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.
The Top 10 Phil Jones Game Face Photos: Manchester United Star Can Pull ‘Em
MANCHESTER United’s Phil Jones has a great game face. We’ve compiled a gallery of his ten best (so far). It’s like Phil Neville never left (he got got taller, bigger and more skilful)…
Tony Cascarino And Richard Williams Agree that Spurs Midfielder Scott Parker Has No Ego
HOW sports journalism works: lesson 546b – the press pack on Spurs and England midfielder Scott Parker:
As Cascarino wrote in the Times on November 15, 2011:
Scott Parker may not be in Fabio Capello’s starting XI tonight but he has become the point of reference in the England midfield, the man the younger players can look up to for an example of how to play without ego…
Or as Richard Williams put it for the Guardian on November 13, 2011:
But it was the 31-year-old in the No8 shirt who provided the point of reference, and to whom the younger newcomers can now look for an example of how to play without ego while putting every ounce of yourself into each performance…
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What Really Happened When Annabel Newton Met Peter Stringfellow’s England Rugby Team
SHOCK new son the cover of the Times that after England rugby union players James Haskell, Chris Ashton and Dylan Hartley, were encouraged by the Rugby Football Union to pay Annabel Newton, the chambermaid they belittled, NZ$30,000 in return for her silence. They refused. So. Annabel Newton sold her story.
What went on away from the pitch during England’s World Cup debacle is proving to be far more interesting than what went on during the games. Like most of the England team, English people saw the tournament as an irrelevance, a backdrop to drinking and larking about with booze and birds. Team England behaved exactly as you’d expect a bunch of Englishmen men to behave overseas.
As for Newton’s story, police investigated and found her accusations to be unfounded.
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Blackburn’s Steve Kean ‘Signs’ New Deal For A Club
HOW’S life at Blackburn Rovers for Steve Keane, subject of the fans’ banners “STEVE KEANE OUT”?
Daily Mirror, November 9, 2011:
EXCLUSIVE: Steve Kean signs new, improved Blackburn deal
Steve Kean has signed a new contract at Blackburn Rovers.
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Jason Cundy: What Chelsea Legends Don’t Know
THERE is a fine line between praise and mickey taking. TalkSport might have crossed it:
Chelsea legend Jason Cundy has warned his former side that their shambolic defending is set to cost them an automatic Champions League place come the end of the season.
That would be Jason Cundy who made 138 appearances in professional football, 57 of which were for Chelsea.
Legend?
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The Charming Optimism Of Chelsea Manager Andre Villas-Boas
THE charming optimism of Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas. Having presided over Chelsea’s worst start under Roman Abramovich’s, the young tyro opined:
“The owner didn’t pay 15million euros to get me out of Porto to pay me another fortune to get out.”
Maybe not. But this is the Russian who paid off Luis Felipe Scolari with many millions; Carlo Ancelotti (£6m); and Jose Mourinho (£10m).
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Alternative Olympic Sports: Badr Al-Alyani Saudi And Mehmet Yilmaz Go For Eye-Spitting Gold
BADR Al-Alyani Saudi will now prove that Saudi Arabia can excel at sports. He will squirt milk from his eye. It will travel 2.3metres. One day he will beat the current 2.7-metre world record set by Turkey’s Mehmet Yilmaz. When Saudi Arabia hosts the Olympics, they will be shoo-in for eye-squirting gold.
Says Al-Alyani:
“I will continue training until I become able to squirt milk of my eye to a distance that exceeds the record set by Yilmaz. My only dream now is to compete with Yilmaz and beat him.”
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Chelsea 1-2 Liverpool: When Luis Suarez Met John Terry
THE endless media guff about Andre Villas-Boas being just like Jose Mourinho (well, they’re both Portugeezers; in tabloid-land that means they’re practically identical twins) is ended. Chelsea have suffered their third defeat in four league games with a 2-1 home loss to Liverpool.
