A Family Christmas

Happy New year everyone

I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and New Year and Father Christmas visited your household. Mine was a family affair my brother and niece came down on Boxing Day so we had another Christmas and yes that meant another Christmas dinner. My niece Ella is already security conscious, when my brother told her that Father Christmas was coming into her house she wasn’t happy and said he should leave the presents outside or let Rudolf bring them in! When she opened all her presents as most 2 year olds do she preferred the boxes that they came in, my dad’s torch and some marbles that come out of a cracker. The moral of this story is you don’t have to spend lots on children under two. I am sure next year she will have a gigantic list so I better get saving my pennies.

I have to mention the mighty Leeds fantastic result against Manchester united. They thoroughly deserved the victory and outplayed Manchester United for most parts of the game. It just shows what confidence and a winning mentality can do. For those people who don’t watch football it would have been difficult to tell which team was the one playing in the premier league and which team was from league one. Simon Grayson the Leeds manager got his tactics spot on and I think they took Manchester United by surprise. Unfortunately they have another tough draw at Spurs but there is no reason why they can’t keep progressing if they continue with their self-belief. Marching on together!!

We are due to play Watford in the cup on Sunday; this is obviously dependent on the weather. With temperatures dropping to minus 8 in Liverpool and 6 inches of snow on Monday and Tuesday it has caused havoc with travelling conditions, schools being shut, and even an entire town centre shutting down. On a personal note it has been difficult to train, so the gym and indoor five a side has been my saviour. Hopefully the weather improves not only for our cup game but also because I am going on international duty on Sunday night and we fly to La Manga early Monday morning. I know what you are all thinking how lucky are they going to some sunshine and yes hopefully this is true but it is England’s way of beasting us after the festive season. We will have tests in all aspects of our fitness, along with three hard training sessions and usually finish off with various meetings and that’s all in one day. I am sure we will all come back very fatigued but at least we will have a tan!!!

Next time I speak to you I will be in sunny La Manga (I just thought I would rub it in a bit more)!!