I may be Scottish, but that doesn’t mean I automatically support whichever football team England are playing. Since I enjoy watching football (almost as much as playing it) I like to see a good game, quality passing, quality goals and non-stop entertainment. I support Real Madrid (have done for years, long before your Zidane’s and Raul’s played there) so naturally I’m a fan of Dave Beckham who has in my mind been their best player this season. I watch the premiership and love seeing the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U slugging it out with some of the world’s best players - some of them English.

So I can hardly watch the World Cup and see a lot of English players I respect and admire - and want them to lose just because Scottish people are supposed to want them to. No, I want them to do well - we’re all British at the end of the day. But frankly, I find them as frustrating to watch as your average Englishman probably does.

You need 5-6 world class players to win a major championship and I think England are there or thereabouts. They have in Lampard and Gerrard two of the best attacking midfielders in the world. In Joe Cole they’ve got a creative player who stands out in a team like Chelsea which is saying something. I’ve been on about Joe Cole for years - ever since I saw him play for the West Ham youth team at 15 - I always told people he’d be a star and they’d say “luxury player”. Shows what they know! Oh, and Wayne Rooney - well no need to talk about the future world player of the year, the press do enough of that.

So when I sit down to watch them I’m always hopeful they’ll show what they can do week in, week out for their clubs. But it never happens. They always seem to struggle, they don’t pass, they make heavy weather of everything and just don’t play to their potential. In fact, they play like my work team does - and that’s not a compliment to anybody!

If England were to win the World Cup by being the best team, I’m not going to begrudge them that. But if they just continue to under-perform and get eliminated long before then I’ll be disappointed, not celebrating. However if they play well and still get knocked out, well it’s fair enough - I won’t be cheering but I won’t be crying either!

I should have put a bet on though. I couldn’t decide who to support before the tournament started - it was either Spain or Argentina - and it turns out they’re the two star teams playing the best football! Since I already have a Spain top from the last European championships, I guess I’ll have to nip out and buy an Argentina one to add to my collection. At least they play like a team - and their coach doesn’t get paid millions a year unlike a certain Swede who isn’t exactly what I’d call value for money if I were an England supporter…

Warning: Readers of a nervous disposition might want to skip this one. I’m not kidding.

I played in an 11-a-side football match this evening after work. It was organised as our office versus another one of the offices and I’d been looking forward to it for ages. I hadn’t played 11-a-side in years and was relishing the challenge of it all!

Unfortunately I won’t be forgetting it for quite a different reason.

The first half went well, we were 1-0 up, it was a good natured game (i.e. the other guys weren’t trying to kill us) and while I didn’t get a lot of the ball on the left wing, the one time I did get a chance I made a decent run beating their last man, putting a decent cross in that was only just missed by one of our strikers.

Sadly, 56 seconds into the second half our right-back went down under a heavy (although fair, if a little late) challenge from one of their forwards. I knew as soon as he went down that he’d broken his leg because there was an unmistakable cracking sound that echoed around the whole park (I was on the other side of the pitch and it was as clear as a bell). It was like hitting a telegraph pole with a wooden baseball bat - surprisingly loud and something I’ll not forget. So we ran over and he was writhing in agony on the ground - really suffering. Poor guy.

Someone rang an ambulance and it turned up a not-exactly-quick 38 minutes later. Oh, obviously that was the end of the game. The guy who made the challenge was gutted, especially because he wasn’t trying to hurt him, it was a fair tackle, just incredibly unlucky.

I felt so bad for our guy though, he’s got months of rehab and pain ahead of him and it was a bad break as far as leg breaks go - horrible. But it’s persuaded me of one thing, my 11-a-side days are over. I’ll carry on with 5 and 8-a-side but the added dangers of slide-tackles you get with 11-a-side just isn’t worth it. I’m too old for all that thanks and I’ve had enough injuries from playing over the last few years to remind me that I’m not getting any younger.

So don’t expect a new long-haired Scottish winger joining Chelsea in the off-season. I’m not for sale at any price!

What with it being a Bank Holiday weekend my girlfriend and I decided to go for a walk. After a quick search on the net we settled on the Ingleton Waterfall Walk. It was around 5 miles so not too bad a distance and, as the name suggests, there are a lot of waterfalls to look at which would mean I could get some nice photos:

Of course, the trouble with taking photographs is you have to take time on each shot. It’s not a case of pointing and clicking. I have to look at the scene and decide on what angle I like, then set up the tripod, the filters (my trusty old ND grads), work out my exposure, click, wait 20 seconds (to get that flowing water shot), have a look at the histogram on the camera and decide if I like it, then continue to the next waterfall and repeat! My good lady was surprisingly patient I must say, what with having to start and stop all the time. The only thing I had to worry about was children knocking into the tripod as we weren’t exactly the only people on the walk!

When I started taking photos I’d feel a bit self conscious putting up a tripod, messing around with filters and such like. But now I don’t even think about it, I don’t worry about the people around me and get on with the job at hand.

