Pipe's Penalty Shootout!

It was good to see England win 3-0 in Bulgaria last night.  I have to confess that I was a little concerned going into the match, but in fairness there were a number of young players wearing England shirts and they looked keen and happy to play for their country - what is more, they looked decidedly useful.  One amazing statistic that I did learn, was that the last time England started a competitive game without Frank Lampard or Stephen Gerard was nine years ago.  I thought it was a good performance from a younger, fresher looking England side - having said that, Bulgaria did defend like Arsenal!

Having said all of that, there was an even more important football match that took place last night as Team Pipe took on Team Hobbs in a friendly at Minehead.  One or two of our players showed some nifty moves, notably Matt Zadel and Myles Doyle but sadly it was not quite enough as we lost 7-6 on penalties in a very tight match.  I'm sure that home field had something to do with it and I am confident our boys will be able to turn the tables when taking them on again on home soil!

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I see that trainer Stan Moore is moaning about the amount of prize money on offer at Chepstow yesterday afternoon.  There was only £21,000 on offer for the entire meeting at the Welsh track yesterday and he said "it is ridiculous when the owner only gets £1,400 for winning a race, if things are not changed owners will be leaving in droves and there will not be any racing".  Has Stan only just realised this?!

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I was interested to learn that Richard Hughes considers Goodwood to be the best racetrack in the country.  I'm sure that it has nothing to do with him being the champion jockey at the track for the past couple of years!  From a punting point of view, it always looks tricky as lots of horses seem to suffer trouble in running as they get boxed in on the rails.  Hughsie says that he has learned the secret of mastering the place, but I'm sure he's not going to tell anyone else what it is!