Well, that was 2024

Time for a round up of a very busy 12 months. I squeezed in a lot! 

January 

I had two trips to Shrewsbury - for football and for family birthdays. I also went to London for work and visited the newish shopping centre in Battersea Power Station, mainly to visit the Lego Shop.

February 

Our building work on the house started - with a new roof in the wettest February on record. (At least we knew immediately that it didn't leak!)  I was mugged on my way home from the city centre and had a swollen blacked eye for a couple of weeks. But I also got to see my first ever international ice hockey games. 

March

A month of travelling! Mother's Day in Shrewsbury, journeys to Cambridge (and home via Oxford), work in London and a Wales C International in Llanelli (on the anniversary of my dad's death - a fitting tribute to him, I felt!) On Easter Sunday at the end of the month, Cathy and I went to our first gig of the year to see Tony Wright, in Abertillery.

April 

My brother, sister-in-law and their four kids visited Cardiff for the Easter bank holiday Monday (and my birthday the next day!) Work began replastering the hall and landing, which involved chipping off the hideous Artex that I have wanted to be rid of for 30 years! I spent a week manning a stall at a conference in London - and afterwards got to visit the Moomin Shop. 

May

The plastering was completed and we thought we were close to finishing the work in the house (little did we know....). We had a bank holiday trip down to Torquay. The men who attacked me in February pled guilty and were given prison sentences. And the Prime Minister at the time, Rishi Sunak, called a General Election. 

June

I went to the Major League Baseball game in London. We spent a week in North Wales with my Mum and our friend, Ella. I watched a lot of the European Championships on TV!

July 

A super- busy month! We had a visit from my sister and her three kids and took them to Techniquest. England reached the European Championship final. The UK got a new government in the General Election. We saw Frank Turner play at the Tramshed in Cardiff. The new football season started with a thrashing for Barry Town in a friendly at Oxford City. I went to a model railway exhibition. After being messed around by an electrician, we finally got the electrics sorted and could book a decorator to come and paint the house... in September. 

August

The big event for us in August was seeing Billy Joel play live at the Principality Stadium. It was a spectacular gig. I also had a big football awayday, watching Shrewsbury play at Huddersfield Town. We also acted as witnesses at a wedding for a couple who had put out an appeal for witnesses on Reddit. 

September

We spent the week of our wedding anniversary in Shropshire, and went to see Terrorvision play KK's Steel Mill in Wolverhampton on our actual anniversary. The hall, landing and upstairs WC all got painted! 

October

More work in the house - this time carpentry with a new little cupboard in our hall to hide the fuse box. I spent two days filming for work in Barry - and we were blessed with some great weather that made Barry look spectacular. 

November

It was World Diabetes Day, and I spent a weekend in Northern Ireland with the local team over there (and got a selfie with Mr Tayto!). A few days later it was Cathy's birthday. We had a chilled day out and went to watch a movie, in a cinema with a lack-of-heating issue so, literally, chilled! Shrewsbury Town appointed a new manager and I was there for his first game in charge - an unexpected win against Birmingham City. The final bits of work in the house started and we had new flooring!

December

In the first week of December, we finally finished the home improvements we started in February! I felt incredibly relieved that the mammoth undertaking was over after ten months. I had work events in London, Bristol and Port Talbot. Then it was Christmas - starting with seeing Mary and Steve and visiting The Longest Yarn in Tewkesbury, followed by nearly a week in Shrewsbury. I concluded the month with a football match on New Years Eve.

And that was a wrap for 2024!

Croeso Billy - a musical icon plays the Principality Stadium

This was the big gig we have been waiting for all year. Billy Joel is an iconic artist and someone Cathy and I have always wanted to see play. And for the first time in his career he was coming to Cymru, playing a venue we could walk to, in his only European gig in 2024. We had to go! And on Friday night we did!

It was the biggest gig we've been to since seeing the Muppets at the O2. It was also my first stadium gig since seeing U2 nearly 20 years ago in the same stadium. (Although it had a different name then!)

