. The last thing they actually won was the FA Cup in 2005. Which reminds me, it's FA Cup 4th Round weekend so enjoy... & then come on out to The Elbow Room tonight for Deep Space Six!