I have not been blogging recently, too busy filling in my World Cup wall chart and sticking pins into my Fabio Coppello doll. Having watched England nervously stutter into the last 16 I am comforted that it could be worse, we could be French.

Having recently enjoyed visits to Little Marlow and Englefield I do get some perspective on where we are as a club. What a good do at the Club for the England vs USA World Cup opener, beer festival and loads of new faces and colts. The game however was so dull that the kids went outside at half time and it was like a scaled down scene from ‘the 300’ with 3,000 under 11’s taking on half a dozen under 17’s at football. Rita tried my patience by handing out mini vuvuzelers but mercifully these soon became discarded in favour of another sausage. Other clubs are struggling for players and some have tried to address the problem by importing players who will never really be affiliated to their clubs. We have chosen a different, but more difficult path of growing our own. This is a more long term strategy, but one that should lay a solid foundation. Well done Dave and the coaches, Club Mark (who?) will be presented on Sunday morning, be there.

My only gripe, and there always has to be one with me, is the cancer that is the reluctance, and in some cases refusal to play for one Hurley team or the other. I think we all could do with thinking more about the club than ourselves. Isn’t it self evident that you only become a better player by playing against better opposition? And really, should we not support the poor souls who have taken on the task of selecting sides every week only to be told that there are conditions to your availability. Come on lets all pull together and be more Beckham than Terry, Moyse than Benitez, Marmite than Vegimite, and rattle than vuvuzela.

Shame Australia didn’t make it out of Group D else we could have beaten them at football as well as rugby and cricket. Bring on the Germans and Amersham Hill, which is more hated?