Spoonie

Looking forward to watching it - will share my thoughts once I have (we have 7 episodes of GoT S6 to go!) 30 or 30s are awesome - even the non-football ones are awesome. The Jimmy Connors one (this is what they want) and the NC State Wolfpack one about the '83 national championship (survive and advance) are particularly special!

It seems to be more about the communication style, constant shouting, failure to reinforce a growth mindset, problems between the staff, apportioning blame to individuals etc. Keen to check it out for myself tho. Watching GoT S6 at the moment and then will get onto this

Have you watched All or Nothing on Amazon Prime about the season with the Cardinals? It's very similar to Hard Knocks, stylistically, and very good for it. Last Chance U is on my list to watch shortly too. It's taking a panning from coaches over here for questionable coaching and management ethics so keen to get stuck in!

Powered through Live and Let Die this week. They're not particularly well written but they're enjoyable stories, the Bond novels. Currently reading some books on people skills which were recommended in a podcast but are short and filled with really obvious statements.

Just realised I never sent in my list! Here it goes: Jesus Queen Victoria Isambard Kingdom Brunel Henry VIII Fingers crossed!!

Yesterday was the final game of our regular season, at home to Highland Wildcats. Went 12-0 up, then 16-12 down and we were starting to really slide and then after their long, ground-out scoring drive which burned the whole 3rd quarter, we took the resulting kickoff to the house and broke their spirit. A turnover on their next possession and a quick score on a 1-play offensive drive and that was the end of it! 26-16 to the Pirates who are undefeated North 1 Champions and in the National playoffs! We will play the winners of the other North division for the overall Northern crown and then the winner of that plays the winner of the South for the British title at the end of August. An un believable turnaround for the team in one year, from having one competitive game in our first two seasons and seeing what it means to the players makes all the graft and travel worthwhile!

Hamilton Rugby Club

Got a call last night from the Newcastle GM to say they're pulling out of the league and so these games will lo longer happen. takes our record to 4-0-1 which is a positive but knocking your pans in for 8 months to get a regular season with 4 games is pretty horrible. It secures us our first ever playoff spot which is nice and means we can focus exclusively on the final Highland game too, but not nice to lose another team.

We play down there twice in two weeks - on Sunday 10 July and Sunday 24 July. Both are 11:30 kick offs, because the Newcastle senior team is hosting the Carlisle Sentinels and then the Glasgow Tigers after the junior games on those two days. The games are both at Druid Park, NE13 8DF I played down at Gateshead International Stadium six times, from '06-'11 and that turf is absolutely savage so I'm glad we are on rubber crumb 3G instead!

On Sunday we travelled to the Highland Wildcats (again) for game three. They played much more aggressively on defense than they had in game 1 and we have a few key guys missing, but we got out of there with a 20-20 draw which keeps us at the top of the league. Week off this Sunday and then three games on the bounce starting next week. Away to Newcastle, home to Highland and away to Newcastle again. Need a strong showing to top the league and get a good playoff seeding.

Belgium fairly turned up the tempo last night! Bring on a guy everyone is describing as a superstar and then suddenly start blasting in goals from everywhere. Entertaining stuff!

I was at the Highland Show for a couple of days this weekend and needless to say this subject was on everyone's lips. the really surprising thing for me was that the farmers I spoke to, as well as those selling farm machinery and supplies were overwhelmingly in favour of leaving. I was there on Friday on the last with a friend of mine and his dad and dad's mates. His dad is a farmer and I was quizzing him and others about why he thinks that the community were so anti-EU and his feeling was because of the amount of bureaucracy that the EU has created for farmers. He talked about his dad having 'a wee shelf of paperwork behind his chair' compared to him needing a whole office for the paperwork and reporting that farers need to do nowadays. That beef with the EU, however, assumes that in the 30-odd years that have elapsed between those two anecdotes, the British government themselves wouldn't have significantly tightened the regulations and required more paperwork and reporting, which has happened in most industries and businesses. The areas of heavy EU subsidy and funding which voted leave are baffling too. It's not as though, for most of these places, the UK government were chomping at the bit to fund them but they got beaten to the punch by the EU! They'd have remained as under invested, under developed ghettoes if that money hadn't been made available.

Nice dude - who you writing for?

Started on The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam yesterday. It's a biography about Bill Belichick and Halberstams stuff is usually awesome. It's been good so far.

That's exactly what I've been thinking watching this. As if their rampant bands of invaders aren't enough trouble, let's got round to their house and have a nawty mashup there. I hope someone has Kep, Dyer and some film crews at the ready!

Yeah, they did a great job of capturing the absurdity of it all and the anger that some of those involved had for what went on

Watched The Big Short at the weekend. I'm a big fan of the book and I really enjoyed the film but I still think the book was able to add some detail, context and side-stories that really added to the punch. Nevertheless, an entertaining, if depressing watch.

Finished the Energy Bus which was a good and relatively short read. Some great reminders in there, especially for anyone running a team at work or outside. Now onto Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, about strategies for driving change.

What the fuck just happened?!

The reading has mostly been very introductory stuff but I've found an easy guide to meditation by Roy Eugene Davis and Mindfulness for Anxiety Relief by Mike Mitchell to be good an I'm not someone who suffers from anxiety. That's me at 20 days straight on Headspace I think. After certain milestones you get free month trials to give people so the next time I get one you're welcome to it. I signed up for 2 years at about £3.74 a month or so, paid in a lump sum.

Guvnors was entertaining enough, if a bit predictable. Just started a book I've wanted to read for ages; the Energy bus by Jon Gordon

Actually it was '00-'05. I should point out that I attended the convention with a crate of Buckfast.

It's an awesome sport to coach! I spent this weekend at the British American Football Coaches Association annual convention down in Nottingham and you come back absolutely buzzing with ideas. I presented on the Friday night about building culture in your organisation and was followed by Mike Sherman who coached the Green Bay Packers from '02-'06! Also on the bill were some wicked guys like George Teague who I sat next to at the awards dinner on Saturday night. He won a national championship at Alabama and then played 9 years in the NFL for the Packers, Cowboys and Dolphins. The three QBs he trained against were Aikman, Favre and Marino! He was also the guy who got ejected for taking out TO after he went to celebrate on the star at Texas Stadium, when TO played for the 49ers. I'm always really keen to learn from other sports tool; how practices are structured, how concepts are taught, etc. I never played any sport outside of school until I played AF and so I have little understanding about how coaches at the grassroots level teach sports like rugby and football. AF has the huge advantage that every play is a stand-alone, uniquely teachable concept and while they sequence and build on top of one another, they've got a clearly defined start and end, where as a move in football/rugby/basketball is a much mrope fluid concept.

Reading Guvnors, the football hooliganism book mentioned in the football thread. Standard fare thus far

My main bass for years was a 1997 MIJ '62 reissue. Played like a dream. Ended up adding a Badass II Bridge and EMGs to it. Lovely instrument.