View from the Cemetery

Well, a mixed bag so far. A very creditable draw down at West, who good judges tell me look like a real class outfit, a solid win at home, and that doesn't happen as often as we would like, a strong and very respectable but ultimately unsuccessful cup trip to Spennymoor, and a display on the artificial pitch at Durham that evidently got one thinking of Torvill and Dean, or possibly Bambi on ice. Or so I am led to believe. Although amazingly there is a suggestion that it's the first time we have lost on the plastic, is that true? Looks like it. Never mind, with a young and new squad there are bound to be ups and downs. And our favourite little Scotsman seems very chipper, which is a good sign, they must be listening to what he says for once. All in all everything in the garden looks, if not all rosy, then not a bed of weeds. Apart that is from the attempted break in the other night.

Is football worth the pain? Well of course it is. But even so, I'm just getting nicely relaxed into a decent summer and then the bloody football is back! Still, certainly beats tennis. And usual good luck in the FA Cup draw I see, our old boys up at Spenny, never mind, might catch them cold.

Personally I'm looking forward to the England v Scotland match, a giant fixture in world football what? I bet the talk is of little else in the bars and restaurants of Milan and Barcelona. How have the mighty fallen. How do you take a world class sporting fixture and turn it into a laughing stock? To be fair, I blame the Scots, all those deep fried Mars bars have somewhat weakened the national sporting prowess, and then, speaking of tennis, with typical Jock improvisation, they find a Wimbledon champion! One of the only two people in the entire country who plays tennis, and the other one is his brother, and he manages to be good, very good in fact. Takes some believing.

So, Guernsey in the Combined Counties League, eh? "Providing competitive football for clubs in Berkshire, Hampshire, London, Middlesex and Surrey" as it says on the website. Which is now somewhat geographically challenged. Also known as the Cherry Red Records League, which I trust refers to the music industry, the mind boggles otherwise....

So, should we ask the league if we can cut our games down to 85 minutes? We do seem to be having a problem of late with the last five minutes and the injury time! On the road as always of course, so I speak second hand, but Penrith, Spenny and Synners, all last minute goals that cost us, or at least made it look worse in Synners case. No doubt it is just a blip, which we can test in the flurry of home games these next few days, although looking over the fence the chances of playing three in five days looks a bit remote to me.