Danny’s Vision
Danny Boyle‘s idea for the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony will probably work and it’ll certainly be different.
But I have one gripe. The horses doing the ploughing should be Suffolk Horses or Punches. As someone, who has spent probably three-quarters of his life in the county, could I say otherwise. I think though, that the colour of all chestnut might be wrong, although of course they are slightly smaller than Shire horses, but probably with a better temperament for the Olympic stadium. Have a look at this Suffolk Punch parading at Portman Road, before Ipswich against Burnley.
It Looks Grim for Rangers
It looks like HMRC will reject any deal to save Rangers and go for liquidation of the Glasgow club. Let’s face it, they have been stung by so many clubs over the last few years, that the time has come to make a stand for the honest taxpayers of the UK.
I shall not be sad if they are liquidated, as on the only time I saw Rangers play in a friendly at Ipswich, the behaviour of their fans was not acceptable to your average fan of English football. It was only a friendly, but I believe Suffolk police don’t want Rangers back.
It will be sad for their loyal fans, especially as they have been bled dry by successive owners, who wanted glory at any price.
In some ways it’s a strong condemnation of football, where to succeed, you need to have an owner who is as rich as Creosus. Or in the case of Spain a compliant bank manager.
Football is going through a difficult change and hopefully it will emerge stronger at the other side, with more community and fan owned clubs.
Just Like 1966
I was 18 in 1966 and can remember watching England’s first match in the World Cup, where they playing a boring goalless draw with Uruguay.
I think it is true to say, that we weren’t too hopeful of winning in 1966 and if my memory serves me right, I think we did.
So last night and this morning, all of those on the phones-in, who thought England were rubbish, should shut up until at least the last match of the group stages of Euro-2012.
There weren’t phones-in in 1966, and I suspect after the first match, England supporters would have been totally despondent. Much worse than today.
Everybody now thinks of Sir Alf now, as the Messiah, but before the 1966 World Cup, all he’d done was the equivalent of take a Third Division side to the Premier League title in a space of five years. Try doing that these days with a team, without any stars. I suppose to be fair, England were in as bad a state at the start of the 1960s as Ipswich were when he took over as manager. A lot of people thought he was the wrong choice and probably hoped he’d fail.
In fact he had one great advantage in 1966 over Roy Hodgson today. He had at least had time to plan what he did. And plan he did! He even made sure that England had the lightest possible kit, so they would have more energy.
Ramsey incidentally had three years, whereas Hodgson had three weeks.
Giovanni Trapattoni claims “I am not Jesus Christ”
Giovanni Trapattoni, the Ireland manager has supposedly said this according to the BBC’s text commentary.
He claims “I am not Jesus Christ”. It is a healthy realisation to come to. “I don’t do miracles,” he continues. “Only the players can do miracles.”
He may be Italian, but he certainly has learned how to speak like an Irishman.
Orient Fans Defy Racism
On Double Take this morning on BBC Radio 5, they interviewed three hardy Leyton Orient fans, who’d gone all the way to support England in Donetsk. One was white, but the others were all or part-Bangladeshi. They were having a great time and had been made very welcome by the locals.
Let’s hope it all stays as peaceful.
Luckily for England, it seems most of the trouble so far is down to old problems with Russia, like these when they played the Czech Republic last night. Hopefully UEFA have got it in hand.
When I went to Belarus, there were no problems, but a Russian lawyer, I met who supports England, talked of the problems between Russia and its former satellite states.
Memories of Euro 2004
2004 is the only time since 1966, that I’ve been in a country that has won a major tournament. C and I were actually staying at a place called Sani at the top of the Haldikiki peninsular in Greece. It had just opened and I think C had got a very good deal through a travel magazine. It was very much worth it.
Everybody in the hotel, in addition to their own teams, were cheering on Greece and most were surprised when they won the tournament.
Perhaps one of the biggest memories of that holiday was a long walk down the coastal path for perhaps ten kilometres stopping at the various bars and hotels on the way. One turned out to be a holiday camp, that was very much a Teutonic version of Maplins from Hi de Hi! A bell would ring every twenty minutes or so for a strenuous keep fit session. Judging by the laughs from the bar we were in, the Germans found it funny too! We finally ended up in a fish restaurant on the beachside, before taking a bus home.
C was strangely uninhibited that holiday and did a lot of things she wouldn’t normally do. One was to sleep in very late in the morning, rather than get up early for her daily swim. She went down with breast cancer in October of that year from which she fully recovered. Perhaps her body was telling her something and trying to get her in the mood for the struggles to come. I will never know. The only other fsctor, was that she had just done a very harrowing child care case and perhaps she was wiping it out of her mind.
Germany versus Portugal
I’ve watched most of this match now and there has been a lot of tackling, that would get yellow cards in matches in the UK, but not too many seem to have been issued.
I’d not heard of the German striker who scored, Mario Gomez before, but he seems to have sensible views on gay footballers and urges them to come out. After reading something in The Times last week, I would suggest that Ukraine is not the place. He talked about his views in the Guardian here. I hope it doesn’t have any consequences in this tournament.
Do Either Poland or Greece Want To Win?
This has not been the greatest game of football and I would suspect, if Russia or the Czech republic get their act together, they’ll get some points from this pair.
After all, all we’ve had here is two sendings off, a missed penalty, another which should have been given , one goal each and very little else.
There’s just four minutes left, so on current form, I suspect it’ll be one goal each at the end.
Where Are The New Buses for London?
They have been rather conspicuous by their absence of late and I whave been wondering they are either being retrofitted with some new mod or have been busjacked for the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Perhaps, HRH is turning up on a 38 bus, as after all it goes round the back of Buck House.
Today though, I saw LT2 and LT6 at the Angel, so it must just be the reverse of coincidence, that I haven’t seen one for a few days.
The Olympic Torch is Now On The Red Button
This is so much better. And doesn’t use all that bandwidth on the Internet.
I wonder why it’s now available.
The Anonymous Widower 