cary hill

England didn't do too badly in the 1990 World Cup Finals or Euro '96. I would think Euro '96 was perhaps the last time when England would perhaps have had three or four quality players available for selection in each position, before the Premier League big boys started to sign up foreign talent in a big way followed subsequently by the rest of the Premier League and the Championship to a certain extent. Twenty years on the cupboard is pretty bare in most positions. The local team (Leicester) just got promotion to the Premier League and we've already got a Dane, a Belgian, a Ghanaian, an Algerian, a Pole and a Frenchman, who are first team regulars. and so the team is already well on the way to minority English representation just like the majority of Premiership teams. The demands of the Premiership/Sky global brand and a successful England team will always be mutually incompatible.

Aren't the England egg chasers in action again tomorrow morning striving for a third successive heroic narrow defeat against the superior All Blacks? p.s. I might still watch though, as there is "local" interest for me with four Leicester Tigers players participating.

Reflecting overnight I've concluded that going into a World Cup Finals with virtually no players with recent experience at the very highest level, i.e. the European Cup, was bound to end in tears. 5 Liverpool and 2 Everton players in the starting line-up and then another Everton player and 2 Southampton players used as substitutes. Then add to the mix 2 Man Utd players off the back of a very poor season, a keeper lacking any ability to organise his defence at set pieces and a central defender who looks lost at times without Terry to organise him and you have a disaster waiting to happen...........

ITV viewers complain in droves of "having to sit through Adrian Chiles between adverts"

I'm thinking of starting a " Bring Back Sven" campaign.

Belgum? - don't drink too much beer.

Oh well I'll just have to let my temporary avatar provide my entertainment instead this week end.

More shots in total and more (powder-puff) shots on target than Uruguay and 58% possession apparently.... and more poor defending....and no world class player to make the difference..... unfortunately.

I take it all back about that boy Johnson

Must be a Ratio Midland Railway Johnson 2-4-0 which will be of as much use over the South Devon Banks as Glen Johnson is on a football pitch.

"You know nothing Jon Snow David Moyes"

Crikey - Iker Casillas just got even worse after his comedy performance against Holland with a ludicrous punching away of that freekick. Spain 45 minutes from being the first team home from the World Cup?

Clarke Carlisle can't all bad if he nearly broke Twitter with his gaff.

The Premiership fixture computer must hate Leicester City : First six games - Everton (H) Chelsea (A) Arsenal (H) Stoke (A) Man. Utd (H) Crystal P (A) Welcome to the Premiership - 4 top sides and 2 "Pulissy" * sides for the first six games. . I think I know which end of the table we will be at by the end of September.... * not to be confused with the delicate and beautiful Pulissy Royal Worcester pottery of the same name.

No - he left Leicester for the much more exotic destination of Birmingham City, but his career ended there after sustaining a persistent knee injury.

Blimme - things must be on the up - a Leicester City player actually playing in the World Cup Finals (Mahrez - Algeria), but I don't suppose he'll equal the achievement of the previous Leicester player to play in the World Cup Finals - Muzzy Izzet who played for Turkey in a World Cup Semi-Final against Brazil in 2002.

Sounds like a waste of money and not dictatorial enough to me, surely suppressing Twitter completely is the only certain way to deprive all the idiots, imbeciles and morons that frequent Twitter a platform to express their ill-informed poorly expressed malevolent opinions.

What a German diving - surely not. That other German bloke Klinsmann also had a diving problem but was "cured" during his brief time in the Premiership. No use in Muller coming to the Premiership for a cure though as diving is now endemic in the Premiership.

Anorak mode on: Picture of 2239 at Oswestry in the mid-1950s, still without windows in the cabsides, in GWRJ No24 Anorak mode off:

Phil Neville ...."sounded like a depressed undertaker with a giant peg on his nose reading aloud a seed catalogue" - quite a reasonable summary by the Daily Mail . The BBC pundits were no better. Ferdinand alternately spouting utter rubbish or football cliches.... the eternally dull Shearer and the periodically unintelligible Henry. Never mind the " A Team" (Chiles and Townsend) et al over at ITV will no doubt be setting the bar higher later this week ...........not..........

Not the correct period for you, but here's 2211 pictured at Kingswear in 1957 http://railphotoprints.zenfolio.com/p158147385/h26692877#h26692877 Furthest West that I've seen a photo of a "2251". 2211 was allocated to Exeter in January 1958 and 2212 was allocated to Taunton at this time. These were the only two allocated in the "West" by then - quite a change from 10 years earlier.

Anorak mode on: Further consultation of the GWRJ article gives the Newton Division "2251" loco allocations as of December 1947 as follows: Taunton: 2211, 2212, 2214, 2215, 2261 & 2267 Barnstaple : 2266 & 2275 Minehead: 2213 Exeter : 2230 Variations noted at that time include; 2261 - Spark Arrester Plates 2267, 2266 & 2275 - Whitaker Staff Apparatus 2215, 2267 and 2275 paired with the larger 'ROD' 4,000 gallon tenders. Locomotives above numbered in the 2211-2230 series were released to traffic in 1940 with their side windows plated in - not sure when the plating was removed. Anorak mode off....

According to the "Kingsbridge Branch" book 2211 is supposed to have travelled down the branch on some unspecifed date. There were 10 "2251s" allocated to Newton Division at the end of 1947, although these were mainly based at Taunton for Minehead and Barnstaple services, and didn't normally stray much further West than Exeter. I don't see why Taunton can't have accidently sent one beyond Exeter and Newton for a trip to Plymouth, or another possibility is a "2251" having a "test run" over the South Devon banks, after some attention at the Newton Factory. You might struggle to see 3202 itself on the South Devon banks though, as it seems to have been working Oswestry to Aberystwyth freights during 1947 according to GWRJ No 24. Anorak mode off.

I thought England's performance was better than some of the rubbish served up in previous tournaments: Positives: 44% possession seems reasonable enough against a much better passing team - 18 goal attempts to 13 - 5 on target to 4 - 9 corners to 2 and actually having several players with pace able to go past opposition players. Negatives: Never going to get far with that defence though - Baines and Johnson are both terrible fullbacks when defending, although Baines was made to look even worse thanks to Rooney's shortcomings. Pathetically low quality of crossing in both open play and from corners apart from the one for the goal.

The BR (WR)Welsh Mafia at Bachmann ? The GWR green version looks fit for purpose in the West Country though, as it seems to have been based at Laira from 1932-60. Of the BR versions 6412 (lined green) appears to be Welsh, as does 6417 (black) from October 1953 but hardly the end of civilisation as we know it.