Flat Champagne
12 August, 2007
I was eagerly looking forward to the start of the new football season; it is always nice to have it back, but with United’s purchases in the Summer I had high hopes of watching even more expansive, attacking football.
Feck! We were frustrated by a man-marking scheme ably deployed by Reading – that completed un-expected ploy! However it seemed to frustrate some of the most talented footballers on the planet and United were poor. Scholes had a quiet game and without his guile we were too easily repelled. I would not have been too bothered about this and put it down to early season lack of form / fitness, but the fracture of Rooney’s left foot (the third one in as many years) was a real blow. It would seem that Tevez will be called into the fray sooner than anticipated and I am hopeful he can fill the pie-boy’s gap for the next two months, but I was looking forward to them playing as an attacking duo … roll on October!
In the morning I had visited Polesden Lacey with my family and on the way we had stopped to watch some Sunday League football. Now I have not played football for some time and I am no longer quite the svelte midfield general I once was, but bugger me these blokes were useless. They were of a similar shape to myself and many of them were younger, but based on what I saw I am the white Pele 
On the way back from Polesden Lacey I spotted a hose riding school (or so I thought). My daughter used to have riding lessons and is keen to start again, so I stopped the car and wandered in. I asked one of the young girls fettling the horses “who was in charge ..” and she pointed me in the direction of a classic Surrey Set female, who I fully expected to be wearing a string of pearls beneath her Barbour gilet! I asked about the lessons and she replied in a cut-glass accent, with a hint of a porcine snort – “Oh no dear, we do not do lessons here, this is an equestrian centre”. At this point I am thinking, what the f*ck is the difference between one of them and a riding school. However Ms Piggy proceeded to give me directions to the nearest riding school and was very polite, so it would have been churlish to mock her and my daughter was stood next to me – but I was sorely tempted. At this point I decided to head home and buy Grace a rocking horse!
