Not bad

 I got Bosnia and Herzegovina in the work world cup sweepstake.  It didn't cost me anything so not too fussed.  For £10 I entered the pub one.  I drew Germany, so pretty pleased.  The landlord drew England so you can imagine how much grief he got.  £480 total pot, most to the winner but prizes go down to the 2 semi finalists too.

He's back!

 I beat my 400m and 500m pool swim records today.  

400m 7:48, 8 seconds faster than my previous best (03-03-25)

500m 9:40, 16 seconds faster (again on 03-03-25).

Since the 3rd of March last year i've had a shoulder operation and now i'm back up to speed.  My shoulder isn't completely healed but it must be getter there with that time.  I think my fitness is much higher than it was last year too.

Flo won an award

It was our last rugby session of the season on Sunday and at the end we had a prize giving and a massive water fight.  She won the Spirit of rugby award!  Well done Florence.  We ended up staying for quite a while as the weather was so nice and ended up going to a Turkish restaurant with 2 other families for dinner.  A fairly big day in the end.  We got a special thanks from our fellow coaches in the u6s, we got £150 voucher for a local pub / restaurant.

Finally got the fantasy football trophy engraved.

 I've won it 4 out of the 7 times we've done it

Fantasy football update

 I'm just outside the top 20k fantasy football players this year with 2 game weeks to go.  That's out of 11.5m players (i'm sure the vast majority of accounts are now dormant), even given that, it's been a bloody good season for me.

I'm top of all my groups except for 1 and have no realistic prospect of winning the whole thing but still very pleased.  I'm 154 pts clear in my Tonbridge group with 2 games left so no realistic chance of me losing, but it comes with a £20 entry fee for prize money and also a trophy.  I've won it 3 times out of 6 (about to be 4th time winning out of 7).  Usually we'll all meet up for the fa cup final or for the final week of the season but we have a 40th birthday party and i'm away in France  for the final game so struggling to find a date where we can meet.  The winner has to pay for drinks out of the winnings so they're usually out of pocket especially after getting the trophy engraved.

I've suggested some alternate meets but not much joy (one response).  Sod it. Just pay up.

Fantasy football

With 2 game weeks to go in the league I'm just outside the top 20k of fantasy football players. That's out of 11.5m players. Pretty good right? Yes, the majority of those are no longer active players but still? Very pleased.

Text book

 There was an inflatable tackle machine at the last training session of the minis season.  I got top score.  It measures how hard you hit it.  165!  I was getting high 30s before realising if you give it a good squeeze it bumps the score up.

Winner

 We test drove one of Arthur's new games this afternoon. I kicked April's ass. Snail sprint.

Never in doubt

 I won the Tonbridge Massive Fantasy football trophy (again) this year.  That's the third time.  £120 too.  Although i've got to take the others out for beers at the start of the season.

Am I champion elect?

 Looks very likely that i'll win the Tonbridge Massive fantasy football league trophy again this year.  I'm 45 points clear of my nearest rival and have 10 / 15 players the same as them so their differential players must do something special to overhaul me.  I've got two free transfers this week so I could use them to try and match my rival even closer so that it's even less likely they can claw back the points difference.  That would make it 3 wins out of 6!  

Poker evening

 We had a poker night upstairs in my local last night.  I was winning at one point, then Stu was winning then Jono took an insurmountable lead and eventually won!  £20 in each, winner buys a few extra drinks at the end of the evening.  

Winner

 My Tonbridge fantasy football league presented me with my engraved winners trophy on Sunday whilst watching the Chelsea vs Liverpool game in the opening weekend.

I won £120!

Unfortunately the winner has to pay for all the drinks!

Winner!

 I won this years fantasy football trophy.  And by over 100 points! It's still yet to be inscribed. And I have only received £20 of my winnings.  Unfortunately the winnings are used to take the other players out for drinks so it's usually a big net loss!  I also won my local pub's league, the Ye Olde Chequers Drip Tray Challenge.  No prize unfortunately. 

Won the raffle at my local

 I won £80 from my local's (Ye Olde Checkers) today.  I was stung a couple of weeks ago as much of the money was going to charity and the smallest thing I had on me was a tenner!  Not bad.  Should pay for a week's worth of drinks there.  Only problem is they gave me a £50 note as part of the winnings.  Now I have to try and get rid of it.  I could always spend it there!

Recognition at last

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ui46zxNQ8&t=324s

(12:30 mins in)

Loki Doki is probably my favourite Youtuber and i'm finally famous on his latest football manager save.  I've been following him for years and think he helped keep me more or less sane during my 6 months in Chicago looking after my 6 month year old daughter.  

In his latest save he started out with Basingstoke Town FC in a very lowly division, he officially linked with the real club (he did a similar thing with Fort William the previous year) and set up a just giving page to help them out financially (£11k).

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/basingstoke

As part of your donation, if you paid £50 or more you'd get a regen named after you.  A regen is a regenerated player in the youth team that's created within the game to take into account player retirements and to mirror real life scouting and youth team set up in clubs.  The only other rule was that the player had to have 4 star or more potential.  

It's now 2034 in his save and has managed to get the side up into the Championship.  Miraculously these are the first three players that have had 4 star or more potential, I guess it's taken him that long to get the clubs facilities inline with the rest of his constantly improving side (promotion after promotion).  I think there were 70+ people who were in the draw I was the lucky winner of the best new player!

He's only 15 and has a lot of learning to do but I could potentially be a proper player in his save game in years to come, that's if I don't get poached by one of the big boys.  Determination is one of the big factors here and at 15 / 20 there is a big chance.  Being Panamanian, I may even get some international caps!

Champions

Some of you might not be aware, that I went to Madrid at the weekend to watch the Champions League Final between Tottenham and Liverpool.  We didn't manage to get tickets in the end but had a good time getting there. 

The route Tonbridge->Gatwick->Malaga->Madrid->Malaga->Gatwick->Redhill->Tonbridge

3:40am waiting for my taxi to the airport

Our transport / bed for the night.

It even had a shower

2 double bed bunks

En route 400km

Spurs fan zone

Our first of many beers

Our venue for the game

Champions! James supports Tottenham

Moon Base Alpha, where we parked for the night

The victory parade via an Irish pub in Malaga

My sample medal has arrived

I ordered a sample Tonbridge Jamboree winners medal last week it arrived yesterday. Here's me practicing my victory acceptance speach.

Winner

I won Trojan of the year last night at the rugby club end of season dinner. I'm really quite pleased. The major problem was thatI had to drink out of it all night. A bigger problem was that I had to be up at 3am the next day for a flight to Mykonos. I got in at half past midnight. Urgh...

A couple of shots from the latest games meet

This one was in Cottingham round Ben's Mum's new flat. I think I won the trophy this time having won 2 out of the 3 competitive games we played...

Another win, just

Rugby was good on Saturday, we were 19 nil down within the first 15 minutes, but ended up winning 37-32. I set up the winning try with about 4 mins to go after a 50 yard break. We've got the only other team that can equal us on points next Saturday away.


What I didn't say last week was that all we needed to win the league was to win one of the 3 games, then turn up to the other 2 games (you get a point for turning up) the best Thanet can do is equal us. Before Saturday's games we had a 61 goal difference advantage. That's now been cut to 19 with a big win. We're playing them next, so a loss could seriously turn that around. However if we lose but only lose within 7 points, we'd get another bonus point, where all we would have to do is turn up in Folkestone and we'd win the league.


I think we should just try and win on Saturday then it's all irrelevant.


I've had a number of people saying it's the best they've seen me play during my 9 seasons with TJs. I can't possibly see how this is true as i'm 37!