A good many deaths

The past week has seen three big names all bite the dust - James Brown, Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford. Go back a further week and you can throw in the despot of Turkmenistan as well. The law of probability on this suggests we won't have another famous person dying for quite a while now and I'm inclined to believe it.

Pardew's point is not enough

Alan Pardew got his first point last night against Fulham but according to reports on the balance of play if not by the means by which they equalised, Fulham deserved a draw. The task for Charlton looks even more daunting with that result. The effective manager swap by Charlton and West Ham has overtones of the last similar occasion this happened. Then Crystal Palace were storming the First Division, now called the Championship with Steve Bruce as manager. Birmingham City, having been taken to the play-offs four times in a row by Trevor Francis but not progressing from any of them, decided it was time to ditch Francis and appeal to Bruce to take over. Despite chairman Simon Jordan's fury, putting Bruce on now infamous 'gardening leave', the contretemps was resolved when Francis replaced Bruce at Crystal Palace, Bruce being bought out by Birmingham. It was an inequitable deal. Steve Bruce, managerial climber that he is and now at a bigger club (and fourth one in four years at the time) took the Brummies to the play-offs and through them, to the Premiership. Trevor Francis left Palace floundering in the second tier until a certain Iain Dowie came along. Fast forward to the start of 2007 and leave out the impropriety and the situation is that Curbishley can probably keep West Ham up, but Pardew and Charlton will be joining Crystal Palace in the Championship. It's not a foregone conclusion, but for the Addicks part of the formula, it's the most likely one.

The forgotten president

On a world news topic, ex-President Gerald Ford has died aged 93, the only president to contest only one election for the job and lose it. He was appointed by Richard Nixon after the previous vice-president had resigned on corruption charges (was there anything wholesome about the Nixon administration?) and when Nixon himself faced the inevitable and stood down to avoid a reckoning, Gerald Ford stumbled forth from the shadows. The delirious, fantastical stupor that Nixon had sunk into in his final year in the Oval Office, is eerily reminiscent of the last days of Caligula. Upon the assassination of the increasingly mad emperor, the praetorian guard engaged in open combat with Rome's police force and urban populace. One guard, ransacking the imperial residence, found Caligula's uncle, Claudius, cowering behind a curtain (Claudius had neglected to conceal his feet poking out). The club-footed, stammering patrician was hauled out from his hiding place to the praetorian camp where he was acclaimed emperor and the praetorians no longer faced the likelihood of being disbanded, as the senate was defeated by this action. Contemporaries regarded Claudius as weak and idiotic though he possessed a keen intelligence. The same was thought of Gerald Ford though it was true in his case. In a televised debate with his presidential opponent, Jimmy Carter, Ford said that Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination and never would be under his watch - it took a whole two weeks for his advisers to make him accept the absurdity of the statement. Ford did achieve some worthwhile milestones though. He did not intervene to save South Vietnam as it was finally overrun by communist North Vietnam in 1975 (thus giving us one of the most enduring televisual images of the helicopter-assisted rooftop retreat from the US embassy) though Nixon grumbled from the wilderness that he would have done. This corrected two decades of American mendacity and venality in Indo-China (before the next bout that is), after they had cancelled national Vietnamese elections in the south of the country when it seemed the communists would win and so opened the setting for the Vietnam war. He also pragmatically (as seen at the time), unwittingly (with hindsight), confirmed the borders of Europe in a final settlement of World War Two at the Helsinki Conference, recognising what was already de facto and pressing the Soviet Union for human rights reforms. Nixon had said of Ford as a politically unthreatening vice-president that he couldn’t fart and chew gum at the same time (later amended by the press to the more family-friendly, but in some ways more critical, walk and chew gum at the same time) and during his three years in office Americans felt their country was going backwards, while the USSR seemed more confident than ever. Of course, the USSR had intractable problems that would eventually undermine it, but no-one knew that at the time. As part of the political turmoil, Ford also contributed to the last great flowering of Hollywood, as art often tends to be heightened in politically uncertain epochs. The comparisons with Claudius, however, can not be stretched too far. Claudius was wise enough not to deify Caligula. Ford gave the hated Nixon a full and unconditional pardon. A narrow majority of Americans now believe that was the right thing to do, to allow the country to move on (although the rehabilitation of Nixon's record by the rabid right and notoriously conservative radio talk shows has probably much to do with it), though then it crushed Ford's poll ratings and political survival became impossible. Now Gerald Ford is gone and Reagan too, Carter is now the undisputed pater patriae, father of his country, though his record has terrible moral blemishes itself. The Cold War produced this.

