You folks that have been paying attention to (non-American) football, at least over the past year or so, should know that England has a pretty strong reputation for their skills in the international pastime. That is to say, they did going into the World Cup competition last summer. We Yanks were scared to death to have to open the tournament against them, if you recall. But then, England’s keeper let Clint Dempsey’s shot slip through his fingers and we snuck out of the match with a tie, and honestly, things have been downhill for these boys ever since. In our second week over here, the national squad had a match with Montenegro (I’ll pause while you find it on Google maps…), yes, that Montenegro, with most of the English stars from the Premier League healthy and available. Most everyone was wondering just how many goals the home team would win by. I watched the game on the telly, along with the rest of the nation, and was just as unimpressed as said nation. Were it not for a Montenegrin shot that slammed into the crossbar rather than the net just below, England would have lost, as it was it ended in soccer’s standard 0-0 tie.
So, maybe that was part of the reason it was possible, and indeed rather easy, to get Sawyer and I tickets to the England/France match at Wembley Stadium in London last Wednesday. To test your World Cup memory yet again, do you recall France’s overwhelming humiliation in the competition? They were annihilated in the first round and sent home to an appalled nation that met their plane with bonfires and misery. This was unacceptable after they had reached the finals in the previous completion in 2006. Their program has not recovered from the summer, and they looked to be an easy target for the rebounding Englishmen.
But no one seemed to account for the dark clouds that the Grizzard boys can bring to a sporting event on this island. (Ref: Ryder Cup entry below)
We took the Wednesday afternoon fast train from Stoke to London Euston station and tubed over to our hotel near Paddington in Sussex Gardens. Every building on that street is a hotel if you ever come to visit, there are numerous reasonable choices and it’s a very convenient location. We left the girls to an Italian dinner in that area while Sawyer and I headed northeast toward Wembley. The rain was falling, of course, but the walk was relatively short, so we grabbed some dinner and headed in. If you’ve never seen Wembley, it is nearly covered but with a hole in the roof over the field, so the rain wasn’t a problem for spectators. It would prove to be a problem for the best English player and his club team though.
We stopped by for some refreshment, but, and take this as another travel tip for your visit, there are no grown-up beverages allowed in the seating area. So, if you buy two 20-ounce cups of anything grown-uppish, fifteen minutes before kickoff, keep in mind that you are not 22 years old anymore. And, if you set the last eight or so ounces in a very specific place you hope to find during your loo visit, remember that the clean up staff at Wembley is ridiculously efficient. I’m just sayin’, you know, hypothetically, for your benefit.
Anyhoo, it started slow, both teams getting their feet and England seemed to be keeping the action near the French goal, and then, as football matches tend to do, it all switched up and before anybody knew what hit ‘em, France was up 1-0. This was bad. We went into halftime that way. Then, before a third of the crowd was back from the loo after the half, France scored again. Unbelievable. The 18th ranked team in the world against the (underachieving) sixth, and they were up 2-0 in the 50th minute, how’s that for some numbers. The Frenchies continued to hold the lead with just minutes left, when England’s single best player, Gerrard, who is also Liverpool’s best player for his day job, went down with a hamstring injury on the wet turf. The bright side of this was: A) It drew more attention to Liverpool getting beat by my home team of Stoke last week, and B) It brought in Peter Crouch off the bench, who scored a goal less than 30 seconds after running onto the pitch. This gave us a bit of what turned out to be false hope, as France closed things out, sending us home in the rain. At any rate, it was a fantastic experience, and it has us fired up for our match that we will be attending in Stoke on Dec. 11. Our boys will be facing Blackpool, and there is a possibility that those boys might have to win that game to keep their hopes of remaining in the Premier League alive for next season.
To the Tower and the Toys!!
We got up Thursday morning and rode the rails to the Tower of London. If you recall, we had tried to go on our previous visit to London, but had run out of time and ended up just walking around the walls and the Tower Bridge. In continuing my advice about your pending visit to the UK, I suggest you try to visit the Tower of London before you go to Edinburgh Castle. Because, you see, it’s pretty much the same thing, but not up on top of a mountain overlooking a perfect medieval city. It’s beautiful, and worth doing, but, visit it before Edinburgh is all.
I suppose the farthest you can get from being a monarchist is being an anarchist. I’m not an anarchist, but I do believe I could not possibly despise monarchy -- and particularly the imperialist brand that England was so instrumental in inventing -- much more thoroughly. I could not separate the sparkle and splash before me from the families, hearts and lives that were broken all over the world to allow them to all be assembled here before this moving sidewalk. There was no mention of the elephant that I seemed to be the only one seeing in the room, no expression of remorse, no “our bad, we probably didn’t need 12,000 diamonds in this particular crown.” Having to feel this in the context of the week’s top news story: “Royal Engagement – Prince William Finally Asks Kate,” it was just a little too much to take. The Royal Family is a sticky subject over here, but it never has been for me (as some folks who have heard me sing inappropriate songs late at night can attest). If they ever have the bad sense to elect me dictator of this particular island nation, every one of the Windsors better start packing that night. I simply find it incredible that this country can sit in the midst of the worst recession since WWII, with gold fetching over $1,300 an ounce, and decide that they can’t load up this room and head to the pawn shop and pay off the debt of the whole Commonwealth. And I’m sure if you turned Buckingham Palace into condos, they would probably bring in a tidy little monthly income for years to come. The ridiculousness is absolutely baffling. So, that was the visit to the Crown Jewels for me. Sawyer thought the swords were cool, and Savannah really liked the moving sidewalk. I don’t think they followed my rant completely, but they’ll get to hear it again someday.
We went on around to see where crazy old Henry VIII had the heads whacked off, and we saw where our state’s big daddy Sir Walter Raleigh got himself thrown in jail THREE times. I’m going to have to learn more about that dude. We saw the ravens that can’t leave the Tower or else the empire will fall (no I didn’t try to sneak one out, but you might note in the pictures that their wings are clipped to keep them from getting away to freedom). There was also some cute little video things the kids played with, such as where you get to pretend to be a ghost, or just under surveillance. There was also a couple of other jail rooms with some interesting graffiti from ancient prisoners, and they even had a gift shop. (That was sarcasm by the way, if the guv’ment were to lay an extra tax on gift shop c-r-a-p in this country, it would probably eat the deficit up too.)
We still had a little time after the Tower and another round of fish and chips, so we headed downtown to Hamley’s, which claims to be the world’s biggest toy store. The reason they claim this is because is has six floors in a city-block sized building, so, I’m guessing it’s the world’s biggest toy store. Check out the videos, but I’ll say it was worth a visit, and Sawyer and Savannah will probably tell you it’s the coolest place in England. I was still a little sour on the whole rampant capitalism thing, so I probably could have been biased in my assessment, but they did have puppet shows and radio control car areas that were free, so go Hamley’s!
I see that this entry has reached the 1,666-word level, so I think we’ll put off the jaunt up to my old stomping grounds in Oxford until tomorrow. As you may know, 1666 was the year that the Great Fire took down London, and they way I’ve been talking about the Queen, I may be burned at the stake myself. Hopefully, you'll hear from me tomorrow, if not, check the Tower.
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