And that was the Euros...

England won it the hard way, didn't they? And being honest, after losing their first game in the group stage, they looked very unlikely winners. In fact, my hunch was Spain would win. 

And yet, and yet, England somehow won all three knockout stage games while only holding a scoreline lead for one minute in six hours of football. Somehow they survived a penalty shoot out where three players in a row missed their spot kicks. Somehow they kept coming back and kept coming back and grubbing wins. Until they lifted the trophy.

My overall feeling is that there is something more heroic in not being the absolute technical best football nation and yet still dragging yourselves over the winning line time and time again. It makes for drama at least. 

And we did have drama. The two goals in three minutes against Sweden, Lucy Bronze strapping herself up like a warrior and then hammering home a penalty in the shoot out, the beyond late equaliser against Italy and the last gasp injury time penalty that won the game, Beth Mead's slip in the shoot out at the end of the final and the missed retake, and then another comeback to win the game and the tournament and the trophy. 

These are all memorable moments from a thoroughly enjoyable tournament. It took 30 games before we saw a 0-0 score-line and that game was settled by a goal in injury time. Compared to the turgid men's tournaments we have had recently, this was non-stop action. 

I may have been a bit dismissive of Cymru's Euros campaign in my previous post about the Euros. One thing that did occur to me was that the women's team have managed something the men's team never did and that is to qualify for a 16 team Euros finals. The men's team first qualified for the finals in 2016 - when there were 24 teams in the competition meaning eight more spaces up for grabs. (Soccer nerds will tell me that Cymru also qualified in 1976 because they were eliminated in the quarter finals, but only four teams appeared in the "finals" that year so quarter finals were effectively the last qualifying round for the finals.)

I asked Cathy what her most memorable moment of the Euros had been and she said Jess Fishlock's goal for Cymru against France. It was super fitting that Jess scored Cymru's first ever goal at a finals tournament, as she has been a superb leader for the Cymru women's team for many years. There was an interview with her dad on the BBC a couple of days later and seeing him trying to keep his emotions in check while on camera brought a lump to my throat. 

Hannah Cain's goal against England was a better goal than Jess's toe poke against France. But it came at the wrong end of a hefty defeat. Although, I still maintain the penalty that set England on their way to victory was a terrible decision. England got very lucky to be gifted the lead there and I think that changed the entire direction of the match. 

I'm not sure what my most memorable moment was. I didn't see Jess Fishlock's goal because I wasn't able to watch the game. I've mentioned some of the England moments already. Germany's Ann-Katrin Berger's incredible save to prevent an own goal against France was an immense display of goalkeeping - possibly one of the best saves I've ever seen in a live televised game. 

The real test of how good a tournament has been is how you feel at the end. I enjoyed England's win. But I also felt sad that the finals were over. It's been brilliant football, engrossing entertainment, nail-bitingly tense, and now... it's over. But always to be remembered as a captivating tournament to watch. 

One game left of the Euros

Euro 2025 been a very enjoyable tournament and, now, the wall-chart waits for one final update.

Cymru had a difficult group and were always going to find it hard to get any points. They scored their first ever goals at a Euros final, including a beaut against England, but there wasn't much to cheer. 

After Spain's first match, I thought they looked likely tournament winners. However, Germany pushed them all the way to extra time in the semi-final. Germany were the highest ranked team Spain had faced, so maybe Spain aren't so fearsome after all.

I didn't think England would make the final, especially after they lost their first game in the group stages. They actually went into their final group game with a microscopic chance of going out, but made no mistakes with a comprehensive victory over Cymru.

England's quarter-final against Sweden saw them claw back a two goal deficit and win a truly awful penalty shoot-out. Then in the semi-final it took a 95th minute equaliser and a 119th minute penalty to edge past Italy. Two games where they came from behind to win the hard way. 

Will their fortune hold out on Sunday in the final? It's a rematch of the World Cup final two years ago. I'm hoping for a good game!

