Sports Category
Sports news, commentary and scores with wit and added value. We compare and contrast the best and worst sports reporting in the mainstream press, blogs, TV and online. We love the English Premier League (Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and Manchester City) and all things football but we cover cricket, rugby, the Olympics, tennis, golf, F1 and highlights of the sporting year.
Wojciech Szczesny says Arsenal players use ‘John Terry’ as code for ‘terrible’ women
MORE news on Orange Prize for Fiction winner, Chelsea’s John Terry. Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny says that on night out his teammates use codewords for ladies that catch the eye. We don’t know that the code for fit babes is – one suggests Maldinis, Ginolas or Windasses – but the affable Pole says the less alluring are named after the Chelsea captain:
“At Arsenal [Terry’s name] is another word for an ugly woman. If there’s a girl around that we don’t really like, we use it as a smokescreen, as in: ‘Have you seen John Terry recently? He’s terrible’. I recommend this, it really works.”
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Didier Drogba grabs Olympic torch from John Terry’s grasp
ALL eyes were on the look out for John Terry as Chelsea great Didier Drogba was handed the Olympic Torch. Having already claimed the European Cup and Best In Show at the Chelsea Flower Show, it’s already been a prolific week for JT, who is expected to fly to Cannes to claim the Palme D’or, from where he will return to take the top gong in the Orange Prize for Fiction and then th Orwell Prize.
Oddly, JT did not turn up to take the torch, having detoured to Hull, where he claimed the Best Tourism Event of the Year award for the Tall Ships event.
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Gary Lineker had less problem with lying tabloids when he worked for the Mail
WHEN the Daily Star read an interview Gary Lineker had conducted with Readers’ Digest it transcribed it as the front-page screamer: “Lineker: England team are losers.”
Lineker read that. He was outraged, taking to Twitter:
“Headline in tomorrow’s Daily Star is a disgrace. I never said ‘England team are losers’. Please change late editions. #outrageous”
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A history of Cup celebrations – from poor John Terry to fruity Mark Wright
POOR old John Terry. Despite being unable to play in the final because of his suspension, he has dressed in his full kit, including shin-pads, in order to assume his duties as club captain by receiving the Champions League trophy.
This his moment, the culmination of everything he, Mr Chelsea, has fought for throughout his career.
He steps forward, he takes the cup with fellow Blues stalwart Frank Lampard, and they hold it aloft for the Stamford Bridge faithful to applaud…
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Posted: 21st, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
In praise of Roman Abramovich – Chelsea’s genius never settles for second best
HATS off to Roberto Di Matteo, the luckiest man in world football, who has navigated Chelsea to the FA and Champions League. Of course, you make your own luck. Still, who could have predicted that when Andre Willas-Baos was fired half-way through the season, Cheslea would end it victorious? Not David Luis, the Blues’ defender, who told media:
“I’m really sad, as Andre was a really capable professional. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to show his true value at Chelsea. He didn’t have the chance. You cannot doubt a professional like him, who won five titles last season and was feted by everyone. But he didn’t have enough time at Chelsea.”
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Posted: 20th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (3)
Chelsea win Champions League – the best photos of the night
CHELSEA win the Champions League with victory over Bayern Munich; Kalou gets a shocking haircut that Drogba seems scared by; and she picks her moment to pick a winner. These are the best photos of the night:
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West Ham are promoted – Welcome back the two Davids and Emma Benton-Hughes
HAPPY days: West Ham United are back in the Premier League. The Irons beat Blackpool (owned by convicted rapist Owen Oysten). What this means is that top football writers can once more ogle the Hammers’ co-owners, the two Davids – pornographers David Gold and David Sullivan – the latter whose wife, Emma Benton-Hughes (aka the convent-educated middle-class girl who became porn star Eve Vorley; her bother and mum ran her fan club, as told in the book Dirty Fan Male), looks worthy of her own match report. And don’t forget Gold, who begins a chapter in his autobiography Pure Gold: “Several months after the trauma of seeing my best friend John and my wife Beryl having sex in my swimming pool…” Welcome back to the elite, West Ham United – you are owned by the best board of directors in football…
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Posted: 19th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
Chelsea Nazis and Bayern Munich – the Jewish club
CAN Chelsea do it? Can the Blues defeat Bayern Munich on their own ground and win the Champions League? Will the British press resort to type and remind one and all that Bayern are German, and thus descendants of the Nazi spirit? Sure, the tabloid hacks are driving BMWs and wearing Hugo Boss clothes, but this is football. The Sun says “NEO-NAZI soccer thugs in Germany are plotting to ambush Chelsea fans”. No, not those British neo-Nazi thugs who support Chelsea, the ones who sing songs about Auschwitz and the Holocaust to Spurs fans, and attack Anton Ferdinand for being black. No. And not those new Chelsea fans called Henry, Camilla and Chuck, either. The German ones.
