Further consolation can no doubt be taken from the ground being just a short stroll from/to the excellent Queen's Head?Originally Posted by Bucking Fastard
nearest cricket action is Essex at Chelmsford.I feel like a bit of a traitor,but I console myself with the fact that their T20 team is the Eagles.
I’m a lifelong Sunderland supporter, went to nearly every game for over ten years from about 1982. Difficult to get to matches now, since I now live at the opposite end of the country. I also find that it’s difficult to maintain the same level of passion since the advent of the Premier League and the predictable nature of the league nowadays, but I still get caught up by the excitement at the start of each season despite decades of dashed hopes and an underlying awareness of the futility of it all. “Ooh, if we have a great season, we might finish, er, 9th”.
Other than Sunderland, I have no other particular allegiances - not even for the England football team really. I just feel that I enjoy tournaments more once we are knocked out or fail to qualify in the first place.
After football, cricket is my preferred sport to watch - I have been along to watch Gloucestershire a few times, they had a spectacular run a few years ago when they seemed to turn up in about every one-day final. Darts is great, too, though I have only watched it on TV. Would love to get along to watch a big tournament live, it looks like a cracking atmosphere. A day at the races is most enjoyable - usually try to make it to at least one day of the Cheltenham festival, plus a few other trips through the year. Would recommend going to the races to anyone who has never been.. Strongers isn’t the only one made richer by See More Business - I had an extremely profitable time during the 1999 festival, culminating in a huge (for me) each-way punt on him for the Gold Cup. He obliged at 16/1, goodbye weekend…
I can enjoy watching pretty much any sport - prefer Rugby League to Union - except possibly basketball and F1, which I find two of the most monotonous experiences imaginable.
My childhood sporting hero was Sunderland striker Gary Rowell. All-time sportsman would be Don Bradman, simply because I don’t think any other sportsman has ever been so overwhelmingly superior to everyone else in their particular sport.
And you can really taste the hops!
Rugby
Saracens and England.
Will be at Twickers tomorrow for the annual season double header kick off to see if we can pinch three points away from the Irish like we did last season. If anyone else is going and wants to meet up down the riverside for a beer after the game, send me a PM.
Sat in front of François Pienaar last season and he is a Sarries folk hero for the season he spent with us and his continued affiliation with the club.
Football
Another Spurs supporter but only a club member as I had to give up my season ticket when the kids came along. Fortunately know a few ST holders socially and at work and am usually first in the queue to pick up the games they can't go to.
Heroic player. Hod the God.
Cricket.
Middlesex and England and know enough people who role their trouser legs up to usually get a ticket to The Oval or Lords each season.
Tennis
Wife's second sport after Netball, so forced to watch the BBC red channel every time there a major televised event.
Snooker
Used to follow Jimmy White but not really bothered with it anymore.
Darts
Watch it when I can, but my best era was with the Crafty Cockney when my favourite player was anyone playing that arrogant Gooner.
Motor Sport.
F1 racing, Sorry ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.
My participation sport is Badminton but you try finding that on the box, and anyway the game the pro's play on tele is a different one to what I do every week.
And on behalf of my wife here's this weeks quiz question.
What sport after football has the second largest number of people playing it every week in the UK ? (the clues in the text above, and for another clue this one is virtually never on tele).
Work is the curse of the drinking Class - Oscar Wilde
Has to be darts!
WE ARE THE BREADMEN - UP THE BEES 
I'm sure he'd welcome you into his support team, with your mastery of 'pit stops' and unrivalled knowledge of 'lubrication'.
'And where he supped the past lived still. And where he sipped the glass brimmed full' John Barleycorn, Carol Ann Duffy.
Sports
Football: Support the mighty Aberystwyth Town FC because I went to Uni there and ended up going on loads of away matches (including Europe!) as well as all the home games...great times. Bristol Rovers were the team I 'supported' as a kid (home town) but in truth I was so rarely able to go to their games that I was always likely to be tempted away. I still look out for their results though (except this season I wish I hadn't).
Second 'sport' is darts. I'm not much of a player but I love watching it - literally any game will get me interested. I love the tension when two good players are slogging it out. However my favourite memory was watching a game in the Nags Head. They had the webcam on that day so the game was beamed onto the big TV in the pub. This particular match was a guy, clearly very good at scoring but couldn't hit doubles for toffee, against this short, bespectacled, pudgy girl who had a really awkward throwing technique to make up for her lack of height. Anyways, this bloke gets down to a double in around 15 darts, whilst our hero is at least 250 behind. And so the fun begins. He misses double after double, whilst our pudgy icon slowly (and painfully) rattles off 25-40 each go. By the time she finally gets to a double, at the end of her second dart of three, almost the whole pub had become enraptured and were (unbeknown to the players) watching the whole thing on the telly. Her final dart. She needs a double (17 I believe it was). Almost complete silence in the pub. Bang - straight in. The whole place erupted and she was mobbed. I've never seen anything like it.
I used to like playing Rugby Union, but get bored watching it. I much prefer Rugby League but now there's no Grandstand I haven't seen a game for years.
