The Hallucinating Goose

Well I've seen players losing their cool many, many times before but I can't recall seeing a player throwing their cue across the arena as Robert Milkins did yesterday!

With Parkgate beating Wombwell, Beverley Town will finish second in the NCEL Div 1 and so will have a playoff against Retford United, crazy considering we've finished the campaign on 103 points. It was due to be a home playoff but the cricket club are not letting us use the ground so we are having to play at a neutral venue in Winterton, near Scunthorpe, so looks like this goose is taking a trip across the bridge. The club have already said they are putting on a double decker bus free of charge for fans which is a fantastic gesture but I just hope this doesn't damage the club too much financially seen as we could have easily got 500 fans at home for this game and now maybe 100 will travel for it.

Just bought the complete boxset of Hamish Macbeth in a charity shop for a fiver. Not a show I've seen before but Mrs. Goose says she used to watch it, and I like Robert Carlyle so worth a watch.

The tables were re-covered last night and watching Judd v Tom Ford, it is obvious Judd is certainly not happy with the new cloth. He's miscued a couple of times and misjudged the pace quite a bit as well as making gestures at the table and faces and constantly smoothing the cloth.

I read them all last year, not the best quality writing but entertaining enough nonetheless.

This morning I purchased 15 novels of Julian Stockwin's Thomas Kydd series in a local charity shop. I've not read any of the series or know much about it particularly but I'm a big fan of Patrick O'Brien so thought I'd give these a go. I bought them as soon as I saw them because about a year ago, the same charity shop had a lot of Alexander Kent's novels but when I decided a few days later to get them they had already gone, and I've been struggling to find them ever since.

I hadn't heard of this film so just looked it up and saw it has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes! That's not something you see very often! Of course I decided for myself it must be rubbish when I saw Robert Patrick is in it.

So far 8 of the 16 seeds have fallen in the first round, and Higgins' match with Jamie Jones is still very close after the first session so it might be 9. This is an incredibly unpredictable and intriguing championship. It really feels like anything could happen.

The players rarely talk to each other in the arena. Their minds are totally focused on the match and nothing else, they are completely in the zone, focused on the table and won't be distracted by anything. You see this when they're stood waiting to enter the arena. Hawkins and Day yesterday were chatting away like the good mates they are backstage but as soon as they walked into that arena a switch was flicked and their minds were on the game. You saw similar with Selby and O'Connor; really good friends who have known each other for 20 years, since O'Connor was a kid going into the club Selby played at. Selby basically mentored O'Connor and coached him when he was a kid and a teenager but they did not say a word to each other during their game. The moment the game ended however Selby jumped up with a massive smile on his face, congratulating his friend and giving him a massive hug. They're just professionals being professional.

On this day in 1932, Benny Rothman led the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, an event which arguably led to the creation of the National Parks and opened the countryside up to enthusiastic walkers such as this goose.

This tournament is extroadinary. Another one of the favourites is out after Mark Williams lost 10-9 to the young Chinese player, Si Jiahui.

And Selby is out. The top seeds are dropping like flies!

Mindset is such a big part of playing at the Crucible, keeping your concentration for the whole match, something the more experienced players are tuned into doing which is why so many debutants do tend to struggle and so many of the old guard keep going strong.

I can't believe how many of the games are going against the favourite. Selby is down 8-4 as I write this! No one could possibly have predicted that scoreline!

Has anyone seen the film 'Studs', from 2006, starring Brendan Gleeson, about Sunday league football? I saw it around the time it came out but its so obscure it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, and I haven't seen it since, on tv or even a dvd in a charity shop, but discovered it is on YouTube so will probably give it another watch because I've been watching a few films recently with football as the theme.