England Rugby World Cup Squad, August 2019

Prior to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, the England squad were training at Clifton Rugby Club, and the sponsors O2 laid on a "meet the squad" event. Happily, this took place round the corner from my office so I booked an afternoon off work and went. After an interminable wait, (most of) the players eventually arrived and generally mingled, posed for photos and signed autographs.There were also some interviews - Joe Marler is very funny, although I think he had to keep reminding himself to keep the content and language suitable for all ages... As a Northampton Saints fan I was of course on the lookout for our players - Piers Francis wasn't around, I didn't get to meet Courtney Lawes (he was called off to do a "grip & grin") but I did manage to see Lewis Ludlam and wish him luck. ...
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Archery

Back in January I took up archery - it's something I've quietly fancied for a few years (see below) and I finally got round to doing something about it when a leaflet dropped through the door over Christmas.I'd only tried it a couple of time before - once on a Warner Holidays break on the Isle of Wight back in 1994 (see the first photo in the gallery below) and then at Nudefest in Cornwall in 2013. So yes, a lot of my previous experience at archery was in the buff - and I am duty-bound to point out that I won the competition at Nudefest - I even have a trophy and can therefore claim to be Best Naked Archer in Britain 2013! I do have photos of that too, but well, no. Chatting with the club organisers at North Bristol Archery, I offered to take some photos for their website, so last week I went along with my bow...
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First Cricket Shots

Back in the 1980s I spent entire summers at the County Ground in Northampton watching cricket, and in 1986 I started taking a few photos - eventually leading to the hobby I have now. These are my first cricket photos, taken with my dad's compact camera - I didn't move on to action photos until I got my first SLR in 1987 and borrowed his 300mm lens. There are some big names, so not a bad start - legendary West Indies stars Clive Lloyd, Joel Garner and Viv Richards, as well as a certain Ian Botham. The Garner/Richards/Botham shots were taken at Northants' annual trip to play at Wellingborough School. In the Sunday League match, Botham (just back from a ban after he admitted smoking marijuana) hit 175no including 12 4's and 13 6's - remember that these were 40 over matches, and he only batted for 27 of them! OK, the ground was very small, but it was probably the most amazing innings I saw.  ...
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Saints v Sale

It's been a while since I've posted any rugby photos. The Brother and I always go to the last home game of the season - the weather is often good and it's a chance to show our appreciation for the players who are leaving, and this year it was particularly worthwhile as two of the fans favourites were playing their last home game - Soane Tonga'uiga and Brian Mujati. And it was a lovely day on Saturday - I do enjoy watching a game in the sunshine in a t-shirt, although I do think that rugby should be a winter game. It has to be said though that the sun, particularly later in the game, did make shooting quite difficult. To top it all off, Saints thrashed a relatively inexperienced Sale Sharks side 47-7, with Sale's 7 points coming with no time left at the end of the game. Oh, and the Saints had the decency to score 4 second-half tries down in "my"...
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Saints v Leicester

I've not been to the rugby for a while - the last game was 3 months ago and that was in Milton Keynes, so it was good to get back to Franklin's Gardens - especially as the sun was out! It was a huge game - Saints v local rivals Leicester, and with 1/3 of the England squad playing it was always going to be full-on. Just a shame that things didn't quite go according to plan, with Leicester winning 35-21. Here's the pick of the pics A somewhat unorthodox tackling style from Manu Tuilagi Ben Foden Paul Diggin Geoff Parling Ben Youngs Chris Ashton beats Alesana Tuilagi to the ball - in defence rather than attack unfortunately Dan Cole Toby Flood looks quite pleased to score his second try Stephen Myler The full set are on my website....
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