An Otway Odyssey

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “odyssey” = noun (pl odysseys) a long eventful journey.

No shit.

Some of you may or may not be aware of my weekend past time of mountain biking. Occasionally I get a bit ahead of myself and sign up for crazy events such as 100km Marathons. It happened last year when I completed the BMC 100km Classic. For some strange reason, I signed up to compete (well, “take part in” really) in the 2010 Otway Odyssey. A 100km MTB Marathon that runs from Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road up through the Otway Ranges to the township of Forrest. And as I discovered this weekend, the OO made the BMC look like a swift jaunt to the shops to get skittles. The first 50km is basically up (and with a total elevation gain of around 2000m you’d expect that), then there is around 27km of beautiful singletrack around the world class trails in Forrest before the final 13km loop to the finish.
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Can Mancini deliver Champions League Football to Eastlands as promised.

Well the Premier League returned this weekend and whilst the title battle seemed to swing towards Chelsea and the relegation battle continued to look increasingly muddied, the most intriguing contest appears to be the race for the final Champions League place.

In recent years this has always been an intriguing battle and one that usually goes to the last game of the season. In the end though, it is always the self-titled “Big Four” of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United who always seem to make it in the end. The one year that Everton actually usurped their city neighbours, Liverpool went on to win the Chamions League itself so were allowed into it the following season in any event. Spurs also looked like they could crash this new world order until their final games of the season at West Ham which they lost meekly amid allegations of food poisoning centred on a dodgy lasagne.

This year the candidates for the 4th place are Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City and once again Spurs. The last weekend was seen as pivotal in deciding the outcome of this contest as the two favourites met at the City of Manchester Stadium. What transpired in actual fact was one of the most boring games of the season as these two simply decided not to attack the other and settle for a 0-0 draw. This therefore gave very little away in terms of who will triumph (if you can call finishing fourth a triumph). I will therefore endeavour to give an insight into who I think will claim the final coveted Chamions League place.
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Burnley win the 2009 Championship Playoff Final

Greetings all, welcome to the first of a weekly post on the topics of all things English football (and occassionally European football).

I am a follower of a team that is constantly invlolved in a relegation battle to stay in the Premiership. I therefore spend my life going through fixture lists to establish where the necessary 40 points can be gathered from so that I can do the same next season. However, the last weekend provided a break from the Premiership and this grim task and allowed the FA Cup to take centre stage. The FA Cup though failed to deliver if we’re honest and provided no talking points of note (other than the usual Neil Warnock rant at officials). I have therefore decided to direct this first post at all things Football League.

Sky and the BBC currently cover the Football League and in my experience, this coverage adopts a sort of patronising approach of – look at the funny little clubs playing “real” football. This is best highlighted in the BBC’s dreadful post Match of the Day Football League Show with its awful e-mail sections so that “real fans can contact the show”.
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Ok ok ok. I know I said I’d try harder. So here it is. Me trying harder.

Before the year runs out and I haven’t posted anything at all, I thought I’d better get my thoughts and expectations for the sporting year ahead. Sadly I’ve already missed the boat on the Australian Open, but if I had had chance to blog about it before the event I would have written about my hopes that Andy Murray would do well. You can imagine my delight that he did very well indeed. It is a shame that Roger Federer still exists! I did manage to catch Murray live in his second round match against Marc Giquel and I was stuck by how much more aggressive he looked on court. I had high hopes. I guess the only disappointment was that Murray couldn’t take that final set against Federer. I guess we all knew The Fed would prevail, but I had hoped Murray would take a set or two off him. Still, I have hopes for Andy. I have no doubt he will win a major one day, I just don’t think it will be Wimbledon. He seems far more at home on the hard courts of Australia and the USA.
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