The tabloids love to talk the threat of Nazi-inspired violence. It’s is if – as if! – the jingoistic sods can’t wait for some to happen.
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Posted: 19th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (6)
Beckham blows out Olympic flame – photos
AS DAVID Beckham blows on the Olympic torch and makes an early birthday wish at RNAS Culdrose, Cornwall, thousands of people look on, seizing the chance to appear on the telly.
Says one local who was there:
“Usually we have to wait for Prince Harry to shag a barmaid or leaders of a Satanic cult to be arrested for Cornwall to get on the national news. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, or even Devon.”
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Posted: 19th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (10)
Boxing Lessons with Eric Kelly – Wall Street traders get slaughtered
WALL Street traders and City types go to Eric Kelly to learn how to box. In so doing they alleviate their white man’s burden as Eric belittles them. Language is fruity and NSFW. We present Boxing Lessons WIth Eric Kelly:
Spotter:Animal New York,
Face of the day – French bullfighter Sebastian Castella is gored in Madrid
FACE of the day: French bullfighter Sebastian Castella is gored during a bullfight of the San Isidro’s fair at the Las Ventas Bullring in Madrid. Castella continued with the bullfight, bleeding from his injured groin. He was not put down and eaten…
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Posted: 18th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (4)
Jimmy Greaves plays the England Euro 2012 team anthem
THE England Squad for the Euro 2012 championships have been announced. Sadly, no Joey Barton. The chance to see Barton do what England fans want – fight the opposition and tweet about what a twat everyone else is – has been overlooked. Can England still win? Unhelpfully, Germany will be stronger than ever, having taken over Greece and reaping a 90% share of any win bonuses for Portugal, Spain and Ireland.
But with a good wind and a tall player up front, England can do as well as ever they did (oh no!).
The full team England is: Joe Hart, Rob Green, John Ruddy; Glen Johnson, Phil Jones, John Terry, Joleon Lescott, Gary Cahill, Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines; Theo Walcott, Stewart Downing, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Steven Gerrard, Gareth Barry, Frank Lampard, Scott Parker, Ashley Young, James Milner; Jermain Defoe, Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Andy Carroll.
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Alan Hansen remembers to forget Liverpool and that Arsenal curse
ALAN Hansen earns £40,000 a week to tell Match of the Day viewers that Arsenal can’t defend and Manchester United are a decent bet for the title whilst using a graphics package to track players about to score. Last Sunday night, we tuned in to see Manchester City clinch the Premier League title in a spellbinding thriller. The Premier League is not the best in the world (Italy is). It is not the most skilful (Spain). It is not the most watched (Germany). But it is the most exciting. City’s win was epic. What the show’s host, Gary Lineker, wanted to know was where City’s victory stood in history.
Gary Lineker asked Hansen: “Have you ever, in your life, seen anything like that?”
Hansen replied: “No.”
No? Never?
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Posted: 15th, May 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
De Graapshaft midfielder Rogier Meijer gets help from his daughter Saar – cute overload
DIABETICS look away now. To Holland, where De Graapshaft midfielder Rogier Meijer is upset that his side have been relegated form the Eredivisie. His daughter Saar is her to help…
The Manchester City tattoo story – Rooney, Mancini and Kaka’s European Champions
ROBERTO Mancini is under pressure to get a Manchester City crest tattooed on his leg. Why? Because his other leg already bears a Sampdoria crest, which he acquired after his team won Serie A in 1991.
He is reported to have said: “I have another leg. If I win the Premier League with Manchester City, I might get one.”
Note the word ‘if’ in that sentence.
