Alan Carter has opened up a new gym for the full-contact and MMA fighters at the top end of Barton Street in Gloucester.
I had the pleasure of an hours training today which was fantastic and which I really enjoyed - my hands are still shaking and without my wrist support I think my wrist would just fall off! I'm a million light years away from these talented guys and girls but I can still stick in 100% effort and give all I have - certainly did that today!
Gloucester Martial Arts Extreme (GMAX) will now have it's fighters based there and hopefully heady times are ahead.
Here are some pictures of the new place which is still taking place and will soon be getting a bit bigger. As soon as my main blog is back up (server has been down for ages) I'll pop this info on there.
Stoke City 3 Aston Villa 2
This was probably one of least enjoyable away days in quite some time.
We reached the centre of Stoke (or "the land that time forgot") fairly early and found a pub called The Famous Lion which was pretty good. We should have stayed there - all day.
After walking for ages to get to the ground we found The Harvester which is right opposite The Britannia Stadium. If you fancy waiting 25 minutes to get served and then be faced by the the most useless, gobby, jumped-up female bar-staff on the planet, this is the place for you. The place is a fucking shambles - they should pop over to see how the one near Pride Park run theirs.
Forgot to mention the YTS boy going around getting people to take their caps off. It wasn't to be the only Mickey Mouse performance of the afternoon.
In the first half Villa were pathetic. Not one shot on target, no midfield, no clue. Reo-Coker was lost out on the right and Gareth Barry was dreaming of red somewhere else. Stoke were doing their impression of Watford and just lumping the ball forward at every opportunity.
Mark Halsey does us every year and he started early this time with the ridiculous penalty decision. Fair play to Stoke though, they deserved a lead. John Carew took his goal very well but did precious little else but for me the turning point was their second goal.
Gareth Barry supplied a terrible pass and then stood admiring it while Stoke charged forward and scored a really well taken goal. Gareth can be as professional as he likes - his heart isn't there and yesterday it showed. The sooner we have 11 players on the pitch who actually want to be wear the fucking shirt the better.
Again we came back with an albeit scruffy free-kick only to concede from a fucking long throw in right at the end. We can change the players but our habit of conceding late goals just won't go away. Halsey let Stoke celebrate for a full minute before blowing straight from the kick off.
Whatever I may feel about Stoke's tactics, they deserved the win - they played with heart and passion. Something sadly lacking from the opposition who clearly thought by turning up they would win. The Stoke fans (most of them) deserved their moment - I hope they're as loud and passionate when they play the likes of Bolton and Middlesbrough in midweek games.
Our support was OK, nothing more. Singing "Have You Won The European Cup" to Stoke City fans is embarrassing quite frankly. If we had a MOTM it would probably have been Stan Petrov which is quite frightening.
The best part of the day was getting home earlier than expected, which pretty much sums it all up.
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