England recorded their first competitive win under the management of Steve Maclaren (and Terry Venables of course) against a rather poor Andorra last night at Old Trafford. England went ahead early in the game courtesy of Peter Crouch, then Liverpool team mate and possibly best midfielder in the world today, Steven Gerrard doubled the lead 8 minutes later. Then Jermain Defoe silenced his critics by scoring twice, one on each side of half-time, then it was possibly the luckiest player in English football Peter Crouch scored his second to make it 5 – 0. But props to Owen Hargreaves who played a blinder, hitting the post twice during the match, and one of those was from a free-kick, Beckham style, Beckham who? more like! And he was unlucky to be denied as the Andorran keeper managed to keep the free-kick, which hit the inside of the post out by pure fluke! But it was a very slick performance from the English, Maclaren’s tactics of using the wide players seems to be working a treat, but really that system hasn’t been tested yet, Greece and Andorra are hardly top class opposition, bring on Russia and Croatia, both of those teams will provide a much stiffer test for Maclaren’s men, but nine goals from two matches is pretty good going in anyone’s books, so more of the same, I almost want Portugal in our group, to avenge the quarter final defeats in Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006, but that’s probably tempting fate!!!
And now time for a rant, and the subject is public transport, more specifically, buses, and even more specifically First Bus. Today I caught a bus to the train station as thats the closest the bus stops to my dad’s house, which was fine, I bought a return ticket as it saves me 70 pence on the price of two single tickets. But when I put my arm out to flag down the bus as it was approaching, the driver just looked at me and drove on. What is it with First Bus, buses are constantly early, and drive straight through my street up to 10 minutes early at times, or don’t turn up at all, and now I can add not stopping to pick up passengers at stops. I never get this problem with CityBus, it just seems that First don’t have a clue about looking after its customers, which is annoying as the same journey from just up the road only costs £1.70 return on CityBus, apposed to £2.50 return on First Bus, ARGH!!!