Let’s start with the football, shall we, get it out of the way early.  I don’t go to away matches because I can never get tickets, so I wasn’t on the premises when the mighty Spurs crumbled to defeat against Brighton last Sunday.  They’re a good team, with a bit of a hex on us but we were all over them in the first half and should have been more than 2-nil up.  Not surprisingly, in the second half they came out like dervishes, scored early, scored again and then again.  Their fans went nuts, we were running about like headless cockerels, our best defenders made crass mistakes – overrun but probably also a bit leggy and mentally weary after a trip to Hungary on the Thursday.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in classic fashion was bad enough but what really, really (ad infinitum) annoyed (polite terminology) me was the commentators saying that it was “inexplicable”.  You what?  Hadn’t they been watching us?  Even Ange seemed shocked beyond belief but I’m sure I wasn’t the only Totspurs fan who felt in my water that we needed to be at least 3-nil up for us to begin to feel remotely comfortable.  Hey ho.  What do I know…

At least I was watching the match on my own; cheering; leaping; groaning; screeching; hoping; swearing; sulking; kicking (missing, of course); and, in the end, resorting to Dad’s mantra “every result makes somebody happy”, uttered between gritted teeth.

That’s one of the bonuses of living on your own:  you can behave like an eejit with impunity, without disturbing somebody else.  If there was another occupant, the house would have to be rejigged, made less open plan, with added soundproofing.  In short, I’d probably have to move.  And I’m very happy just where I am.

The trouble with living on your own, without a housekeeper, is that you’re in charge of EVERYTHING.  Have I told you how delighted I am with the new cleaning doofer picked up for a show-offer snip at Grand Designs?  It’s very simple but as the wee pic above demonstrates it’s very good at rooting out all the gunge – and you get a bit of a workout as well.  Who knows how long it will last, given that my sweeping technique is on the heavy-handed side but so far it’s living up to the demonstrator’s hype.  And I got it and a smaller version for a tenner.  Who doesn’t love a bargain?

Maureen isn’t too convinced by my clearing skills, though I’ve got the thumbs up for throwing Shane Lowry in the recycling bag.  Not Shane himself, you understand, he’s one of our favourites but the newspapers reporting his famous victory in the Open at Portrush.  I collected a load of them and they’ve been in a drawer doing nothing in particular for the last five years and more.  Time to take a deep breath and ditch.

You (i.e. I) put stuff in piles, to take to the re-cyclers beside the tip;  do the title and snippet for the blog; put the kettle on, nip upstairs – who knows why – then wonder why the boiler cupboard door is open and remember I’ve still got to fix the boiler because there’s no heating or, even worse, hot water.  And there aren’t many tea bags (apologies to Henrietta the Tea Lady, who founded the Rare Tea Co and is trying hard to wean us off bags and back to the real stuff), so they have to go on the shopping list.

Back down the stairs again, to get my specs so I can read the boiler instructions, if not understand them; make the tea; drink some tea; then remember that I’d nipped up the stairs to find the long-handled duster cos I’ve decided to move a light while I’m re-arranging for the winter and it’ll need a bit of a dust after months of neglect; oops, there’s that ailing boiler again and the heating engineer is off to the Balearics for a bit of sun.  It’s up to me.

One last thought:  I wish I could write as fast as Harry Brook scores runs; 300 in 310 balls, in a test match.  Wow.  And all the best judges say he’s only going to get better.  Scary.  Exciting.  But no matter how good he gets, he probably won’t score 300 in a test again.  After all, he’s only the sixth Englishman ever to do so.  And only Don Bradman and Brian Lara have scored 300 or more runs twice.

Still, as we’re always being told, records are made to be broken.

And jigsaws are made to be done.  And do your head in in the process!!!

 

The blog’s being done early this week because Thursday was due to be a busy day:  dental hygienist at 0900 (who on earth thought that was a good idea); osteopath at 1130 (essential routine maintenance); then trip to Spurs by train via Euston and Cheshunt) for kick-off at 2000, a Europa League gig against Qarabag.

This football really is a bit of an education.  I confess I had no idea who Qarabag were or where they were from, so at least I’m a bit better informed now.  They operate out of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where the F1 grand prix circus pitched up a couple of weeks ago.  Spurs won’t have to go there because UEFA, in their wisdom, have dispensed with the old two-legged home and away system.

