It’s July 4^th 2008, it was a Friday and I’ve been invited to a barbeque at the friends house, I am looking forward to relaxing and being around a group of fun people. It’s just before lunch and I’m finishing off a little work e-mail. I even remember the email I was replying too, it was about having people available to receive and inspect some parts going onto an aircraft I was responsible for.

It’s strange which details stay with you.

My cell goes off, the number is my parent’s home phone in England. I remember speaking to them the day before about my plans for the holiday weekend, having fun and perhaps staying overnight with friends.

It’s dad, in typical style he comes straight out with it, Granddad’s ill and I need to be there. This comes totally out of the blue, he was in his mid 80’s, had bad knees, had trouble getting around for a few years now, but no one had mentioned him being ill before now.

I never got much of an explanation over the phone other than it’s serious. I knew that, I’d not be getting the call if it were not.

I briefly spoke to dad once more that afternoon just to let him know I was that evening’s British Airways flight to London. Dad picked me up at Heathrow and it’s now Saturday afternoon in London.

In the car I got my parents version of the story. Granddad was diagnosed with leukaemia a couple of months previously, and in typical Henry Darrah fashion kept it quiet. As I’ve said before he was a powerful man, who was determined to live his life with ethics, determinations and grace, and on his terms.

My parents had known for about a week, he’d underplayed the seriousness and did not want me jumping on the next airplane to be there. He’s never liked people making a fuss of him.

I’d last seen him three months earlier when I’d gone over for what was in reality not much more than a long weekend. His house was usually the first stop after leaving the airport, typically on the way to the old peoples house.

This time we by passed his house and went straight to the Royal Surrey County Hospital. No one has told him I’m on my way; dad lets me know about this particular nugget as we are waiting for the lift to take us up to his ward.

We walk in and he’s in bed on his side as he’s got bedsores. The hospital had been giving him a series of blood transfusions over the previous couple of days and his arm has a number of big bruises. He’s obviously surprised to see me, and immediately asks what I’m doing there, I mumble something about a planned trip and dad decides he needs a cup of tea and leaves us alone.

As we always do I shake his hand, only this time I’m met by a wince of pain and the usually strong handshake is not there. That’s when I understand it’s more serious than anyone is letting on. He’s always had such a strong grip and this time there is nothing there, he’s ill, and he’s not told at least my parents how ill he is.

After a while Geraldine and my aunt show up, first thing he asks his wife was did she know I was coming. Geraldine says yes she did, gave him a look and it was left at that, at least while I was still in the room.

Geraldine and my grandfather married the year I moved to the Seattle. They had been living together for a few years before that. I saw from the start that Geraldine made my grandfather very happy, and his happiness was what I cared about. It took mum a few years to accept her, but she saw that her dad was happy and ultimately that’s what mattered.

Mum had commented a few times that one of the strangest things she had done was watch her dad get married. I think it was uncomfortable for her that he was making it so clear that he had moved on from my grandmother’s death 16 years earlier. Mum came round, like the rest of us we saw granddad was happy and that what we all, including mum, wanted.

That evening I visited granddad again, for an hour or so it’s just the two of us. He spent a lot of time talking about the past, telling stories, not something he does very often. My brother joined us after a while. Granddad spent almost three hours that evening sharing with Stephen and I. He reminisced about growing up in Canada, learning to drive as a 12 year old, going to Montreal, watching La Habs play at the Forum, moving to England, what mum did as a child and so on.

We talked about growing up; rides in his cars, given candy over my parent’s objections and all the wonderful things grandparents do for grandkids.

I saw him every day for the next five days. I said good-bye to granddad on my way to the airport; I was going to be back in a couple of weeks and said I’d see him then.

He passed before I could make it back to see him.

There is a lot more to this story, how mum did not want to worry me, how Geraldine threatened to call me herself if mum did not do it, how my grandfathers family came together to celebrate the man. How his ashes are in a vault next to my grandmother.

Two years on my aunt and his wife Geraldine still live in the same house, and it still does not feel right to walk into that house and not see Henry struggling to get out of his chair to greet me. I’ve only been in the living room a couple of times since he passed, it feels so strange after so many years of granddad always being in his chair when I arrived.

Typically when England go out the papers will fill the back pages with phrases like “brave”, “a team of heroes” or something along those lines. There are exceptions, in 2002 after Beckhams sending off against Argentina the Sun ran the headline “10 Heroes and one stupid little boy”.

