Who Am I?

Hi! And welcome to my new blog, the Couch Potato’s Corner.

My name is Liam Pritchard, I am in my 30s, from the UK and I am the world’s most unenthusiastic sports enthusiast.

The list of my half arsed passions is endless, but my first love is football (or soccer, as our North American friends know it) closely followed by ice hockey and international Rugby Union. I have a passive (which, by my standards, is saying something) interest in basket ball and have recently begun educating myself on American Football.

My passions sub-list extends to an eye-watering number of teams across the globe that I actively seek out the results for. It would take a little too long in this post to list them all but here’s a taster:

Football.

Swansea City (EFL Championship). My home team and number one guys.

Dumbarton (Scottish League One). My old local team, whom I used to regularly pay £3.50 to watch in Scottish Division Three back when I first fell in love with the beautiful game.

Borussia Monchengladbach (German Bundesliga). Another former local team I used to regularly watch. I personally believe the Bundesliga is the best league in the world.

Toronto FC (MLS). I kinda have a “thing” for Toronto, which will be explained in a later post. The city will feature heavily on this blog.

York 9 (Canadian Premier League). I’ll go into more depth of this in a very near future post.

The Welsh Premier League. Or Cymru Premier as it’s known now. I used to regularly watch TNS when I moved to Wales in 2004, as they were one mile from my front door in Llansantffraid. During this time I got to see them win the league, the League Cup, the FAW Cup and the FAW Premier Cup. Not to mention taking on the European Champions, Liverpool, in the Champions League. I spent a number of years as their mascot before becoming General Manager of Technogroup Welshpool but the less said about THAT the better.

Wrexham Ladies. I love women’s football, ever since the 2011 World Cup showed me how damn good it is. I used to run an unofficial website for the Welsh Premer League, before the FAW came along and did their own thing. Wrexham are my local team, although they aren’t in the top flight any more.

Ice Hockey.

Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL). Toronto. Duh.

Toronto Marlies (AHL). See above.

Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL). Now, hockey afficinados may well assume that my affection for this team stems from their previous affiliation to the Maple Leafs, but that was just a coincidence. Actually, we have family friends in Florida, it’s a place that I love and I remembered seeing the logo a lot when we visited in 1997, a time when I was first starting to discover the sport.

Cardiff Devils (EIHL). Ok, I’m from Swansea so it should disgust me to profess to like anything from Cardiff. But there isn’t another team in South Wales so this is the best I can get. Sue me.

Telford Tigers (EPL). Local team, a lot of my family live near the town. The first ice hockey team I’ve ever watched.

Deeside Dragons (whatever league they’re in). Ok, so they absolutely hate Telford Tigers, but they’re my new local team, they’re another Welsh team. It would be rude not to love them too.

Dusseldorf (Deutsche Eishockey Liga). They’re the closest thing hockey has to Monchengladbach.

American Football

Chicago Bears (NFL). When I was five I got a Chicago Bears uniform for Christmas for reasons I don’t understand. But hey. There we go.

Florida Gators (college football). There’s a photo of me as a baby wearing a Gators babygrow. I’m just learning the sport this year and they’ve made it a lot of fun.

Toronto Argonauts (CFL). Ok, so technically Canadian Football and American Football are different sports due to pitch size and number of downs, but I don’t do technical well.

Rugby Union.

Wales.

Whoever England are playing.

Llanelli Scarlets.

Special mentions:

Toronto Wolfpack (Rugby League). Toronto Arrows (Major League Rugby). Llanidloes Town Ladies (former Welsh Premier Women’s League badasses. I pray they one day return).

Anyway, that’s enough boring lists! What is this blog all about?

Well, like most people who engage in sports from the seat of their pants (not you, Michel Vorm, though I swear blind you have the most decorated arse in world football), I fancy myself as a bit of a journalist. In truth, I’m just full of half baked, ignorant opinions that lack coherance or substance.

This blog is really not for anyone other than myself, and anyone else who happens to be interested in the subject matter.

It’s mainly a vehicle for me to improve my knowledge about particular sports that I love as I believe the best way to learn about something is to try writing about it.

Most of what you read on here will be utter horse shit. But please feel free to call me out. I love to learn and I love a good barney over unimportant things.

Enjoy! If you can.