Phew...England continue their indifferent form but beat Ireland fairly comfortably. They made it hard work for themselves as usual and the Irish played some very good cricket especially towards the end of their innings but ultimately some tight overs in the middle of the innings left them with too much to do.
I don't mind admitting that I had a terrible feeling all day about this game...glad my fears were unfounded but you've got ot salute the Irish. They are becoming the story of this World Cup (on the field :( ).
I don't think I could have handled a cricketing defeat to the Irish...it would have been worse than the time we arrived in Australia the day England lost to them at footy.
4 wickets in 4 balls for Inga the slinga! Amazing stuff.
The cricket world cup is now hotting up...hopefully the Bob Woolmer murder won't be all it's remembered for. The folks in the Caribean deserve better than that. I don't hold much hope for England but who knows. Australia are looking ominous...England, the South Africans and the Windies don't look capable of stopping them, with Pakistan and India already home it might fall to the Kiwis. Anyone but Australia will do me!
From the looks of things mine and Anne's decision to pop along to Goodison tonight (Like it's ever a conscious decision to actually go and watch the blues!) was the right one. It was surely infinitly more fun than watching England. An Everton Former Players team took on a Barcerlona Veterans team going down 3-5. Nice to see the likes of Dave Watson, Graeme Sharp, Peter Reid, Paul Bracewell, Graham Stuart et al again. Around 7,000 people had a good laugh, hope the players enjoyed it as much as we did.
A nice night and hopefully profitable for the Everton Charitable Trust.
England, by the sounds of things, laboured to a result against Andorra...It'll not get people off their backs but it's a win.
It's taken me a while to get round to writing this. It was a proper two match weekend for us. It felt like ages since we'd been down to Blundellsands...indeed the last Waterloo game we'd seen was down in Bedford! Coventry would provide a more realistic test than the full-timers we've been stacking up against of late. So with the gang assembled we saw the lads run out to into a sparcely populated ground (surprising seeing as both footy teams weren't playing and there was the 6 nations to lure people down to the clubhouse too).
In the end it was another defeat for our boys but there was no denying that Waterloo played really, really well...They should have won no doubt about it. The pack were immense and the backs covered brilliantly. They led for most of the game until a penalty edged Coventry ahead. Freeman Payne put in another true captain's performance and Martin O'Keefe hurt his shoulder in the first half but played on until he finally had to be helped off the field (to an ovation from Boozer's Bank).
They deserved better, especially given that one of the Cov tries looked suspiciously like it was grounded on the wrong side of the line and more blatantly a Cov player slammed into the side of our ruck (right in the front of the posts about 10 yards out) : No penalty (despite even the Coventry fans around us admitting it should have been).
Still, ultimately it'll not make much difference to our season and it was a really good game of rugby.
We spent St Patrick's Night in The Victoria having a few pints of Guinness and singing a chorus of Fields of Athenry. Nothing too crazy.
Sunday saw a fair bit of rushing around, not helped by having to assist with emergency repairs to Ronnie's church and car. Stopped off at my Mum's to give her her Mother's Day present before heading off to Goodison for Everton V Arsenal. Despite some folk saying it was a rotten game I enjoyed every second. We seem to have a knack of unsettling the Gunners and Sunday was no expection. Starting with Vaughan and AJ up front with a midfield of Osman, Carsley, Fernandes and Arteta we matched them stride for stride (admittedly at times we looked to be hanging on by our fingernails). Vaughan made his first league start and played the target man role pretty well. AJ did what he does but it was notable that he was up against very nippy defenders. Fernandes and Carsley were both tremendous...The latter put in a tireless Man of the Match performance, the former providing a couple of sublime moments, riding challenge after challenge and coming away with the ball to the delight of us bluenoses.
We'd hit the woodwork twice and although they'd had their chances too it just felt like our game. Late on in the game a vicious hail storm hit. Anne and I were truly grateful for our lofty, covered Upper Gwladys St seat. As the clock ticked into injury time a half cleared corner landed at AJ's feet and he drilled it into the Gwladys St net. Delirium! I just about remember seeing him diving into the Lower Bullens in between joyous hugs of the folk around us. One of those fantastic moments. AJ & Moyes's celebrations just about sum up how we felt. There really isn't any finer place than Goodison Park!
Just to cap things off the hail had just about stopped as we shuffled out of the ground.
