Simon Newsham

Rules? You're making it up as you go along

2010-03-23T21:51:00.003Z

Double Standards.

Cheers then Premier League, thanks for all your assistance. Where do your rules stand now?

Fine the club a million bucks one day and the next allow them to sell players outside the transfer window. It's not just allowing Pompey to sell but also allowing clubs to buy (from Portsmouth) outside the transfer window, so that's two rules broken or bent whatever you want to call it. So why did you apply the strict rules and fine Portsmouth £1m and then bend the rules to allow them to transfer players out? Oh yes of course to pay the fine.

Well I shall be writing to the premier league to demand a full explanation and a breakdown of where the £1m will be going.

Administration and that

2010-02-28T02:57:00.002Z

It's not the fault of Portsmouth FC as an entity or of the fans that it's in this disgraceful and embarrassing position.

The current players and staff are all committed to the survival and the future of the club which is at the heart of the city. An historic football club in a proud city full of heritage.

I'm studying mathematics graphs and tables, one constant which crops up is the former manager of AFC Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth and Southampton. Four random showings of football clubs entering administration conclude that three out of the four clubs went into administration at some point prior to that managers departure.

Three out of the three clubs that went into administration that the former manager managed are located on the south coast where the former manager lives.

It could of course be a coincidence.

What If It Was Your Club?

2010-02-20T23:38:00.002Z

Portsmouths plight has been worsened by the late winner for a mediocre Stoke City at Fratton this evening, the hopes that have been raised by the news of an impending salvation from a new buyout were dashed by yet another defeat that leaves Pompey well adrift of the rest of the strugglers in Englands top division.

What is really upsetting is the way many people in the game have turned on the club and in speaking out have turned against the fans and the city which is so proud of a famous English club. A club that won successive league championships, provided international players to England and many other nations. A football club is the beating heart of a city and community, Portsmouth FC is no different, it is a huge part of Portsmouth and it's people.

Quite why some of the media and football people are crying out for Portsmouth to be destroyed is beyond me. Would they be calling for Chelsea or Manchester United to be liquidated if their benefactors pulled the plug and left them in the lurch? No of course not. Has Portsmouth FC offended anyone so much that the football team should cease to be? I think not, the fact is Pompey have lived beyond their means and we readily admit it (shame that nobody in the media admits Redknapp is in any way responsible) but look at Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and they all live beyond their means. United have recently issued a £500m bond to solve the cashflow problems that was sold out in hours and is not performing too well, is that responsible?

So to all the pundits, journalists, managers and so called football fans who are wishing Portsmouth Football Club to be wound up and finished, put yourselves in the shoes of a Pompey fan and then think on, what you believe should happen to a great historic club....would you want that to happen to your team?

It's not the fault of Portsmouth FC as an entity or the fans that it's in this disgraceful and embarrassing position and don't think for one minute it should be resolved by destroying the football league status of what has been and is an institution in a great and proud city.

Another Day Another Drama

2010-02-04T09:12:00.005Z

More dramatic news from Fratton Park as it's revealed Balram Chanrai is to become Portsmouth latest owner. He has taken over invisible Arab Ali al Farajs 90% stake, Chanrai and his associates have lent the money which has kept Portsmouth FC afloat in recent months and the failure of the Faraj company Falcondrone to repay any of it has led to Pompey changing hands yet again.

With two big battles looming next week, one versus HMRC in the High Court and the not insignicant FA Cup fifth round tie with nearest rivals Southampton what Pompey really need is someone to steady the ship which has been recently plundered by former manager Harry Redknapp.

What I find strange is that with all the transfers out to Spurs no money has been seen coming Pompey's way, Crouch, Defoe, Krancjar, Kaboul all gone and Pompey sliding ever closer to oblivion. If Chanrai can placate the taxman next Wednesday then the club will be on a more even keel but the revenue do seem to be targetting football clubs just lately, Crystal Palace and Notts County to name but two have been hit with winding-up orders and Palace failed to stave it off incurring a ten point penalty as a result.

If Portsmouth were to enter administration the nine point deduction would only confirm what is probably going to be relegation from the Premier League but is the top flight that desirable for a club of Pompey's size? Even in a good season the best a club can realistically hope for is a top ten finish in a league that is so top heavy a one nil defeat against Chelsea is considered a good result. Qualification to the new format EUFA Cup, the Europa League brings the added challenge of a possible nineteen extra games, qualify from the group stages and you're rewarded with all the teams not good enough for the final stages of the Champions League joining you.

The massive spending and wages in the Premier League has to bring the house of cards crashing down at some time and Portsmouth could be well off out of it sitting in the Championship competing on a level playing field virtually debt free.

Don't You Just Love The FA Cup?

2010-01-26T23:23:00.004Z

Portsmouth find themselves in the fifth round of the greatest club competition in world football, their lowly league position has no doubt forced some fans into voting with their wallets as to whether they attend a cup tie. Two embarrassing attendances of eleven and ten thousand for the games against Coventry and Sunderland have lent their next opponents some ammunition to fire in the weeks approaching the game versus local rivals Southampton. Pompey won the cup in 2008 barely two years ago but we all know whats happened since then, three different managers, the squad scattered to the winds (mostly to Tottenham) and now the club teetering on the brink of financial oblivion.

The Portsmouth News website has had a mini invasion of Southampton fans on the comments boards all eager to point out that they are getting bigger attendances than Pompey and although it's sad it is nonetheless true. Where are all those tens of thousands of fans that thronged the streets and packed the common to welcome home the cup winning heroes? All gone it seems, I know there is a recession and times are hard but for less than ten thousand fans (the visitors brought six or seven hundred) at home for a cup tie is shockingly poor for a city of the size of Portsmouth.

The Battle of Hampshire at St Marys will have around four thousand Pompey fans there and I hope that the tickets are offered first to those who bothered to attend the previous two rounds and especially a priority for those who travelled to Coventry for the replay. Those who sat through the dire first match and sang their hearts out at the Ricoh Stadium deserve it. Likewise the fans who got behind their team against Sunderland when all too predictably they went one nil behind but witnessed an inspired second half performance. Whether the players kick started the fans or vice versa I'm not sure but a corner seemed to have been turned.

Local derbies are few and far between these days, the atmosphere is electric and even though it's a lunchtime kick-off this will be no different. I really miss the Pompey Southampton games and I'm really looking forward to this one, it could go either way. It really is too close to call, Portsmouth are the Premier League side but to be truthful they lack players of true quality and Saints are already on a run in the FA Cup and looking for more cup success are just ninety minutes from Wembley in the Johnstone's Paints Trophy.

If I were a betting man (which I am) I'd lump my cash on it being a draw which is something that Hampshire Constabulary will not want to see and neither will the residents of Fratton who well remember the scenes of violence the last time the sides met in Portsmouth. The historic facts are that Portsmouth have never beaten Saints in the FA Cup in four meetings but the cash boost of more than £400,000 from The FA and television will be handy for Pompey in these cash strapped times where they have a credit rating worse than Zimbabwe.

Amir Khan: ‘I’d be a superstar if I was white’

2009-12-05T00:58:00.002Z

I'm not a boxing fan but it seems to me that boxers are only in the public eye and in the media when they are building up to a fight. Boxing is a minority sport, a true star will shine through but between bouts the average spectator is not interested in the boxer.

In truth very few boxers can mix celebrity and their sport, the greatest character the sport ever produced is obviously Muhammed Ali but Frank Bruno hit the heights of fame and stardom in Britain and if I'm not mistaken Frank isn't white.

If Amir Khan was an interesting character with something to offer the masses on a weekly basis then maybe he would be a celebrity. Offering nothing but a couple of weeks of hype each year and nothing tangible in between isn't going to make him a superstar.

Can We Please Drag Football Into The 21st Century?

2009-12-03T01:02:00.004Z

Time for Sepp Blatter to go, if he seriously thinks another pair of eyes behind each goal will work better than a match official watching the tv coverage then he is deluded.

Association Football needs a real makeover and we can start by using tv replays for exactly the sort of thing that happened against Eire.

Also the timing of the game needs to be taken out of the referees hands, it's so simple for a timekeeper to control the time on a game using the stadium clock. If the referee spots that a lengthy stoppage is about to happen, for example a Rory Delap throw-in then he can use his earpiece microphone to say "time off" and "time on". Then we'll get a match of ninety minutes duration not one where an arbitrary one minute is added at the end of the first half and then some wild guess at the end of the second period of play that usually benefits the home side resulting in a "mini match" of between four and eight minutes.

Sepp Blatter obviously wields too much power in football and the seeding of Portugal and France in the play-offs just shows that the current regime will use that power to get exactly what they want.

For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon

2009-11-10T22:58:00.004Z

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Paul Weller...it's all about him not you

2009-06-21T20:01:00.004+01:00

Saturday night at Westonbirt Arboretum near Tetbury was the venue for my second Paul Weller gig this year, an open air concert in conjunction with the Forestry Commission. Westonbirt was riding high on the success of the previous night when McFly took the stage but not a sell out so it was no surprise to me when the traffic marshalls and gate staff were unprepared for the 7,000 who swarmed on down from the fields now hastily turned over to car parks.

We are old hands at Weller gigs be it small theatres or big outdoor arenas and once the car park picnic of ham, pork pies, potato and onion tortilla with a dessert of homegrown strawberries were demolished washed down with Portuguese rose we entered the arena and got ourselves into a good spot.

A 'good spot' for a five foot ten bloke with a girlfriend considerably shorter than that is not behind tall people. So finding an ideal location can be tricky, about seven bodies back from the front is just about perfect, any closer and you'll be in that 'mosh-pit' nonsense where total strangers push, pull and fling each other around like they've been mates since nursery school.
The moshing area is also not ideal for someone who is still recovering from a ruptured achilles tendon, so mid-stage seven bodies back is good for me.

The excitement builds, the support band do their set and pretty good too they were too. Twisted Wheel three lads from Oldham, look out for them, the raw energy of their obvious Clash and Jam inspired music will be hitting out nationwide after this summers gigs, they play Glastonbury this Sunday on the John Peel stage. If you watch the festival highlights on telly Twisted Wheel should feature on there.

Support act finished now and we're still there just about seven bodies from the front awaiting the Modfather, more tension builds, pissed people are having to go to the toilets making space but more people arrive in our 'seven bodies from the front' exclusion zone. Oh no, no no no no you can't stand there mate, you're eight feet tall and got a rucksack on your back, go on get off out of it. Bugger, we now have to make a tactical move to the left, but hold on yes, nice one the group of blokes next to us need more beer, one is despatched to the bars and we slide along unnoticed and the freak of nature is no longer in the eyeline.

Suddenly Weller is on, the man we've come to see and hear and what a fantastic view, no giants in my line of sight and away we go, Peacock Suit, Changin' Man but hang on..what's occured here then? lots of upper class voices and blonde hair pile into my space, my area, my jurisdiction that I've been guarding faithfully for two hours. I know I know, it's a gig, it's a free country and people have paid their money but I'm now suffering this young female idiot screaming 'woooooo Wellerrrrr wooooooooooo' holding her camera phone in the air constantly while the other hand clutches a pint of white wine.

My upper limbs start to act of their accord, and every time the over-priviledged Barbie bangs into me my elbow goes into her ribs. I'm not giving an inch of ground to the young bitch no way. I saw The Jam before she was even conceived and been a fan of Paul Wellers' music long before she was even at her boarding school. But then........then she lights up a cigarette and we become wreathed in her vile smoke. In these days of non smoking workplaces and public buildings we've all become so more aware of cigarette smoke around us, in a word to a non-smoker it's 'intolerable' and my girlfriend asked her politely to please put it out. Barbies response was mono-syllabic.........'NO'.

An uneasy stand-off then ensued and the girl who thought the whole evening was all about her suddenly got a huge surprise, Weller launched into 'From The Floorboards Up' and immediately a surge came from behind us. Just like the random surges you used to get at football before the days of all seater stadia and the European Runners-Up League. But this was no random surge, this was die-hard Paul Weller fans who wanted to get to the front, right in among those mosh-heads and dance and leap around like a demented gazebo, I stepped to the side and grabbed my girl while these three blokes with linked arms and drunken grins on their faces flew past us taking everyone in front of them including the phone clutching, wine drinking, fag smoking spoilt brat into the 'Pit of Mosh'.

