England 1 Ecuador 0

Firstly, our part of the East Riding seems to be completely devoid of pubs showing England matches so after I'd cycled for miles and miles looking for somewhere with a TV, I eventually ended up in Stamford Bridge at the least atmospheric pub in the country, The Bay Horse. After about 20 minutes I moved on to The Stamford which was marginally better, but not good enough to prevent me from biking back home during halftime.

For the most part the games involving England have been some of the most boring at this years tournament and this was no exception. We should have gone behind early in the game when Terry back-headed a ball straight into the path of an Ecuadorian striker, only for Ashley Cole to somehow get back and block, knocking the ball up onto the bar and out as he looked certain to score. And that was about it for the first half.

England scored after 60 minutes with a typical Beckham free-kick, sneaking in just inside the post and the only thing of note he produced in the entire game. A few minutes later he was promptly sick, apparently suffering from dehydration. Then, for the rest of the game we gave it away in midfield, substituted a couple of players, had a couple of half-hearted attempts at goal (mostly off-target) and saw out the game relatively comfortably. Neither team ever really looked like scoring and, in truth, it was pretty uninspiring. Most importantly though, we're through to the quarters - Portugal next.

Extension News

Ladies and Gentlemen - work has begun on our much vaunted extension.

England 2 Sweden 2

First game for me in the pub, The Windmill at the top of Micklegate. We'd been playing badders beforehand though and I had to go back to the car to drop off my stuff and got caught in an unseasonal rainstorm so I was soaking wet by the time I got back to the pub. Predictably, it was packed so there was a decent atmosphere.

The first half turned out to be the best that England had played in the tournament so far (not that that's saying much). Owen managed to injure himself within the first two minutes and was replaced by Peter Crouch, thereby doubling the ex-Norwich contingent on the pitch, Matty Jonson in the Swedish team being the other misfit. We were passing the ball nicely, Hargreaves was doing well at breaking up Swedish attacks, Rooney looked lively and Joe Cole was faffing around doing stepovers for fun. The first goal was an absolute cracker - Sweden cleared and it fell to Cole who spanked it on the volley from miles out into the top right hand corner.

Sadly, the second half nowhere near matched the first and we went from looking pretty respectable to looking pretty ropey. Sweden scored from a set-piece and some particularly shoddy defending on England's part. Gerrard came on and scored a nice headed goal, then Larsson spoiled it by scoring in the last minute (helped by some more schoolboy defending).

Once again then, more negatives than positives - Owen looks to be out of the tournament, the defence in the second half was shambolic, Beckham in particular had a poor game (although he wasn't the only one) and we have no strikers that can score goals. Despite that though, we managed to top the group and go into the knockout stages for a game against Ecuador on Sunday.

England 2 Trinidad and Tobago 0

Another game watched at home, this time because we had to go to a wedding reception immediately afterwards. So a mad dash home from work for kick-off and a shower and change at halftime.

The game itself was marginally better than the Paraguay game, but still pretty woeful. T&T were defending with ten men behind the ball and we couldn't pass, cross or shoot for toffee. Things were made even worse by the fact that (against my better judgement) I'd lumped a big pile of money on an England win at the rather pathetic odds of 1/7. Cue lots of sweary shouting at the TV on my part.

Pretty much nothing of note happens for the majority of the game, then Sven, in a typically clueless tactical move, brings on Rooney and Aaron Lennon, moves Beckham to right-back (!) and Crouchy manages to head in a goal after 80-odd minutes. Steven Gerrard then goes and scores a replica of his goal in the FA Cup final to make it 2-0 at the death.

Largely pathetic stuff then and we're looking a million miles from getting anywhere near the final at the moment.

Course!

In a falling-off-your-chair move, work are paying for me to go on a course, so I've booked up with QA in Manchester for a week starting 10th July on their Developing Microsoft .NET Applications for Windows (Visual C#.NET) course.