What’s really surprised me though is people’s reaction to me when I’ve got the camera out. If I was walking or mountain biking or just looking at things - I’d be pretty much ignored as most people are by strangers. But now with a camera in hand I must be more approachable as I find loads of people just walk up to me, ask what I’m doing and take a genuine interest. It’s really nice and makes it all the more worthwhile as I’ve met a lot of interesting people - some of whom know a hell of a lot more about photography than I do (which, to be fair, wouldn’t be that hard)!

I’ve driven past Malham Cove (pictured) many times since I moved down to Yorkshire and intended going up there for quite some time - but until yesterday had been too lazy to do so.

So a few friends, my good lady and I went for a wander up there on a rare sunny January day in Yorkshire. As usual I wore my shoes that are slightly too short and lacerate my heels. One of these days I’ll either wear my old army boots or just buy a new pair - it took months for my heels to heal in New Zealand when I ran down a mountain in them - idiot.

It turns out that as well as some nice cliffwork, there’s a large limestone causeway at the top of Malham Cove - as modelled by Ben - which provides some entertaining slippery footing when wet (which I imagine it almost always is).

I guess it was a good tester of how much my ankle has healed since I sprained it that I could bound around hopping from rock to rock without going over it, being air-lifted home and having some bearded mountain men talking on the local news about what an ill-prepared muppet I was and how other people should learn from my mistakes!

There was even a pretty waterfall there and strangely I wasn’t tempted to dive in and swim around - maybe if it was in a tropical rain-forest I might have but this is Yorkshire.

Anyway, if you want to have a see all the photos I took, have a look at the Flickr set. Oh, and watch out for the camp photos of me!

Oh, I almost forgot, no walking trip is complete without a cheesy team photo and to satisfy that criteria I present to you this one:

I went snowboarding the other night at Xscape in Castleford. It’s got one of these indoor runs that’s made of real snow. It’s a couple of hundred metres long - which obviously doesn’t compare to a 2km piste - but is enough to remind you why snowboarding is so much fun. I hadn’t strapped myself onto my board in almost a year but it never ceases to amaze me how as soon as I do it all comes flooding back…

While I’m not going on a proper boarding holiday this year I may be forced to do a long weekend trip somewhere cold. Exactly one year ago I was in Tignes where I took the following photo:

Wish I was there and not in miserable Yorkshire! Roll on Spring…

Well, I finally got around to changing my car and it was an odd experience indeed. Trading in my BMW 325Ci Sport for a mere Renault Clio Sport 182 meant that the dealer actually gave me a large cheque when we swapped keys! It was a nice feeling.

You might think it’s a bit of a downgrade but I really don’t think it is. Sure, the BMW was nice and luxurious, the 6 cylinder engine sounded great and was very fast. But it cost a fortune to service and it used up petrol like a 747. I really didn’t think it was worth the money, it wasn’t that much better than a Ford Focus. The Clio, on the other hand, is much more economical, the servicing is cheaper and the tyres don’t cost £200 each. Oh, and it has all the toys and then some of the BMW - leather interior, climate control, cruise control, auto-lights and auto-wipers, xenon lights and much more besides. Plus it’s faster than the BMW too - lots faster!

It’s pretty quick up to 5000rpm but from then on it turns into an animal - in the wet it tries to take off! Anyway, I managed to get through the first day without crashing it which is always my aim with a new car. And I don’t miss the BMW so far - somebody actually let me out of a junction yesterday which never used to happen! Oh, and those wheels look much easier to clean than the spokey ones I used to have - should save a bit of time in my bi-annual car washing…

Three months ago I heavily sprained my ankle playing football and I’ve been trying to recover ever since. Everybody knows that once you sprain an ankle it’s easy to go over it again but what less people know is that if you rehabilitate it by strengthening around the ankle and work on the flexibility of the joint you should be able to get back to 100% fitness.

With this in mind I started moving it as soon as I could after injury and waited for the swelling to go down (which took weeks) before doing any heavier work on it. I was advised by a sports physio I know to work on strengthening my calf muscle and shin which I diligently did. I had to start gradually and gently build it up as the ankle was pathetically weak. I borrowed one of those big elastic band things to work on mobility and gradually strengthening the joint through it’s full range of motion. I even spent time sitting on a chair with my foot hooked around a door - pushing the door open - to strengthen the ankle (and boy did that hurt). I’d been assured that the ankle would often hurt like hell while exercising it but that while it would feel like something was going to snap I’d probably be alright!

Three months later and with much trepidation I decided to return to football on Wednesday not really sure if it would stand up to the punishment or not. Despite having done a lot of work on it along with plenty of running and weight training, there really is no preparation for actually playing football. You can’t simulate all the twisting and turning you do along with the fact that you get tackled, tripped up and pushed around so landing awkwardly is par for the course. I don’t think I’ve ever been that nervous before playing before!

Incredibly I got through the game fine. My touch was a little off, my passing wasn’t the best, my positional play wasn’t that good, my tackling was even worse than usual (if you can believe it) and my movement wasn’t as fluid as it should be. But it’s exactly what I’d expect after not playing for three months. I was subjected to a couple of hard tackles with no ill effects (aside from losing the ball on both occasions). The ankle was a bit sore the day after but to be honest so was the rest of me! It was great to play again although I need to keep up the work or, like my dodgy knee, it could go again. Now, I just have to avoid any new sprains or strains. I’m in danger of losing count of the number of old injuries I have to keep an eye on!

