Stefan on Football

I eventually got my NUFC shares - I bought them for something like 22p around 7 years ago, and now had them bought out at 101p - not alot you might think, but, return on investment is pretty good - oh and it gets Fat Freddie out of the board room and stops him embarressing the club anymore. Overall, I'm pretty confident with NUFC at the moment, good manager, decent buys (although I was panicking up to end of July) and a board who are willing to stick to their guns. We completely destroyed Bolton at their place, and we should have done better against the Villa - but having played 2 games and still undefeated - pretty good going and its been along time since I could have said that.

Leam FC have just started their new season in a new League. Unfortunately, things didnt go to plan on Saturday when, after 30 seconds, the opposition keeper got sent off for bringing down Josh Blake (I'll get you butler!) outside the area. Leighton decided to play 10 men behind the ball, and do anything they could to even it up by trying to get someone from our team sent off - this didnt happen, but they did manage to gain a pen, by a very dodgy decision by the whistle happy referee. The ref was blowing every 30 seconds, thanks to the screaming opposition whenever one of our players even went near him. I suppose, rose tinted glasses, but a better game is expected tonight. We managed to sell 100 fanzines too, which is a good start, considering the attendance was something like 500.

I take my kids team into the U12 age group - and some of them are coming on leaps and bounds - some are showing potential, but yet, still suffering from a drought of players who a) can actually play football and b) want to join Leamington Brakes. A local rival club have managed to put another team into the same league as us, yet, we're still struggling to put teams together - strange. Alot of research has gone on in terms of finding drills that suit our needs and we're looking more professional in terms of turning up prepared and disciplining the team. Onwards and upwards - we can only do what we can with the tools we have.

Stefan on Friends

Facebook - probably the devil's child - but its addictive, its funny and gets you in touch with so many different people. Not only has it got in touch with 4 friends that I used to hang around in Leeds with (before the times of Mobile phones etc etc) - of which had a thing for 2 of them, but its also got me back in touch with 6 friends from School.

I have to admit, I had to remove someone the other day, because they kept inviting me to many an application, such as; Vampires, Zombies, Vampire v Zombies, Ninjas, Vampire Ninja Zombies v Pirates, Pirates that used to be Ninjas, but now Zombies v Vampire Strippers, etc etc. it got to the point where I was being invited to 20 a day. So for a simple life, I deleted him - oh well, not really a shock there, is there?

Anyhoo, I've decided to stop giving advice to friends, mainly because, 9 times out of 10, they'll avoid it - because they just don't want to know, or so stuck in their ways, that they've got so many problems, they dont want to fix the problems. I decided that the easy way is to not add to the problems, stay quiet & keep out the way. Harsh though it may seem, but I've tried - in so many different ways.

Stefan on Women (or not on Women, if you get my drift)

Strange tho it mean seem.... Na, only joking. There has been this lass that I've liked for many years, well, OK, 5 years. She is completely different to those that I normally go for, she smokes, yeah, big wow, she's funny as hell, she's caring, well, OK, she's funny as hell.

I guess you can put it down to flirting, when we've been out and bumped into one another, but thats as far as it ever got. Anyhoo, the story starts when John is away at glasto, and I was given the challenge to entertain Debbie for the weekend (more like a prison sentance). Four hours into our beer session, I had a text from said lass, asking where I was etc, and how she was elsewhere and bored. I suggested that we were in town, but probably not for very much longer, as we were starting to feel the effects. After more text messages, I'd agreed to meet her in town, and go back with Debbie and watch big brother. Was nice and chilled, Debbie said she seemed a very nice lass, and it was great.

I asked what she wanted to do, and she agreed to stay at my place - what was even more fantastic is that we snogged. Was really nice (probably down to alcohol consumed on both sides) and asked what she wanted to do, sofa, bed, what ?! We ended up in bed, probably had a little too much fun, but seems nice & natural.

I took her home the next morning, got a kiss... then .... radio silence. I text'd her when I returned from my holidays asking if she wanted to go for a coffee/tea/beverage - then got a text 3 hours later saying she was at family do. I invited her out to the cinema - still not recieved a text back, nor MSN, nor phone call. I bumped into her in the pub, and it was like she was making an effort to avoid me - meh

So, what do you do ? You really like someone, they're not interested - so decided - screw it - staying well away from women now. Chances are that she dislikes me anyhow - oh for that time machine. Mind you, if I had a time machine, I would know exactly what time/date I would visit.

Stefan on Holidays

Yes, I know its been a long while since I blogged - deal with it. I went on holiday with good friends John, Debbie, Tom and Abbie for a couple of weeks (Tom and Abbie only stayed for the one week) to Fuertaventura. Debbie and Abbie had invested alot of time of working out where was decent, feeding all our requirements into that massive world wide interweb thingy and out popped a couple of Villas. Flight times were decent too, leaving in the afternoon, getting back late evening - so you know - sun, beer, women, laughs and a jolly good time was had by all.

The first week, I mostly spent lazying around with my newly promoted "Beach Buddy" - namely Debbie. There was a nice little beach in town, surrounded by little cafe type places, which no one really used. So we spent a couple of hours sunbathing, then a couple of hours eating, then a couple of hours sunbathing, then to cap the afternoon off, wandered back, via the supermarkets and the English pub that I found which was showing Sky Sports News all day. John and Tom decided that Kite Surfing was for them, and spend many a full day down the beach learning to do this - coming back with stiff arms, bruises and many a pain.

The Villa came equiped with a BBQ - so most of the time we decided to drink beer, eat BBQ'd food and have a laugh. John done a fantastic job as Chef and didnt kill any of us with semi frozen meat. We were invited out to Tom and John's Xtreme Sport meal type thing on Friday Night. This involved all the Xtreme people doing surfing, kite surfing, etc etc ending up in a traditional restaurant, eating vast amounts of food, getting boozed up, then moving onto pubs and clubs in town. This was 16 Euros (or Bells, as it was renamed to during the week) for all the food and booze (including a bottle of white wine to myself) you could intake during the restaurant. Many people asked what Debbie and I were up too, as they hadnt seen us at any of the Xtreme days. I think we scared them by mentioning, "dish washing", "watching Sky Sports News", "sunbathing" and "Oh, Steve, does Ironing count as Xtreme?"

The 2nd week turned into more of a Extreme sport session for Debbie and I, with us trying Body Boarding (Debbie tried surfing once while I continued to perfect my level 1 Body Boarding badge [ might not exist ]). This was fantastic and if I knew how good it was, I would have spent the first week doing it too. Body Boarding was mainly fantastic, because of the fantastic looking Swiss girls who were also on the course. At one point, I managed to catch a fantastic wave, and somehow, end on top of her, while she was on her board. Part of me grinning, part of me blushing, I kind of apologised but she grinned and was probably thankful for a bit of "in the sea excitement"

Anyhoo, it was a fantastic place, we were out of the town by about a 15 minute walk, so it wasnt noisy, wasnt too busy and also give you the chance to walk some of the booze off before bed (until we worked out it was 2 Euroes / Bells for a taxi from town to the villa - nice)

Tom's catchphrase, "Strange tho it may seem" continued even when he left - much to the amusement of us all. John's first 10 minute joke of the Fun Flight turned into 2 weeks of the Venga Boys - and 2 weeks of us trying to work out which song he was singing (and 2 days of Debbie trying to download).