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.
John Terry Race Row: Is Frank Lampard Is Too Decent And Honest To Be England Captain
TO the England team conference at The Grove hotel before the England v Sweden match. All hacks are banned from asking the Chelsea captain about the ongoing investigation into allegations of racism. Terry denies the accusations which are being investigated by the FA and police.
But two journalists contrive to weave the matter into their questions. They will take one for the press pack. They drew the short straws and will ask the questions every journalist in the room wants answered.
The pick of the bunch is, “John I’ve known you for years – you’re not a racist are you?”
The FA’s press officer stops Terry from responding to Nick and Dan’s posers. He wants to talk only about football.
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Posted: 14th, November 2011 | In: Sports | Comments (3)
No Peace For Peter Roebuck: Writers Praise Him Before The Facts Of His Death Are Known
RIP Peter Roebuck? He was 55. The former Somerset captain turned journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age has died. He committed suicide by throwing himself from the balcony of a sixth-floor hotel room in Cape Town where he was staying while covering the ongoing Test series between South Africa and Australia.
He had been questioned about an alleged sexual assault. A detective and uniformed officer from Cape Town’s sexual crimes unit spoke to him at around 9pm after he returned to his room in the Southern Sun hotel. Roebuck reportedly became agitated and contacted a journalist about getting legal advice. One report says he jumped while police were still in the room. He landed on the hotel awning.
Colonel Vishnu Naidoo of the South African Police Services
“An inquest can take a long time, it can be anything from six months to two or three years, but what is critical here is to get the autopsy reports, or what we call the post-mortem report. We will be looking at that first and that can take four to six weeks, sometimes up to eight weeks. When we get that report, we can determine officially what his cause of death was. There is no crime suspected as far as Mr Roebuck’s death is concerned. If someone dies of unnatural causes and there isn’t suspicion of a crime being committed, then we conduct an inquest. In this time, we will undertake the normal investigation. We will take statements, we will await medical reports and that will form part of our investigation.”
The facts are not yet known. ButFairfax’s Greg Baum already knows:
He was tormented as only genius can be. The circumstances of his death attest to it.
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Manny Pacquiao v Juan Manuel Marquez In Photos
FILIPINO boxer Manny Pacquiao defeated Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas. He retains his WBO welterweight title with a decision identical to the pair’s last meeting in 2008. Two judges voted fgotr Pacquiao; one could not split the fighters. The crowd was less uncertain, booing and chucking cans and bottles into the ring,. East of Manila, someone watched the bout whilst sat in giant motorised shoe… We took photos:
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South African Cricketers Amazing Remembrance Day Tribute: England Footballers Shamed
ENGLAND crickets is wonderful sporting Remembrance Day tribute:
Fun fact: at 11.11am on the 11/11/11, South Africa required 111 runs to win the First Test against Australia.
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Lifting The Lid On Rugby Players – US Boffins Want To Pick Their Brains
AN American University wants to pick the brains of Britain’s Rugby players. That is … take out and study the brain of Rugby players. It would like to examine the brain tissue of players who had head injuries and later die.
It has to be the Sports Story Scoop of the week …literally.
Left, a Kiwi Haka… rugby players with attitude
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Posted: 13th, November 2011 | In: Sports | Comments (4)
Harry Redknapp Accused Of Tax Evasion As Capello’s England Beat World Champions Spain
WILL Harry Redknapp be England manager?
The Spurs manager has been charged, along with his former boss at Portsmouth Milan Mandaric, with cheating the public revenue. It is alleged that he accepted two payments totalling around £180,000 from Mandaric when boss at Fratton Park. The payments were allegedly made to a secret Monaco bank account, which, allegedly, had been opened by Redknapp.
Poor old ‘Arry has only just undergone heart surgery and the stress of having to face a criminal prosecution surely won’t do him any good. The trial itself is due to take place at Southwark Crown Court on 23 January 2012.
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Petra Ecclestone’s Wedding Only Cost £12m And Featured Not One Unicorn: Bernie Confesses To German Court
RICH goings on in Munich, Germany, where F1 action figure Bernie Ecclestone reveals that his ex-wife Slavica invested “in excess of £12 million” on their daughter Petra’s wedding to James Stunt.
He says he and his former beau argued over the £4,000-a-bottle Château Petrus wine, the stuff the wedding guests would sip as they listened to Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Black Eyed Peas, ate caviar, calamari, ravioli, lamb chop and chocolate pudding, and pissed away in the luxury toilets hand stitched by British craftsmen.
