By Jamie Young

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Welcome back to another edition of the Jamie Young Show.

It's been a few weeks since I have had anything to say. The end of my holidays have come and gone and now I have arrived back into a surprisingly sunny England. There's plenty going on at the moment, including a whole summer of sports such as Wimbledon and the Ashes.

Closer to home there's been a few happenings in and around the club with the start of pre-season and new arrivals of players. So let's get to it.

In the last edition of my blog I mentioned that I visited my cousins up at the Sunshine Coast, Australia. I've attached a shot of the place in question, it looks too good to turn down I'm sure you'll agree (considering it was winter).

Surfs Up: Jamie enjoyed the Sunshine Coast on his summer break

Not a bad place to live if you ask me! Just to double the jealousy I've also attached a picture for all you Poms of what a real barbeque should look like!

Sizzling Summer: Youngy does nothing to change the stereotype of Aussies and their BBQs...

Arriving back in England I was welcomed by temperatures topping 20 degrees, which made my viewing of Wimbledon all the more pleasurable. It's always a great spectacle and once again it didn't disappoint as Rodger Federer and Andy Roddick put on a fabulous display. There could only be one winner which was Federer wracking up a record 15th Grand Slam win.

I turned on the telly the other night and I was greeted to Ronaldo being presented to Real Madrid. You see transfers occur all the time but in this case it was the most expensive one ever so I thought I'd have a watch.

I couldn't believe it when this dude walked out of the tunnel to 80,000 people... were they there for a game?!  It was like going to a concert only there was only one guy walking around doing a lap of honour... No pressure for him then!

Michael Jackon arguably the best performer of all time has also passed away. As always there's a massive case of controversy about the whole thing. For the most part though, there's no doubt he was a great showman and will be missed for his many talents. Even though I'm not a massive fan of pop music I still can recognise a great performer in his own right and need I say more?

Around the club we've seen a few players leave. It's never nice to see lads go, but that's the game I suppose. Gary Holt and David McCracken are some of the more publicised departures but I wish them all the best in the future and hopefully I'll bump into them in again as they're great characters off the pitch. One thing though Cracks, how did Celtic get on last season? Yeah, that's what I thought!

Often the case with players leaving there are players coming in and most recently we've signed a few players. There's been a bit of youth in Joe Cobb and Lewis Montrose and there's been great experience in Michael Duberry and Chris Westwood.

The latter of the signings are very exciting prospects and this for me shows the desire of this club to move forward to better our  achievements from last season. Hopefully they'll do the club and themselves justice.

Finally every few years there's a great tug of cricket war, which is known as the Ashes. Even though cricket is not the most popular sport in England, the Ashes has a massive interest and rightly so with the amount of history behind it.

Unfortunately for me though I've been caught in what I'd like to call "Collateral Damage". The problem for me is I was born in Australia but I've represented England for football. 'Bloomsie' (Matt Bloomfield) has jumped at the chance to state this and he has done a wonderful job of patronising me.

So let's make it clear, I'm backing Australia. I grew up playing cricket in Australia and so I'm going for them as I feel I have something in common there. Football is different, I've spent a lot of my youth here playing and learning the culture and so I feel pretty affiliated with the whole thing from that point of view.

This may not make the most amount of sense to you but that's how I roll... Nonetheless I've been copping all sorts of stick but I say lets see what happens at the end of the series. At the end of the day if Australia gave OBE's and MBE's to all of their sporting successes then half the population would have them... I think that says a lot about the sporting culture here.

Does that offend anyone?! Well too bad!  I've had to put up with John Mousinho informing me that losing 5-0 in the previous Ashes series was a fluke... Wake me up when he's done please!

I know there must be a few Aussies out there who understand this. The gaffer is not far behind as well with his tongue in cheek remarks, but hey it's all in one ear out the other, heard them once, heard them all sorts of things. Nonetheless I'm sure it will be a tight series. There seems to be a lot on the line and whoever wins will surely deserve it.

Well thanks for tuning in to another summer edition of the Jamie Young Show and hopefully we'll see you all in a few of the pre-season games.

Keep it real!

Youngy