lost and found in a riot.

Is it me or does it seem to be that when spring has sprung madness is not far behind, riots in my beloved city of Barcelona, last minute goals from left right and centre, men swimming with the boats of Cambridge and Oxford and clubs on the brink of something! 

It is the time of year when the some games mean everything and other mean another Saturday not going round the shops (we will have plenty of that in the close season).

The season has not been an easy one for Rovers and I for one know that the "at the death" goals have been saving us, and destroying my speakers thanks to the guys at Raith Rovers Abroad!

This wee serving up of "Paella and Bovril" come on the back of two draws and a home win. We won at home to Hamilton in a pretty terrible first half, but more than made up for it with a pretty spectacular (well so it sounded with a pretty long gggggooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll from the commentary team) second half.

Enjoy!

PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL TEAM AND ALL WHO KEEP IT GOING!

Paella and Bovril

I here that the Costa del Fife has had a wee bit of a heat wave in the past few weeks, I hope it was not your summer and that you are all now reading this in your thermals’ and scalding your mouths on tea.

Whilst you guys have been tanning yourself down in bonny Burntisland and dripping ice cream on your t-shirts, Barcelona has been a strange place to be to say the least. 

To many Barcelona is a city break get away, with it’s stunningly unfinished Sagrada Familia, fantastic fountains (the ones that Freddy Mercury serenaded for the Olympics are breathe taking and yes you do sing out BARCELONAAAAAA) and of course my personal fave the beach. But on March 29^th the city I now call “casa” showed me a side I did not like and hope never to see again.

Now I have seen a few wee stamashes in this town, mostly after a football match where a few “fans” have got a little over excited and taken on the less than friendly local bobbies. But never have I seen what was seen that day. 

At the recent election the Popular Party (PP) were voted in with a pretty chunky majority.  With PP came massive cuts to pretty much everything. This has caused the unions to call a couple of general strikes.  This cause chaos in the city, public transport stops, schools close, roads are blocked by picket lines, and protest marches are held. Unfortunately this time round some people decided that a peaceful protest needed to turn in to a riot,  setting fire to shops and causing injury to over 40 people.

As a result of this I had to work outside Barcelona, if we could get out of the city. Luckily I work outside the city centre so to escape was pretty easy. As I was driving up to where I was working I suddenly had a very exciting thought, “ I lost my keys here last year, I wonder if they have them?” After a few wee cute smiles to the receptionist and several pleading “por favors” she finally went to see. I almost cried when she brought them out!

Now I know you are asking yourself, what does riots and Carol’s set of keys have to do with football? Well these keys had a very special key ring.

Supporters of the “wee” teams probably have better memories than those of big teams.  The big occasions do not come round that often for us, so when they do we remember them, and every Raith fan of a certain age will remember one cold November night in 1994.

The unthinkable happened, the skipper did miss, the ribbons changed and Raith lifted the Coca Cola cup.  Against all the odds, there was dancing in the streets and memories to be made.  This key ring was one of those memories. It was a bit of plastic with a simple bit of paper in it, but it had the cup winning team on the back, Thompson, McAnespie, Broddie, Narey, Dennis, Sinclair, Crawford, Dair, Redford, Rowbottom and of course manager J. Nicholl!

I was soooooo excited, it brought so many memories rushing back, hiding behind the sofa “Doctor Who” style when the penalties were on, going to KirkcaldyRaith top for weeks! This worn out piece of metal and plastic meant so much, and being surrounded by my work colleagues who are not football fans, I was unable to share my glee.  So onto twitter its photo went and the great Raith tweeps out there, and they had memories too! @Raith1994 remembers the bus journey home being stunned to silence after “feeling like my dad had broken my ribs when Dazza had scored”! Others saying they remember going into work to find that Celtic fan that every office has to just say hi! People still not quite sure that he saved that penalty and that was actually a moment in history.

With all those memories fired up inside us Raith fans, lets get the team fired up, guzzle down that pie and warm up the old noise box and lets here it for all those playing today but a an even bigger shout out of

You are my Rovers,
My super Rovers,
You make me happy,
When skies are grey
You'll never notice,
How much I love you,
So please don't take my Rovers away...

I will be listening out for it!