From there our odyssey took us up to Our Lady of Lourdes church near Southport to see Anne's mum and the rest of the Southport Orchestra play a nice concert for us...I was glad of my scarf as it provided much needed padding on those hard, hard pews. Drove home along blustery Formby bypass and got back to south Liverpool just in time for Match of the Day...Perfect.
Hope to get to Chester again this year...that was an absolutely top, top day out.
Over in the West Indies England were put into bat by NZ....looked like a very useful toss to win. Early rain means it's nipping about all over the place.
Weirdest wicket ever? : "As Matsi smashes a drive back at the umpire, bowler McCallan mis-fields straight onto the stumps. Taylor can't believe it.".
That was a truly tremendous game. Zimbabwe were cruising 'til that freak wicket...then Ireland turned the screw so they needed 9 off 6...them the Zimbabweans got it back to one of one but a last ball run-out meant a tie. Fantastic result for the Irish and an honourable mention to Zimbabwe for hold their nerve. Proper Vitae Lampada stuff. I wonder if this'll mean The Irish will switch from Mode B (Lovable, plucky minnows who are happy enough just to be there and very probably don't even care about the game in question) to Mode A (proud, chest beating Celtic warriors).
I was going to construct a Bjørge Lillelie type response but talk of Zimbabwean politicians taking one hell of a beating might be a bit of a faux pas given recent events.
Earlier we had a 14 ball over "A flurry of wides then saw Hurdle take 14 balls to complete his second over,"
At least it wasn't Bermuda's big hero Dwayne Leverock...
...Partly 'cause of his unathletic build he's become a bit of an overnight cult hero after he took a flurry of wickets in England's warm up game.
Look forward to seeing how this tournament will unfold for England. Big game tomorrow if they are going to progress.
Warning : Only click this link if you have a strong constitution...or you like the sort of Borat, The Office laughing-at-people sort of humour. (I find it cringeworthy but I do love the proper forced overly Scouse accents).
Empty vessel, attention seeking, zany bell-ends. I loathe that forced faux-uber-obession. The media love it though. Pompey's tattoo man, the fat, dancing Southampton, the geordie beer-belly man, Pete Sampara with his badge covered waistcoat and now this.
Lame, lame, lame. I've got a footy team I like but I don't feel the need to dress up and humiliate myself to prove how much as a big fan I am.
Thank Good Everton don't seem to have any of these try-hards.
Our friend Carmel has somehow managed to grow a little person inside her! Bonkers.
She's asked me to by Godfather which is a tremendous honour and Anne's crochet jediness has been earning plaudits. Carmel is a still sore after her C section but things are good. The Hospitalite mob are looking forward to wetting the little fellow's head on Saturday at The Vic.
Can't do much in the way of piccies yet...not my place to put other people's baby pics onto the web you understand. This is the best I can do at present.
Had a weekend of dashing around. Managed to cook a fairly impressive home-made curry for our friends Mary, Mike & Ronnie. On Saturday we headed over to Leeds for our friend Jenny's birthday bash. Very nice, never been out in Leeds before...pretty impressive town centre and pretty lively night life. Was bizarrely really ill on going back to Jenn's which took me back a bit as it's ages since I've hurled after a drunken night-out. Rothwell, the area where Jen lives is pretty nice...if you are ever in the locale look in at The Three Horshoes for nice ale plus really good fish & chips (With fish the size of a blue whale).
Once our Sunday mass duties where over with and our bacon sandwhiches were devoured (thanks Mike & Marie) we headed over to Sheffield to visit Anne's brother Sean. Sheffield isn't as vibrant as Leeds but Sean took us around the London Road and Eccleshall Road area which was nice. Lots of cool restaurants and a pretty cool sports bar allowing us to watch numerous matches at once. Later on we had some fantastic sashimi and sushi at Wasasabisabi before heading back over The Snake Pass.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway. Now you know what I had to eat onto the sport. Because of the rushing around didn't get as much sport in as we'd hoped (indeed it was only on Monday I found out the Italy v Wales result). Waterloo where actually playing in Leeds on the Sunday but despite our best intentions we couldn't fit it in. In the end it was the usual creditable defensive performance but a massacre nontheless (66-0). Caught some of the Chelsea fightback at the sports bar. Thought they were dead and buried but they never game up and more importantly they didn't panic. 3-3 was probably fair enough although Spurs can be gutted they didn't snatch it at the end when they hit the bar.
