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.
Fabrice Muamba turns from sponging black immigrant to footballing hero
FABRICE Muamba is the Bolton Wanderers footballer who stopped breathing on the pitch during his team’s FA Cup match with Spurs yesterday afternoon. Once upon a time he might have been the tabloid’s black immigrant, the son of an asylum-seeking African. But the tabloids have changed their view of him. (Not everyone has seen the light – twitter, as @LiamStacey showed us, is a haven for bigotry and spite.)
Firstly, how do the newspapers report on the horror?
The front pages are an escalation of Mumaba’s abilities:
Telegraph (front page): “FA Cup tie abandoned after footballer fights for life”
Express (front page): ” Premirship footballer, 23, fights for life after collapse”
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Posted: 18th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
Bolton Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba stops breathing at Spurs match
BOLTON Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba fell to the ground and stopped breathing during his side’s FA Cup trip to Tottenham Hotspur.
On ESPN, no pictures of Congo-born former Arsenal player Muamba being treated were broadcast. ESPN does not play a repeat of the incident.
It does broadcast pictures of some spectators in tears.
So we show you photos of Muamba collapsed? You can inf them in the gallery, if you want to.
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Chelsea’s John Terry cannot gag lip-readers
THE Sun applies more pressure to Chelsea captain John Terry with a front-page headline:
“JT BID TO BAN LIP READER”
Terry is accused of racially abusing QPR’s Anton Ferdinand. Terry denies the claim. The matter will be heard in court.
The Sun is gunning for Terry, who once, allegedly, tried to obtain a super-injunction banning it and all media from reporting on his private life. Is today’s story tinged with revenge?
The Sun reports:
A BATTLE by John Terry to outlaw lip-reading evidence ahead of his looming trial for alleged racist abuse has flopped, The Sun can reveal. The soccer ace’s high-priced legal team argued at a hastily-arranged court hearing it would be unfair because the case against him revolves around a single word — “black”.
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Irish footballer wins Cheltenham tabloid sweepstake
CONGRATULATIONS to those punters who backed an Irish footballer to be the subject of a Cheltenham race goer behaving badly. The Mail alleges that one Leicester City player “was so unruly on the second day.. that security had to be called to the grandstand box”.
His name? Sean St Ledger.
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Hillsborough: leaked documents reveal police blamed drunk Liverpool fans
HILLSBOROUGH continues to be an unfinished story. Papers leaked from Downing Street to BBC Radio 4’s The World at One reveal that a high ranking police officers told Margaret Thatcher that “drunken Liverpool fans” had been a big part in causing the deaths of 96 people. The media and the police colluded to blame the fans. (The story has travelled.)
The papers seen by the Independent Hillsborough Panel show that four days after the horror, one of Mrs Thatcher’s No. 10 policy unit met with Merseyside police officers. The police said that Liverpool fans turning up without tickets had been a “key factor” in the overcrowding at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday’s ground.
Lord Justice Taylor said the deaths were caused by a failure in crowd control by South Yorkshire Police.
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Football chief Sir Dave Richards falls fully clothed into hotel pool – thieving foreigners impressed
SIR Dave Richards, the chairman of the Premier League and a member of the FA board, shows the watching knobs and knobesses massed in Qatar for a football bun fight just what Brits get up to overseas. He tells the locals and Fifa vice-president, Prince Ali Bin Hussein of Jordan, that foreigners stole the English game. He tells them not to “bury your head in the sand” and sell booze at the 2022 World Cup finals because the English “like a pint” in the sun.
He then falls fully clothed into the hotel swimming pool.
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Cheating Chelsea striker Didier Drogba’s greatest dive
AND the winner of the Dive of the Year and Feigned Injury of the Year titles goes to Chelsea striker Didier Drogba. Once uon a time, Drogba looked at Barcelona – perhaps focussing on their midfielder Sergio Busquets – and called them a “f**king disgrace”. Since then Barca have achieved glory. So. If you can’t beat them, join them. Here’s Didier investigating the Stamford Bridge grass for signs of dryness. And, after all, his face is his fortune…
Diego Maradona says he’s the Bono of football – world nods
SAYS Diego Maradona:
“If Pele thinks he’s the Beethoven of football then I’m Ron Wood, Keith Richards and the Bono of football”
Okay, Diego, swap Richards for Hasselhoff and you’ve got a deal…
Manchester City fan John Millington explains his tears
JOHN Millington is the Manchester City fan filmed ‘teary-eyed’ in the stands after his team had lost to Swansea City.
Says John to the Manchester Evening News:
“I wasn’t crying, I was just frustrated and very tired.
