Donna Matthews

Category: Sports

  • I love my technology but…

    …my mother has always called me “gadget girl”, because I am constantly looking for the latest and greatest tech BUT sometimes it does let me down. I’m sure you have all experienced this numerous times and it makes you feel frustrated. When this happens to me I try to remember what it was like before mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet. This usually works however this time it did not.

    I live in the UK but was born in the US and I do follow baseball when my team makes it to the postseason. I have every sports package on the planet because I love most sports. Yesterday was game one of the baseball World Series and the first pitch was scheduled for well after midnight. Gadget Girl made sure the recording was set up (checked twice) because I hate it if I record the non-HD channel by mistake. I went to bed safe in the knowledge that the game would be recorded and ready for me to watch in the morning.

    I grew up a Yankees fan but after the move to Texas and the Rangers joining the league I slowly switched to the local team. This is the Ranger’s first trip to the World Series since 2011 so it is a big deal.

    I woke up thing morning armed myself with a cup of coffee and settled in front of the telly. The game was back and forth after the Ranger’s early lead. The Diamond Backs rallied and took the lead. Late in the game the Ranger’s tied the score and forced the game into extra innings. It is now crunch time, bottom of the 10th inning with the score still tied. It breaks to the 4,000th commercial of the game and STOPS! I am sitting there with my mouth open, staring at the frozen telly. No, I could not think about what it was like before you could record games or what life was like before self driving vacuum cleaners!

    I started this blog with the fact the I love technology BUT sometimes it can drive you absolutely nuts. We are in 2023, men have walked on the moon, there is an active space programme to take a crew to Mars, AI that is so good you don’t know it isn’t real. So why can’t TV providers figure out a way to put a buffer at the end of games!! I had to grab my iPad and look up the score, all the while not taking a single breath. Through squinted eyes I saw the final score and let out that breath. We won in the 11th inning. Which was great news but it would have been nice to see it.

    Here is a recommendation to broadcasters, why don’t you put some of the pre-match build up time to post match summary to avoid this happening? I know that there will always be games that go to multiple inning or extra time but surely in this day and age we should be able to solve this problem!

  • 9 Days and Counting…

    I can hardly believe that in 9 days I will turn 50 years old! How could that possibly have happened? It seems like yesterday that I was running around the neighbourhood playing Army with my brothers, or planning the next snowball war with the kids from the next block. (No slush balls or embedded objects allowed). Before we knew it we could hear Mom calling us to come home for dinner. That would mean Dad would be waking up and having supper for his breakfast. Dad worked the Midnight to 0:800 shift so he slept during the day. We always ate together at 5:00 every day no matter what.

    Sunday’s were an exception because we went to my grandparent’s house after mass. We would hang out or play whatever sport the season dictated, baseball in the sumner, football in the winter. Then it was back inside for pasta and meatballs…wow I swear I can still smell my grandma’s sauce. It would have been cooking for a minimum of 8 hours, simmering away. After dinner Grandma would put a plate of cookies on the table, not just for us kids but also for my Grandpa who would not leave the table without eating at least one cookie. There were always 8 or 9 different types of cookies, all homemade of course. I don’t know how she made so many different cookies all with different dough. I know how long it takes me to make one batch of cookies, I can’t imagine doing that. However my mom has kept up the multi-cookie tradition.
    See I told you it seems like it was yesterday, I could go on with stories as that was a glimpse of just a couple days in these 50 years. I’m looking forward to the next 50.

  • Leicester v Bath and there is no TV coverage!!!

    I just checked my Sky Planner to ensure that my rugby was all set up for tomorrow’s last game of the season between Leicester and Bath…what do I find?  Nothing.  So, I start to search the listing and find Northampton v Worcester and Newcastle v Wasps but no Leicester match.  Thinking that this can’t possibly be correct what were the schedule makers thinking when they planned this?  I kept searching then found a tweet confirming this disastrous news. No telly for the last regular season game.  I’m still in shock!  Tomorrow at 2:00 I’ll be absolutely bereft.

  • 42-15 Tigers!

    The anticipation of going to Welford Road was well worth the wait! The Tigers were in a word “awesome”. Consider the fact that the team are a bit depleted owing to international duty and injuries. Yes, I realise we were playing the struggling Newcastle but still it was a good win with a bonus point. Okay, those are the game facts, the fun stuff is always off the pitch. We start with the error on my part for trusting in technology. Before the game I looked up the postcode of the car park, plugged that into the sat nav and away we go…and go and go. We get to Leicester city centre and out the other side. Things start to look a bit rural. I double check the postcode and notice it is LE11 and normally you would expect a city centre postcode to be a bit lower on the number scale. Back to the search function on the sat nav only to find it should be LE1 not 11. No panic yet, we still have an hour before kick off and the scenic tour of the rural villages of Leicstershire was pleasant. We now have to do a 180 and try to find the stadium again and hope there is still at least one parking space open. The car park now in sight we are cruising. Find a spot and out on the street we go. One question looming, where exactly is the stadium? Matt and I look at each other and shrug. Luckily a kind seasoned visitor to this grand rugby ground tells us to turn right and follow the crowd. True to his word we turn right and looming ahead is the stadium. A quick stop in the team shop, shirt, for me, shirt for our granddaughter and a scarf on board we are ready to enter the Tigers den. Thank you Matt for enduring our side trip to Loughborough and my overflowing excitement. What a day!

  • Welford Road…at last!

    I am finally going to see the Leicester Tigers play a Premiership game.  I’m going this Saturday with my step  son…wow that still sounds strange when I say it.  We are going to the temple of British rugby and I cannot wait.  You know I love my rugby and I am prone to shout at the telly when something exciting happens.  If you watched last Sunday’s game you can imagine what was happening in our living room.  The Tigers were down by 2 points and they waited until the clock had 83 minutes on it, (for non rugby people this is 3 minutes into extra time and one dead ball ends the game), before they attempted a drop goal.  The Captain stepped up and took the kick himself (I love good leadership).  I held my breath as the ball wobbled over and they won 20-19.  I finally exhaled and felt exhausted from the effort of watching this heart stopping match.  As exciting as it was I’m not sure my blood pressure could take another one of those this week.  Watch this space for the update after Saturday’s match.