Cricket zzzzz. 20/20 is OK though.
Golf: Sport of the devil.
Woman's tennis is OK, but I find the men's game just too much these days. Ace after ace after ace...bring back wooden racquets, says I.
The Olympics is always good fun - I enjoy the weightlifting, for some odd reason.
Favourite sporting masters:
Darts - Phil Taylor. Just a darts machine.
Football - Matt Le Tissier (the goal on 15 seconds in is the best goal of all time - FACT. I watched that game live and was agape!)
Horse - McKelvey. The poor bugger. He was great racer, came second in the National and had a whopping injury. Recovered from that, then ran into a post in the next National and had to put down.
Athletics - John Regis. Simply because he was the least likely-looking 200 metre runner, resembling a startled hippo on the charge.
Last edited by Quinno; 03-09-2010 at 13:22.
No interest in any of it, except maybe every 50 years or so when Pompey are at Wembley
In the main TV is turned off when sport of any type appears on it, and have been known to walk out of pubs if large TV with footy on dominates the place
Football team is Bristol City, Dave finally converted me to watching football having been ignorant of it throughout University. He still takes grim pleasure in reminding me that I used to infuriate him by turning up after a weekend and asking him how Rovers had done on Saturday. Season ticket holder for about 5 years now I think, purchased during Danny Wilson's reign when he had about half the team actually made out of locals, which probably still remains the most enjoyable period I have watched so far.
Rugby seems enjoyable when I catch it on TV, and fans always seem far friendlier as a whole than football crowds. But I really don't understand the rules.
I still enjoy catching the odd American Football match and support Seattle as I have a relative out there.
Cricket, is this really a sport? Only good thing I can see is it seems to be a good excuse to drink! Also I have earned some good money by building parts of one of the major cricket sites.
F1 - Used to enjoy it when I thought they raced (Mansell, Senna, Prost et al), feels like it is run by lawyers these days though, more rules than any genuine excitement. Although just to follow up the Damon Hill reference, great bloke, I always thought he was just an average driver though - that was until he nearly won a race in an Arrows, I still don't believe that car gave up.
Last edited by Conrad; 03-09-2010 at 14:37. Reason: Damon Hill nearly won a race, he sadly ran many races in the car
I was a Manchester United (never Man U) season ticket holder until a) the glazers (or is it glaziers, who cares, came in b) my season ticket reached £500 (£496 actually) c) Rio couldn’t be arsed to wee in a bottle but still got paid for doing buggar all for us d) Cristiano felt it necessary to fall over on a regular basis. I will never fall out with United, 40+ years a match attending fan, but it was just a case that the club no longer felt like it belonged to me anymore and it had become the corporate, band wagon jumping outfit that many people had previously mistakenly perceived it to be.
Cricket. Lancy. Especially during the 70s when we were the one day Kings. I was also lucky as a child/young man to be able to watch such players close up as Sobers, Lloyd, Hall, Garner, Richards and the best of all in my opinion Rohan Kanhai plying their trade around the Lancs and Central Lancs leagues.
I have played golf most of my life and miraculously managed to get down to single figures somehow. Heroes. Player, Palmer, Watson, Trevino, Seve and more lately any of our guys in The Ryder Cup.
Tennis could be made more interesting if ,in, every set of new balls there was one that exploded.
Darts. Taylor. Why does he not get the recognition he deserves by at least winning Sports Personality of the Year. Forgot! Darts aint on the Beeb no more. Before Taylor the era with Lowe, Bristow, Anderson, Wilson etc made good watching.
Any woman mud wrestlers I particularly admire.
Snooker. I can take it or leave it.
I use to watch Rugby League a few years ago and it was always good to combine it with a day on the beer around some northern towns you usually wouldn’t visit. Featherstone springs to mind. One season we went down to London to watch the mighty Rochdale Hornets play Fulham and stayed over night before the match. We turned up on the Sunday at Craven Cottage, after a few lunchtime scoops, to find out that they no longer played there but in some other London borough which seemed miles away to us. Never did see the match and all day opening had yet to be invented although we did discover some illicit London transport club.
I don’t go so often these days but I do enjoy a good day out at the racing.
I know sport is not the be all and end all but i couldn,t have imagined my life without it and the few scoops post match (playing) pre, during, post match (watching).
From the home of the kebab of doom
Football - Shrewsbury Town , not been for 3 years , had problems with season ticket renewal , blame the 78 world cup but i do have a softspot for Peru
Cricket - Shropshire , acctually won the Minor Counties one day cup this year
I will watch most other sports though i think things like Basketball are great to play and boring to watch .
I will support England at anything sporting , even when we are rubbish
Sporting Greats
Football - Paul Maguire , Ian Aitkens , Colin Griffin , Mickey Brown , Bob Wardle among many from Shrewsbury , players like Best , Zola etc also Tefilo Cubilas and Roberto Palacios from Peru
Cricket - Botham , Marshall , Richards , Hadlee
Other Sports , Steffi Graff , Daley Thomson , Steve Ovett , Phil Taylor
I could carry on for days on this
Theres a Man with a Mullet going Mad with a Mallet in Millets !
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