One thing I really like about sport is that by and large the best man wins. If you're not good enough, you'll lose. There's no getting away from that. And if you're not up to scratch, you have to go away and try a lot flippin' harder next time.
Wimbledon is full of talented players but you get the impression that the ones at the top of the game at the mo are the ones who have put the most work in.
They've tried their best to but it's not his Kournikova-esque eyes that have got him up to number three.
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It was a bit of a frenetic weekend for me - a bit like when you're having your tea of a Friday night and telling your lass how nice it is to have nowt on of a weekend and she says....
"'No chance. Me mother's coming round Saturday morning, you've got to put up that lining paper under the front windows in the bedroom, then we're repainting the whole thing - I can't decide between Crushed Mango and Nightchunder Nectarine - we're babysitting for our Darren then on Sunday it's our Nicole's 35th and we're all going ice skating 'cos she loves that...."
Sometimes I swear my sofa pines for me. Only this weekend was packed sports-wise. I watched and their stirring comeback. A quintessential British (and Irish) performance of pluck, resolution and failure.
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One of the days I was dreading over the summer arrived this week.
No, not while some dotty middle-aged bints with tennis ball ear-rings totter back and forth singing 'Congratulations' (if the roof at Wimbledon's spared us anything it's that).
Not Peter Alliss name-checking every possible golf club he's ever wet his whistle in, bless 'im. Not the British sprint relay team performing the traditional baton-drop in the World Athletics Champs. Not even one more piece of post-op positivity from a hamstrung Freddie Flintoff.
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The good news about Twenty20 is that the. Didn't they start the last Ashes tour by getting trounced in the form of cricket so short that even goldfish can get the full picture? Oh dear. And they say hindsight is Twenty20.
I can't deny that since they got dumped out like a garbage bag plonked on a pavement, I've been enjoying the tournament a heck of a lot more.
England are about as easy to predict as my wife's reaction when I come through the front door. One minute the bowlers are fierce and competitive and the batters are committed and brave. The next minute they're trembling like a field of daisies in a summer shower.
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I suppose you're expecting some pearls of insight about I have one. What a waste of reffing space.
No disrespect but... put Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and the Footballing Goats of Skiathos in a qualifying group, so we don't have to watch them scratch and stumble through another good pasting. It's just plain silly.
Some fans had toon Wednesday, which is more or less what the players did throughout the 90 minutes.
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You know them people that suffer fromI think I get it in reverse.
I don't spend my winter days in front of some weird light box like some illegitimate plant in a dodgy attic. Me, I need to spend my summers bathing in the warm glow of DVD re-runs of the .
In fact I think I might be suffering SOD - Season's Over Disorder. Certainly that's been the word my missus has been bandying around the Robson household this week.
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On Monday I wrote a blog suggesting Chelsea's win in the Cup final was yet more evidence that only three teams are going to bag the major trophies (unless Arsenal get their act into gear) and the best of the rest, Everton, are still way behind.
Chelsea fans were quick to reject the insinuation that money has bought them everything, , just for you:
Biggest debt in Premier League - Chelsea £711m; Biggest wage bill in Premier League - Chelsea £172m (up £40m on the previous year). In 2007-8 Chelsea became the first club to report over £80m gross transfer spending in one season.
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Phil Neville said losing the Cup Final . No, mate, it doesn't. Take it from a Boro fan, lad.
, we lost a Cup Final and we were relegated. The relegation felt like,er, relegation, and the losing of the Cup Final felt like losing the Cup Final. I know as a United old boy you never really had to bother about such trivialities but let me tell you, you haven't got a clue, son.
Having said that, I didn't meet one man, woman, child, pet or even numpty who wanted Chelsea to win on Saturday. Hiddink aside there were absolutely no reasons to back the Londoners.
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I'm Derek Robson. People call me Robbo. Legend has it I was raised in the furnace and smog of Teesside. Some might say I took the hard road. I like to tell folk I had trials for Middlesbrough, for Hartlepool and for burglary (not guilty). I've always loved sport. My job is to say it as I see it - whether it's in the bar of the Blue Bell or on this blog. You won't find me calling a spade a soil-redistribution implement.