Well now, this was great, now we all had loads of room, no elbowing and a clear view of the stage with all the chaos going on in front of us which had just gone completely mental with bodies flying back and forth arms flailing as 'Eton Rifles' blasted out and a few thousand forty-somethings sang out 'hello hooray, what a nice day' then the mosh area soothed a bit as Weller calmed it down with 'Sea Spray' and what do we see staggering out of the mass of bodies? yes indeed, Barbie, not screeching 'wooooo' anymore but looking somewhat dishevelled no longer clutching her wine glass and mobile phone but forlornly making her way out of the mass of people and indeed right out of the gig still desperately flicking her hair as if nothing had happened while looking to all the world like she's just about to burst into tears. Ironically.....there's a price to pay for the Eton Rifles.

What goes around comes around, treat others as you would like to be treated and we'll get along great but if you behave in life as though you are the only person in the world who matters then somewhere along the way you'll take a fall.

Why Not Build It Without A Supermarket?

2009-05-19T23:29:00.004+01:00

It's not like me to have a rant I know but I've just been reading about the new stadium for the 2018 World Cup story and would like to add my two penneth worth.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Portsmouth39s-World-Cup-dream-still.5278927.jp

Does every new development not just a potential new Portsmouth FC stadium have to be linked with a supermarket and housing (namely more flats?).

Portsmouth City Council have not exactly covered themselves in glory in recent times, they didn't encourage IKEA to come to Pompey and just look at the numbers who flock to the store in Southampton not to mention the 100s of jobs created, the tower fiasco and the millions of pounds wasted on computerised bus stops that weren't needed and never worked. But now Portsmouth has the chance to build something for the future, a facility that could serve as a football stadium and a venue for concerts, shows and exhibitions.

We don't need another huge supermarket we need more emphasis on encouraging local shops and a community spirit within our city before it's too late.

Don't get lured into the web of the greedy powerful supermarkets, keep our independence and take ownership of this citys future like you should have kept ownership of the Spinnaker Tower and the revenue it generates.

I don't believe she just said that......

2009-05-11T19:24:00.003+01:00

We've all been there a terribly embarrassing moment, the wrong thing said at the wrong time when the maximum offence could be taken if not entirely meant. A moment when you wish you could just become invisible or the floor open up and take you away from it all but surprisingly this occasion wasn't my doing.

There I was sat in the dentists waiting room with just a television set to keep me entertained except that the Jeremy Kyle show is not my cup of tea. The usual fodder of single teenage mum, wayward noncontributing boyfriend, jealous new girlfriend and new hard-working boyfriend providing for the child all stoked up by Kyle and his particular manner of leading both parties to the brink of committing murder live on television before restoring calm and giving them a solution to their problem.

Ignoring the garbage on screen I said good morning to another patient just arrived, his unmistakable Eastern European voice replied "gud mournin" then it all got a bit busy a man arrived who I knew as an elder of the Bangladeshi community took a seat quickly followed into the room by a young man of Asiatic origin.

What came next was straight out of a BBC comedy show.......except you couldn't have scripted it, one seat left in the waiting room......next to me and who do you reckon came in and sat in that seat? Only the absolute spitting image of the vulgar grandmother from the Catherine Tate show.

"Look at that bloody rubbish on telly....bloody good for nothings....all on benefits you know? They should neuter 'em. Listen to 'em....can't even speak proper English". I did my best to be polite and nod agreeably with the odd "yes I know" thrown in for good measure. Seizing the moment I deflected her onto MPs and their immoral expenses claims but that proved to be a mistake. She let rip "I needed a new boiler and had to wait eighteen months for it and pay for it meself then they put the pension up and took my wotsname credit away bunch of bloody crooks.............don't get me started on that Gordon Brown and now they wants to bring in even more immigrants..........there aint enough room for 'em they wants to do what they does in China and limit the number of kids they can have".

Well I just sat there head thrown back staring at the ceiling I have no idea what the other occupants of the room were doing I just wanted to disappear into thin air........then I heard the words "Mr Newsham would you come on through please"............I have never so willingly entered the dentists surgery.

Beer Hunting

2009-05-06T20:21:00.003+01:00

Bath is a fine city full of culture, too many tourists but thankfully full of alehouses. Loads of them, my weekend in Bath was punctuated by many a pint and one of the best is the local brew 'Bellringer' and I must confess to asking for a pint of 'Bellender' when I'd had quite a few.

Our first stop was the smallest pub in Bath (pronounced Barth for any northerners reading) this is the Coeur de Lion with it's quaint old coloured glass windows and fab food, the tempura vegetables are just enough for a lunchtime snack and allow themselves to be washed down by the beer without a hint of making a windy reappearance. As the pub is so tiny you are compressed into your seats and cannot avoid tourists.......namely Americans. Alright I know they are always so amazed at our old stuff like castles, Roman remains and Stonehenge to name a few. Why do Americans say 'Stonehenge' with the emphasis on STONE? it's not as if there is another one to differentiate it from. 'Hey buddy we're looking for 'STONEhenge'.......... 'ah you mean Stonehenge'..it's just one word my transatlantic friend. But what really made me chuckle was the elder male yank who noticing my shaking of the non-brewed condiment onto a bowl of chips exclaimed 'they put put vinegar on their French Fries!'....... his wife Myrtle said 'NO!!'..... he said 'yeah! they seem to like it ya know'.

The Abbey Square is the place to be after lunch, at two o'clock the guides gather outside the door of the Roman Baths waiting to take you on a narrative journey through their city. No need to book no need to part with any cash, the guide who led us on a two hour amble to check out the architecture and tell us the story of his city was a fine English character decked out in several layers of linen shirts finished with a linen jacket. His umbrella was quite clearly of a vintage older than myself and his topping off was a floppy grey Fedora, the whole ensemble spoke of a man who had style, class and the ability to tell a story without boring his audience into the nearest tea shoppe. His class was such that after the walk he simply raised his hat and said goodbye, no hanging around for a tip.

Back on the beer hunt The Star is worth a visit as is the Raven last years winner of Bath pub of the year. The Raven offers nine types of home made pie with mustard mash and a range of beers and ciders. On the subject of cider I was offered good advice by our free walk guide 'cider after beer will make e feel queer but beer after cider makes a good rider'. So thats sorted then make sure you taste the ciders first.

Bank Holiday Monday saw county cricket at the Bath ground just a short walk across the river and Middlesex were the visitors who being bowled out for a total of 65 didn't make for much of a game but the beneficiaries of this thrashing by the hosts meant the pubs cashed in with hundreds of visiting fans heading for the alehouses. Most were in a pretty fluid state by late evening and a most amusing moment on the platform at Bath station was a crowd of Middlesex fans chanting 'we don't know what we're doing'..........I can vouch for their honesty.

Get down to Bath on the train for a day of culture and beer but aim to arrive about tennish before the coaches and you'll have a comfortable visit to the Romans Baths, a nice lunch with a pint then take the free walk including the Circus and The Royal Crescent.......here's a good tip visit The Royal Crescent Hotel and they'll show you round, serve you tea and home made biscuits for a fiver which is a lot less money and a good deal less sickly than a massive Bath Bun with cinnamon butter.

How Does That Sound?

2009-03-31T08:11:00.006+01:00

The latest television ad for Confused.com paints a rosy picture for those of us who are just too busy to go around getting different quotes from insurance companies.

So with my home contents insurance about to expire I thought I'd give it a go and out of all the quotes one stood out as fantastically cheap.....too good to be true cheap. If it looks too good to be true then it probably isn't true but I went for it anyway. One insurance company were offering me cover at £53.83 almost half the cost of everyone else lets give em a ring shall we?

'Good morning sir you're through to Dave how can I help you today?'

'I'd like to take out this insurance policy please'

'certainly sir would you like to add on personal legal cover at £15 for the year?'

no thanks

'I'll add it on just now and if you don't want it we can take it off at the end.......would you like key cover at £25 for two sets of keys?'

'errr not really'

'I'll add it on just now and if you don't like it we can take it off at the end.....would you like to add accidental damage?'

'errr go on then'

'right that's a grand total of £178.74 minus your £20 cashback offer today the £20 will appear in your bank account sometime in the next ninety days so now that's £158.74 how does that sound?'

'it doesn't sound anything like £53.83'

'well lets take off the key cover and the personal legal assistance and its £118.03 how does that sound?'

'It's still not £53.83 is it, I want that policy which you quoted'

'I'm sorry sir the best I can offer you today is £71.27 with Fortis'

'There's no point continuing this conversion'........sound of phone smashing into its cradle

Anthem For England

2009-03-26T10:42:00.003Z

We've just been debating God Save The Queen, not the concept of saving her like if she was drowning or stuck up to her waist in a peat bog or something nor the artistic merits of the Sex Pistols tune but the national anthem.

What do we all think of the National Anthem? thats the National Anthem of Great Britain.......(whats Great about it?) Whats not great is that its used as the national anthem of England which is wrong. England needs it's own anthem for sporting events, we should grasp hold of our identity and shout it out, be proud to be English but there you have a problem. If you proclaim your Englishness in our multi-cultural society you are by default making a racist statement, Saint Georges Day is celebrated less by English people (especially students) than St Patricks Day.

On the subject of racism there is a case in this area where a couple complained about the mess left behind by modern day highwaymen known as travellers and the cost to the local authority to clear it up but because they called them Gypsies and weren't too complimentary about them the council could not take their case up because the couples complaint was deemed to be racist in the eyes of the law saying their views 'contained statements that are based on negative assumptions about gypsies, travellers and travelling showpeople and / or could be construed as offensive'.

Sorry, I went a bit off track there back to the national anthem.

der der der der der der
der der der der der der

well thats the first two lines of God Save The Queen, it's a dirge and very uninspiring thats my view, give us Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem. This site goes into a bit more depth, I vow to thee my country is another contender..........now where did I put my tablets?

http://anthem4england.co.uk/

Runners-Up League

2009-03-11T08:59:00.005Z

The Liverpool followers at work are unbearably smug this morning, when asked if I saw the 'footy' I said 'No I didnt watch FOOTBALL I listened to Exeter v Bournemouth on the radio, a proper game in a league that actually means something to me not some farcical runners-up league in which teams who finish 2nd 3rd and 4th in their respective countries play for the European Cup, a trophy which once meant something when the Champions of the said leagues played each other for the right to be the best team in Europe.

Liverpool won this competition after they finished way back in fourth place in the Premier League, surely thats wrong? I mourn the passing of the Cup-Winners cup and the way the EUFA cup has become a disjointed carousel of knockout qualifiers followed by group stages then the remaining teams are joined by the Runners-Up League cast offs and goes back to a knockout basis.

The joke game in the Runners-Up League last night was the German Champions Bayern Munich thrashing Portugals third best team 7-1 which became 12-1 on aggregate, what a team they must be to lose five nothing at home.

The likes of Rotherham, Luton and Bournemouth who have been deducted points just because they owned up to being skint should be rewarded with cash injections from the Football League the FA and EUFA not get fines and points taken away that in Lutons case will see them losing their league status and playing in the Conference next season.

Chelsea operate on a loss making basis every season, Roman bless him writes a cheque to cover the deficit (usually around the £100m mark) how is that responsible business practice? I don't see Chelsea starting the Premier League with a minus 17 points total, even if they did they'd still probably qualify for the runners-up league because the gap now between the rich clubs and the rest has widened so much, ok Everton and Villa have a pretend go at a top four finish but I'll be very surprised if it doesnt end up tediously with United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal......again.

Castles Culture and Log Cabins

2009-03-04T08:04:00.025Z

So you want to get away from it all for a few days? somewhere peaceful tucked away in the woods where your alarm call is the birds twittering and the sun shining through the trees. Do I know of such a place? indeed I do and just a couple of miles north of St Clears in Carmarthenshire you can find Woodland Lodges.

A friendly family run site with log cabins that sleep from two up to groups of eight people, all the cabins have their own sauna which is a nice addition to what is essentially a base to explore South West Wales. Each cabin has all you need to self cater during your stay, shower or whirlpool bath, a fridge freezer an oven with grill, microwave, toaster and a television it's all there, everything is run on electricity so make sure you have a supply of pound coins, one warning the electric meter will whizz round like a whirling dervish if you spark up the sauna.

