Norwich 1 Ajax 1 - think I've just seen my last friendly

Football is back at Carrow Road!

Norwich are back at Carrow Road but after tonight's big clash against Ajax I think I can safely say I won't be going to any home friendlies anymore.
I'd had a long old day of sport watching - rowing at Eton Dorney in the morning and then a knackering drive up to Norwich for the game against Ajax.
Ten years ago this month I'd missed the centenary celebrations and the game against Ajax as I was at a wedding and having once been turned away from the Amsterdam ArenA when I tried to buy a ticket for an Ajax game because I didn't have my passport, this was a case of unfinished business.
My excitement at watching the game was quickly over as the teams came on the pitch. Maybe it's a sign of getting older that it's easy to find things to moan about, but for some reason the fact City wore their black kit really bugged me.
I don't know why, but I just think, first home game, Ajax as the opponents, I just want to see my team in yellow and green.
So what of the game?
Well Christian Eriksen, who had a decent Euro 2012 campaign ran the show in the first half and apart from the two goals - Anthony Pilkington with a seventh minute free-kick for City, we didn't learn too much about Chris Hughton's City.

Enter the Snod!

James Vaughan, who missed much of last season, was probably the most lively player in the first half and his replacement Wes Hoolahan looked good in the second.
Grant Holt, making his first home appearance since his summer contract dealings, had a good reception and City's only other new face was Robert Snodgrass who came on with 25 minutes to go and didn't do a lot.
Overall though, this was very much a training exercise - the young Ajax side pinged the ball around nicely, City tried to do the same thing but it didn't really have the same effect.
 Despite a decent crowd of 16,000 there wasn't much to get excited about and having witnessed games over the last decade or so against the likes of AZ Alkmaar, Heerenveen, Utrecht and co at Carrow Road, I've come to the conclusion that these kind of pre-season games really are a waste of cash - I don't think I'll bother next time.

Olympic rowing - it's far better on the telly

I finally got to hold an Olympic torch!

Day two of my Olympic three-hander came today with a trip to Eton Dorney in Buckinghamshire to watch some rowing.
I'd originally applied for tickets to rowing for my brother who is a big rowing fan - to the extent that he rows in his garage against dudes from Malaysia and Indonesia on his laptop.
He stuffed up and went on holiday so I took my auntie Vic, who lives nearby.
It's a bit of an effort to get to Eton Dorney, even though she lives near Twickenham - a train, followed by a shuttle bus from Windsor station, followed by a half an hour walk and that was just to the start where those two big blue stands are housed.
Once inside there were massive queues for everything - for coffee, for the water fountain (such is the crazy rule that you can only bring in 100ml of water) and for hot food.
Despite the early start and the grey skies we made our way near the start and watched a couple of hours. Auntie Vic lamented the fact she hadn't bought her Lexican cards with her as she pinned her Union Jack to the fence.
The rowing was pretty exciting, especially as the boats and the entourage of cyclists shoot past but the fact we were so far from the finish and these were only heats was a bit of a damp squib.

Team GB ladies in the eights

Still, good to be part of it, but to be honest, you feel far more involved at times just watching the whole thing on the telly.

Searching for some Olympic 2012 spirit at Coventry's Ricoh Arena

The Olympics 2012 are here and I've already tasted my first bit of Olympic action after making the journey up to Coventry last night to watch New Zealand take on Belarus.

Back when I went into the ballot more than a year ago, I didn't have a clue that I'd be taking in this game, my thinking was that watching a football match in Coventry wouldn't be exactly packed nor expensive and I would be able to guarantee some Olympic action on the cheap.

Fast forward a year and that's exactly what it was - Olympic action on the cheap - not much atmosphere, an exercise in over-management and I left the ground feeling as if I'd just sat through a dull pre-season friendly.

So what of the Olympic football experience?

Well I took my pal Tony, a native Kiwi and in order to inject a bit of passion and fun into the game we arrived in the Warwickshire city with our faces painted, I went for a solitary black fern which Tony expertly sketched on my face, while Tony had done himself up a treat with a hint of the New Zealand flag and that famous fern.

We had to drive into the centre of Coventry and park and then take a bus to the Ricoh Arena which was a bit silly as Coventry City’s ground is surrounded by car parks. I thought it was simply to ensure that cash was spent in the city centre, but I think it was some kind of security measure.

