The worst sporting week of my life
Ok, that's a little extreme, but you try and be a Coventry/England/Great Britain fan. It all started so well:
Saturday 04/11/2006
Australia 12 Great Britain 23 (Rugby League Tri-Nations)
A tremendous performance by the Lions to beat Australia on their own soil for the first time in many many years, and to look very likely to progress to the final. It was a real battling display, they really had Australia rattled and the latter were lucky not have the same player sent off twice in the first quarter of the game. Things are certainly looking up for the league team.
Things started to go awry:
Sunday 05/11/2006
England 20 New Zealand 41 (Rugby Union)
I doubt if even the most optimistic of England fans would have expected anything from this game. As the pundits said, it's more about the performance than the result (read: we are going to get gubbed). Yes, we were slaughtered, but considering Hodgson missed kicks worth 10 points, and we had, what appeared to be, a perfectly legitimate try disallowed, the result could have been quite different. That apart, New Zealand we much better than us and were always going to be 20 or so points ahead. But I didn't think we played that badly, there were some bright spells and I thought we had improved from the previous 5 games (lost them all).
During the game I also had an epiphany. For 3 years I've been hanging onto the World Cup victory and truly believed we were better than we are. that things would suddenly click into place and we'd start beating teams like France by 40 points as we did in that golden period. I realised about 10 minutes into the game that this was false hope, and we actually are shit, so any improvement would be a real bonus. Because of this I actually enjoyed the match and thought there were some real highlights for us.
Then it went well and truly tits up:
Monday 06/11/2006
Stoke 1 Coventry 0 (Championship)
We've been live on Sky thrice this season so far, drawing one and winning two, so I was quite confident of another favourable result. Oh dear. A dismal performance, and we should have been 5 down by half time but for the ineptitude of Stoke's strikeforce. I was hoping for a half time rocket that would kick us into life, but it never happened and Stoke were all over us again. But the longer it went on, the goal they deserved looked less likely. That is until some clobber pokes a 45 yard cannonball into the back of the net. 1-0 Stoke. There was a real pea-souper coming down and I was hoping against hope that it would make conditions unplayable, but it never did. They had a player sent off for nothing in particular and then we decided to play some football. We got the ball in the net, but it was ruled out for offside. Terrible game, terrible performance, deserved to lose.
Friday 10/11/2006
Prime Minister's XI beat England by 166 runs (Ashes warm up)
Not much I can say about this one, other than pathetic. PM XI got 347 in their 50 overs at nearly 7 an over. They hit 30 off the penultimate over and finished the innings off with a 6. We responded with 181. Not a great start to our Ashes defence. We all know England have gone backwards since last summer, but this is not a good warm up to take on the Aussies.
Saturday 11/11/2006
New Zealand 34 Great Britain 4 (Rugby League Tri Nations)
After last week's performance against Australia, I really thought this one would be a stroll in the park. Even if NZ beat us, they still had to win by a difference of over 15 points to stop us getting into the final. So a final berth was inevitable right? Uhuh. A gutless display which saw us get humiliated. Now we have to beat Australia in Brisbane next weekend to make it into the final, which let's face it, ain't going to happen. To make matter's worse, Sean Long has left the squad and is on his way home. Reasons unknown.
England 18 Argentina 25 (Rugby Union)
That's 7 in a row now, first time this has happened since 1972 apparently. I don't think we have ever lost to Argentina either, certainly not at Twickenham. I have yet to see England play so poorly, Argentina didn't even look like scoring, except for their breakaway try and the glut of kickable penalties that we kept giving them. The worse thing about England at the moment is that people have stopped taking the piss out of us. I no longer receive anti-English jokes in my inbox. We are the joke now. I liken the current England team to that friend that we all have, the one that gets drunk all the time, at any occasion. The one that will get drunk at a christening, or pop round on Xmas day whilst your family are there and proceed to drink anything you have, be it Port, Sherry, ASDA pale ale. And then, without being offensive, just makes a complete tit of himself. You stand back and think 'I like you, but you are an embarrassment. I am embarrassed for you. I'm not sure I ever want to see you again in my life. Please, if you have one ounce of dignity left, just stand up and leave.' I am not sure if I want to watch England against South Africa now, they really have upset me this time!
And finally:
Coventry 1 Derby 2
Considering the last two home games against Derby have finished 6-2 and 6-1 in our favour, I had a bit of confidence that my beloved Sky Blues would pull me out of my sporting depression. How wrong I was.
