I went to see Therapy? on Wednesday. I don't go on as many adventures as I used to with the mate that I went to the gig with but we always meet up to go the Therapy? gigs. The last time was about two years ago in Narbeth.

The support act was Ricky Warwick from The Almighty. I was a bit worried when he came on stage without a band, just an acoustic guitar but he did rock. He'd aged better than me and my mate as well. Last time we went to see the Almighty, my mate wasn't going grey, I wasn't going bald and I didn't have to worry about losing my glasses. We knew he was going to be good when he asked if anyone liked Iron Maiden, we replied that we did. Then he asked if we also liked Johnny Cash and we replied that of course we did, who doesn't? His final question was whether we liked Johnny Cash and Iron Maiden together and we quiried whether he'd been reading our facebook pages. He then played Running Free in the style of Johnny Cash. He also did a great version of Ace of Spades but apart from a couple of old Almighty tracks, I think the rest of the set were new songs and I enjoyed them.

Therapy? started off a lot heavier than the last time we saw them and I didn't particularly enjoy the begining of the set. This wasn't helped by the wierd drunk girl dancing at me. Back in the day, the wierd drunk girl was the main reason I went to gigs but now she's just annoying. Therapy? did get less trash as the set went on and they played most of the old hits as the encore so I was realy enjoying by the end but I think I would have enjoyed the entire gig more if they'd mixed the order of the set up a bit more.

Friday I went to my mate's pub. A chap from the Ukraine has started calling there recently. He hasn't seen much of town so I took him around the pubs. He got on with everyone in the rock pub and even ended up speaking Polish to young emo kid from Poland. In the cocktail bar, he made us take our shoelaces off, tie them to the back of our trousers and dangle them into empty lager cans. We went back a mate's house after that. I was drunk so I went home but he stayed and got on so well with the gang, that he invited them round to his house for a party on Saturday.

Saturday No one went to the party in the Ukrainian's house. I went round the usual pubs with the usual people in the evening but the excitment all happend when I was asleep. A mate was kipping round my house and it turns out that she sleep walks. She woke up from her sleep walking as she was falling down the stairs. I phoned her mam who came round in the car to take her to hospital. It turned out that she had dislocated her elbow. As she put her arm out for an x-ray, there was a loud pop and she was able to move her arm again.

Thankfully, apart from some nasty looking bruises, that was her only injury. I don't know how I could have explained about a semi-naked girl with a broken neck at the bottom of the stairs.

The Nomads were up against the team at the top of the league so I turned up early to laugh at them getting hammered. The joke was on me though as the Nomads had a few injuries and I ended up playing. The other team were good and scored a few goals from the half way line but at least none of us got injured. The final score was 15-4.

Next up were Sporting Lesbian. We were playing against pesky kids. The problem with pesky kids is that they keep on running around the place and you can't keep up so you never know where they are. That was one problem, the other problem is that they decided to kick lumps out of me. Only me though, they left the rest of the team alone. I did teach in the college they were playing for but that was over ten years ago when they were still in primary school so that couldn't have been the reason. We lost 5-2 but I spent most of the second half on the sidelines looking at my leg.

friday I went to the rock pub to watch a band. They were prog-metal. Although changing tempo during a song is clever it doesn't sound very good and I left after two songs to drink gin in the pub next door. I made it back in for the band's last song which wasn't too bad but I don't think I could have sat through the entire set. Then I went into twon where I met some old school mates who were talking about organising a school reunion but that's the sort of thing that everyone says when you see someone that you haven't seen since school.

Saturday I played football. We were playing in Swansea so I phoned the club first to see if they'd left, as their club house is in the other direction from Swansea. I was told that they had left and I was given directions. I nearly missed the ground but thankfully, someone kicked a ball ont the road so I could see where I needed to head. I just there just before the rest of the team but we then had to wait at least another half hour before our coach turned up with the kit.

As I hadn't played in a while, I was a substitute. It was perfect weather for subbing and I enjoyed sitting in the sun watching the game. We haven't won all season but we started well. Unfortunatly, after the opposition scored their first goal, things changed. Our keeper played well but we were 3-0 down within the first quarter. Then things got worse; our keeper took a kick in the head and ended up coming off, concused. We next chap to try his hand in goals wasn't as good and we were 7-0 down by half time.