St Clears is split in two by the busy A40 which hurries the traffic westward to Pembroke Dock and by-passing the quiet little town which has some nice pubs and a couple of excellent prize winning butchers cum delicatessen where locally produced food can be obtained for cooking back at the cabin.

Heading south out of St Clears on the road to Pendine Sands and Laugharne the brown signs direct you to Dylan Thomas' Boathouse and the village of Laugharne with it's ghostly mediaeval castle on the estuary of the River Taf. It is reputed to be the fictional town of Llareggub and the inspiration behind the Thomas play 'Under Milk Wood'. It's other claim to fame is that actor Neil Morrissey loves the place so much he bought one of the pubs Browns Hotel which he sold in 2004 and still has an interest in other property nearby notably the exclusive Hurst House Hotel.

Laugharne has a plethora of pubs ironically three of them are within a stones throw of Temperance House but for good home cooked food try Greens restaurant by the car park, they offer organic local produce but beware if you are peckish between 3 and 6pm as rural Wales is shut.

You can find the grave of Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin in the churchyard, a simple white wooden cross is all that marks the great writers last resting place. Most pubs around St Clears and Laugharne have pictures of Thomas on the walls and they all claim he was a regular. Thomas spent most of the last four years of his short life in Laugharne not always sober and often quoted 'an alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you'....no wonder most people assumed he drank himself to death.

Take a walk along the cliffs westward away from the castle up through wooded cliffs and the coast path will lead you along the shore until just before the quarry you cut back into Laugharne where you can walk through the churchyard and then down to The Boathouse where Dylan Thomas lived, now part tea rooms part museum it can be visited as long as you arrive well before 3pm. Just along from the Boathouse is Thomas' writing shed, if not the most expensive shed in Britain it certainly has the best view, this culture trail is well trodden in the summer months when American tourists swarm down to see the great mans house and writing shed so avoid the high season.

After a wander around Laugharne a visit to Pendine Sands is a must, the vast stretch of beach with firm solid sand where land speed records were made and broken in the twenties by Sir Malcolm Campbell and J.G Parry-Thomas. The Museum Of Speed on the beach houses 'Babs' the motor car with a massive 27 litre aero-engined car driven by John Parry-Thomas who was to lose his life on the sands when Babs drive chain broke at a speed of 170mph almost taking his head off. The car was buried in the sand after the accident but was recovered and restored and returned to action on the beach in the seventies. I wanted to open up the modest 1.6 litre 16v engine on my new Renault for a blast along the beach to see what it can do but unfortunately the beach is in MOD hands now and all motoring activities on Pendine Sands are strictly prohibited especially between the hours of 1500 and 1800.

On the way back take a drive to Llansteffan just a few miles south of Carmarthen and climb the steep hill to the castle high on the cliffs. Llansteffan Castle is magical for as many reasons as you care to make up and mercifully unlike in England it's free to enter and not blighted by those twin spoilsports health and safety. Climbing on the ramparts gives a fine view out over the Tywi estuary and makes a wonderful playground, if I had a sword and shield I'd have been running around the place for hours. At low tide you can walk down the zig-zag steps from the south of the castle to the beach below for a spot of beachcombing or a walk on the sand.

This part of Wales is full of spectacular walks, loads of pubs and restaurants and a very friendly welcome from the locals, try the Butchers Arms in St Clears it's on the way out of town on the Laugharne road you'll get good ale and food including real chips something that South Wales is particularly good at, none of your frozen rubbish here just good locally sourced produce and scenery to take your breath away.

Woodland Lodges can be found via http://www.hoseasons.co.uk/

Operational Difficulties

2009-02-05T08:59:00.005Z

Once again it was proven if proof were needed that ITV shouldn’t be allowed within a country mile of any live sport.

From 8pm we endured a feisty but not particularly exciting Merseyside FA cup tie and into injury time the only goal of the game went to Everton except we didn’t see it.

Some incompetent had pressed a button and on screen was an advert for BT that after thirty seconds disappeared, we cut back to Goodison and see lots of blue shirted players congratulating each other. Nice one ITV the only goal in almost two hours of football and you managed to miss it.

Add to this the needless studio comments of Andy Townsend minus his sidekick the table, last seen on the side of the pitch at Borussia Dortmund in the Champions league. Steve Ryders’ apology of sorts was not enough, ‘we’re sorry that some of you may have missed the goal due to operational difficulties’.…an operating difficulty? Someone must have been sat reading a paper not realising the game had gone to extra time then pressed the button for an advert.

When Manchester United won the Champions League final in 1999 after being one nil down with three minutes to go ITV went to an ad break immediately the final whistle blew, no scenes of joy for us to witness as United won an unlikely treble. ITV Sport have had ten years and more to get it right but still they cannot even begin to compete with the BBC.

I have been critical of the Beeb especially Messrs Lineker Hansen and Shearer for their unswerving favouritism towards the rich four clubs but I thank my lucky stars that when Pompey won the cup it was on BBC without any adverts unscheduled or otherwise.

New Year Resolutions....I'm Still Working On 2008

2008-12-30T22:29:00.010Z

At the beginning of 2008 I did resolve to not use my blog as a vehicle for random ranting at things which wind me up, you may have noticed I failed, spectacularly.

Among the subjects of my rantings were the BBC, most notably Match of the Day, EasyJet passengers, The Daily Mail, Brussels, Pompey not wearing their proper kit anymore and mental Madeiran taxi drivers.

I thought I was doing well and as autumn kicked in I was not guilty of a single rant in October or November but now...I'm afraid all that pent up rage is going to vent forth.

Wandering into the Albert Road Co-Op in Southsea I spied a display of cards, nothing new there you may say, well this time last week the card rack contained Christmas cards which is fair enough but today........today the rack holds Valentine cards. According to my diary February 14 is the prescribed day for this annual event which makes a man either a romantic hero with enough brownie points in the bank to last until at least May or a hopeless, uncaring, unimaginative loser who will be reminded of his sentimental inadequacies in the romance department for the rest of his life.

What on earth is going on? December 30 and Valentine cards on sale, cast your mind back to September, the shops were full of Halloween items and then fireworks. Guy Fawkes Night also known as Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night is an annual celebration on the evening of the fifth of November. Which incidentally in case anyone had forgotten celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 in which a number of catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes were alleged to be attempting to blow up Parliament, so why are the shops are selling fireworks from 9 September?

What happened to the magazine collections? that's the usual post Christmas fare. Tent Mallet Monthly "Buy issue one get issue two free....issue one comes with a complimentary felt drawstring mallet bag"........"this fantastic collection builds into a thirty-six volume set that you will want to keep forever".

As soon as Guy Fawkes Night has petered out in a hazy smog of cordite and bonfire fumed cloud the bloody shops hit us again.....this time with Christmas......and then long before the turkey has even been stripped so bare as to only have legs to go into a curry the adverts start for the sales. "Sale starts 5a.m.....Sale starts 7a.m" My heart goes out to the poor souls who work in the shops and have to get up at some unearthly hour while still digesting their sprouts, Christmas Pudding, Port and Stilton.

Then while out observing in the frenzy of sale shopping I spotted a dinosaur along the High Street, mortally wounded and wobbling on it's last legs, with a final "everything must go" kicking of the legs it gave in to the extinction which has been forced upon it by the giant supermarkets. It was a sad sight as the beast finally toppled over, the vultures moving in to pick the flesh off the still breathing but barely alive body of a British institution, the voracious public flocked in to graze on the remains without a care for the Woolworths staff who are facing New Year without a job.

So as 2009 approaches once again I will resolve to be more tolerant and not rant at things that wind me up but I know it's a lost cause, much as my ranting at the non-stop commercialism with which we are bombarded throughout the year will be.

I wish you health and happiness for the new year and I'll leave you with a few predictions for 2009.

Tony Adams signs Nigel Quashie to bolster his beleaguered midfield.

Portsmouth Northern Quarter plan scrapped in favour of building new medieval style stocks for shaming and punishment of miscreants.

Redknapp leaves Spurs to concentrate on taking Southampton down to League One.

Gordon Brown wins Strictly Come Dancing.

A whole day passes without Tony Adams without making a statement to the press.

Gordon Brown is the first to be voted off "I'm a Celebrity".

Someone in the South-East of England will get a mortgage.

Achilleswatch

2008-11-18T22:16:00.007Z

Three months after rupturing my achilles tendon I'm now walking without the special boot that kept me from falling over, I felt so confident I even went up to London without it on Saturday.

I did take my patent wooden curved handled NHS walking stick though, given to me by the physio department at St Marys Hospital in Portsmouth. With a flat cap and green jacket I'd look like a cast member from Last Of The Summer Wine.

The walking stick is great it acts as a forcefield a kind of total exclusion zone around my leg, especially useful in Commercial Road, we all know how invisible we become when popping into town for a bit of shopping, nobody can see you. So when an oblivious texting teenager or self obsessed student approaches and doesn't move out of my way they are greeted by the stick out in front of the injured leg.

The stick was almost captured at Upton Park on Saturday, as I limped up to the turnstile an overzealous security man in a bright orange jacket said "leave that 'ere mate"......"no way" I replied.........then he added "you aint taking that in there" ......I could see a battle of wills developing here and even explaining about my injury to him he still wasn't allowing my stick to enter. I then felt a hand on my elbow, it was another orange jacketed man who began steering me to a huge gate "hello sir lets open the door for yer, can't av ya going froo the turnstile, ere Sally open the gate fer the gentleman and take his ticket, there yer go sir enjoy the game".
Well I just couldn't resist turning round and smirking at the first orange man, I nearly raised the walking stick and went "nerrrrrrrrr" at him but didn't think I should push my luck.

On the tube the stick also had magic properties a kind man gave me his seat on the district line, this did cause me a problem as the train was packed and in my good fortune I was now stuck because two stops on I had to change to the Jubilee and I couldn't get off. "Stick do your work", a few prods on feet and on the back of a leg or two saw a way through and like Moses parting the Red Sea the stick had got me a passage.

I don't expect you to condone this behaviour and in fact I ought to monitor my stick wielding antics as it seems to be prematurely ageing me. I caught myself watching Countdown the other day and pressing the mute button whenever an advert came on, especially a Christmas advert, what next, New Tricks? Deal Or No Deal?

We Must Remember Them

2008-11-04T23:35:00.006Z

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them"

This line comes from the middle stanza of the poem “For the Fallen” by Lancashire-born poet Laurence Binyon. The whole of this middle verse is traditionally recited as part of Remembrance Day services throughout the United Kingdom. I myself have a big connection with Lancashire, my father was born in Farnworth near Bolton, one of four children whose father (my grandfather) was a miner at Lord Levers' colliery. The town of Farnworth was then a prosperous industrial town with cotton mills, foundries and mining employing the whole town, but in the Great War the menfolk of Farnworth were encouraged to join the local army unit The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, many of them never to return to the mill or the pit.

My Grandfather was just a young man not yet twenty when he took up the colours in 1914 and his service record for 1914-15 simply says "Theatre of War-Balkans". He often mentioned the Dardanelles which are the straits between Europe and Asian Turkey, it's also where you'll find Gallipoli, there in 1915 he was wounded in the back by shell fragments and by two bullets in his legs but after recovery resumed his service with the regiment. Known to all simply as Alec, Alexander Newsham also spoke of his service in France and Belgium, Ypres, Arras, Vimy Ridge, Passchendale, The Somme, Messines. All places you've heard of and in fact the regiment served in virtually every theatre of the war, so we know he saw some terrible things, things that prevented him from sleeping some nights. His cousin Joseph was killed on 23 July 1916 on The Somme near Thiepval, his body was never identified but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial and no doubt lays in one of the thousands of un-named graves marked "A Soldier of The Great War".

The whole area of The Somme is dotted with cemetaries and memorials to the fallen, from 1st July to 18th November 1916 over a million men became casualties in the long and bitter struggle on the Somme. The offensive cost Britain and the Empire 419,654 casualties, 125,000 of them dead. The advance was spread along a thirty mile front but became a bloody stalemate in appaling conditions once the summer went into Autumn the rain came and so did the awful mud.

