2011 has yet again served up a footballing platter of delight, with Mario Balotelli at one end of the table banging his fists on the woodwork and Pele at the other end in a triangular power struggle with Messi and Neymar, whilst Sir Alex Ferguson revels in his 25th year in charge at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger continues his creche project down at the Emirates: all this is going on with the continuous shaking of hands under the watchful eye of Sepp Blatter, making sure no offence is caused, whilst causing offence himself.
Many favourite moments on yesterday’s Twitter trending hashtag, #2011Footballmemories, culminated with tales of tragedy, tenacity and typical Mario Balotelli behaviour and so much so, that it began trending as its own entity: #2011favouritebalotellimoment. The mischievous, yet overly generous, intelligent, yet overly simplistic and clever, yet overly crazy Balotelli could dominate a whole story with his tales of 2011.
Over the past 12 months, Mad Mario has: taken an iPad with him to sit on the substitute bench to play Angry Birds, celebrated a 6-1 derby victory with a “Why Always Me?” shirt, winked at Rio Ferdinand as the England defender bulged out of his very shirt, given £200 at a midnight mass, caused fire damage at his own house with fireworks before becoming an ambassador for a fire safety campaign, confronted a school bully, jokingly asked a reporter who Jack Wilshere is, announced he has an allergy to grass and displayed signs if ineptitude when it comes to sporting clothes, when he struggled to put on a bib in a warm up. I am certainly a fan of Mario Balotelli.
On a personal level, 2011 is full of brilliant footballing memories for me as a Saints fan: it has been the most successful year we’ve enjoyed in my life time and the achievements of the club under the Italian eye of Nicola Cortese and the fluid passing mentality of inspirational manager Nigel Adkins and tactician Andy Crosby, have been nothing short of record breaking.
In 2011, finishing with a loss against Bristol City on Friday night, Southampton F.C have gone over 12 calendar months unbeaten in league games at home (and their only league loss was the one last night), set a new club record of a 21-match winning home run and won promotion from League 1, to set sail straight to the Premier League, leading the pack at the top of the Championship going into 2012.
Meanwhile, Adam Lallana and Jose Fonte have both signed new long-term deals, Rickie Lambert is the top scorer in the Championship silencing all of his pre-season critics and Lallana was officially recognised as the best player of the Championship by a fans poll conducted by theseventytwo.