Down at The Valley

Alan Pardew is now the new Charlton Athletic manager and his namesake Curbs is head honcho of West Ham. Such is the managerial maypole or merry-go-round. With Les Reed in charge of the Addicks, the Charlton board said "stop it now, I want to get off," signing a two-year contract with him and then sacking him a week later, after realising their mistake. Even Newcastle is not guilty of such manager profligacy. It all smacks of Samuel Johnson's pithy comment that a second marriage is a triumph of hope over experience.
For so long at The Valley they had been wedded to Alan Curbishley that upon his departure they were left foraging around for a suitable manager prepared to work within modest means. Unfortunately, on the rebound as they were, they allowed themselves to be duped by their new manager Iain Dowie into blowing next season's transfer budget as well as this one's. Charlton had been widowed and were so desperate for solace that they believed him. The club did need strengthening, but not with the junk Dowie, previously a shrewd manager, invested in.
Having a manager for 16 years, Charlton rapidly became disillusioned with Dowie and just as Athletic were turning a corner for the better on the pitch, the board turfed him out of The Valley and changed the locks. The usual dip in form come springtime continued into the new season and the board panicked (they didn't burn his clothes though, promising continued support in Dowie's legal wrangle with Simon Jordan, Crystal Palace's chairman and ex-employer of Dowie). The board turned to Les Reed, promoting him from no.2 because that way they wouldn't have to pay compensation to any club in poaching a manager. Having divorced themselves from Dowie, they desperately hoped that Reed would be the answer to all the Addicks' problems, blinded to what everyone else could see - that Reed was not cut out for being no.1 though he was no.1 in the board's hearts. In fact, Reed probably contributed to the downfall of Dowie since even though the buck stops with the manager, he needs a good backroom staff to help him implement his plans. Hence the poverty of play on the pitch was at least partly down to Reed. It soon became apparent that it was probably wholly down to Reed, despite the manful attempts of Dowie to improve Charlton. The team was simply abject under Reed, whose previous disastrous employment with the English national squad was a warning. Confidence drained away from the team, a solitary, flukey win against Blackburn the only comfort, but the board clung to him against all the odds giving him a two-year contract, hoping against hope that it would give an air of stability for the team. Then they lost to Wycombe. At home. With barely a fight. The Carling Cup semi-finals vanished in a puff of smoke and the long trudge of a relegation-haunted season alone to consider bit deep. One last chance was given for the team, that they might regain determination with only the league to focus on, but it was forlorn. And so Charlton parted company with their second manager after just over a month. Maybe the idea of opening their accounts to Les Reed with the players he might buy, struck dread into the board. A second manager was cast out, a second marriage in ruins, because the board committed too soon after the first one to Dowie. They could not find anyone who could replace their one true love that was Curbs.
And now Pardew is at The Valley to put a comforting arm round the club, to give it a shoulder to weep on. Pards was the board's original choice to succeed Curbs in the summer, but he had just signed a new four-year contract with West Ham. So thwarted, desperately looking for a man to lead them, they dishonourably shacked up with Dowie, after Palace had released him from his contract so he could spend time with his family in the north of England. As with star-crossed lovers, Pards and Chalrton eventually found themselves in each others arms but too late to avoid tragedy. Pardew will improve the team and by a scheduling quirk, he has an extra day to ready his boys against Fulham's consistent over-achievers. But Charlton is doomed, too far adrift of safety to achieve anything but a valiant fight. Added to that, Pardew has almost no money to spend in the transfer window (interestlingly, the transfer window is often held up as giving greater managerial security, but it proved the opposite in Reed's case), since Dowie blew it all the last window. Charlton were always a well-run club, regularly in the black, but they took Dowie's gamble, pushed their chips on the red and lost. Before Pardew took over, there were rumours flying around that he would. I always thought he was better off out of it and I still think so, since to have a relegation blot on your CV is damaging for an aspiring England manager and if West Ham go down as well, Pardew will be the first Premiership manager to relegate two clubs in one season and only the second in top-flight history. He may come to regret abandoning that holiday he had planned with his family for January.