Now, let me get this right, more or less.  There are nine teams in a group and they play eight matches, against eight different teams, four home and four away.  We play Qarabag, AZ Alkmaar, Roma and Elfsborg at home and Rangers, Ferencvaros, Galatasaray and Hoffenehim away.  As far as I can tell, our opponents in this group don’t play each other, so comparisons will be tricky.

I haven’t a clue why they changed the format (apart from money of course) and it’ll be fascinating, even for perennially confused non-geeks like me, to see how it all pans out.  In the meantime, here’s to much checking of websites and poring over the atlas with a glass of red in hand as my geography improves match by match – and, possibly, my pronunciation if not my use of accents (as in the proper spelling of a lot of the names).   Enough already, let’s move swiftly on.

As some of you already know, my routes to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, tucked away in N17, have been many and varied and this week I’m trying something new:  a stay at Lee Valley youth hostel, special offer, just two minutes’ walk from Cheshunt station they assure me.  Train straight from Cheshunt to White Hart Lane station, just two minutes’ walk from the ground.  Et voila.  And plenty of trains back after the game, fingers crossed.

A Welsh reader who comes from Llandudno wondered how come their home town has given its name to the Llandudno International Trophy, awarded to the winners of the PGA Cup, the now biennial match between the club professionals of the United States and Great Britain and Ireland.  I turned first to Wikipedia, then to the PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association), to confirm the details.

The members of Maesdu GC had the idea of a match between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to bring publicity to the area and in 1939, England won the first – and only – Home Tournament Series and the rather handsome trophy.  World War II put paid to any more matches and Percy Alliss, father of Peter and captain of the England team, kept the trophy until he and Peter donated it to the PGA in 1972.  It made its second competitive appearance the following year, at the inaugural PGA Cup match at Pinehurst No 2.  A lovely footnote to the Alliss connection is that Gary, Peter’s son, was the GB and I captain in 2007 and 2009.

Maureen and most of my friends are horrified that I regard a total of 191 unread emails as normal and more or less manageable.  They’re inclined to freak out if their tally reaches double figures and I accept that perhaps I should do away with a goodly number of the newsletters that sit there for days waiting for me to read them.  Trouble is, you just never know when some gem will pop up and provide all the inspiration a desperate, head-scratching blogger needs.

However, I would be reluctant to unsubscribe from SportPursuit, Houzz Magazine, National Club Golfer, GolfPass and the daily video tips that I always mean to study but rarely do, Saga Magazine, Golf Features, Documentally (which is usually way above my head, Irish Golf Desk (thank you Brian K for keeping me up to date), Confused.com and Which and on and on.  Perhaps a serious de-clutter is indeed in order.

But it won’t include Wordsmith.org and its A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg, which I highly recommend.  And I loved one of this week’s (A) Thought For Today, quoting the American novelist William Faulkner:  “A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.”

That’s so encouraging for an unimaginative bod like me who needs all the inspiration and encouragement she can get.  I’ll never be a novelist or a poet like some of my talented friends, one of whom was runner-up in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2024 – so I gleaned from Facebook.  Many congrats Sharon.

And congrats also to Rosie J, who has another book of poetry coming out early next year.

I’m in awe.

 

Finally, the March of the Elephants auction at Lichfield Cathedral, which was on Tuesday evening (not Sunday, as I rather foolishly thought – other services have priority then), raised £125,000 for St Giles Hospice.  As reported on the Lichfield Live website, Elinor Eustace, the interim CEO of St Giles, said, “It was a fantastic night and thank you to the whole community for their support, it really does make a difference.

“With hospices across the UK facing a £77 million funding deficit and St Giles grappling with a £1.5 million annual shortfall, events like the auction are more than just fundraisers – they’re lifelines.”

A word of warning:  there’s going to be golf in this here blog.  And probably a bit of cricket – but only a bit because Warwickshire didn’t last very long against Essex at Edgbaston.  And there’ll be elephants, which is always a good thing.  Who doesn’t love elephants?

