Chelsea goalkeeper and Newtonian Ross Turnbull writes an exclusive blog for Aycliffe Today…
Hi and thanks for reading my latest blog on Aycliffe Today!
It’s been a little over a month since my last entry, so there’s plenty to tell you about.
I took the wife to the Six Nations match between England and Ireland at Twickenham, and what an experience that was!
We were sat near the Irish fans and had plenty of banter with them, but Rugby is very different to football in terms of mixing with opposition fans and it was all good-natured banter, despite a brilliant win for England!
We also attended Didier Drogba’s charity ball, which was held at the Dorchester Hotel in London recently. There’s a picture of me with Ashley Cole and John Terry at the bottom of this blog.
For those who don’t know, Didier does a tremendous amount of work for charities and good causes. He’s currently raising thousands of pounds to build new hospitals in his homeland, the Ivory Coast.
His ball was a fantastic evening and lots of money was raised to go towards his grand total. Quite a few players do this kind of work and it’s just a shame it doesn’t get written about as much as it should! Some of the media are only interested in the negative stories, but Didier deserves a lot of credit for the work he does.
On a slightly different subject, I recently organised a sweep within the Chelsea squad for the Masters.
We all chipped in a couple of quid each, winner takes all, just to create a bit of interest in the competition as most players enjoy a bit of golf. It was a good laugh, and Juan Mata luckily picked Bubba Watson out of the hat to win the pot.
On the footballing front, what a week it’s been for us! The 5-1 win against Tottenham, in the semi-finals of the FA Cup last Sunday, was a fantastic spectacle for the club and the fans.
To beat one of our biggest rivals in the way we did made for a superb occasion for everyone connected to the club – obviously we want to finish the job against Liverpool on Saturday 5th May.
It was my first experience of Wembley as a player, albeit from the bench, and it was something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
We topped it off with a brilliant 1-0 win at home to Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals last night, and we take our lead into the second leg at the Nou Camp next Tuesday hoping to make it to the Munich final on May 19.
So it’s been a cracking few days for the club, and we go to Arsenal on Saturday hoping to continue what’s been a good recent run of league form, so the big games continue to come thick and fast.
As everyone knows, I always keep a very keen eye on Newton Aycliffe’s progress in the Northern League, and I think they’ve had an excellent first year in the first division after their promotion last year.
It was always going to be difficult after winning the second division last season, the jump between the two divisions is often underestimated, but I know there’s a big difference.
Aycliffe have coped very well and they play their last game at home to Shildon this Saturday hoping to finish the season off with a win and cement their place in the top half of the table, so I wish them all the best.
Finally, my best wishes to go to one of my good mates, Aycliffe defender Darren Craddock, who finally proposed to his girlfriend Kate last weekend.
I don’t know how Daz popped the question, but from what I hear it must have been an emotional affair, judging by the tears shed by Sean Tarling who was there at the time.
Always been a bit of a blubberer, has Tarls…
Catch you next time!
Cheers
Ross
