Woeful Wednesday

Taken me a few days to catch up with this... Shock of the England result NOT being the cause (not really surprised at all) but I actually have a life elsewhere and over recent days it involved a pub crawl around the Circle Line in London! We won! We also saw a fair bit of the Man U/Wigan and Chelsea/Reading games on our travels (not the exciting bits to be honest) but we were amazed how many places were NOT showing the footie Saturday, which is a bit of a theme running over from the Wednesday before (and a worrying development with regard to pubs and their Sky licences). We found ONE place showing it near Scott's office in Canary Wharf, and after half an hour of trying to find a square inch within which to watch the England game, we gave up and followed via the internet. Surprisingly, we found a lot of other people had the same idea and comments such as "we just cannot be bothered watching them just turn up and be England anymore" were common - led us to debate when was the last time you saw a decent England game, which wasn't a 5-0 thrashing of a team less experienced than Bromley FC on the world stage. We think it was at least two years ago....

Scotland lost too, which was a pity, but they still end the year in a strong position. South of the border, we are now depending on other results in the meantime, but qualification is no longer a 100% certainty. We did catch most of the much improved performance from Wales, who are still not out of the running for qualifying just yet - what a difference five days made, and an enjoyable game to boot. Parallel to Saturday (where Wales was the warm up to the England game) a lot of fans hung about to watch something that might cheer them up after Croatia - we had also moved back to the solitary TV bar at this stage. Called it an early (ish) night at that point - such was the disappointment of the evening (okay, I said I wasn't surprised, but I couldn't help feel disappointed!) Meanwhile, Northern Ireland were further consolidating their position as a respectable football power only one place behind the qualifying positions on goal difference only and climbing the Fifa rankings to within a shout of the Republic - I was trying to stay awake on the train home...!

So what next? There are a handful of games to go in the various groups next month which will have an impact on our teams. Also a friendly against Holland for England to really prove to the world they are worthy of the hype perhaps?

Is it time for Theo?
(Was Sven right?!?!?!!!)