On Saturday, thanks to a lady called Rachel, I lost my virginity. My watching a premier league football match at a stadium virginity that is. I had been to a rugby match in Wales when I was a child but never a football match. Anyone who actually KNOWS me will tell you that I am possibly the worlds worst person to be around where footballers are concerned but my Daughter likes and indeed plays football. An opportunity arose to go and watch a football match that just could not have been more perfect. My Daughter supports Manchester United and Bournemouth, as Bournemouth seemingly did well at some point, they are now in the bit of the football table that puts them up playing against the likes of Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton etc which were the main teams when I was a child so I am guessing that they still are. Needless to say that my Daughter and my Brother (who lived in Bournemouth before moving here) are pretty excited by the whole thing. Bournemouth were playing Chelsea (which was another one of them main teams when I was a child) and I had the chance to possibly obtain some tickets for the game. I also have a very good friend who has put himself out for me on many occasions to help and also to make a point of visiting, who is an avid Chelsea supporter so the game could not have been more perfect. So I sent a message to Rachel who went through a great deal of sorting to get me 4 tickets to the Chelsea vs Bournemouth match at the Chelsea home ground, Stamford bridge.

The tickets were not straight forward as I clearly cannot go in to the stands as I have my wheelchair. I wanted to take my Daughter and my Brother as I had to work on the fact that I would be in a wheelchair zone and thought that my friend would sit with me as my carer which would leave my Daughter with my Brother in the stand. We had been looking forward to it for a good while but were unsure if it would happen as it would depend on whether or not a disabled ticket could be arranged. As I hadn’t seen my friend for a while as he had been away on courses, I sent him a text to check that he was still available, and  the text I got back said…”Oh Bugger. *******’s 1st Birthday party!” Gutted was not the word to describe him but there was no way he could miss that event. As he could not go with us I asked another friend who has also helped me with several things and he accepted the invitation, this meant that I could take my power chair making the day more comfortable for me, as my Brother and friend could share the driving.

When the tickets came through the post, I looked at what the seating arrangement was and was really pleased. All four of us would be seated together so there would be no danger of losing each other, we decided to see if we could find out where our seating would be and did what you do when you want to know just about anything, we asked Google. Now there was a good a not so good and an irrelevant.

The good; We would all be seated together.

The not so good; We would be in with the Chelsea supporters (Daughter and Brother support Bournemouth).

The irrelevant; Steve watches the games purely for the sport, and I support neither and was there because I wanted to take my Daughter to a football match to watch her team.

We walked down to where we would be seated…

…and found our seats which to be honest, could not have been closer to the pitch…

On the telebox the games are hard to watch I find. They seem to go on for ages and with the constant replays of someone kicking a ball while running up the pitch only to have another player from the opposite side run towards them and the player with the ball somehow managing to fall over, roll around like they have been shot, up until the ref comes over and gives them a kick of the ball unchallenged at which point the player is magically healed. This they replay a dozen or so times and then after saying very little of any consequence, they go back to the match. I will say though, clearly very publicly, that the match I watched on Saturday at Stamford Bridge was very enjoyable. There was a great atmosphere, very little of the roll around floor pretending to be injured and a great deal of actual professional football being played. The speed at which the ball was passed between the players at times took some concentration to figure out where it had gone. I mentioned the atmosphere; At one point one of the stewards (followed by four others, the reason will become apparent), approached a guy at the top end of one part of a stand housing the Chelsea fans who was blowing a trumpet which was all followed by the fans chanting, and tried to take the trumpet away. Momentarily the fans were not interested in the game and were focussed on the stewards. (Told you it would become apparent why he didn’t go alone). Needless to say that the steward had not impressed the fans who were doing no harm and in fact it is factual to say that the trumpet guy was getting a good reaction from the rest of the fans. There was no real reason why the trumpet should be confiscated but the steward was having none of it. This did not sit well with the fans who began chanting “Who’s the w****r (unpopular steward)…” This was amusing and must surely have been foreseen by the staff but still they insisted in taking the trumpet. The fans were still focused on chanting at the steward but this time they chanted “We want our trumpet back…” This was brilliant and I did chuckle. I am not sure if the guy was allowed to keep his trumpet but I would like to think that he was.