December has arrived

It may have caused havoc at the airports, but I rather enjoyed the fog with visibility down to 20 metres. Mind you, the cold was brutal. Sadly now it's gone, so the weather will be pretty underwhelming for Christmas day. It was ridiculously unseasonly mild until that fog arrived. In some places it still is. The Outer Hebrides has been consistently warmer than London and even the Channel Islands - an 11 degrees celsius today. I wonder what Samuel Johnson would have had to make of it, given that one of his Decembers was spent up there.
Anyway, that's by the by. I wish you a merry, heart-warming Christmas, one and all.

Before last-night's Carling League Cup tie between Liverpool and Arsenal was fogged off, I was thinking the main radio coverage should be given to a tie which would be more competitive as a meeting of equals. Liverpool have a great record at Anfield this season and Arsenal would only play their kids so the result was foretold. Charlton and Wycombe were far more evenly matched, or so I thought until last night when the Wanderers went through one-nil. And with Charlton and their mistakes being exposed to the utmost by suddenly becoming the main tie, it doesn't look good. Leicester were sent into a tail-spin after being knocked out of the FA Cup quarter-final by Wycombe that resulted in their relegation the following season. But that was in March, giving them the chance to avoid the drop for one more season. The Addicks, however, have got their confidence shredded in mid-December and it's looking bleak, especially under Les Reed, who was with England during the tactical chaos that was Kevin Keegan's reign. I was thinking of the irony that Mr Charlton, Alan Curbishley, might get Charlton relegated by success with West Ham. On current performances, Charlton are doing a good job of relegating themselves.

Last night, I went to a carol service at my church last night. I had been roped in to lighting the suspended candles as one of the helpers whilst attending the morning service. For carols the normal electric lights switched off. But I had forgotten how much I enjoyed carol service and it was a splendid moment of the evening.

So, Alan Curbishley beats Manchester United for the first time in his career, both managerial and playing. Bet Sir Alex Ferguson wishes he hadn't told Curbs to accept the job. It's also the first time since 1992 that West Ham United had beaten Man Utd at Upton Park. The last time they did so the Hammers were relegated, but I have a feeling AC knows how to pull them clear by May 2007.

Top diplomat

We must not forget the events yesterday at the United Nations in New York. Let's hear it for the all-singing Ban Ki-Moon, now officially Secretary-General Elect of the UN. In his own words "I'm making a list/
I'm checking it twice/
To see who's been naughty or nice/
Ban Ki-Moon is coming to town."
The forthcoming top diplomat of the world seems to be quite a character.

Chickens coming home to roost

The eloping of Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor was once billed "the worst-kept secret in history." But something pretty close to that has come to light - that the government was lying through its teeth in its reasons for going to war in Iraq. Carne Ross, the UK's key negotiator at the UN, has given to the foreign affairs select committee, under "committee priviledge" (maybe they heard of my words), a statement that British ministers knew Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq did not pose a threat to the UK, the justification given to parliament for going to war. Now, there is no more serious breach of political protocol than lying to parliament, but this government has often flouted its contempt for convention and brought the need for a fully-written constitution ever closer. Furthermore, Ross reveals, British ministers were aware that invasion of Iraq would probably cause chaos, subsequently borne out, and that tackling Iraq's sanction-busting was never examined as an alternative because of the wayward attentions of civil servants and key ministers. This being the case, this is the most negligent treatment of foreign affairs by any government since the Suez crisis and maybe beyond.
Also, yesterday the government forced the dropping of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into illegal bribery in arms deals between BAe and Saudi Arabia. Now it my well be, that standard business practice in the Arab kingdom is bribery ('greasing the wheels') and that if you don't, they regard it as an insult. But for the executive to intervene in suspending the rule of law in, arguably, peacetime is dangerous, especially as the government enshrined the rule of law as inviolate only last year!
But the mind of Tony Blair shifts like the sands of the desert. He can't be expected to keep track of all the laws his government has introduced, even if they are inclined to the dictum of control-freak regimes 'I legislate therefore I am'. This is why his hands were over the action of putting the roadblock in front of the SFO investigation. And also why he forgot that purloining loans for his party was in breach of election law. Questioned by police as a witness, he may yet see out his term as PM before the hard stuff comes along. Sleaze runs not just through this government but also the Labour Party. Under the previous Tory administration it was the avaricious and scandalous behaviour of individual politicians that tainted the Conservative Party, but under Labour, sleaze seems to have been institutionalised. No longer 'whiter than white', Blair swifty ditched the Daz and revels in muck-rolling. In such jolly japes that were mandatory for errant children in stories of a hundred years, they were liable to a thrashing afterwards from their parents. Let us hope that ministers do not escape the adminstering of punishment as proper reward for their actions.

