World Cup 93 - ninth matchday of qualifying
Saint Eleanor 2 (Dekamela weMexala goal 54', Lydia Nicholls goal 71')
Damukuni 0
World Cup 93 - tenth matchday of qualifying
Saint Eleanor 3 (Tim Brandon goals 15' and 63', Exandra Davies goal 34')
Darkmania 0
If you had to take your best friend in the squad to one place in Saint Eleanor... where would you take them?
The manager and assistant manager were not surveyed, for obvious reasons. Although they both said they'd take each other to Donald Lucas' office to talk business.
John Bailey (on Liam West): The National Park. It's a great place once you work out what it isn't for. I'd recommend it to anyone - including Liam. He has more than enough patience for it.
Cathy Winchester (on David Newcastle): There are plenty of houses for sale in Central, which is a great excuse to promote my family company - if not an exposition of the fact that most central government employees are either with the Army or on local deployment with education or health. David's just gotten married and he's presumably on a good-enough salary to afford a new house; he probably deserves a move on up and out! I can help him, of course; I'll happily help anyone else, too, although I might have to refer you to dad since I'm still a full-time player.
Exandra Davies (on Steve Pilchard): The Premium Coffee outlet in Parkside district. It's a short walk away from everything else - it being Parkside - and Dekky's father somehow still works there, too. You get to bump into a few players, there, too. Players in other countries may flock to designer outlets; we flock to the $2.40 cappucinos. Which were a nice, round two bucks when I started. Spleeeendid.
Sam Newbridge (on Liam West): Anyone who knows Liam will - with all likelihood - know he's a Carpentersville man through and through. It's not that far from the Grand Beach, being two stops down on the Red Line and whatnot, but... he just likes talking about the shop. I have been there before and it has about as much history as you think something that didn't even get hit by the war would have, which is more than you think. Logic works in a fucking stupid way sometimes, but natural beauty, beautiful women, good entertainment places, best urban design in the entire city - what isn't to love?
Liam West: I don't have one best friend, at least not in the world of football - it would be silly of me to tie my colours to another mast. And I couldn't possibly just recommend one place to go - I've been around enough of the city to know it is absolutely oozing with absolutely lovely stuff. The countryside has some nice things, too, but obviously the big city's the big draw and whatnot. Obviously, nothing beats the Nat Lib. When the men in blue and black go into town, give the colonisers grumpy frowns, we'll love them in the good times, love them in the bad times, because they're Indy, they're the club for me!
Bridget Coombe: I like everyone, too. Parkside is a beautiful little place - ignore the people who like moaning about "gentrification," which apparently hasn't streched anywhere else - and of all the gems people have unearthed, re-earthed, tried to eviscerate and heroically rebuilt over the years, I'd have to put forward the admittedly pompously-named National Trade Supplies Centre. It isn't the epicentre of the building and construction industry unless the only thing you know about Saint Eleanor is the expanded roster with all the detail Jamie Rodgers has put into it, but - like a few other buildings in the nation - it is an imposing, detached, neoclassical building a short walk away from the high street which was originally used as an Army Command Centre until those structures were phased out in April 1980 when General Snell walked back his plan to de-facto abolish districts. And now they're using it to sell cans of paint and electric drills!
David Newcastle (on Steve Pilchard): Assumptions are my number eight enemy. I'd rather talk to him than pull a surprise out of the bag he may not like. Autism and shit, you know.
Sylvia Hollenberg (on Bridget Coombe): The Eleanorian Cathedral - on the northern outskirts of Whitehammer, of all places. The thing was built in 1944, when the population was six times smaller than it is today and northern Whitehammer was about 400 yards away - so it's small, it's intimate, but it somehow manages to organise two Masses a day. And the general architecture is some of the best in the entire country; both sides thought better than to try and destroy it. All of those things probably appeal to Bridget!
Dekamela weMexala (on Adam Denby): Lavenderdale motorway services, Junctions 6 of the M10 and 1 of the M2, would be the obvious choice. It isn't very conveniently placed by motorway standards - it was 1976, we were distracted and thought we could get away with building something that had "access to all routes." It is, however, the first stop for anyone trying to go from the west to the countryside - or anywhere beyond the expanded bubble, now I'm thinking of it. Everything is a bit more expensive but a great deal worth it and it has one of the country's very few Premium Coffee machines; in the city, you're no more than a mile away from one. Sanitised and confusing but fun sounds like his niche.
