A Porsche, a Porsche, my kingdom for a Porsche

The Six Nations rugby season is now well under way. The 'S Club' met up in London last week for the first England match v France, we were joined by a couple of Simon's who qualified by name(!) and various sons and friends, making it a very enjoyable first outing.

5pm kick-off's are always tricky, particularly for the spectators, but we were lucky enough to get a table in the White Horse pub in Richmond, just behind the Red Cow. Apparently the Black Dog, Green Dragon  and Pink Flamingo were all fully booked.

Pre-match discussion centred on business and Brexit, and neither came out too badly, as two of the crew had, only the day before, independently ordered new Porsche's as their new family runabouts.....I really must get those virtual reality goggles out and see what all the fuss is about. I am not sure a Porsche 911 or Boxster would suit me though as I am quite tall  and I am well past the SUV stage. Looks like a Beamer for a few years yet then.

As well as an inconvenience for the crowd, the 5pm kick-off did not seem to appeal to the England team much, and after a very rusty first half they managed to squeeze past a spirited French outfit right at the death. They seemed to adjust better to it yesterday though when they challenged Wales in Cardiff.

It was always going to be a tough day for me. One of my golf chums, George, was making a comeback after falling down the stairs a few weeks ago. George is 83 so its not in his best interests to start free running at his age!! anyway, we got him round 18 holes in one piece, and as it was a team competition we were able to make a good stab at winning. We were 6th in the end, our best result for some time in these things!

I then had Plymouth Argyle v Exeter City, Wales v England and Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspurs to contend with. Argyle did the business 3-0 so that was the most important result of the three. Spurs were blown away by Liverpool, well Mane actually, so that's the title challenge finished for another season, so that left England to continue their quest for a second consecutive grand slam, something never before achieved in the Six Nations era.

Well, it was a proper game of rugger, and one could not have begrudged Wales had they have won, but after getting a battering for the last 20 minutes of the first half, England once more showed their resolve, and not a little skill, to close the game out in the last few minutes. SWMBO and I are off to Snowdonia tomorrow to continue our climbing fitness programme, I might have to turn over a few stones, as I bet I won't be able to find a Welshman when I want one!!

I'm Spartacus

As promised, here is a set of pictures that are hard to beat......






Argentina won the Bowl. Their captain stopped for us to take his picture. Now he said, you hold the Bowl and I will take your picture. Kieran and Ross delighted.



 Then the England boys won the Plate and all these players seem to have the ability to effortlessly take selfies.....I liked this one
 

Worse was then to come for the poor England captain as Ross indicated to him that, as the Argentine captain had let us pose with the Bowl, it would only be fair for them to pose with the Plate...... then these two lookers came along and the day was complete.

Well, the day was certainly complete for this chap who chose a very strange place for a lie down.

 I am pleased to say our tour finished in a very secret squirrel restaurant on the mid-levels. When booking the restaurant you got  a code for a door in a very non-descript alley. You went upstairs and there was a twelve cover restaurant knocking out the best Chinese you could imagine. Cheers Ross a great find and a marvellous way to end the tour.

Vote of Confidence

Footie fans across the Country have been gnashing their teeth with some degree of anguish, as a pre-Christmas merry-go-round of managerial changes have been taking place.Its quite strange though how the managers seem to come off best.

Take Ian Hollowords for example. He resigns from the Argyle, and joins Leicester allegedly for £400k per annum, almost doubling his salary. His wife and kids have just moved into a new house in Plymouth, and now have to leave for Leicester. Not ideal. He gets replaced by Paul Sturrock, who leaves Swindon where he has no money, and no prospects as they stumble from one failed takeover to another. There are no indications of his salary package yet but I suspect he will do better from it than previously.

The rumour mill indicates Steve Cotterill will take over at Swindon. He parted company with Burnley a few weeks ago, with an agreed compensation package, so has not been out of work long. Burnley replaced him with Owen Coyle from St Johnstone, North of the border and Derek Mcinnes has replaced Coyle, a promotion from within the ranks.......

