I'm happy, hope you're happy too....

I've been watching cricket for a long time now. I have been unlucky enough to actually be present in the ground to watch Australia retain the Ashes three times at Trent Bridge: 1993, 1997 and 2001*. I've seen Shane Warne dancing with a stump on the pavilion roof twice. It's a good job we won the game there in 2005 as I'm not sure the old timbers of the building could take any more of that kind of strain.



There was no Trent Bridge test this time around, and no Shane Warne, but I was lucky enough to get hold of a pair of tickets for the fourth day of the last Test match at the Oval. The series was nicely poised at 1-1 going into the game, and the England selectors resisted the calls to give Mark Ramprakash one last hurrah at his home ground. Having seen him charging down the wicket in Nottingham towards the close of play on the Friday Ashes Test in 2001, completely ruining my Saturday by his inability to resist Shane Warne's taunts, I was pleased I wouldn't be seeing him playing in a game of this importance. I wasn't sure about Jonathan Trott, making his debut in this game, but surely he couldn't be as catastrophic and negative selection as the 39-year old Ramps.

The terracotta urn containing the Ashes is only 6 inches tall, but England and Australia have been fighting over them since 1882, and it remains the single greatest prize for an English cricketer.


When England finally won it in 2005, for the first time since 1986/7, it was a cause for national celebration. Over-celebration, many would say, but after such a long period of Australian dominance, it was simply joyous not only to win the Ashes, but to win them in such an incredible series.

After a 5-0 thumping in Australia in 2006/7, there can't have been too many people who gave England much of a chance this summer.... but we did it. We went into Sunday needing ten wickets to win. That was all we needed to do to bring the Ashes home. It wasn't exactly plain sailing, and the Aussies fought like...well.... Australians, but at a little after 6pm, when Graham Swann took the wicket of the superb Mike Hussey it was all over.

We had regained the Ashes.



And I was there. I saw every ball bowled; every wicket fall and -- best of all -- I saw the England captain, Andrew Strauss, lift that famous old urn.

I've been lucky enough to have seen some brilliant sport: Allan Donald and Michael Atherton at Trent Bridge in 1998; the amazing Ashes test in 2005. I've seen Europe winning the Ryder Cup at the Belfry in 2002 and at the K-Club in 2006. I was in the Olympic Stadium in Athens when Kelly Holmes won the 800m. I was at the rowing lake at Schinias in Athens when the Men's Coxless Fours, led by Matthew Pinsent, won the gold medal by the tiniest of margins.

How does this day compare to those? I'm not sure. All of those were fantastic in their own way. As a big cricket fan though, and having suffered through 20-odd years of awful, heartbreaking England performances, actually being present in the ground when we won the Ashes was pretty bloody special.

Let's hope we can enjoy the win without gloating, eh? There's little less attractive than winning without dignity and then wallowing in that win instead of looking forwards. For what it's worth, my favourite moment of the day (winning aside) was when the crowd gave Ricky Ponting a massive standing ovation both to and from the wicket. He was booed at Edgbaston, but he was shown an awful lot more respect here for what he's achieved. It's no less than a champion like him deserves.



It was a very good day.

*actually, Australia held on for a draw in 1993 - the first test match I ever went to go and watch live - to keep the series score at two up with three to play. Needless to say the Aussies won the remaining tests that mattered to win the series 4-1. It just felt like they retained the Ashes that day when we failed to get Steve Waugh and Brendon Julian out. I had a nice day though, eh?

.... and what you're looking at is the master plan

The football season is already upon us, and the Premier League kicks off this weekend. I've just spent hours and hours pulling together an almost completely hopeless and ill-informed preview of the season over on Cheer Up Alan Shearer. Mystic Meg I am not, so do go and amuse yourselves at the implausibility of my predictions. Besides, I haven't the energy to write anything else after that marathon.

Before you scoff, do please try to remember that it's actually a lot harder than it looks. Just so I can get my excuses in some ten months early, I might also add that the Premier League looks very, very average this year - outside the top four or five clubs anywhere. I reckon there are three distinct tiers:

1-5
6-14
15-20

within those pockets, I reckon anyone could finish almost anywhere... and actually the bottom two tiers are pretty much up for grabs too - you could almost as easily finish 6th as 16th.