And the Women's Euros have begun

Cathy very kindly put my When Saturday Comes wall chart up for the Euros.

Last night I got to wrote in the first results. That means the Euros have officially started!

We have another wall chart - it's the one we got free outside Caernarfon Castle on our recent holiday.

I like how there is a lot of Cymraeg on here - but it's a real mix of Cymraeg and Saesneg.

I'm not using this wall chart but the other side says "C'mon Cymru" so we have got that up on display underneath the other one.

2024 football round up

This is my last end of year review of things. The calendar year doesn't really fit for a review of football because seasons start and end in the summer. But, still, aided by the handy Futbology app, I have a nice summary of the games I went to and can cover some other football high points as well. 

I went to more games in 2024 than in any previous year - a total of 68 across the tail end of last season and the start of this one. 

Some highlights from those 68 games...

• The first game between Shrewsbury and Wrexham in a long time when they met in the FA Cup in January.
• Seeing West Ham v Bayer Leverkusen in a Europa League game at the London Stadium while in London for a conference in April.
• A hectic weekend seeing Shrewsbury play at Charlton Athletic on the Saturday followed by Colwyn Bay v Barry Town on the Sunday. The game at Colwyn Bay meant I completed the Cymru Premier League, having seen a game at every ground in the league.
• An odd game in Gloucester, watching Truro City v Torquay United, where both teams were over 100 miles from home and the "away" team had actually travelled a shorter distance than the "home" team.
• Seeing Penrhiwceiber Rangers win the Ardal South West league (Welsh system tier three) with pyro on the pitch and the victorious players performing outdoor karaoke afterwards.
• Three Wales women's internationals, including their two home games in the play off to secure a spot at next year's European Championships. 

I went to 16 new grounds across the course of the year, ranging from Huddersfield to Haverfordwest, Coventry to Seven Sisters, and including the epic views of the Transporter Bridge right next to the ground belonging to Newport Corinthians. (Part of a "Corinthian weekend"!) Here are my new grounds on a map:

2025 has already got off to a good start with a goal-fest, which hopefully augers well for this year!

Monthly round up - November 2024

It feels like every month I say 'another busy month', but November was busy, including Cathy's birthday, a work weekend in Northern Ireland, World Diabetes Day, the start of the last stage of our year-long home improvements, and setting a new personal best for football matches in November.

The trip to Northern Ireland was for an event organised by 'young leaders' in our programme. Because of flight scheduling I ended up there for two nights. I visited Antrim for the first time and saw Lough Neigh, which is the largest lake in the UK (top pub quiz answer knowledge there!) The event went really well, I enjoyed meeting the team and the young people out there, and it seemed like everyone who attended was very positive about the content the young leaders had scheduled.

I even got to meet Mr Tayto at the airport when I left!

World Diabetes Day was on 14th November. The organisation I work for decided to use it as an opportunity to start conversations about diabetes stigma and highlight how damaging it can be for people living with the condition. I don't talk much about my personal experience of diabetes, honestly because I have experienced those feelings of being judged and blamed for developing it. A few years back I blogged about my experience of  living with diabetes after being diagnosed. In January it will be ten years since I was diagnosed and I might blog more about it then. 

In Wales, my colleagues organised a World Diabetes Day celebration event and awards evening in Port Talbot. It was a fun night with former NHS colleagues, people from local support groups, colleagues and the programme's young leaders from Wales. 

Hard on the heels of World Diabetes Day came a very important date in our calendar - Cathy's birthday! I had the day off work and we had a nice, quietish day together. We went to the cinema to watch The Wild Robot, which we both enjoyed, and had a meal out in the evening. We have discovered somewhere new that Cathy can actually order something off the menu, which means we have options for a meal out locally now!

The final stages of our home improvements have started. Our old hall carpet has gone, replaced by tile- effect flooring. 