In Britain the impact of the losses was severe, particularly in the north of England where many of the pals regiments were formed, whole streets and places of work joined up as one and died almost as one. I cannot even begin to imagine the horror of those conditions but these men accepted their lot and carried on with their duties, though they would have been scared witless by the shelling and the forays into enemy held territory. Three more years of conflict ensued and nearing the end of the war Alecs unit were at the second battle of Kemmel Hill in April 1918 where the German forces counter attacked and succeeded in capturing part of the high ground. As sergeant he took charge of the company when all the officers were killed and with his leadership and bravery his troops held on to their position for four days before relief got to them. For his actions Alec received the Military Medal. I am proud, honoured and extremely thankful that I knew my grandfather for a few precious years when so many lost family members in the Great War.

Alec died in 1974, he never could forget the horrors of the war, all those friends he saw die or horribly mutilated. For me and my family he lives on, on his return from war he was presented with a beautiful gold fob pocket watch by the very grateful Guild and Townsfolk of Bolton, we have the newspaper cuttings to read and I am researching the regimental diaries, we were lucky that he returned from war, he was wounded three or four times (we're not sure) and as the Bolton Evening News described "survived many hairbreadth escapes in the field".

As we all know many thousands failed to return from "the war to end all wars" along with thousands more in the second world war and down the years. Please wear your poppy with pride this week and take the time on Sunday and next Tuesday at 11.00 to be silent and remember the fallen from all conflicts including the present.

“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.”

The Great South Run

2008-10-21T14:05:00.007+01:00

It's this Sunday, the day all those club runners, joggers and charity runners have been waiting for, or dreading, it's The Great South Run. Ten miles around the streets of Pompey and the open roads of Southsea seafront.

I was at Portsmouth Rugby Club on Saturday and there were several friends there who are entered in the run, they were all wisely avoiding playing rugby, with the race so close nobody wants an injury that will lay to waste five or six months of training. I was very envious of them, my ruptured achilles tendon injury will keep me off running for some time but I remembered the excitement and trepidation I had when my first Great South Run was getting closer and it got me thinking that I could pass on some helpful tips. There are always a lot of runners who've never run ten miles before never mind run in the Souths biggest road race and I have some advice to share with you if you havn't done the Great South before.

I'm not the worlds best runner in fact I'm a long way short of being a decent club runner as anyone at Portsmouth Joggers will confirm but I've got four medals and tee shirts in my collection, four Great South Runs. The first was in 2001 when I ran as a tribute to my dear departed father. He was struck down with cancer and died in May '01 and shortly after that I decided I'd run for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund raising over £300 in sponsorship. Thats the thing, the sponsor money, all those people now expect you to run ten miles before they'll hand over the cash. No escaping it, no bottling out.
Five months of pounding the seafront followed and as the race got closer I stepped up the training, until ten days before the race my training partner and I ran the route of the course except for the dockyard section. This run was around nine miles and it felt good, so then followed more than a week of rest, apart from some gentle cycling to work and back.

So firstly at least a week off training before the run will ensure you don't overdo it, then the night before make sure you eat some carbohydrates. Pasta is excellent, baked potatoes are good too but do make sure you eat your carbs and don't wash it down with any chilled white or fruity red wine because your body will hate you for it on Sunday when you set off partially dehydrated.

You have probably heard this before but allow yourself plenty of time to get down to Southsea, thousands of people all piling in to the city at once doesn't do a lot for the road system so have a plan and make sure you're in position with an hour to spare. By arriving in plenty of time you can meet up with your running friends and you'll also enjoy the camaradery with the other runners and the support, do join in the mass warm-up, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
By now you will have found your favourite most comfortable kit to run in, don't change it on the day, any tee shirt with an embroidered badge on the chest is to be avoided unless you want your left nipple to be reduced to an open sore. To avoid "joggers nipple" which is a most unpleasant chafing incident smear any chafe prone areas of the body with vaseline.

If you're running for a charity find out if they have a marquee or tent and locate it as soon as you can, the tents are great for storing your bag with a towel (in case it rains) and some warm clothing to change into, you can use the tent as a changing room and a meet point for any friends or relations who may be coming to cheer you on. You'll be hanging around a bit after the warm-up so while you're waiting on the road for your group start keep yourself warm, wear an old sweatshirt or jumper that you won't miss, then when the race starts just take it off and throw it away, also if it's rainy or damp a plastic bin liner with a hole in the bottom for your head makes a useful rain jacket to pull over your top half while you wait at the start.

The start is very congested but it still pays not to set off too quickly, In 2003 I tagged on to a similar looking runner as myself to use as a pacemaker but after doing the first two miles in a shade over fifteen minutes I was almost close to burn out and we were only at HMS Victory, I let him go on and slowed to my steady nine minute mile pace and recovered by the time I reached HMS Nelson. Have a go at celebrity spotting to take your mind off the running, "ooh look there's that bloke from The Bill" or "thats the girl from that cookery program". It's a great occasion full of noise and bands so aim to enjoy the atmosphere especially as you head into Old Portsmouth and Portsea, hundreds will be out to cheer you along, a good spot for friends and family to see you are by the Pembroke pub where the race slows for the tight corner and then when you're on the way back the wide road by The Queens Hotel is a good vantage point.

However, having said that there is no substitute for a bit of support in one of the less popular areas. In 2001 at the point where it becomes a bit bleak and lonely, every stride was a real struggle the legs felt so heavy and every part of my body hurt. I remember turning towards the seafront at Eastney and hearing someone shout "Go On Simon" I looked up and saw a couple of mates from the Rugby club shouting and clapping, well my heart lifted and so did my feet, I suddenly found my pace picking up rounding the bend at Eastney swimming pool and then hitting an icy wind full in the face. That wind didn't bother me as I'd had some encouragement from the crowd, my training partner was clearly struggling though and almost on cue we could hear people shouting her name, just before the Royal Marines Museum where the seafront is at it's most unforgiving. Well that was that, we both kicked on with encouragement ringing in our ears, if you can find someone to base themselves along there it will give you a tremendous lift at a point when you are feeling pretty low.

Make sure you drink plenty of water before and during the race and use all the water stops, I had a real treat last year at the water station along Eastern Parade, my girlfriend was a volunteer on the water stand, she was there with a bottle of water and a kiss which got me a lot of jealous jeering from the male runners around me. Heading back along the seafront is very rewarding unlike several years back when it just depressed me. The route used to go along in front of the golf course and cricket ground, I was heading towards Eastney but thousands of runners were heading towards South Parade Pier, with just a few feet between us, both sets of runners in a contraflow, a glance at the watch showed that those guys would be finished in an hour and five minutes while I had another twenty five to plod on. Nowadays the route goes behind the pitch and putt so the two groups don't meet which suits me, I don't want to see all those racing snakes glide past me the other way with not even a hint of hard breathing or a droplet of sweat.

Running towards the pier with the finish in sight is a fantastic moment and you should be feeling pretty good with less than a mile to go, however this part of the course is where many injuries occur. I've seen people so tired they've collapsed on the side of the road and one man last year didn't see a barrier and tripped over it cutting his legs to ribbons, you can avoid any hazards by sticking to the centre of the road, don't try and cut any corners a railing or a kerb may get you.
So there you have it, a few bits of advice to ensure you have a brilliant Great South Run, for those out there who've never run ten miles before you will have your own tale to tell and you'll get such a sense of achievement, those of you who have run it before I hope it's perfect weather so you can get yourself a personal best time.

One final word, you've deserved it so have a few pints afterwards to rehydrate, while proudly wearing the tee shirt in your local.

Money Saving Ideas

2008-10-14T21:32:00.000+01:00

The TV advert says "Washing machines live longer with______" well, you know what but I won't give them a free advert on here. Thats what the ad-men claim but if I were to tell you that there is a product out there that costs not a lot more than a pint of milk that can not only keep your machine free of limescale and will save you money by replacing half of your washing powder/tablets usage and doing damn near all of your household cleansing I bet you'd be interested?

You are? excellent then let me continue, Soda Crystals have been around for donkeys years but largely overlooked, at fifty four pence, yes thats 54p for 1kg bag they can save you a few thrifty pounds of your hard earnt, plus they are a Jack of all trades. Added to your wash in the detergent/powder compartment with just one tablet or half the powder it'll make your budget stretch. Adding the crystals makes a box of thirty six tablets go twice the distance and the crystals will keep your machine sparkling clean from the dreaded limescale. It can also clean ovenware and will clear gunged up sinks, pipes and drains, a diluted solution will clean floor and wall tiles, windows, mirrors, upvc window and doorframes, ovens, grillpans, kitchen worktops and even some metals and jewellery........ hang on I can't catch my breath.........so there you have it why waste £s and £s buying a different product for every cleaning scenario when all you need is Soda Crystals? Not all supermarkets stock them but Tesco and Waitrose do and if you're in Southsea then Robert Dyas have them too.

Next up, if you have a garden or outside space why not grow your own spuds and other vegetables? easily achieved in a garden with soil but also if you only have a patio or balcony, you can grow potatoes in a potato planter or cheaper still a large bag of compost will do the job, and I can guarantee you will enjoy the experience of growing and eating your own produce, go to the BBC website for more information. http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/grow_your_own/

Make your own birthday cards for your friends and family. I know what you're thinking "how tight is that?" well before I go any further let me tell that the greetings card market is worth £1.3bn annually. Thats more than the tea and coffee markets, 85% per cent of all cards are sent by women and each person sends on average 55 cards per year. A decent card, one with a nice picture or an intricate design will cost anything between three and six pounds each.Card is very cheap to buy from a handicraft shop and you can cut and paste in the traditional Blue Peter style with proper glue and pictures from magazines or the new fangled way from the internet and print it before cutting and creating your own truly individual cards. Photos of football players, club badges or pictures of the recipient and friends, flowers, exotic places you name it. Believe me a hand made card, to the recipient doesn't come across as cheap or tight-it actually means something special to receive one you know that your friend took the time, their own time to create something that will be unique, fitting and made with love.

You Snapped What? Ooh That Must Have Hurt

2008-09-26T14:04:00.007+01:00

Those of you who know me have probably heard about my achilles tendon injury, for those of you who don't, I 'm going to tell you anyway.

Allow me to elucidate, it happened playing football in August last year I'd just sent a pass upfield then went to run up the pitch and bang, it happened. I thought someone had kicked me in the back of the ankle, ouch, but when I turned around to punch whoever did it there was nobody near me, my leg just gave way, I couldn't bear any weight on it. The other players were wondering why I was on my knees.
I knew what I'd done, I'd seen it happen to someone before, the pain was indescribable, I can only liken it to having a shopping trolley crashed into the back of your ankle. I started to crawl off the pitch being watched by my team mates who thought I was being a drama queen, one of them Dave, helped me off and then the duty PTI came over with an icepack and the accident book, very efficient I thought. To keep my spirits up he kept telling me I hadn't snapped my achilles tendon but probably torn a muscle, but I had self diagnosed the injury, I knew it had gone.

A quick phone call to my girlfriend and within thirty minutes I was in QA with an orthopaedic surgeon pulling at my foot asking, "does this hurt?"... "only a lot" says I.... "what about if I do this?" says the doctor... "arggggggggggh" I replied..... "yes it looks as though you have ruptured your achilles tendon" I could have told him that. So began ten days in a plastercast right up to the top of my thigh, it weighed a ton but it kept my foot pointing straight down which relaxed the tendon and stopped any further damage. Ten days of getting to grips with crutches, one legged shaving, washing, tea-making and pulling the curtains down were highlights. There are two ways of treating achilles tendon rupture, one is conservative the other is surgery where the tendon is stitched together, I was told I would be treated conservatively.

This cast was removed when the bruising and swelling had subsided then I had a scan which showed the damage was up near the calf muscle which thankfully for a scaredee cat like me meant they couldn't go down the surgery route. I was put in a "pot" a cast from below the knee to the toes with my foot in the equinus or ballerina position for a fortnight to allow the tendon to knit back together. Two weeks later another cast with my foot being moved to halfway and another cast two weeks after that, I chose purple for the first two casts which isn't as much of a talking point as this latest pink one.