It was towards the end of the second half that a substitution by Bournemouth bought a fresh player on to the pitch and he promptly scored. It was at this point I rapidly looked at my Daughter and Brother whilst thinking that them cheering now would be interesting. They managed to restrain their celebrations at the goal being scored, then the match ended up going in to extra time. 4 minutes Bournemouth had to hold off Chelsea. Could it be that the match that we had come to, the match at the Chelsea home ground, could be won by Bournemouth. The time ticked, the ball stayed down at the Bournemouth end but the Chelsea players didn’t seem to be taking shots that I thought would have been worth trying for. Every shot must surely count here. I found myself looking at the clock on the large screens, the time seemed like it was taking forever. I found myself getting excited at the fact that the team my Daughter and Brother supported may win, the clock kept ticking and the ball kept crossing in front of the goal and then out towards the half way line and then back toward the Bournemouth goal, out to the line and….the whistle blew. The Bournemouth fans, excluding my Daughter and Brother, were cheering and clapping and I have to admit that I was really pleased that the first football match I had been to with my Daughter had been one that her team had won.

A huge thank you Rachel, it was a great day.

Goodnight all.

I don’t write anywhere close to as often as I used to limiting to when I have done things or if I struggle with something, have a bad day or my feelings cause me problems. I use the Blog to “document” things so that I can look back on them later if a bad day turns really bad so that I can see how I have progressed. I share it because I hope that it may help others to realise that they can try things and there is life to be lived, it of course is everyone’s choice if they read my Blog or not. Either way I will never know, nor would be offended. I have taken part in some things of late but are unimportant in light of recent events. I have written this entry with a heading of “Why?” Maybe someone can help me to understand.

I get that people have religion. Different countries have different religions. I am no expert in religion nor do I wish to be but I need someone to help me understand why any religion, any “God” would allegedly promote the killing of anyone outside of the religion. I want to be clear from the outset that I am in no way shape or form a RACIST. I have served two tours of Afghanistan, the first tour attached to the Royal Gurkha Rifles. I had to look up the religion that they follow and the answer was that it is mixed but majority follow a religion close to Tibetan Buddhism. I had to look it up because I was not concerned which religion that they followed, they were my Brothers in Arms and I would be relying on them covering my back as they would me. On my Combat Infantryman’s Course when I first joined the TA There were two Brothers who were of Pakistani descent, Muslims, following the religion of Islam. Again I had to look it up because their religion is unimportant to me. They too were my Brothers in Arms, they had chosen to wear the same uniform as me and that was what mattered, ALL that mattered. I trained many recruits, of different coloured skin, different accents and NEVER did I wonder what religion they followed because it was UNIMPORTANT.

My second tour of Afghanistan I was sent from my Company and attached to 42 CDO Royal Marines. They were not Army, they were part of the Royal Navy, a different “family” if you like but they did not treat me any differently to anyone of their own. There were guys from South Africa and after again looking up the religion of South Africa I discovered that there are many religions as well as languages. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism and there was also a listing as Other and No religion. I don’t know which religion the South African Marines were because I DID NOT CARE. It was UNIMPORTANT. We were under heavy fire in a side street in a town and the last thing on my mind was what religion those around me were, the fact was that whatever religion, if any, the soldiers around me following was, they were all taking cover from the incoming shock waves of the mortar rounds that were rocking the vehicles around us and the rounds hitting the walls around us. Their “Gods” were not providing an impennetrable bubble around them allowing the shock waves to pass over them without disturbing their stature. We were all as vulnerable as each other.

I am struggling to understand why a “God” would be telling its followers to kill people. Of course the “God” is not telling the followers to kill people. It is someone who has a deluded fantasy that killing is the way forward. That the entire planet should be following a religion that has been portrayed as the only religion that the planets people should follow. That the fanatic has not so much twisted the writings of their holy book to suit their preachings of hatred and destruction, but more written their own. Why would anyone feel that killing and destruction would force people to follow a religion? Why would anyone want to needlessly bully people in to a religion which is being portrayed that as a follower you must convince by bullying, people to join and if they do not then they will be killed? I am struggling to understand.