Of course, nothing is simple with our house. When the carpet was lifted, we discovered a ridge in the concrete that meant we had to have the floor levelled, adding another day to the process. We are also getting a new cupboard built under the stairs. Considering this all started with our new roof in February, it has been a very long sequence of getting thongs sorted. I have decided that unless there is a disaster, we aren't having any work done in the house next year!

Football-wise, I made it to seven games in November. This was a new record for me. It included seeing Shrewsbury Town benefit from 'new manager bounce' with a glorious 3-2 win over Birmingham City in Gareth Ainsworth's first game in charge. 

It was the same weekend as 'Storm Bert' and I had some trouble getting home on the Sunday after the game. It felt like I couldn't get out of Shropshire, with roads blocked every time I crossed the county boundary. I ended up having lunch back at Mum's house and then driving home via the motorways. All told, I spent eight hours trying to get home!

The other games I went to included a trip to Seven Sisters Onllwyn to watch Cardiff Draconians - it was a new ground for me and my friend Matt joined me there. Every five years or so I get Matt to come to a game with me even though he is more of a rugby fan. 

I also watched two women's games, Barry Town away at Cardiff City, and then at the end of the month Wales v Ireland in the final round of the qualifying play off for the European Championships next year.

I went to the Wales game with Steve - and it was the second time in a week we had been at the Cardiff City Stadium. Two days previously we had been in the away end watching Queens Park Rangers beat Cardiff City, along with another friend, Andy.

Randomly at the Wales game I was sat right next to my friend Ruth, who I saw a couple of months back having not seen each other for several years before that. So at this rate we might well be seeing each other in January!

December is always a busy month as well so I expect it won't feel like very long before I am blogging a review, and some reviews of the year that has sped by. 

Monthly round up - October 2024

It feels like winter has suddenly arrived. The clocks have gone back. It's getting dark as I finish work. And all of a sudden it's November! Time for a review of the month just gone. 

The week before the clocks went back I was working on a filming project in various locations around Barry. It included some shooting on the Knap at sunset, so I got some lovely photos. 

The film will tell the story of Jacob, one of the young people involved in the programme I work in. We were a great little team, with our freelance videographer, Sarah, and my colleague Rhys joining us for the second day of filming. We finished on Barry Island, where else. 

In other work-related news, I had a great time meeting up with Heather who I worked with for seven years in the diabetes network. Heather has now retired and when we met up for lunch in Cardiff Bay, we had such good weather it was sunny enough for us to sit outside!

Our good friend Clare had a big number birthday (40) and we made her pose for a photo with us at her birthday party.

Another former work colleague, Ruth, was at the party too. We worked together a long time ago in the comms team at Care for the Family. 

A fairly random highlight from the month was going to an evening presentation by the Grangetown History Society. It was about the massive gasworks that used to exist not very far from our house. If you go to Ikea, you can still see the steel skeleton of one of the massive gasometers. I was a bit late getting to the talk, so have borrowed this picture of the presenter from my friend, Fiona.

In addition to lots of archive pictures of the area, there was a useful explanation about how a gasworks functioned, and how they produced gas by burning coal at a very high temperature without much oxygen. There were hundreds of miles of pipes transporting the gas all across Cardiff and as far as Pontypridd. It was used for street-lighting and domestic and industrial use. 

I made it to my second monthly Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick in a row. I'm not sure why we all stood around the post-box for the group photo. 

The litter-pick had been postponed by a week because of a storm. As someone said, if we had gone out on the original date it would have been more of a litter-chase than a litter pick!

I collected some big items, including a large abandoned suitcase. I'm pretty sure it didn't have a body in although to be honest, I didn't dare check. 

But my biggest prize was the entire front of a car. Clearly someone had had a shunt and they decided not to take their bumper home. Instead they dumped it on a piece of waste ground next to the road. 

Anyway, that sets a new high bar for ridiculous finds on a litter-pick, overtaking the abandoned aquarium I picked up once. 