We had a lot of emails ahead of the event warning us of restrictions and entry requirement, but getting in was an absolute breeze. There was also absolutely no hassle from fellow gig-goers, although that might be because we were in the seats in the middle tier. The standing area below us was packed. 

Chris Isaak was the support act. He was pretty good. I only knew one song of his, same as everyone else, and he played it midway in the set. You can guess what the song was. He can't hit the high notes any more but he did his best. The rest of his setlist was mainly rock and roll country bluesy stuff. I liked it.

And then at 8pm, the main man came on. True, from where we were sitting he was only a few centimetres tall, but there were huge screens either side and multiple cameras so we could see him quite clearly.

The screens were also used for a montage of background images in several songs - night scenes of New York during the song New York State of Mind, and a fast gallery of pictures of all the people and events name-checked in We Didn't Start the Fire. It was a very effective show. With the roof closed, it didn't feel like a stadium show - more like the world's biggest lounge act.

Billy leaned into his advancing years, apologising that he would probably struggle with the high notes when he sang An Innocent Man. He did point out that he recorded the song in 1983 and didn't expect to still be singing it 40 years later. The flipside of that was an injection of youth when his very young daughters joined him on stage - the older of the two belting out the chorus of My Life to great cheers from the crowd.

The show was all hits and a couple of cover bits - he got cheers when he sang snippets of What's New Pussycat?, and Green Green Grass of Home, and he also sang a chunk of Start Me Up after warning us "I'm no Mick Jagger..." He also gave some of his band opportunities to sing in one or two places, so he could get a breather. 

The final song of the main set was just him, with the piano, singing Piano Man. It was incredible. He stopped and let the crowd sing the chorus and we could see his expression on the big screen. He was visibly moved. It felt like the entire stadium had switched on the torch setting on their phones during it. We were all in the mood for a melody, and he had us feeling alright. 

The encore was five of the higher tempo songs including Uptown Girl, It's Still Rock and Roll to Me, and finishing with You May Be Right. During that one, Cathy looked into my eyes and sang she may just be the lunatic I'm looking for and I sang it back to her. It's one of our favourite songs and the perfect high note to end the show on. 

Bucket list floodlight failure - the lost "twofer" opportunity

One of my main hobbies at the moment is going to football matches. I made it to 30 games last season and so far this season have been to 25. It would have been 26. Technically it's 25.16666666 games.

It's been on my (saddo) bucket list for a while to do a "twofer" - two football matches in different grounds on the same day. I've done two matches on the same day before - back to back Olympic matches in the Millennium Stadium back in 2012. But never two in different grounds.

Last Saturday the stars aligned. Or, at least the fixtures did. Shrewsbury were playing at Bristol Rovers just across the bridge, kick off 3pm. And Barry Town, who I've been following this year, had an evening televised game, kick off 7.30pm. That's a do-able schedule and I resolved to do it.

My friend Stewart lives in Bristol and was joining me for the match. I successfully found his house, met his delightful daughter, Delilah, for the first time, and then parked quite near the Memorial Stadium in plenty of time for the game. Too much time, really, because it's blinking cold in the Mem. The away end is either an open terrace, where I almost died of exposure once, or the scaffolding and canvas temporary stand that has been there since before 2003. I think it's probably the oldest temporary stand in the football league; it certainly feels like it. I call it the perma-tent.

We didn't have much to look at so we messed around with selfies.

Although I moan about the away end, the rest of the ground isn't much better. There are two home stands that look like gazebos, the home end is one long terrace adorned with cider adverts, there is a large stand on side with the executive boxes in that looks like it should be at a race course or a cricket ground, and another giant cantilever stand that runs for the middle third of the pitch opposite it. The dug outs are the opposite side of the players' tunnel, and even they are mis-matched with one part of the visiting dug out slightly lower than the rest. Stewart said it felt like a stadium built out of left over bits of other stadia. To me, it reminded me of when I tried to build Lego buildings when I was younger and by the end any colour, size or shape brick would do to try and finish it.