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Sepp Blatter’s Friends Agree Racism Is No Big Deal: Spurs Boss Harry Redknapp Wishes Fifa Boss Was British
AS Fifa’s Swiss president Sepp Blatter continues his mission to shake hands with everyone black and thereby cure the world of racism, we take a look at Harry Redknapp’s words in the Sun. The Spurs manager pretty much sums up the British position on this story by saying that things would be better were Blatter one of us:
“Not everyone likes Michel Platini but at least everyone appreciates he knows his stuff about football. He was a great player so the people who pay to go through the turnstiles accept he knows what he is talking about. Maybe if Blatter had been like Bobby Charlton or a great manager like Sir Alex Ferguson you would have more respect for his opinion.”
Yep. Were Blatter British and not Swiss – 99% of Swiss think shaking hands with a black man is a stop too far – we’d respect his opinion that racism does not exist.
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Posted: 20th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Arsenal’s Wojciech Szczesny Fails To Seduce ‘Elite’ Glamour Model Letesha Collins On Twitter
HOW’S Arsenal’s young Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny settling into the role? Well, he’s been trying to use Twitter to woo aspiring glamour model Letesha Collins, who can be seen performing for the cameras on late-night phone-a-w*** channel Elite TV.
Add to this the reported fact that Szczesny has a girlfriend and the lad’s on track to be Premier League stalwart.
Better yet, Letesha told the keeper’s lover (and the rest of Twitter) all about Szczesny’s bothed seduction. She took a screenshot of the Pole’s private message and posted it with the caption:
“[Follow] @13Szczesny13 or just give him a call, clearly isn’t too fussed about giving his number out. Have a good FRIDAYYYY.”
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Puskas Award 2011 Contenders: Videos Of All The Goals
THE Puskas Award 2011 is a grand name for “Goal of the Year’. The contenders are:
1. Benjamin de Ceulaer, LOKEREN vs Club Brugge
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Go Now, Doughty: Daily Mail And Sepp Blatter In Race Row
“GO NOW BLATTER,” screams the Daily Mail’s back-page headline.
“Blatter dismissed racism as a problem on the football field, arguing that any such incident should be settled with a handshake at the end of the game.”
Blatter has to go. Just has to. As he said:
“‘I would deny it. There is no racism, there is maybe one of the players towards another, he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one, but also the one who is affected by that… He should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen…And on the field of play sometimes you say something that is not very correct, but then at the end of the game, the game is over and you have the next game where you can behave better.”
Mail readers may also care to take view on Steve Doughty, who wrote
“Things may not be perfect but, at the end of the day, Gary, there are worse things to complain about. So, Mr Evra and Mr Ferdinand, I know you feel insulted. But perhaps in this case you could just put up with it and get on with the game.”
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Fire Plus Skateboarders Equals Mocking Laughter: Video Fun
HOW much fun are skaters? They’re loads of fun! It’s cool when they do their inventive tricks while soundtracked by The Ramones and whatnot, but really, the best thing about them is when they bail.
Bail videos – if you’re not down with the parlance, they’re the reels that show them busting their heads and ramming their genitals on rails and the like – are THE best thing about skateboarding.
And what’s better than someone hurting themselves by accident? Someone hurting themselves via collective stupidity of course!
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John Terry Race Row: Daily Mirror Prejudices Investigation Against Chelsea Captain
JOHN TERY Race Row: The investigation into the Chelsea captain’s language towards QPR’s Anton Ferdinand has not been concluded. Terry says he used the words “f**king black c***” but without racial intent. We’ve seen no new evidence. We’ve only seen one out of context clip of Terry talking. It would be unwise to prejudice the case – unless you’re the Daily Mirror and decide to lead with:
“Police want Terry charged”
So. Why has Terry not been charged, then? And what is the “new twist” the Mirror announces?
Well, the new twist does not exist. David Collins reports:
POLICE say there is enough proof to charge England captain John Terry over his alleged racist rant.
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Posted: 18th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
Peter Roebuck Suicide: Itai Gondo, A Sissy And Burying The Man
PETER Roebuck Suicide: When Peter Roebuck, the former Somerset cricket captain committed suicide, the media lost one of their own. Now Itai Gondo has something to say.
Greg Baum:
He was a loyal friend who felt the pain of others as acutely as only the highly intelligent do.
Tim Blair is cutting:
That’s why Roebuck caned teenage boys, presumably. Because he was so intelligent.