What a shitty week.
Saturday 04/11/2006
Australia 12 Great Britain 23 (Rugby League Tri-Nations)
A tremendous performance by the Lions to beat Australia on their own soil for the first time in many many years, and to look very likely to progress to the final. It was a real battling display, they really had Australia rattled and the latter were lucky not have the same player sent off twice in the first quarter of the game. Things are certainly looking up for the league team.
Things started to go awry:
Sunday 05/11/2006
England 20 New Zealand 41 (Rugby Union)
I doubt if even the most optimistic of England fans would have expected anything from this game. As the pundits said, it's more about the performance than the result (read: we are going to get gubbed). Yes, we were slaughtered, but considering Hodgson missed kicks worth 10 points, and we had, what appeared to be, a perfectly legitimate try disallowed, the result could have been quite different. That apart, New Zealand we much better than us and were always going to be 20 or so points ahead. But I didn't think we played that badly, there were some bright spells and I thought we had improved from the previous 5 games (lost them all).
During the game I also had an epiphany. For 3 years I've been hanging onto the World Cup victory and truly believed we were better than we are. that things would suddenly click into place and we'd start beating teams like France by 40 points as we did in that golden period. I realised about 10 minutes into the game that this was false hope, and we actually are shit, so any improvement would be a real bonus. Because of this I actually enjoyed the match and thought there were some real highlights for us.
Then it went well and truly tits up:
Monday 06/11/2006
Stoke 1 Coventry 0 (Championship)
We've been live on Sky thrice this season so far, drawing one and winning two, so I was quite confident of another favourable result. Oh dear. A dismal performance, and we should have been 5 down by half time but for the ineptitude of Stoke's strikeforce. I was hoping for a half time rocket that would kick us into life, but it never happened and Stoke were all over us again. But the longer it went on, the goal they deserved looked less likely. That is until some clobber pokes a 45 yard cannonball into the back of the net. 1-0 Stoke. There was a real pea-souper coming down and I was hoping against hope that it would make conditions unplayable, but it never did. They had a player sent off for nothing in particular and then we decided to play some football. We got the ball in the net, but it was ruled out for offside. Terrible game, terrible performance, deserved to lose.
Friday 10/11/2006
Prime Minister's XI beat England by 166 runs (Ashes warm up)
Not much I can say about this one, other than pathetic. PM XI got 347 in their 50 overs at nearly 7 an over. They hit 30 off the penultimate over and finished the innings off with a 6. We responded with 181. Not a great start to our Ashes defence. We all know England have gone backwards since last summer, but this is not a good warm up to take on the Aussies.
Saturday 11/11/2006
New Zealand 34 Great Britain 4 (Rugby League Tri Nations)
After last week's performance against Australia, I really thought this one would be a stroll in the park. Even if NZ beat us, they still had to win by a difference of over 15 points to stop us getting into the final. So a final berth was inevitable right? Uhuh. A gutless display which saw us get humiliated. Now we have to beat Australia in Brisbane next weekend to make it into the final, which let's face it, ain't going to happen. To make matter's worse, Sean Long has left the squad and is on his way home. Reasons unknown.
England 18 Argentina 25 (Rugby Union)
That's 7 in a row now, first time this has happened since 1972 apparently. I don't think we have ever lost to Argentina either, certainly not at Twickenham. I have yet to see England play so poorly, Argentina didn't even look like scoring, except for their breakaway try and the glut of kickable penalties that we kept giving them. The worse thing about England at the moment is that people have stopped taking the piss out of us. I no longer receive anti-English jokes in my inbox. We are the joke now. I liken the current England team to that friend that we all have, the one that gets drunk all the time, at any occasion. The one that will get drunk at a christening, or pop round on Xmas day whilst your family are there and proceed to drink anything you have, be it Port, Sherry, ASDA pale ale. And then, without being offensive, just makes a complete tit of himself. You stand back and think 'I like you, but you are an embarrassment. I am embarrassed for you. I'm not sure I ever want to see you again in my life. Please, if you have one ounce of dignity left, just stand up and leave.' I am not sure if I want to watch England against South Africa now, they really have upset me this time!
And finally:
Coventry 1 Derby 2
Considering the last two home games against Derby have finished 6-2 and 6-1 in our favour, I had a bit of confidence that my beloved Sky Blues would pull me out of my sporting depression. How wrong I was.
What a shitty week.
posted by SkyBlueSnowy @ 9:44 am
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