Final Preparation Part 2

I fully appreciate that it could now be reasonably expected that I would post an article about the actual Flora London Marathon, now that it has finished and I may or may not have completed it. I don't think I'll be giving anything away by saying I didn't win it.



The cleverly titled previous instalment said very little about the two principle occurences of FA Cup semi-final weekend, which became bizarrely intertwined.



One, those who give a tinker's cuss about my actual training will be pleased to hear, involved positioning myself on a treadmill where I could line up several bottles of Lucozade, carb gels and other energy sources, plugging in my headphones and attempting to run for 20 miles. I only flipping managed it. In under three hours too, which pleased me greatly.



Once again to thank to a large degree were the good people behind Sky Sports 1's Sunday morning scheduling. Goals on Sunday is such an easy watch it's fantastic. There's a very stark contrast to Match of the Day, which seems to have a narcoleptic effect that can be very contageous, much like Chris Kamara. There was an occasion not too long ago when my flatmate and I both did our usual slip into unconsciousness as Lee Dixon or Alan Shearer almost as soon as the opening sequence ended. This was all well and good in the comfort of your own home, but looked plain rude when we had another mate round and he ended up having to pump up the volume to drown out the snoring.



It's a sad state of affairs to be honest as I've apparently always had an affection for the BBC's flagship football property. According to my mum I used to sleepwalk as a kid most Saturday nights, arriving at the lounge door when the music sounded, sitting quietly in front of the television for the duration and disappearing back to bed when the credits rolled. It's entirely possible that I was completely aware of what I was doing, but I have no recollection. It's also more than likely that this is why I have a deep affection for Barry Davies and, for no other discernible reason, Jimmy Hill.



Which brings me very neatly on to the programme formerly known as Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement. I say formerly because the eponymous hero, whose fictional kitchen was the original setting and whose wife we were supposed to believe had provided the bowl of plastic pastries adorning the discussion table, has been cruelly sidelined.



Sunday Supplement, now presented by the improbably coiffured Brian Woolnough and invariably featuring at least one of his Daily Star colleagues, is still eminently watchable. It is, effectively, the only football show not tainted by the inevitably skewed opinions of ex-pros. It is also extremely surreal to watch it on a Sunday morning the day after sitting at a table in the Wembley press room next to a gaggle of Supplement regulars, you've guessed it, eating breakfast and discussing football.



There are a couple of major differences between the organic and the manufactured version. For a start, they swear. Not quite as bad as Stephen Bywater but blue enough. They clearly, to someone from the outside looking in, rule the roost in the press room as a gang. Martin Samuel effectively held court while the pack waited for Harry Redknapp's victorious press conference (incidentally Redknapp waltzed into the plush Wembley press theatre and stuck his chewing gum on the bottom of the table. Bloody peasant), while Woolnough, to the TV viewer the man in charge, is far less assuming than one might expect, resembling instead a coy miniature Clarkson.



The other major difference is that they actually eat the food provided. Obviously they have to eat sometime and who would begrudge a man who has to spend his Saturdays at work having a bit of a feed? As a friend of mine said after watching a particular member of the press get up after 40 minutes of an England international to avail himself of the buffet, "it's definitely not glandular". He's not in a position to publish his line, but I felt it deserved a public airing.



I have a healthy dose of respect for the members of the Supplement panel, as I say, for their honest and comparatively agenda-free appraisal of the events of the day. It presents one with a dilemma, however, when trying to discuss what was said on the programme in a similar setting in earshot of the people you're discussing. It's like when the big screen is showing live pictures and creeps into shot. You just get an endless sequence of shots of a screen showing a screen showing a screen. I could go on. I've plenty of stamina.

Final Preparation

I should do this for a living, I really should. Final preparation refers to the last few days before the marathon and also the fact that I went to both of the FA Cup semi-finals at the brand spanking new, all-singing, all-dancing Wembley Stadium. You see, there's a double meaning. I find people like me more if I explain all my jokes and why I'm clever.