Who'd be a pundit, eh?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to have a long lie down and to think about the make-up of my Fantasy League Team (which oddly, given my predictions for the league, I'm usually quite good at).

...and lest we forget it's still summer, I've some pondering about the make-up of England's top order for The Oval too. Ramprakash? What short memories people have. In what way does Ramps' track record make you think that he stands up to pressure any better than Ian Bell or Ravi Bopara? In 50-odd tests, he averages 27..... If I was a selector, I'd be beating my way down to Somerset, cap in hand and hoping that Banger will consider a one-off appearance.

But enough sport, eh?

womanizer, womanizer....

In something of a reversal of the plot of "Mike Bassett: England Manager", where the manager of a lower league club is made the manager of the national team, Sven Goran Eriksson, the former manager of the English national team, has just taken up the reigns at Notts County, a team in the fourth tier of English football.

You couldn't make it up. Truth really is sometimes even stranger than fiction.

Sven is apparently keen to move up to the Nottingham area, and just in case people aren't familiar with Nottingham, the Sun was quickly on hand with the key information:

"SVEN will find it hard NOT to score in Nottingham - rated by a dating website as one of Britain's best places to find eligible totty. But he faces tough competition as its reputation has also turned it into the country's top destination for stag parties. If he's on form, Sven could maybe bag a beauty like actress Samantha Morton, who hails from the city.

Nottingham girls are famously pretty - with many descended from those drawn from far and wide to work in its historic lace industry. For post-match fun, Sven will find the nightclubs very raunchy but a far cry from many of London's celeb-infested haunts. A good place to start is the city centre venue Rock City, which has two-for-one drinks every Thursday. Then there's Tantra, which supplies romantic revellers with vast beds to lounge on. Back of the net! For an added bonus, Nottingham is groaning under the weight of student totty - mainly because its universities offer some of the country's best nursing courses. As for the boozers, the nearest to Notts County's 20,000-capacity Meadow Lane is The Globe. It serves a cracking pie and pint, but isn't famed for its lady folk. Not to worry, Sven. A ten-minute walk from the ground takes you to Hooters, a bar and grill staffed by scantily-clad girls. Sven, who's partial to a cocktail and sushi, is more likely to be offered a pint of Rock Bitter or Rock Mild made at the famous Nottingham Brewery.

Locals often down it with a large bread roll called a cob.

The ever-sartorial Swede will be pleased to know top designer Paul Smith is from Nottingham, and has his flagship store there."

Pretty girls, Hooters, Paul Smith and cobs. It's all you really need to know, isn't it?

Sheesh. "....a large bread roll called a cob"??? Where exactly do they think Nottingham is? Abroad?

The Mirror, meanwhile, focuses the full forensic power of their expert analysis on telling their readers "Why Sven Goran Erikkson would be awful at Championship Manager and why Notts Country are doomed". Apparently Ferguson, Wenger, Pulis and Hughes would be pretty good, Redknapp and Allardyce would be brilliant but they have their doubts about the likes of Ancelotti and Benitez. Sven, they reckon, would stink at the game. Quite what that has to do with anything remains unclear. Perhaps he's really good at Sonic the Hedgehog? That's probably got just as much in common with actually running a real life football club as Championship Manager.....

As you might expect, the Guardian manages to assume a vastly more sophisticated tone in their coverage, and inform and entertain their readers with a list of all the things Sven needs to know about his new club. A list that includes such vital information as this:

"The definitive supporters' song is called I Had a Wheelbarrow. It goes: "I had a wheelbarrow, the wheel fell off/I had a wheelbarrow, the wheel fell off", to the tune of On Top of Old Smokey. Nobody really knows why."

Perhaps they reckon that a more educated, liberal, middle-class readership will already be well aware of what a cob is?

Oh, and Hooters is not a ten minute walk away from the ground. It's much nearer than that. And all you can eat chicken wings is only £6.99 per person all day on a Monday, so it's great value. Half price ribs on a Wednesday too, and kids eat free on a Sunday....

losing my favourite game...