“I put my head down and when I looked up there was a camera in my face and I knew what it would have looked like. I just thought ‘oh no’. I can’t really remember it, I’d finished work the night before at eight, not gone to bed until midnight and had to be up at 4am. I think it was a combination of the beer and being tired and it all just went bang… There was a tear in my eye but I wasn’t crying. And it’s still in our hands.”
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Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
Arsenal 2 – 1 Newcastle – in photos
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ARSENAL beat Newcastle 2-1. The Gunners are now just one point behind Spurs, who can count on Alan Sugar’s tweets to see them through…
Mark Hughes shocker: Tony Fernandes wants QPR to emulate the mighty Fulham
MARK Hughes, the former Manchester United striker, left Fulham FC in June 2011. He later returned to football management with QPR in January 2012. Said he:
“I simply felt my ambition for where I wanted to take the club was not being matched. Historically, Fulham were a club who were happy to be in the Premier League and that was their ambition. But it was not my ambition for them…Fulham were probably a bit too honest with me. They were saying, “We know exactly what you’re about, Mark, but really we are just quite happy to stay in the Premier League”.’
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Plastic Brits: Why does the Daily Mail love big blond South African Mouritz Botha?
MOURITZ Botha (born in South Africa)was in the England team that beat France in Paris. So too was Manu Tuilagi – he was born in Somoa. Neither of them have been called Plastic Brits by the Daily Mail.
As the Mail says:
Manu Tuilagi set England on their way to a storming victory here yesterday that may confirm Stuart Lancaster in the head coach’s job. The 20-year-old centre scored a sensational long-range try in the 13th minute to ignite a performance that the interim coach claimed has ‘put the pride back’ in the nation’s rugby after the disastrous World Cup.
The Mail then turns to athletics:
Imports take GB to medal record
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AC Milan’s striker Zlatan Ibraminovich throws his hairband at female reporter
MODERN Football story of The Day: AC Milan’s striker Zlatan Ibraminovich asks a female journalist working on Sky Italia’s coverage “That the fuck are you looking at?” and throws his hairband at her.
No, not to lend it to her. He did it in anger.
Get her, indeed…
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Harry Redknapp, Frank Lampard and Chelsea linked to paedo thought sex, says The Sun
LOVE rat, five-times-a-night footballers rejoiced when the News of the World hung up its probing lens and closed its wallet to kiss ‘n’ tell models. But the Sun on Sunday is here to tell us that Chelsea player Frank Lampard has a “paedo uncle”. Slowly, slowly, the Sun on Sunday removes its top. ‘Are you readers ready for shag-n’n tells?’ it asks. ‘YES,’ we cry. But the self-styled ‘family’ paper wants us to wait. It is unsure of itself sexually. But it knows a paedo when it spots one stood in the dock. Paedos are a Sun mainstay.
The Premier League sex story is not dead, it’s just shifted its gaze to Paul Lamb, a “predatory pervert” married to Gwen, the sister to Frank Lampard’s dad, Frank Lampard Snr.
The story might have been “Jamie Redknapp’s first cousin once removed is a predatory paedo“; or for added sensation that goes to the upper echelons of the national game, “Harry Redknapp’s family in paedo shame“, or “England mascots in peril!”
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Daily Mail fails Tiffany Porter’s Plastic Brit test
TIFFANY Porter is the Daily Mail’s “Plastic Brit“. She’s the captain of Team GB at the World Indoor Championships in Turkey.
The Mail says she’s “plastic” because she was born and raised in Michigan. Tiffany Porter represented the United States as a junior. And now she represents Britain because her mother was born in London (her father is Nigerian).
This is a great country, where we welcome talent. But the Daily Mail does not share those values. Its reporter asks Porter to recite the opening liese to God Save The Queen, you know, like the Scots and Welsh don’t do at international sporting events. She can’t or won’t. She should, of course, have asked the reporter to sing the second verse. It’s that ability that marks you as an authentic Briton.
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Posted: 9th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (7)
Glen Johnson, Paul McGrath, Ron Atkinson, Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra star in a Racism Smack Down
GLEN Johnson, the Liverpool defender is talking to the Daily Mail where he is billed as “Liverpool’s only black first-team player“. That’s an odd thing to state, given that Liverpool is not a racist club, operating no colour bar to players nor fans.
It duly falls upon Johnson’s shoulders to be the spokesman for the entire black community (and where are those meetings held?).
Johnson was in the line up when unlovely Luis Suarez declined to shake the hand of Manchester United’s unlovely Patrice Evra.