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Posted: 14th, May 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Joey Barton is summed up in a gif and a tweet
JOEY Barton is the violent and ludicrous footballer currently being sent off for QPR. Barton’s big noice on twitter. Barton’s just been sent off playing against his old club Manchester City, so his bit to spoil a brilliant afternoon. Her;s his career summed up in one tweet and a gif:
Posted: 13th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (6)
Premier League last day photos – Barton, Furlop and Manchester City madness
PREMIER League Last Day Photos – Joey Barton loses it for QPR; former Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Marlon Furlop wins third spot for Arsenal (in place of Spurs; although Man United are still North London’s top team) and Manchester City provide a fitting and joyous minute of madness…
Premier League – final day photos
THE final day of the Premier League – featuring the North London battle for third between Spurs and Arsenal; the battle for top spot between Manchester City and Manchester United; and lots of great photos of why playing all the games at the same time works best…
The ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture suits the Mr Messy Olympics (photos)
THE ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture, as designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, has been opened at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Park. The big squiggle, that demented Mr Messy, is sponsored by ArcelorMittal, the huge steel company. The idea, presumably, is to open up new markets to steel stuff by making people imagine what else can be made with steel. It’s not just for big machines and pots. Steel can make art. It can. Because the one big thing the £12bn London Games lacks is anything lastingly unique. It’s just the same old corporate bilge. Close your eyes at the Olympics park and inhale the smells of McDonald’s and Coca Cola.
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3000 brave England fans head to near-certain death in Ukraine
SO. Why are just 3,000 England fans heading to Ukraine to watch England play in the Euro 2012 football tournament?
It’s the Sun’s font-page story – and the Sun’s Nick Parker knows the answer in his “EXCLUSIVE SUN INVESTIGATION”:
Supporters have been put off by drab host cities, the threat from bigoted local thugs and the unfancied prospects of Theo Walcott and Co.
This latest Sun “EXCLUSIVE” follows yesterday front-page “EXCLUSIVE” in which the Sun invited us to wonder if Lionel Messi, the Barcelona wonder, was a racist. Only, it wasn’t an exclusive at all. The Sun had merely read about Royston Drenthe’s claims of Messi calling him a “negro” on the Mail’s website, which had most likely taken the story – also without giving any credit – from Dutch website Nu.nl who had read the accusation in Dutch magazine Helden.
So. Here’s to a new Sun front-page exclusive.
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The tabloids hate Roy Hodgson – Volume 2: Brian Woolnough’s scouting mission
HOW the tabloids hate new England manger Roy Hodgson. In the Daily Star, Brian Woolnough thunders:
“Roy Hodgson will name his European Championship squad in seven days – without going on a single scouting mission.”
That would be the same Roy Hodgson who has spent the season at Premier League club West Bromwich Albion? Woolnough adds:
He was not at Anfield last night to run the rule over Glen Johnson and John Terry.
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How Barcelona’s Lionel Messi triggered a race war
IS Lionel Messi racist? No. He isn’t. He plays football with black players. He does not differentiate between black and white opponents when skipping past them to score for Barcelona. He passes to anyone and everyone in his team. He shakes hands with black and white players. On the hand, arguing for the prosecution, is Dutch footballer Royston Drenthe, a former Real Madrid player now on loan at Everton who says Messi called him a “negro”:
“I played many times against Messi and we always had problems with one another. You know what bothers me so much? That tone with which he always says, ‘negro, negro’. I understand that ‘negro’ is commonly used in South America. But we can’t stand it.”
You might suppose this were a trivial matter, one between the two players. But in the cauldron of anti-racism, where the champions of zero-tolerance seek out racism, the single allegation is front-page news in the Sun, Britain’s biggest-selling paper.
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Posted: 10th, May 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (5)
Blackburn Rovers’ fan of the year – V is for Venky’s
BLACKBURN Rovers have been relegated from the Premier League. The fans were right. They wanted manager Steve Kean and the club’s owners, Indian poultry firm Venky’s, out at the season’s start.
It was Anuradha Desai, Mr Venkey’s, who sacked Sam Allardyce and vowed to honours all of Steve Kean’s contract no matter what. As he said:
“Without stability you cannot have success, and this provides stability. It is the way we work.”
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Posted: 7th, May 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
Katy Andrews is our painful athletics fail of the day
PAINFUL fall of the day stars Katy Andrews, running for Brigham Young University in the 3,000 metre steeplechase at the Robison Invitational in Provo, Utah. Watch this and let us know if you smiled or winced?
Alex Ferguson bemoans changing the FA Cup his Manchester United once ignored
MANCHESTER United manger Sir Alex Ferguson is upset that Chelsea’s victory in the FA Cup final over Liverpool was moved to a 5:15 kick off rather than the usual 1500. (Others may bemoan the fact that the (yikes!) Budweiser FA Cup that used to mark the end of the English domestic football season is now shoe-horned between Premier League matches.
Says Ferguson:
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. They have changed the most prestigious cup competition in the world just to get an audience.”
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