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Sun Piles Pressure On Manchester United’s Phil Jones: The Legend
CAN the tabloids turn up the pressure on Manchester United’s defensive tyro Phil Jones? Yes. Today’s Sun headline spread over two pages declares:
JONES IS ALREADY A LEGEND. HE’S UP THERE WITH BARESI AND HIERRO SAYS CAPELLO.
Phil Jones, the 19-year-old with three England caps is as good as AC Milan great Franco Baresi (82 caps for Italy; three European Cups) and Real Madrid’s Fernando Hierro (89 caps for Spain; three European Cups)?
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Sepp Blatter Uses The John Terry Defence: Fifa President Says Black Is White And White Is Black
SEPP Blatter, the Fifa President, says there is no racism in football. Sepp Blatter says victims of racism should just shake the hand of their abuser and stop complaining. He then clarifies his views with a Fifa in press release illustrated by this picture (see left). Anorak is not sure what went on before the handshake but imagines it might have involved fertile and crude racial abuse of a type that should be left in the Fifa boardroom, a place where normal rules of decency and law no longer apply.
Says Sepp, the white nigger:
I would like to make it very clear, I am committed to the fight against racism and any type of discrimination in football and in society. I have been personally leading this battle against racism in football, which FIFA has been fighting against throughout the past years through campaigns in all of our competitions such as the “Say no to racism” campaign.
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Posted: 17th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
As Chelsea’s Terry Sweats And Liverpool’s Suarez Is Charged Over Alleged Racism Sepp Blatter Blames The Victims
AS Chelsea’s John Terry waits, the FA move against Liverpool’s Luis Suarez, who allegedly racially abused Manchester United’s Patrice Evra when the clubs met at Anfield on October 15th.
The FA statement reads as follows:
“The FA has today charged Liverpool’s Luis Suarez following an incident that occurred during the Liverpool versus Manchester United fixture at Anfield on 15 October 2011. It is alleged that Suarez used abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour towards Manchester United’s Patrice Evra contrary to FA rules. It is further alleged that this included a reference to the ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race of Patrice Evra. The FA will issue no further comment at this time.”
The alleged word is “nigger”. What do we know of that word?
Suarez says he is innocent. So. what will happen? Well, Fifa wonk Sepp Blatter has a view.
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Posted: 16th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (6)
Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli Is Mental, Likeable And Talented: Who Else Is In His Zone?
THE Balotelli Zone is where Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli lives. He is as good at football as he is mental as he is likeable. Who else is in the zone? Eric Cantona? But did anyone outside Manchester United’s walls like him? Stan Bowles? Zinedine Zidane? Paul Gascoigne?
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Graham Taylor Is Alan Partridge: England V Sweden Gets Friendly
SIGNS that Graham Taylor is Alan Partridge: The former Watford, Aston Villa and England manager tells BBC Radio 5 live listeners tuning into England v Sweden:
“This strikes me very much as a friendly international.”
There are international friendlies and there are friendly internationals. Discuss…
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Cynical Barcelona Begin The Long Job Of Tapping Up Spurs Gareth Bale
IS Spurs winger Gareth Bale off to Barcelona? Not yet. But already the club are tap-tap-tapping him up. Here’s president Sandro Rosell.
“I do not know if Bale interests us,” Rosell told Al Jazeera. “If I did, I would not say, because his price would go up. [Tottenham] would not ask for €40million [£33.2m], but €50m [£42.8m]. In any case, even if we wanted him, we would never pay €40m for him.”
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Posted: 15th, November 2011 | In: Sports | Comments (3)
Oldham Athletic, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic, Coventry City, Queens Park Rangers, Newcastle United And Hull City: This Is Ian Dowie
IAN Dowie, former manager of Oldham Athletic, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic, Coventry City, Queens Park Rangers, Newcastle United and Hull City – the Ian Dowie who holds an M.Eng Degree in Engineering from the University of Hertfordshire – tells viewers of Sky Sports:
“Trapattoni will not pay too much lack of respect to Estonia.”
