A GLASS HALF FULL...

While I am having a good Christmas with families, friends and loved ones, I am missing out on football due to waterlogged pitches with the County fixtures at Rodney Parade v Barking (on the 22nd) and Hereford (away at Edgar Street) on the 29th December falling victim to the rain. Honestly there is only so much Borgen you can watch! One belated Christmas present that did arrive was a good away win for Swansea City at Fulham, hopefully a few more wins will follow shortly. Cardiff City remain on top of the Championship, hopefully they will join Swansea in the premiership.

Newport county and Wrecsam remain (at present) respectively second and third in the Blue Square Premier (both sides meet at 7.45pm on Friday 4th January (at Rodney Parade). Football tribalism aside I want success for the other Welsh football clubs (and Welsh football period). I want to see Swansea City do well this season, and Cardiff City join them (preferably not via the play-offs) in the Premiership next season. I want to see Newport County (as Champions) and Wrecsam (as play-off winners) promoted as Champions from the Blue Square Conference this season. I hope that Colwyn Bay manage to stay in Blue Square North and see no reason why Merthyr Town can also not get promoted again this season.

Reguardless of the code, sporting success on the field is difficult enough but made more difficult by the economic situation, which hits costs and attendances. What would be nice would be better all round media coverage for Welsh football (outside of the Premiership and the Championship) for the rest of us. S4C’s Sgorio does an excellent job on Monday evenings but BBC Wales despite a significant improvement in recent months, could do better. Better media coverage would be good for the game in general and the clubs specifically. Here's hoping that the second half of the County's season continues as it has in the first half.

My optimism (the sporting kind) goes beyond the round ball game to rugby and I am ever hopeful (being a season ticket holder) that the Gwent Dragons (“Don't pass the ball to opposition players and kick it between the posts, not past them”) and Newport RFC will turn the corner between now and the end of the season. At a regional level I think that we need central contracting with the WRU running the show, with four regions along the Irish model - while they may not know it - the time of big egos and big moneymen has passed.

A FUNNY OLD GAME?

A Saturday without football (save for the big game tonight with Barcelona v Manchester United) gives me pause for thought. As does the news that the BBC may seriously reduce its coverage of events (sporting and otherwise) in Wales is not good news. If the 'Welsh' focus is watered down and the number of programme opt outs reduced to a bare minimum - then people may wonder why bother at all.

Taking football for a moment, if you follow football in Wales and here I mean outside of the top flight and the league of Wales then the coverage you get if you are a Wrexham, Newport County, Colwyn Bay or a Merthyr supporter can be pretty minimal to start with. Any further reduction in coverage could effectively make our sides invisible. BBC Wales (well the BBC Sports at least rather than BBC Wales itself) did wake up a bit to the existence of Newport County AFC when they lingered close to the play off's this season, but, largely I suspect because of Wrexham.

Over recent years the absence of results (let alone any match reports - save when playing against Cardiff, Swansea or Wrexham in the now defunct FAW Cup) on the BBC Wales News bulletins, was long been noticed (and noted) by people in the South East whether they were supporters or not. There was a degree of parity (admittedly only a degree) of coverage of results which most people would expect with two Welsh sides being at the top end of the same division.

What sort of coverage can we expect for Colwyn Bay (promoted this season) and Merthyr (also promoted this season) when the sports budget amongst other things may be seriously reduced. 6 out of 10 and 'A marked improvement on previous years, but room for improvement' would be my mark for the BBC Sports coverage of the County and 10 out of 10 for S4C's Sgorio's coverage (which was pretty good). one question though remains to be resolved when will BBC Radio Wales finally change its jingle / trailer which still annoyingly refers to 'Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham' only?

CHEPSTOW HUSTINGS AND THE BBC

Another day, another Hustings, this time in Chepstow Comprehensive for the Sixth form at lunchtime today. Before the main event all the candidates present got a quick TV interview from the BBC - who having smelt blood in the water were were hanging about shark-like because of the 'alleged controversy' surrounding the spat between the Tory and the New Labour candidates. 

I use the phrase alleged because the whole thing has a faint whiff of manufacture about it. This is an attempt to inject some media interest into a pretty lack lustre New Labour and pretty dire Tory campaign. All in all it's pretty typical for the London based Parties, who would rather squabble amongst themselves rather than engage about the issues that really matter to most people within (and without) the constituency.

Rather than bickering, they should concentrate on the real issues at this election, the economic recovery, fair funding for Wales, decent and fair treatment for our pensioners, our serving soldiers and their families and decent treatment for our service veterans. The London based parties are threatening dire cuts after the election without giving our economy the chance to recover and not coming clean on the cuts that they are promising. 

On the doorstep - when you catch people a) in and b) with the time to talk, in Monmouth constituency people do raise the issue of immigration, but, they also raise many other issues, including the bankers, the sorry saga of MPs corruption and expenses, recycling, the poor state of public transport (especially buses to and from Monmouth town), the need for better school transport, saving the smaller village and community schools, saving the Cattle Market in Abergavenny and better treatment for our solders, their families and our service veterans, along with other issues.

Today was a well organised and well chaired hustings, which lasted just over a speedy hour - despite its shortness we covered a number of topics including immigration, the banking crisis, the Tobin tax, student loans, further and higher education funding, electoral tactics, electoral reform and how you get people (young or old) interested in politics - it was an interesting focused hour. All in all quite an interesting hour of questions and answers, even with the BBC floating around filming.

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And speaking of the BBC - they just called me (c17.10pm) pulling the usual old standard trick of saying that there was a problem with the original interview - so could they take a quick quote down the line...  Oh please pull the other one...