Soccer Falls to Wildcats

The Trojan Soccer team returned home on Wednesday night as they hosted West Johnston in the first Conference match of the 2009 season. The JV team began the night with at 4-0 loss to West Johnston.

In the Varsity game, the Trojans came out strong as Matt Wescoe scored on a PK to give Garner a 1-0 lead. The Wildcats tied the game up shortly after the Wescoe goal.

In half number two, the Trojans got a goal from Connor Torruella on a assist by Wescoe, but it wouldn't be enough as the Wildcats edged the Trojans 3-2.

Garner will be back in action on Monday, Sept. 14 when they travel to Clayton to take on the Comets. The JV game starts at 4:30 followed by the Varsity at 6:30.

Trojan Netters Continue to Roll

The Volleyball team has been on a roll since beginning conference play last week. Last week, the Varsity Lady Trojans down Clayton 3 games to 1, while the JV team fell to the Comets 2 games to 1.

The Lady Trojans were back in action last night as they hosted Knightdale at Trojan Gym. After the JV team swept both games with Knightdale (25-17, 25-4) to take the match 2 games to none, the Varsity team continued their hot streak sweeping Knightdale 3 games to none (25-21, 25-19, 25-16).

With the win over Knightdale, the Lady Trojans are now 3-0 inside the Greater Neuse River Conference and will return to action on Thursday when they travel to SSS to take on the Spartans. The JV game will begin at 4:30 followed by the Varsity at 5:30.

A MacLeod near miss

The west highlands almost lost two of it’s MacLeod’s to the A86 on Saturday morning after Claire wrapped her nice Audi around a tree. I was sitting in the passenger seat and believe it or not I was happy it was a direct head on hit on the tree, because if not it would have been over a retaining wall with a probably terminal drop on the other side.

A very wet road, a little too much speed for the bend, and a little touch of the brakes on the cusp of the bend were the combination of causes. The back of the car slid, followed by wild veering and steering, and the next thing we saw in the windscreen was a large tree.

We had a split second to either tense or relax in preparation for the big smash.

It felt a little surreal stepping out of a completely re-shaped car, with only a sore neck and the odd scuff between us. The split second after the impact of turning to Claire to see if she was still with me was not something I’ll forget in a hurry. Thankfully she was looking back at me and immediately agreeable to getting out of the car.

Apologies to my climbing masterclass students who had a bit of a wait for me to arrive and a slightly frazzled coach once I finally did.

Kudos to Mr Gardner for being on the money that there are often more pressing things worth worrying about than falling off rock climbs, terrorists and nasty flu viruses.

Trojans to Fall to Mustangs for the first Time

WEBCAST.

After a big 24-7 win over Broughton a week ago, the Trojans opened the home portion of their home schedule on Friday night as they welcomed, Middle Creek to town for a key intersectional match up.

Garner got the ball to begin the game and had to punt it away as the drive stalled. Middle Creek quickly went down field on their first possession on a 51 yard pass play on the Mustangs first play from scrimmage however, the Trojan defense didn't break forcing Middle Creek to try a field goal try which was no go from just 18 yards out.

The reminder of the first quarter would be a defensive battle, but Middle Creek broke through in the second quarter as Stephen Sladek scored on a 20-yard touchdown run to give the Mustangs a 7-0 lead. Middle Creek would score again on their next possession as Garrett Leatham fired in a touchdown pass and at halftime, Middle Creek was up 14-0.

But the Trojan defense came out on fire in the second half as on Middle Creek's first play of the second half, Davonte Atkinson intercepted the pass and put the Garner offense in business with a short field to work with. Cody Woodall and the Trojan offense marched down field and got on the board for the first time as James Skillern scored on a reverse play from just five yards out to cut the lead in half.

On Middle Creek's very next possession, the Mustangs fumbled it away and Garner got it at the Mustang 34, and Garner wasted very little time tying the score as on the third play of the drive, Demetrius Farley scored from 17 yards out to tie the game at 14.