Moving on, I ought to explain myself. Not on the basis of this erratic blog or my main form of employment (obviously my only form of employment if the taxman or indeed my main employer is reading), I managed to secure a position in the press box at Wembley for not one, not two, but, oh, two actually, both in fact, semi-finals of the FA Cup in association with E-On at the brand new Wemlbey stadium swponsored by, among others, Betfred and npower.

To be as tangential as usual, I'm unure as to who to credit the power behind the semis and the final of the FA Cup to. As a sponsor I would be very unhappy if I was npower, the official energy supplier to Wembley (and Rugby League's Superleague, which always seems far more energetic) that E-On are the energy behind the FA Cup. If you consider there can't be more than a dozen or so games at Wembley each season, there's a clash for a quarter of them if all FA Cup semis are to be played there and E-On continue their association.

As someone who buys advertising space for a living, the concept of 'solus' brands, ie the only brand of a certain type to be associated with a certain publication or event at a certain time, is inherent. Quite who at E-On or npower thought that either of their brands could somehow co-exist at an FA Cup semi or final at Wembley is a mystery to me. There's a serious devaluation for all concerned.

My professional opinion aside, we'll move back to the layman's stuff. Not to be confused with the Lehmann's stuff, which this week has involved the throwing off of all shackles into an Incredible Hulk style hissy fit of 'if I'd been in goal we wouldn't have lost to Liverpool' that has been simmering all along underneath the 'I'll wait for my chance and Almunia is a good lad' bravado.

To get the whole Wembley for the semi-finals and final out of the way, there was something slightly incongruous about the whole weekend. Portsmouth fans began to sing 'We're going to Wembley' in Wembley. Irony wasn't exactly prevalent on the day, replaced by 1980s sincerity that usually comes along with any English provincial events that move into the public consciousness (just look at the Shannon Matthews coverage). I genuinely think they were confused. I appreciate the need to milk the Wembley cash cow, but the Emirates would have provided a sumptuous setting for West Brom and Portsmouth, while Villa Park, Anfield or Old Trafford would have done the trick for Barnsley and Cardiff. Much as Manchester United and Arsenal shouldn't have to play neutral games in venues smaller than their own grounds, as they have had to on numerous occasions.

There were a couple of extremely surreal experiences surrounding my Wembley days out, which I will go into in my next missive. Neither of them involved the opportunity to steal Graham Taylor's well-lavelled 'football file' which I had the split second chance to steal three years ago in the press room at Southampton's St Mary's Stadium. I briefly saw the former England boss in the East Media Lounge but the folder was nowhere to be seen. I would suspect he wouldn't have much information in it pertaining to Cardiff or Barnsley anyway, although Kayode Odejayi could have filed himself in the same tab as England's Geoff Thomas (can you believe neither of these is on YouTube?) for ridiculous Wembley misses.

Hopping Mad

I've always been suspicious of professional sports people and 'injuries'. I'm a fairly cynical and sceptical person anyway, but there are situations where a sudden and non-specific ailment can be conspicuously convenient.



I remember seeing a sprinter stop with a 'pulled muscle' many years ago during a race in which he was clearly miles behind. For fear of libel I'm not even going to speculate as to who it actually was, but I do remember feeling that this particularly mouthy individual got his dues and may even have goaded him via the television. A bit like if Cristiano Ronaldo had missed his penalty against England. He didn't of course, because it was England, but if he had every pub in the country would have reverberated to that guttural sound of contempt that just escapes in such high tensions situations. You know the one. It's impossible to put into type, but in boring games when goal kicks are heckled it comes after 'You're sh*t' and in some grounds can rattle on for a while. Aston Villa's away support, a very merry bunch indeed, use it a fair bit. They also do something which completely cracks me up and which I haven't noticed any other fans doing, which is to greet any handball claim from the opposition with a similar cry for about the next five or six touches of the ball, regardless of whether they're a goal kick, header or throw-in.