So now I'm in the neutral position and it was quite sore after they bent my foot up and the pot went on but it calmed down after a couple of days. The worst of it is having to use crutches to get around, I can't put any weight on the injured leg and I would recommend not leaving a bank statement in a plastic wallet on your living room floor, see through plastic wallets and crutches don't get on, luckily for me the tv set was in the way to stop me flying or I'd have been back up to A&E. I've learned a few useful tips such as wearing cargo shorts means you can carry stuff around from the kitchen to the living room, flasks of tea and bottles of wine especially.

So thats where I am, I've been off work for six weeks so far and probably another six to come, thank god the Olympics was on for the first two weeks and for sports and documentary channels keeping me occupied, I've also been learning guitar but it's slow progress. I wasn't going to let it get me down, even though I'm very active, walking, cycling and rugby are a big part of my life but I accepted what has happened to me in the first week, I told myself I've just got to get on with it and get better, my girlfriend has been fantastic and my friends have all rallied round, work have also been brilliant, they haven't pressured me to come back even if I was able to.

Guidance about my recovery was vague, I had to do a lot of fact finding for myself, there was no information from the hospital or my doctor. I have a good friend Ian who is a climber and outdoor activity organiser for Sheffield Council he had the same injury last year, he was able to give me loads of advice and put me on to a website forum http://www.marfell.me.uk/ where other ATR sufferers can share their stories and advice. This has been invaluable for me and I'd thoroughly recommend anyone who has this injury to trawl through the site and glean the information from it.

There have been disappointments, I missed out on the company sportsday in York something I'd been part of in the planning stages and I had to cancel a hill walking week in the Lake District so that will be a definate trip I'll rearrange as soon as I'm ready. It will be a long road to full recovery, months of physiotherapy will follow, I'm back to hospital on the third of October when they tell me I'm getting an Aircast Boot, it looks like a leg from a Star Wars stormtrooper and hopefully will mean I can bear some weight on my leg and learn to walk again.

Slow but sure will be my mantra.

Value For Money

2008-09-24T15:08:00.004+01:00

The Help For Heroes rugby game from Twickenham on Saturday was fine entertainment, a host of former England and Wales internationals were on parade, Lawrence Dallaglio, Colin Charvis, Scott Gibbs, Will Greenwood and Martin Johnson to name a few.

A match to raise money for soldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq was never going to be taken lightly, add to that a crowd of more than 50,000 and the scene was set for a cracking game. The rugby was quality and so was the pre-match and half-time entertainment.
At the interval electric string quartet Escala kept the crowd spellbound. Escala are the four young ladies you may have seen on Britains Got Talent or more lately the Sky Sports Premier League football trailer. Their instruments may look like something from a Science Fiction movie but are in fact two electric violins, a cello and a viola.

It got me thinking as to when I last saw any half time entertainment at a football match, in fact I can't recall there even being any at the FA Cup Final in May but I was so nervous I wasn't really paying attention to the pitch at half time. In the past I can remember the occasional parachute display, brass bands, drum majorettes twirling and dropping batons and kids in penalty shoot-outs. I presume those two spoilsports Heath and Safety have a lot to do with it. Burnley recently had a parachutist who got caught in the roof of the stand and one parachutist actually hit the roof of the stand at Villa Park nine years ago and was severely injured so I can see why that particular avenue of entertainment may have been curtailed. Nigel Rogoff was one of several RAF skydiving Santas descending into Villa Park in blustery conditions. Aston Villa fan Robert McEvoy continues the tale: "This gentleman hit the stand, and was promptly dragged off by his parachute, landing on the track in front of the Main Stand. To say the ground went quiet was an understatement, the worst bit, apart from watching a man fall approximately the height of two houses, was that there were six other parachutists behind him, and the man on the PA system was shouting for them to land elsewhere. As Villa Park is surrounded by terraced houses and the M6, they had little choice but to land on the pitch. Parachutist Number two had seen his mate hit the stand, and in trying to avoid that he missed the opposite stand by inches, as everyone in the stadium held their breath. The other five landed in goals, on corner flags and anywhere but the cross in the middle of the pitch."
Rogoff lost his leg in the accident but has since made a good recovery and even married the nurse who cared for him in the months after.

I remember a very amusing incident three seasons ago at Dean Court when covering an AFC Bournemouth match. The Royal Marines from Poole were giving an exhibition of unarmed combat, six mats were put out in the corners and on the halfway lines then six teams of four Bootnecks took it in turn to knock hell out of each other. An interested onlooker was Bournemouths mascot Cherry Bear, who was looking somewhat closely at the action, after a while he went up behind a Marine and swung a huge furry legged kick at the marines' backside, down he went and then all the Royal Marines went for the man in the oversize ursine head. Cherry Bear dispatched the rest of the Marines with consumate ease using a selection of throws, kicks, punches and a swipe with a baseball bat that left his assailant gasping for breath. The pitch was littered with fallen Bootnecks and the stands were full of people falling about with laughter.

West Brom had a race on Sunday between some of the west midlands teams mascots, the five participants had to run one width of The Hawthorns' pitch. Ladbrokes had been taking charity bets in the run-up to the race and raised £2,204, all of which will go to the BBC West Midlands Kidney Kids Appeal, Wolfie the Wolf saw off the challenge of Villa's Hercules the Lion, Albion's Baggie Bird, Walsall's Swifty and the BBC WM Wonder Moose, who finished second through to fifth, respectively.
That was good value for the paying customer but these days all we get is a kickabout by some of the fringe players or the reserve goalkeeper having a bit of practice. Not what you'd call "worth the admission fee" which being £38 at Fratton Park you'd feel a bit mugged by not getting anything other than deafening music and incoherent announcements. The officialdom gets in the way of entertainment too, referees are very quick to punish players who "over-celebrate" scoring a goal, surely this is what the punter expects to see, a goal a celebration it's what they pay for?

Come on football clubs give us a brass band at half-time, a shoot out, a hit the crossbar challenge or maybe even a Police Dog Display team, they were always good value. The cost of a weeks shopping is what it takes to go and see a football match these days and that to me is not giving value for money for ninety minutes football (plus added on time) and no unarmed mascot combat.

The Truth Is Out There

2008-09-15T12:38:00.003+01:00

The Large Hadron Collider was switched on last week amid lots of ill informed speculation and scaremongering from those claiming that the end of the world is nigh, the use of the web to spread fears that flicking the switch on the LHC could create a Black Hole that could swallow up the Earth was of concern to inventor of the internet Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Okay so the switch-on did happen to coincide with earthquakes in Iran and China but thats all it was, coincidence, in fact both stories were hardly reported. I found out about the Iranian quake by text message as it was happening from a friend in Dubai who had to leave her office block when it started to shake, the tremor was felt right across the Gulf States.

The Worldwide Web is the catalyst for wrong information, when Sir Tim invented the web I bet he hadn't reckoned on Wikipaedia for instance. A great idea in concept, someone posts a definition or an article about a subject or a famous person and anyone, yes anyone else can go into that article and add to it or embellish the definition. Many entries have found to be false, thus making the whole thing a website of misinformation, I have been told by a senior lecturer that some university students have actually copied and pasted wikipaedia extracts into their coursework. Thats not to say Wikipaedia is all bad, the majority of information in there is valid but some is wide of the mark.

There are also plenty of conspiracy theory websites out there, full of circumstantial, anecdotal and photographic evidence but how can we the web users separate the truth from fantasy? As the web evolves the user needs reassurance that what they are reading is factually accurate. When making a purchase online the safety certificate and the "padlock" logo both give you the signs that it is safe to use that site similarly a certificate or logo from the Worldwide Web Consortium could give a credibililty grading to a site, stars out of ten perhaps? The BBC getting nine and the Daily Mail with three, you get the picture? I found a story where John Terry was the FA spokesperson for a Respect Referees Campaign, surely some mistake?

Many millions of people use the web for information every day and the not so well developed countries are in the early stages of using the web, for an African schoolchild logging on and finding a site that claims the HIV/AIDS virus is manmade by the CIA could be potentially harmful to a developing society.
The most popular conspiracy theories at present are The US Government planned the 11th September attacks, Princess Diana was murdered by the British Royal Family, The Apollo Moon Landings (my favourite this one, as I don't believe the Americans actually landed on the Moon). Global Warming or Climate Change was invented by scientists when the Cold War ended so they wouldn't lose their funding, and most unbelievable of all Arcadi Gaydamak, the Jerusalem based Russian-Israeli businessman, has said for the first time that he, rather than his son Sacha is the owner of Portsmouth Football Club. He claims that the club are up for sale for £300m and that the new stadium will be built in conjunction with the Dubai Royal Family (£300m! a tad overpriced?)

So we'll wait and see where the Hadron Collider takes us, it may be that the Cern scientists will discover free renewable energy from their LHC experiments and pass the benefits onto mankind, now then that's a conspiracy theory that I'd like to start.

Getting The Timing Right

2008-08-28T12:13:00.003+01:00

While watching the Coventry v Newcastle Carling Cup tie earlier this week, a Coventry City equaliser was headed in the ninety-fourth minute. Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan was berating the fourth official, pointing to his watch and shaking his head wondering why when the board showed three minutes at the end of the ninety yet the game still progressed beyond the three extra minutes. It is all down to the referees discretion, hardly the way to run a multi-million pound sport where the referees discretion could be all thats between one team being in a cup final or another being relegated.

This discretionary timekeeping is an all too common scenario at football grounds the length of the country every week, why is it that in the twenty-first century the FA havn't addressed this area?

Football can learn a lot from Rugby Union, the current dalliance in football with the "Respect" campaign has been lifted from rugby, in which only the captain of the team can approach the referee to "discuss" on-pitch matters. The press conference was held with probably the worst offender for dissent, John Terry as the Premier Leagues' figurehead in this attempt to stop the disrespect so often show to refs and linesmen. The difference in rugby is that respect is instilled at a young age, at grass roots. Referees are called "Sir" and if you are penalised by the ref you accept the decision (he's not going to change his mind) and retreat ten metres. Football is not at all like this, the referee on giving a decision against a premier league footballer will be called a choice name, definately not "sir" and once the arguing is over they will form a wall some seven yards from the free kick.

The timing of Rugby Unions top level domestic and international matches is taken out of the referees hands, all he has to do is speak via his microphone headset to his timing official if there is a stoppage for injury and say "time off", the clock is stopped until the ref says "time on" again. Simple? yes it is and it ensures that there is no ambiguity, how many times have you been at a football match when the fourth official holds a digiboard up with 4 minutes on the display, thought to yourselves "hang on, where did that come from?" All the Football League and Premier League refs are "miked up" these days but for what purpose? One use of this technology should be to stop and start the clock, all stadia have digital clocks these days so why not use them? Substitutions when the player going off makes his way to the furthest part of the pitch from the dug-out can eat up the clock but all that is added is thirty seconds for each substitution. The laws of the game state that any time lost is to be added by the referee at his or her discretion, hardly the way to continue in such a success orientated sport.

Football should take all the advice it can from rugby, which continues to be a sport enjoyed by millions of people because of the respect for officials by the players and because the watching customers knowing exactly what is going on, the referees decisions are explained fully to all and the accurate match duration ensures there is no ambiguous discretion causing controversy.

Ping-Pong is Coming Home

2008-08-26T13:28:00.004+01:00

Ping-Pong coming home? According to Boris Johnson it is, his speech at the Olympic handover party in Beijing was superb, he pointed out that Britain had invented and codified every sport there is and to further strengthen his argument he said "Ping-Pong was invented on the dining tables of England, or wiff-waff as we called it, this is what sets us apart from other nations, where the French saw a dining table they saw the opportunity to have dinner, we looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play wiff-waff". "I say to the Chinese People, I say to the world....Ping-Pong is coming home".

With Lord Coe almost in tears and Colin Moynihan behind him barely able to breathe due to hysterical laughter this was exactly what the occasion needed, not some serious speech about funding winners by a politician all too eager to associated himself with our triumphant athletes and surf the wave of goodwill generated by our gold medal winners.

Boris is not the buffoon that some parts of the media portray, he is a highly intelligent, witty and downright straight talking person who knows how to play an audience, lost in admiration for Team GB, Boris mourned the passing of ancient Olympic events such as "The Pancrateon, whose finest exponent was Milo of Kroton, his signature performance was to carry an ox the length of the arena before killing it with his bare hands and devouring it in a single day, I will be asking Lord Coe to bring this event back for 2012".

