Worthy favourites – but no room for below-par show

The Oldham golakeper writes every week for Chron Sport

THE RYDER Cup got underway today and like a lot of footballers, I will be glued to the action.

The European team has been addressed by Sir Alex Ferguson and this is the sort of tournament where ideas like that can be made to count.

He is an inspirational person and this tournament is so much about which side is inspired most.

I believe the Europeans have it locked down again this time, especially with home advantage at Gleneagles.

Here at the club we have our own little golf school. Handicaps are a closely guarded secret, but suffice to say I wasn’t very happy to lose to James Dayton this week. The others involved are Joseph Mills and James Wilson.

From penalty strokes to penalty shoot-outs, the one between Liverpool and Middlesbrough was amazing this week. I have never seen it come full circle before, with even the goalkeepers forced to step up.

As a ’keeper, if you save one out of five you are almost disappointed. I saved a couple in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy defeat against Chesterfield last season, which just went to prove how quickly ecstasy can turn to agony.

There weren’t many saves to make at Notts County. We continue to look very solid and it was another clean sheet as well - that’s five in six games.

When you are involved in a game, a clean sheet means something. But I would rather take a 3-2 that helps the team out than another 0-0 draw on Saturday.

We won’t be underdogs against Scunthorpe and we will set out to pick up the three points we feel we should have taken at Notts County.

We are the favourites and that is a tag we — like the European Ryder Cup team — are happy with.