In a bid to prove that he had not misused the terms of an offshore trust in order to avoid inheritance tax for his aforesaid wife and daughters Petra and handbag collector Tamara Ecclestone, 81-year-old Bernie offered:
“Here’s a little bit of a demonstration of what really happens. My younger daughter got married and I thought as father of the bride I should pay for the wedding. But when it was suggested how much they would be spending on drinks, I thought it was absurd and I managed to upset my daughter and my wife. Then she spent in excess of £12 million on my daughter’s wedding, which I did not know about until afterwards.”
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Posted: 11th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Penn State Students Support Child Rape: The Cult Of Paterno
TO Penn State, where winning sports coach Joe Paterno, 84, has been sacked for his alleged part in a sex scandal. It is alleged that Paterno did not prevent a ten-year-old boy from being raped by his colleague, Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, 67. In all, Sandusky is alleged to have molested eight boys from the mid-1990s until the late-2000s. Sandusky also ran The Second Mile, “a children’s charity he founded in 1977 that reaches 200,000 kids in this state each year through programs and camps“.
In 2003, after allegations were made, Leslie Wilson, assistant director for programs at Second Mile said:
“I am just overwhelmed at how hands-on Jerry is, and I think he is more involved now than I think he ever was… He has his hands in every event and you can see his real passion for what he believes in, he takes everyone in as family…. I can go on all day about how I feel about Jerry as a person because he is so great for the kids. It’s like he was put on this earth to work with kids. I don’t know if I have ever met another man that was as caring and as compassionate with children as he is.”
Mr Paterno is not implicated in the child abuse allegations. His alleged crime is to have failed to notify the authorities. He says:
“This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”
It is alleged that the school was wilfully ignorant of the alleged crimes. As such, University President Graham Spanier has also been dismissed.
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Posted: 10th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Penn State’s Joe Paterno Covers Up Child Abuse, Students Riot Over Sacking
ONE of the most famous U.S. college football coaches ever, Joe Paterno, and the president of Penn State University were fired on Wednesday after it transpired they’d covered up a former assistant coach and school officials’ child abuses.
“I am disappointed with the Board of Trustees’ decision, but I have to accept it,” Paterno said in a statement. “I am grateful beyond words to all of the coaches, players and staff who have been a part of this program. And to all of our fans and supporters, my family and I will be forever in your debt.”
His exit came about after charges were filed against long-time assistant coach Jerry Sandusky who has been accused of sexually abusing at least eight boys over more than a decade. Paterno is said to have known about this, along with wwo other university officials, none of whom reported any of the incidents.
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s Book Is A Barcelona Hating Self-Aggrandising Joy
ZLATAN Ibrahimovic – Malmö FF, Ajax, Juventus, Internazionale, Barcelona, A.C. Milan – has written a book about being Zlatan. We’ve got soem extracts from the work Jar Är Zlatan’ (I Am Zlatan). The book promises to be a classic:
1. “I got a bike when I was little, a BMX. I called it ‘Fido Dido’ after the tough little cartoon guy with spiked hair. I thought he was the coolest thing ever.
“The bike got stolen outside of the Rosengård swimming baths and Dad went there with his shirt open and sleeves rolled up. He’s the kind of person that says: ‘No one touches my kids! No one takes their stuff’. But not even a tough guy like him could do anything about it. Fido Dido was gone, and I was crushed.”
2. “I felt like crap when I was sitting in the locker room with Guardiola staring at me like I was an annoying distraction, an outsider. It was nuts. He was a wall, a stone wall. I didn’t get any sign of life from him and I was wishing myself away every moment with the team.”
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Dive Of The Week: Anderlecht’s Jovanovic Sent Off For Tapping Brugge’s Vidarsson On The Bum
FOOTBALL Dive of the Week takes us to Belgium, where the local referee has taken a leaf out of the Iranian league and sent a man off for touching another player’s bum.
Anderlecht’s Milan Jovanovic (one of the best players in the world!) was red carded for patting Brugge’s Arnar Vidarsson on the bottom.
The action starts at 2:04 mark – but you’ll like the start for the red-hot tongue action…
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Spurs Boss Harry Redknapp Threatens To Pop Off With Poppy Day Rage
HARRY Redknapp, the recuperating Spurs manger, has waded into the poppy debate. England will go into their match with Spain not sporting ironed-on poppies on their shirts, rather wearing red poppies on black armbands (see Nazi regalia).
This goes with the minute’s silence, poppy-embossed “anthem jacket”, the wreath on the pitch, free tickets for troops and advertisements for the Royal British Legion.
