Hooray hooray - I've done my first 10k

Myself, left with my dad Colin and brother Andrew after the Reepham 10K

Blisteringly hot August morning, probably the last thing you'd want to do today was go for a run, but today was the day I completed my first 10K.

For someone who has had asthma for 26 years, the thought of running more than a football pitch has normally filled me with dread, but a year and a half after starting work outs with Bury-based bootcamp Liberte Fitness, I took up the challenge of a 10K.

My dad, who is 65, is a fitness fan and regularly fills his recently retired days with hour-long jaunts around the streets of Norwich, so it was always going to be a challenge to beat him and my my brother, 38, in a six-mile stretch around rural Norfolk.

I signed us all up for the Reepham 10K and after a bit of training we were all set.

The weather was glorious - beach weather in fact. Not running weather at all. There was no air and it was too still - we were advised to take water at every stop and there were six of them, one at every mile.

Even after the minimum of training a 10K is still not that hard. Sure there were times when I felt weak and tired and wanted to stop, there were times I did stop, usually at the water stops to cool myself down. There were times I could feel my nipples hurting (they eventually started bleeding - hooray, jogger's nipple!) but it wasn't that exhausting, just boiling, boiling hot.

I was fired up to finish the run in an hour, and I was gutted to have completed the race in 61 minutes and 31 seconds, 12 minutes behind my dad, 10 minutes behind my brother and 251st out of 300.

The rest of the field were club runners, so to beat one six of them did me proud.

The time may be a bit on the slow side, but this sports junkie may have found a new sport to fall in love with.

Book Review: Tailgate to Heaven

Adam Goldstein and myself at Wembley in 2009

Back on a dull, wet and pretty damn miserable October Sunday in 2009 I met NFL super fan Adam Goldstein just outside the entrance to Wembley Park station in London.
I was handing out cards to NFL fans ahead of the third match of the International Series between New England and Tampa Bay plugging my book, Touchdown UK, when I spotted Adam's famous Chicago Bears hat.
We had a quick chat and I got to meet his lovely girlfriend Steph and that was that, he mentioned his book that he was writing about what will one day be his legendary trip around the NFL in the 2008 season and that was it, he had to go off and speak to a Sky TV reporter.
Adam was actually doing a similar trip that following season and that Wembley game was just another match for him.
As I took my seat high up behind one of the sidelines and waited for kick off I saw Adam do likewise just in front of me. I naturally contrasted our journeys to Wembley that day. I'd traveled about 100 miles for the game, Adam had jetted back to the UK for it. It was my fourth NFL game ever, the price I've paid for taking too many trips to American in baseball season, while for Adam he'd equaled my small  number of games in just a few weeks. This was what he did.
Fast forward three years and the book, Tailgate To Heaven, is out.
Adam's amazing and unique trip - I wonder if one day there will be similar homage trips - certainly set the bar high. An 18-week trip, 40 games, 65,000 miles of travelling. Surely it will never be repeated?
The book breaks down the trip on a week by week basis, not only do we get the details of each game, but more importantly the journey between venues and the inside track on the 'sport' of tailgating.

Great book, certainly enjoyed it.

The book really tells how Adam embraces the world of being a fan of different teams and the best part is how Adam develops from being slightly apprehensive about pitching up at different stadiums and trying to fit in with different fans to being a full out master tailgater.
Early on Adam tells the story of attending a Packers/Vikings game and being asked outside Lambeau Field if a cameraman could film his ticket for an opening segment for the TV coverage in exchange for Adam being caught on camera.
"He showed my game-day ticket to the world, while I was somewhere in the background, bobbing up and down like one of those fans."
Fast forward an NFL season and Adam's sharing a jar of Branston Pickle with some hardened Cheeseheads.
"They nervously spread the black gooey goodness onto the cheese and took a small bite. They winced with the vinegar kick. I was surprised at just how much I cared and wanted them to like my addiction."
In a book that started as a dream, a challenge and then a quest, it's the bonding and exchange of cultures that  warms the heart more so than the actual action on the field.
For anyone who has ever taken a trip to an NFL stadium in America or for anyone who wonders what it would be like to throw it all in and jet off around the US for nigh-on six months, this book is for you.
Even if you haven't, you can't help but laugh and smile at Adam's brilliantly written story of how something we'd all probably dismiss as a silly idea, turned into the trip of a lifetime.