I game on for the second half but we'd lost some morale by then and a lot of our team seemed more interested in asking the ref how long was left, than actually concentrating on the football. In the ned we lost 11-1.

I met a celebrity in the evening. The star of the first episode of Torchwood, the guy who played the bouncer who had a wank when watching the CCTV. He was also in the pot noodle adverts with the noodle miners.

Two local derbies in the footie. Nomads vs. Hawaii 5-o-side. They're the only two teams who have been in the league since it started ten years ago. I've moved from the Nomads but one of their players broke a leg playing a couple of weeks back so I turned up in case they were short. Nomads had three players, Hawaii had seven. Thankfully the goal keeper from sporting lesbian came down the watch the game as well so we had five for the Nomads.

We were 3-0 up at half time but we struggled in the second half as they realised our goalkeeper is no good at throwing the ball out so we were stuck in our own half for the second half. We managed to hold on though and won 4-3.

Sporting were on next against the Killkenny Cats. The Cat is the pub next door to the PH, where we call so this was a big derby game. The Cat only had three players turn up for them though so they borrowed two Nomads. Usually we rely on our good player to score all our goals but last night one of our least fit players was scoring all the goals. He scores one goal once in a while but last night he got two in the first half.

With less than a minute left we were 5-0 and the game was won but he managed to get his hatrick which resulted in the biggest cheer I've heard from our team since they've been going. The ref was about to blow up after that but I had the chance to score so he let it go for a while as I never score. The problem was that I had a lot of time and space to take my shot and I bottled it. I'm alright scoring from out wide when I've got defenders around me but always miss tap ins. Last night I was lucky to get the shot to land in the same pitch.
 

We were playing a team lower than us in the league so we thought we had a good chance of winning. We only had one sub but I think the boys were trying their best to get me injured before the game. When I was collecting money and paying the ref, I was hit three times by wayward shots so I was already aching before kick off. We were 3-1 up at half time and looking good for the win. The other team weren't very good and they didn't have a goalkeeper so we should have won by a lot. In the second half, I had the ball in their half and there was plenty of room for me to run into to take a shot. Unfortunatly, when I tried to run, I think I must have pulled a muscle as I couldn't move my right leg, which is the one I use for football. I went off injured but it looked as if we had the game won by then.

One of the fatter players on our team went off towards the end of the game so I had to hobble about on the pitch for a while. It wasn't until the other team scored near the end of the game and they all cheered that I realised we weren't winning by as much as I thought we were. They scored three goals in the last minute but the ref disallowed the last one as he'd blown the whistle for full time. It turns out that when I wasn't paying attention to the game, we'd missed a load of shots and they'd scored a load and we lost 7-6.

Played footie on Saturday. For some reason, the coach has got it into his head that I can play left back for 90 minutes, despite the fat that I can't kick the ball with my left foot or run about for anything like 90 minutes. Thankfully no one noticed how bad I am at football because we didn't have a goalkeeper. The coach volunteered to go in goals as we had no one else. He can barely walk, let along dive so it was no suprise when the opposition scored twice within the first minute of the game. The second goal was my favourite; the ball was passed back to our keeper and he had plenty of time to either pass the ball to one of the defenders or to boot it into touch, instead he waited for the opposition's centre forward (who was the spitting image of Colin Charvis) to jog up to him. He then tapped the ball to their forward, waited for him to score a goal and then threw himself on the ground claiming to have been fouled.

We were about 7-0 down at half time. In the second half another player offered to go in goals and he played well, we only conceeded two goals in the second half and they were both late in the game. I went down injured with about ten minutes left. I was claiming that I'd pulled a muscle but when I found out that we had no subs and I had to play on, it turned out that it was just cramp and I was making a fuss about nothing, although I have had a bad back since.

