Following the announcement this week that Jonny Wilkinson has retired from international rugby, like many people, my mind went back to November 2003 and that fantastic day when England won the Rugby World Cup 20-17 against Australia in Sydney.

Jonny’s drop goal must have been viewed millions of times but one more won’t hurt:

This day started very early for me in my own team’s clubhouse. Below are just a few of the photos from this memorable day (despite the Guinness depth charges! ) and hopefully gives just a flavour of why this was so special:

Finally, Jonny Wilkinson has retired from playing for England at the age of 32. As well as being an excellent kicker, he put his body on the line time and time again whilst wearing the red rose and this tackle on France’s Ntamack shows why he was such an admired rugby player:

Thank you for being such a wonderful player for England, Jonny. If only there were more like you.

Like most applicants, we missed out in the first round of applying for Olympic tickets.

My wife decided to get up at ‘silly o’clock’ to apply for the second round. As with the first round, we didn’t really care what event just as long as our sons got a chance to experience the Olympics whilst in London.

Thankfully, we were successful and received confirmation today that we’ll be off to Wembley Stadium to watch one of the football quarter finals. Rubbish game? Probably. Will Great Britain be there? With luck. Will the other home nations be part of the team? They should be and I hope their respective associations can put their stupidity to one side. If just for a moment.

My eldest son had his school sports day today.

When he first told me that parents weren’t allowed, I thought it was a wind-up. But no; parents not allowed at sports day. Ironically, the label his particular school has applied to it is that of ‘a specialist sports college‘.

This specialist sports college also has a policy of only letting children enter a maximum of two individual races.

He arrived home and informed me that he won both of his races, came second in the high jump and won the relay. In the longer sprint (300m) he broke his school record.

Of course, I’m very proud of what he has achieved but this pride is tempered somewhat by the fact parents were excluded from watching. I’m sure there has been a policy decision taken somewhere and they must have had their reasons for electing to do this, but it’s beyond me though…

I’m not sure if all secondary schools in the UK have a similar policy. We had the ‘non-competitive’ element when he was at primary and now this. I’m no sports expert but this doesn’t seem to be the way to encourage sporting excellence.

My wife and I were chatting the other day about the Channel 4 program, Famous and Fearless, commenting on how disappointing it was and how the advertising for the program was more of a success than the program itself.

During this conversation, the subject of Dame Kelly Holmes was raised; specifically, the fact that she was a ‘Dame’ and we wondered what the rationale was. Of course, what Kelly Holmes achieved, winning her double gold medals was truly impressive but did this merit her title? It was questioned whether this type of accolade would be better bestowed following a lifetime of achievement as opposed to being given in recognition of some short term success, no matter how wonderful the victories?

This conversation led to a similar discussion about Sir Chris Hoy and us wondering whether the winning of gold medals was recognition itself for an athlete at the very top of their sport. Is the giving of knighthoods for sportsmen who have achieved success justified?

I genuinely don’t know what the selection criteria is for these awards but it does seem odd that the highest honour we can give as a country is bestowed to athletes whilst still relatively young and, in some cases, still competing.

This in turn led on to a discussion about David Beckham winning the BBC Sports Personality Lifetime Achievement Award; lifetime achievement? He’s only 35 for goodness sakes. When was the last time the England football team did us proud? I just hope the dumbing down of this award by the BBC doesn’t mean ‘Becks’ becomes Lord Beckham of Leytonstone. Well, at least not until he’s in his forties…

My eldest son, Nick, was recently lucky enough to be selected as a mascot for Pompey’s home game against Queens Park Rangers on the 9th November. He was really chuffed as his coach at his Pompey in the Community football coaching had given him this treat for his hard work and good attitude at training.

Nick and I went to Fratton Park quite early for this evening fixture so that he, and the other mascots,  could get changed in to their Pompey kit and go for a quick rehearsal. The kits are now only lent to the children, presumably part of the effort to reduce Pompey’s huge debt. Ahem.

Nick (green boots) lines up before kick-off with Pompey & QPR Captains

Dave Kitson had the honour of walking on to the pitch with Nick but this must have really thrown Kitson as he never seemed to recover from this special moment and looked ‘lost’ for the entire game.

Nick gives Dave Kitson some last minute tips but to no avail

The match itself was a pretty dismal affair, summed up by a couple of penalties, two players sent off, some dubious refereeing and ending in a 1-1 draw. The result was fair as neither side deserved to win.

Nick enjoyed the atmosphere, even allowing for the numpty in the seat behind us who gave a running commentary throughout the game and clearly would have been a professional football manager had it not been for his calling to go in to window cleaning.

Kanu played from the beginning of this match and this was the first time Nick had seen him ‘in the flesh’ so to speak. He couldn’t believe the amount of running Kanu did, i.e. none, nor his pace (lack of). He always thought it was the TV that made him look so slow!

Thank you to Portsmouth Football Club for giving Nick this opportunity and best of luck for the rest of the season. Play up Pompey.

I was going to do a blog post on the definition of greed following the recent Wayne Rooney ‘will he, won’t he’ leave Man Utd saga.

The original effort was just a list of names associated with football such as Tom Hicks, George Gillett, The Glazers, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jermain Defoe, Ashley Cole, Harry Redknapp and Carlos Tevez. But it wasn’t very good. I couldn’t get beyond what has happened recently with Wayne Rooney.

Rooney has had tremendous support from Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson since they paid a fortune (in the normal world) to sign him from Everton. He’s played the Bosman card to extract even more cash from his employers who reported a record loss of £83.6m recently.