Brazil's Olympic dream in ruins in the Wembley sunshine

I've lost count of the number of people I've heard over the last couple of weeks slating the Olympic football tournament - the usual comments are something about not caring less about this aspect of London 2012 and the fact that footballers already have their own World Cup.

Fair enough, but football has been part of the Olympics since 1896, it just doesn't get the same profile in Britain as in other parts of the world as we don't usually take part.

Over in Brazil, the Olympics are obviously a big deal, partly because they host the next football tournament in the Rio games of 2016, but also because they've never won Olympic gold.

Today against Mexico at Wembley, the feeling was they simply had to turn up to right that wrong, but they didn't vouch for the Mexican wave that hit them like a first minute sledgehammer.

By the time Mexico's Oribe Peralta struck a goal after just 30 seconds, most of the 86,000 fans were still settling down to watch the game - it came as such a surprise that plenty of people, myself included, didn't see it.

Brazil's illustrious forward line of Neymar, Oscar, Lendro Damiao and Hulk, who started the final on the bench, hardly threatened Mexico's goal in the first half which was a shame as it was the end at which I was sitting.

The game was there for the taking and that's exactly what Mexico did, Peralta smashing home a header from a corner late on.

Brazil's Rafael squared up to a team mate before being substituted and after Hulk pulled one back in the last minute, Oscar had a golden chance to head the winner, but blazed his header inches wide.

That was it - the final whistle, Mexicans all over the pitch and Brazil's players slumped to the floor.
After watching the lengthy medal ceremony - have you ever seen 69 athletes on a podium? - it was time to say goodbye to Wembley and to my Olympic experience.

As I walked down Wembley way with chanting Mexicans and Brazilian samba drummers I actually felt like it was a pretty unique experience and although two of the tree events I saw were football, I really enjoyed it all.

My Olympic journey from Coventry to Wembley via Eton Dorney only showed me a tiny bit of the Games, but I'm glad I made the effort, it's something I'll always remember.

Carrow Road Memories: Flashback - Carrow Road 25 years ago

England captain Bryan Robson - Carrow Road hasn't changed a bit from
this picture

Things you don't see at Carrow Road on matchdays - dads carrying milk crates for their sons to stand on to get a better view on the terrace, the two old boys carrying the Golden Goal times around the pitch on a board... and young boys with new cameras eager to take photos.

I am sure every kid took a camera to a football match at some time but now, in the age of android phones where everyone has a decent camera, the magic of taking your own footie snaps has clearly gone.

The first time I did it was on March 5 1988, 25 seasons ago when Norwich took on then second place Manchester United in the old First Division.

The old Barclay Stand scoreboard announced Jesper Olsen's arrival

 United were chasing Liverpool all the way for the title in what would be their best finish under Alex Ferguson. They'd recently added Steve Bruce to their ranks, and Norwich gave a debut to his replacement, Andy Linighan in this game.

Norwich won the game 1-0 with a late Robert Fleck goal, but I was more keen on getting photos of Bryan Robson, who was then the biggest star in English football and was three months away from leading his country to Euro '88 where despite England having a disaster, Robson emerged as probably the only decent player.

I came across these photos the other day and they show Carrow Road back in 1988, one year before the Hillsborough disaster changed the blueprint for the modern English football stadium.

United's Brian McClair in the foreground with the River End in the
distance. The bottom tier was terrace and their was no corner infill

Apart from the huge amount of hair on show in the picture of Robson, the one big difference is the Barclay End - remember that scoreboard that always seemed to have the odd light missing.

Happy days indeed - and despite turning 13 less than two weeks after this game, such was the way technology worked back then that I probably didn't see these photos for another three months as I would have had to use up the film and then send off for it to be developed!