Jack’s Self Confidence in his football abilities..

Driving to football on Sunday to play against AFC Brightwell, Jack decided to tell me which professional footballers he's like:

"I've got Maradona's skill and speed, Messi's left foot...and height..I've got Cantona's goal celebration and I've got...Ronaldinho's goofy teeth!"

I almost crashed the car...

We made to the ground and he then had a chance to show me and he certainly did! He’s getting better and better it has to be said and if he doesn’t get Player of the Year again this season I’d be stunned. In saying that, he missed a penalty today but his all-round play and the goal he scored was so pleasing.

Sunday’s match was odd, I only had 10 players in the end and admittedly Brightwell are struggling but the performance of all the team was so pleasing, they won 4-0 in the end and I can still see all four goals in my mind’s eye. I shouldn’t be affected by how the kids do in a match but this time I was made up for the rest of the day…sad really.

What pleased me most was the number of crosses we put into the box and whenever someone was out wide they tried a trick or a skill and one of the goals caused by Fred’s wing play was an absolute pleasure. He’s getting better every single week and he does this ‘lollypop’ as Big Ron would describe it and it sells the defender nearly every time.

So Fred got the ball, did his trick and went past the player as if he wasn’t even there, it was incredibly perfect, put in a deep cross and Pierce scored with his right foot again. Similarly, Jack did some tricks on the edge of the box and was lining up to shoot when shut down by 3 defenders and he changed the angle of his contact so it turned into a pass down the left channel, Pierce crossed and Max headed in. Very pleasing indeed because this is what we’re practising every Friday night, so score two goals from training routines is great!

Anyway, back to only 10 players this week but against Abingdon which is frustrating, but that’s the problem with the location of the team…affluent area so all go away on holidays!

Ah well, we’ll see how it goes!

Bootleg Beatles

It’s 5.50am and I am driving into work – got up nice and early! I was up at 3.50am because of loads of work going through my mind but decided to get into the office bright and early. It’s dark but towards London it’s lightening up and looking good. It’s busy on the road already.

So taking the chance to update the diary – notes from the weekend then include:

We spent the whole weekend painting the front rooms and ceilings – looking good. It’s taken ages though.

On Saturday night Tash and I went out on our own to a concert at the New Theatre which was the Bootleg Beatles, we were supposed to be going with Nikki and Gaz but they decided to cancel for some reason, but because we’d paid for the tickets we were not going to do the same so we went along. Admittedly, I wasn’t overly bothered about going in the first place but out of low expectations you can be surprised. It was a really, really good evening. Basically, we had a Beatles concert from when they first set out in the 60’s through their different stages like St Pepper and hippy etc. Really enjoyed it.

Carl Mullins Funeral – Tuesday 28th February 2012

Incredibly sad day today in that I attended the funeral for Carl in the morning before going to work. It was well attended by so many people and there were a few old faces that I recognised and who recognised me. There was definitely a good few hundred there.

The service was good, the highlight being the speech written by Leah (his sister) but read out by her husband(?), it was fun and moving speech and captured her life and memories with Carl. All things that anyone that knew him could relate to I suspect. The vicar then went over-board in his part of the service and lost some of the congregation with his well-meaning words of comfort. But never mind that, we’d not gone along to listen to him.

You can only guess at why Carl ended his life, not that I will speculate, if ever it’s understood or explained then I’d be interested, but not in idle gossip. I did like the photo on the Order of Service, it was his one in Oxford Boys in his blazer and tie and that brought back many memories indeed, not just of Carl but the school as a whole and there were a lot of other lads that would have been the same having gone to that school.

I’ll remember Carl as the clown who was centre of attention, laughing and making stupid comments and flicking his wedge cut flowing hair that the never washed so it would retain its style! I think that’s a good memory to hold of someone and it captured what he was like in the later years at school and 6th Form.

Such a shame, such a real sad shame that will haunt his family for ever which is another tragedy.