I had a wedding reception to go to in the evening. My mate's sister was marrying the drummer from my band. The reception was in the bowls club accross the street from my house which would have been conveniant if I didn't have to walk to town to use the cashpoint. I sat next to the guy who used to sing in my band. He had introduced the couple and he was very emotional. When the couple had their first dance, he was crying more than the bride's mam. They had a band playing and they must have been on for at least two and a half hours. The band was great but I could see the dj was getting bored walking round the room asking people for requests. It was worth it though as he did play some Beebop Deluxe for me.
After the party, most of the gang went back to the Irish pub, where the bride works. I wet into town though, as it was a mate's birthday so I was hoping to meet up with him. I didn't meet him but I did meet some players from the footie team. They're threatening me with a place in the firsts. It would mean that I'm playing against better players but at least I won't have to be left back. I also met up with the twins. One was kicked out for indoor smoking and when I went looking for his brother, he got kicked out even further for sneaking a bottle of beer out with him.

I did meet up with a mate whose birthday it was, just not the one I had planed to meet. We ended up going back to another mate's house to listen to heavy metal until 4am.
 

Sporting Lesbian haven't won in their last seven games. Last night we were playing the last team that we beat, who are bottom of the division so we were hopefull of a win. The game before us was the Nomads so I went down to watch them. They already had one sub but I stayed on the sidelines incase I was needed. Their game was close and quite physical so when one of the Nomads players offered for me to go on, I decided not to incase I lost them the game or got injured. Sleepy Heads, the other team, eventually pulled ahead from them at the end but it was a good game. Goal of the match came right at the end; a Sleepy Heads player shot, it went passed the goalkeeper and hit the crossbar. The goalkeeper turned round to see where the ball was but it bounced off the crossbar, hit him on the head and went in.

It's always bad luck when you get hit in the nuts by the ball but I was even unluckier than usual last night. I was getting my stuff from behind the goal, when someone from Sleepy Heads kicked the ball, it bounced off the wall and hit me square in the plums. Not only hadn't the game started but I was injured by someone I wasn't even playing against. The Lesbian game was quite close in the first half, I think we went in two goals down but in the second half, for some reason we went all out attack and didn't bother defending so we were hammered in the end 15-6. I missed another sitter.

Friday. Went to my mate's pub. Most of the gang were there watching the under 20s game but they all went home after the match, leaving me with the goalkeeper from Sporting Lesbian. We went round the usual pubs but they were mostly quiet as everyone was saving up for the big rugby match on Saturday. I played a couple of games of blob in the cocktail bar but I managed to refrain from drinking gin or going to another pub when that one shut.

Saturday. I went to the pub in time for the Scotland - France game. It was quite full there when I arrived and packed by the time that game finished. It was a cracking game and a cracking atmosphere and the entire town was out celebrating. They'd already kicked a few drunks out of the rock pub when I got there and the landlord wasn't letting anyone in that he didn't recognise. I ended up on silly drinks in the cocktail bar. For some reason I had a drambue and a creme de menthe, don't worry, they were in seperate glasses, I'm not that decedant yet. I ended up going round a few pubs before heading home. On my way home, I bumped into a mate from the rock pub. He wasn't anywhere near his house so I assumed he'd been to another mate's house. He didn't know who the other mate was or where he lived so I showed him.

There had been a party there but everyone left as I arrived. We ended up drinking scotch and listening to thrash metal until gone 4am when I realised that I had to go home as I had a gig on Sunday.

Sunday. I managed to get out of bed and made it to the sofa in time for the Ireland - Italy game but I did fall asleep towards the end of it. That meant that I arrived for my gig and hour after I should have played. I thought as it was a Sunday afternoon gig in a small pub that it would be just a few guys with acoustic guitars taking it in turns to play a few songs. I was wrong, the pub was packed and they had full bands playing. As the rock bands were already on, I missed my slot with the ukulele. At the end of the gig, when most people had gone home, I did play some samples of my set to the few who were left. It went down well but I'm probably lucky that I missed my set as I was still hungover and not sure what I was doing.

The Lesbians were up against one of the better teams in the league but we had a full team so we were in with a chance. The first half was close, we had a lot of possession and we defended well but for some reason our goalkeeper was even more crazy than usual. He spent the entire half shouting at our team how bad we were playing and we weren't making an effort. This was when we were 2-1 up and playing well. In the second half his screaming and shouting got to the rest of the team and everyone spent the half panicing and shouting. I was getting frustrated myself; he didn't shout man on until after you'd been tackled and he was giving terrible advice as to who to pass to, that was when you could understand him. No one has spoken to him since the game so I don't know why he was in such a bad mood. I'm sure I'll find out this weekend after he's had a few beers.