Steve Pilchard (on John Bailey): Yes, I still like him! Central's high street, like most of the ones surrounding it, is quite an experience; there are a few shops there, but there was so much wide open space left by the town planners that the supermarkets look as suburban as you'd expect. As a result, you get a lot of nice, lovely independent places that everyone likes which sell all sorts of things. Neither of us are that materialistic, but... conviviality in the largest sea of boredom in the entire country? They certainly seem to cope with it.
Jessica Martin (on Bridget Coombe): Do I have to pick one person - out of all the lovely people, and a few of the wankers, who I've crossed paths with over the years? It's a hard call, even if you're just selecting from the current bunch, but Bridget is almost a natural-born leader, a brilliant person to talk to - and be around - and I'd put her forward if I had to. Where I'd take her is a different matter entirely, this being the same dilemma in a different form, but the Zoological Gardens - finally connected to the rest of the country by Metro - would be a good shout. There's every animal you could possibly dream of seeing there other than the Banijan dinosaurs; I'd have to ask Katie to lobby her local member of the Lukiiko for a vote like they did with Cardenao. Is Bridget an animal person? She will be if she spends enough time here. She'd refuse to pick a favourite, though.
Tim Brandon (on Sam Newbridge): Sam wouldn't go anywhere other than the training ground if he had to. I mean, I wouldn't, either, but that's for another day. He still feels like he needs to work on everything.
Georgia Wood: I don't play favourites. My local outlet of the Torch burger restaurant is inordinately beautiful, with that said. It is located in the oldest building in Brightway, but only because the District Council got so large they had to move out. No, I don't mean the one on Dignity Cross - and can you believe there wasn't a Dignity Cross until 1970? Lovely paintings, too; the north has always been affluent and it's never paid too much mind to the trade unions, but you'd believe otherwise if you had a look at the old FSEU banners on the walls.
Hugh Roanoke (on Jessica Martin): The University's admissions department. Seriously, what was she thinking when she decided getting a PhD wasn't a good use of her time?
Lydia Nicholls (on Exandra Davies): Surprised? Many of my connections have been based on mutual interests, or just the fact we play in central midfield - which accounts for almost everyone, when I think about it a bit more. The interest I share with Exandra is, very broadly speaking, rock music: I'm more into heavy metal, she's more into the punky stuff, but we can agree on everything between those inclusive and a little bit beyond those edges. There's a well-known festival along these lines called Elsfest, held on the banks of the river Els - a couple of miles away from Elsmouth, something like fifty miles from Broadlands - every year while the Q-League and Saint Eleanor League conveniently had their breaks. We went there this year and I wouldn't hesitate to take her there again given the chance.
Esther Launceston (on Bridget Coombe): Jameson Street in Deepchester has more fashion outlets per square inch than anywhere else in the country. The fact it's the site of a clash of cultures unlike anywhere other than the northern Orange Line with all of the Rulandese folk over there probably says something about the culture. I'll get her as much as she can pack in her suitcase before it has to be shipped back to Kelssek as cargo, so long as she likes it - or, in her kind-of-words, looks like a middle-class mum of two when she wears it. So much that she'll probably end up only have to do two loads of washing a year. That's the last thing a single woman like her wants to spend money on.
Adam Denby (on John Bailey): We've been to the Liberators' Park a million times before, by which I mean four or five. It is mostly perfectly normal: it has children and families and those big, unwieldy, foreign-import barbecues that nobody else has used anywhere else for fifteen years. And benches. That's about 40% of it. The remaining 60% - and I am going off my personal experiences of the surface area, which isn't how maths really works - is hallowed grounds. There are the names, and often the graves, of those who fell in the War of Independence; there are statues of men, named and unnamed. And the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the true mark of any nation worth its salt. We were shit at record-keeping. The shrine to Army soldiers killed on independence duty is in Richardgate, sorry.