Over to Redknapp in the Sun:
It just sounds like FIFA are being picky to me now. And it’s frightening when you have people like that running the game. Remembrance Sunday runs deep into the heritage of this great country. Go back and look at how football crowds up and down Britain observed a minute’s silence for our dead soldiers last weekend.
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Posted: 10th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Newcastle United Now Trading As Millets Theatre of Dreams: Players Get New Fleecy Kits
WITH Newcastle United riding high in the Premier League, the cynic in me suggests that Mike Ashley may have bided his time to announce that St James’ Park is to be renamed with ‘immediate effect’ as an exercise in PR damage limitation but there we go – from henceforth, the Toon’s ground will be officially listed as the ‘Sports Direct Arena’.
Last season the stadium’s official title was altered to include the club’s sponsors (remember the SportsDirect.com@StJamesPark?) and not much really changed. Everybody still referred to it ‘St James’ Park and, after 120 years under the name, the ground is always going to be just that to the fans – regardless of it’s commercial moniker. Dunnae worry like.
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Posted: 10th, November 2011 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
Germans Delighted: England Will Wear Nazi-Style Red Armbands On Poppy Day
GREAT news for England, the Daily Mail, David Cameron, the EDL and other English patriots: England’s footballers can wear the red poppy on their smart uniforms, albeit on the armband.
It’s the kind of compromise the German soldiers Our Boys fought so bravely can also approve of, great fans of red armbands, such as they were.
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Why Isn’t The Telegraph’s Report On Alan Hansen’s BBC Bonanza Not On The Paper’s Website?
THE Sunday Telegraph’s report that the BBC pays budget supermarket champion Alan Hansen £40,000 for each appearance on Match of the Day as part of a £1.5 million a year deal is not available on the paper’s website. Also, no mention of the story can be found in Alan Hansen’s columns for the…Daily Telegraph. Could the two happenings be linked?
Fabio Capello To Be Paid By The Joke: England Fans Get Laughometer (Oliver Holt Roasts Steve Howard)
QPR manger Neil Warnock might be the next England manger. He’s talking with the Sun’s Steven Howard:
AFTER the shame-faced retreat from South Africa, England fans were united on one thing. Fabio Capello’s team was a joke.
Except there was nothing vaguely amusing about it. Certainly, the England players looked as if they hadn’t had a decent laugh in the entire six weeks they had been together.
In fact, make that the two years they had endured under their Italian sergeant major.
Or as Oliver Holt put it way back on October:
There is something altogether more relaxed and informal about the England manager these days. Gone is the stern, suspicious autocrat who ruled so severely and joylessly in South Africa.
Might it be that Howard has a point to make and facts should be intrude?
Had someone had the temerity to attempt a joke, their faces would have shattered. But now it’s time to replace that deathly rictus grin.
Of which Holt says:
Laughs are de rigeur now with England.
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Posted: 9th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (4)
John Terry: Sun Says QPR’s Anton Ferdinand Wants To Shoot Chelsea Captain John Terry
JOHN Terry Race Row: Anton Ferdinand shoots a gun; Ashley Cole speaks; and Rio Ferdinand tweets against the FA:
The Sun spots Anton Ferdinand, the QPR defender at a paintballing do. Below a photo of the player dressed in a mask and wielding a paintball gun, the Sun declares:
“Ferdinand may have enjoyed taking a few pot-shots a his Rangers mates. But no prizes for guessing who he really wanted in his sights…”
Is it Nelson Mandela? Noel Edmonds? The Queen?
The Sun knows. It can read Ferdinand’s mind. How’s that for talent? As far as we know, Ferdinand has offered no new evidence on the matter that is being investigated by the police. He says he never heard Terry says the words “f**ing black c***” until he saw the footage on YouTube. Still, if the police can get the Sun’s writers into the interview suite they can read Terry’s mind and find out if he really is innocent, as he claims.
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Coach Andrey Nazarov Attacks Ice Hockey Fans WIth Big Stick
TO Belarus, where Andrey Nazarov, coach of Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) side Vityaz, is laying into the fans with a big stick during his team’s away game at Dynamo Minsk.
Trouble flared in the game’s final minute, when the Moscow Region team went a goal down. They resorted to the tried and tested tactic of fighting with the Dynamo players. Fans reacted to the gamesmanship. They tossed hard objects, like coins and lighters, at the Vityaz bench and onto the ice.
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Peterborough FC’s Gabriel Zakuani Names Son Trendy: Daughter’s Laugh
PETERBOROUGH FC player Gabriel Zakuani has named his child Trendy.