The disappointment of an early exit is made a little easier knowing that the team performed to their best, left it all out on the field (and all the other sporting clichés) yet were beaten by a better side on the day.

To be beaten while playing their best a team can walk off the field holding their heads high.

Much like going out on penalties, it’s disappointing but you come away knowing the team put in the effort and lost to a superior side. There is some honour to the defeat.

This year there is no such honour for England. The 2010 World Cup was a disaster filled with underperformance and disappointment that started with the friendly against Egypt in March and just never got going. Not once have I come away from watching one of those games and thought the team played at anything close to the sum of its parts.

The one exception I’m able to give was the “backs against the wall” performance against Slovenia was solid and functional, but you’d hardly call it inspiring stuff.

Germany plays like a club side, Joachim Low has ensured they are well a drilled squad filled with players that understand what’s expected of them. England are a contrast and play like most international sides; a collection of talented players but are missing the fluidity that club sides have, and that only comes with a core of players working together over time.

I did find there to be something slightly disturbing to see the Germans in their shiny black kit. There is something rather sinister about the look of a well drilled group of Germans wearing black, under the floodlights, backed by thousands waving German flags and singing Deutschland über alles…

But I digress, with only thirty or so days and a couple of friendlies between the squad coming together and the first meaningful game it’s going to be tough for any coach to put together a team that has that level of understanding.

The FA decided to keep Capello on until the European championships in a couple of years; I think that’s the right thing to do. Ignoring the alleged 10-12 million that it will take to buy him out of his recently amended contract, I just don’t see anyone else in a position to take over.

The next England game is only 7 weeks away, a friendly against Hungary before we are into the qualifying tournament for Euro 2012.

I worked late yesterday, I was not having a great day and did not go into the office until after watching Spain beat Paraguay. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, I was working deep into the evening and I wanted to do something fun for July-4.

I had a couple of offers for BBQ’s in Seattle today. Nothing says July in Seattle like a BBQ in the rain. As tempting as that was, I decided I needed sun and found the perfect excuse.

Sounders are playing in LA, it’s going to be sunny and 25 degrees warmer than Seattle. Late last night I made an impulse decision, traded in a wedge of Delta skymiles for an early morning flight, brought a match ticket and will be joining the other Sounders fans BBQing in the Home Depot Centre car park.

This was my first proper tail gate party and glad I took the chance to have some fun in LA on July 4^th. They never had those before an Aldershot or Coventry City game.

I was surprised to see 7 or 8 other sounders jerseys on the flight this morning, I figured most people would have made a weekend of it and already been there.

Left on time, and as a bonus even got an exit row. Arrived at LAX a little ahead of schedule. I get they are trying to do something with the place and that it was largely built in the 70’s, but can anyone think of a place that looks more like a 70’s dystopian science fiction film set than the bowels of LAX?

It’s full of tiles featureless walls, unnecessary escalators and long blank corridors. Add a few flex ducts and find the torture chamber you know they have hidden somewhere and you are living in Terry Gillians movie Brazil.

The pre-game party was fun, there was about 120 Seattle fans (and one lonely LA supporter, dragged there by his girlfriend) in the car park drinking beer and eating BBQ. It was a lot of fun, this would not be allowed in Seattle in the same way.

To the game… A 3-1 Seattle loss, not many positives as Seattle were clearly outplayed. Montero looked frustrated, Ljungberg was ineffective and despite scoring the only Seattle goal Zakuani seemed unable to time his runs and not for the first game this year did not look sharp. There was a decent amount of Seattle possession in and around the LA box, but no one seems to be willing to take the shot.

Lots of little balls between players, but ultimately someone has to stand up and take responsibility to turn the half chance into a goal rather than loose possession. It’s just so frustrating to watch. Especially during the first half the movement from midfield forward looked slow and uninspired. Unfortunately that’s the role usually played by Alonso or occasionally Evans, who are both injured. Pete Vagenas tried today, but his distribution and creativity was not good enough against a quick, pressing midfield like LA.

Sigi has some young players with a little creativity and imagination on the bench; it maybe time to start some of them rather than waiting until 75 minutes into the game.

To be clear LA are a good side, they’ve scored 7 goals against Seattle in two games. The home team played some very simple but effective football, lots of short passing and actually able to hit the runners with the ball. LA plays an attractive passing game and seems very well drilled in what’s expected.

