Seagulls with altitude sickness...

I’m one of those football fans who associate themselves with an adopted team in each of the top divisions. First and foremost, I am a Newcastle United fan, but I follow other teams loosely too...

npower Championship – Preston North End

npower League One – Brighton & Hove Albion

Blue Square Bet Premier – Bath City

You’ll notice straight away that I don’t support a League Two side, and all I can say is that I’m still searching! As for my other teams, it’s been a mixed season so far. Preston North End are rock bottom of the Championship with just 5 wins in 30 matches and are almost destined for relegation.

Brighton & Hove Albion, by contrast, are just one place behind North End in the Football League standings, sitting prettily in pole position in League One when mid-table obscurity was predicted at the beginning of the season.

Bath City are enjoying a fantastic term, happily lost in the mid-table places, well clear of the relegation zone and dreaming of play-off hope. Adie Britton has done a fantastic job with a bunch of part-time footballers!

It is Brighton though that I would like to draw closer attention to. The last time they were promoted to the Championship, they had Bobby Zamora scoring goals for fun at the Withdean Stadium. This time, it’s more of a combined effort in the goalscoring department. Kazenga Lua Lua (on loan from Newcastle) netted 4 times early on before an injury prevented him staying on the south coast. Striker Glen Murray has 14 goals to his name, Ashley Barnes has 10, and the midfielders have each contributed with three or four each.

The Seagulls have got a good all round team now with Kasper Ankergren in goal and defenders Gordon Greer and Inigo Calderon particularly impressive this season. I think they have a team that could compete in the second tier of the Football League, and it certainly looks promising thus far for the Albion.

And with a move from the often slated Withdean Stadium (which is really an Athletics Stadium, I used to have my primary school sports day there!) to the brand new, 22,500 seater Amex Stadium, they have an arena in which they will look like they belong in the Championship or even (dare I say it) the Premier League.

World Cup Fever?

Meaningful international cricket returns this weekend with the beginning of the 2011 World Cup in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. I think the success of this particular World Cup has potentially huge ramifications on the future of 50 over cricket.

This format of the game has been slowly dropping in popularity since the creation of 20/20 cricket shortly after the turn of the Millennium, and having discussed the matters with many fans, I can see a repeated theme as to why.

The middle overs. The general flavour of the public viewpoint is that 50 over cricket is entertaining for the first powerplays (a fantastic invention by the way), and the final 10 overs are worth a watch too. For those unfamiliar with ‘powerplays’, they are five-over stints of all big hitting and wicket taking, as only two fielders are permitted to be outside the inner fielding rings, thereby encouraging batsmen to hit over the top, which inevitably leads to opportunities for the fielding side to take a wicket.

But the middle 25 overs are lacking conviction. Where’s the power or the passion of 20/20? The captain of the fielding side brings the spinners on, and the batsmen settle for nurdling the ball to the boundary fielders for three or four singles an over.

On a personal note, I like 50 over cricket, it certainly has never captured the intensity of test cricket but for spectators who are inside the ground, there are often 100 overs of cricket, nearly 600 hundred runs and wickets aplenty. The best ever ODI I have ever watched is this one.... But I do think the middle overs can(and I emphasise can because there are times when the middle overs can make riveting cricket, but I think they are the exception) be tedious, especially to budding cricket supporters who believe 20/20 is simply the more attractive brother.

Back to the matter in hand and it would certainly seem unlikely that England will win this World Cup, especially given the lack of form we bring in from the 6-1 toasting we got down under and the generally struggle to adapt to sub-continent conditions that England have found in seasons past.

Nonetheless, there is optimism in the ranks with the return of Stuart Broad (who took 5-37 in the last warm-up game) alongside the well rested James Anderson, which makes a fiery opening partnership with the new ball. Speaking of leading well from the front, it’s an exciting prospect to have Andrew Strauss partnered by the effervescent Kevin ‘KP’ Pietersen at the top of the batting order.

My hopes for the tournament are that all the big players turn up, the teams take it seriously and that England and South Africa meet in the final. Bangladesh continue to improve, and I will be watching the progress of Tamim Iqbal closely, let’s hope they put on a good show as co-hosts of the tournament. Australia have won the last 3 world cups, but I think they’ll struggle this time around. South Africa for their first World Cup win for me.