Go Africa, or Ghana at least. Uruguay awaits. I don't know how to call that game. It will either be a 1-0 to Uruguay or another extra time thriller. All depends on who scores first. I hope Ghana score first, Uruguay only seem to come alive when they absolutely have to.

Unlucky USA. It is time to go home. Still a grateful nation should reflect on the spirit of never say die that you showed throughout the tournament. Now sort out your defence and you will be a proper world power.

And now to Sunday. England vs. Germany! I will not curse the game with my pessimistic predictions. But perhaps i might reflect on former glories. The great Bobby Charlton once said that the third goal in the 1966 final has overshadowed the achievements of that side. He is right of course. The television analysts have brought on computer experts to prove that the ball did not land wholly over the line. Who cares, in the immortal words of Kenneth Wolstenholme "they think it's all over - it is now!"

One argument the Germans used at the time was how could the ball have come back out if it had bounced behind the line? The answer of course is that the ball was spinning violently. I have witnessed at first hand just such a phenomenon.

When I was but a young lad I spent some time at an agricultural college in south Devon. Being an agricultural college there was only one way to have any kind of social life. And that entailed joining the Rugby club. So I did. I had not played competitive Rugby ever and had only had some rudimentary lessons at school but there I was one Saturday afternoon in a XV against the blind school 15th XV. During the match two of my side were hot footed to A&E with concussion, and these were clumsy tackles emanating from our oppositions front line not out of malice but out of sheer dumb luck. Perhaps the lesson is that you should never play such a physical game against such incompetent players. After the game every man jack of us (except me) had a personal tale of being fatally wounded on the field of play and spending a night at hte tender mercies of an unsympathetic Casualty Dept.

So I gave that up and took up Soccer instead. Unfortunately the social life was rubbish but I was less likely to suffer life threatening injuries so it is swings and roundabouts.

One of my friends strung a story together that I was a bit useful between the sticks and I found myself in a the team. I was of course no such thing and we lost 7-0. Mind you not all the goals were my fault I had an unreliable defence that left me exposed to rather more one on ones than I would have liked

Any way one Sunday morning we ventured out to Brixham. The game was going well for me personally and we were trialling a mere 6-2 at the time. AS the match was about to finish I found myself trying to get back under the posts because I had been caught off my line. The ball struck the under side of the crossbar bounced well behind the line and then spun back into arms. Where upon I threw it out to my defence as quick as possible. We had no linesman for this game so my ploy was not discovered. The reason I behaved in this way was that I felt I was playing pretty well and to concede 7 goals would not reflect my improvement.

Small victories, small victories