A Summer of Sport. Was it Really up to Much?

This blog started out with the joke. It had to be a good joke to get me to blog again, so its worth waiting for.

Secondly, I have an apology to make to you, and my other reader. A summer galavanting in the south of France and I forget about the pair of you. Fear not, I'm back, and on the dole, so I have a lot of time to make it all up to you!

And now for the hard part of writing the blog after all this time.

Its been a great summer for sport. Hasn't it?! Well let's go through the sports one by one.

Football: The European Championships.

Good points:

• A further reminder that England are not as good as the papers seem to claim.
• A thrilling final, in which Spain gave another masterclass.

Bad points:

• Uefa seem to suggest betting underpants were twice as bad as racism. 
• BBC documentaries claiming all Eastern Europeans are racist.

Cricket: South Africa tour England, and the thrilling climax to the Country Championship Division 2

Good Points

• Any two from three teams could go up with the final game still to play in Division 2 (including Yorks and Derbys)
• Seeing bowlers like Steyn, Morkel, and Kemar Roach in England

Bad Points

• Tim Bresnan missing a potential 2nd Division title to play in an 11 over a side game for England.
• Only 6 Tests, compared to 14 limited overs games. I'm not even calling for more tests (although there should have be a five test series), but stop the daft limited overs cricket and let players actually play for their counties. 

Athletics and The Olympics and Paralympics.

Good Points

• Usain Bolt. Proving you may be the fastest man over 100m, but you still cant resist the Swedish Women's Handball Team. 
• Mo Farah. An asylum seeker from Somali inspiring a generation of children to be active.
• A raised public interest, and appreciation of paralympians, and people with disabilities. (Including the boo-ing of George Osbourne) 

Bad Points

• Royal Mail charging some people with vandalism for painting Post Boxes gold, yet paining others gold themselves.
• Patriotism. 4 weeks of humanity at its best, and most people saw it as a chance to brag about how much better people from the same bit of soil did in comparison to everyone else.

Road Cycling

Good Points

• A deserved winner of the Tour de France, leading to a resurgence in the popularity of sideburns!
• A person appreciation for myself, from one of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team cars near the top of the first climb on stage 2 of the Tour of Britain. (He tooted the horn because I was waving a Basque flag!)

Bad Points

•  Drugs continuing to taint cycling's reputation. Alberto Contador winning the 2012 Vuelta a España after only being suspended for six months on drug related grounds, and of course the Lance Armstrong affair. 
• A win in the Tour de France leading to more popularity for an already arrogant team, and increased publicity of Sky.

Tennis - Not for me!

So, sport. There has been a lot on the box all summer, and we seem to all have enjoyed ourselves. Will it have made any difference to us in the long run? What have we really learned?

I've learned that road cycling is a lot more complex than men in lycra on bikes. I've learned I still don't know much about Judo, but you can win by ippon, whatever that means. And finally I've learned that one of the volleyball team wears a different colour, and they are the defensive player.


And now the much awaited joke:

What is the difference between roast beef and pea soup?

Any one can roast beef.....



Keep the faith.