Bit of rugby, bit of sparkles...

Good day on Saturday :-)

Started off by heading off to meet Owen and some of his friends to watch the AllBlacks play England - I showed my support by wearing mainly black, my 'Born Here' t-shirt, my icebreakers t-shirt - so very NZ! Game was good - I certainly got enough stick from the English - these people are so rude! They barely know me and were giving me stick about the ABs peaking too early... :-). I'm dreading the World Cup next year!

Then it was off to Blackheath to meet up with Nicola and her friends to wander up to Blackheath to see the fireworks display. Photos below and on Flickr - it was a good display, and it was free. Always a bonus!

The Ashes 2009

So again I had managed to secure tickets for the first day of the last Ashes test at the Oval - Kevin and I went last time with Craig, Sarah and Nola back in 2005. Having re-read that post I think the crowd this time was definitely quieter than it was in 2005...

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing (Craig mismanaging his diary, Owen being poorly), the final line up was me, Finbarr (came over from Ireland for it), Kevin and Craig. We had a great day - no rain, England won the toss, and so we settled in for a day of spectating - with just a wee bit of beer as well...

Saturday I went round to Kevin's to watch the afternoon session (he has Sky and I don't), and I was back there on Sunday to watch England take the little urn again :-). I really would not have been suprised had Australia managed to pull it off - and England took the wickets very sporadically so I was never that comfortable that it would happen, but finally it did.

I was very pleased - although I did feel for Ricky Ponting. The holy grail for England is now to retain it when they go to Australia... that would be a real sporting feat!

Some photos below, but also more on Flickr.

Craig and me

Craig and me
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Craig modelling my new sun hat

Craig, me and Kevin

Craig, me and Kevin
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Happy in the sun :-)

Beer!

Beer!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

We did watch the cricket as well...

Me - a rugby head?

Well I don't think I quite qualify as one, but I do enjoy getting into the game when I get a free ticket!

Saturday was great fun - we had great seats at the back of the middle tier in the East Stand - looking side on to the goal posts in the NZ half for the second half - so perfect views to watch the tries go over! The only way we could tell if Dan Carter had managed to get the ball over properly however was whether the English fans cheered loudly or not! The singing of 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' during the haka was amazing, and every now and then the crowd would start up again to try and get the England team engaged in the game. Obviously though that didn't work! Luckily for England Dan was so off form, otherwise the final score would have been even worse.

After the rugby it was straight round to Simon's place to put up a couple of banners and blow up some balloons, and then help him celebrate his birthday. Not quite the over top affair of last year but that combined with the day at the rugby did mean that Sunday was very quiet as I let my body recover... :-).

Waiting for England to come out

Waiting for England to come out
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Just before England came out - to a deafening roar!

All Blacks clapping the crowd

All Blacks clapping the crowd
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Taken at the end of the game, as the All Blacks clapped the remaining supporters.

Just to confirm...

for any siblings in any doubt - I will in no way shape or form be supporting England at the rugby match tomorrow...

In fact, I am hoping (shopping expedition dependent) to be dressed entirely in black, one item of which will be an All Blacks top (last worn when they played England in the Rugby World Cup back in 1999...).

I support England always - unless they are playing my home country.

Bring it on!!

Nail biter!

On Thursday me, Tracey and Kevin headed off to the Oval to watch the Black Caps vs England in a one-day international.

Our seats were only 3 rows back from the pitch (is it a pitch for cricket?) which was great. I'm sure we must have ended up on tv!

Absolutely brilliant game - I've never been at such a nail biter before! To go right down to the last ball on the last over... and then to win through an English error! There were lots of very cross English fans as we left the ground...

And how could I not mention...

that the mighty Villa not only scored the first goal in the new Arsenal stadium but also almost won! And kept them to a draw - no mean feat when they haven't beaten Arsenal for a huge number of seasons (something like 13 - or maybe 8. Anyhow a lot!).

But of course the papers were only full of Arsenal this morning, rather than the fact the Villa played really well, and almost beat the Gunners!

Pah!

And so it ends...

And what an ending it was!

We went and watched the final at the Firestation where Owen had thought he had booked us a table. But they had lost our booking... But we got a seat and stayed - and had some very mediocre food - but what did we care - we were watching the Beautiful Game!

Which sadly didn't end so beautifully for Zinedine Zidane. No one could believe what we were watching as he headbutted Marco Materazzi. Even now it still seems unbelievable. And such a shame that he ended his career on a note like that.

Everyone was convinced that Italy would lose on penalties, but they cruised through them - and as I was supporting Italy anyhow I was very pleased! No particular reason for my allegiance to Italy - except the fact that 21 years ago today the French sunk the Rainbow Warrior, and the Italians had more 'totty' in the team...

And so it ends...

Ah yes - yet again the England dream is over. Again to penalties to Portugal. Fortunately we were watching it at friend's of Kevin's as opposed to being in a pub. That would have been too much I think.

General consensus seems to be that England hadn't really deserved to go much further - and how they would have proceeded without Rooney available in the next round... But as for Ronaldo - considering him and Rooney are team mates I think their first few training sessions will be tense to say the least!

Ah well - at least Portugal is my sweepstake team so my hopes of getting some money back are still alive!

Divided loyalties... well sort of

England face Portugal in the quarter finals on Saturday... if England win, then my sweepstake win hopes are out the window.... but if Portugal win the country will plunge into mourning and despair. Caught between a rock and a hard place am I!

Game number 2 for England...

Trinidad & Tobago vs England kicks off at 5pm today - not a great time so probably won't end up watching it - or not much of it anyhow.