Aaron Francis (on Melcheta Pazorzal): Would I take him anywhere? I'm not sure; my free time is, literally, infinitely more booze-drenched than his is. I'd just give him free reign for an afternoon and find out what happens. If I didn't trust him, I would never be saying that.
Harriet Williams (on Jessica Martin): The Marketplace. I'm aware there's Marketplace district, but that has actual things in it. What it's named after is so big that a couple of the exits on the ring road are dedicated to private car parks where people can pay, go shopping, pay some more for that privilege, and wrap up their business. It's one of the things you have to do before you die, provided you live here - and you're supporting the "small businesses" the government talks so much about at regular eleven-week intervals.
Naresmet taFrexala (on Exandra Davies): I'd like to go to the pub with her. She'd probably like to go to the pub with me. But the NLF Clubs, I can reassure you, are the same everywhere. Everryyyywhere. There are a few privately-owned places but, from what I remember, the Grand Eagle in Bramblewood is good; it's one of the few redeeming features about the place, a "relic" of the mid-eighties, but the prices are good, the selection is absolutely brilliant, and the crowd's a bit dodgy but won't hurt you if you aren't really pissed. When she retires, Exandra is either going to be a pub landlord, an oil tanker driver or a member of the Olympic board. Yes, she's a bit random.
Christina Fulton (on Hugh Roanoke): This is a tentative call, to say the least; extracting words out of Hugh can be a challenge, especially if he doesn't need to blurt them out, but it's worthwhile when he does. We are similarly techy-minded, however, and both of us have a great deal of veneration for the institutions - which, in hindsight, leaves maybe the Museum of Technology in North Seville open as a perfect destination. He's not the biggest fan of perfect, but I have one shot and it's what I've got.
Rick Goldsmith (on Dekamela weMexala): A few teammates had their inklings, but I think I've finally made my match! Affinity. Affinity - do you know what affinity means, mate? Big word, that. Absolutely massive. We agree on 80% of everything, which is a lot. If anything, advanced gun safety training would do her a world of good: 80% of everyone, that number again, has done the basics and that's great if we're invaded but we need a more powerful force. The Army's only 80% of that. Biggest gun range in the country? You guessed it, Broadlands. That's where she's going if I have my say.
Arielle Richardson (on Bridget Coombe and Naresmet taFrexala): It's actually quite close between those two! I don't think either of them would mind if I dragged them to one of the fast food places... any of them, anywhere in the country. It'll be a fabulous opportunity to have a chat about the kinds of philosophical thing I can actually understand for so many hours I have to tell the staff we aren't loitering; I'd go back to the Uni if I wanted a chat about philosophy I couldn't grasp. Or one I'd give up on after a few minutes!
Corporal Denise Livingston (on Esther Launceston): Alas, no more Lance-Corporal Eldridge; Esther was a distant second on my list of "best national team friends," although those days are over and we are much closer than before. I think she'd appreciate a nice, long tour around the University's Museum; both of us left school at eighteen, but both of us have a grasp of good culture - although hers is much firmer than mine - and she likes beautiful things much more than I do. She'd be the only thing standing between me and the whole escapade dulling my senses! I don't know if she's ever visited, but I was there a couple of years ago and I rather enjoyed the displays on the first few years of independence and the short-lived Eleanorian Baseball Championship. Yes, I got bored ten minutes in.
Natalie Monaco (on "the Unicorn gang"): I've remained close with the Golden Unicorn contingent in the national team for longer than I can remember, partially because it's been so constant - although I'm surprised the manager thinls we're good enough to stick together. We do go to a lot of obviously social venues, but just taking them to one of those again would be a bit of a waste. If I put it to a vote... we'd probably run the books on the Dignity Cross shopping centre and round up with a tribute to KA Pazorzal's. Safe, neutral-ish, everyone really likes it. And then we'd probably vote again about ten more times!
Melcheta Pazorzal (on Georgia Wood): The furniture warehouse in Blackwood. Seriously. I was at her house a few months ago and she literally had to store a couple of her books on her bedstand permanently because her bookshelves didn't have enough room. Imagine how bad it's going to get when she has kids and has to get them books, too. She will have kids.
Limene 50', 67'