Before the game there was a minute's silence for Emiliano Sala. While I do understand that this is a tragedy that has happened within the wider world of football, there is part of me that thinks that generally the public observation grief is getting out of hand. Emiliano had no connection to either club. I'm not sure why there was this need to silently contemplate the fragility of life and the inevitability of our own mortal demise here, but we did, and it was observed impeccably.

Shrewsbury were wearing a nifty black kit, started the game really well and led 1-0 at half time. There was a bit of needle in the game and a couple of players were lucky to stay on the pitch. Last year I saw Shrewsbury win here courtesy of a goal created by Alex Rodman. He now plays for Bristol Rovers and, naturally, he headed home the equaliser in the second half.

The game carried on being niggly and bad-natured. A Shrewsbury sub, Greg Docherty, had to leave the field for persistently bleeding from a head wound, and was replaced by hometown hero Dave Edwards, making his second appearance in his second spell at the club where his career started. A few minutes later Dave was sent off for a desperately stupid two footed lunge tackle that would have been daft in any game, but in one where players had been warned for most of the match about their kicking and shoving, was a nailed on red card. To be fair, if he had been on the receiving end of it, I would have been baying for blood. Shrewsbury hung on and it finished 1-1.

I dropped Stewart home, got back on the M4, dashed back to Wales through the spray, enjoyed not having to pay a toll, and pulled up by the Gladstone Road turnstiles at Jenner Park at about 7.15. The twofer was on!

Once I was in I had to walk around to the other turnstile to buy a programme. This meant I could get a picture of the bigger stand that I normally sit in. I also bought some chips. I had to wait at the chip van, though, so only got to a seat as the teams came out. I then stood through my second minute's silence for Emiliano of the day. I don't have a photo of it because, and I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, I was still eating my chips. Stealthily. Like a chip ninja. A respectful chip ninja.

Barry were entertaining Bala Town in the second phase of the Welsh Premier League. This is the section of the league where the top six teams all play each other again. Back in August I saw Barry beat Bala 3-2. Bala had three men sent off in that game, including one player who must have said something extremely rude to the referee after Barry striker Kayne Maclaggon punched the ball into the net for Barry's third goal and neither the referee or linesman saw the handball. I was hoping this game might live up to that excitement, especially as it was live on S4C.

Fate had other ideas.

Bala scored from a poorly defended free kick on 14 minutes. As the Barry players trudged back to kick off one set of floodlights went out.

The players stopped. Managers started milling around. Flashing blue lights behind the clubhouse alerted us to the fire brigade arriving. This was all very entertaining to the Barry Ultras who sang the theme tune to Fireman Sam, the Super Furry Animals song 'I've Got a Fire in My Heart for You" (which is a regular in their repertoire, to be fair) and then an impromptu version of 'We Didn't Start the Fire' by Billy Joel.

"We didn't start the fire
It was Barry Council
With the Dodgy Wiring"

Meanwhile S4C were desperately trying to fill air-time. As they set up pitchside to interview the managers, and it seemed, just about anyone they could, a chap ran out with an additional spotlight. It was quite humorous, as if he was going to try and replace the floodlights.

The warmth of the chips had worn off. I went up into the clubhouse as I was getting cold again and bought a cup of tea. Quite a few other fans had the same idea and the Ultras sang "We can't see youo sneaking out" as people began to drift out of the stands.

The Bala players came back out, providing a brief glimmer of hope the game would recommence, just before the stadium announcer said the game was off.

So that was my "twofer" well and truly busted. No tick on the bucket list. The double entry on my list of games will always be one game and one abandoned game for the 9 February 2019. I've seen 76 goals so far this season, but only 75 will count in official statistics.

I walked past the Bala players on my way back to my car. They were warming down. It's a long bus journey from Bala to Barry to play just 14 minutes of football. And they will have to do it all again in a few weeks time.