Bank Hols

Bank Holiday's are made for football although this one was a fair bit colder than last year's.
Shepshed v Quorn at the Dovecote was a typical feisty local derby. Given Quorn's victory in the previous two games it looked beforehand that Shepshed might want to win it more and so it proved.

The Dovecote is a great ground to watch football in. Unlike a lot of local grounds you get a sense of history from the setting and you also get an atmosphere.
On Saturday the vocal Shepshed lot didn't endear themselves to everyone and they had to be told to tone down their language after half an hour which they did leading to chants of "he's here, he's there, we're not allowed to swear - Jamie Clarke".
I have no idea where you should draw the line as to what's acceptable to sing and what's not. One person at the game told me that he took his young nephew who was shocked by the language. When at certain matches I'm no angel around young kids myself and the mrs is ashamed to go to games with me. It made me think about my own conduct.
But what is certain is as long as a line isn't crossed, every club needs vocal and supportive fans creating an atmosphere.

Blogging is cool! says Honest Isaac!

So far I've not interviewed that many really famous people, England's Peter Moores probably being the only one, so it was good to have the experience of interviewing Sir Henry Cooper at Bar Sports in Loughborough.
At first I was told I would get 30 mins with the former champion and one of only a handful of men who can claim they have knocked down 'The Greatest' but somewhat predictably I was told on arrival that it would be five minutes.
As it was I manged to get 20 minutes after he had turned up fashionably late and it was fascinating to hear him speak.
It was quite unnerving interviewing him under a giant image of him that's permanently in the bar next to Bobby Moore, but he was a true gentleman and spoke warmly with others like the 95-year-old who had come to meet his hero.

Writing it all up nearly made working on a Bank Holiday worth while. I was laughed at when I said earliler in the week I was looking forward to a four day weekend.

Wednesday afternoon

Wednesday afternoon and virtually all finished.

While the news pages are still to be done the finishing touches to the sports are being done and after the busy few days it's pretty much on to next week's paper.

Last night Loughborough Dynamo moved level on points with Atherstone at the top of the Midland Alliance table with a 3-0 victory over Studley at the NSG.
For a while it looked like Dynamo would have ‘one of them nights’ as they missed chance after chance and they really could have had five before the break. A second just as the visitors were getting on top killed the game off and it was plain sailing from there.
Of course you're never meant to get carried away with these things and those at Dynamo certainly are not. You get the sense from talking at the people at the club that they half expect something drastic to happen but with each win I’m sure deep down they are getting more excited at the prospect.
Clearly the players are......given the broken windows in the dressing room caused by the celebrations after the Studley game.

Coalville Town v Loughborough Dynamo

Saturday saw me at Owen Street for the local derby between Coalville Town and Loughborough Dynamo.

It's been a while since I've watched a game down there and in truth a few previous games have been spent being a cheapskate and watching from the top of one the hills that hangs over the ground.
I'm from Coalville (ish), I covered their FA Cup run a few years ago and my Dad used to play for them when they were known as Ravenstone (and were far worse than they are now) so I felt quite at home there with the Snibstone Colliery providing a back-drop to the continuation of Dynamo's Midland Alliance title challenge.
There were over 200 there in the miserable conditions but both sides put in committed performances.
In the end Loughborough were too strong for the home side and ran out comfortable 3-0 winners. Dynamo are a good side and are equally capable of playing great football and of grinding out a win when they need to. The former was in evidence today, the first goal in particular was a fantastic passing move that must have contained about 12 passes before Kris Nurse finished for what is around his 40th goal of the season.
From watching them early in the season you can see how much Dynamo have matured since August and are now within three points of leaders Atherstone but with four games in hand.
If they can secure a promotion spot it will be great for local football if they can join Shepshed Dynamo and Quorn in the Unibond Division One South next season.

Shepshed must have secured their safety with the 2-0 win over Kidsgrove. After a miserable couple of years hopefully they can now concentrate on building for next season.

I read recently about how a sports journalist can fail to remain neutral if he covers a team for so long and that's probably right. There's so many great characters you meet in and around the clubs that you can't help but want success for the clubs for those people as much as anything. Yes - even Quorn!

Random stuff

Testing.........People my age are supposed to be computer literate but odds are this could end up anywhere.

Like most things to do with the Echo, three years after the original boom in interest, Loughborough's favourite news hotbed is getting its own set of blogs.

I deal with the sport for the Echo and its series of sister titles but to
my shame my participation in such sports has been miniscule at best since
leaving university. It's getting to the point where any family get together
can't pass without some comment on the rapidly expanding waistline of
someone who used to be likened to a stick insect. At 23 i'm embarrassed
myself at doing very little other than the odd five-a-side game now and
again.

It's not that I care about losing weight, because to be honest I couldn't
give a monkeys about that. I feel a bit of a charlatan writing about sports
but not doing enough. That doesn't stop most journalists as far as I know
but never mind.

The problem is I don't want to commit to something without being fit and
then there's the problem of getting fit in the first place. I used to go to
the gym when I was about 15/16 but it's just so damn boring sitting there
doing weights. I swear half of the people go there just to pose anyway and
while I'm not interested in that, you can't help but feel a little insecure
when some brick house is lifting twice as much as your puny arms without
breaking sweat.

I also used to go early morning swimming but due to circumstances I can't

do that anymore and if you go at any other time you end up smashing into

annoying little kids all the while. Everytime I go swimming I always feel
like eating a greasy fry-up straight after anyway.

My Dad always says 'go for a run' but I just find that boring as well. If I
was going to get something at the end of the run, like a pint or something,
then I would. Given how bad my time-keeping was I actually miss the daily
run for the school bus I had to undertake every morning with my mate (or at
the very least look as if I was running to try and catch it). My Dad is
52, plays football three times a week, enjoys running and makes me look
pathetic.



I brought my girlfriend an exercise bike two Christmases ago thinking it
would be one expensive white elephant. She has proved me wrong however and
has rode for at least a half an hour every single night since. I've though
about trying to do that for months but just can't be bothered. Now I've
lowered that to trying 10 minutes a night but it still took me a while to
get on the (very comfortable) saddle and only then did I manage it for the
first time on Tuesday because I was that annoyed (writing something like
this and trying not to swear is difficult) with listening to Leicester
City's latest disgrace. I managed 20 minutes the night after but tomorrow

I'm playing five-a-side knowing I'll be embarrassed, hopefully enough to
spur me on to better fitness come summer.