What Do Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Sampras, Carl Jung And Roy Hodgson Have In Common?
I could also throw in Magic Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball and Albert Hitchcock.
So Roy is the only football manager there, but they are a successful group of individuals.
And they’re all quetzals or those born under the sign of Leo in the Chinese year of the pig. I don’t believe in astrology, but I read a book linking the various threads of the beliefs together some years ago and they described Leo pigs as blessed and a 100% pure pork.
Sometimes when I look at my life, I certainly feel I have been very lucky and have made the best of at times of a very dodgy and difficult set of cards.
The same could be said for Roy Hodgson, who took over the poisoned challenge of the England job and has now got us to the World Cup Finals in Brazil.
But then you underestimate the strength of character of a Leo pig at your peril!
I should know, as Roy is just seven days older than myself!
A Stadium In Need Of Updating
Hillsborough has seen better days.
These days you expect to have an uninterrupted view and some form of decent match timing device.
You can understand, why it is no longer used for FA Cup Semi Finals. I know the reason is to get more matches at Wembley, but I go to so many stadia, that are far superior to Hillsborough these days.
A Crazy Day!
Yesterday was a day I won’t forget.
As I said in this post, I was having a lot of frustrations with East Midland Trains, and decided to come back by Virgin from Birmingham.
I also decided to make a day of travelling, as I had someone with an idea, to meet in Manchester, so I decided to go via Preston and then come in to Manchester from the north west.
I left on the 08:30 from Euston and my main reason to go to the city was to see Preston bus station and the city’s buses. Although, I did walk around the market and the shopping area, visit the Preston Martyrs Memorial, looking unsuccessfully for a cup of coffee. It is not a city centre of which to be proud, as I mused here.
I left around 13:00 and took trains 2 and 3 of the day to get to Eccles via Huyton.
Arriving in Eccles, I bought a day travelcard for the trams and then explored some of the new lines, before going back Carluccio’s in Piccadilly station to have my meeting.
I then took trains 4 and 5, from Manchester to Derby after my meeting, saw the match which was a crazy four-all draw and then came back into Euston at 01:30 this morning, using trains 6 and 7.
I’m a bit tired this morning, but it was a good day and it could have been much worse if Ipswich had lost. It would also have been a lot more expensive, if I’d decided to partake of some of dubious and very expensive hospitality of East Midlands Trains.
I must say this for Travelodge, who when I decided to not use the room I had booked, allowed me to painlessly cancel it with no charge over the Internet.
A Crazy Football Match For A Crazy Day
I was running a few minutes late after my meeting in Manchester Piccadilly and eventually, I got on a train to Sheffield. It was the usual overcrowded TransPennine Express going to somewhere like Scunthorpe. Hopefully, when they finally sort out and electrify the cross-Pennine routes and Piccadilly station, you’ll always go to the same platform to get trains to places like Sheffield and Liverpool. at least though there were plenty of staff about and the train I needed was not in the platforms at the back of the station.
But I didn’t get to Sheffield in time to get a train to Derby that would get me to Pride Park in time for the start of the match. Nothing was late except my start time at Piccadilly and I caught a Cross Country train that would get in to Derby at 19:51. However, someone decided to try a spot of attempted murder on the train and when we got to Derby, the Police locked us all in for a few minutes until they made an arrest.
So I decided to take a taxi. If you know the area, walking to Pride Park from the station is not that far. But the taxi driver gave me a tour of the city and then dropped me at the point of the ground furthest from the Away Supporters End. By the time I got into the ground, Ipswich were leading by three goals to one.
We were all ecstatic at half time and wondered how many it will be. But in the Ipswich were almost lucky to hang on for a four-all draw.
I then walked back to the station to get the 22:02 train to Birmingham for the Virgin train home.
But it was running thirty minutes late. Luckily there was another train and I piled in to try to get to Birmingham in time.
I made the Virgin train, by the skin of my teeth and it was a few minutes early in London at 01:15.
But why did I need all that hassle to get back, when most train companies, but not East Midland Trains, provide a train back to the capital after a match.
Will Ipswich Keep David McGoldrick?
I’ve watched all of Ipswich Town’s competitive matches so far this season.
The performances have not been as good as everybody wants, but they have been entertaining and certainly a lot better than we have seen in recent seasons.