The second LA goal was as good a strike as I’ve seen in this league. 30+ yards out and Brazilian midfielder Juninho struck the ball sweetly, there was nothing Keller could have done about that one.

There were just over 300 seats in the away fans section and they sold out. There were a smattering of rave green jerseys elsewhere in the ground. I was in the 5^th or 6^th row of the Sounders section with the hardcore ECS chanting group. A lot of fun was had, bouncing around, singing and yelling for the entire 90 minutes. My first away game, my throat is shot, however it’s not going to be my last away trip.

Seattle hosts LA on Wednesday at Starfire in the Open Cup quarter final, if Seattle plays like this then the holders will not make it to the semi-finals.

I was reading Jeremy Paxman’s book “The English” a few weeks ago, a very entertaining and worthwhile read BTW. In it he attempts to define what “Englishness” is, he looks at stereotypes, how we view foreigners, the importance sport plays in our lives, the ability to drink tea by the gallon and most importantly for me right now, how our history and legend shaped us into the people we are today.

The English don’t have pride in our country in the way Americans do, it’s less obvious and very different. Smaller, a little more personal, certainly more ingrained and perhaps ultimately more powerful.

Our most important possessions were our steadfastness in the face of adversity, the classic British stiff-upper-lipness of stereotypes, and most important of all was our sense of humour.

I’d like to relay a story, someone had just had a somewhat significant racing accident, who and where is not important. I was one of the first on the scene, it was a big accident and his right leg was all but severed at the knee, clearly he was in trouble. Medical help arrived just as I was getting out of my car. The driver of the crumpled car was going into shock, but yelled that he’d lost his leg. One of the medics glanced in and knew that indeed the leg was too mangled to save, he looked at the driver and said something along the lines of “No, you’ve not lost it, most of it’s over here and the rest over there…” Not the greatest bedside manner, but perfect for the situation.

It’s understanding and being right for what was happening that was important. While my personal sense of humour is blacker and a little more twisted than most, the above was what the moment called for.

I have a strong identity that is rooted in where I come from and that’s formed a lot of who I am. Over the last couple of years I’ve lost or compromised a lot of what I believed, and for that I am truly sorry.

Last fall something happened, a line was crossed and I don’t think can ever go back. That moment drove a lot of anguish, a lot of compromise and a number of bad decisions.

The thing I’d been most fearful of happened, I’d been told it never would, but it did and it changed the way in which I dealt with some people in my life. There may be good reasons behind some of those changes, but ultimately they were not healthy.

Over the last couple of days I’ve spent a lot of time being less introspective and rather more reflective in my dealings with others. I’ve compromised myself far too much and in part that was driven by the events of the last year, have somewhat backed me into a corner and I made mistakes. I’m truly sorry.

One of the clearest things I got from Paxmans book was that throughout English history we, as both individuals and collectively have had our clearest idea about what we stand for when the going is the toughest.

Today the going was hard, emotional and from that I understand where I changed too much, and what I need to take back to become the person I know I can be.

I’ve talked of needing this change a couple of times and it’s my blog and I can repeat it again. This weekend has focused me on what the change looks like. It’s time to stop living with my crisis of self belief, accept where I went wrong, do something about it and live in the way I was brought up to. With humour, with character and with belief in who I am.

I understand the situation today, with far more clarity than I had perviously. It’s time for me to do the right thing for myself and those in my life to get to the place I want to be.

A friend said to me a few weeks ago “Life isn’t enjoyable if your goal is to always be perfect. The best times we have are in our flawed moments.”

You were right I was lost, thank you.

I miss London, it’s a place that feel exciting. It’s got museums, great food and wonderful nightlife. It’s a long time since I’ve lived there, 15 years now, but the excitement of taking the train “into town” has never gotten old for me.

In the last 15 years it’s still the same city, but the details have clearly changed. From the old peoples house the entry into London is Waterloo on the South Bank of the river. The South Bank has maybe seen the biggest change of anywhere over the years since I lived there.

Fifteen years ago it was something of a concrete waste land full of badly maintained brutalism architecture. The National Theatre, Haywood and the rest of the imposing South Bank Centre were in desperate need of significant work.

To the west sits County Hall, the former seat of the now defunct Greater London Council. Who were one of the biggest pains in Thatcher’s side for a few years, now a hotel/aquarium/tourist attraction sitting across the river from the Houses of Parliament.