Christmas Dinners Up!

Last Friday, to my first (and probably last) non-family Christmas meal of this year. It was the Christian Viewpoint Gillingham Men's Club, to which wives and significant others were also invited (unlike other gatherings). It was a conclave of various different churches from around Gillingham who turn up and Gillingham Golf Club was that place to turn up. Arriving at 7.40pm (five minutes before the meal started), at first I couldn't get in, since the front doors were locked. I went round the back looking for an alternative entrance, but all I found were loads of wrought iron fire escapes, more locked doors and the smell of the Christmas meals coming from the kitchens. I doubled back and went around the other side, but this was even less promising, yielding only a locked clubroom shop. As I returned to the front, I saw a couple approaching and they appraised me of my blind spot, which were the buzzers 'bar' and 'flat' next to the doors. It never occurred to me that a golf club would have a door bell and so I was not looking for it, yet it was right under my nose as these things tend to be. I wondered who might be in the 'flat' - living at the golf club must be quite surreal, unless it's squatters who have installed their own buzzer system. The meal itself was enjoyable and I had most of my discussions with a man in his seventies from the GMC (Gillingham Methodist Church), who was quite passionate in explaining his new holidaying designs, being a nudist. Now, there are several people I know who could not hold a serious discussion on the topic, but this gentleman and I did. He had only discovered a few years ago and he only practices it on holidays and only then round specifically designated beaches and poolsides. He confessed to being a bit of an evangelist on the matter, saying it was so liberating and because everyone's just like you, no-one is staring at each other. Discussed in such sober terms, this conversation had no impact on the comsuption of my main meal and dessert. He was also a well-travelled man and we shared foreign exploits. After the room of about 50 people had finished, we had a talk from the dean of Rochester Cathedral, a man in his early forties though he had just celebrated a silver wedding anniversary with his wife. It was a witty and amusing speech with one of the keystone ideas being that we should explore our souls to discern our direction in life and not just a one-off consulatation but a continual journey of understanding. All in all, an enjoyable evening.

It's been a week since my last post and that really is a long time in politics because any possiblity of discussing the Iraq Study Group proposals drags on and on. Mike Capes, the Labour chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, dissembled that there was no point on the government commenting on the ISG proposals, because British foreign policy is not run by the ISG members, "no matter how eminent they may be." Yep, the people running our foreign policy are not in the least bit eminent, but they still come from Washington D. C.. Capes said it was foolish to make any policy statement on the ISG before the Americans had done, but then suggested we had an independent foreign policy because we shouldn't comment until the Americans had. Squaring a circle maybe hard enough but triangulating the squaring of a circle is plain bizarre. Capes was obviously hoping that if he said enough words people would get confused or fall asleep and assume he made sense. Assumptions can be deadly. This is the guy who is supposed to hold the government to account, but he is regurgitating (in every sense of the verb) government lines, which were gobbledegook in the first place. Be afraid, be very afraid. forget House of Lords reform (though only for the time being), it's the select committees that need to be shaken up and actually serve the country. Give them some independence and some teeth so the government can not continue on blinkered disastrous policies, that ignores select committees when it doesn't agree with them. The only trouble is, we would need an honest government in power to achieve that.

Champions League

Well done Barcelona FC for making it out of the groups stages. It means that the less-dread prospect of Werder Bremen enter the UEFA Cup making it not so hard for Newcastle. It was a sumptuous Ronaldinho free-kick, reminiscent of Alan Shearer for England in a qualifying campaign (I think against Poland), sliding the ball under the wall.