Says Johnson:
“Evra was clever at Old Trafford,’ said Johnson, extending his hand directly towards me. ‘Because – I’m not being funny – but if I wanted to shake your hand I would stick it right out in front of me like that. But if my hand is down here, almost by my side, then it’s because I really don’t want to shake your hand.”
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Mario Balotelli goes mad in Manchester
MANCHESTER City’s Mario Balotelli was asked to remove his hood when on a trip to Manchester’s Trafford Centre. It takes a brave shopkeeper to tell big-spending Mario to comply or else. But Balotelli took it in good spirit. He said he’d rather leave than remove his hood and be recognised.
A Trafford Centre spokesperson said:
“At 21:02 GMT a customer was approached by security staff and advised that wearing a hooded top covering the head is against centre policy. The customer was Italian and native Italian-speaking staff were dispatched to converse with the customer.”
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Referee sends off unconscious player for diving
FOOTBALL dive of the day features Julien Lecomte, of Belgium’s RSC Templeuvois being sent off for cheating against USG Quevy. Lecomte was concussed and displaced three vertebrae in a nasty clash. The referee booked him for diving. It as Lecomte’s second yellow. So. He was sent off while unconscious…
Take the London Olympics diversity quiz
WOULD you pass the London Olympics Diversity Challenge? The training handbook for the volunteers looks at meeting sensitive issues.
How would you fare?
1. Sexual Orientation. A spectator complains to you that there are two men holding hands sitting next to them – they feel very uncomfortable and would like you to tell the couple to stop. What do you do?
a) You tell the person to stop being a homophobic idiot and walk away.
b) You want everybody to feel comfortable and welcome at the Games, so you politely ask the couple to stop holding hands.
c) You explain that there is a huge diversity of people at the London 2012 Games, which includes gay, lesbian and bisexual couples.
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Harlequins’ Danny Care urinated on steps of Leeds’ Queens Hotel
DANNY Care plays rugby for Harlequins. He has been arrested and cautioned for urinating on the steps of the Queens Hotel in Leeds at 3am.
Yeah, on the steps. Not in the doorman’s hat. Not in the winger’s pint. On the steps.
Mr Care was cautioned for being drunk and disorderly.
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London Olympics brings enlightenment to Whitley Bay
LONDON gets the Olympics. The north east gets an electric rainbow designed by American artist Yvette Mattern. Her Global Rainbow projects the lights from St Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay, launching of 2012’s Cultural Olympiad programme in the region. Team GB is expected to go well in the cultural medal, tipped for gold in the pomp, circumstance and bunting triathlon…
Alan Hansen: Why Manchester City and Manchester United will win the Premier League
ALAN Hansen does not spend all week slumped on the Match of The Day sofa until the famous theme tune erupts and he dangles into life, the golf club Authority to wax knowledgeable over the replays. He spends some of his working week writing for the Daily Telegraph. And it turns out that Hansen is every bit as knowing after the event on the telly as he is in print. His is the scatter cushion approach to punditry. So. What does Alan Hansen think of the Premier League title race? Is it Manchester United or Manchester City for the title?
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Chelsea: Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas gets £20m for eight months failure
SO. Farewell André Villas-Boas. You were the Chelsea manager for half a season. The new Chelsea manger is Roberto Di Matteo.
Roman Abramovich paid Porto £13.3m to make Villas-Boas Carlo Ancelotti’s successor. The next manager will do well to negotiate a severance package and then fail utterly. Life is short. Get rich quick.
Fernando Torres, who had hoped Villas-Boas would stick around and therebye offer an explanation as to why he is so dreadful is believed to be upset.
The Chelsea manager will be best remembered for his nice hair, ginger beard and need to be embraced whenever Chelsea scored a goal. His big failure was, of course, not to have won the Champions’ League with Chelsea. Sure, the final is not until May, but Roman Abramovich grew tired of waiting.
Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas is off with massive pay-off (£20m) and the knowledge that it was on his watch that Justin Bieber pulled on a Chelsea strip. You says he never invested in youth?
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Imogen Thomas and Ryan Giggs shaft newspapers
RYAN Giggs has lost again. The Manchester United player claimed the Sun had “misused” private information. He was seeking damages for distress and a breach of his right to privacy in connection with his alleged affair with strumpet Imogen Thomas.
He presented his appeal to the High Court. And they tossed it out.
The Sun said Giggs’ claim was “dead in the water”.
Giggs said the Sun “misused” private information.
Mr Justice Tugendhat denied Giggs’ right to compensation.
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Posted: 2nd, March 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