Without further ado, well done to the US of A on winning back the Solheim Cup after a few barren years.  Europe got off to a rubbish start and couldn’t quite claw their way back; it’s tough giving some of the best players in the world a big lead – you might work your way back once (in Spain last year) but twice in successive years?  Nope.  Still, after a one-sided first day, the match evolved into a real contest and American and European nerves were thoroughly shredded by the end.  Roll on the Netherlands in 2026.

I had to listen to the finish on the radio – many thanks to Iain Carter and all at 5 Live for conveying the tension and excitement – because my Spurs mate and I were driving back from a gutting defeat.  It was 1-nil to The Arsenal, our deadliest rivals, at our place and we weren’t happy.  Apart from anything else, it was shaming for 56-odd thousand of us to be outsung by a few thousand ecstatic Gooners…Yuk.  Where was our Delia when we needed her?  LET’S BE ‘AVING YOU.

At least we managed to thrash Coventry 2-1 the other night…..(All footie fans will recognise that that means we were beyond lucky to scrape through and live to play another round in the Carabao Cup.)

Over in Oregon, the USA’s club professionals won the PGA Cup and raised the Llandudno International Trophy for the third consecutive match, beating Great Britain and Ireland 17 1/2 – 8 1/2.  Roll on the next time, over here.

On a happier note, some of you will remember that the Curtis Cup was a few weeks ago at Sunningdale (GB and I won that one) and it’s always a time for old friends to meet up – often after many years apart – and for the memories to come flooding back.   It got Anne née Willard (then Stant now  Smith) reminiscing and going through her scrapbooks and memorabilia.  Fascinating and guaranteed to have us all dodging and weaving our way up and down rabbit holes, along blind alleys, via diversions, going any which way, marvelling at the connections made over the years.

Anne (with an ‘e’, unlike Stacy without an ‘e’ as in Lewis, the US Solheim Cup captain) was born in India because her father was the professional at Royal Calcutta GC at the time.  She took to the game early and went on to win the British Girls’, followed by the English Girls’.

The Yarmouth Mercury reported many of Anne’s early triumphs and presumably learned to give her her ‘e’ in due course.

In 1970 Anne and Robert (Bob) Barrell won the Sunningdale Foursomes,  the year after Peter Oosterhuis and Peter Benka and in 1973, in her pomp, she won the British Women’s Strokeplay.  However, she wasn’t picked for the Curtis Cup team that travelled to San Francisco the following year – she’d not long had her first child – and the non-selection caused quite an outcry.

Anne did play in 1976, at Lytham, when she partnered Mary McKenna, who would become a Curtis Cup legend, against Barbara Barrow and Nancy Lopez.  The Americans won 4 and 2 but if you’re going to lose, it might as well be to Lopez, who took the professional game by storm and became a bone fide great, the poster girl of the LPGA (Ladies’ Professional Golf Association) and a Hall of Famer.  Years on, that defeat is surely something to brag about.

There’s much, much more in Anne’s scrapbooks – her maternal grandfather Henry Burrows was a professional and won the Dutch Open five times – in 1915, 1918, 1920, 1921 and 1923.

 

It’s amazing where this old game has taken us all, golfers good, bad and indifferent and the connections we’ve made.

There have been brightly-coloured elephants scattered all over Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield and Tamworth for the last few weeks and this weekend they’re all being gathered together to be sold off to the highest bidders in the big auction in Lichfield Cathedral on Sunday.  It’s all in aid of St Giles Hospice and they’re hoping to raise many thousands of pounds.

Neither I nor my garden can rise to one of the big beasts – they’re not full jumbo size but are substantial enough – so I’ve entered the lottery to win one of two mini elephants on offer.  Fingers crossed.

Round by us elephants aren’t really too much of a problem but we’re kept on our toes – well, stopped in our tracks more like – by pesky, peripatetic temporary traffic lights. We never know where they’re going to pop up next and lo and behold, there they were outside my front door!  Oh happy day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s get the rant – there should only be one but who knows – out of the way early.  It’s the Solheim Cup this week and Europe are in Gainesville, Virginia, crowing about going for an unprecedented fourth successive victory over the USA.  Well, nothing gets up an opponent’s nose more than an in-your-face boaster and the higher the level, the better the opposition, the more risky a tactic that is.

