Posts Tagged ‘Injuries’

If you’ve caught the news last night you will have seen the painfully comical “winter wonderland” on show in Dorset. Well, I’ve just read that an angry dad has given Santa exactly what a child should never see – a punch in the face. The dad wanted to sit his child on Santa’s lap, and when he refused he socked him. Brilliant.

The place is horrendous, I laughed at the billboard nativity scene, and the “Hollywood special effects”, Santa’s market stall which was just a big tent, a broken ice-skating rink and huskies tied up in a muddy field – however, if I was one of the unlucky parents who’d spent £25 to get in, I’d have probably punched Santa too.

But that’s not the worst thing to happen. No No. ‘Santa’ was caught outside by a child smoking and had to be comforted. Keep the dream alive guys right. The staff have now been attack as much as six times, which is not acceptable to be honest, but the manager should be made to come out and explain himself. This is probably how his speech would sound:

“So yeah, sorry. I’m just an idiot who wants to con people in to spending money through my falsely advertised website to come and see some shacks, angry Santa’s and destroy your child’s joy about Christmas. I’m an idiot, and if you see me in the street please feel free to give me a swift kick to the knackers.”

Sadly all Henry Mears has said is: “One of our elves was slapped and had a pram pushed into her leg which has left a horrible bruise.”

Compelling.

In other news, you may remember that yesterday I said I got booted at football and have a sore ankle? We’ll by the time I got home from work my foot was shaped like a football, and I could barely walk. Good times.

After a call to NHS 24, they recommended I get an X-ray, so cue 2 and a half hours in accident and emergency, where they told me that although its not broken, it could be fractured, but because the swelling is so bad they can tell yet. Awesome. Fantastic. Great.

I was told off the doctor that I should have crutches, get bandaged up and take my weight off it for a few days, cool I thought, I’ve never had crutches. Alas it was not to be, as I found out last night that nurses can overrule a doctor’s decision, and send you home with a leaflet. Super.

So I stumbled home with nothing but a bad mood and a sore foot. I’ve to keep an eye on it for a few days, and expect it to swell more – which it has, but I’ve to suck it up and walk on it as much as possible. Fan-dabbie-dozie…

Cristiano Ronaldo has won the title of “European Footballer of the Year”, just two days after his bizarre sending off in the match against Manchester City.

Strange handballs aside, Ronaldo is arguably won of the greatest players of all time. It’s easy to compare him to the likes of Pele and Maradona when they were in their prime, and his skill with a football is unmatched in the world right now. You know those guys who do those keepy-uppy tricks and balance the ball on their feet/shoulders/heads, Ronaldo can do all that, but the difference is he’s running at full sprint at the same time.

I don’t think there is a defender in the world who thinks they can take the Portuguese star on, one-on-one. Ronaldo skips past the likes of Terry, and numerous other defenders like the ball is glued to his feet. His free kick’s are also legendary. I don’t think there is anyone else in the world who can smack a ball with such precision, hard as you like over 30 yards on the planet. He makes Beckham look like a non-league amateur.

If you look at the list of guys who have won the ballon D’Or in recent years he’s better than them all:

2007 Kaka
2006 Fabio Cannavaro
2005 Ronaldinho
2004 Andriy Shevchenko
2003 Pavel Nedved
2002 Ronaldo
2001 Michael Owen
2000 Luis Figo

From the looks of that list, the next guy could be Ronald McDonald. And you can fully expect loads of Manchester United fans naming their kids after the best footballer in Europe.

His 42 goals last season also made him top goal scorer in Europe, earning him the Golden Boot – not bad for a midfielder. It’s also easy to forget this guy is just 23 years old, which means he should be terrorising defenders for at least another 6-7 years.

My own personal football season (my five-a-side kick-about’s) came to a crashing halt last night, with an ankle injury. I was playing great, best game in weeks actually, I’d scored four times already, and when going for a 50-50 ball, I came out worst, as I got booted in the side of my right ankle, closely followed by a loud “pop”. I had got my foot round the ball, just before the other guy, and that was that, I was down on the (freezing) ground in agony. I limped like a wimp off the pitch for a five minute breather before coming back on, but I could barely kick the ball. So that’s me till after Christmas I reckon. Gutted.

When I was about fourteen I was at the stage of wanting to get involved in everything my dad did from washing the car to putting a shelf up, to emptying the garage, and putting it all back in again – a concept I never fully understood as a child, but one I grew to understand as I got older. Its difficult throwing stuff in the bin, because you convince yourself that it’ll “come in handy one day”.

One time when helping my dad empty junk from the garage, he decided that so it had to go to the rubbish tip/junk yard, so off we went with a trailer full of bits of wood, scrap metal and other random stuff. We got to the place, and we started chucking all this junk in to the giant skips, much fun was had – its odd how chucking stuff in a big bucket is fun, but I digress.

We were reaching the bottom of the trailer, so – in my fourteen year old wisdom – grabbed the side and jumped into the back of the trailer at full speed, I grabbed a couple of bits of wood and chucked them over, then went for the last bit, I grabbed it and it wouldn’t lift up. ‘That’s weird’ I remember thinking, then I noticed I was standing on it, ‘that explains it’, I said to myself…then as realisation kicked in, my brain started doing overtime, a shooting pain flew up my leg and blew my skull off, as I realised that I’d jumped full for on to a plank of wood with three inches of nail in it. Bugger.

It was probably the worst thing I’d ever felt. The blasted nail had pierced right through my trainers, and in to my heel, where I honestly thought it had embedded itself in my ankle bone. I tried to suck it up, as a weird mix of adrenaline and fear took over. It may sound stupid, but out of a million thoughts I was having, the first one was that I had ruined my trainers.

With the (about 2ft long) plank firmly attached to my foot, my dad had to lift me out of the trailer (thank god the cool girls from school didn’t hang about the rubbish tip – my stupid mind was now thinking), and bundled me into the car. Dad decided that the best thing to do was to just pull it out on the count of three… I remember it well…

Dad: “one, two, the…”
Me: “whoah, whoah, whoah…ok just do it”
Dad: “one,two, the…”
Me: “whoah, whoah, whoah…”
Dad: “one…”

And then he pulled it, apparently I went quite green, but otherwise I was ok. The nail was a beast, and I still have it kicking about as a memento of the worst thing of that year. On the way home, I was bought a plaster and a Caramac (hands up if you remember those) which I later learned was a bargaining chip to “NEVER tell mum that you stood on a nail, because she’ll kill me for letting you jump in the trailer”.

And remarkably, 14 years on, I never have. Unless she reads this. Sorry dad.