The game would then turn into a defensive battle until Garner took the lead. Cody Woodall connected with Jeremiah Davis on a big 46 yard pass setting the Trojans up inside the Middle Creek 10 and on the next play Bryan M. Watkins found the end zone, however the PAT was no good and Garner had to settle for the 6 point lead.

That missed extra point would prove to be big as on the ensuing kick-off, Devonte King ran it back 79-yards for the score and Matt Frongello added the extra point to give Middle Creek a 21-20 lead.

Garner would have one more chance in the fourth quarter as they put together a long drive, but came up empty when the Trojans tried to kick a field goal, but the 25 yard try was no good and Middle Creek took over and Garner couldn't find any more offense and so in a great defensive effort, Garner fell to Middle Creek 21-20.

The loss to Middle Creek was the first time that the Mustangs had ever beaten the Trojans, Garner is now 1-2 on the season as they head on the road again next week as they travel to Durham Riverside for a 7:00 kick-off from Lenny Wrenn Stadium.




Ralph Smith, Your Transmission Physician

Rollercoaster time again

Michael enjoying the St John’s head experience

It’s been another journey of big ups and downs on Orkney over the past few days with Micheal. But every time I have a fantastic trip, regardless of results. Duly, the wind prevented us from even getting to the edge of the cliff when we arrived, but spending the day soaking up the atlantic ferocity provided much amazement at the forces of nature on display on this island.

St john’s looking nearly as big and mean as it actually is.

So with conditions near the top of the wall too extreme, we tried playing on the bottom, and between the rain, we sussed out some of the lower pitches. We had a good day climbing about halfway up the wall, but fairly cumbersomely, equipped with big wet boots to get through pitches of soaking off-vertical grass pitches and wearing our Gore-Tex’s to keep out the rain and fulmar hurl.

This was the ferry on the way there! (must’ve been the training…)

I felt pretty down about the whole thing one morning. On the one day we could go on the crux pitch from the top, the dampness in the sandstone meant I pulled three small but important holds off the crux pitch. It was all seeming a bit too tenuous a goal to climb such a hard pitch here, with conditions against us and soft, rock, angry wildlife and without the previous 17 pitches using up precious energy for the big pitch. At these times, realising it’s not going to ‘go’ this trip, or even next trip, it’s hard not to let frustration reach the surface. Frustration with myself that is. On one hand I understand that I am not here for an easy route. In fact, if it just happened and was an E10 I’d probably be even a little disappointed it wasn’t harder. But on the other, I’m here to climb and to chase after that feeling of a hard climb feeling effortless. But all I seem to be doing is walking back and forth across that heather bog day after day in the rain and gale. I found myself if the messed up position of being on a climbing trip to an amazing place, but dreaming of my three metre high board at home. Thankfully such madness was only temporary.

Michael descending the jurassic park slopes to the base of the cliff. I decided to use a highly dynamic technique for the last 30 feet of this, shredding my Gore-Tex nicely.

Just to have been to the outstandingly beautiful place that lies remote from the reach of most people at the base of St John’s Head made this trip worth it.

The fulmar chicks are just getting to flying school age now, and we witnessed several amusing ‘baptism of fire’ first flights and semi-falling descents of St John’s Head from young flyers. Not all of them learned quickly enough as the above demonstrates.

1200 feet of air beneath the feet. Doesn’t seem real.

The best part about trying something completely different like this climb is realising how completely rubbish you are at the weak areas of your game. I always get climbing logistics quite spectacularly wrong. This trip was not different, with some impressive errors that seem so silly in hindsight, and a few I’ll forgive myself for needing to learn the hard way. But they are learned, and I have knowledge for next time, whenever that will be?

In praise of friction

My recent travails on the massive lump of sandstone that makes the towering St John's Head brought home an important truth about climbing for me; so many varied things are involved in the enjoyment of rock climbing, and of these, friction is an extremely important one. I spend a lot of time in my work related to climbing trying to explain in detail climbing's attractions. Yet it still seems impressively resistant to being encapsulated by any single idea or perspective. That in itself might be an appealing idea (for another day). The breadth of dimensions in which climbers find satisfaction through their activity keeps surprising me to this day. But perhaps inevitably only a few are commonly talked about.

