Into the Permafrost

This blog likes to follow the progress of people with whom I have been watching sport, or who I have watched playing. So, I was pleased to hear the news from Banstead Athletic of the Cherry Red Records Combined Counties League that they had appointed Andrew Tucker as their new Manager.

I have known Andy as a Dulwich Hamlet supporter for many years. He has been pursuing a career in coaching, most recently at Croydon FC, and scouting for the Charlton Athletic Academy, and this is his first appointment in senior management. He has also found time to continue to turn out for the Dulwich Hamlet Supporters' team, which is how he comes to feature in these pages.

Andrew Tucker, playing for Dulwich Hamlet Supporters against Worthing Supporters

Banstead play in Tadworth, above the Epsom Downs, which has a reputation for being colder than the surrounding area, and has the nickname amongst visiting supporters of Ice Station Banstead. From experience of my school cross country course on the North Downs a few miles away in Oxted, this is probably deserved. This blog therefore wishes Andy well in his new appointment, and hopes Banstead supply their manager with a warm coat.

I would like to say I will get along to a game to take some pictures of the team - as that would need me to be in Surrey and a game not clashing with a Dulwich Hamlet fixture, I shall not promise anything, but you never know how postponements might pan out in the winter.

Anyone got a light?

My country spent ten billion quid on the Olympics, and all I got was this lousy photo.

A rather obscured view of the Torch at Old Swan, Liverpool

When you attend an event to report on it, I am not sure whether it matters if it lives up to expectations - either way, you have something to report.

In 2005, the International Olympic Committee announced that the Games of the XXX Olympiad were awarded to the city of London. Awarding the Games to a city rather than a country is something of a one way street. The majority of events will take place in the host city, and most benefits will accrue there, but the event is so large and unwieldy, there are few, if any, cities that could pay for it, or even a majority of it, so the bulk of the costs and risks accrue to the country.

So, the rest of the country needs to see something, and this, for those not in the few places staging outlying events, comes in the shape of the torch relay. On that basis, I was a bit surprised that, after Liverpool, the relay went to the Isle of Man, whose residents escape the taxes that are paying for it.

I was not going to bother going to see it, but it was passing only a few minutes walk from my house, and I run a sports photos blog, it seemed remiss not to. For most of the route into Liverpool, the relay was along dual carriageways with a wide central reservation, a legacy of the pioneering City Engineer, John Alexander Brodie, better known in the sporting context for his goal nets. The crowd could safely line both sides of the route, and traffic could continue out of the city at the beginning of the evening rush hour.

However, the organisers did not appear to have considered that some of the route was single carriageway, and having moving traffic in the opposite direction was not particularly safe for the relay, or for spectators, some of whom crossed to the middle of the road in front of the traffic when the torch arrived. Nor did it enhance the experience for those who thought we had a decent viewing position - if I had been a few yards further along the street, I would have had a fine view of a No 10 bus.

Wenlock on a bus with a rack of torches

I thought this may happen, and as the point of a photo blog is to have some decent photos, I took the precaution of also watching in the rather more sedate suburb of Crosby. This was more suitable for photography, as the route was along a lightly used road by the promenade, and beside a park with plenty of room and raised ground for spectators.

Unlike in Liverpool, the sponsors' vehicles did not seem to be part of the procession, unless they had been and gone before I got there. My instincts were correct, as I was able to train my lenses on the torch.

I am not sure who the torchbearer is: although the website for the route listed the bearers, it did not seem to have a reference for the numbers they were wearing.

It was a pleasant enough way to spend some time, but I felt the more memorable locations were probably those designed for television and a small crowd of invited spectators, like the summit of Snowdon. Some of the spectators seemed to enjoy it ...

... but some remained resolutely looking the other way.

The last time I went outdoors with the intention of watching a flame was in the long hot summer of 1976, when it was our village's turn to convert from town (coal) gas to natural gas. The flare to burn off the last of the town gas had been set up outside my primary school, so we all went out to watch the flame change colour to indicate we were now cooking with natural gas. Given that I can still remember it 36 years later, I suspect that the Gas Board may have laid on an at least equally memorable spectacle.

Some more photos from the day can be seen here.