Our house has been an ongoing project since February. We now have the replastered hallway and landing painted! We have also had some carpentry work done. There is one last big bit to do - sorting a new understairs cupboard and putting down new flooring in the hallway. It feels like we are on the home straight. I'm really hoping we can get it sorted in time for Cathy's birthday.

And finally, my football round up. I went to five games in October - three at Barry Town, one at Cardiff Draconians, and the Women's European Championship Qualifying play-off between Wales and Slovakia. At one of the Barry Town games I met the new club mascot, Derek the Dragon. 

I went to the Wales game with Sara. It was our first game together since watching Penrhiwceiber Rangers win their league title back in May. 

I also earned a Futbology badge for my 75th game at Jenner Park. Happily, it was a game that Barry won. 

And here is my running total for the season so far!

Football recap of the month - May 2024

And so to what will probably be the final monthly recap of a season that started on 1st July last year. (I say probably final, I have no plans to go to any games in June, but I will be watching the European Championships on TV!)

It's been a long, yet very enjoyable season. A full season recap post will follow soon! But in the meantime, these are the games I went to in May.

Game 61: Coventry City 1-2 Queens Park Rangers

My friend Steve drove us to Coventry for this game, which was the last game of the season for both sides. It was my first QPR game since before the pandemic and a new ground for me. Before the match we met up with Kieran, who was in a youth group I used to help with several years ago. He's now chaplain at Coventry City and doing some tremendous work supporting young people through a charity focused on sport. All three goals were in the goal the away fans were standing behind so we got a good view of them all. 

Game 62: Blaenavon Blues 1-1 Caldicot Town

My friend Paul joined me on a sunny day up the valleys for a game in the "heritage town" of Blaenavon. This was Caldicot's last game of the season and the first time I had seen them playing an away game - my second new ground in a row and my 125th ground recorded on Futbology. 

My friend Ben was playing centre back - it was his 33rd game of the season and he scored! I hadn't seen him score before and it took him to a career high total of nine goals for the season. Although, I don't know how much he knew about it really, because the ball looked like it pinged off a couple of players in the box and hit him last. They all count, though!

Game 63: Penrhiwceiber Rangers 3-0 Seven Sisters Onllwyn

Penrhiwceiber needed to get at least a point to become Ardal South West Division champions (overtaking Cefn Cribwr, whose season had already finished). They won without ever really being pushed by Seven Sisters, who only conceded half the number of goals that I saw them concede against Cardiff Draconians last month. 

Steve came with me from Cardiff and we met Sara and Leanne and their twins there. Sara's dad, Nigel, also came to the match. They used to live in Penrhiwceiber, so it was a bit of a homecoming for them. There was pyro to celebrate at the end of the game and we also got to watch the trophy presentation. The twins were rapt watching grown ups spraying each other with prosecco. 

Game 64: Newport City 2-1 Cefn Cribwr

This was the play-off game to decide who would take the other promotion place from the Ardal Leagues. Newport had finished second in the Ardal South East, and Cefn Cribwr had been overtaken by Penrhiwceiber the previous week. The game was held in Penybont's stadium, and given the proximity to Cefn Cribwr, it felt like most of the crowd were supporting them. However Newport scored two good goals to take a commanding lead and despite a late rally it will be Newport in the Cymru South next season. 

It was very hard luck on Cefn Cribwr, who had lost a cup final the previous Saturday, while Penrhiwceiber were taking the championship and promotion spot off them. 

Game 65: Cymru 1-1 Ukraine

And so to my very final game of the 2023-24 season - a women's European Championship qualifying game at Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli. This was a new ground for me and my third new ground of the month. Cymru conceded after two minutes due to a diabolical defensive lapse and then struggled to get back into the game. They seemed really out of sorts with wayward touches and misplaced passes aplenty. Overall, it was a very frustrating watch, which made it a bit like watching the men's team!

One nice note was a special presentation before the game to Jess Fishlock, marking her 150th cap for Cymru.