Germany 06 vs West Germany 88

Not done much since my last posting. Made my overly-late debut for the Rangers and really enjoyed playing. Went bowling with work and got my new personal best of 135.

So 100 000 England supporters are expected to make their way to Germany this summer. The world has moved on a long way since the last time (then West) Germany hosted a big tournament, the disastrous Euro 88 – being my first ever international football tournament I remember it well, though for all the wrong reasons – England were humiliated finishing bottom of their group, losing 1-0 to Ireland, 3-1 to Holland and 5-1 to the USSR. Only 3000 fans went over to West Germany, and it probably at least half of them were hooligans. This was at a time when English teams were banned from all European competitions after Heysel. There was a lot of trouble and everywhere England went the towns were trashed. The tournament got relatively little publicity on TV (and most people seemed to support the team England were playing against) followed almost exclusively by men. Games were played in half-empty stadiums with barbed-wire fencing separating rival fans. France had failed to qualify and were about as good as Wales at football. The Soviet Union was still a superpower (not a bankrupt 3rd world state with the living standards of Ethiopia!).

And now England have probably the best chance they’ve ever had of winning, Germany are a bit of a joke and aren't the feared machine they used to be, football is ultra-cool and trendy, swimming in money and footballers are worshipped and have more power than most world leaders. It’s a funny old game.

Aiming High!

In Response to Mini’s question, yes the following towns in Poland now have cheap flights going there: Bydgozcz, Lodz, Poznan, Rzescow, Szceczin, Wraclow, Krakow, Warsaw – couple of tongue-twisters in there, but some go from Liverpool and Krakow from Manchester. Perhaps something for the future.

Traffic-permitting, I shall hopefully make my debut at football on Thursday. Though with some of the worst control, least experience and abysmal fitness levels on the BRFC side, my aim is merely to try and convince the opposition that we are not playing a man short!

I did play with work a couple of weeks back and it would be nice to inform you that I impressed everyone with my silky skills, but I’m afraid I was dire. I would also like to excuse myself from the recently imposed ‘no kicking a ball in the warm up’ rule, since my feet have not actually come into contact with a football since mid-2005 (with the exception of the little kickabout at work) and I will need to check I can still remember what to do!

Project management

Considering the players of BRFC seem to take a generally negative stance towards region (and Christianity in particular) these blogs seem to be turning quite pro-Christian all of a sudden; people giving things up for Lent (and even knowing when Lent is); raising money for charity; supporting free speech…

I see ‘Europe’s last dictator’, Lukashenko of Belarus managed to win the recent elections with the help of a couple of rigged ballot papers and a bit of intimidation from his KGB mates (but lets face it, he would have won by a mile anyway and appears to be very popular) and this have caused a bit of a stir in the western media. Couldn’t help but think it was a bit hypocritical of the US to criticize, when Bush was elected on a very dodgy ballot!

Anyway, a further Markstock meeting took place on Sunday. My hope of ‘going back to basics’ i.e. just get a couple of tents pitched, a BBQ and some music and let everything else take care of itself seems to be drifting in the opposite direction. Big Pete has been issuing more ‘rules’ – no drinking of alcoholic beverages to take place before the fighting tournament, a revising of the rota so that the events scheduled more strictly, disappointment with the size of the ‘boulder’ etc. Not sure how smoothly all of this is going to operate after the consumption of large amounts of alcohol (pissed people throwing a rock around, possibly in the dark and people wrestling near fires and glass bottles) but all we can hope for is good weather…