All is not lost

Oh and it's good to see that at least the parliamentary Labour Party (as opposed to New Labour) has got some dignity and decency left in it. They've just kicked the pro-war white woman's burden Ann Clywd off the leadership of the National Executive to be replaced by the the Foreign Minister who resigned over the invasion of Iraq, Tony Lloyd. If only all Labour decisions were so sensible.

Bungler-in-chief

President Bush will get the findings of the Iraq Study Group tomorrow, but just reading his words again about press speculation on withdrawal of troops from Iraq, you really wonder if he knows what he's actually saying - "There's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some sort of graceful exit out of Iraq. We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done, so long as the government wants us there. This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all." Darn straight there's going to be no graceful exit from Iraq. at best, it's going to be protracted and painful. His own new Defence Secretary says they are losing in Iraq, not getting the job done though and the current Iraqi government was elected on getting US troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. All in all, more mumbo-jumbo and unintended truth from the chief executive of the USA. Only two more years to go.

We don't need nuclear weapons

The government has just produced a white paper that supports renewing the nuclear deterrent on the basis of that childish reasoning "because." "But why?" "Just because." Frankly, Britain has absolutely no need whatsoever, now or in the future (take that, so-called 'insurance policy'), for a nuclear weapons capacity.
First and foremost, deterrence means nothing if you're not preapred to carry out you threat, yet the threat here is taking out hundreds of thousands of people with one warhead alone. With the possible exception of the Black Death, no weapon in history has been so blunt. To use it would be to commit mass murder on the gravest of scales.
Secondly, it's not even ours to use. We could never authorise the deployment of nuclear weapons without the previous acceptance of the Americans. The nuclear button is in Washington D.C., not Downing Street. So what's the point. There might be a case in terms of macho pride, if we had an independent nuclear capability like the French Force du Frappe, but we don't. So why don't we just shelter under the American nuclear umbrella like Japan, South Korea and all of NATO bar France. Being a NATO member if we are attacked, the Americans are treaty-bound to come to our aid, (as are all other countries in NATO). If nuclear weapons are needed to deter the threat, then they will use them. What is the need for maintaining toy submarines. I've heard that the Americans could fine us heavily if we pulled out of Trident renewal over some secret contract, but we've got some leverage since we could pull Flyindales in Yorkshire out of their Son of Star Wars programme, leaving a yawning gap in their radar coverage and Britain less likely to nuclear attack itself.
Thirdly, the cost. This is the issue in which most people turn against renewal, proving that the government is running an anti-popular line. At £20-£25bn, up to 1,000 new hosiptals could be built, at a time when the government is making cuts to the NHS after realising it gave away a bit too much largesse than was sustainable. Certainly, the replacement will only be ready in twenty years time, but think what worthy projects could be funded instaed then. If we want to keep submarine production in this country viable, why not just give a £25bn subsidy to the submarine industry and have done with it.
Fourthly, at the moment we have four submarines with nuclear weapons in our fleet, only one of which is currently at sea and the other three are laid up. When the submarine finishes its tour of duty, it is replaced at sea by a newly maintained one of the three in harbour and then becomes itself laid up with maintenance works. How pathetic is that just so Britain can pretend it's still a big power, instead of the middle-ranking power it so manifestly is. Blair says he will cut the number of warheads from 200 to 160 and reduce the number of submarines from four to three, but this tailoring of the Emperor's New Clothes is the height of absurdity (and we know how Blairs loves neo-imperialistic meddling). No critic will be mollified since you either have a nuclear weapons capability or you don't and as we clearly don't with it being controlled by the USA, such modifications are not worth the paper they are written on.
Fifthly, our signature on the Non-Proliferation Treaty obliges us to disarm completely. What better time than to do it now? Iran and North Korea could no longer accuse the West of overwhelming double standards and other countries may think twice about pushing for a nuclear weapon. This sign of good faith from the UK might even bring those countries back to negotiations.
Sixthly, who is the threat? That there might be some unknown danger twenty years hence, well most vulnerable coastlines could be under water in twenty years time, a good deal could happen in two decades. But it would change nothing if we were under the American nuclear umbrella. What if some long-range radio or electronic jamming devices were invented to upset missile gyroscopes in the intervening two decades? We would have spent at least £20bn on an obsolete system.
Seventhly, it would endanger the union of Britain. Scottish nationalists are rising fast in the polls north of the border and one constant source of ire is the siting of the nuclear submarine bases exclusively in Scotland on the assumption that if something goes wrong, the vast swathes of land that will become irradiated will be largely unpopulated. But putting at risk a big chunk of their homeland has never gone down well with the Scots (the Gibraltarians aren't impressed either by nuclear submarines being repaired on the Rock). Park a nuclear submarine in the Thames and see how the English rapidly fade in their support for it. If the government goes ahead with the renewal decision they will signal their contempt for Caledonian concerns (Gordon Brown going after the bigger prize of the UK premiership) and I would have much sympathy for an independent Scotland.
So seven good reasons why Trident should not be renewed, but New Labour will bow to vested interests on both sides of the Atlantic to keep up the pretence that the French aren't the only nuclear weapons power in the EU (when in fact the French are). If as the likelihood it becomes policy (thanks to support from the main opposition party), it will go down - in ten years of New Labour - as one of the worst decisons bar Iraq and certainly the most worthless bar none. It's one more case of Tories in Labour clothing.