How did he come up with the name? Well, mum Shanice Petrie’s work in fashion and… As he says:
“The official reason was [Petrie] wanted something to reflect [her work]. But it was me who came up with Trendy …People have asked if his name is because of ‘trending topics’ on Twitter. Maybe it was in the back of my mind.”
The Loughborough Echo declares:
Footballer’s son is a bit of a Twit
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The Olympic Games 2012 Font Is The Worst In The World
WHAT is the world’s worst font? Simon Garfield knows:
#1 The 2012 Olympic Font
Precisely 800 days before the Olympic Games were due to start, the Official London 2012 shop began selling miniature die-cast taxis in pink, blue, orange and other shades, the first of forty such models, each promoting a different sport. The cabs are not like the lovingly crafted ones you can buy from Corgi, with opening doors and jewelled headlights, more the lumpy ones sold in Leicester Square to tourists in a hurry. Why should this matter? Because they are an example of very bad design, something London has largely begun to shun in recent years. What makes them doubly bad is the packaging, which comes with a bit of trivia about all the Olympic and Paralympic sports, each heralded with the question “Did You Know?” in what is surely the worst new public typeface of the last 100 years.
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Smokin’ Jo Frazier – The First to Beat Ali – Loses Last Fight To Liver Cancer
THEY were the supermen. The Olympians, the best in world and both holders of the Olympiad heavyweight boxing gold. Muhammad Ali and Smokin’ Jo Frazier were the Titans of the boxing ring. The fittest and most finely tuned athletes in the world.
Jo Frazier died yesterday one month after being diagnosed with liver cancer at 67-years-old.
Their mountain top was a time when American Whites picked their favourite Black man to represent their hopes and ambitions. Frazier (probably the better boxer of the two) was the Great Substitute White Hope when he went into the ring to face that “Uppity Southern Nigger Trash Cassius Clay.” That was the sort of senseless race hatred freely expressed in the USA in those days; there was no Clay, he had changed his name to Muhammad Ali seven years before their first clash.
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Chelsea Captain John Terry’s Race Row: Ian Wright Gives A Masterclass In Stupidity
JOHN Terry Race Row: Today former Arsenal player Ian Wright wants to share his thoughts on The Chelsea and England captain.
It’s the Sun’s lead football story:
“JT shouldn’t be anywhere near England squad”
I understand the fact you’re innocent until proven guilty but that doesn’t mean the captain of our country’s football team should be involved in two friendlies while being investigated over allegations of making racist remarks.
Does Wright understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty? The police are investigating. The FA was investigating but when the police stepped in it had to stop.
The FA have made a total mess of this.
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Posted: 8th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (23)
After The Bottom Fingering, Iran’s Footballers Touch Up The Referee: Video
TO Iran, where the lower league match between Chooka Talesh and Shahrdari Dezfool features the referee in charge giving a second yellow card to Chooka’s striker. The players reacts unconventionally. What he says, we’re not sure, but rumours are it might have been “Oi! I never said I’d like to smash yet face you useless c*** in black’… Although it might all be foreplay:
Spotter: Pies
Sports Broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit Keeps It Together During Earthquake
BEING a sports reporter looks like a great job doesn’t it? Unless of course you work for ITV and have to sit with the loathsome Andy Townsend or, worse still, Jim ‘The Stupidest Man In The Universe’ Beglin.
Still, there’s things that are worse than working with those berks. How about delivering a piece to camera while an earthquake rumbles on?
That’s exactly what analyst Kirk Herbstreit had to deal with when delivering his post-match thoughts. A 5.6 earthquake hit during his piece and while it takes place, Kirk manages to stay composed… that is, if you avoid looking into his eyes.
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John Terry Race Row: Death Threats, Anton Ferdinand For England And Hiding In Sweden
JOHN TERRY Race Row: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the Chelsea and England captain in the news – death threats; Spain, Sweden, office politics and Ince:
The Sun (front page): “Cops hunt sicko – Soccer Race Row Death Threat”
The Sun describes QPR’s Anton Ferdinand as a “soccer ace”. Can it be that as the race row thickens, Ferdinand gets better at football and the tabloids are calling for his inclusion in the England team at Terry’s expense? The paper’s Shaun Curtis writes:
RACE-row footballer Anton Ferdinand has become the target of a terrifying death threat, The Sun can reveal.
Not an idle death threat. A terrifying one.
Cops were called in after a letter was sent to his Queens Park Rangers club following claims Anton, 26, was racially abused by Chelsea skipper John Terry in a game at Loftus Road two weeks ago. Police investigating the death threat have told Anton to fit a panic alarm at his home.
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