Maybe that won't be on the 2012 list of events but Badminton will be, did you know that the code of laws and rules of Badminton was drawn up in Southsea? a quite interesting fact, also we all know that Association Football was invented here in England but why can't we have a British football team in the Olympics? With four seperate Football Associations in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England there are some barriers to us entering a Great Britain football side.

Lets hope it all gets sorted out and hopefully the team will be managed by a character like Harry Redknapp instead of the gum chewing incoherent Alex Ferguson, did you hear his comment when his United team arrived at Fratton Park last night, mumble mumble "rabbit hutch" he said as he walked down to the dressing rooms, sorry Sir Alex not every team has the wealth behind them that a club like United has, Pompey don't have over a hundred million people worldwide and in Surrey claiming to be supporters and all helping to boost the coffers and create a stadium that holds seventy-six thousand people.

The chant of the season so far goes to the Fratton End, last night they silenced the "travelling" United fans with "we support, we support, we support our local team".

Wit and ingenuity.

you can see Boris's speech in full here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7580165.stm

Gold Rush

2008-08-18T18:46:00.002+01:00

I am enjoying the Olympics on BBC and thanks to the red button I can get to see everything, although some sports on offer are not exactly my cup of tea I've watched them anyway.

I'm not sure mens beach volleyball has a place on the small screen, ladies yes, it seems quite correct to my one track male mind. What I do object to is dressage, now I've never been an equestrian fan apart from horse racing, you know where you are with racing, start point, finish point, winner and places. But dressage? The commentators, at every opportunity talk about "expression", a horse jigging from one foot to another is deemed to be “expressive”. What, exactly, is being "expressed"? I've logged an hour or so viewing dressage now and I still havn't reached a conclusion.

Rob Walker of the BBC commentary team continues to be a source of pleasure and amusement, he absolutely oozes enthusiasm and eagerness sitting in a tiny rubber dinghy smiling and gripping his microphone as he gets tossed into the air by the swell of the sea as Ben Ainsley streaks by on his way to another gold.

The amount of gold medals we've won has re-ignited my Britishness and to see us winning more gold than Australia is extremely gratifying.
More medals today for Great Britain to follow on from the successes in the cycling, rowing and sailing as well as Lewis Smiths fantastic performance on the pommel horse to get a bronze medal in a gymnastic event, the first in eighty years. I'm hoping maybe we can get some success on the track, Judgment Day is almost here for Christine Ohuruogu. Tomorrow the British runner will line up against the American, Sanya Richards in the 400m, Sarah Claxton runs in the 100m hurdles also Tasha Danvers has got herself in the 400m hurdles final. For the men Marlon Devonish and Christian Malcolm are in the 200m final with Usain Bolt, good luck lads.

A big disappointment has to be Paula Radcliffe, her twenty-third place in the marathon just goes to show that you can't come back a couple of weeks after a stress fracture and expect to win the ultimate Olympic event. But if we were disappointed with lame Paula spare a thought for the Chinese people who are in a state of shock, disbelief and mourning that their golden boy Liu Xiang is out of the games.
He seemed to suffer an injury in his 110m hurdle heat, pulling up almost as he set off. The injury is said to be a ruptured tendon in the foot, he must be a tough cookie, he went back out to the track and took a couple of hurdles and his face showed the pain his frustration overflowed as he kicked his injured foot into a wall inside the stadium. I felt for Liu Xiang, I am currently in plaster myself after rupturing my achilles tendon playing football, if I put any weight on my bad ankle you can hear the scream for miles, this guy must be some kind of superhuman to try and continue in his event.

Xiang won't get another shot at a gold medal until London in 2012 but it seems that Michael Phelps can win medals on a daily basis, therefore I cannot classify him as the greatest ever olympian, I reserve that for Carl Lewis or our own Steven Redgrave.

Hugh Porter the cycling commentator is clearly enjoying himself in the velodrome but a warning for all BBC interviewers here, Rebecca Romero our gold medal winning cyclist was asked for her thoughts after beating fellow Brit Wendy Houvenaghel in the individual pursuit. A four minute slightly cringeworthy rhetoric then ensued where Rebecca talked about demons and the dark side and how she was new to cycling and has such a drive to succeed "I would have been absolutely crushed to have won silver again,” Romero said. “To have medals in two different sports — I’m so proud of myself. It’s been my goal to be a great athlete, to be a great champion".............“If I hadn’t done it today, I don’t know where I would be,” she said. “Probably on the floor, dead somewhere. It’s been so hard, I can’t explain. I was totally believing in myself, but it’s the ultimate.”

glad you asked?

Madeira, Cake and Beer

2008-08-18T17:08:00.002+01:00

Following quickly on from walking Hadrians Wall which got our knees into hill mode we took ourselves off to Madeira, the intention of dividing the break into a few days walking and the rest loafing around in the sun drinking ice cold cerveza por favor.

Madeira sits to the north of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic and despite being created by a volcano is lush and beautiful with a vast array of flowers growing practically everywhere. You'll need strong knees and a head for heights on some on the paths that run alongside the levadas but the views will be a fair reward for the effort. A levada is a small channel sometimes made of concrete or in older levadas hewn straight out of the rock, these water channels bring water from the wetter northern part of the island to the drier sunny south where it's used to irrigate the banana plantations among other crops. These channels run for miles all over the island, providing water for hydro-electric plants as well as the other types of edible and floral plants.

If you are staying in Funchal where most of the hotels are situated it's possible to take the yellow town buses and get up pretty high, the buses are frequent and don't worry about missing your stop, when there are no locals left on board it's the end of the line and time to get off.

A good idea is to take along the "Sunflower" Madeira walking book by John and Pat Underwood, this has walks, maps local important advice and essential bus information, it's all you need to get yourself out into this beautiful islands most stunning areas.
You could hire a car but this is quite pricy on Madeira, buses are freely available as are taxis and with this mode you don't have to worry about getting back to where you left the hire car after your days walk.
There are several firms on the island which specialise in walking tours on Madeira and they will collect you from your hotel and take you in a mini bus to your start point and pick you up when you've finished, an experienced guide will take you on some breathtaking walks hopefully without a group of over-excited Americans.

We set off on our own for our first walk from Romeiros to Camacha, the route took us along the Levada dos Tornos passing two tea-houses on the way, my tip is to go for the Hortensia Tea Rooms where the cake is fantastic and a must have energy boost when walking all day. If you get time on this route use it to stop off at the beautiful gardens at Palheiro Ferreiro.
Along the way you'll pass wild geraniums, agapanthus, mimosa and eucalyptus trees among loads of other plants. The islanders make use of every bit of space for growing crops, you'll see runner beans, peas, cabbages, garlic and by one small house an enterprising local had left a bowl of ice filled with bottles of the excellent island beer "Coral", a bottle opener and a tin for the money, most welcome on a dry hot day. As far as equipment goes, you'll need your boots, day pack and a waterproof jacket as it can get a bit damp on top of the mountains and on the plateau. Leave your vertigo behind but you'll need to take a torch for walking on Madeira as a few of the levadas cut straight through the mountains and some tunnels can take ten minutes to walk through.

If you want to get further inland and higher up then one of the guided walk options is a good idea, the Pico Grande and Pico Ruivo are the highest points but some of the valleys are extremely beautiful and the walk from Rabacal (1500m) to the twenty-five fountains and back through the Curral Valley is especially nice although you will need a head for heights here as the path is only a foot wide in places. The fountains are morelike mountain springs but it's a lovely spot for a picnic and if you're lucky a chaffinch will help you eat it.The authorities have now gone a bit "health & safety" mad and all the dangerous areas have a grab wire alongside the path. You find yourself walking along paths which have so much vegetation alongside you don't even realise there is a sheer drop just metres away, you appreciate this when a viewpoint opens out and a sheer cliff is visible where you have just walked from on the other side of the mountain with a valley 100s of metres deep below your feet.

Madeira is a relatively safe place to holiday, the only danger being the odd insane taxi driver and as it has no beach or clubbing culture it's free from the lager lout element, in fact it's more "Saga Lout" with gangs of retired Brits and Germans in their uniform of beige and sky blue roaming the main strip looking for a meal deal or a bar with tv and football. Madeira is a fantastic place for a walking holiday but equally good if you just fancy lazing by the pool, beaches are not plentiful as this is a rocky volcanic island but lush gardens are, the Jardin Botanico above Funchal is a must see and if you make your way up to Monte the Tropical Garden at the Monte Palace is delightful. Along the coast from Funchal is Calheta which has a manufactured beach with golden sands shipped in from the Sahara but the best thing about Madeira for me is the mountains and the lazy levadas where you can walk for miles in total tranquility.

One of those days

2008-06-28T00:26:00.005+01:00

We've all had them, one of those days when not everything goes wrong but pretty close to it. Major things occur during the day that seem like the end of the world, things that could cause your blood pressure to rise and your chest pump with rage, unless like me you can learn to cope with these unexpected occurances that are out of your control.
Okay so that last bit isn't quite true, I am probably the least tolerant and most unable person to cope with the unexpected. If a plane, train or bus is scheduled to leave at a certain time then to my mind there is no reason for it not to do so. How can it be so difficult?

Having had a fantastic week on the island of Madeira we had breakfast in the hotel and checked out after refusing to pay €14.60 for phone calls we hadn't made and found our taxi driver was waiting to take us on the twenty-five minute ride to Funchal airport. His yellow Mercedes was draped in Benfica flags and a minor shrine to the Blessed Virgin on the dashboard. This portly moustache wielding latter day highwayman then set off into the Madeiran rush hour only using his brakes as a last resort. The speed we hit on the busy expressway was now getting serious, the needle hit 150kmh (an unhealthy 95mph) and exiting a tunnel onto a high level viaduct the car suddenly started weaving and snaking at high speed, "senor...SENOR, por favor SLOW DOWN", he did but only for a couple of kilometres, and my next utterance (after much swearing) was "he's got no chance of a tip".

Thankfully the Virgin Mary was looking after us and we got to the airport alive, SuperMario went off to get us a trolley which we didn't need "he's still not getting a tip" and then asked for €32.30. Now then, I'd booked it and the agreed price was €30, I know it's only €2.30 difference but stay with me here, it's the principle of the thing. I did a deal for thirty bucks which is more than enough for what proved to be a ten minute ride, you can hire a cab for half a day for forty euros! So me and this big moustache argued over who was right and when I called a policeman to my assistance he quickly weighed it up, on one hand a taxi driver sporting a giant rug on his top lip and an extremely irate soon to be departing tourist. His response was to ignore the whole incident and walk away, cheers mate thanks a bunch, so in my worst Portuguese I told the driver my thoughts of him and waited for my seventy cents change.

I was in a fit of rage, my girlfriend all the time telling me to forget it and calm down, wise words but I wasn't listening I was so incensed I forgot that he'd nearly killed us. Moving into the airport the next thing I see is our flight is no longer 1115 but 1225, "oh well, lets check in anyway" but oh no, easyjet have other ideas, so an hour later we get checked in and find that the flight is now set to leave at 1300. At last we're going to board the plane but at quarter past two we're on but being told to get off and wait in the lounge in the terminal while a gang of moustachios sort out a technical problem. Oh well, I didn't want to see the Turkey v Germany game anyway.

Needless to say I took this in my stride and calmly left the aircraft for the terminal, I had a great seat too, would I get the legroom I craved when we reboard? if we reboard. Being held in a limbo world between duty free and the aircraft my frayed nerves had to contend with screaming children and those who hold "speedy boarding" tickets. If you want a better class of travel you don't fly easyjet, if you want to get somewhere sunny for £80 return you do fly easyjet and take all the scrummaging that goes with it Those mugs who pay the extra just to get on first so that they can read their Daily Mails by the window, remember this, I always get on pretty early, get the most legroom and don't pay a penny more than when I bought the ticket.