England really did do well against grand-slam chasing France. It just felt like it was on from the start. Flood deserves a run in the team in Jonny's injuries are going to persist. I think they deserved the win even though I'd say Catt's flick to Tindal counts as a forward pass. Geraghty's break deserved to be capped by a try though...superb. Going into the final week England, France, Ireland and Italy can all win it.
Next weekend have a lot to squash in. 'loo are at home on Saturday, Everton on Sunday plus St Patrick's night and our respective mother's day duties.
Although the timing of the game brings into focus the gulf between the the two Merseyside clubs I am looking forward to this and wish those trying to buy the David France Collection the best of luck.
The game on 28th will be good fun although the fact you can't buy a ticket on the door is a bit limiting. It'll be nice to see the collection at Goodison on the 25th too.
With no footy or rugby to go to this weekend we decided to dust off the bikes and get some fresh air. Once the thick layer of dust was removed and the punctures repaired we nipped down to Calderstones. There was a brass band playing and the sun was in the sky. Lovely stuff. After the band had finished we played some Frisbee-Ball (copyright Sir David Costie 2003) and then headed to The Vic to catch some footy scores. This meant a quick climb up towards Quarry St...the stretch past Strawberry Fields almost killed me. If it wasn't for a camera crew filming there meaning the prospect of my out-of-shapeness being captured for posterity I'd have had to push my way up. Lots of work to be done there I think.
We stopped at the pub and gauged the general mood of the local rednoses...they were all pretty gutted about their result and outraged over a goal that was wrongly called off-side. A later viewing of MotD showed that they were right to be gutted 'cause they'd absolutely played Utd off the park but as far as the BBC were concerned Sissoko had got a touch on the ball in and so Bellamy was offside.
Everton were pretty uninspiring in the first half against Sheffield Utd and when they took the lead we couldn't really complain...We came to life when gifted a penalty (Kenny spilling an innocuous looking ball and AJ pouncing forcing the Blades keeper to bring him down).
We are somehow 6th (pretty impressive goal difference too)...Somehow it still feels like a disappointing season. It's amazing how negative us blues are feeling (miserable gets that we are) but ultimately the league isn't lying. But for a lack of fitness and a pretty sickening trail of dropped points we'd be hanging on the coat tails of the money clubs. A pretty great achievment. If you look at the games we've let slip away from us these are all points we should have had. 2pts from City at home, 2 pts from Wigan at home, a point from Chelsea, a point from Spurs, 2pts from The Valley & all 3 from Craven Cottage. Even disregarding the Chelsea game as one of those things there's at least 6-10 points we had in our hands and just failed to put in the bank. A good run of results can see us get into Europe (without the need for the Intertoto) but traditionally we tend to flag at the end of the season once we are safe from relegation. I reckon Spurs and Blackburn may well overhaul us. Tim Cahill's picked up a metatarsel injury which is a bit gutting.
The next day was pretty grim and rained all day. Had my mum and our Ste & Claire round for tea and then watched MotD. Have to say I really felt for the West Ham fans....such a rollercoaster of a game. The joy when Tevez finally scored and the despair as it all went pair shaped for them.
I know footy fans will always hanker for the glory but disgruntled Evertonians need to remember the years we went through that. Be truly thankful. Having been down there I remember how utterly soul destroying it is. I wouldn't wish it on anyone (apart from those who made a point of gloating whilst we were facing the drop).
Other than the footy I've been checking out some Google earth stuff looking for the famous Indian listening to iPod.
How very, very sinister...A photo of Dave Cameron posing with his aristocracy chums in their exclusive university society turns up. Then mysteriously the company holding the copyright make a "policy decision" not to allow it to be published.
what £1000 got you at your local tailors back then
The Bullingdon Club sounds proper old school debauched upper-class so you can see why the Conservatives wouldn't want people getting an image of their great white hope as a priveliged, arrogant public school boy (which unfortunately for them his is). The BBC obviously think it's worth seeing as they got an artist to copy it (see it here).
It can't be nearly as embaressing as Tony Blair's barnet in this piccie.
The main thing about this whole thing is that the photography company have shown the Tories how easy it is to come to a "policy decision".
Eh...you are starting to think no smoke without fire on this one. Something dodgy was definitely said or done at Goodison...you could just tell from the furious reaction.
Everton FC season ticket holder & Waterloo RUFC club member. Labour party member and activist. Views are my own and will generally be dull. You've been warned :)
