jonnybaker

text exchange

last night of course i was in the pub watching the football with mike, joel and harry. meantime jen was at the grace knitting group - yes  apparently it is the new rock and roll! a selection of our text messages... mine are in italics and i'm sure you'll detect the smallest hint of irony in the replies!

1- 0 chelsea
how exciting!
1-1
oh no!
gone to extra time
wow - we've all stopped knitting and are praying for you
2-1 chelsea
our prayers worked!
3-1 woop woop
at this point a message from kester - torres off? what is the tinker man doing?! see you in moscow!
3-2
we'd better get praying again
victory
phew
at this point a message from a fellow chelsea fan - praise jesus!

i am a happy man - finally we get to see off liverpool in a champions league semi final at the third time of asking... can't wait for may 21 and the texts will be flying no doubt. blue is the colour...

blue fortress

it's been a very strange season for chelsea so far with morinho leaving, injuries, grant and so on... but today beating man united 2-1 is a very sweet result and it sounds like it was deserved. i missed it as i was doing a training day for the diocese of bath and wells but will look forward to match of the day tonight! so level on points but needing man u to drop some points because of goal difference...

following on from the convincing draw with liverpool (well it was about time the luck went the other way ;-) ), it's part two on wednesday night to see if we can also make it to a champions league final which would be amazing...

another semi final against liverpool

so chelsea will play liverpool in the third champions league semi final in four years. chelsea turned it round last night with a 2-0 win - whilst it wasn't the greatest dispaly from the blues it was job done... it was my second visit to stamford bridge this season - i like the big european games. this time round the first leg rather than the second is at anfield which may mean we can break the reds jinx on us in europe!!

agony for arsenal fans last night who with 7 minutes to go were through (ouch)

holy fool and francis blessing

mark berry seems back to his blogging self after going easy for a while...

i am making holy fool and francis blessing worship trick 28, which means mark has two in a row as his passion pictures were no 27, which is probably a first! the francis blessing is being used on brian maclaren's everything must change tour which is going well by all accounts. to go with holy fool see also what would a fool say?

off to stamford bridge to see chelsea v fernabace in a few minutes for the second leg of the european champions league quarter final. i watched the first in a soccer bar in new york last week at about 3 in the afternoon. the bar had 14 screens, 12 of which had the arsenal v liverpool game on and the bar was full of arsenal and liverpool fans singing and chanting. then there were about 3 chelsea fans watching that game so when fernabace scored twice the whole bar was cheering apart from 3 of us!!! then with one voice they all sang 'if you hate chelsea clap your hands'! it was quite surreal... so we are 2-1 down going into this leg - hope we can pull it off...

congrats spurs

congrats spurs on winning the carling cup final and beating chelsea - you must be happy! i have yet to see it as i was watching joel play at the big chill bar but i'll drag myself to watch the highlights later...

goodbye josé mourinho

i was shocked to wake today to find that

Chelsea Football Club and José Mourinho have agreed to part company today (Thursday) by mutual consent.

this quote from the chelsea web site doesn't exactly give a lot away. josé took chelsea to winning the premiership twice, the FA cup, and the league cup twice all in three years. what more could you ask for?! i thought he was fantastic as a manager - fun, entertaining, arrogant, a wind up merchant, and brought a real edge to the premiership. it's easy to forget that when he arrived man united and arsenal were dominant. chelsea fans will be absolutely gutted.

no doubt stories will come out about why - the rift with abramovich, a stuttering start to the season, too many chiefs and not enough control given to the manager... but it makes no sense and i would guess the players will be gutted (apart from shevchenko maybe).

(bbc | guardian)

blue is the colour

congratulations to chelsea lifting both cups this season!

wonderful to beat man united in the final of the FA cup :-) and drogba has been amazing all season so delighted he got the winner...

croatia for a week

quite a few years ago now (i can't exactly remember what year) i did a few training sessions at a european yfc conference with a friend richard on mission and postmodern culture. at the time it was new territory - i think it was the first time we had taught on it. hard to believe now. anway some friends from croatia were there and it ended up setting them off on a route of rethinking what they were up to. 7 years or so later i've been invited over to join them for their annual get together for leaders where we'll talk about culture, improvisation, mission, alternative worship, emerging church and all that... it's the first time they have had someone from outside croatia so i'm feeling honoured and really looking forward to it. i've no idea what the internet situation will be where we are so if the blog is quiet that's why.

i need to find a tv next tuesday evening to watch the second leg of chelsea v liverpool in the champions league semi final. chelsea won the first leg 1-0 tonight which is a great result especially not giving away an away goal so i strongly fancy our chances of making it to the final now. we should have put the tie out of sight in the first half but didn't. drogba was brilliant!

on our way to wembley

chelsea make it through to the FA cup final at wembley on may 19 winning in extra time 2-1 over blackburn setting up a final against man united. can't wait!

2-1!

2-1!