So after cruising up and down Funchals runway to see if the new landing gear circuit board from the local Tandy shop is working the plane finally got away and back to Gatwick, a train journey back to Fratton and rushing over the footbridge to Smiffys Sports Bar on Goldsmith Avenue we ordered beer but they only had Fosters and settled in to watch the rest of Turkey v Germany.
All was not well, no picture which thankfully meant no Motson but the radio was on which meant Alan Green, just how bad could this day get? Soon answered, Germany go 2-1 ahead, pictures return and we see Turkey come back to two each but even as I was cheering the Turks and looking forward to extra time the Germans joined in the conspiracy and scored a third to book their place in the final of 2008s European Championship.

Never mind, I've learnt from the experiences of that day and whatever happens to you in "one of those days", you'll look back and think it wasn't that bad after all, nobody died and remember, there's always someone worse off than yourself, the awful scenes on the news from Zimbabwe reminded me of that.

The Greatest Day of My Life..........So Far

2008-06-02T23:56:00.004+01:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the FA Cup final and I've been enjoying, no, wallowing in the glory. I never thought I'd see Pompey win the cup, especially when the sixth round draw was announced, I was on Beachy Head, not the best place to be when you hear the draw is Manchester United away.

I did say at the time "well thats it then, of all the teams to get drawn against, why not Barnsley or Middlesbrough? **** it".

In fact I said "**** it" a lot that afternoon, I thought about that moment while I was driving up the M3 for the cup final, a smile on my face as I passed the stretch limos and coaches covered in Blue and white flags and scarves, how on earth did Pompey win at Old Trafford? Surely the name on the cup would be Portsmouth, all the luck was with us, last gasp own goal versus Preston, a penalty not given against Ipswich, and just how did Distin stop Carrick from getting the ball over the line? Pompey rode their luck like a surfer on the crest of a wave.

The moment I really felt confident of victory was on the train at Richmond, group of Cardiff fans joined us in the carriage, a lady started chatting to us and in a gorgeous Welsh accent said "how old is that Karnooo? he says he's thirty-two, is that right?". Laughter filled the train then she added "we know we're going to get beat but we'll have a lovely day and it's so nice to see you boys all looking so worried".

That relaxed me and at Willesden Junction meeting my brother and his son who is in the joyous situation of being a Pompey fan for a few years now and at thirteen years old he's yet to see Pompey lose. I became more confident, my first Pompey match I was eleven years of age and got a dismal 2-0 defeat at home to Orient, my nephew has seen wins and draws in the premier league and wins in the semi and the final at Wembley, a lucky mascot indeed. I have grown up watching cup finals and becoming part of it, the night before on ITV we'd watch "Who'll Win The Cup?" chaired by Brian Moore with a few hand picked guests. Then Saturday morning, watching the build-up and jealously seeing fans walking up Wembley Way, that's always something I wanted to do. I refrained at the semi-final, it wouldn't have been right to walk that route unless it was the FA Cup Final. So on the 17th May 2008 I realised an ambition, not much of an ambition you may say, but to me it was something special, a missing piece of a jigsaw. The fans were in awesome voice, the Pompey Chimes rang out loud along that walkway and then the sight I'll never forget, Bobby Moores' statue draped in St George and Pompey flags, his bronze image fervently guarded by Portsmouth fans.

The game went by in a flash, ninety minutes never ticked by so quickly until the final three minutes when the clock seemed to stop, the most vivid memory of the game I have is David James rushing out and clearing the danger in about the third minute of the match. I remember the celebrations and seeing the cup carried aloft by so many Pompey heroes and then Barry Harris found himself alone with the FA Cup, he looked around him for a Pompey player to hand the cup to but he saw no-one near him and to his great credit he milked the moment, in front of the fans, his face was a picture of pure joy. I have to admit and I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear or two when the FA Cup was collected by Sol Campbell, I looked around and many blokes of my age were doing the same. I doubt if winning the FA Cup has meant so much to a group of fans in recent times, it really meant something special.

I met up with an old friend at Wembley station, when we got on the train he looked stunned, stunned but happy but there was something else there too, a lifting of the suffering, we reminisced of journeys to far flung fourth and third division grounds, years of second division campaigns which became like trench warfare, losing the semi final to Liverpool, failing in the play-off semi final against Leicester. An ironic smile at this as we pondered Milan Mandaric and how Pompey prospered and slumped under him, we chatted away while we changed platforms at Willesden, then talked of the evening celebrations, he was heading straight back to Pompey but I was heading to Richmond and a quick sprint down the M3 to Bournemouth, at that point my friend realised he was on the wrong train. His comment "we were making good time too".

Which brings me back to the greatest day of my life, I saw Pompey lift the FA Cup in the afternoon and in the evening saw Paul Weller at his best in the Opera House in Boscombe, I met up with my girlfriend who'd got the train to Bournemouth and having my first cup winning celebration beer in the Opera House bar a couple walked past and I overheard him say to his girl "lets just get champagne eh?" I stopped him and said "are you Pompey?" He was indeed and he was so excited, I thought he was going to burst when I showed him my camera phone pictures of the day. Weller was awesome and really sealed the day for me, a fantastic day and a truly memorable Sunday to follow.

Red White & Blue

2008-04-18T22:27:00.003+01:00

After the euphoria of the FA Cup semi-final for such a serial defeatist as myself coming to terms with Pompey actually being in the cup final having finally realised it's not just a dream, the joy has been dampened somewhat by the news that Portsmouth are to wear all blue in the final.

"The players are superstitious" is the official line from the club, I can understand that, I play cricket in the summer months and I'm a batsman, nobody is more superstitious than a cricketer, I've been putting my left pad on before my right for more years than I can remember but it doesn't guarantee any runs. I also play rugby and have lucky pants, socks, you name it, I follow the same routine but it never made any difference, if you're going to win you will.

Please Pompey boys, try and understand it won't affect the outcome of the match. I once wore a replica France rugby shirt the day before France v England in Paris, England won so the following fortnight I tried it again but we were playing Scotland or Ireland (my memory fails me) and England lost. I tried it again before the Wales game this year and it didn't work so the point is it doesn't matter. What you wear won't adversely effect the outcome of the game.

The Pompey players should be so full of confidence that they don't need superstitions, spare a thought for the fans and the watching world. Pompey very proudly play in blue white & red and apart from a brief dalliance with a pretentious white with blue twin stripe continental look in the seventies they have done for years.

This occasion belongs as much if not more to the long suffering fans as the players and I'm pretty sure that in a vote the fans would say wear the blue shirt white shorts and red socks. If superstition held any credibilty I'd be a millionaire, I do the same superstitious bets every week, the same superstitious lottery numbers, I back the same superstitious jockeys colours and here I am still working for a living instead of relaxing on the earnings of my superstitions.

Come on Pompey boys, do the supporters the club the city and yourselves proud, wear the club colours at Wembley, show the world you're above superstition and that what you wear isn't going to influence how you perform on the pitch, give us our day at Wembley in the red white & blue.

Journey to Wembley

2008-04-06T12:44:00.003+01:00

I had vowed to myself that I would only go to the new Wembley Stadium if Portsmouth were in the cup final, my strong feelings that millions of pounds have been wasted in the building of the complex made my resolve not to attend all the more. However what do you do when the club you first saw in 1976 on a wet Tuesday night in April get to a Wembley semi-final?
Of course, I'm going, all my principles were going out of the window and I was going to be there.

The whole city had been buzzing with excitement and it seemed everyone I knew who wanted to go had a ticket, this was going to be the trip of a lifetime. The track maintenance planned between Woking and Waterloo wasn't going to spoil it either, I got myself to the Harbour station at 05.45 to find I wasn't the only one with intentions of beating the later rush, at Horsham the train had four carriages added to the eight original ones such was the swell of people on board, getting off the train at Clapham I met my London based brother and his young son, I only hope my nephew knows how lucky he is to be seeing Pompey at Wembley at such an early stage in his Pompey fan career, I've seen plenty of ups and downs with Portsmouth, in fact more downs probably. On that wet Tuesday in 1976 when my journey began, Pompey were already relegated to the third division before they lost to Orient, so I had already made myself acquainted with a team that would regularly disappoint, following quickly was relegation the fourth division in 1978.

The journeys in those dark days were long, a trek to Rochdale in an Austin 1100 I remember only too well, around 2000 Pompey fans went to Lancashire that day and we cleaned them out of programs by 1pm. This was a typical Division four away game in those days and climbing out of the fourth division at the second attempt by the skin of their teeth was my first taste of success followed by the Division 3 Championship a couple of years later. Years of Division two football then ensued, seeing the likes of Chelsea and Newcastle come and go, Blackburn were always a big rival so too were Barnsley and Huddersfield. There was joy at Mark Hateleys two hat-tricks in a week and seeing him make his England debut as a Pompey player v USSR at Wembley. Then at the end of the 80s a brief flirtation with the top division, when the late Alan Ball guided Pompey up in 1987 only to come straight back down.

So you can see how Pompey fans have suffered over the years and surely nobody can begrudge them a bit of success in a competition so dominated by the rich four in recent times. In fact the victory at Old Trafford however lucky it may or may not have been is reason enough to suggest that Pompey can go all the way. The semi-final was not a great game but they very rarely are, so much is at stake that the professional will to win overrides any thought of showboating or individual skill. The atmosphere in the second half was incredible, deafening choruses of Play Up Pompey echoed around Wembley, I'm sure the Baggies were cheering too but we could only hear ourselves.

The New Wembley is a fantastic stadium but in the wrong place, the transport infrastructure is inadequate and there simply isn't enough access to and from it. I would have liked the semi-final to have been at a neutral ground, I believe that Wembley is part of the prize of the FA Cup but whatever, it's happened now and we all had a brilliant day out and stories to tell for generations.

At the ground I met old friends, people I hadn't seen in years and some new, a friend of a friend who is American and has become a Pompey fan after being dragged along to the quarter final at Old Trafford and one man who I have the utmost regard for. Father Pat a retired priest who was present at the 1939 cup final when of course Pompey won the cup and kept it safe throughout the war. After the game Pat was honest enough to say Portsmouth were poor and that West Brom had played a good game, he stopped and chatted to many groups of Baggies fans after the game and told them how well their team had played and that Pompey were lucky to win, I wonder how many others are still alive today that can say "I was there" in 1939?

The spirit between the two clubs support is very good natured, remember that last day of the premier league season when Southampton went down? Well West Brom played their part in full that day, so a kind of affinity exists between the two sets of fans, good luck to The Albion and I hope they get promoted.

Football Going to Hell in a Handcart....again

2008-02-07T21:43:00.003Z

"When the league does well, other people in the football family do well in terms of redistribution. We feel it is a very positive thing".
Do they indeed? Well thats what Richard Scudamore chief executive of the Premier League seems to think. But on the day that AFC Bournemouth were forced into administration by HM Revenue & Customs it is somewhat unbelievable to take in the news that the Premier League have plans to play an extra round of matches.......in other countries just for the money. There is no other reason but money, surely the time has come to say enough is enough. How have lower league clubs benefitted by the growth of the premier league? This latest announcement severely threatens the whole ethos of football in this country, what was once a working class game has been hijacked and ultimately stolen from the common man by corporate greed and The Football Association has given its provisional support to the plans.
"We understand the reasons for this proposal and the benefits it can bring to English football as a whole," said an FA source. What they should be supporting are teams such as Luton Town and Bournemouth who through whatever fault are up the creek without a paddle or even a canoe.

My father played for Bournemouth & Boscombe FC as they were known then in the 1950s, and Notts County in the 60s, He was lucky if he picked up ten quid a week, to do that he'd have to score in a victory to collect the bonuses that found their way into his boot while he was in the bath after the game. He'd be absolutely incensed at this latest proposal. Many ex-players I speak to are completely dumbfounded and rightly enough quite bitter about the current crop of footballers and the riches that even ordinary players can accumulate just by being a premier league player.

I reckon most English football fans will be totally against this latest plan to destroy the integrity of football in this country, I mean real fans those that actually put their hands in their pockets and pay for their tickets, not the corporate football goer who uses the firms box at Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford or watches the game on Sky. One tournament, The European Cup which this country has had a fantastic pedigree, Manchester United, Forest, Villa and Liverpool all winners has gone, irretrieveably. Now called The Champions League (which should really be named the "Runners-Up League") has already eroded the special magic of the European Cup, how we used to look forward to it, home and away ties played on a Wednesday night between the teams that actually came first in each countries top division. All gone now I'm afraid, games on a Tuesday and Wednesday and teams who come fourth, way way back in fourth in the case of Liverpool have even won the thing, what a ridiculous concept.

