The Leicester Highcross sandsculpture - Leicester's sporting heroes

Met with my best friend Jen in town today for a coffee and catch up and just outside our usual cafe was this amazing sand sculpture.

It's celebrating the sporting diversity in Leicester, much like the brass statue near the Clock Tower, featuring football, cricket and rugby balls as well as the mascots for the main clubs in

Leicestershire. I'm very proud to support the clubs in the county in which I was born and bred, they have excellent histories and some very good present achievements. I'm going to briefly talk about them here (there is a non-sporting story at the end, don't worry!).

The first picture here shows the football side of the sculpture; the Leicester City Football Club badge and Filbert the Fox. Leicester City have a long and great history; runners up in the FA Cup 4 times, winning the League Cup 3 times (runners up twice) and once coming second in the top tier of English football. Compare this to other teams who are big in today's game, this isn't so impressive but it beats the vast majority of English clubs and relatively to many foreign clubs. Add to this winning the second tier league 6 times (promoted 4 other times through other means) and the third tier once, Leicester have been a winning team. Admittedly, most of these are a long time ago but City's best era has to be the O'Neill years, from '95 to 2000 where we won promotion to the Premier League and two League Cups. When he left to higher places (a top European team in Celtic) we seemed to go in the opposite direction, suffering relegation and administration.

Struggling years in the second tier followed until last year we lost our historic status as one of seven clubs who had never left the top two tiers as Leicester were relegated to League One.

However, never fear! Nigel Pearson, helped by a record breaking Matty Fryatt, came to our rescue last season as the solid and consistent manager we'd been searching for for almost a decade and bounced back at the first attempt as champions of League One. Things are looking good again and the Foxes are tipped by some to be challenging for promotion to the Premier League once again in 2009/10. Lets hope so!

Next is the rugby side of the sculpture; The Leicester Tigers badge and mascot, the Tiger (I like to call him Timmy ha!). Similarly to Leicester City, the Tigers have a long and great history. In today's game, Leicester are known as one of the best teams in England and Europe and this opinion is backed up by the amount of honours under their name; 6 Anglo-Welsh Cups, 8 Premiership titles (including 4 consecutive titles) and two consecutive European titles. The years from 1999 to 2002 were very much so the glory years, coached by Dean Richards and captained by Martin Johnson, winning 7 world recognised titles consecutively but after seven Tigers players were a part of the World Cup winning England squad, the Tigers' form fell and the team has not been the dominating team they were since. However, since 2006 the Tigers have found back to several Anglo-Welsh finals and Premiershipfinals under the guidance of Pat Howard and

more recently Richard Cockerill, captained by Martin Corry. The Tigers are still one of the onyl clubs not to have left the top tier of English rugby and have never finished out the top six in the league.

I don't know a lot about Leicestershire County Cricket Club but I do know that in the late 90s they were the county champions twice before being relegated in 2003. They are still currently in the second tier of cricket and haven't had a chance to be back up in the top league but I'm sure one day they'll figure themselves out.

1997 was a great year for Leicester's sport, having champions in football, rugby and cricket, but 2009 was also a great year having both football and rugby champions, again. This was not on the same scale as '97, however I truly believe in the near future Leciester will again become a great English sporting city.

Now, the non-sports story. As we sat for coffee today, a little girl came out of no where, into the roped off sand area, and kicked off a part of the boy's foot! Hillarious atching the sculpturor chase after this toddler who had destroyed her work but horrifying at the mother's reaction. The sculpturor, after finding the mother to reunite her with her daughter, told the mother what had happened. The mother replied with 'YES I KNOW, I SAW IT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!' or something to that effect and stormed off.

Can't believe it.

Some people need to calm down and stop thinking of themselves so much. In Matthew 22:39 Jesus tells us to love eachother as we'd love ourselves, or treat others as you would want to be treated. People have said that religion is the cause of wars and make nothin but trouble, it is for the weak minded. To them I'd like to ask what the world would be like if people actually followed the teaching of Jesus, rather than living how they think they should.

Update: The sculpture has been unveiled to be by Nicola Wood, from Markfield, who is a world champion sculptor! The Leicester Tigers mascot is called Lester the Tiger, the cricket fox is called Charlie Fox and the lion, Solly, is the mascot for the Special Olympics currently being held in Leicester. See the article on it here.

British sport

I feel quite happy to be British this summer with regards to sport (which I didn't so much last year...).

Firstly, England have played seven matches in the current World Cup Qualifiers and have won all of them. We've scored 26 goals in these matches, conceding only 4, and for the first time in a long while, my expectations for them to win are not unfounded and I can feel confident when watching them. They pass smoothly, they work as a team together well, they score goals, they defend well and even though we still haven't found a decet goalkeeper, we hardly let in any goals. A stark contrast to last year when I wacthed Euro 2008 without my country being represented, I'm now looking forward to South Africa next year when we (almost inevitably) play in the World Cup.

Formula 1 is going excellently for the British. The reigning world champion, Lewis Hamilton, has found himself in an underachieving car this year, unfortunately, but is still ahead of the Ferraris in the championship standings (ast time I checked anyway!). However, Britain's true underachiever, Jenson Button, who waited over 100 grand prixs for his first win and didn't manage another, has found himself in an excellent British team, Brawn GP, winning 6 out of 7 of this years races so far. So now we have the amazing situation of a British driver 26 points clear at the top of the championship and a British lead team 39.5 points clear at the top. I'm loving it and will love it even more if (when) he takes the British win this weekend!

Andy Murray won the Queens Club Championship this past weekend, the first British player to win it for 71 years. I've followed Andy since I first remember seeing him on some sort of early morning chat show as British tennis' next star and used to watch Henman fail each tournament. He's won tournaments before but never this one on grass, the warm-up for Wimbledon, never any sort of grand-slam and certainly never Wimbledon and this summer I'm actually excited to see how far he goes and possibly think we might get another British champion this year! I've never been able to support a British player in tennis who is a world beater and seeded in the top 3, it's all very exciting! Now, all he needs to learn is how to smile...(see above!)

Finally, although England have been knocked out of the Twenty20 World Cup this past week, I'm quite pleased with how they did. We managed to beat Pakistan and India (the world champions in a match, in England, where there was a majority India fans!) and only lost to the Windies on a technicality really, an unfair rule which should never have been used. Coming out of this World Cup we have the Ashes to come, against Australia, and I think we have a real chance of winning after the Ozzies were knocked out of the Twenty20 early on.

Let's see what happens through the summer and into the end of the year, whatever happens, I'll be glad to be a British sports fan either way.