My girlfriend has just taken delivery of this brand new VW Beetle and I’m extremely jealous! The wonderful “New Car Smell” when you get in, the fact that there were only 20 miles on the clock, the fact that it plays MP3 CDs and the sheer fact that it’s just plain really cool. I love it! And I want one…

So a couple of weeks ago I was running to get to the ball (we’re playing football here by the way) and so was one of their players (coincidentally called John). I knew I had more pace than him but that didn’t help much when I tripped over thanks to my grippy new boots. My toe caught and my entire body weight went onto my ankle bending it inward in a way that feet aren’t supposed to be able to bend. I didn’t hear any snapping (a good sign) but it was monumentally painful (also a good sign, but at the time a bad sign).

There was no way I could play on so I limped off, got some ice onto it and drove home thanking my lucky stars that my car is an automatic. So here I am on a Saturday afternoon watching football on the tv, laptop on my lap, lying on my sofa. Plenty guys my age would love to spend their Saturday doing this but not me. I’m the active sort and I’d probably have been out on my mountain bike or hiking today if my ankle wasn’t wrecked. This is what it looked like when most of the swelling had gone down:

The day after I injured it my whole foot started to swell up like a size 3 football and some black and dark red patches began spreading along the inside and outside of my foot. At this point my girlfriend decided to start being sympathetic (up until then her bedside manner left a lot to be desired) by suggesting we head to casualty and get it x-rayed to see if it was broken. A couple of hours later and we discovered that it wasn’t - having been told that a sprain can often be worse than a break!

I hate being injured. You’re fit, having a run of good form, doing lots of action-packed things, everything’s going well and then suddenly you’re back to square one. I’d been doing a lot of work on my road bike and was starting to see some improvements there too but now it’s all gone to the wall. I’ve been here before thanks to breaking my toe (3 months out), damaging my shoulder (2 months out) and knee ligament damage (9 months out) so I know what to expect in terms of the road to recovery. Oh, all those injuries were while playing football by the way.

It’s just a bit frustrating - especially when I keep having dreams about running! I’m sure some people have nightmares about it but I love running so I was disappointed to wake up and only be able hobble around the house. I think my footballing says are numbered - another injury like this and I’m throwing in the towel, it’s a dangerous game! Maybe I’ll take up BASE jumping instead, less injury worries.

I’ve had injuries before. I’ve sprained my ankle, broken my big toe, damaged the ligaments around my shoulder after falling on it, had shin splints, more blisters than I’ve had hot dinners, been bruised on almost every inch of my body, I’ve got scars on me that I have no recollection of getting, I’ve even ripped my face open [slight exaggeration] when I fell off my bike (I wasn’t wearing a helmet) and my face landed on a wall. And all that after one night out in Dundee!

Okay, just kidding. But I’ve had all those injuries over time and none of them has come close to my knee injury I mentioned the other month. To recap, I woke up one morning with a bit of stiffness in the back of my knee that I put down to walking to the train in the morning (it’s harder work than you think). That night I played football on it and that made it hurt some more. I played again the next night and that really made it hurt - I twisted around and heard / felt some rather nasty cracking noises coming from my knee. My game was over and so began my current injury lay-off.

At first I had to sit around with an ice pack on my knee (I have used that thing for so many hours it’s like a security blanket now). Then I’d hobble around, limping from place to place with a grimace never far from my face. Eventually it started to improve and loosen off until I thought I could start exercising it again. I took it easy on the weights deciding to gradually build up the strength again until I felt ready to do some running. Idiot. That just made it worse and put me back a few weeks. So I carried on taking it easy and it’s been very gradually improving. Almost imperceptibly. It’s been over two months since I had the injury and I’ve not felt any closer to being able to run with it (or even do 20 rep squat sets with a proper weight) so I thought it was high time I saw a physio to see if I’ll ever play football again. That was on Monday.

So according to the physio I managed to stretch one of my cruciate ligaments as well as one of the collateral ligaments. Nice. As they have such a low blood supply, ligaments take an age to heal which explains the long layoff. What I didn’t realise is that your brain decides to protect the injured area even after it heals and modifies how you move the joint. He demonstrated this by telling me to relax my leg and he pushed the knee so as to bend my leg in the wrong direction. Despite trying to relax the knee it keep tensing up of its own accord - i.e. my brain was taking over to protect the knee. Weird. So I’ve got to re-learn how to use my knee properly and get my brain to break the new habit. If I don’t do it then I’m just asking for a repeat injury.

None of this is helped by the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having. I can’t go out and enjoy it on the bike, or out running or playing football. All the things I love doing! So if you were wondering why I’ve been posting so infrequently lately - it’s because I’ve not been doing anything interesting enough to write about. And before you ask - no - I don’t think writing about my knee is interesting but I felt I owed you an explanation.