Let me entertain you...Right Here, Right Now...

Listening to my ipod a couple of days ago a song popped up that reminded me of something that myself and my former Cricket team used to get up too!

Song titles……

We took our inspiration from 1998 England World Cup Squad, who when being interviewed decided to drop in song titles into their answers, Alan Shearer, Tony Adams, Gareth Southgate were people who managed to get With a Little Help from my Friends, Dancing on the ceiling and even Club Tropicana into their interviews!  We decided that we could have a bit of fun with this and turn our Saturday afternoons in the field into something of Song-fest when "chirping" to the batsman (For Non Cricketing folk, Chirping is basically trying to put the batsman off with the power of words!).
 
This often ended with several people losing concentration from laughing too much when somebody came up with something new from the week before, however it was something that kept those hours in the sun chasing a small red ball that little bit more entertaining!!  A few years after this I decided to take to this idea to another level, by this point I was submitting match reports to the local newspaper which we subsequently published both in print and online, below is a report written in 2007, I believe that there are 14 Song Titles included, there are probably more than that inadvertently….

See if you can spot them and yes this did get published!

On the second sunny afternoon in a row, a young Old Stacians team travelled to league high fliers Holmesdale. Stacians captain Howard Wooding got the afternoon off to a good start by winning only his second toss of this league campaign and elected to bat first.  The Holmesdale bowlers took the attack to the “Old Boys” top order and with a mixture of good, tight seam bowling and good work in the field restricted Stacians scoring options but after the first fifteen overs the “Old Boys” would have been happy with only losing one wicket and not falling for Holmesdale’s masterplan.  Then the home team showed why they are pushing for promotion this season, Australian Chris Cann and Young Kent prospect Harry Galpin bowled well getting the ball to jump around all over the place to reduced Stacians from 37-1 to 81-7, it was a batting collapse that has been all too regular for Stacians over the past three or four seasons, Luke Reeves the only batsmen in the top six to get into double figures.  Things could only get better from this moment on, young guns James Rand and Daniel Coulson come together at the crease and showed great fight and commitment and put on an excellent 61 runs for the 8th wicket, both showed arrange of shots around the ground using both touch and power to give Stacians a target to bowl at!  With this weekend being the opening of the new Harry Potter film it proved a good omen for Harry Potter look-alike Jimmy Rand, he ended the innings as top scorer just missing out on what would have been a well deserved fifty and was unfortunately run out for 48 as he and the tail looked to put on vital runs in the end of their innings.  Daniel Coulson made a good 29 and brother David finished with 14 as the tail well and truly wagged with the final three wickets putting on 85, Stacians were finally bowled out for 166 in 50th and final over.

Stacians chose to attack Holmesdale from the start and opened the bowling with Australian leg spinner Paul Johnstone, who bowled well with the new ball, he showed good spin and drift to have the openers in some trouble, however the Holmesdale team again showed why they are pushing for promotion by digging in and showing a lot of patience when under pressure from the Stacians bowlers and used good combination of defence and attack and most importantly did not lose wickets during this spell of the match.  Paul “PJ” Johnstone finally broke the opening stand at 47 with a well deserved wicket, the Holmesdale opener falling for a trap that was only set the ball before!  This brought Aussie Cann to the crease and after showing his class with the ball began to show it with the bat to.  The Home team batted well and kept ticking the score board over and always stayed ahead of the run rate and controlling the game, chasing down the score in partnerships, the Stacians bowlers although bowling as well as they have done all season were just unable to pick up wickets regularly enough and in the setting sun Holmesdale reached the victory target with the loss of just four wickets.  Cann finishing 65 not out to cap off a fine game for him personally even managing to hit the ball into the busy road next to the ground, the Stacians fielders were left chasing cars to retrieve the ball back!  Sam Kennett finished with figures of 24-2 to be the pick of the bowlers for Stacians.  It was a good return to form from the 21 year old seam bowler who bowled with a good rhythm and consistency and looked to use the conditions to move the ball either way.
  
There are plenty of positives to take out of this game and as Stacians look to do a double over next weeks visitors to Goat Lea Park, bottom of the table BOCA Sports.

Hair today, gone tomorrow!!

Hair, I miss it! 

There you go that’s my opening statement, I have been let’s call it presenting the image of someone that is follically challenged for nine years now and although I have saved god knows how much in hairdressing bills over those years I still miss sitting in that chair, being shown that back of the head in that mirror (as it makes all the difference at that point), the choice wax or gel (I was always a gel man, I thought wax was for pretty boys, not for the likes of me!).  Those were the days.

