The action has started. Friday night was the opener in Paris with France playing Romania.
We have been accessing the action through alternative routes. Primer TV is showing some in NZ. Sky has the rights but is showing it on a specific channel so not through our Fanpass subscription- as Sky Sports internet access.
So we have used VPN to access ITV sport and will do the same to watch on the BBC.
So far so good and an example of technology overcoming the rights lock-down that is hard to maintain in the modern world.
And as far as the football was concerned-England looked good, capable but lacked control. Should have had the game in the bag before the last minute equaliser.
He has often said that his early impressions of the world of work shaped his belief in the trade union movement. His father, a bus driver for 25 years, “was in a union and got decent pay and conditions” whereas his mum, a stay-at-home seamstress, “wasn’t, and didn’t”.
He lived with his parents and siblings in a cramped three-bedroomed house on the Henry Prince Estate in Earlsfield, south-west London, sharing a bunkbed with one of his brothers until he left home in his 20s.
He attended the local comprehensive, Ernest Bevin College, which he describes as “a tough school – it wasn’t always a bed of roses”. The nickname “Bevin boys” was at that time in that part of south London a byword for bad behaviour.
It was at school that he first began to gravitate towards politics, joining the Labour Party aged 15. He credits the school’s head, Naz Bokhari, who happened to be the first Muslim headteacher at a UK secondary school, with making him realise “skin colour or background wasn’t a barrier to making something with your life”.
Mr Khan was raised a Muslim and has never shied away from acknowledging the importance of his faith. In his maiden speech as an MP he spoke about his father teaching him Mohammed’s sayings, or hadiths – in particular the principle that “if one sees something wrong, one has the duty to try to change it”.
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He was an able student who loved football, boxing and cricket – he even had a trial for Surrey County Cricket Club as a teenager. He has since spoken about the racist abuse he and his brothers faced at Wimbledon and Chelsea football matches, saying he felt “safer” watching at home and became a Liverpool fan simply “because they were playing such great football at the time”.
So now my claim to fame in life is that I used to play Sunday morning football on the astroturf in Wandsworth with the Mayor of London.
He will resign his seat at Westminster. TC to get the chance? You never know.
The football world cup as hit New Zealand and we have been part of the action. The U-20 world cup that is.
No representation from England of course.
Joe and I did go to see a couple of games a group game between Argentina who were at that point one of the favourites and Ghana. That was a good game with great skill on display. Ghana went 3-0 up and Argentina came back to 3-2 in the last ten minutes looking like they may take an unexpected point from the game. Ghana were the better team and played fast, running, attacking football. Some fine talent on display.
It came to pass that Argentina went out t this stage and Ghana in the round of sixteen.
We also watched the Wellington hosted quarter final between Senegal and Uzbekistan. Not such great quality and I wondered all through the game how these two had progressed. A turgid game with a lower level of skill on display than the previous viewing. Senegal won deservedly but I cannot see them beating Brazil.
No more games in wellington. The semis are in Christchurch and Auckland and the final in Auckland too. The crowds were not great; 5+ thousand for the first game and 10+ for the quarter-final, and the latter with lots of kids.
I don’t think the tournament has set alight the Kiwi public. Not that I have seen anyway.
Well the situation remains tight at the top of the Championship as the BBC report:
How it stands after 39 games
This is the closest promotion race since the second tier became known as the Championship in 2004.
So once again Brentford remain in the limelight. Still a chance of a trip just down the road to Wembley? Automatic promotion looks too far off with their drop in form recently.
Yesterday was another trip to the Cake Tin in the beautiful Wellington weather, this time to watch England take on Sri Lanka. I went with Joe and Eleanor and Swen came along too-thanks to the free tickers supplied by Mark Wotherspoon.
The match did not go England’s way. Soundly beaten as their bowels did not at all limit the Sri Lankan batmen who reached the target of 310 with 1 wicket down.
Yesterday I went off to the stadium thinking I was about to see a good day of entertainment watching England play the ‘Black Caps’ in the Cricket World Cup.
The day was a good one for watching cricket. Sunny, warm and calm. Wellington looked good in front of the world. We had good tickets and avoided the sun burn risk. However, the day did not pass as expected.
However, the duration of the game was somewhat shorter than expected. England were hammered as they collapsed to 123 all out in 33.2 overs and NZ reached the target in 12.2 overs with McCullum hitting 77 in 25 balls! He was hitting everything into the stands. That was impressive but at the time one thought that the bowlers might make it a bit more difficult for him by not giving him quite so many short balls, reaching him waist high, to hit to the short side boundaries.
It was a awful but unbelievable thing to watch. It is difficult to believe that the England can recover from this experience.
The good aspect to all this is that Mark Wotherspoon is in town as he is the England team doctor. So I managed to meet up with him a couple of times during the week, and hopefully again next week when England return to Wellington to play Sri Lanka after what is expected to be a successful match against Scotland in Christchurch.
England looked to have won through Eric Dier’s goal when Vasili Berezutski equalised in injury time to earn a draw for Russia in Marseille
