His Royal Dryness, The Duke of Cork

I wouldn't give him a job as a sign-writer.... From BBC News this morning.

Capello's new career as a cricket umpire.

BBC News - Polar bears have maternal Irish brown bear ancestors No doubt if Jack Charlton was still manager of The Republic of Ireland, they'd get a game.

Best performance I've seen at the Lane for ages.  It has inspired me to blog again and given me hope.  Maybe even enough to renew my season ticket. We went to town on the dirty Leeds and bar their one clear-cut chance could have gone in four up at half time.  Clearly, that kind of performance usually signals a second half collapse, but it wasn't to be.  More of the same resulted in the joy of an own goal (always more of a sickener and more of a delight - remember Des Walked for us against Forest?) I heard one story of someone turning up about 2:30pm for the 1pm kick off, so they would have been gutted. Not a bad player for the blades, that I can think of.  Vokes won everything in the air.  Defence were solid apart from a couple of flaps.  Evans worked hard along with Boggy.  Quinn is starting to look like his young self.  All topped-off with a sending off which I didn't see and wasn't on TV.  A great afternoon. To paraphrase a text from a mate many years ago:  H

Details of road closures in Sheffield....

Sheffield United Match Previews Previews Wrong place to be No, I would enjoy a cup final....

Soccer World: Two-game ban and fine for player who kicked an owl into touch

BBC News - Insurance premiums to change after ECJ gender ruling Will premiums which favour older motorists be classed as discrimination? I wonder if the same ruling will apply to other things. I'm thinking 2012 Olympics. Can anyone enter the mens or womens 100m race? That has to be discrimination if you can't.

Next two games, I think, will determine whether we stay up or not.  3/4 points we may scrape up.  6 points definately stay up.  0,1,2 points down. First half on Tuesday was very poor.  Nobody seemed to have any idea what they were doing.  Vokes up front didn't touch the ball, that I can remember.  I had almost walked out immediately after I had arrive, when my mate told me Cresswell was captain.  He set a superb example of how not to play football. I was so bored in the first half, that I happened to notice the column of seats in front of me was completely empty :- This really was the highlight of the first half. Second half, Stephen Jordan was subbed for Lowton.  He'd had trouble marking Kebe, who looked impressive on the right. Blades had chances, but couldn't convert, then a killer pass put Long through, Lowton got in front of him and looked like he'd rescued it, but next thing Long had scored. Anyway Boggy managed to get and score a dubious penalty. M

Another solid performance (apart from the labouring Bent) with reasonable performances all round.  We deserved the points, I thought, and the ref did his best by helping with a fairly dubious penalty. For me, it needs to be Bogdanovic and Evans on Tuesday night.  Bent didn't look that interested.  Later on in the game, Quinny started to look a dangerous player and we could do with him back to his old best.  Evans again looked like a great centre forward, throwing his weight around getting involved.  Apparently he was ill during the week, and got substituted during the second half.  The crowd for once were booing the decision to take Evans off, rather than booing Evans. However, good performances aren't enough and even with Bassett in the directors box, we need to start getting 3 points each game.  Tuesday is a huge, huge game now. Blades 1 - 1 Millwall

Frustrating game as the Blades had great chances, hitting the crossbar/post, forcing an incredible save from a Monty long-range rasper, having one cleared off the line and having a couple of good chances inside the box. Blades were in charitable mood, gifting the foxes an early goal by not marking anyone and having a keeper stood two miles off his line allowing a tame lob to nestle in the back of the net. They then picked it up a bit.  Joe Mattock at left back didn't look very good, but was getting a harsh reception from the Leicester fans (not sure what the history is there).  We he got stretchered off, they were still giving him abuse which was pretty much disgraceful.  The stadium announcer piped up, saying "I'm sure all fans wish Joe a speedy recovery."  Shameful. Once crab eyes got into his stride we started to look better, creating chances and were unlucky not to get in at half time level. The second half continued in the same vein, with Blades dominatin

Our last evening in Les Gets.  7 days of excellent skiing, despite the lack of snow fall.  Conditions in places were very icy, but we managed to get some good skiing in.  Big thanks to Geoff who let us stay in his Les Gets apartment (La Soulane)  and who is also excellent company (and we hope we are good company for him too). The week's skiing the pictures can be viewed on my Picasa album ( http://picasaweb.google.com/DukeOfCork/ ) and the trails (with pictures) can be found on my everytrail profile ( http://www.everytrail.com/profile.php?user_id=30685 ) A fair old drive home tomorrow looms, but hopefully we will get home smoothly and safely.

A couple of things have sprung to mind.  I'm sat listening to the radio and it's nil nil.  In a relegation battle, a point away from home is always welcome.  There's also a chance you might nick a goal. In the last few months, the Blades have struggled with injuries.  A little while ago we had one fit striker - Ched Evans.  The same week Billy Sharp was injured or suspended for Donny and would be missing for a few games.  Even though they have other strikers, they got David Healy on loan.  He did well for them, I wondered why we didn't have a sniff around. In defence, we've struggled all season.  We've struggled all last season too.  In particular we missed the two Kyles.  We got one back on loan, which was a good move, but since then, both have been on loan to different places, but not Bramall Lane.  Walker scoring against us just rubbed salt into that wound. Still struggling for a centre back/left back type of player a watched why intrigue as Matt Kilgal

Not the greatest game ever, and I decided in the second half that I wasn't going to bother with the Villa game. Blades played quite well first half, without really creating any clear-cut chances.  Once Donny had gone down to ten men, I thought we would be OK, but Donny grew in confidence and walked past our defence a few times before finally scoring, then converting the penalty.  At two nil down, against ten men I have to say I didn't believe we could get anything. It's a frustrating time being a Blade.  They came back brilliantly, to be fair and the players looked elated by the result.  Hopefully it will inspire them to perform better and we can stave off relegation.  It was nice to see the youngsters on the bench and have a run out. Kozzy (Crab Eyes) was on the radio saying how his kids didn't believe he was a footballer because he was always sat on the bench.  They thought that was his season ticket.  He said that because the postman had tweaked his groin, he w