As has been noted England do need to step their game up a bit, but a win is a win, 3 points is 3 points, and if they win their group, and Germany win their group (which is looking likely) then they won't have to play each other in the next round - a good thing! Let's hope that England don't fall apart in this afternoon's game....

I've been enjoying reading the Guardian's minute by minute reports of the games - definitely worth checking out, even after the fact. You can access them via their World Cup site here. Make sure you look for the minute by minute coverage not just the article on the game.

And Portugal have won their first game so my sweepstake hopes are still alive :-)

And so it's begun...!

The World Cup is finally upon us! It kicked off on Friday and England's first game was on Saturday. They won but it was through Paraguay's own goal. But 3 points are 3 points!

Our World Cup started off on Friday night going to an Embrace gig - another one of our fave live bands, and also the one who have recorded the official England World Cup song - 'World At Your Feet'. And they played a two hour gig so it was fab!! Great start to the tournament. Just need England to win now - I've heard a rumour that if they do we get a day off so thats another reason to keep our fingers crossed for an England victory!!

Next game is Thursday night and if they win that they'll top the group...

Keep an eye out forPortugal as well - thats who I've got in the sweepstake at work!

Easter Friday = Rugby League

Went off to watch the Harlequins Rugby League team play the Catalan Dragons... We had been hoping to see Stacey Jones play for the Catalans but he was injured - although he was sat just in front of us so we did see him!

The Quins won quite comfortably and we saw a couple of good tries. Funny game tho - compared to football it was pretty amateur. A slightly disfunctional scoreboard, a shockingly bad band of dancers (The Harlequin Harts...) and transfers were signalled by a piece of laminated cardboard being held up - but a pretty loyal support base. And lots of NZ/Island looking boys in the team!

The Quins play at the Twickenham Stoop - baby stadium next to its more famous neighbour...

The week that was

Despite thinking that I didn't have a busy week planned I ended up being a busy bee this week - hence no posts till now :-). Quick review below...

Saturday: Kevin went off to watch Villa draw 0-0 with Charlton and I went in to town in the evening to meet him and his friends for a very delish burger at the Eagle Bar & Diner. Bit like eating dinner in a night club but it was a fine burger! Friends of his friends were down from Scotland - all very happy as Scotland had beaten England in the rugby that day.

Wednesday: We went to see The Exonerated which was just superb. We had Stockard Channing, Delroy Lindo and Aidan Quinn in our cast - so I've now seen two stars from The West Wing at the theatre here recently. It was a great production - read more about it on the The Exonerated's site here. It is worth checking out the stories under 'Facts'. It very simply tells the stories of innocent people condemned to death in the USA and how they manage to avoid being murdered. Very very powerful.

Thursday: Went out with friends to celebrate our friend Nicola's new job - she was one of the many made redundant from EY last year so we were all very happy to toast her new job at The Horse Bar. Although I must learn that mixing champagne with beer doesn't work so well the next day...

Friday: Hooray - Kevin the star managed to get us Saturday day tickets for the V Festival. Great lineup and as it sold out in a record 3 hours it was a pretty cool achievement as well! So we will be off to Chelmsford in August!

Saturday: Nothing too exciting yet, but Kev and I went for a lovely walk along the towpath from Surbiton to Richmond. Beautiful day but still very cold. And in a couple of hours we are planning to watch the Hurricanes play the Cheetahs - go the 'Canes!

And they won!

After yet another nailbiting game, England did manage to win the Ashes back! Watched the end of the game in the pub yesterday, and then stayed for the presentations as well. Really nice to be in a pub where everyone was interested in the after match interviews, and were also clapping the Australians as well - very magnaminous (sp?) in victory we all were!

Check out the BBC website for photos from the parade - I love the drunken ones of Flintoff. He was apparently still sat in the bar at 5.45am with a G&T. And it didn't sound like Pietersen had stopped drinking from after the game till they got on the bus!

An absolutely great series.

The Ashes - Day 1 at the Oval, Thursday Sept 8 2005

What a great day! Absolutely superb - we saw Andrew Strauss get his century (my first 'live' century), Flintoff get his 50 (so disappointing when he went out for 71 tho - the crowd would have erupted if he had got to 100...), and Shane Warne take 5 wickets. While it was brilliant to see "Warney" get 5 wickets, it was a shame it was at the expense of the English cricket team... Highlights of the day for me included:

• Brilliant sun all day - from 10.30 till 6 the sun blazed down. Incredibly lucky as every day since then has been affected by either rain or poor light.
• All of the blokes around us getting clucky and broody around Nola (Craig & Sarah's 4 month old who came along with her mum and dad). Offering the ice packs from their cool bags to help cool her down, wet flannels being lent, requests to hold her... Everyone just loved the fact that she was starting so young - one guy congratulated C & S, saying "Well done". Obviously the pinnacle of good parenting is to take them to sporting events at a young age!
• Glen McGrath giving as good as he got when he was down on the boundary. In response to chants of "You thought you'd win 5 nil", he pretended to kick a football and held up one finger, referring to England's 1-0 defeat to Northern Ireland the night before...
• Crowd chanting 'Hi ho, hi ho, its off to work we go' to Justin Langer when he was on the boundary...
• The incredibly irritating Australian woman somewhere behind us who spent the whole day yelling 'Bowl him Shane', 'Well bowled Shane' or 'Go Shane' in a very high pitched voice. By the end of the day every Englishman in the vicinity was mimicking the voice...
• The brass band playing outside when we were queuing to get in, playing 'Rule Britannia' and 'The Great Escape'.

As I type this it is Sunday afternoon and England have gone off again for bad light. And incredibly they got Australia out for six less than their innings. This has been a brilliant series!! I'll post photos when I get my film developed...