Shaving your own head is pain in the backside, I have spent the last year or so “bic’ing” my head but my last experience of this resulted in so much blood that it looked like my head had had a brief encounter with Freddie Krueger!  This was just before Christmas, the irony of this all was that I was brought a set of clippers as a present by my Dad and Step-Mum!  So I am now back to the shaving my head with clippers, which is fine until there is about three days growth and I start to resemble something of a monk, DAMN YOU HAIR, DAMN YOU!!

So why am I bald, it’s supposed to be hereditary and I am informed that it is your Mother’s Father that you are supposed to follow when it comes to hair but my Grandad had a full head of hair and when you look at my brothers, one has the hair I’ve always wanted and pulls off all kinds of hairstyles (not that I am jealous), the other is rocking the surfer dude look, let’s just hope my 7 year old brother follows them and not me! 

I am going to place the blame on this and this alone!  Being a teenager in the 90’s has a lot to answer to, waistcoats, drinking bottles of 20/20, Boy-bands and highlighted hair!!  In my quest to look as good as possible I may have slightly dyed my hair quite often to pull off that blonde tipped look and to make it worse my hair dye of choice was that classic “Sun-In”, a quick spray or two or ten and spend a few hours in the sun and there we have it beautiful blonde tipped hair!  My Mum always warned me against using it as well!!

My thought of the day, listen to your Mum, she always knows best!

And to my hair, I’m sorry, I miss you and wish you were with me now!  x   

My Olympic Dream....

A couple of months ago a competition was held at my work for one of two chances to be part of “Olympic Torch Relay”.  We had to write an inspiring piece related to sport/London/Olympics, this was my entry…..

I believe that I should be given the opportunity to carry the flame for running this year's London Marathon.  That may not sound a good enough reason alone but those that know me will understand that I am built for comfort and cuddles and not endurance running and the fact that I could not walk up the stairs with being out of breath before I started training, you may begin to see the challenge I was undertaking. 

Six months’ worth of training, getting up at 5am most mornings to run in the wind, rain and snow all seemed worth it on that HOT Sunday in April when the City of London came together to support 40,000 of us plodding round its streets.  Running through London the streets lined with steel drum bands, Gospel choirs singing and most importantly the hundreds of thousands of people who are shouting your name (it was on my vest) willing you on to the finish was an amazing experience.  I found that even though the heat was sapping my energy and I was feeling pain that I had never put my body through before, I had a smile on my face every minute and I can only describe it as enjoyable, as this was my Olympics and I was battling for my Gold Medal.   If the way I felt that Sunday is 1% of how an elite athlete feels when they compete in the Olympics, especially with the backing of the people of London behind them, I have a new appreciation and understanding why they dedicate themselves to their sports and battle for their Gold Medals.

As I was lucky enough to be selected via the ballot I could run for the charity of my choice, I choose The Demelza Hospice, a locally based Children's charity that provides care for Children with Life-Limiting illnesses, with the support of my family and of course my friends and colleagues at Eurostar I was able to raise nearly £2,200 including Gift Aid.  At Ashford Contact Centre the Social Club supported my efforts, my Team at the time (Group Sales) held a packed lunch service for the rest of ACC and general sponsorship of all those around the business helped me raise this amount.  I was then invited to visit the hospice in action, this was a moving experience and confirmed to me that I was running for the right charity.

I would love to be part of this once in a lifetime opportunity not only to represent Eurostar but to help raise awareness to an amazing charity.

No, I didn’t win!!

Music 1 NLP 0

So here we are…..

I put a status on Facebook today and a friend commented that I should start a blog with a statement like that!  Writing a blog is something that I have been thinking about for over a year now but just never got round to doing it, well the time has come to grab that bull (computer) by the horns (keyboard) and get blogging!!

The status earlier was…..

“I love that listening to a song can just take you back to memories, a mini time-machine! I know a bit deep for me but hey ho!!”

I know, l know a bit cheesy and something that am I sure we have all thought at some point but it amazes me that 3 or 4 minutes of a piece music and some lyrics can stir up so many different memories and emotions and really take you back to those moments years ago.  A few years ago I dabbled in spot of NLP and got a little sucked into to the mentality of all, one of the things I learnt was a technique called anchoring when you use memories of being confident, happy and basically just feeling on top of the world, then linking this to touching a part of your body or to something like an item of jewellery, I spent hours practising this and truly believed I had cracked it but after a while it slipped and to the delight of my best friend (who hated the concept of NLP) said this was proof that it was just a load of rubbish! 

Now listening to one song that randomly comes on my iPod takes me straight back to happy, carefree times and I suddenly have a spring in my step and smile on face!  A feeling that all that time wasted on “anchoring” never got me close to.  Yes, not all songs will have happy memories but that’s life and that’s who we are and the experiences that have made who we are today!   

So what was the song and what was the memory……..

Parklife (Blur) and the memory is just mucking around with friends in 6^th Year Common Room at school.

Until next time,

Gav.