Double Whammy...

Well it was a disastrous sporting weekend! First off I took my boy to the Bridge for Chelsea v Southampton - which we thoroughly deserved to lose. Prime seats, lovely day - it's just that we conspired to give the ball way at every opportunity. Clearly things are badly wrong - only Willian and Falcao appeared to have their heads in the right place - even if the latter was largely ineffective.

Sadio Mane, as his name suggests, really was a lion in this game. He was brilliant.. unfortunately for us.


Sadio Mane...pushing away 'pillars' at Stamford Bridge...like Samson at the Temple of Dagon!

Then we watched the England v Australia rugby match - which was less of a shock really. It was truly laughable that England would ever be favourites for this game. The weight of expectation sucked the price in on England (8/11) leaving Australia as outsiders (11/8). Pocock and Hooper just destroyed us and the England scrum were overwhelmed towards the end.


The whole England team might as well have played with hands on hips for the entire game...

England were never going to win this game on paper - especially after Wales. This was never going to be the Australia of old. This Australian team has just won the Rugby Championship (new Tri-Nations format) which makes them, almost by default, the best team in the world! Why anyone thought it would be anything less than a thrashing I don't know...and it was a thrashing; play the same match again down-under and you could have given the Aussies at least another ten points.

One of the big disappointments though is how England, Australia and Wales ended up in the same group! It needs looking at..some better type of seeding..group stage re-structuring. England and maybe even Fiji should still be 'in' the competition! It's never good for any tournament when the hosts don't make it through the group stage...not least because going out has cost the economy about £500,000,000!

Stamford Bridge...

Chelsea v West Brom, 1905, Division 2.

No trading this Saturday because I went to see Chelsea with my son. Brilliant first half, pretty poor second half but that was mainly due to the West Brom red card - the game just shut down - with the visitors doing a damage limitation exercise and Chelsea not needing to score.

I've been going to the Bridge since I was six years old - used to sit on my dad's shoulders in the South West corner of the ground. Different crowd today. We were surrounded by tourists mainly - a few of whom were just fiddling on their phones throughout the game. Bit of a shame really. Price of success and being a top club in a fashionable area I suppose!

It's a bit of a journey to London so my son and I killed time by associating an animal with our favourite Blues players.

So from the back:

Courtois = Giraffe

Ivanovic = Rhino

Cahill: Kangaroo

Terry: Horse

Azpilicueta: Squirrel

Matic: Manta Ray

Fabregas: Owl

Oscar: Iguana

Willian: Hedgehog

Hazard: Scorpion

Costa: Gorilla

Drogba: Lion

Next time we'll do power tools or vehicles!

Chelsea really are a machine at the moment and I for one love watching Matic destroy the opposition's game as much as I enjoy Hazard's skills. CFC are not quite the finished article and I think they will be better next season - we'll see.

I'll post again this week - maybe try to get some videos up.