Further East there was a series of largely unused warehouses, including the distinctive Oxo Tower and the empty Bankside power station. In all it was a place whose industrial legacy was on full display, and it was not pretty.

Today the area has been totally changed. The South Bank Centre has seen it’s much needed renovation completed, it’s a fantastic example of brutalist architecture that can be used every day. It’s got a number of performance spaces and a couple of great restaurants including the Skylon.

The Oxo Tower along with a number of other ware houses underwent a very sympathetic renovation and boasts perhaps the best restaurant in London. I had maybe my best meal ever there on my previous visit.

While there has been a lot of change, the biggest addition is unquestionably the London Eye. It took a long time to finally get to ride it, and was worth the wait. One time a bathroom break by my mother caused us to miss the final available tickets of the day. It’s spectacular, I’d like to ride it on a clear night. One day perhaps.

The former Bankside Power station is now the Tate Modern. The power station was converted in great modern art museum to house the Tate’s fantastic collection. The main turbine hall is huge space open to temporary installations on a huge scale.

The changes have all been for the good, the South Bank has moved from slightly scruffy and not terribly welcoming, to somewhere offering so much and maybe my favourite piece of London now.

So the headline in todays Daily Mail reads, it’s more than a little inflammatory, but this is a big game between two teams with history, a lot of history.

The actual quote was ‘Stupidly, the English have slipped up by finishing second in their group. A game like this against Germany should be a semi-final, not a last-16 tie.’

I’m not disagreeing with Der Kaiser about this being a big game that would be fitting for a semi-final, but it’s not. If Germany (like England) believe they can go far in this tournament, then the road goes through England.

I hope the game lives up to expectations, the sports pages of the British papers are certainly not disappointing. I’ve said before that I love the red tops, the news parts are often unreadable garbage, but they have some of the finest and most knowledgeable sports writers in the business.

I doubt there are any English supporters that need reminding, but here is a link to the video of that night in Munich that shows just how good England can be (and a little of the history behind this fixture).

Yesterday I saw the A-Team movie (and admitting to it). It’s not exactly an intellectual challenge, but taken for what it is was a decent way to distract me for a couple of hours. The body count was not huge by Hollywood standards, but a couple of the bad guys met with some spectacularly violent ends.

I know in real life people die every day, go to any date in wikipedia and you’ll see a list of people that died in that year or on that day. It’s not personal,  it’s just a name and date. We can click on a link, perhaps dive a little deeper and find out a little more, but quickly we turn the page.

Occasionally it’s personal; maybe it’s a parent, a close friend, acquaintance or lover. It’s surreal, it’s an unchangeable fact and the ripples will be felt through the years on both special occasions and random days. Birthdays, anniversaries, mother’s day and days that mean something to only you.

Many years ago a very close friend Steve was killed in a car accident. Steve and I shared an office, we shared a room when traveling, competed again each other and were incredibly close. Over a couple of year period we spent a lot of time on the road for work and I spent more nights sharing a room with Steve than his wife did (which is an awful lot less George Michael than it sounds).

Steve’s death was as sudden as it was tragic. His wife was three months pregnant with their first child and I lost my closest friend and colleague. Every year at the end of May I spend a few minutes thinking about Steve, it’s the anniversary of his death and I remember.

At the time I acted as though nothing strange was happening, after all, the world was still turning. I busied myself in the office, stopped sharing a room while on the road for a while and pretended everything was normal. All this was done in a pointless attempt to blunt the pain. Even though that was 17 years ago now, I find it sad that I’m never going to get another Christmas card or his daughter Amy will ever know her father.

Grief is a strange thing. I find that it makes an appearance at odd times, little reminders cause it’s to catch me by surprise. I’ve said before when I call my parents house and dad answers he phone rather than mum. There are many others and while the immediacy of the grief goes away over time, it still makes it’s presence felt occasionally.

I remember the cards and flowers arriving at my parent’s house when mum passed, dad would spend a few minutes every day examining the cards. He liked, actually we all liked, being reminded that mum was missed by others and how we were in peoples thoughts.

We were continuously asked if we were OK, this rhetorical question typically follows the “I’m so sorry” statement. Sometimes it was asked all by itself. I’ve never had any idea how to answer, Yes, No or Maybe? I typically tried for quiet dignity, some kind of affirmative I’m doing OK, and a thank you. Reality was “I am not okay, but I’d rather you did not ask”.

I’m not sure if it’s just part of being British and actually living the stiff-upper-lip stereotype, but it seems to be very difficult to admit admitting we are not doing well. I am not okay, but I’d rather you did not ask.