Many years ago, at a very lowly level, I won a long jump comp mainly because a cocky little sod had gone around all her fellow competitors asking for their best jump, to establish that she was the favourite by some distance.  I was so pissed off – perhaps not a phrase I’d have used at the time – that I jumped two feet further than I’d ever jumped before.  The organisers thought they’d found an athlete of promise instead of a very, very peeved teenager.  I didn’t train on.

Winding up the opposition is all very well but it’s often guaranteed to make a competitor knuckle down and produce their best.  The Americans are well aware that they didn’t lose last time out in Spain.  It was 14-all,  a draw, a tie, whatever you want to call it, it was not a win for either side.  Europe took the trophy simply because of the nonsensical convention that the holders retain.

I call it ridiculous, antiquated, unacceptable.  A few people are calling for some sort of extra holes in the event of a draw but I can’t see the problem with a draw being just that, a draw.  Share the trophy, hold it for a year each – or six months in this case.  It’s a rare result – last year was the first time it had happened since the Solheim Cup was inaugurated in 1990.

Be that as it may, Stacy Lewis and her players are calling this iteration “unfinished business”.  And that means that they mean business, at home, in front of their own, undoubtedly raucous fans.  Go Europe but good luck; you’ll need it; just as well captain Suzann Pettersen specialises in the dramatic.

Back here in Lichfield, at a golfing level (mine) that is below subterranean, I played a medal round (is it still called that in these complicated handicapping days?) for the first time in months; every stroke to count (technical nerds please desist from comment, that’s an explanation for the non golfers that are still reading).  It was windy, even by the standards of the daughter of a man who liked to describe a Force 8 as “a zephyr”.  Nothing was easy, even before the heavens opened and we had to play the last few holes in a downpour.

One of my playing partners was steadiness personified and won the comp with an outstanding score;  many congrats Sue J – and Sue S, who somehow managed a gross 76. I wasn’t last but my round included a bit, no, a lot of a mish-mash – or an eclectic mix as a kind soul suggested.  There were some good shots but too much dross – a lost ball in the heather; a shank (only one, which is something); a duffed putt; several three putts; an attempted extrication from the rough that went a few centimetres; later, at another hole, an even less successful extrication that was, in fact, an air shot; but at the same hole I canned a putt of at least 50 feet for an unlikely bogey 5.

And my feet were soaking because my shoes are no longer waterproof.  What a bloody game!

My erratic play had nothing to do with having attended The Wine Society’s 150th Anniversary Celebration Lunch in Birmingham.  I admit I staggered home gently pissed (which is very different from being pissed off), trying very hard not to weave too much.   Hope they don’t keep the Broad Street CCTV footage for too long.  That was on the Sunday, so I’d fully recovered by Tuesday morning – although there was no chance of a practice session (golf) on the Monday…

The good, nerveless competitive women of WHGC have reached the final of the Taskers competition and are due to play Copt Heath at Beeston Fields.  “Where’s that?” I asked.  Nottingham way apparently but one friend piped up:  “I’ve played there.”  Turns out she’d holed out with a full 5-iron at one hole – in a foursomes match!

Also turns out that her partner was quite a character, who wore exotic hats and owned a Great Dane – and a macaw.  The macaw was called Robinson and liked company.  He didn’t like to be left on his own, so his owner would take him to the golf club in the car.  It caused a bit of consternation once at Little Aston, where women weren’t allowed in the car park on certain days and no one quite knew what to make of a parrot with a Cannock accent.

By this stage I was helpless with laughter but my mate insisted it was all true.  Oh, how we miss Victoria Wood – she’d have had a field day.

Finally, the mystery of the third golfer has been solved – we think.  It’s Bobby Locke on the left, Gary Player in the middle and a very young Brian Huggett on the right.  I thought it might be another South African but many thanks to David Pepper for coming up with Huggett, who’d have been 19 or 20 at the time of the pic.

 

In 1962, Huggett won the Dutch Open at Hilversumsche, relegating the home favourite Gerard de Wit to second place.  The Welshman also finished in a share of third place at the Open at Troon that year, though Arnold Palmer was a long way ahead of everybody else.  The picture, from the European Tour (now DP World Tour) website is a bit grainy but it could be the same man, couldn’t it?