So the lure of even more filthy lucre for the top teams will take football ever further away from the real football fan, I know people who can't afford to go and watch their beloved team anymore, it's just too expensive, somwhere between £30 and £50 a go in the Premier League.
This greed inspired treachery of the pound sign will no doubt see the so called big four playing in Osaka or Dubai, an extra game? what utter nonsense, how can this extra game count for anything in a league season? And heaven forbid what if it's a success? where will it lead to then. Twenty teams play each other home and away thats 38 games, nice and symmetrical, mathematically and ethically correct. So who plays who in the thirty-ninth game? Middlesbrough v Blackburn in Melbourne, no disrespect but it's not the greatest attraction, only four teams can play against the "so called big four" and those that are left will be the second tier of this global cash-grab.

I am saddened and disgusted by this proposal to sell the English game as a global product, a brand it's far more than that, it's an institution, a belief, a religion for some but while the game is controlled by money it will inevitably want more. The rich get rich and the strong grow stronger while the Bournemouths of this world who cannot afford to pay their tax bill and other creditors, have to lay off staff who will get no parachute payment from the Premier League and have points deducted, which will no doubt serve as the final nail in the coffin of a season that has been a struggle but lets hope it's not the end of the club. English Football needs the lower leagues to be strong and supported by the big boys, far more than they are at present, the Premier League should be made responsible for taking these smaller clubs under their wing, help them to grow, loan out players yes but pay their wages don't make the financially struggling club pay them.

I urge you to take up your pens and write to the Premier League, the BBC, your local or national newspaper and even your MP, lets try and take football back for the sake of our game and our national team because more television and global exposure will lead to more foreign imports taking places in teams that home grown players should be filling.

The Premiership Flying Circus should be set adrift to ride around the globe on their magic carpet of banknotes, we will be better off without it.

Observing the Rules

2008-01-23T20:53:00.001Z

Brussels, what does the name mean to you? is it a cosmopolitan city in Belgium or does it mean Europe and the handing down of rules and regulations that only us British seem to impose and observe?

"Welcome to Smoke-Free Brussels" proclaimed the sign in the Eurostar terminal and again in the Marriot Hotel near the Grand Place. But somewhere along the line the bars have managed to evade this rule, every bar I visited (and they were numerous) during my three day trip was full of smokers. Now, I have been a smoker but managed to kick the vile habit in the year 2000.
I was at Cheltenham Racecourse and had bought sixty Lucky Strikes for the three day trip, found slumped under the statue of Dawn Run with acute loss of legs and speech, I had smoked all three packets in one day which also means I had drunk more than the recommended two months units of alchohol for an adult male in a single day.
I recovered slowly and after five days I realised I hadn't had a cigarette since Cheltenham, I surmised then that I obviously didn't need to smoke and from that day on I have (thankfully) found the whole smoking thing very unpalatable.

There's nothing worse than a reformed smoker so I've been told but if you've seen the light and are a much healthier and wealthier person for it then you shout it from the rooftops. I have some very dear friends who I constantly bully for their smoking, I don't know if it helps them or if it just makes them do it all the more?

The smoking ban in England has been welcomed and abhorred by thousands, pubs are now cleaner fresher smelling places but the outside areas are no-go zones for a non-smoker, why didn't the government give pubs the choice? It wasn't a ruling handed down by Brussels but the government went for it wholeheartedly and in the same old knee jerk reaction as if it was a european parliament decree. The pubs I use always tended to have less smokers than non, I wouldn't choose to go into a backstreet local or a working mens club and I doubt the regulars in there would want me to anyway, but give them the choice. Those pubs and clubs have a majority of smokers among their clientele, they're not normally well known for being food pubs so where's the problem? Let the smoky pubs continue and let those that don't rely on the smokers to be pleasantly smoke free.

Brussels does have smokeless zones in some bars but most are full on, smoke where you like and I have to say it was pretty nasty, after months of enjoying smoke-free establishments in England it came as a shock, the smoke drifting upstairs in one jazz cafe was too much for me to bear, so too in the trendy but old world Cafe Cirio when the man on the next table pulled out a foot long Montecristo and proceeded to ignite it, that was the final straw. I don't suppose this country will ever become like our continental chums who enjoy a pavement table, any outside seating area I see in England is occupied by smokers, so come spring and summer will I be forced to drink inside? There are many favourite boozers of mine that have outside areas to enjoy, living on the south coast the views from some pubs are a real joy but I fear that sitting outside one will not be the pleasurable experience it once was.

Brussels is also home to some of Europes worst drivers, on Saturday the 5th of January the police held an operation to target drink drivers and an astounding one in ten of those stopped were over the limit. Mind you if you popped in for a beer on the way home from work in Belgium and that beer was an 8.4% abv Duvel, you'd be significantly over the limit.
I enjoyed my Brussels experience very much, I wouldn't want to drive in the city though, just crossing the road on foot is a mission that requires careful planning and tactics especially if you've been on a bar crawl, the little green man lights up and off you go only to have a car come flying into your path, a stressful place and it's no wonder all the locals smoke.

I'll be returning to Belgium soon, Eurostar is the future, what a civilised way to travel without the security nightmare of Heathrow and none of the drag of a trek to Dover to catch a ferry with your car which will probably get rammed by a ten year old BMW the moment you fail to spot the traffic lights have turned green.

Dear oh dear oh dear BBC

2008-01-18T00:05:00.001Z

Dear BBC, Match of The Day Dept: Messrs Lineker, Hansen etc

I have to say I am extremely disappointed that you chose to cover the FA Cup replay between Manchester City & West Ham as your live game on Wednesday. Millions of people do not have the luxury of Sky sports and so rarely get to see a live game on proper telly, furthermore those of us who can afford pay per view tv do not want to see two premiership clubs play each other in an FA Cup tie. We can see this kind of game week in week out, no disrespect to either club involved in the incredibly awful match but what possessed you to opt for the so called "big game"?

The FA Cup is extremely close to the heart of the nation, why choose that game when surely the most obvious choice was to cover Havant & Waterloo v Swansea. It was all there for us, yes us, the licence paying public, this game had it all to offer, the part-timers, the romance, the giant killing expectation, the high flying lower league club against the non league side who are on a journey of fantasy.

The half time Newcastle United/Alan Shearer sideshow was extremely galling, those people who were interested in the story knew about it, Shearer had already spoken to the press and those of us who'd heard all about it had our little chuckle and got on with our lives. That half-time break should have been devoted to the fantastic efforts of Havant & Waterlooville, we saw the highlights from St James Park why not from West Leigh Park?

The tie you did show is repeated as a premier league fixture this weekend, god forbid it's not as brain numbingly dull as the cup match. I hope you are kicking yourselves, you missed the chance of a live game between two clubs full of players and fans who care and believe in the importance of the greatest cup competition of them all, it produced six goals and those people deserved their evening on the box.

No doubt the fourth round game against Liverpool will be live on tv but I for one feel cheated that we didn't see what will prove to be the Hawks greatest achievement, oh yes they will have their day out at Anfield but the performance that got them there, now that is what I and so many thousands of other football fans in this country wanted to see.

Behold The Messiah

2008-01-16T22:13:00.001Z

"You are the Messiah oh lord, I should know, I've followed a few". Wise words from The Life of Brian but I wonder how many Newcastle fans will be brandishing the Special K packets when King Kev is told to clear his desk at St James Park after yet another false dawn in the history of what must be the biggest "sleeping giant" in English football.

To label Kevin Keegan as The Messiah is sheer folly, I wonder what is now expected of Newcastle for the remainder of this season, top six finish perhaps? Harry Redknapp was wise to turn it down, was he wise to entertain the offer? perhaps a simple "sorry, it's nice of you to ask but I have a comfortable job down here and it's a lot warmer climate, oh and the majority of the fans still love me even though I went off and managed (albeit badly) their biggest rivals". This is where former Newcastle managers could take note. If Ruud Gullit or Big Sam were to go and take Sunderland back to the championship they'd be offered a ten million pound three year deal to go back to Newcastle? No? ok probably not, but then Harry Redknapp, hero or villain, depending on your views has managed to despatch Southampton into the wilderness and return triumphant to Pompey having saved them from almost certain relegation in "The Great Escape" season and establishing them as a top ten premier league club. Now that is a Messiah, not a false prophet who by his own admission stated that his life had taken a different route and will not be going back to football management, good luck Kev you'll need it when the fickle fingers of fans point at you.

Portsmouth themselves are guilty of the "Sleeping Giant" moniker, when I first watched them play I was only 11 years of age and knew nothing of back to back first division championships in the fifties nor the fact they held the FA Cup for six years, ok so the second world war had a part to play in that. They were appallingly bad that in that 1975/76 season and were relegated to the old division three , then slipping further into the fourth division but that brought some incredible away trips. 2,000 Pompey fans at Rochdale for example, matchday programs sold out at mid-day. The sleeping giant tag was bestowed by many a hack on Portsmouth for many a season right up until 1987 when World Cup Winner Alan Ball guided them back to the top flight. The tag continued to be worn for another decade and more spent in the second tier. But the history is there and so are the fanatical supporters, the noise at Fratton Park is awesome, Redknapp would have been a fool to throw away what he has at Pompey to be the next failure at St James Park.

Whatever happens next at Gallowgate, I for one am pleased that Harry is not the Magpies manager, it must be the most difficult job in domestic English football, success must be earned, a great pedigree and a massive fan base is something all clubs aspire to but success just doesn't come to you because you were once a big club who won something, you need a special person to make it happen.

Conspiracy TV?

2008-01-09T11:33:00.000Z

Here I am at home resting after having had an operation under local anaestetic, overseen by a fantastic Nigerian nurse who kept telling me "you are being very strong", am I? "Ho yes, you are a very brave man", hmm, I knew the truth, I was scared to death, my blood pressure was 147/103 which must be up there with Alex Ferguson when United are only one nil up.
I recovered to 132/88 after the op but the theatre staff said "you bled a bit", thankfully I didn't see the fountains of blood gushing out of my head and probably shouldn't have looked at the wound quite so soon afterwards as I went into shock and needed medicinal rum to stop my body from shaking.

So taking a week off work to recover and feeling rather bored as I'd watched all my DVDs and even resorted to watching videotapes (for those of you born in the early 90s have a look on Wikipedia for a description). I turned to the television for a bit of inspiration, BBC1 from 10a.m to 1p.m Homes Under the Hammer, To Buy or Not to Buy, Cash in the Attic, Bargain Hunt. I was beginning to wish I was back in the office, then I thought "maybe that's what they want".
Had I uncovered a Government conspiracy to force people back to work? If you only have the four or five channels to watch, (five being notoriously difficult to receive a signal from) you really don't have much choice. But I then started surfing through the cable channels and discovered that you can watch pretty much non-stop Only Fools... or maybe you fancy back to back Keeping up Appearances? Not for me thank you, although I have now seen every episode of New Tricks four times, oh dear, I'll be wearing comfy shoes and a beige coat before long.

Luckily for me the History Channel was a lifesaver, Titanic is a subject that is seemingly an inexhaustable vehicle for documentary makers. The second world war is also a much used topic and I have been enlightened, for instance I didn't know that Somalia was part of Britains Empire and was invaded by the Italians and that Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Paris in the 1600s. So if these history programs were on terrestrial tv just think of the numbers of people who would go off sick, unthinkable, anyway I digress.
The whole thing of making money from antiques or objet d'art that may be knocking around the house has come about from the greed that has been deep set in our psyche for two decades now.

If you have got up the property ladder as far as you can go, what's next? Attic conversion perhaps? yes, and what to do with all the stuff from the attic, of course, you take it to an auction where a slightly northern gent with a posh voice and a moustache will guide you through the process. Or worse still an orange skinned wide-boy in a silver double breasted suit will spit his thoughts and obversations all over you. It's a circle that doesn't look like being broken for some time which is a shame as the television can be a very educational medium, as for me I'll reach for a book until the next History Channel documentary at 2p.m, the Loch Ness Monster-Ultimate Experiment.