The Olympics Are Here

Well, they’re finally here.After much planning, building, ticketing, fussing, sponsoring, proud partnering and not a little last minute panicking the Olympics are upon us. At last. Almost. The army are getting ready, the athletes are here, and the presidents and their flunkies are upping the limits on their platinum credit cards. And hey, even some fans have turned up. Even little old Twickenham gets its slice of the games. So then, what we got?

Quins = Champions!

Congratulations Quins!!! Under clear blue skies and a fierce early summer sun, Harlequins secured their first ever league title after beating Leicester by 30 points to 23 at Twickenham Stadium. The Aviva Premiership title is finally theirs! The town was buzzing before the match with flags of both teams adding to the festive atmosphere. The game itself was a close run thing (14-13 at half time) with plenty of incident and some exciting rugby on display. Quins pushed on in the second half, surged to a 30-13 lead before losing ground to the Tigers but did enough to keep them at bay in the tense dying minutes and secure the title. Winning their first Premiership title by beating the 9 times English champions in the season finale is a brilliant result for Harlequins and the perfect end to an excellent season for Conor O’Shea’s men. Expect some serious partying in Twickenham tonight!

WELL DONE YOU QUINS!!!

(And if you want to read one fan’s experience of a longstanding commitment to Quins you can do it here. David will be one happy man tonight!)

Here are a few pics. Add links to yours and we’ll stick ‘em on here.

Come on you Quins! A Fan’s View

Saturday 26th May 2012. Remember the date. It might just become one of the most significant in the history of Harlequins. On that day the mighty Quins take on Leicester Tigers at Twickenham Stadium in a bid to lift the Aviva Premiership trophy for the first time. Victory over the Tigers will be a well deserved end to a season in which they topped the table since September. Put simply, it’s a massive game. In this guest item, Twickenham resident and longstanding Quins fan David gives his take on what it means to support Twickenham’s top flight rugby club.

Twickenham: December What’s On

Christmas Tree, Twickenham

Can you believe it’s almost December? No? Well it is. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on to get Twickenham in the festive mood. No, we don’t mean skint, irritable and desparate for your guests to just flippin well leave! Just GO! “Seriously Derek, if your sister criticises my turkey legs again I swear I’m going to punch her”. No, we don’t mean that, we mean the party mood of course. When it comes to Twickenham related websites we can assure you that we’ve plagiarised the very best of the rest to bring you a few of the highlights of what’s going on over the next few weeks.

The stuff that’s been & gone is down at the bottom in case you want to know what you’ve missed.

Sat 10th Dec – Christmas Shopping event in Church Street
Discounts, offers, story time at Langton’s, music in the newly refurbished Fox pub. <a href="More and better info on all of the above: * Twickenham Town Business Association * Twickenham Town Centre site” title=”Church Street Christmas Shopping day” target=”_blank”>Details here.

Sun 11th Dec – Twickenham Library Christmas Craft Fair
10.30am – 1.30pm. Christmas stalls & gifts for a spot of hassle free Christmas shopping.

The Cabbage Patch 10

Twickenham’s own long distance running event, The Cabbage Patch 10 drew a crowd of over 1,600 runners and plenty of spectators on the morning of Sunday 16th October. The 10 mile route goes from Twickenham to Kingston then back to Twickenham via Ham and Richmond. It was the Cabbage Patch 10′s 30th birthday which makes it one of the best established distance races around.

Participants ranged from the very fast (the winner took just under 49 minutes!) to those doing it just for the fun of it. Even your humble correspondent took part for the first time. The weather was great for running – sunnyish, cool and with no breeze and so there was no excuse not to put in a decent time. There were plenty of spectators along the route showing their support and a few who probably wanted to be somewhere else but couldn’t move their cars for the steady stream of sweating bodies blocking their way. Getting applauded into the grounds of York House is usually the preserve of our beloved Councillors (they wish), and so it was great for mere mortals to experience that level of support as they reached the finish line.

Here’s the start on King Street…

The race gets underway

And here’s what the super-keen people looked like at the start…

Runners starting out

And here are some of the finishers a little further down the field crossing the line at York House…

Cabbage Patch finishers

The winner was Paskar Owor from the famous Belgrave Harriers club in a time of 48m 58s. He beat second placed Mehreab Soloman by just two seconds. The first woman to cross the line was was Jessica Coulson from Stockport Harriers. She finished in tenth place, clocking a time of 52m:53s.

And if you want more about what it’s like to take part then you can read Stephanie Blake’s account of the 2010 event in the twickerati archive.

All in all, a great morning and well done to everyone. So, who’s up for it next year then?

Twickenham in September

Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train. Big flippin deal! It also passes damn quickly for the rest of us, too. Summer’s pretty much over, kids go back to school, sports that don’t require white clothing are back and we sit around wondering how we got three quarters of the way through the year without achieving any of our New Year resolutions. Don’t despair. There’s still stuff going on to help your bear the crushing weight of your own Twickenham existence. Try these for example…

A quiet Sunday? Not for this lot.

