Anger is an energy. Selective memory loss is a pathology: An FA Cup final preview, whose length is commensurate with how excited I am about the game

One of the most tedious plots of next season will be Chelsea's invocation of the injustice, oh the injustice!, of their Champions League elimination as a motivating factor in their attempts to conquer the known world (no, really, they'll actually do it this time!). Lord help us all if they face Barcelona next season...

Anyway, they're getting their eye in this weekend, as Guus "Guus" Hiddink confirms:

Of course you can play out of anger. It's good to use that. The internal motivation is high in the team. Bit by bit, day by day I'm getting rid of the anger from the Barcelona match, but if you push the right button in my soul you will find a bit of anger.

So they're going with the we-are-the-Serbia-of-football method, as opposed to the somewhat more truthful our-super-duper-genius-tactical-masterplan-um-actually-sort-of-didn't-work-and-we've-sometimes-benefited-from-questionable-refereeing-decisions-ourselves-if-we're-being-honest-so-we'll-just-have-to-take-it-on-the-chin-oh-well-tomorrow's-another-day approach.

Of course, David Moyes is not averse to a spot of referees-all-have-it-in-for-us misdirection, though it always seems calculated to have a benefit for Everton somewhere down the line. And I'll take sincere insincerity over hysterical fuckwittery at least five-and-one-tenth times out of ten. Read more...

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Float above the grass / Puce and pusillanimity

We have not been cowards, never in the match. There's nothing more dangerous than not taking risks.

Row me across the Styx if that's not already one of my favourite sporting quotes of all time. That was Pep last night, summing everything up in two sentences.

There is truth, of course, in the suggestion that Barcelona's commitment to their style of play has become something of a moral imperative. This is all the more interesting when you remember that the lineage of their style goes back to the Michels/Cruyff Ajax team, whose approach was uber-pragmatic: a series of practical solutions rather than an attempt to paint a masterpiece. It's curious how this has become solidified as something approaching dogma (by way of Cruyff himself, who has preached his own gospel for years).

As something approaching dogma. If it was pursued though all evidence pointed to its inefficacy, that would be dogmatic. What the Barcelona way ultimately points to is the false dichotomy between style and substance, form and function. Often the connection between process and outcome in football can seem tenuous, even downright random, to the point that we are often too ready to dismiss the idea that a connection exists at all, or at least to downplay its importance. Some said that Barcelona were too in love with their own method, that it would come at a cost to results; but a team merely in love with their own method doesn't win three trophies in a season. Praying to your household gods will only ever get you so far, and they know it. Barça may be proud of their style, but under Guardiola, it has been inextricably entwined with the pursuit of wins. The balance has been perfect; they have been true to the pragmatic heart of their style.



Some have accused Barcelona of vanity; but the team's humility and conscientious application have struck me time and again this season. Sure, they have talked about their style, because it would have have been more ridiculous had they never. But their method is not decadent, not superfluously flamboyant. It is unfailingly disciplined, and as conceptually rigorous as anything Ferguson has employed — or, for that matter (I mention it because it's relevant), as anything Hiddink has employed. Perhaps Barça's unusual consideration of style has — will — cost them from time to time, but not necessarily more than those who do things more conventionally. Yet the failings of a team such as Barcelona will been seen as naivety, as the invalidation of an ideal. When Chelsea just failed to eliminate Barcelona, it was seen as bad luck: not just because of the referee, but because it was maintained that Hiddink had out-thought Guardiola. But a central plank of Chelsea's strategy was to play ultra-conservatively in the first leg, such that the pursuit of a goal of their own — an away goal — was an afterthought. (An afterafterthought?) Chelsea may have come closer than anyone else to overcoming Barça, but that unwillingness to take any sort of risk at the Nou Camp was their undoing, not the debatable calls.

Actually, it was part of their undoing. Barcelona's discipline and devotion to the process also carried them through. They hadn't been tested like that this season, had never faced a team so adept at defusing their firepower. But despite going three hours without scoring, frustration — that impotent emotion — never conquered them. When Abidal was sent off and they played three at the back, what followed never appeared desperate. Rarely does a team play so surely and determinedly under such constraints. Barcelona did this because they have at no point this season been presumptuous about their successes, and have been willing to think and work for every goal and point. Iniesta's goal was the consequence of this — not the inevitable consequence, but the consequence all the same.



