Paying the Penalty

Last night was the London Senior Cup Final betwen the Dons and the Met Police (three divisions lower). In the morning I'd planned to travel by train but on hearing that there was only one train an hour made the journey unviable by public transport. Not unusual from Ingatestone, and so against my wishes I took the car.

The game was played at Harrow, as I mentioned to some friends, what is the point of NW London ? Miles upon miles of suburbia, three bedroom semis and parades of shops seemingly dominated by take aways restaurants. Perhaps I'm unsympathetic because its the only segment of London that I've not lived in.

The game itself offered the chance to crack all the old police jokes, and was livened up by Martin making an end of season appearance in arabic costume. So lawrence of arabia stood on the terraces of Harrow Borough FC. We led by 3-1 at half time, but got pulled back to 3-3 after 90 minutes. Extra time saw us lead again 4-3 with a minute to play, but our defence had more holes than the proverbial sieve and the police equalised with seconds remaining. Time for penalties. When the Met's first spot kick was saved all seem going to plan but we missed the second and the fourth, and lost the shhot out 4-3.

As Paul said as we left the ground, it just sums up the season. We hadn't won the LSC since 1976-77, now it hadn't been high on our agenda since, but some silverware would have been nice. A season that promised in December has literally fizzled out. The manager, Terry Brown has released a sizeable chunk of the squad, and frankly we all need a couple of months away.
There's the realisation that I won't see a few familiar faces for a few weeks, but as I walk back to the car I realise another storm is brewing.

It seems the PM has described a voter in Rochdale as " a sort of bigootted woman". Driving home this along with Barcelona's defeat by Inter Milan dominated the car radio. It seems I may be out on the limb. If you were to ask me what the important issues facing the government, I doubt that immigration ( as opposed to population) would make the top ten. As a result to me anyone who thinks that immigration is that important is likely to take a somewhat bigotted approach.

Like many teachers I've put on an act in the classroom only to let off steam in the staffroom, part of me sees Gordon Brown's in car outburst in that light. Of course I've never been miked up to Sky News. Anyway the one thing we can predict is that Labour's hopes of winning the Rochdale marginal seat have gone up in smoke.