Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Countdown
The countdown is really on now. It all kicks off in Germany in just over 2 weeks. Tomorrow night is the 1st of England's 3 final warm-up games. It's a 'B' international fixture against Belarus at Reading. The more established England players will sit out the game although it gives Michael Owen a chance to build up a bit of match fitness after missing so much of the season through injury.17 year old Theo Walcott will make an appearance at some stage which is more than Arsene Wenger has managed to provide for him this season. Until he actually plays, we won't know if he's up to it or not at the moment but one thing is for certain, he has pace that will frighten any team in the world.
The news of Wayne Rooney is very encouraging. Tomorrow he has a scan which should hopefully show the injury has healed up and he can start training on Friday. With 2 weeks to go, it means he would almost certainly play some part in England's group matches.
Living outside the UK, I'm spared the pain of waiting for my World Cup tickets to be delivered, instead, I will have to pick them up in Frankfurt. Having heard the stories from other fans about their tickets, I can't say I'm upset. The FA have decided to use a company called SMS to deliver the tickets to fans. Now, in case you hadn't realised, World Cup tickets are highly valueable so there is plenty of money to be made if the tickets get....er......lost. I've heard stories about delivery men forging signatures and pushing the tickets through doors so they don't have to re-deliver tickets, tickets being left without signatures, tickets being delivered to wrong addresses. The whole situation is a joke.
It's not really surprising when my Jamaica tickets still haven't arrived. The game is in 10 days time and I'm flying in for the game. I called the ticket suppliers and they said I can collect the tickets before the match. However, it's not very convenient for me as it'll eat into my drinking time. I wanted them to send replacements to one of the other members of our group but that was obviously too difficult. Customer service seems to have gone out of the window. I predict a riot next week if my tickets haven't arrived.
// posted by Big Blue Marble @ 3:59 pm 
