GOFFA FROM THE BLOCK

Go on, give it a go!  What harm can it do?

A great man (can't remember his name) once said "music was my first love and it will be my last",  very profound I'm sure you will agree.  Shame it was such a shit song (no comments arguing the contrary please). And for a very long time I would have yeah, that's me but this summer I've rediscovered my real first love, cricket. I watched, played and coached cricket for a huge chunk of every summer for most of my life until around the time I started writing my original blog at Livejournal .  In fact part of the reason I started blogging was because of the void left in my life when I stopped coaching the juniors at Thornaby Cricket Club. I packed in for a number of personal reasons but the truth was I just wanted to do some other stuff.  Just have a flick back through the summer months of my blogs to see what I've been up to.  I might even have a look myself if only to confirm how little I've talked about cricket  I've just lost touch with th...

I bought my ticket in January and it was sold out by February.  No mean feat even if the tickets were only a bargain bucket £8. From what I've read the general feeling about the  RG Reunion shows admirably promoted by the genial Steve Harland, Dave Griffiths and Gary McGhee is the amount of shared love in the air.  Can only assume that these are the opinions of people who thought there was love in the air at the RG back in the day. I like to think I'm a pretty non-judgmental fair minded kind of fellar but I've never warmed to drunken tatoo adorned ear-ringed baldies barging past me silently daring me to challenge them for spilling drink over me. Probably all in my mind but I wasn't going to check out my paranoia.  They were probably harmless and in fairness there weren't any fights or bottles thrown at the support band, the rather splendid Year of Birds but let's just say it wasn't The Kids Are Solid Gold. Ste asked why I didn't ta...

Bloody Hell,  is anybody else depressed?  Not only have the sublime Olympics finished but it has just dawned on me that the ridiculous spectacle of the Premier League is nearly upon us. And on that bombshell I'm off to bed I've got to go and do some tax tomorrow. PS - Here's one I offer without excuse to try and lift us from our post olympic blues.  Ninja from the fantastic Go Team! taken at last week's Stockton Festival. 

How great has it been that our political pathetique’s squabbles have been kept off the front pages for a couple of weeks? Obvously Cam and Bozza are claiming credit for the games and probably fair pay to them. Maybe Blurgh, Kings Kenny and Becks deserve a mention as well. I also noticed Harriet Harmen took the opportunity to tell us how great she was for the part she played in making the decision to bid for the games although I was more interested in her admission that Labour got it wrong over gambling regulation. “If we knew then what we know now?”? Fuck, why didn’t she just to East Middlesbrough with one of our local mp's to see the social problems caused by gambling. We all knew ! At least they've binned the idea of the super casino's haven't they? No - Looks like Labour's u-turn is a bit too late for the Boro. In answer to the Northern Echo - no a Super Casino is not good for Middlesbrough. For once I am not looking forward to seeing how this one pans out. ...

There’s that end of summer holidays around tonight don’t you think? I think it’s been said already by a number of commentators but what are we all going to do tomorrow?   I’ve loved the last 16 days, following everything from getting up on in the morning until going to bed wherever I’ve been, thanks partly to the power if my   iPhone but mainly to the wall to wall TV coverage.   It’s felt great to be British for the first time in a very long time.   I fretted along with everybody else   during early days when it looked like it was all going to turn pear shaped (medals wise anyway) and basked in the reflected glory of every one of the 29 golds as they rolled in.   From Mo Farrah and Jessica Ennis to the Taekwondo and that most hardly of sports, the dressage.   Some of my personal top bits - Not  fan of boxing but if men can knock ten bells out of each I don't see why women shouldn't be allowed to and I never tired of seeing and listening...