On another note, there has been a coup d'etat in Fiji. If only all coups were like this one. Not only has it been bloodless, it's almost been courteous. All that happened was that the soldiers confiscated the car keys of the prime minister. They did surround his house but not so much so they could force their way in, but so the PM could not get out, should he choose perambulation as a method of escape. Curiously, the coup was staged because the chief of the military was acting against a repeat of the 2000 coup. A coup to forestall a coup, whatever next.

Party in Canterbury

It was a return to the old stomping ground of Canterbury as Becky was celebrating being 24, this the weekend after 30th November. It was fun as these things always are and instaed of staying in one place such as at Lynny's place (and really Becky's apartment was very delightful but not really the kind to hold parties in, being designed for one person as it was). So we hit the town. We ended up in Alberry's where I felt the effects of not drinking that much in the days leading up to this, with mixing (well, what else could I do? We had white wine in the restaurant and I'm not ordering that in pubs, even if I was so inclined) that reduced me to being slumped in the sofas downstairs. Luckily, there were plenty of others to provide conversation. Over the course of the day, we went to the Cuban Bar, the Old Tavern, to Marlowe's restaurant, to WestBar, back to the Cuban Bar, to the Cherry Tree, to the Hobgoblin and then finally on to Alberry's, though I may have missed out something, despite my memory recollection not being that impaired. Stayed the night at Becky's place though I'm glad I brought my sleeping bag as her living room floor is hard, though bless her, Becky bought a rug ahead of this weekend to ameliorate it s effects.

Top of the shop

So, Newcastle finished top of their European group with a draw in Frnakfurt, thus vindicating UEFA's seeding of us. Eintracht Frankfurt were repelled by stalwart defending, yet when they did manage to penetrate our defence, their finishing was woeful, forcing Shay Given into only one serious save. One Greek player for Frankfurt, Amantidris, had three golden opportunities in front of goal in the first half and then picked up an injury in the second half forcing his substitution. It just wasn't his night, nor for Frankfurt, who now have to beat Fenerbahce in Istanbul to qualify. When Newcastle were drawn with the other teams in the group, it wa said Newcastle had been given a terrible draw and the other British teams had bad draws as well. Yet not only have Newcastle qualified (like all the other British teams), but we finished top, despite only having 12 senior players to call upon last night.
I watched the game on Channel Five, where there were mercifully no inane statistics thrown up this time by the commentary ("16,000 people paid 248,000 euros to see this game!" : Palermo vs Newcastle). The game didn't really catch fire and being on TV meant even less reason to chant. Actually, during the Fulham-Arsenal game, I got caught up in the spirit of the Hammersmith Stand and briefly forgot where I was, chanting "come on, Newcastle," before realising what I said (luckily, amid the general hubbub, no-one heard me). Mind you, the honest craft of Newcastle was in contrast to Arsenal, who, among other things, kept taking free-kicks while the ball was still moving, an illegal action, yet the referee let van Persie and his teammates get away with it all night. Ok, it contributes to Arsenal's flowing movement of a game, but the Fulham supporters summed it up along with all the pansy collapsings - "same old Arsenal, always cheating."
Also, finishing top means we avoid any Champions League team initially, a fact accentuated by the knowledge that one of either Werder Bremen or Barcelona will be playing in the UEFA Cup come early 2007.