No, I just don’t understand it. Someone like Wayne Rooney is now worth £150,000 plus per week to play football? Was England’s recent World Cup failure so long ago?

With my home town club, Portsmouth FC, going through a much publicised administration, and other clubs on the brink, I just don’t get, or like, what is happening to the business side of football.

Of course, Wayne Rooney won’t be the last chancer to be paid far too much for scoring the occasional spectacular goal but I really hope that football can find a way to get its own house in order.

I had to referee my son’s Under 12′s match today. I normally enjoy doing this and, as we didn’t have a ‘proper’ ref appointed, was happy to help out.

The game started out OK but during the first half I reversed an opposition team’s throw in due to it being a foul throw. No question about it. A guy who I assumed to be the away team’s assistant coach then proceeds to shout out “don’t worry lads; I’m sure the ref is watching both teams”. Respect starting to ebb away already.

A bit later on in the first half, the same coach points out to me that our team were regularly pushing the other team. I hadn’t seen anything untoward at this point but thanked him for his feedback, never-the-less. At the same time, though, I asked him to make it the last comment to me. Respect for the referee? Easy to undermine.

Despite this, the first half was a closely fought affair with little drama. In the second ‘though, my son’s team soon took a 3-0 lead and you could sense some of the tackling was getting a bit niggly and the comments between players getting more frequent.

This ultimately descended in to a situation whereby I had to speak to one of the opposition players who responded with a mocking noise (that ‘sucking through the teeth’ noise that seems so popular nowadays). I asked him not to give me back-chat to which I got the same response. Now, not being an official referee, I don’t carry cards but I explained to his manager that another repeat of this would mean a sending off. Obviously, I’m apprehensive about this situation as not sure where I would stand officially. I would hope that the manager would substitute the individual to show support for the ref. Unfortunately, he was one of their stronger players and I guess making these sort of decisions are unlikely to happen in reality.

Towards the end of the game, another of their more feisty characters had said something to one of our players (he too was already on a warning at this point), that meant I had to have another word. Apparently, as I am walking away with my back turned, he is making gestures in my direction. Does a parent or coach step in? No. That would mean applying some discipline.

In the end, no one is sent off as I would imagine the paperwork would be a nightmare and you suddenly feel very alone!

It’s interesting to be involved with this, both from a refereeing standpoint and as an observer. Two weeks ago, we had an away match and the ‘Respect Rules’ poster was prominently on display for all to see as we entered the playing area. This didn’t stop the home team’s manager screaming at the ref (a lad of about 15, I would guess) every time a mistake, or perceived mistake, was made. It takes more than displaying a poster to show the referee respect. A young lad, just starting out, being shouted at and criticised by one of the managers? Disgraceful.

I think the FA is doing a great job pushing through with the Respect campaign, but until all parents and coaches start paying more than just lip service to it, it is going to continue being a struggle finding youngsters willing to give up their free time to enter the game as referees. And that is a real pity.

Well done to England for putting in an impressive display against Switzerland last night with a solid 3-1 victory.

Obviously, we need to remember they looked impressive in the World Cup  qualifiers too so mustn’t get carried away but good to see some other players getting an opportunity.

I can’t help but wonder what will happen when Terry and Ferdinand are fit, though I suspect they’ll both stroll back in being the ‘names’. Lampard, too. Steven Gerrard just looks so much better playing with Gareth Barry than he does Christine Bleakley’s boyfriend.

Also, congratulations must go to Scotland with a famous 2-1 home win against those giants of Europe, Liechtenstein. Pulling back a one goal deficit, Scotland benefited from a massive amount of injury time whilst playing in their home stadium and I’m sure will almost go on to qualify for the Euro finals.

If you don’t laugh…

England - Out of Africa

Another World Cup, another England failure.

For me, the disappointment is not so much the fact that we’re out of the World Cup so soon, but the manner in which it has happened. The public have been told all the way along that preparations were first class but the four games we have seen the England team play demonstrated very clearly that all was not right.

Three goals in four games. One victory against Slovenia, the smallest country in the competition. Dreadful.

Our ‘star’ players failed to live up to their star billing. Perhaps we shouldn’t measure a player’s ability simply on how much he earns? Maybe the greed of the Premiership is masking the fact that our English players are very, very ordinary and only the influx of foreigners in the English game have made them appear to be the superstars their obscene salaries would have us believe?

For me, nothing summed up the England players poor attitude than seeing Cashley Cole laughing and grinning with Ledley ‘Knee’ King as they stepped off the plane just a few hours after the game. It seemed as if Cole had not a care in the World. That’s probably true because this overpaid prima donna can’t possibly care about his country and for all those poor fans who paid thousands of pounds to travel to watch this piss poor performance from our overpaid footballers. Ashley just cares about himself and how much money he can squeeze out of the game. Disgraceful.

Apparently, Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry earn more between them than the entire Germany squad. Go figure…

It’s not just the players who should hang their heads in shame though. The FA need to look at themselves and figure out what sort of strategy they have other than giving foreign managers millions of pounds on the basis that the candidate talks a good fight (not in English, of course).

Finally, Fabio Capello. Apparently, according to his agent (who happens to be his son), he’s not the quitting type. But is he an honourable man? Will he resign and reach a reasonable* settlement with his English paymasters? For the sake of England (the country, not the ‘team’), I sincerely hope so. What we, the paying public, have witnessed over the past few weeks has been a national disgrace and the Manager must take responsibility for this. No excuses. The time has been there. The money has been there. The results though, speak for themself. Go Fabio and let us start planning as soon as possible for the European Championships in two years time. Please!

*I appreciate that ‘reasonable’ and ‘football’ and not two things you would typically associate with each other.