So, all the fans have been frustrated, but the managers seem to have sorted themselves pretty well.

A similar situation is occurring in the Premiership. Wigan part company with Hutchings, who took over when Paul Jewell left the club. Steve Bruce has now left Birmingham to take up the reins. Birmingham have acquired the ex-Scotland boss, Alex McLeish, and Billy Davies, sacked from Derby, indicates he would quite like the Scotland managers job. Meanwhile the aforementioned Paul Jewell steps smoothly into the Derby hot seat, and everybody is rockin' and rollin'.

All we have to do now is fill the England job, but wait a moment Rafael Benitez will get the sack tonight if Liverpool lose in the European Champions League, and the roundabout can start all over again.

ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh stayin' alive

I have been ridiculed about my clothes sense before. Farah slacks were banned by the kids some years ago, and I have had dated round collared shirts flushed down the toilet by well meaning house mates. I still keep a pair of loons in the wardrobe hoping one day to be able to do the waist up, and all my 'interesting' designer stuff is now reserved for the golf course.

All this could be put seriously in the shade now as a result of some action my cousin Mike has asked me to take. He has suggested I might like to help him bid up his items on e-bay. Its a common practice. you put the item on for 99p to keep the listing charges to a minimum, then get a chum to bid up to somewhere near your target price. Sometimes it works, sometimes it backfires.

At the moment its the latter, and I am hours away from owning a white linen suit for goodness sake. As if that is not bad enough, my cousin is skinnier than me, so it won't even fit!!

Now the lad who walks round Twickenham before England international matches wears a white suit so maybe he can make use of it, but he may have to look to change his outfit to blend in with the ridiculous new kit which the rugby team have just appeared in.

For the last World Cup England launched the lycra tight rugby shirt which may look fine on Kieran Bracken and Josh Lewsey, but it does nothing for the fuller figure, which many rugby fans possess. The 'Old Farts' produced a traditional cotton variant to overcome this marketing gaff, but how they will recover this situation I dread to think.

I suspect even the Orange Order, or a girls majorette troupe would be embarrassed to wear this new kit, the players do look like they have just participated in Mr Rugby 2007 and forgotten to take their sashes off. Come on RFU sort it out.

"I think you've had enough old son......."

I am off to Wembley tonight for the England v Brazil game, and this, together with some incidents over the weekend, got me thinking about why football followers seem to be so much more aggressive than those of other sports.

At the family barbecue I referred to, there were a mixture of young people. Some from Liverpool had gone to school with Kieran at St Mary's, a Christian Brothers school, some who had gone to Merchant Taylors, next door . Others where at Uni (or Poly ;-)) in Liverpool and had come from other parts of the country, and some were work colleagues of Kieran from the Wirral and around. They all mixed extremely well, and people commented on how well mannered they were.

One poor girl had had a hell of a few weeks with boyfriend problems, and she got absolutely trashed. Rather than leave her to fall about the furnishings and smash the ornaments, two of her flat mates took her home, put her to bed and returned later to the party.

Sometime after that one of the St Mary's lads got some abuse from another of the boys there, and the St Mary's lads closed ranks and suggested to one of the rogues friends that it was time he helped him home, which he did. This passed off unnoticed by most people at the party.

It reminded me of my own experiences as an 'old fart' who regularly attends rugby internationals at Twickenham, in Dublin and in Paris. There are usually six of us, and we do like a drink. It is fair to say though, that in the 25 years we have been acting the fool, we have at worst made bus travel between Twickenham and Richmond noisy, and the ride out of Dublin on the Dart a joyous singing occasion. Any activity likely to provoke violence, either physical or verbal, is quickly stamped on by the group, and the offender parked in a corner and told to behave.

Why then is it not the case at football matches that there is not this same self policing? The tribal nature of the supporters seems to add an 'edge' to the whole atmosphere. It can't be associated purely with the Public school, grammar school, secondary school differential outlined yesterday, as many of the perpetrators are from good stock?

Personally I blame the lager, as we all know London Pride has no alcohol in it!!!