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Posted: 15th, November 2011 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
Football Figurine Of The Day: Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos Does A Poo
FOOTBALL figurine of the Day: a ceramic figurine of Real Madrid and Spain’s Sergio Ramos ding a poo. The object d’art is a ‘Caganers’ (a symbol of fertilization, hope and prosperity for the coming year) are traditional Christmas fare in Catalonia, dating back to the 18th century.
Says Chris at Pies:
Catalonians hide the shitty widgets in their Nativity scenes and invite friends to find them. Kind of like ‘Where’s Wally?’, but with turds.
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Peter Roebuck’s Suicide Dive: Sun Buries Neil Manthorp’s Flawed Genius With Nudge And Wink
PETER Roebuck committed suicide. The Somerset cricketer who became a journalist “dived six floors to his death from a South African hotel room after he was questioned by police over an alleged sexual assault against a young man he met on Facebook“.
So says the Times, using the word “dived” to add drama to a story that need no embellishment.
The man who says he went to room 623 of the Southern Sun Newlands Hotel is aged 26. He is Zimbabwean.
South African newspaper, The New Age, quoted a source as saying that Mr Roebuck allegedly tried to seduce the Facebook friend and to have sex with him against his will. Police say they confronted Mr Roebuck at about 9pm on Saturday with the intention of making an arrest.
The praise for Roebuck has ben fluid. But this is an open investigation. In 2001, Roebuck was given a suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to common assault against three 19-year-old South African men whom he had put up in his Somerset home while coaching them. Roebuck had caned them for what he claimed was slackness.
Judge Graham Hume Jones told Roebuck at his trial that his action had been “inappropriate”. He said: “It seems so unusual that it must have been done to satisfy some need in you. You used your position to abuse these boys and humiliate them.”
Roebuck was sentenced to four months in jail for each count, with the sentences suspended for two years, at Taunton Crown Court.
But he could write…
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
It was just after 9 o’clock on Saturday night when Roebuck, 55, rang [ABC commentator Jim] Maxwell – who was also staying on the sixth floor of the Southern Sun Hotel, Newlands – to ask him to hurry to his room.
On arrival, Maxwell found two policemen and Roebuck stunned by news that a 26-year-old Zimbabwean man had accused him of sexual assault.
Peter Lalor adds:
Maxwell, a friend of Roebuck for more than 30 years, found him in a distressed state asking if he could contact his student friends and a lawyer.
The police asked Maxwell to leave the room. “I asked the detective if he could give me his phone number so I could speak with him later and he followed me into the hall,” Maxwell told The Australian last night. “That left him (Roebuck) with just one person and I think that is when he jumped.”
Maxwell went down the corridor to fellow ABC commentator Drew Morphett’s room and they heard the detective speaking on the phone saying “there is a complication” and “jumped out the window, I think he is dead”.
The Sun loads the words against Roebuck:
Bachelor Roebuck, 55, arranged to meet the handsome 26-year-old from a poor Zimbabwean family after making an online offer to help him through university.
But the unidentified victim called cops, claiming he was cornered and sexually assaulted at a hotel in Cape Town, South Africa.
Saturday’s assault was said to be so serious he requested counselling. A source close to the case said: “The young man is not gay and is not a sex worker. He needs money to go to university. He contacted Roebuck after a friend said he might sponsor him. But he said Roebuck pounced on him. It has left him traumatised. He got away but was so shocked it took days for his girlfriend to talk him into going to the police. Roebuck was about to be arrested when he jumped from the window.”
The New Age reports:
But when The New Age queried an indecent assault charge laid at Claremont police station and spoke to Capt Malusi Mgxwathi on Sunday, Mgxwathi said: “This is the same man who committed suicide at the hotel.”
The New Age source – who on Sunday spoke on condition of anonymity – said Roebuck jumped to his death when he was informed that a complaint of a sexual nature had been made against him by a friend whom he met on Facebook.
Roebuck 55, who arrived in Cape Town from Pietermaritzburg earlier last week, allegedly met the 26-year-old male a few days ago.
The pair later met at the hotel, where they were allegedly meant to discuss a possible university sponsorship for the male Zimbabwean.
The New Age source said Roebuck allegedly tried to seduce the Facebook friend and have sex with him against his will.