So when does it all start getting better, when does it all end? In my experience it doesn’t ever get better. It slowly gets more bearable and incrementally the bizarre feelings become somewhat normal. It’s never really over, but we learn to deal.

Everyone goes through it at some time and everyone deals with it differently. Afterwards life is never quite the same, but the world is still turning.

I have found that some gestures were incredibly meaningful on a personal level, it was less about how I felt, more about what I need or most importantly providing a distraction, that hopefully involved great beer or good wine. Here are some things that people have said to me that actually did help:

What do you need?
What can I do?
Here is food.
Here is wine.
Forget that, it’s taken care of.
We should go to the bookstore
The 3P’s has some good beer on nitro, lets go.
Wanna watch Star Wars
Come by the office; we’ll go for lunch.
Here is candy.
Why don’t you write about it?

Sunday afternoon England take on Germany. A game with so much history, a lot of bad blood and what most English people consider one of the classic match ups along with the auld enemy and Argentina.

Last competitive game the two sides played was in 2001 and the almost legendary 5-1 English win in Munich. The rivalry has a long history going back to 1930, but it never really got going until 1966. On a July afternoon at Wembley an Azerbijani linesman said Geoff Hurst’s shot had cannoned off the crossbar and crossed the goal line, and that was all that mattered.

And England won the World Cup. The Germans (of course) didn’t agree with the linesmen, and to this day feel they were cheated out of the World Cup.

On a slight aside (shinny thing…) the linesman was Tofik Bakhramov and the Azerbaijan national stadium in Baku is named after him. Such is his place in English football legend that when England played a World Cup qualifier there in 2004, England fans visited his grave to pay respects and place flowers on it. Prior to the game there was a ceremony honouring him that was attended by some members of the 1966 team, including Hurst.

Back to Sunday, since 1966 the two sides have met 19 times. Germany have won 12 times, 4 draws and only 5 English wins. Only one of those English wins came in a major tournament,  1-0 win in Charleroi in a very poor game against a bad Germany side during Euro 2000.

The two Semi-final losses in Italia 90 and Euro ’96 live very large in the British psyche. Both were decent games that led to losses on penalties, and all English fans feel it’s time for revenge.

The only question is which pub should I watch the game in?

@EmmaK67: Watching England is a cure for constipation.

With everything going on I could not sleep, in a vague attempt to avoid counting sheep I was looking at the World Cup and the relative under performance of the European teams along with the solid games played by the South American teams over the last 10 days.

A quick drag through the results so far show that European teams have met South American teams 6 times so far and none of the European teams have been victorious with two draws and four wins for the South Americans. The traditional big European sides (Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Holland, England and France) have won five games in total over the first 12 days of the tournament, and two of those were by the Dutch and one came against North Korea.

In Italy, England, Spain, France and Germany the top clubs hold the power, not the relevant football associations. The top clubs have huge revenues coming from TV money or rich owners with deep pockets and short timelines for results. There is no incentive in these clubs to develop youth academies. There are some exceptions; Liverpool and Manchester United have traditionally had a decent stream of players moving up to first team football.

The Premier league is the richest league in the world, about half the players come from outside England. There is little incentive to produce home grown talent it’s easier to buy in what you need. Judging by the actions of the owners of the biggest premiership clubs I doubt they are looking much beyond the end of the 10/11 season, let alone 4, 5 or 6 years down the road when the results investment in the youth side could show results.

The FA’s head of development is former England player Trevor Brooking; he has been vocal and clearly believes that neglect of the youth structure in England is contributing to the lack of world class players in the England set up.

The flip side of this issue is the big South American clubs. Even the big clubs like Boca Juniors or River Plate don’t have the finances to compete with the European elite. Because of this they are unable to hang onto their best players, this continual exodus of their best and brightest forces the clubs to invest in their youth structure to keep the talent flowing into the team.

Is there an answer? UEFA president Michel Platini is attempting to give the big clubs an incentive to investing in their youth system by enforcing a minimum number of what UEFA are calling “home grown” players in the squad.

Home-grown players’ are defined as players that have been trained by a club in the national association for at least three years between the age of 15 and 21. The nationality of the player is irrelevant, just they they spent three years working for a side in the relevant country. At this point it’s only relevant for sides that are playing in UEFA competition, not surprisingly it’s strongly opposed by the major leagues.