............the big match.........

Managed about two and a half hours sleep last night..........the rest of the time was coughing, sneezing,sweating, shaking..........at one point I even went outside in the rain to cool down............slept between 2.30 and 5.00.

Woke up feeling much better...........the day of the Greater Manchester Junior Angling Championships...............had to go........we were organising.....well when I say we......I mean ......I was...............picked up Shaun......bacon and sausage butty for brekkie..........draw at 9.00.........match started at 10.00......finished at 2.00........36 kids......6 teams of 6...........over 516lb of fish caught.

When we decided to coach kids I was still Chairman of Bury Junior Hockey Club........I told Shaun......."coaching kids is no problem, kids take whatever comes..........but when they start getting good...and we enter them into matches.......and adults get involved.......that's when the trouble starts"............

.........and it did today

Incident 1.....One of the older team members took exception to his team only coming second and marched up to the Organiser's table and got right in my face......." How did that happen?...how did we end up second?".......so I explained it to him quietly.......points are awarded to each section....6 down to 1...then you add up the points for each team .....and the one with the most points wins........"now eff off out of my face or you're going swimming".

Incident 2....the Coach of the winning team took exception to the way his team were announced as winners............"First place....Warrington!"........he protested that they weren't Warrington but Woodshaws........mainly because he knows that really Warrington shouldn't be in the GM competition because they're in Cheshire....but he was so indignant we had to point out to him that his team were all wearing shirts with Warrington on the back....and he had written Warrington on the team sheet.............and advise him to shut it and win gracefully.

Incident 3..........the parent of the 16 year old finishing second overall protested about the winner..........accused him of not being a member of the club he was representing and using an illegal method...........so we had to point out that his son was also representing a club of which he was not a member!.........but the important bit was to get all the kids fishing.

Home by 4.30.............and then tomorrow we have our own match..picking Shaun up at 7.30 again...........deja vu!

Das vidanya moy padruga.