Injuries-wise, I don't begrudge someone getting hurt and trying to run it off. Or getting absolutely, horrifically pole-axed like Eduardo. I'm not going to launch into a political tirade in favour of or against the two-footed tackle ( I love Dion Dublin) or players 'leaving the ground'. Martin Taylor was on loan at Norwich this season and was titanic (as in like a titan, not running a long way then sinking. Andy Johnson was titanic like that when Palace were trying to stay in the Premiership though). If anyone's to blame it's Karen Brady. She could have flogged him permanently for a very fair price but chose to hang on for a bit more. I suspect his price may have reduced somewhat simply because of the stigma now attached to his name.



My long-standing problem has been with players who repeatedly ham it up but never seem to show the signs of injury when it really matters. Until now, when I shall become largely repentant and may even stretch as far as a qualified apology.



Training for a marathon obviously involves a commitment to put in the miles, on the whole, even when you can't really be arsed. People who know me will appreciate that when I can't be arsed I largely don't bother, so should be even more impressed with my arduous and unforgiving regime. This includes running, or at least exercising, even when suffering from 'twinges'.



In the early days it was largely my calves that suffered. Try walking or running with calves that don't move. It's not easy. They weren't so much strained as incredibly tight (this should always be said like Goldmember). I managed to to sort these out by getting regular rub-downs from a professional. There's a guy who comes into our office and does massages in one of the rooms in the basement. He's brilliant and he doesn't even remark on my hairy back or disproportionately hair-free legs, which is very kind. I'm sure he was originally called PJ but he seems to have graduated, via CJ (which I think was Pamela Anderson's character in Baywatch - come to think of it wasn't she called Pamela Denise Anderson? And what's the deal with Morten 'Gamst' Gamst Pedersen?) to DJ. I still giggle at the very rural image of a footballer 'straining a calf' however.



More recently, I've suffered with a hip complaint on the left side. It left me struggling to walk but also in the unique situation, to me, of still being able to run. After a day of, as Herr Flick in 'Allo 'Allo would have it 'walking rather gingerly', I dragged myself to the gym to try to do some sort of exercise. Once on the treadmill I found that at running speed I was fine.

This left me with a moral problem relating, in particular, to Didier Drogba. I'm not the only person who considers him to be prone to the odd bit of over-exaggeration when tackled. He even, if you'll pardon the pun, tripped himself up in an interview when he admitted as much himself. Even the citizens of You Tube have attempted to provide proof:



However, having discovered that it is possible to be able to run but not walk, not only did I disprove a popular phrase (although if we're being pedantic it doesn't) but it also takes away the miracle of the 'Drogba hop' and makes it a lot less sinister. Having said that I did try to hobble, then hop into a sprint as Drogba does, but it didn't quite work as smoothly as that. Equally when I stopped running the hobble was worse, meaning the ability to 'run off an injury' comes into question. Far more likely, even with my increased empathy, is that it's possible to 'run off the memory of having pretended to be injured'. But I'm naming no names.

The future is here!

Using the latest technology, you can now run your mobile phone camera over the bizarre-looking icon below to access this blog. This may sound like a slightly pointless exercise, but if we follow the lead of the Japanese (which we often do, if considerably behind), we'll go QR crazy in the next few months.

QR stands for Quick Response and works in a similar way to barcodes. You'll soon be seeing these on adverts and, if people here go as far as our Oriental cousins, on clothing or even in the form of body art.

If you want to see how it works, access http://www.i-nigma.com/ to download the software to your phone, then hover over the image below to see what happens. It works, trust me.

Fat Frank's dirty little secret

We've all done it. You might reveal a secret that you didn't know was a secret. You could inadvertantly let everyone know that you are incredibly gullible. People might eventually find out that you're just an idiot.

I know someone who is friends with a primary school teacher who openly admitted to thinking that lions and tigers were the male and female versions of the same thing. If this is news to you, keep it to yourself.

Anyway, my father has dropped me in it somewhat. Obviously I'm incredibly grateful to him for being the first to sponsor me for my Marathon effort (shameless plug time - www.justgiving.com/lambontherun). However in classic 'dad' style (not just mine, it's a recognised phenomenon. If you don't believe me, watch American Pie) Dr Lamb added a comment about nipple grease.

What sort of pervert is he, I hear you ask? He's not. He's an upstanding member of the community. He just assumed, as I did, that people are aware of jogger's nipple. Apparently they aren't, at least not everybody is.

