The Nerdy Years (Part One)

Apparently Verdy were originally brilliant.Top dogs in the early days of the J League. They have two stars above the Verdy crest to prove it and Mrs. Nerdy to back up all known facts and observations about the exploits of King (Numpty) Kazu, Ramos, Kitazawa and the gimp with the big ears whose name esca....ah no, it was Takeda.
It was 1993 when it all kicked off, Wolves were shite, England were shite and the J League opened it`s doors....to every over the hill "superstar" still able to run on fumes...... If you want to read about this part of the story of the J League please look somewhere else because although Mrs Nerdy was here to tell the story; quite frankly she doesn`t care these days.

Fast forward to 2000/1...Rainy season, absolutely pissing down at Tokyo Olympic Stadium, Tokyo Verdy v Kashiwa Reysol. 60,000 ish seater stadium, maybe 5,000 people there. In the home end were maybe five or six people with flasher macs,samba snare drums and a ton of enthusiasm. In the middle were a bigger group of people with bigger drums and maybe better flasher macs. We had got tickets for the game and sat down on the Olympic Flame side of the ground.

We were sat down for about 10 minutes then moved because it was too quiet. We went to the Verdy end first and asked a guy why there were TWO bands??  Apparently there used to be just one band but they fell out. Subsequently  the "splinter band" had been forced to the left behind the home goal...they also only struck up there noticabley smaller "hand held" drums when Verdy were attacking......oh the shame of it all!!. We sat down in the pissing rain watching a game played out between two TERRIBLE teams. The only thing that stood out was one player.....and he was probably the reason (apart from the fact that Verdy`s soon to be new ground at Chofu was the closest to my house at the time...)  that made me choose the currently 25th best team in the J-League........

A load of......Probably at least till after the World Cup anyway!!

The News of The World journalists disscuss the proposed Hulk transfer over breakfast.

Hulk on the move??

Verdy Legend and "Offical Tokyo Nerdy Number 1 Random Samba Merchant of Undisputed Pedigree" Hulk;  could soon be upping sticks from the sunny climbs of Lisbon and FC Porto....to the thoroughly unpleasant UK cesspool, Manchester. Apparently 20 Million quid to the Red side of the city from Porto, pure speculation in UK dirt sheet News of the World at the moment but we at Tokyo Nerdy will be following closely (ish)....Ker-ching!!$$$$

The New Verdy Management Team!!

Verdy have gone for glamour this year with the appointment of ex-Verdy womens coach Takeo Matsuda (centre). It`s a controversial decision but they do say "(Ladyboy) Sex Sells!!" If the new team can get a few extra visitors to the stadium then I`m all for it.

While you were out..

So, what`s been happening in the Green world since we`ve been away?? Well Captain Bigtree got the boot and they brought in Takeo Matsuda to take over the coaching duties. Is he any good?? Well history states that he served his time on the Verdy women`s team (as a manager not as a player involved in any kind of Thai ladyboy hormone pill induced shenanigans). He saw some success as Verdy women (unlike Verdy men) are traditionally pretty strong.
Just run that by me again...So we`ve hired a women's coach with no J League experience whatsoever?? Yes. Righto, now there are 2 ways to look at this:

1. An inspired decision?? This would be the result if we had an enlightened board of directors steaming across the gender divide with forward thinking and bucking the trend of football worldwide. After all, coaching success is all about winning right??? Doesn`t matter if your coaching men, women or trained chimps playing hopscotch. Winning is winning.

2. A desperate decision?? This would be taken by a board of directors who haven`t got two `alfpennys to rub together who have run out of ex-players to step into the breach. This board still want to hire from within...they can`t do it directly so they go sideways.

I`ll go with the latter. Results wise we picked up a touch over the tale end of the season though still finished a disappointing 7th a mammoth 24 points from the promotion places. More worryingly, at no point over the course of the season did we look anything like challenging. There was the run of 6 wins in mid season but the early season malaise had already seen us fall too far behind and when the inevitable slump returned, it was good bye Captain Bigtree.

Back to the Planet...........

It`s a New Year and we at Tokyo Nerdy 1969 are proud to say we are BACK!!! Still full of shite, still bitter, still wishing we were better but still thanking our lucky stars we aren`t FC Tokyo!!! More to come reader(s)!!