A quiet Sunday, no traffic, people lining the streets, all for the London Surrey Cycle Classic. 140 roadies go flying down Cross Deep. It was an impressive spectacle. Brief, but impressive. And it was no wonder that the team from the police was in the lead when the race reached Twickenham, they bloody cheated and put engines on their bikes!

The peleton:

Crowds gather:

More photos on the twickerati Flickr page here:

Update: And in case you want to know. GB’s Mark Cavendish finished first with Sacha Modolo of Italy second and Samuel Dumoulin of France third.

So, how was it for you?

Olympic cycling – the lycra clad pedal pushers are coming!

Imagine the scene – and you can choose whether to imagine this scene with delight or dread – it’s the morning of Sunday 14th August and 140 lycra clad masochists come hurtling towards you through the streets of Twickenham on super sleek racing bikes pursued by a caravan of motorbikes and vans. Spectators begin to cheer then whoosh, in a blur of colours featuring national flags and corporate logos, the maniacs are gone. Yes little friends, that was the London Surrey Cycle Classic, aka the test event for the London 2012 Olympic road race, that just passed through your town. It’s happening this Sunday and, after the depressing events of the last week, it will provide a positive and exciting spectacle for Londoners to watch. If you like bikes.

Coming up: things to see & do

This site doesn’t do listings because it’s way too much like hard work. Fact. But here are a few things to look out for in the Twickenham area. The page gets bounced up the site each time it gets updated. If you’ve got something to add that’s going on locally over the next week or so, then add it as a comment below.

JUNE

Sun 12th June – Twickenham Carnival: As part of the whole Twickenham Festival thing (more soon, but we’re talking al fresco dining, music, art shows, family activities) there will be a carnival day on 12th June. A parade, games, food, performances, workshops and general fun in the grounds of Orleans House Gallery. More info to come but the basics are listed here. Or check out more events at Visit Richmond.

MAY

Sat 28th May – Hampton Fun day: OK so not quite in Twickenham but close enough. This event is at Hampton & Richmond Borough FC. Plenty going on. Full details here.

Wed 25th May – Environmental Issues Public meeting: Richmond and Twickenham Friends of the Earth are hosting a public meeting on the environmental policies needed for a sustainable green future. Speakers are: Vince Cable, Zac Goldsmith, Craig Bennett (Friends of the Earth), Paul Cook (Tearfund), Colin Butfield (WWF). Free entry. Wed 25 May, 7:30pm, Richmond. More information here.

21st & 22nd May – Rugby 7s: The Emirates Airline London 7s tournaments takes place over the weekend of 21 and 22nd May. Billed as “sun, sand and sevens” there is a beach party theme to this fun event. Details here.

Now until 22 May – Art: Orleans House Gallery has an exhibition of work by local young people and other artists from around the world on the theme of journeys. Details here. (Check opening times)

Fri 20th May – Charity Concert (rock): The David Adams Leukaemia Appeal (a St Margarets based charity raising funds for The Royal Marsden Hospital) are putting on a gig on at York House featuring “Apart from Rod”, the outfit made up of original Rod Stewart band members. £20 in advance. All proceeds to The Royal Marsden. Details here.

Fri 20th May – Charity Concert (classical): Local charity, the River Thames Boat Project (aka @TheVenturer on Twitter) gives people the chance to access the Thames and provides them with opportunities for personal and social development. They are presenting a fundraising evening of classical music on the theme of ‘Hope & Healing’ to raise money to bring ten mothers and their children from Belarus to the UK. The children are suffering from the after-effects of the Chernobyl accident. Concert: Fri 20 May, Richmond. Details, incl. ticket prices, are here.

Sat 14th May – Bearcat Comedy: SW London’s top comedy club features another strong line up: Rudi Lickwood, Ian Moore, Carly Smallwood ( a favourite of Mr Rob Brydon, apparently) and Pete Firman comedy magician. Turks Head, St Margarets. Details here.

Other sources of info:
* Try the Visit Richmond pages for the official view of what’s on.
* Otherwise the nice people at Guide2Richmond have a round up of events across the borough.
* As indeed have other sites such as The Best of Twickenham.
* There are so many things going on for kids that we rarely cover them here but for pre-school kids we recommend you take a look at For Sanity’s Sake who have loads of information on things to do in the Twickenham area.

Older stuff is below

Cabbage Patch 10: T-shirts vs medals

Stephanie Blake ran her first Cabbage Patch 10 on Sunday. For regular marathon and half-marathon runners this 10 mile race might seem like a stroll by the river. To the rest of us it’s a daunting challenge to be faced and conquered… at some future date, possibly. Here, Stephanie writes about the attraction of pounding streets and towpaths in return for a simple T-shirt…