1 December 2007
The Winter Solstice draws near.....

We played Leeds last month, and won. Nice to see the back of those moaners for a while! We then proceeded to have a poor run of results which we have hopefully seen the back of. Least said, soonest mended!!

I also temporarily changed allegiance for a day and went to Bury to watch our fellow Cumbrians (Workington AFC) in the first round of the FA Cup. They put in a great performance and should at least have got a draw from the match, but unfortunately a goalkeeping error followed by attempts to get back to a draw, led to a late rush of goals for Bury. Still, all praise to the Reds for a great showing, both on and off the pitch. This was also the first public outing for my new Cumbrian flag, which was printed up in China for me, at the request of a Workington fan. Thanks RedChina :-) The flag is shown on the right, with little Brian in front :-)

November also saw the departure of a certain England manager (Mr McLaren) and the publication of:

My Mad Plan For FIFA World Cup Success

• Get rid of McLaren (done)
• Get a decent manager in
• Start planning for World Cups (2010 and 2014) now:
• Don't select any players over 30 years old from the current squad
• always have the U-21 squad at Full England training sessions (this will get the players used to being together, and allow for mixed training matches)
• Publicly state for fans not to expect wins for the next year up to World Cup Qualifiers
• Once the World Cup Qualifiers begin, keep the same squad and don't change just for the sake of change.
• Moving on into the future:
• Always have the U-21 squad with the Full Squad (see above)
• Always put one young uncapped player with the squad, and possibly bring on for the last five or ten minutes of a match, if the result is safe.

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