I Missed The Match
I didn’t get to the match at Ipswich on Saturday, as although the Eurostar was on time in London, by the time I got home, it was too late to get a train to the start of the match.
The delays hadn’t been serious, but I wasted ten or fifteen minutes because of a broken Cashpoint, queues at WH Smith for my paper and then no taxis at Kings Cross. I then had to take the Victoria line to Highbury and Islington station and I waited another ten minutes for a bus to get home.
Of course, if they had left luggage lockers, at any of the stations, like St. Pancras, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street or Ipswich, I could have quickly dumped my case and got to the match on time.
But as Ipswich Town lost, I wasn’t too bothered by the evening.
Munich Olympic Park
I’ve been to several Olympic Parks and some like Montreal and Athens are not in the best of health. But Munich appears to be in use.
It is in my view one of the world’s most iconic sports stadia.
It is place full of tragedy and happiness.
I remember watching on television as the massacre at the Olympic village unfolded. Thankfully, no Olympics has seen anything like it since.
But there is a lesser tragedy entwined in the site and that is of one of Britain’s greatest ever athletes Lillian Board, who died in Munich of cancer, a couple of years before the 1972 Olympic Games. One of the paths on the site has been given her name. She was truly a multi-talented person, who represented her country at all distances up to a mile, and surely, she must be one of few people, who’ve received their MBE from the Queen, in a coat they’ve designed and made themselves.
Then there is the sadness and triumph in the medal tables on the honours board. Look at those of the women athletes and there is an awful lot of DDR and USSR. How many were clean?
But tucked in at the bottom is Mary Peters, who produced the performance of her life to win gold in the pentathlon. Of all the sporting events I’ve seen, both live and on television, her performance in Munich is in the top ten.
Exploring Bratislava
Bratislava is a charming city and I spent a pleasant few hours exploring.
It was just a pity it was still rather cold.
I first heard of Bratislava in the 1960s, when Spurs went there to play a European tie against Slovan Bratislava. I suspect the city was very different then.
I seem to remember the score as goalless, but some web sites, think Spurs lost 2-0. The match was memorable in one way, as the attacking Spurs team, decided to park the bus in front of goal. I was at the return leg at White Hart Lane, when Spurs progressed by 6-0. There’s a video of the match here. This must be one of the earliest matches, where I was actually present, that has a video on the Internet.
It Was Blue Skies, Sun And An Unlikely Win At Pride Park
The train got to Derby station in just over an hour and a half and then it was a short walk to the ground.
Walking To Pride Park
You walk through, an office park to the ground and it is all pretty easy going. Although a map or two and some more finger posts would be a good idea. For the first time this year, we saw a ground bathed in sunshine.
Pride Park In The Sun
Derby County had the bulk of the play by 57% to 43%, but despite this, Ipswich won 1-0.
The goal incidentally was the sort you read about in stories, but see rarely in real life. In the last minute of added time, at the end of the match, Carlos Edwards received the ball in the centre circle and runs towards the Derby goal, before unleashing an unstoppable shot from twenty-five metres out.
Mick McCarthy summed up the match like this.
We burgled it. I thought I heard the sirens and I said ‘shut the doors, the police are coming!
I would add that as my ticket to get in cost me £17.50 on top of £29 to get there by train in First Class, I can’t say that my day out wasn’t good value.
Ladies’ Day At Aintree
As ever the weather didn’t cool the ardour of the Liverpudlian ladies at Ladies’ Day at Aintree yesterday. There are pictures here.
There is no truth in the rumour, that the Royal Liverpool Hospital, had to deal with ten thousand drunken young ladies with hypothermia.
Badgers Stop Play
This is a sadder story about badgers ruining a cricket ground. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
Badgers have stopped play at one of England’s oldest cricket clubs after they tore huge chunks out of the pitch.
The damage has forced Rickmansworth Cricket Club, in Hertfordshire, to postpone all of its games in April and May as staff try to repair the ground.
It is believed the badgers were attracted by bugs thriving in the damp pitch, with the club unable to treat the ground due to the cold weather.
Badgers are becoming a serious pest in many places, due to the fact that they are protected and have no natural predator. So consequently, there is getting to be a population, that doesn’t have the space and sufficient food. It’s the same with deer in some places, but at least they are good to eat.
We must get sensible about our wildlife. Foxes, badgers, grey squirrels and deer seem to get all the protection they need to prosper from well-meaning town dwellers, but that wonderful queen of the countryside; the brown hare, and the beautiful red squirrel, keep struggling.
Cricket At The Olympic Stadium
It was reported on the BBC London News last night, that Essex County Cricket Club are negotiating to play their Twenty20 games at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford in East London.
This is a brilliant idea, as if they get the marketing and ticketing right, I’m sure that they’ll get a whole load of new people to go to the cricket.
Remember, as we saw in New Zealand recently, you can play the Twenty20 version of the game in a rugby or football stadium with a drop-in wicket.
Imagine too, England against Australia at Twenty20 with 70,000 supporters looking on. Now that will be some game!
It will happen, if for no other reason, there is no other way in the UK, to get that number of people to one of the greatest and longest rivalries in world sport.
What Would Happen If We Banned Steeplechasing?
Many believe that the Grand national and all steeplechasing should be banned.
I don’t!
But what would happen if we did ban it?
All our major races would probably move to Ireland or if the Scottish government decided not to ban it, to Scotland.
They would be overjoyed and some places in the UK, like Liverpool and Cheltenham, would lose quite a few jobs and lots of income.
But life in this country would lose one of its great spectacles. Soon horse racing would be reduced to a shadow of its former self, with probably only all-weather racing on the flat surviving.
I do think sometimes, that the various antis in all sorts of areas, have one aim in their mind; to take all the fun out of our lives.
If a man has never made love to a woman, who’s wearing nothing but a fur coat, he’s never lived! Incidentally, it wasn’t C’s coat either and it was at a two hour break in proceedings in a Catholic wedding.
Why Do Web Sites Get Redesigned?
I’ve used the East Midland Trains web site, many times in the last few years and have found it excellent.
But now it has had a makeover and I had to have a couple of attempts to get my tickets for the Ipswich match at Derby.
I always book a return in First Class, with the outrun being timed to get to the destination by something like 14:00 and then a fetch after 17:00 to get back to London. Usually, this is because, I won’t find anything to eat in the destination and so go straight to the ground. As Pride Park is close to Derby station, this would definitely be the case at Derby.
But the site kept telling me, I’d put in the wrong times, as I suspect someone had got his checking wrong. It was only, when the site handed me over to the ticketing engine behind the booking site, did I get some sense.
In the end, I’m travelling from London to Derby and back for the extortionate price of £29. And that’s in First Class with tea and drinks! If there are any snacks, I’ll forgo them, as they won’t be gluten free.
Paolo Di Canio
I’m getting rather fed up, with all the discussion clogging up the air time on the radio.
Let’s face it Paolo Di Canio has been proven to have fascist sympathies and hiring him was a big mistake from a marketing point of view.
Sunderland are now probably finding out what a mistake it was, in terms of revenue.
Like many other stories of recent months, it should be left alone, as everybody is bored with it.
The Anonymous Widower 