The star with five goals so far has been David McGoldrick. With many of the teams in the Premier League struggling to score goals, I would suspect that someone will come calling. I suspect it could be a difficult job to tell them to go away, so will Mick McCarthy use his Irish charm or Yorkshire plain-speaking.
In fact the one thing that we can make a real judgement on now, is McCarthy’s choice of players, as only time will tell how good the team turns out to be. In David McGoldrick, Christophe Berra, Cole Skuse, Paul Anderson, Anthony Wordsworth, Frank Nouble and Dean Gerken, I think he has made a good set of signings. I won’t add Ryan Tunnicliffe, who is only on loan. But surely, Manchester United wouldn’t have loaned Ipswich such a good player, if he wasn’t going to benefit from his time with the club.
It’s definitely a case of so far so good! We’ll know more about how good this side is at the end of the week after the games at Derby and Sheffield Wednesday.
Wigan Parish Church From The DW Stadium
I took this picture at half time of Wigan Parish Church from the DW Stadium.
Wigan Parish Church From The DW Stadium
It’s one of those times, that I wished I’d had a proper camera and a long lens with me.
Two Female Football Photograhers
You don’t see many female photographers at football matches.
Two Female Football Photograhers
But as you can see they had two at Wigan.
Wigan On The Up
I went to Wigan to see Ipswich play. These are pictures, I took show the area around the North Western station and the station itself.
Incidentally, the toilets were some of the best and cleanest, that I’d ever found on any railway station. They were free too!
I’m sure if all stations were as clean and tidy as Wigan North Western, then more people would travel by train.
The sun was even shining.
Incidentally, Wikipedia says this about Wigan North Western station.
In 2009 North Western station was identified as one of the ten worst category B interchange stations for mystery shopper assessment of fabric and environment, and was set to receive a share of £50m funding for improvements.
It looks like the money has been well spent, as the description didn’t fit the station I visited.
A Sky Satellite Dish Is So Yesterday
I’ve just looked up what football matches, I can watch over the next few days, through my steam-driven broadband, BT Sport and Freeview.
Tonight, BT are showing Wigan, whilst ITV4 is showing Swansea and Tottenham. All in the Uefa Cup. As I’m seeing Wigan on Sunday, as I’m going to see Ipswich play there, it’s rather a no-brainer, which matches I’ll watch.
Tomorrow, I’m busy in Liverpool, but the only match is on BT and it’s a German one. I’m not that sad yet!
Saturday, BT are showing a Premier League match, but as it’s Norwich, I assume they are going to pay me to watch it! Later I might want to watch Fulham on Sky, but obviously I can’t!
Sunday has some good matches on Sky, but I’m on the train going to Wigan and back to watch Ipswich. At least Virgin’s trains are higher up the speed and reliability scale compared to their broadband.
So BT Sport’s deal of free football with broadband, is equivalent to a supermarket giving away burgers made of horsemeat. It may look good, but it’s not what you want.
I’m almost getting to the point where I put up a satellite dish for Sky.
But that is yesterday’s old technology and I would only rip it out again, when fibre optic broadband became available. I’ve no objections to Sky as a company, as they gave me good service, when I lived in Suffolk.
Fibre-optic broadband would give me everything I want. But when will someone deliver it to me? Or is Hackney too rural for it to be hooked up? On the other hand if Innerleithen, in the Scottish Borders can have fibre optic broadband, why can’t I?
BT are keeping the delivery date secret! Which of course means I can’t plan!
I have written to my MP, Meg Hillier, who is also the member for Silicon Roundabout and Shoreditch. She said this in a letter to me.
I am very aware of issues around broadband in Hackney, particularly in the Tech City area around Shoreditch. The growth of these cutting edge businesses in my constituency is an exciting addition but I am very concerned that the infrastructure to support their tech needs is not in place.
She obviously has more clout than any Hackney resident, so if you have a desperate need for fibre-optic broadband, I’d send her an e-mail. The best way is to use WriteToThem.
Some Can Do Customer Service
i returned back today from some shopping and found the tickets I ordered yesterday from Ipswich Town on the mat. And then after I’d been in for a few minutes, a courier delivered some Coagucheck strips from Roche, that I’d ordered from their web site on Sunday.
I’d also had a good shop, getting the cord trousers, I wanted for the winter, to replace the ones of the same make, I bought over twenty years ago. They’re still the same size.
The Anonymous Widower 