Rob Watson
Bio
I love writing, and I love sport. So, many of my stories will be about sport. But I also love writing fiction too, so there will be short stories, extracts from novels and maybe some scripts and even some poems too.
Stories (43)
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Searching for Scarlet
Chapter 6 Jordan was rushing his breakfast, he knew Sabine was about to knock on his door any moment. They’d arranged for her to pick him up at 9:30am and Jordan already had the impression of Sabine that she was unlikely to be late. Just as he gulped down the last of his fruit juice he heard a car horn outside his apartment, grabbed his wallet, phone, keys and Sandi’s journal that he’d printed out. Opened his front door then, before stepping out, he quickly turned round and grabbed a pair of sunglasses. Waved to Sabine with one hand whilst he closed his door with another.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Fiction
Searching for Scarlet
Chapter 1 Dear Doctor Hall, I’m sorry to take up your time, but I think a friend of mine might be in danger. From what I’ve heard, you could be the best person to ask for help. The last few weeks I’ve noticed her become increasingly jumpy. I know she’s been having trouble with some guy for a few weeks now, but I’m worried it might be escalating into something horrifically serious. A couple of days ago she seemed totally spooked out by a piece of mail, and when I asked her about it she became extremely defensive and refused to show me the letter. Yesterday, when only I was in, a really creepy looking guy knocked on our door looking for her. I got a scarily bad vibe off him and it was his visit that persuaded me to seek help. None of this is enough to interest the police, but I thought you might like to look into it for me. I can only offer modest financial rewards, but I dearly hope that you will try to help me. If you are interested then please contact me at the email address or come to visit me at the address, both of which are overleaf. Her name is Sandi Lords and she lives with me at that address. She is about to start her third year at UCLA and has a room there too.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Fiction
The Ultimate Piano Carriers
Whenever I talk or write about the make-up of a team I usually refer to the concept of teams being made up of piano players and piano carriers. The players in this concept are the skilful ones, the ones that people tend to notice, they get a lot more attention, do many more press conferences and tend to attract bigger sponsorship deals. The carriers are the ones who do all the stuff that the players do not do, the stuff that needs doing but people hardly notice it getting done. For some reason in the sporting world the players tend to be better looking and much more likely to work on screen after their careers or over and sometimes even during their careers.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Unbalanced
NFL Week 9
Week 9 This was a week of upsets with a few statement wins thrown in. In what I am hoping will be a Superbowl rehearsal the Titans travelled to Los Angeles to take on the Rams. With home advantage and the Titans without their phenomenal running back Derrick Henry, the Rams started as reasonably significant favourites. Yet it was Tennessee who got off to a flying start, thanks largely to their defensive line causing havoc. They were 21-3 up at half time and never looked like losing from there, finishing up 28-16 winners. That, along with Buffalo’s shock 9-6 loss to Jacksonville, established the Titans in the number one seed position in the AFC. Given that they did all that without Henry, it put them well in the conversation for genuine Superbowl contenders, odds of 25-1 are certainly looking lively at this moment.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Unbalanced
NFL week 7 and 8
Week 7 The Cardinals continued their run as the only unbeaten team in the NFL, their seventh win in a row being one of their more routine ones, a 31-5 win at home to the Houston Texans, who still only have one win to their name. At this stage the Texans already look to be in a battle for last place in the league with the Jaguars, the Lions and maybe the Jets – who lost 54-13 in New England this week.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Unbalanced
NFL Week 5 and 6
Week 5 Fantasy Football is back! Thanks largely to Herbert lighting it up for over 42 points in a crazy game against Cleveland, my team got back on the winning trail. I managed to beat Jay who was lying second in the table before that game, the fact that two of his players scored no points was a big help. A new running back picked up on a waiver helped me out, Hubbard at Carolina was filling in for McCaffrey and scored me 18 points. Kelce chipped in with seventeen points as did my Buffalo defence. In the end it all ended up to a relatively comfortable 128-101 victory to move me to 3-2.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Unbalanced
NFL week 3 and 4 review
Week 3 Fantasy Football is a joke. Pathetic. Totally waste of time. Completely down to luck. As you might have guessed my team lost this week. I was beaten by Jess. Beaten is nowhere near a strong enough word for the trouncing she gave me. After umming and ahhing all week about which quarterback to put in, I went with Herbert over Tannehill, going against their ‘projected scores’. Turns out that was just about the only thing that went right for me this week. Herbert scored over thirty points, well more than Tannehill. Problem was that was not all that far off being half my whole team’s total. Kelce was reliable as always scoring twenty or so, the rest had a bit of a shocker. The less said about that the better. As it happened Jess’ team had a big week and sored over a hundred and fifty points, so I am not sure if it would have been worse to have wasted a good hundred and forty point week and still getting beat.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Cleats
Getting it Done When it Matters
A constant debate in sport is about how much Champions are born or made. Some people believe that it’s virtually all down to natural talents that you are born with, whereas others, including myself, believe that hard and smart work can go an awfully long way. Often players who give the impression of being outrageously gifted are actually just showing off the results of thousands of hours of hard work. Michael Jordan the Basketball legend who most experts still class as the best of all time, would at first glance appear to be a good case study of evidence for those in the natural talent camp. Not only was he exceptional at all the basic basketball skills and made them look so easy, he also had that extra factor of being able to do physical things that no other players could, namely his magical ability to hang in the air and change direction whilst off the ground. Anybody making that argument would be ignoring an incredible work ethic that would put most humans to shame. Most people see an all-time great like Jordan and assume that everything has always been easy for him and that’s he’s always been outstanding. In this particular case the fact that Jordan got dropped from his high school basketball team completely flies in the face of that assumption. Successful people aren’t people who have never failed, they are people who have responded well to failure. Jordan himself is more than aware of this, he is quoted as saying: ‘I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.’
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Cleats
NFL in London
Have you ever had something that you told yourself you would do ‘one day’? The older you get the quicker those days turns into weeks, months, years and even decades. Finally, for me one of those ‘one day’ moments became today. After following the sport for almost forty years, and saying since the first London game fourteen years ago that I will go to one of them, I witnessed an NFL game live in the flesh for the first time.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Unbalanced
Getting it Done When it Matters
Ben Hogan mastered the art of ball striking better, Seve Ballesteros had more magic and flair about him, Bobby Jones played with more style and grace, Tiger Woods had a greater ability to dominate a field when playing his best and in every technical aspect of the game you can find better exponents of them than Nicklaus in the history of the game, but when it came to getting it done when it mattered, no player did it better than Jack. The ‘Golden Bear’ has 18 victories in professional major championships, four more than Woods and seven more than anyone else.
By Rob Watson4 years ago in Unbalanced