The man reportedly went to Claremont police station and laid charges of indecent assault against Roebuck. When police confronted Roebuck in his hotel at about 9pm on Saturday, with the intention of effecting an arrest, the British man allegedly asked to be allowed to change his clothes. In the process he managed to move close to a window and jumped out.
SHOCK. Bewilderment. Grief. These were just some of the emotions palpable in the sprawling student digs Peter Roebuck had set up for students who said he was like a dad to them and who had given them hope when, in most cases, there had been none. The house close to the University of KwaZulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg campus in the suburb of Scottsville was where Roebuck spent six months of each year. ”When he was here, we would eat meals together. He would spend time with us together and he would regularly speak to us separately,” said Dennis Chadya, 24. ‘Peter touched lives on a grand magnitude,” said Prosper Tsvanhu, on a cricketing scholarship at the university – thanks to Roebuck.
”I was playing in Zimbabwe but nobody wanted to play with us. My coach recommended me to Peter. He managed to organise the cricketing scholarship for me at the university and has been helping me with food and accommodation. Peter gave in many ways. He was a mentor. A father figure. He seemed to have this moral compass and moral obligation to assist others. He was concerned about everyone’s well-being. He was terribly concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe and felt people must not just complain. They should do something. That is what he was doing. He touched so many lives.”
Neil Manthorp knew Roebuck (do read it all):
I first met him when he was still playing first-class cricket and our paths crossed in press boxes and commentary boxes on a regular basis for the next 23 years.
For a long time, like many of his colleagues both on and off the field, I was intimidated by his eccentricities. We naturally fear or avoid what we don’t understand – human instinct. But I didn’t avoid conversation, far from it. I just avoided debate on the basis that I didn’t stand a chance and preferred to defer to his vastly superior knowledge.
Then, almost a decade after we first met, he was travelling around South Africa during Australia’s 1997 tour of South Africa looking more and more dishevelled. Nobody ever saw him at the ‘usual’ hotels and he brushed off my queries about his accommodation with a casual “oh, just with friends.”
We had just moved into a house we really could not afford and furniture was not only second hand but sparse. Still, I invited him to stay and he gladly accepted. He wore tracksuit pants the first evening which must have been at least 20 years old and a sleeveless Somerset sweater that was filthy, and smelly. My wife asked, understandably, when it had last been washed. He looked down at his chest and then up to her before replying, nonplussed: “But, it’s a cricket sweater…?” Evidently they were not intended to be washed. That night she put the entire contents of his duffle bag in the washing machine…
We had a new puppy at the time and we were battling to train it. The only decent piece of furniture we had was a beige sofa. The puppy fell in love with it and, if it wasn’t trying to jump on it, it was chewing the legs off it. He sat down on it and the puppy jumped on him. I removed the dog and asked our guest not to encourage it. This request was infinitely more difficult to comprehend than washing a dirty sweater – and impossible to comply with. So the dog stayed. It was a bit like having two dogs, actually. One was only a little bit better house-trained than the other.
One was a stubborn animal with a sense of mischief which seemed to revel in the attention it got from doing something naughty, and the other was a six-month old Ridgeback puppy.
Such are the facts…
Posted: 15th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
John Terry Race Row: The Sun Turns Chelsea Captain Into Mad Dog Gaddafi
JOHN Terry Race Row: The Sun turns the Chelsea captain into Colonel Gaddafi.
Sun (back page): “JT: WORLD BACKS ME – I’ve had support across the planet!”
The Sun does it’s best to make the Chelsea captain appear delusional – football’s answer to Colonel Gaddafi just before his capture.
At yesterday’s England press conference, Terry performed well. It was the first time he had spoken to the press since since the racism allegations aired. An FA wonk acting as Minster for Information prevented journalists from asking questions about the matter. Well, almost, because one did contrive to ask:
“John I’ve known you for years – you’re not a racist are you?”
The question was batted away. And then Terry, sitting uprights and looking directly out, said he loved playing for England. He used to dream about it – “as I am sure everybody in this room did“.
With that Terry had built a bridge between the hacks and the platform. And no-one shouted out:
“But that’s why your behaviour matters, JT. You’re living our dream. You have to behave well, look honest, honourable, trustworthy and decent. Your holding a sharp pin to our thought bubble.”
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