So the 2007 Rugby World Cup ends with a win for South Africa and gloriously heroic failure by a, let's face it, really quite limited England team. No shame in that, no shame at all. On the night we had the possession and the determination to win, but in the final analysis we weren't quite good enough to break through the South African defense, and in the end I think that they were worthy winners. The fact that we might not have had the rub of the green on the night from the referee is neither here nor there. These things balance themselves out over time, and we had our share of luck in getting this far. And it wasn't a try either.... Cueto's foot clearly dragged across the line (and therefore into touch) before he touched the ball down. That his foot was in the air when he actually placed the ball is irrelevant if it had been out of play at any point before. Not that a try then would have made much difference to the result.

I watched the game in the pub. One of my friends went to Paris with his dad and paid 700 Euros for the pleasure of watching the game live, but I was happy just to be surrounded by a fairly large crowd shouting at a big screen. Kick off was at 8pm, but we turned up at around 4pm to try and make sure that we got reasonable seats, which we did. We then had the pleasure of killing time by watching -- simultaneously on three different screens -- Australia losing to India in the cricket, Manchester Utd beating Aston Villa in the football and Lewis Hamilton qualifying on the front row for the Brazilian Grand Prix. By the time the rugby came on, there was quite a press of people and the bouncers had stopped letting people into the pub. The singing of the anthems is quite a big thing in a rugby game: you often see the players, grown men all, unable to contain their emotions as they wait for kick off. It affects the spectators too. "God Save The Queen" is no great shakes as an anthem, and it is positively dirge-like compared to the magical "Marseillaise", but a lot of people really love it. Last night, a couple of guys, pushing their way back to their seats, stopped right in front of me to watch it. I like watching the faces of the players as the anthems play, so I gently tapped one of the guys on the shoulder and asked him if he could move a bit. He rounded on me and started to abuse me for not standing up during the National Anthem as though it was my solemn civic duty. I thought he was joking, but he then turned back round and proceeded to sing his heart out at the screen with his right arm stretched right out, open-palmed.... in other words he was doing a Nazi salute to the anthem. I was a little bit taken aback. I was watching the game in what is predominantly a football pub, and had spotted a guy a little earlier at the bar wearing an England football shirt and with a three lions tattoo proudly displayed on his right arm. I don't mind the football shirt, but I find the tattoo hard to understand. I like my country well enough, but not so blindly that I would want a symbol like that permanently etched into my skin, not least because of some of the connotations of the English football fan. It's my county and I was born here, but it's certainly not my country, right or wrong. I was supporting my country in the rugby, but it's only a game. Luckily the guy moved on after the anthems and we could all relax and try to enjoy the game.

Later on, after the game, I found myself standing at the urinal next to a chap wearing a South Africa shirt and with his face painted green and gold. I told him how I thought the best team had won, and he turned to me and said he felt that it had been unbelievably close and that England had been unlucky. At this point someone else at the urinal told me that I should stop being so bloody philosophical about our defeat, and another told the South African that he would be lucky to get out of the bar alive. I think he was joking, but the South African was not terribly impressed, and I don't blame him. We lost. They won. It's just a game. It's not war. Jonny Wilkinson tackles as though his life depends upon it, but his life does not depend on it. He plays with controlled aggression, but crucially with no malice. If only more fans could watch the game in the same way.

Still. It's been a great tournament with dignified and ultimately deserving winners.

going missing...

You might have noticed that, according to the gig list, I'm supposed to be spending Saturday night at the Rescue Rooms watching the mighty Los Campesinos!

Much though I love quirky, infectious Welsh rock, and good though they were in the pouring rain at Glastonbury this year, I'm afraid that I'm far more likely to be at the South Bank bar on Trent Bridge watching England take on South Africa in the Rugby World Cup Final.

I'm sure they'll be back soon enough.

C'est la vie, eh? (if C. will pardon my French...)

But how am I going to get my live music fix? I wonder if Nottingham legend Roy De'wired is playing the bar after the game? He always seems to be on.....(nice website, by the way Roy)

Ah no, he's in Tuscany playing at someone's wedding, so apparently it's Bad Dog:

"Very energetic 5-piece with mixed male and female vocals, rock and roll at its finest."

Hm.

After the lord mayor's show?