With another LAN looming there was only one man I could see to prepare me for it all mentally. A regular in the Birmingham Metro, there are few people with the experience of Shaikh Jalal, a professional life advisor who deals with all matters.

You’d have to be a burbling fool to not understand his credentials from his 8” by 6” ad that appears weekly:

THE HIGHEST OF ALL SPIRITS IN THE MIDLANDS

50 YEARS EXPERIENCE

I Give advice for all problems, relationships, business difficulties, aid in bringing back loved ones wife, husband, boyfriend girlfriend, unhappy, unlucky, financial problems, immigration problems and prison (advice from a qualified solicitor). Anybody comes to see me I will advise and help.

You never regret, you never lose

Are you still worried about past problems or are you regretting people you have seen before.

A visit with Jalal will help.

And so I sat down with him earlier today and asked him to guide me in how to get through yet another event, what would be the best course of action, how to handle the sleepless nights, the long days and the battle for survival that they always entail.



Although he didn’t fully understand the nature of the business I was in, he did grasp the central issue, the repetitive nature of the work and being surrounded by so many hostile faces. These were all familiar to Jalal and he said he had the remedy for my ills.

Sadly for me his fee was a princely $400 and only earning half of that monthly – as has recently been revealed in an expose published on the steam Forums among other places – I couldn’t afford to pay him the full amount. I offered him my full monthly wage and he agreed to accept it but only for half the advice. I shook my head sadly, but figured it was better than nothing.

Thus armed I made the short trip to Uttoxeter after a few hours procrastination and pacing around the shattered city where I live. The train trip should have felt like a holiday, the view out the smudged window becoming more scenic as the miles rolled under the tracks and the city grey was left behind. Sadly LAN waited for me in the dark, ready to smash my teeth in and rummage through my empty pockets.

Arriving late, there were many people already here, deciding to stick around for a few beers and the exchange of war stories that typifies an event. It was understandbale why they had made the decision to stay… After all, the adverts boasted a live performance from DJ Superchief, an artist who simply transcends the need for a name that isn’t totally shit… I wondered if it was actually TLR’s manager, the real reason why he was unable to attend, but he had just spelt the “chef” part wrong… Again.

The UK scene has a division in it now, one that has grown more pronounced down the years. There are the veterans, jaded and bored, joking amongst themselves about how they thought they’d never come back for “one last roll of the dice” and swearing blind that this is the last time. Despite arriving with hardly any CS:S hours racked up this group always makes up the favourites in whatever iteration they are in.

The other group, that lurk on the peripheries, are the players now hoping to rise to prominence in a scene that is stagnating in the absence of action. This should be their time but it isn’t. Even at the bar they don’t talk about anything other than the game, the PCWs, the performances, who’s online, who isn’t… It’s a tiresome smokescreen that disguises the fact they are too focused on these petty dick measuring contests, too fixated on these discussions to actually rise above it and fill that void at the top that’s waiting for them.



I used to be able to move between these two groups with relative ease at events but no so much these days. When I sit with the veterans I share their same heavy sentiments and when sat with the “up and comers” I can’t understand their crazed enthusiasm for things that seem so fleeting, a failure to understand what they could actually achieve with just a glimpse of the big picture.

Perhaps this event does symbolise something of a turning point though… This isn’t just giddy optimism or part of the shared delusion that typifies all CS:S players but a logical conclusion based on the make up of the average team here, all glorified mixes or newly assembled rosters. So many people have “retired” you are now seeing the old forced to play alongside the new they once called “shitters” and “cheaters”, instead now talking up their potential that they, and only they, can unlock. This new found love might only last the duration of the team’s existence but with options running out it’s forcing their hands in a way they were never keen to do before.


Look at Team Dignitas giving spots to shaney and choong, or KritikaL playing with the LINK Gaming roster. Times have changed in the UK, for good or for ill, and it should make this event competitive in a fashion, even if it still feels like a trial for the players that will be added to the new teams that will be created between now and i-series. Individuals will be out to bag spots in future teams, the pressure to perform not being distributed across five but instead being placed on the shoulders of one.

Just as well, given that the winner should be a foregone conclusion, the Rasta team boasting more individual talent than anyone else here. It’s a view I share but not everyone does. As I sat with the veterans of a thousand LANs as they drank beers everyone’s favourite UK player Avash “avash” Anderson drunkenly interrupted the conversation to say why he thinks LINK Gaming will win. He doesn’t stop, even though the others try to change the subject to other things… How tom “url” Chenery will do on his return to events (I say badly) or how Jake “Jakem” McCausland will perform on AWPing duties (“I call myself J-rod when I AWP” he blathers “and I even have my own theme tune”, which he then starts to sing).



Avash keeps coming back to LINK. I pipe up, opening my mouth for the first time, reminding him of all the times he has been wrong. The time he said Americans were all better than Europeans, the time he said CAL was more competitive than ESL, the time he said he could compete against the best in Europe… I told him that his gut instincts were wrong so often that even the dumbest of beasts would have learned not to trust them by now.

Regardless, he was having none of it. I wasn’t either. I needed to get some rest and prepare myself mentally for yet another event. The guys want me to stay and drink but I decline informing this event must be undertaken completely dry, stone cold sober and focused. I decline even the free beers placed under my nose.

“Following Shaikh Jalal’s advice I see” Avash said with a wink and then he threw his head back and laughed the laugh of the damned.

How did he know? He couldn’t… Could he?