My Granddaughter plays Basketball!

Modern Britain!? Tonight I watched my granddaughter play basketball for her school at a school renowned for being in the heart of the town's immigrant community.  I had to pick her up to take her home after the game.

I was definitely the oldest person in the sports hall of Limehurst Academy Loughborough which made me feel slightly uncomfortable but I was ignored and therefore I could watch in comfort.

This was a scene that is probably being enacted all over the country.  My granddaughter is a year 8 pupil competing with year 10 athletes and she really did well. I was so proud of her because some of these girls know how to fight for the ball and were head and shoulders above her in height.

You must understand that it was an alien scene for me.  This was modern education and modern youth. Clearly it did not matter what colour anyone is because it is ignored, it does not matter where anyone came from because it is ignored.  They all compete equally however .... I noticed that socially they remain in their ethnic groups.

In one corner were the Asian girls/boys, in another corner were the white kids, then another corner housed the black kids but they only came together through sport.  Look I only observed the scene but outside of the team the kids knew who they felt comfortable with. It might take yet another generation before these barriers drop if they ever do.

I felt completely alienated from the scene.  I was there to take my granddaughter home after the game.  There were, actually, no other spectators other than teachers and yet I did not feel comfortable. I should be allowed to watch my granddaughter play basketball without feeling unwanted.  Relatives seem to be intruders in their private education system.  I will however turn up again because she is worth it.  

The Unpredictable Joy of Sport!

Yesterday evening we witnessed a sporting phenomena.  In an age where sometimes it appears that everything is preordained and predictable a pair of tennis players turned the sporting world upside down.

Unseeded and unheralded Jonny Marray and his Danish partner Freddie Nielson won the Wimbledon Mens Doubles title. Typically of the inept British mainstream media they had crept unnoticed through round after round despatching seeded pairs unceremoniously one after the other. It was only after they beat the Bryan brothers in the semi-final that the press corps woke up to the fact that Britain, in this case England, had a Wimbledon finalist.

I have been seeking a sporting comparison and the best that I can come up with is Loughborough Dynamo beating Chelsea in the FA Cup Final! After all Marray is no young kid; he is 31 and has been around for a while. I had never heard of his partner but they qualified as a wild card pairing. They are so scratch that Nielson was not even Marray's original partner!

It is so unlikely, so wonderfully unpredictable, that it epitomises the joy of sport. I hope it changes Marray's life because his temperament alone deserves this success.

Oh and one final thought on this tennis day of all tennis days...come on Andy!

Boxing Day

I really quite like Boxing Day because the pressure is off. This is a guy talking and the build up to present giving has gone. We have either won or lost but whatever, if you rely on your daughter for advice you will probably back a winner and I did.

Tomorrow us guys are a bit back to normal. Sport is back on the agenda and we normally have a full football programme, usually Horse Racing is back and down under we continue to contest The Ashes.

The ladies in my family concentrate on food and we usually have a cracking lunch. I will have to entertain the girls which I love but I always have one eye on the game at Pride Park Derby. One good consequence of this really bad weather is that the Kempton Park race meeting featuring the King George VI champion chase has been put back one day! Yippee!

Horse racing is a passion of mine. I have had a great season recently and I have often thought of opening up this blog to my thoughts on betting. I was at one time what the Intelligence Corps described as an 'Analyst' and I was in love with the job. When I left the forces only horse racing replaced the buzz.

And so back to Sky TV and the Ashes series...and we have just won the toss!

The German Football Team

Well damn me they have done it again! In every major football tournament the Germans turn up with their worst team in the history of German football and then proceed to uncover future world stars! This is not an accident. They are so well prepared and the underlying reason is their education system!

Honest I know that you don't believe me but the German education system is superb...well it was when I spent 15 years in the country. During the time that I was on an interpretership course, paid for by the British Army, I witnessed their youth football programme and I also witnessed their education system. They understand the value of education which successive British governments have done their best to malign.

In this country in the meantime we have, thanks to Tony Blair and Gorgon Brown, abolished competitive sport in schools. The boys now have to take part in poncy dance performances alongside the girls who of course love it. I know because I witnessed my beautiful granddaughter (and she really is special) dancing alongside lads who frankly hated the whole deal! The future footballers are prancing about to songs from Abba when they should be learning ball control.

The problem is that at primary school level the male figure is non existent. The football coach is so far removed from the primary school in England that only the sons of dedicated parents are introduced into the English footballing system. Therefore only the kids who have ambitious parents will eventually play football, the rest will probably join gangs and experiment in drugs despite what Dianne Abbot our esteemed black,female MP maintains.

In Germany they begin at 5 years of age. Every village has a club. Every village hosts a tournament and if everything is level then kids take spot kicks! My own son was the goalkeeper for the State (county) age team at the age of eleven. I saw their system at first hand. It continually produces first class German players even if they are sons of immigrants.

Education is the key but in England at least the ladies who run the schools generally don't like sport they like dance! I saw so many fat kids the other night that it is obvious that dance does not replace football unless of course they are very dedicated! Hell dare I offer my services to my grandaughter's local school... naw don't go there...aw hell here we go again! Never mind I am 68 so I would be rejected!

The Ashes v the World Athletics Champs

Well we eventually did it... we stuffed the Aussies at a game which so few people play. It was great theatre...Freddie ran out their talisman Ricky Ponting just at a time that we were beginning to falter. I have been a sports fan for all of my life but somehow I cannot get excited about this victory.

The Aussies have lost all of their superstars in a few years (Ponting excepted). Our cricket team is stuffed full of people who learned their cricket in far flung lands. How many of them were actually bred and born in England? Food for thought!

Now on telly at the same time was the Worlds Athletics Championships. I watched two sessions of the worst coverage of the Worlds Marathon championships that I have ever seen. It must have been some kind of German joke but it wasn't funny. However I digress...because we gained six medals at these championships. That is six medals against the very best in the world.

Jessica Ennis and Philips Oduwu beat every other person on the planet. Jenny Meadows and Lisa Dobrisky were beaten by just one/two people and our relay squads also excelled. What is the value of their medals when tomorrow in the popular press it will be all about Freddie and the boys?

Sorry I think this is all about values...well done the lads at the Oval but hell it cannot compare with what the lads and lassies did in Berlin.