In a few years remember the name Stuart Dallas. A young Northern Irish footballer who joined Brentford last summer. He played ostensibly his debut game tonight in the FA Cup win over Bradford 4-2. He had a great game, good skill, good effort and my humble prediction is that he will go far. You heard it here first!
One of the pleasures of delving into Twitter is the finding that odd words and odd people abound. For some reason I am linked to various train folk, folks who main about late trains, folks who start self-help groups, sort of group therapy for angry commuters, and those who simply like the share the news, mainly the bad news of delays.
The other day there was a tweet from SouthWest trains about a delay due to the Egress button ( or it may have been handle). I had no idea what they were talking about but it seemed important and was responsible for another delay. It turns out this strangely named item is what we normal folks call the emergency handle or button. So in your next round of trivial pursuit you can now answer what the Egress button is, and it is not a button on a flying Stork, which is what it sounds like.
Football is a strange game. Last week Bradford beat Arsenal and tonight they were playing Brentford in an FA Cup replay at Griffin Park. This is a game that in all honesty no-one really wanted. Brentford thought they were through to the third round as Bradford got expelled for playing an ineligible player. A minor crime but a crime all the same. For reasons that no-one in football understands the FA rolled over and reinstated them .A chilly night in front of a small crowd, with one side of the ground closed. A decent game which Brentford seemed to want to lose. They gave Bradford their opening goal with a bad defensive error, scored through a penalty on the stroke of half-time, then gave away a penalty in extra time ( though what for no-one in the ground knew), but then decided to score 3 goals in under 5 minutes to win the game. Bradford were actually quite poor in defence and if this is the standard at the top of League 2, then I never want to go back there.
Final score 4-2 to Brentford. The prize? A trip to Southend United on Jan 5th that will not be an easy game. So does this mean Brentford are better than Arsenal? Football is a funny game built on confidence and often some luck. This Brentford team might just be getting promoted this season.
The linesman on the far side was Sian Massey and she looked one of the best linesman we have had.
On a damp day 208 souls turned up to watch an entertaining game which until Canvey scored their second goal could have gone any way. Carshalton are currently bottom of the league and the second goal deflated them as did the sending off of one their players for a rash and bad tackle. the first half saw Canvey score in the 3rd minute and by half time Carshalton should have at least equalised , missing 3 relatively easy chances. But a good game with good banter from the crowd. For the remainder of the season? Carshalton will struggle. their defence was not solid and they did not take chances in front of goal, but their effort levels were high and a run of decent results could get them out of trouble. The run needs to start soon. Canvey looked a strong and solid side who will be in the top half of the table. Carshalton also do an excellent burger and Chips. Thanks to Parcelforce however there were no programmes today.
Most of my blogs have an element of humour or certainly need to be taken tongue in cheek, but this is an exception. We all know the story. The hoax call and now the apparent suicide of the nurse who took the call. Nothing has yet been reported from the Australian DJs. Certainly no apology. Hoax calls can go wrong and in fact in many cases are illegal. Many so called “pranks” fall easily into the spectrum of bullying. These wonderful DJs clearly blessed with an empathy rarely seen in others did a prank to presumably make themselves look good and no doubt to further their career. There is a direct link between their prank and this death. What they would not know or necessarily care about, is that some people are vulnerable and often not in an obvious way. I am fully against any sort of prank that ridicules others in a meaningless way. What I read about this pair of DJs does not lead me to sympathise at all with their plight.
If anything good comes out of this it will be that such behaviours are seen as not harmless and in fact rarely ever are. These types of pranks at school often have left children harmed and potentially damaged.
My own view? I am immensely angry at their behaviour which was neither clever nor actually very interesting. Whatever they expected to happen means that they will have to take full responsibility for their actions and one waits to see what they are. This is a very sad story, but more than this, this is not a story but actually a real life event, that will leave a family broken and damaged.
Not many games to watch today. The fixture list was not kind to me, so it came down to a few to choose from and having not been to Walton Casuals this season, this one was the selected game. Friendly little club, easy parking, only 8£ to get in, nice burger, cup of tea. Altogether a decent experience. Crowd was low, guess less than 100 and half seemed to be from Leatherhead. The game was no-contest really and Leatherhead won despite being down to 10 men for two thirds of the game. They played the better football, were more skilful, had the luck but also had the better keeper. Wlaton might think they were unlucky to have a goal dissallowed for offside but in all honestry this was a one way game. This is going to be a long season for Walton Casuals.
Before today they sat bottom of Ryman South with a negative goal difference of 15 and it showed. I hope they get out of trouble but frankly at this stage cannot see how.
A few photos from the game including one of the Leatherhead players who decided to pull down his shorts during the game!
Pants down but why?
Free Kick
Saturday equals visit to the Grumpy Baker. Last week he was grumpy for no reason, today he had a reason. Someone had asked him for a specific cake, but sadly that cake was hanging from the ceiling. sadly also the string was twisted and the cake could not be got down by the assistant. Enter Grumpy Baker, who was also in charge of the coffee machine out the back. He could get it down either. huge pole arrives, stick that is not nationality, and it would seeem that Grumpy Baker, (can we call him GB?) was either going to explode, spontaneously combust or create a hole in his nice bakery ceiling. Luckily the string untangled and the deed could be completed. tune in next saturday for the next edition of Grumpy Baker.
A curious incident whilst watching Walton Casuals v Leatherhead in Ryman South. One of the Leatherhead players just pulled his shorts down! No clear reason why he needed to do it. Enjoy.
Pants down but why?
Ice Dancing was not actually what I had expected to see on a short cruise aboard Navigator of the Seas, but there was an ice rink and there was a show. A real challenge to get photographs essentially almost in the dark, but working with high ISO speed and trwating the skaters as though they were Formula 1 racing cars helped. Anyway a few shots from what was truly a brilliant spectacle that was enthralling.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 