Very fashionable again right now is the visual dimension of the 'king line'. If the climb looks amazing then it's worthwhile. The length of the climb has always been another popular measure of quality or stature in climbs, even despite bouldering and sport climbing becoming so big in the last couple of decades. But the actual interaction with the rock climbed is only often referred to in the context of the texture and shapes of different rock types and their merits. Through the medium of the activity of rock climbing, the various rocks on show around the planet can really be appreciated as quite amazing and beautiful stuff. But perhaps still in a way thats hard to put into words, a problem I'm sure geologists must surely share. Andy Kirkpatrick often laments in his lectures that even talking about the actual climbing activity is boring. True, it might not be a bountiful source of entertainment for telling climbing stories. But if the raw feeling of climbing rock brings on a magic sparked feeling of pure satisfaction even if only for elusive moments, then it's worth a more involved look. Understanding it fully might be too lofty a goal even for a whole lifetime of climbing rocks.

It was while climbing some god-awful, chossy vertical sand with the consistency of sugared pastry on Longhope that a previously subconscious appreciation of rock friction suddenly became stronger than ever. The feeling of improbable weightlessness caused when just the correct atmospheric conditions combine on pristine rock for an ethereal moment is something desperately hard to relate, but instantly recognisable to those who’ve tried climbs near enough their own limit to experience it. Two moments stand out - one was the weirdness of the ‘sticky-damp’ at Stoney Middleton on a misty, dank and humid day. Without any warning (i.e. Climbing like a potato just hours before) I flashed an apparently wet V10 without any effort, but half an hour later the weather changed and I couldn’t touch it despite it actually drying up! Another was on Rhapsody after a raging September squall had soaked and cooled the rock and rapid-dried it in a 60mph wind. I still fell off, but quite possibly I think I lost my concentration because I was trying to understand how all the holds suddenly felt so much better! Both experiences lasted only moments and neither were particularly memorable in other ways, but they obviously remained strong in the memory for a reason.

So the other day on Longhope I was cursing the complete absence of any frictional properties of this section of diabolical rock. So how then does it follow that I still enjoyed the climbing here? My second realisation in this moment was that only because the friction was so frighteningly absent, that the subtle balance required to move between the holds was so much sweeter to experience.

The message of this post? Whatever rock you always climb, think of the exact opposite, and go and climb some of that for a bit. The very aspects you might hate about it might well reveal something even stronger to enjoy.

Jolly Wicked Actually

Here's a link to a piece in last month's Sunday Times extracted from the linguist Tony Thorne's new book on British slang, Jolly Wicked Actually and how it reflects our national identity/ies. Tony did a great talk on slang at SFX last year and he is one of the top experts on the history and changing nature of British slang, so it's well worth a look.

Here's an extract about the expression innit:

By the end of the 1980s, innit — the unvarying question tag put on the end of sentences and used separately as an exclamation of agreement, “Innit!” — had become identified especially with black-British and later Asian-British speech patterns. So much so that, in the mid-1990s, my students at King’s College London were referring to their Asian fellows collectively as “the innit crowd”; and when Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic character Ali G parodied Asian and white “wiggas” (imitators of black styles), innit was incorporated in the title of a 1999 collection of TV shows. Since 2000, innit has been seen as one of the most recognisable features of “Hinglish” — south Asian English — and of multiethnic youth dialect, supposedly a new accent and vocabulary common to younger speakers across a range of ethnicities and mainly urban environments, which may eventually influence mainstream English. It is also seen as emblematic of the troublesome underclass known as chavs, and in 2005 jokes were circulating playing on the fact: “What do you call a chav in a box? Innit.” And: “What do you call an Eskimo chav? Inuinnit.”

And here's a link to arch-prescriptivist Lynne Truss's rather sniffy review of it.