baden powell would have been proud: arsenal's youngsters (average age 19) drove past a rejuvenated blackburn rovers to reach the semi-finals of the league (carling) cup. we started brightly running in 2 gaols from diaby and eduardo without the home team really waking up. mark hughes must have been fuming on the sidelines this was such a limp and un-blackburn like performance. then a dubious off side decision allowed rocky santa claus to give rovers a sniff of something before half-time. hughes did his work in the dressing room and rovers were back to their usual ugly but effective (and not unskillful) selves. father christmas got a second and then it looked as if they might sneak it. we had our chances and the game was heading for extra time when denilson (who looks about 12 ) chopped dunn and got (rightly) sent off. now this is where the mafeking spirit rose to the surface. the ten boys from north london (well paris, rio, lyon, amsterdam etc) held on and with five minutes to go eduardo was put through by the excellent song and he calmly shot past friedal to win the tie. bazarite went off on a stretcher with a dislocated shoulder and several players went down with cramp. it was a fighting performance and really speaks volumes about both the depth of arsenal's squad and the determination and mental strength of these so-called 'kids'. if wenger has a spare afternoon anytime it might be worth the FA's while to ask him to set up a school of excellence for young england players on the lines of the arsenal one. blackburn are a very good very strong team and hughes is no mug but a team of teenagers - none of whom are likely to start against the spuds on saturday - outclassed them for 30 minutes and then outfought them for another 30.

today im back to marking the second half of these essasy and getting ready for the evening - oh and getting a few more xmas cards

the thespian would like some nuggets from the 19th century papers and i will try and dig some out tommorrow if the computers at work let me