Paris was hit in a cowardly way and the people of the countries of Europe are begging their leaders to close the borders to all of those “running away” from the destruction in their countries by ISIS. This is being met with comments of those people as being racist but please, please let us not forget that ISIS made it perfectly clear that they would be sending fighters to flood Europe. The people of the countries in Europe that have posted videos of the fighting age “refugee” males fighting with the law enforcement officers of the country and throwing food away that the well wishers, no, HUMAN BEINGS have donated to support those “refugees” have been slated as “propaganda” by “racisits”. The people are scared. They know that they cannot defend against what they cannot see. They know that the very nature of us as human beings means that we will not see people suffer. This is being used against the people of Europe. The amount of boats that are being crammed full of people, “refugees” are increasing because those loading the boats know FULL WELL that WITHOUT QUESTION the Navy’s of the European countries will pick them out of the boats and give them safe passage to Europe. Call it a Trojan horse if you will.

I do not want people to suffer, but at what time will the leaders of the world realise that this terrorism has now escalated to a war. We are at War. Make no mistake. Blowing up busses, trains, aeroplanes, cinemas, theatres and anything else that I haven’t mentioned is not terrorism. It has become a global problem and is therefore a War. So lets treat it like one. We have to surely protect ourselves. In World War 2 did we welcome German, Italian or Japanese people with open arms while the fighting was on? The USA took precautions by placing the Japanese Americans in “camps” so that they knew where they were. I am not saying that it was the right thing to do or indeed that we should be trawling the streets collecting people of specific criteria, I think it is already too late for that. But please, please. We have to protect ourselves, it is the duty of our Government to protect the people of this Country. We simply cannot continue to accept “refugees” on to our soil and give them housing and money. There are too many risks now to us. We do not have 24hr armed guards such as those around Downing Street. We are not living in a Country where we can simply arm ourselves for personal protection. We rely on our Police to protect us but with the cuts over the years there are less of them at a time when we need them more than ever. We do not arm our Police as standard, a sign of our tolerance but the threat is such of an escalation that maybe we now need to follow other Countries. We need to support our Police that are armed, they are too frightened to pull the trigger as they are immediately investigated, is this how we should be treating those put in place to protect those who cannot protect themselves? We cut our armed forces and as has been shown this week, we seem to now protect terrorists and investigate the soldiers who have been employed to protect our Country.

I know that I will have upset people with this post. This was not my intention but was always a risk. Many people have updated their profile pictures on the social media site to have a feint French flag over their photo. This shows the solidarity, the fact that Great Britain stands with France and that the people of our Country feel the sorrow and the loss  of our neighbours. We must stay strong. We must not let paranoia rule our lives. We must not label all Muslims as terrorist, and we must understand that it is the twisted fanatics who are preaching that the religion of Islam is one of terror and death and that this is not the true meaning of the religion. We must also see that the Muslim communities stand proud and publicly CONDEMN the acts of those carrying out the cowardly attacks, this may help those who tar all Muslims with the same brush to understand that they are not all the same. But most of all I think we must ask, no, BEG our Government to instantly put measures in place to protect us, not tell us that in the year 2020 they will be doing x,y and z. Measures need to be put in place now. I fear that the people of this Country have gone past the loss of faith in the present Government and that they will replace the Government with a party whose leader sympathises with an Irish terrorist organisation, believes that our Royal Family is obsolete and wants the UK to have no Army. I for one do not want to be here if that happens.

So that’s all I’ve got. I am not all educated, I don’t know big words and those who really know me will doubtless be impressed that there are no expletives in this post. But I wanted to put my thoughts on to “paper”. My thoughts are with France, with Beirut, Lebanon and the many other Countries who are suffering terror attacks from which ever organisation they are being attacked by. I just looked at a table of terror attacks this year. If you are interested then have a look  www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_2015 I am pretty sure that you, like me, will get to half way through January and wonder exactly what this world has come to. A song immediately comes to the forefront of my mind by Queen. I am sure you already know which one. If not, then give it a listen.                               “Is this the world we created” 

Good night all.