If you are an England rugby union fan, I suppose there will not be much than can cheer you up right now. A humiliating exit from a home world cup, the first host nation to…oh, you know the rest. A friend of mine works for a company who are entertaining their customers next Saturday. At the Etihad stadium where England are playing out a meaningless final pool game against the plucky, but ultimately useless, amateurs of Uruguay. People were falling over themselves to attend this game, where England would be looking to rattling up the tries and bonus points to ensure they won the group. Now even a 70 point win won’t look good.
I try to visit the Sports Direct chain of shops as little as possible. I cannot stand the way they treat most of their employees (most are on zero hour, minimum wage contracts and appear to work in an environment where managers appear to have a somewhat loose interpretation of health and safety laws) and I especially cannot abide Mike Ashley, although my dislike for him is not in the same class as those who attend St James Park year in year out. Tonight, thanks to the shambles my golf game has become, I decided to purchase some new golf balls and as I walked into the Cribbs Causeway store, I saw some great bargains.
Sports Direct has clearly invested heavily in England’s rugby union superstars reaching the latter stages of the world cup, but sadly for them and amusingly for everyone else, they appear to be stuck with warehouses full of merchandise. I could barely get through the front door for England replica kits and leisure wear. Much of the stuff was half price, although the actual shirts as worn by the players – well up to next Saturday anyway – were reduced by little more than a tenner, coming in at a bargain basement £59.
To be fair, the shirts seemed to be of a decent quality, but who would wear them? Right now, I doubt that most RU fans would want to for fear of bumping into a chirpy Welshman of whom there appear to be rather a lot at the moment.
The bad news for Wales fans is that there were no reductions to the Welsh shirts. I would imagine that across the bridge the good folks in the valleys won’t mind too much being ripped off as long as they’re still in the world cup, unlike us, that is.
