football | Wait until next year

October 10, 2009

Sports pages I’ve enjoyed this week

Hi folks. Talking of sports pages, does anyone remember “Sportspages”, the sports book shop on Charing Cross Road, London? I really miss that place. It went out of business, sadly, but this site sprung up, so the name, if not the company, lives on. I miss having a whole bookshop full of sports books and magazines to browse through, though.

CORRECTION: Sportspages does live on, as Word of Sport. It’s well worth a look. See comments for more details.

Just a few bits and pieces from me this week:

Faith and Fear in Flushing is falling in loathe again with the Yankees. It’s funny how disliking rivals is as much a part of sport as loving your own team.

Tonight’s England game against Ukraine is only on the internet. Pitch Invasion and Twohundredpercent share their thoughts on it. I think it’s an interesting development, but I’m not yet convinced it will be a success. I doubt I’ll order it…I’m planning on going to a match today, and doubt I’ll be back in time. I’m sure many people are in the same boat. And with England already qualified for the World Cup this is far from a ‘must watch’ game. Bet365’s deal seems the best bet (excuse the horrible pun) for ordering it. Start an account with them and once you’ve deposited some cash you can watch the game for free.

What sports stuff have you enjoyed on the web this week? Will you be ordering the England game?

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October 3, 2009

Come Hull or high water

A frankly bizarre story yesterday, with Hull City, and their colourful (that colour predominantly being orange) manager Phil Brown, playing their part in some sort of Samaritian-esque fable.

Brown decided that he would take his players for a walk, as part of his efforts to turn around what has been a poor start to the season. I’ll let Phil himself take up the story:

“I have been up on the Humber Bridge many times. I walk over the Humber on many nights in the week. I was born on the river [Tyne] and I get strength from the river.

“We were looking for clarity up there. Did we find it? Absolutely. When you are jogging you cannot speak, when you are walking you can.”

But clarity was not all they found.

“We walked across the Humber Bridge on Wednesday and saved a girl actually.

“She was considering her future, shall we say, but you never know whether somebody is just standing there until they jump. But there was no need to be up there unless you were a football team looking for inspiration. Maybe she must have seen us and thought ‘at least it’s not that bad’. Well for me in particular – not the players.

“She was claiming she was 40-plus, but she looked a lot younger I tell you. Nobody said she was going to jump. She was contemplating her future, but so was I. In the end she tootled off back to wherever she had come from. I’d sweet-talked her out of it.”

Brown then completed his fable with a lesson. I can’t tell if he is mad, some sort of benevolent genius or a modern-day Confucius.

“The bridge was built with modern-day engineering so that when an ill-wind blows, it gets stronger. The weight bears down harder and it becomes a sturdier structure.”

I have something of a soft spot for Hull and hope they stay up, and hope that Phil Brown sticks around. He certainly makes the Premier League a more interesting place, and it’s good to see that eccentricity can still survive in sport. And after this week’s events, he’s a bit of a hero, really.

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September 29, 2009

Bill Shankly

“Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.”

Bill Shankly died 28 years ago today.

Photograph by J. Clark via Flickr

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September 28, 2009

Fernando Torres and the stolen moment

Ha. I realise that the title sounds a little like some sort of twisted Mills & Boon novel. But then, this is something of a love letter to ‘El Nino’. His performance on Saturday, scoring a hat-trick against the hapless Hull, was a thing of beauty. While he can score scrappy goals, that wasn’t his method on this occasion. Each goal was taken with phenomenal grace, poise and thought.

And that’s what makes Torres such a fascinating player to watch. He is not purely instinctive. He doesn’t such prod at the ball, or find himself in the right place at the right time. On Saturday, each time he got the ball before scoring he still had plenty of work to do. And each time, he seemed to have just that little bit more time than anyone else on the pitch.

Like all truly great players, he seems able to ‘steal’ a moment in order to make the right decision. With a single touch, shimmy or pause he puts himself in control. Slow-motion replays show him at his best. He has that ‘stolen moment’, that split-second pause, where he can process all the information before him and plot his course. And then with absolute calm, execute it. No panic, no unnecessary rush.

The perfect moment to illustrate this was when Torres rounded the Hull ‘keeper Myhill. A lesser player would have snatched at the chance. Torres’ thought and skill made the likely outcome, of a goal, a certainty.

The confidence and presence of mind it takes to do this is almost unfathomable, and as Hull found out to their cost, almost impossible to defend against.

14 Comments

September 27, 2009

Sports stuff I’ve enjoyed this week

Here’s some of what I’ve enjoyed reading in the world of sport this week…

I’m always a sucker for nostalgia, and there’s something I love about obsolete technology too, so I enjoyed reading Twohundredpercent’s look at the imminent demise of teletext very much indeed. The television text service was for many years the main way to access the latest football scores on a Saturday afternoon, with the added drama of having to wait for the right page to come up (and then inevitably looking away and missing them at the crucial moment). In this age where everything is available on demand, and Soccer Saturday’s constantly scrolling results, it’s fun to think back to how things were in simpler times.

Geegeez looks at the trends for November’s Melbourne Cup, if you could do with a few pointers for one of the world’s biggest horse races. I could always do with some help with how to not lose my money, so this is very welcome.

And there’s fun to be had at the Rogue’s Baseball Index, a sort of urban dictionary of, well, baseball.

What sporting stuff have you been looking at this week?

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Category: football