By Jamie Young
Hey everyone and welcome back to a new edition of the Jamie Young Show. It's been a good few weeks since the last one so that means there is plenty to talk about.
As I'm sure you know all too well we went through a cold snap a month or two ago, to the point where we had a great share of snow. While it was great fun to go out, have snowball fights and build snowmen, for us footballers it's been difficult to get any sort of training done around games.
Personally I think there should be a break around that time of year anyway but I don't think that will change anytime soon, though I guess you can live in hope.It's been difficult as our training schedule has been disrupted as well as some games but hopefully we will have seen the worst of that.
I'm sure you have all come to terms with the departure of Mike Williamson by now. Although this is a loss for us and it happened some time ago, it is the first chance I've really had to comment on the matter. It is a great opportunity for him and even though I'm as jealous as you can be I'm also glad for him.
He has had to overcome a career threatening injury just to get back playing and I guess that this shows the grass is actually greener in this case. As a teammate it's hard to see a player of his calibre go but he is also a friend, which makes it harder.
Having said that my calls go straight to answer phone now he is playing for the Hornets, so Mike if you're reading this…any danger!
When it was getting a bit chilly over here I just tried to cast my eye where it was a little warmer and of course at this time of the year it's best to look at Australia.
During the height of the summer sport is high on the agenda and to take my mind off the snow I had the Australian Open in tennis and the cricket season.
Nadal was once again been in his inspiring form and outwitted the brilliant Rodger Federer … I mean come on how does he do that?! The guy is an absolute machine and already we've seen great matches between the pair. Long may they continue.
The cricket season has been one of frustration for the Aussies, as they struggled all season against South Africa and New Zealand. I think this is because they are in a rebuilding period. You can't just replace players like Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Matthew Hayden but hopefully by the time the Ashes come around they will have blooded in some new talent.
No doubt I've been receiving abuse from the lads about this but that's typical of them and as usual they are clutching straws.
Sticking with cricket now and recently I woke up to find that the Sri Lankan cricket team had been involved in a terrorist incident. This is pretty shocking as being half Sri Lankan and also a sportsman I felt pretty sad to know that people out there had been plotting to harm people who entertain the public.
I guess it's easy for me to say that where most things are safe in England (I would hope). None the less though it's a miracle more people weren't killed and hopefully anyone that was injured will make a full recovery. It just hits home a bit that there are more things to life then sport and incidents like these reinforce that.
In Australia of course they've had the worst fire storms in history and not because of bad luck, but because people have started it. These people have not only killed people but have ruined towns and thousands of acres. I suppose it's the equivalent of the many floods that have swept the nation over here in the recent years. To know that your home maybe there one day and not another is a pretty scary thought.Moving on…
As you all know I'm a keen music enthusiast and I've been lucky enough to catch another few gigs in the past couple of months. Firstly I saw Brazilian metal heavy weights Soulfly and secondly American metal legends in the form of Testament.
Soulfly are not one of my favourite bands. They can be at times too heavy for me(is that possible?!) but they are unique in the fact that they put their own Brazilian culture on metal and for me it was another opportunity to see a different side of metal.
There's no doubting that they were going to break the house down and I was hoping they would but what struck me most was how good their lead guitarist Mark Rizzo was.
He's hands down the best guitarist I've seen live and what was cool about him is that he was rocking as hard as he could and then he started playing classic Brazilian acousticguitar. Clearly this man has talent and he's educated in how to play the guitar. So for me it was a real buzz to see a magician at work. If any of you out there like guitars and you want to see someone with style check him out on 'YouTube', I guarantee you'll be impressed.
'Testament' are another band that I've more 'heard of' rather than heard in person, if you get me. This didn't detract me from seeing them because to me seeing a live heavy metal band is a great passion I have more often than not I've been surprised by how good different bands are for different reasons.
Testament are very much like Iron Maiden so their music is really technical with loads of solos and shredding riffing. What I liked best about them is that these guys were 40-50 years old and they were still rocking out. I mean how cool is that! Again it was another experience and I feel I now have more of an understanding of the genre.
So overall I think it's been a pretty good winter for me seeing a few gigs and enjoying snow,and oh yeah there's been a little bit of football in the middle! In terms of the team, it's very much the same. Every game is tough.
There's no easy wins and every point earned is one that is well worked hard for. I ask every fan out there to continue supporting us in our quest for promotion and hopefully we can get there together.
Until next time - keep it real!
Youngy
