JonM

This website and the European RL governing body website do carry quite a lot of news. https://www.totalrl.com/rugby-league-emergence-in-bulgaria-continues-despite-defeat-to-serbia/ https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/1978/bulgaria-run-serbia-close-in-sofia

Yes, Bulgaria is entirely within the Balkan peninsula. The opposition was billed as Serbia u-21s in Sofia, which explains the relatively close score. Nothing in Croatia. They could put together a very strong team of Aussie heritage players though, I'm sure. Looks like there's some nice work going on to spread RL to neighbouring countries in southern, central and eastern europe. Albania's RC Tirana are going to play in the Greek league this year, Covid permitting. Ukraine have done some development work in Belarus, and the Czechs are trying to get things started in Slovakia.

Bulgaria played Serbia in an international at the weekend in Sofia, finishing 16-28, although Bulgaria were ahead 16-14 shortly after half time. Further games to come for Serbia - against Montenegro and Albania.

Brilliant, that is a seriously hard thing to have done. Have you done an ultra before, or is this off the back of military stuff? You've had me looking at my Pennine Way guidebook; definitely fancy running the whole thing. I reckon 11-12 days would be challenging for me, but doable, especially if I could sort out some kind of baggage transfer.

Looks like he's heading into Gayle & Hawes now, not too far from the finish.

He (William Donaldson, who wrote the Henry Root letters), had a crack cocaine habit for much of his sixties.

Tracker showing Geordie Saint arrived at the Malham checkpoint.

Good luck - another dot watcher here. Hopefully the next bit along the Skipton canal etc. is a bit easier and then it's just a question of keeping on putting one foot in front of another through the dales. Seem to have spent quite a bit of time watching dots in the last few weeks. I guess it makes sense for people doing Bob Graham Rounds, all the wainwrights etc. to be doing it in June when there's lots of daylight.

62-12 win in Serbia for the Bulgarian team, not sure if they've won a game previously?

Balkan Superleague starts today - Car Ducin Paracin vs Locomotiv Sofia, Lescovac Cheetahs vs Radnicki.

I very much hope Euro 13s turns out to be a success. It doesn't (and shouldn't) need to involve attacking one of the few standout bright spots in world RL.

Belgium's rugby league governing body joined the RLEF over a decade ago, and has played numerous international fixtures, received technical assistance from the EU Erasmus+ funding (9 coaches qualified at a course in Brussels). Likewise Denmark has been a member for over a decade, has had coaching and refereeing courses and so on. I don't think you can expect "three people in a box room" to actually be the ones to find players and create clubs for domestic competitions. Why try to set up a rebel competition rather than just working with the governing bodies - the RFL, FFR and ERL (as the RLEF is now called)? The history of our sport in recent decades is littered with these idiotic splits.

Because that's what the world governing body of the sport of rugby league has agreed should be the case, and they've been recognised as the governing body by various governments. It just seems bizarre for you to trot out this line about them not having done much when there's stories in the last couple of weeks about 6 referees having been trained in Albania, first ever game in Montenegro, nine teams taking part in a snow tournament in Ukraine and so on. Europe (ex UK) now has many more rugby league teams than France, many more than the South of England. In 2019, there were dozens of international fixtures played, not just adult mens, but also womens, students, wheelchair, youth age groups etc. I'm assuming that Euro XIII is going to expect to get match officials from somewhere?

I'm really surprised you keep repeating bizarre statements like this. The RLEF has done a fantastic job - one of the few big success stories in RL. We've now got properly constituted legal rugby league bodies in dozens of countries, coaching and refereeing courses being run all over the continent, regular international competitions involving lots of countries - none of which existed before the RLEF. This all done on a shoestring bit of funding from the EU - a fraction of what was wasted on Elstone by SL.

Google seems to turn up plenty of activity - http://www.fijibati.com/ is full of details about secondary school competitions and under-19 national finals this week.

Well worth a visit - a real marvel of engineering. Falkirk itself is like a Scottish Widnes, but the wheel and the Kelpies are definitely worth a stopover.

Several thousand books in the house, which I've decided is too many, so I'm slowly working my way through the shelves trying to decide which books will never be read again. Quite a bit of science fiction & fantasy that I haven't looked at since I was a teenager, and I've been re-reading before they go to the charity shop, post-lockdown. Asimov & Heinlein era stuff has held up better than I expected, couple of Simak books coming up soon.

Ooh, I could talk about this stuff for hours... I had the very great pleasure of meeting John Chibadura (sadly, he died in the late 90s) and occasionally still listen to tapes of his. Although Peel (& Andy Kershaw) would correctly refer to this as Zimbabwean music, he was actually more popular in Mozambique. The Sungura style (e.g. the below) is copying music from Zaire to which John added a reggae influence. Pretty much impossible for most African musicians to get visas to play concerts in the UK any more.

A weigh-in of 72kg here, but I'm not tracking it, so no need to add to the chart. Having discovered that I could only just do a pull-up, I've started a program of bodyweight exercises 4 times a week. Serious DOMS in the arms and shoulders after the first couple of days. I typically run 4-5 times a week, not sure how combining a bit of weight training with the running is going to work, but with no races on the cards any time soon, probably doesn't matter.

If you think Orkney is stunning, you really should get over to Harris & Lewis, and check out Callanish.

Oddly enough, I found a copy of that on the bookcase earlier in the week, didn't remember ever having read it, so moved it to the pile of books waiting to be read.

Interesting how these things work out. My wife has lost about a stone this year, she's now thinner than when we got married 20+ years ago and her wedding ring is slightly too big. My weight has stayed the same. I'm over 2000km running for the year so far, definitely going to be less than last year.

There's some history/context around colours here - it was a real point of conflict with RU and by 1963 they had copyrighted the colours and badge to prevent RL trying to copy it. Not sure it explains why they played these games in a black kit though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springbok_colours

Of those places, the Calder Valley never really became a rugby league area - Hebden Bridge, Todmorden etc. probably didn't have the population to support professional sport. Other than that, you have Leeds, Bradford (Harry Garnett), Wakefield, Halifax, Huddersfield represented. M Newsome (of Dewsbury?) was the representative who proposed broken time payment to the RFU in 1893, so certainly not all of the committee were in agreement with the Rev Marshall. Can't see the "elephant in the room" though.

It's a different ex-Widnes player called Eric Hughes, who played for Leigh & St. Helens after leaving Widnes. https://widnesvikings.co.uk/a-tribute-to-eric-hughes/