The Olympics

Less than 3 weeks to go before the start of the Olympics.
I have to admit I've been sick of hearing about it for years as everyone has been using it as an excuse to screw us.
The local road system has been in chaos for over a year due to major roadworks "for the Olympics" and it won't be finished in time!
The local airport has been expanded despite protests "for the Olympics" meaning bloody great big Easy Jets screw up my TV reception every time they go over.
I am not allowed to take holidays at work "during the Olympics" because of the odd chance we might get some extra work because of it? and it seems nearly every dodgy decision taken over the last few years usally gets followed by "for the Olympics" :(

I will watch the 100 metres final and a few other highlight shows but don't really care about the rest, but good luck to all our athletes anyway.

As far as the football goes Britain have a good record when they have played, they won the first 3 they played in (1900,1908,1912) and a 4th place and 2 quarter finals from the other six, but haven't been involved since 1960.
Here's the British squad - 13 English, 5 Welsh, no Scots or Northern Irish and no Beckham.
Nice for Ryan Giggs to finally get to a major international tournament and it will be good to see players like Sinclair, Cleverley and Sturridge playing international football.

J Butland (Birmingham) 19, J Steele (Middlesbrough) 21

R Bertrand (Chelsea) 22, C Dawson (West Brom) 22, M Richards (Man City) 24,
S Caulker (Tottenham) 20, N Taylor (Swansea) 23, J Tomkins (West Ham) 23

T Cleverley (Man Utd) 22, J Cork (Southampton) 23, J Allen (Swansea) 22,
R Giggs (Man Utd) 38, A Ramsey (Arsenal) 21, D Rose (Tottenham) 22, S Sinclair (Swansea) 23

M Sordell (Bolton) 21, D Sturridge (Chelsea) 22, C Bellamy (Liverpool) 32

Ever since I first saw the Olympic logo this is what has popped into my mind :)

Olympic Champions From Upton Park

I was just doing some reading about the Olympic football and stumbled on something I reckon (as an avid Hammer) I really should have known?
In 1900 Great Britain were represented by Upton Park FC who won the competition beating French side Club Français de Paris 4-0 in the final.
There was only 3 teams in the tournament which devalues it a bit, the other side was a Belgium XI which included a Frenchman, an Englishman and a Dutch player :)

Upton Park FC who played at West Ham Park aren't related to West Ham United who play at Upton Park despite the obvious links!!
The current West Ham team were still called Thames Ironworks and played at Canning town, the teams did share a few players but Upton Park were a strictly amateur club.
They were formed in 1866 and played in the very first FA Cup competition and reached the quarter finals 4 times.
Their glory moment came in 1900 when they were asked to represent Britain and won gold, and as it was 30 years before the World cup started could probably claim to be world champions :)
The team also supplied 4 England internationals (3 footballers and a cricketer!!).
Sadly they dissolved in 1911, although the name lives on for the obvious reason and in the Channel Islands where the annual play-off between the Jersey and Guernsey champions is named the Upton park trophy because of the clubs frequent visits to the islands.

Prize Time

Here you go Biopunk :)

Prediction Competition

Congrats to Biopunk for winning the Euro championship prediction competition :)

All I can offer as a prize is some football related music or pictures of your choice (if I have or can find them).

Premier League predictions back around mid August .... all welcome :)

Saving The Best Till Last

Well Spain certainly proved me wrong tonight, in most of their other games in this tournament they seem to have been content with a lot of possession without much of an end product.
But straight from the off they seem determined to kill off Italy having more shots on goal in the first 15 minutes than they managed in the whole game against Portugal.
Italy found their feet in the next 20 minutes and looked like making a game of it but as soon as Jordie Alba put Spain two up with a really good breakaway goal the game was over.

Italy had some bad luck with Chiellini's early injury and Cassano still not fit enough to play the entire game so he went off at half time, then Motta was brought on and within minutes had pulled a hamstring leaving Italy with ten men for the last half hour.
But Italy looked tired from the beginning and just couldn't cope with Spain this time after looking really good in their first meeting a few weeks back.
Spain brought Torres on and it was just a matter of time before they scored again, Torres scored and laid on a goal for late sub Mata to finish it.

Useless fact - Despite 10 of the 14 players being used by Spain being from Barcelona and Real Madrid, the 4 goals were scored by the 3 English based players and Alba who I think is still a Valencia player although he will sign for Barcelona after this tournament.