A goalie a goalie, my kingdom for a goalie, well maybe it wasn’t that urgent but a lot of interest had been voiced about getting a more experienced back up CD Tenerife keeper to shadow Sergio Aragoneses. What better time then for our two young stoppers to show their best qualities.

Roberto was first in the spotlight in the home friendly with Osasuna and he did his reputation the world of good with a couple of strong early takes. The Primera visitors didn’t look that good but somehow sneaked an 11^th minute lead through Ariel and wouldn’t you know it the telling pass was supplied by Mr Popular Marc Bertran. The former Tenerife full back and captain was roundly booed at every turn after he bailed out as we slid into Segunda B, I always thought he was over rated and towards the end of his time in the blue and white he often looked uninterested.

Chechu is another player that some fans, myself included, saw as at best a fringe player in the Segunda, he has had a lively start to the friendlies and opened up Osasuna after 19 minutes with a determined run down the right before planting the ball in the net to level. Roberto made a decisive intervention of a high cross just after that and ended the half with an inspiring double save.

Despite lots of changes Tenerife kept their shape in the second half and soon grabbed a winner with another classy goal, this time it was Oscar Rico after good work from Ayoze. Osasuna had little to offer after that, the 4,285 crowd was left to practice chants and songs and admire the latest B team prospect Amorin who made a sound second half debut.

Onto Wednesday and a trip to El Fraile to play Ibarra. Meeting in the little bar opposite the ground we got stuck into the owners Dorada stocks, well at one euro a bottle it would have been rude not to. Ground entry was just eight euros and we got in Justin time for the presentations and kick off. This time Nauzet the third choice goalie was between the sticks and from the start he looked secure and confident. Cristo Martin took just three minutes to open the scoring with an opportunist goal and things were looking good. After ten minutes the Guardia Civil stopped the in ground bar from serving beer, that didn’t go down well with anyone, if it had been in the UK we could have bleated about having our human rights infringed.

Ibarra were keen and put pressure on Tenerife, after 30 minutes Roberto was tested and made a great save followed soon after by a strong punched clearance. Kike Rivero, already looking a good signing, reacted well to pounce for our second goal just before the half time whistle. With dry throats at our end of the ground Gordon did the decent thing and sneaked out to buy up the canned beer supplies from a local shop and sneaked them in over the fence. A sneaky beer always tastes better and we were soon in good voice again, just in time to see sub Suso latch on to an Ayoze pass for our third strike of the night. That was about it for the game and we streamed out with the rest of the 600 crowd at the end happy with another winning game with no goals conceded. Let’s hope this form continues into the serious matches.

I don’t know a tweaked pushloop from a goiter or a tabletop forward but I could still appreciate the courage and talent of the worlds best windsurfers as they strutted their stuff at El Cabezo beach in El Medano for the PWA World Cup.

The white caps on the waves as I passed through Golf del Sur and the straining palm trees as my bus drove down into El Medano was enough to ensure me that this fourth day of competition was going to be a real rip roarer. As I turned the corner and approached the pits area and launch zone the wind boxed my ears and slapped a little tune on my face, apparently it was near 40 knots. There didn’t seem as many spectators as previous years but the riders were busy, some fine tuning their boards, others dragging their boards out into the waves, and others flipping and popping between the peaks and troughs of the Atlantic.

To the west kite surfers were doing their thing but all eyes were on the 32 men and 16 women with the sails. The hooter sounded the start of each 12 minute routine as they set out to catch the judges eyes, back on almost dry sand I was just about managing to stand upright and take a few photos between constant wipes to remove the spray from my lens.

There’s always a great social side to the sea based sport of El Medano and a mini village had sprung up with a large marquee and a bar keeping the contestants and fans well watered. I managed to catch a few words with Adam Lewis who I had interviewed the previous week for The Tenerife Weekly, he finished 9^th but had a satisfying Tuesday with the best round of the day. The female riders looked good in their official tournament tops, I found three of them relaxing between races. Eva Oude Ophuis (left) from Hungary, Alice Aruntkin from France, and Fanny Aubet also from France looked relaxed and at ease with the prospect of battling nature in front of spectators, cameras, and video coverage.

It all came to a head on Wednesday with the top five male and female battling it out. Congratulations to Philip Koster of Germany for winning and maintaining his stranglehold on the World title, and well done to Daida Ruano from Gran Canaria who shrugged off the challenge of her sister Iballa to win the ladies title. If I ignore anyone in the next few weeks please excuse me I’m still extracting sand from my ears. Big respect to all the windsurfers for putting on a tremendous free show for Tenerife.