My holiday has kind of got in the way of keeping this blog completely up to date but, no matter, I can still remember enough from my second trip to Vicarage Road to scratch out a few words.
The ground is a 20 minute walk from where our hotel was and it took us through what appears, for London, a rather nice and safe area. I certainly didn’t get the impression anyone would be jumping out from behind a fence to mug us.
Read MoreThe Valley seems much larger on the telly. I guess that’s the case with many of England, particularly London’s, city and suburban grounds. They pretty much sprang up in the middle of their neighbourhoods with houses packing in against all four corners. On the train out, a longer than expected 20 minute ride, we passed by the New Den, Millwall’s home, and that really did seem like a box.
Read MoreIn a few hours I jump on a plane and head to the UK.
This trip is a World Cup-infused football pilgrimage, brought about by the fact I made a big mistake in not going to Brazil a few ago. A trip back to the motherland, particularly at this time of year, is always good as there’s a game on pretty much every night. And we’ll be doing a lot of that.
Read MoreIt feels right that Germany beat Argentina this morning. The best team at this year’s tournament has lifted the best looking trophy in world sport at the best country for a World Cup. Nice work them.
This was a decent final won by a memorable goal but won’t Gonzalo Higuain be Gonzalo Higuain’s worst nightmare for the rest of his life? That was a shocker of a miss. I’d hate to be inside his head because the voices would be frightening.
Read MoreEuropean efficiency wins out over South American I don’t know what. We’re not talking about the final yet, of course, just Brazil’s decent from football icons to grubby also-rans.
My first memory of Brazil was their magnificent side from 1982. The names roll off the tongue: Zico, Eder, Falcao, Junior and, the magnificent Socrates. That was a side.
Read MoreToday was a travelling day for me, and a bloody miserable one at that.
I headed north to meet the family who have been up at the in-laws since Thursday. It’s the school holidays and we’ve had to be a bit creative to keep the boys under control. Creative, for me, has meant a little break while Jean has had to manage the kids. She’s done well, with the help of her parents.
Read MoreAnd then we had the Netherlands versus Argentina.
It wasn’t exactly a classic, was it? I guess it was made to look even worse by what went on yesterday. Maybe the teams made it worse themselves having seen what happened. I dunno.
Technically, it wasn’t a bad game of football. It’s just that the stars were the defensive players or rather the coaching staff who got their systems right to the point where each team cancelled the other out. The excitement was strangled out of the game.
Read MoreIt’s been a whole day since semi-final number one finished and, like pretty much everyone I guess, I still struggle with what happened this morning. Brazil 1. Germany 7. In the Semi-Final of the World Cup. In Brazil. In a day and age where no-one gets hammered like that. Brazil hadn’t lost a competitive match at home since 1975 apparently. That’s nearly a life time. Nearly my lifetime! All sorts of crazy stats have...
Read MoreFIFA did well to schedule the final stages of the World Cup with the school holidays, but I’d have preferred if they’d started a couple of weeks later so we had games every morning. The last couple of days have been murder trying to get work done in a house with two young boys going at it from sun up to after sun down. I work from my home office most days and it usually works well, but it’s a full house at the moment with the boys...
Read MoreAre we there yet? Nearly son. Just four team are left and we have a couple of potential classic semi-finals in store for us during the week. Yep, there’s that ‘P’ word. Now the stakes are so high I’d be very surprised if we see an open end-to-ender in either of the semis, but you never know. This World Cup has had a few surprises for us so maybe that’s something else we have to look forward to. Today was...
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