After a beer and a burger we set off for the Ricoh on a bus – I was excited to see just what they’d done with the car park that meant we couldn’t park there. The answer was it was pretty empty save for hundreds of security staff, Games Makers, police and stewards - all for, as we would later find out, 14,000 people.

On the bus Tony got the ultimate compliment for his quality face paints when other fans asked if we had any spare. Once off the bus he soon got asked if the New Zealand players did the Haka before the game. He then got asked it again, and again!

One thing we noticed quickly was the lack of advertising inside the ground – the Ricoh sign on the stadium was covered over, all the advertising was gone and later as the fans left, we’d see that some of the seats which spelt out ‘Ricoh’ in the seats had been removed too.

Before we got inside we had to remove everything from our pockets and put them in clear plastic bags, a bit like being at an airport.

After that it was a gentle pat down and into the ground and ready for the game to start. New Zealand fielded a smattering of players with GB connections – Chris Wood, Ryan Nelson and Ipswich Town’s Tommy Smith all started along with Shane Smeltz, who figured at the last World Cup for New Zealand.

Coaching the side was former Norwich midfielder Neil Emblen and he won’t have been happy with the crazy early yellow card for Smith after no more than ten seconds.

The African man in the middle certainly made a rod for his own back with that decision for, as the tackles got tougher and tougher, each of them came with a request for another card.

New Zealand played the better football early on but couldn’t find that killer pass and after a goal just before the half-time break put Belarus 1-0 up, the Kiwis spend the rest of the game trying in vain to get that all-important equaliser.

It didn’t come and despite some late drama and great goalkeeping from the Kiwi shot-stopper, the game finished in 1-0 win for Belarus.

Leaving the round was the next challenge – 14,000 fans had come to the game over a few hours, but now they all had to find a bus back to the town centre.

As we walked past the massed ranks of security, police and Games Makers standing idly outside the ground it felt as if we’d actually been assigned our own individual security guard.

We finally got on a bus and headed back to the town centre.

It was great to go to the Olympics before they actually started, but the match, occasion and event in general will be soon forgotten.

Olympic torch relay 2012 in Bury St Edmunds

Saturday July 7 2012, 4.09pm. The Olympic torch is in Bury St Edmunds

Over-hyped, over-blown and over here.
Well it is now.
The 2012 Olympic torch passed through Bury St Edmunds today with a huge amount of fuss, flag-waving and fanaticism - and it was all over in a matter of minutes.
While there remain millions of Olympic-sceptics in the UK, I for one am all for them and excited about watching the spectacle of the Games take place in this country.
I have tickets for three events which adds to my sense of pride and with my wife Lorraine due to give birth to our first child a couple of months after the games, all things 2012 have an extra resonance.
So what was the torch relay like to watch?
Essentially it's all about the build up, the anticipation and the wonderment. The actual Olympic torch coming through my adopted home town, literally metres from where I live.
My friends Sarah and Tony came over and we had a pre-Olympic torch party and an hour or so before I wandered up to where the route would come past with their three-year-old Daisy and had a look.
Already there were people of all ages waiting for... well the torch. Waiting for someone we didn't really know to carry one of many replica torches for a matter of meters.
It then struck me that we were only really here for the torch and I suppose for the occasion. Trying to tell a three-year-old what was going on presented its own problems.
I told little Daisy what was going to happen, kind of what it was for and that there might be some cheering.
She covered her ears and told me she didn't like noise.
Just before the torch came through as the dodgy Londoners selling all things red, white and blue with one eye on the watching police decided to curtail their enterprises, the atmosphere went up a notch.

Tears for fears: How three-year-old Daisy
reacted to the big torch relay

Coca-Cola staff ran through dishing out frisbee-shaped things to bang, a couple of police on motorbike whizzed through and then all of a sudden the crowds sprung off the pavement and into the roads narrowing the route of the torch bearer.
And then he came past, a rather portly chap in glasses dressed in white surrounded by chunky security guards. The cut of the sporting attire did none of them any favours.
I moved out into the road, crouched down and took some pictures. One of the security guards kept his eye on me until he could see that I wasn't some kind of Lee Harvey Oswald figure, just a sad sports nut.
It was all over in ten seconds with little real commotion. Thousands of people on a street coming to look at a torch and a flame that symbolised something about the Olympics coming to the south east of England in a few weeks.
I turned to see how three-year-old Daisy had celebrated the event. Surely she had stored this momentous moment in her memory bank and would dine out for life on the day she saw the Olympic torch come to town as a wee child.
Not a chance.
She'd burst into tears the minute the torchbearer had come past!