During the process of training for the Flora London Marathon I'm obviously running for pretty lengthy amounts of time. Last weekend being a bumper football weekend of FA Cup action I managed to get a lot done.

I'm really feeling the benefits of having packed in the booze and fags since New Year (I'm back on the booze for February because of my birthday, Valentine's Day and as a reward for managing January) and last Saturday, during the sporadically entertaining Mansfield against Middlesbrough match on the sporadically entertaining BBC I have never felt as capable on a long run.

Around 80 minutes and just short of ten miles into my run (and the match. If you haven't worked out that this is a football-themed running blog because I'm running while watching football yet then you really should pay more attention) I happened to glance down and something caught my eye.

There was a sort of rusty mark on my new white adidas top. On closer inspection there were two. On further examination they extended from a near perfect circle into a downward smear. My nipples were bleeding.

The snap above, taken after the shirt had been removed and had festered in my bag on the way home, doesn't really do it justice. I considered taking a snap of my actual nipples but realised that would have been hideous. They don't actually look that bad to be honest. They just sting.

Anyway I've mentioned my plight to a couple of people as it's quite a light-hearted response to the inevitable 'how's the training going?' queries. Not everyone, I'm quickly discovering, gives a tinker's cuss whether I've shaved a couple of seconds off my 10k time.

Similarly, even fewer people seem to know about jogger's nipple. The looks I've had when routine questions about training have been answered with 'yeah, it's going well although my nipples are red raw' have been many and varied. Few have been anything but confused or slightly disgusted in nature.

The upshot of the actual incident has been to realise why so few people wear white tops to the gym or when you see folk out running. It also gave me an interesting theory. Certain players in the past couple of years have been accused of failing to perform as well for the England football team as they consistently do for their Premier(ship/ League - I know it's League but if I'm talking about the past few seasons do I have to say Premiership? Quite a few pundits haven't noticed there's been a change. They're the ones who still refer to League One as Division Three and talk about teams 'getting the three points' in cup games. The inconsistency is blinding. If they're that opposed to change, it should surely be two points for a win) clubs.

The theory is pretty rudimentary, but basically rests on the premise that certain of said players are routinely, rightly or wrongly, derided for being of a rotund build. Very few clubs play in white (although some of the big clubs have or have recently had white away strips) but England do. Surely a maligned player would do anything in their power to avoid giving fuel to their detractors by running around sufficiently for their bouncing busoms to create sufficient nippular friction for claret to be spilt?

It should be interesting to see how Fabio Capello deals with this. I notice yesterday's kit launch was of a deep crimson second strip, and that all the cold weather training this week has been in maroon gear. Clearly the Italian has left nothing to chance. He could even call up Dean Ashton now, thus adding a considerable footballing brain to his squad and hopefully adding a few quid to the bank account at Carrow Road, should Neil Doncaster and the money men at Norwich been shrewd enough to include a clause of extra payment in the £7million fee they negotiated with West Ham.

As a tangential aside I have recently been reading Russell Brand's autobiography as well as a compilation of his columns from the Guardian. If you don't read the Guardian, I'd recommend searching them out on t'internet as they're very enjoyable. Anyway, in the foreword for the football book, Irons in the Fire (he's a West Ham fan is Russell) he talks of being on the pitch having his photo taken and seizing the opportunity to have a snap with Dean Ashton, one of his new heroes. I've warmed to Brand through finding out more about his life (I've no idea why I was marked out as needing to read more of the works of Russell Brand. We don't have huge amounts in common although I am a closet fan), but no single occurence throughout both books brought us closer together.

On the subject of forewords, Sir Alex Ferguson wrote the foreword for Bryan Gunn's book In Where it Hurts. He talks about Gunny, another of my all-time top three Norwich heroes (Ashton and Efan Ekoku being the other two) and at the end says 'I'm sure it will be a great read', implying he hasn't read it as it presumably wasn't finished. The publishers, however, took this as a quote and put on the front and back of the book 'A great read' - Sir Alex Ferguson. Shameless.