Bristol City 0 – Ipswich Town 3
It was a good start to the season by Ipswich and well worth the trip.
My only problem with going to Bristol City and Ashton Gate us the rather dangerous seats without any backs.
Bristol City's Dangerous Seats
The danger is not when you sit on them. But as you walk in and out in a football ground, you always steady yourself on the seat row in front. Two fellow supporters nearly overbalanced on top of me, as the seat in front tipped forward.
How they pass Health and Safety, I do not know. But then the seating at QPR must have done last year.
Visiting The SS Great Britain
Before kick-off I also had time to visit the SS Great Britain.
The attached museum is pretty good too. It took me about ninety minutes to tour both. I was also surprised to see a lady in a wheelchair on the ship with an assistance dog. So the disabled access must be pretty easy as well.
I would recommend if you’re going to the football at Ashton Gate, that if you get into Bristol before about 11:00, as I did, you have time for lunch, a walk and a visit to the Great Britain. From there it’s a fairly simple twenty minutes or so walk to the ground.
Balotelli Gets It Right
Mario Balotelli has reportedly said that he doesn’t like Manchester.
I don’t!
He obviously has more taste than the average footballer.
Farewell Bin Hammam
Unlike Amy Winehouse, Mohammed Bin Hammam is still with us, even if FIFA have given him his just desserts. He has just been on Radio 5 and has said that everything he did was in line with FIFA policy. But then they are full of organised corruption. If you can, listen to a replay of the morning sports program with David Davies. I suspect none of the reasoned arguments, I’ve just heard went on at FIFA.
Now that we’ve said good-bye to Bin Hammam, how long can we sustain the farce of giving the World Cup to Qatar?
I wonder what odds I could get, that the Qatar World Cup doesn’t happen! Probably only very short ones, I would think!
What Is It About English Footballers and Penalties?
Even the English women went out yesterday after a penalty shoot-out. Read about it in The Independent.
The Fixtures For 2011-12 Are Now Out.
Now that the fixtures for next season have been published, what are going to be the difficult ones to get to from London or even Ipswich?
At present there is only one, that I probably couldn’t make.
That is on the 29th November 2011 at Burnley. It was a good trip last season and too far for a Tuesday in November.
Ryan Giggs Again!
According to the Daily Mail, Ryan Giggs is good at playing away.
I always remember meeting a First Division star in about 1990, at a lunch at Newmarket Races, where we were all guests of a company, who transported racehorses to races abroad. He was with an attractive lady, who was a few years younger than himself, but the name cards showed that they shared a surname. He explained to C, who was sitting next to him, that his wife was ill and that he’d brought his younger sister instead. But he also told her, that he hoped the photographers didn’t get a picture of him and his sister, that they used inappropriately. C jokingly said she was a divorce barrister and he joked that if he ever needed one, he’d give her a call. A few years ago, we met them again at Newmarket and they were good enough to recommend us to a friend, who needed a stud to board a mare.
This footballer played before the high salaries of today, but it does show how worried some are about getting ensnared by those who want to make a quick killing.
Sepp Blatter is in Favour of Women Wearing Stockings
The following paragragh is from this page on Sky News.
One of his stranger roles was as president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders – a male group that wanted women to give up tights and return to wearing stockings and suspenders.
Doesn’t that say a lot about the Great Administrator. Rumour has it, that Fred, Max, Peter and Dominique are also members of the same society.
Another World Cup Problem for Qatar
FIFA and the Qatari government have been put on notice about labour conditions in the build up to the World Cup 2022, according to this report on Bloomberg.
The International Trade Union Confederation and Building Workers International urged FIFA and the Qatari government to prove that migrant workers won’t be subject to “inhuman” conditions as the Persian Gulf nation begins to build stadiums in anticipation of the 2022 World Cup.
Do we really want to compete in a World Cup built by exploited labour?
But then our athletes went to Beijing, where human rights are non-existent and there have been two Olympics and two World Cups in the United States, where there is the death penalty.
The Anonymous Widower 