Watching the Wales versus Northern Ireland match at the Euros over the weekend, this blogger was genuinely unsure as to how much longer he was going to be able to take listening to Robbie Savage's crowing squeaky voice without smashing myself in the face with a toffee hammer, dear blog reader. As it happened, Keith Telly Topping just about made it to the end in one piece. It was touch and go, though. Keith Telly Topping will say this about Savage, though: He was bloody annoying as a player and now, he's bloody annoying as a commentators. At least he's consistent.
Italy versus Spain on Monday, though. What a fantastic game of football that was. This blogger loves watching the Italians when they play counter-attacking football and break at pace. If this blogger was German - which, obviously, he isn't - he'd be rather nervous right about now about the coming Quarter Final.
And, then there was England versus Iceland. To which, really, the only suitable comment is something along these sort of lines.
'Tactically inept, embarrassing, horrible, clueless.' 'Possibly the greatest calamity in England football history.' To be honest, this blogger kind of half expected it given that England had struggled to break down teams in the previous three games and Iceland had spent the same period successfully stopping other teams from breaking them down. Of course, the British public - and the British media - predictably went totally off it. 'We're the laughing stock of Europe,' apparently. Why? We lost a football match. We do that a lot, dear blog reader, you might have noticed. Collectively, we still seem to have this ridiculous idea in this country that we're, somehow, still among the world's elite - in football, in international politics, in everything. But, we're not. We're not very good, frankly. We haven't been very good for quite a long time. And, I mean, that's okay, really - not everybody can be good at everything - but we need to get that simple fact into our thick heads before we're ever going to progress. As a football nation and as a society.
Mind you, whichever rank clot at ITV thought it was a good idea to show one of those dreadful wank hands Joe Hart shampoo adverts at half-time just moments after the full-of-his-own-importance Sheikh Yer Man City goalkeeper made his second calamitous wank hands fiasco mistake of the tournament really does deserve a pay rise.
Here's a thought, Joe. Maybe, if you spent a bit less time being paid, what this blogger presumes are disgraceful amounts of money making bloody shampoo adverts and a bit more time, I dunno, practising your goalkeeping, you might not make so many wank hands mistakes. Bit of a radical suggestion, I know but then, that's this blogger, always thinking 'outside the box', as it were. Something echoed by this strongly-worded op ed piece in the Indi. Hart has, apparently, apologised to the nation for his woeful errors. Which is big of him since, you know, it was his sodding fault in the first place. He claims to be 'devastated' and to have spent time in the dressing room with his head in his hands. Before it slipped through them and into the goal. Allegedly.
Of course, Mister Hodgson will cop the brunt of the criticism for this malarkey - and, not entirely undeservedly either. He, at least, had the common good manners to do what lots of the shadow cabinet have been doing of late and resign, live on-air, moments after the final whistle. But, it's got to be said, that was a woeful, wretched, embarrassing, almost amateurish performance by a team full of over-paid, under-performing cowards who all looked like they couldn't wait to get back to their two hundred grand-a-week-plus wage packets, their flashy cars, horrible houses full of bling and their curiously orange wives and girlfriends. Congratulations to Iceland - and I mean that genuinely. They simply wanted it more. Although, it could be argued that a team of six-year-olds would have wanted it more than that England side. Maybe they all thought THursday's Brexit vote was meant to be taken literally in regard to the European Championships.
Comedy moment of the week: One of Mister Hodgson's predecessors as England Failure, sorry, Manager, The Wally With The Brolly, proving he's every bit as good a tipster as he was a coach at Newcastle on Sky Sports HQ. Taxi for McLaren.
One imagines they'll be playing that clip for years on It'll Be Alright On The Night. Hopefully with a 'wah-wah-waaaaah' accompaniment.
Finally, this blogger's thanks go to his old mucker Jonny Arnold - Welsh, and therefore safely into the Quarter Finals already - for pointing out that ITV News's feelgood '... and finally' item immediately after the channel's coverage of England's exit was, wait for it, the one hundredth anniversary of The Battle of The Somme.
Finally, this blogger's thanks go to his old mucker Jonny Arnold - Welsh, and therefore safely into the Quarter Finals already - for pointing out that ITV News's feelgood '... and finally' item immediately after the channel's coverage of England's exit was, wait for it, the one hundredth anniversary of The Battle of The Somme.