Just as Chelsea made strategic/tactical errors, so did United. Just as an individual error from Essien played its part in Iniesta's goal, so did such errors contribute to both of Barcelona's goals against United. But it would be wrong to put too much stress on these, as has been done. Indeed, as is very often done, generally. Football analysis focuses so much on errors. I just can't get with the idea that football is a series of errors, which is the logical conclusion of such analysis. It's a facile reading. In the case of Barcelona, above all, it's utterly inadequate. The joy of their win against United was in how their style dominated the match — became the match. When Chelsea imposed their style on the semi-final games, the appropriate response was, at best, chin-stroking appreciation. It certainly wasn't joy: firstly, because it ultimately failed; secondly, and more absolutely, because of what that style is (or what they chose it to be those nights). It goes beyond simply imposing your will on the match. It's about imposing it in the way that is theoretically the riskiest — in a way that is based around attack (not exclusively attacking, but which uses attack as its core principle, in which you are attacking even when you are defending). Furthermore, it is about harnessing this in a kind of discipline that gives it structure, but which allows the greatest footballing expression by great players. When a team can do this, it's a powerful force, physically and psychically. United may have been damaged by their own inherent failings, but they were destroyed by Barça's purpose.

Sometimes I wonder if we get carried away by games like this. If these teams were somehow able to play this game ten times, under exactly the same conditions each time, Barcelona would not win ten times. No strategy or team is perfect; the interplay of each team's strengths and weaknesses will differ each time. Just because this particular game occurred in this particular reality does not mean that it is the absolute truth. And would I have written all this had things transpired differently? But, for one thing, this reality is all we have, and it doesn't demean us, or the truth, to accept what we're given and to celebrate it. For another, I suspect that Barcelona are closer to the truth than we may ever get to see.

A few weeks ago, in anticipation of a possible Barcelona victory, I said: "Such is the delight in watching them that it almost feels as if drama would taint it." I stand by that. This was my favourite Champions League final by a long way.

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If Barcelona-Manchester United was a semi-appropriate line from a Shins song, which line would it be?

And they could float above the grass in circles if they tried
(A latent power I know they hide)

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Hyper hyper

Not that I'm so brimming with ideas that I can afford to see them take shape elsewhere, but I have a guest post on the Fredorrarci-Seal-of-Approval-earning Sport Without Spin, all about the biggest game in club football: the Championship playoff final.* In particular, it deals with the whole "richest game in the world" stuff. Read it here.

*Why? Which game did you think I meant?

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He stood in front of the painting of the old viceregal lodge, his lower lip quivering

This happened twenty years ago today. Enough said.

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Gimmick gimmick shock treatment

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

*

I don't claim to be an expert on this "sport" thingummy, if I may be winsomely and falsely modest for just a sliver of a mo, but I do know this: watching it shouldn't feel like going to the birthday party of your spouse's cousin who you'd never heard of until the time said spouse mentioned said cousin's name several months previously when said spouse brought up said party in a conversation you can't remember.

Jonathan Wilson is right. Or, to be more specific (because that sentence does need narrowing down), he's right about the UEFA Cup, and about Shakhtar Donetsk's success. Good for them. Donetskians have earned the right to still, days later, be so hammered that they can't remember whether it's pronounced "Kiev" or "Kyiv" these days. It should be celebrated: as a moment of big-stage glory, as a day in the spotlight for those clubs whose heeledness is not at the same level as our mighty continentlet's hyperclubs.

That is the status of Europe's secondary competition nowadays. But it's a fragile one. A competition for those not quite good enough to make Big Cup will depend for its identity on Big Cup. When the latter admitted only national champions, such was the accumulation of high-quality teams that often gathered in the UEFA Cup that its gravity sometimes came close to that of its sister planet. By extending an invitation to the Champions League to more clubs, UEFA ended this, quickly making the idea quaint and fanciful. The UEFA Cup's secondary status, which was paid little heed in the days when it could be better than the European Cup, was made nakedly apparent.

It's a fine thing for it to exist to prompt triumphs for Europe's upper middle class. But, for one thing, it smacks of a "let them eat cake, and make sure the beastly urchins are kept well away from me while they're chawing on it, ugh, they make me want to wash my contact lenses in battery acid" attitude. There is an argument that the competition affords those eager to dine with royalty the chance to rehearse their table manners. Thrillingly, Sevilla and Zenit St. Petersburg gave us glimpses to a beautiful future — a future which never arrived. The fact that the participants in the UEFA Cup are so far removed from the elite makes the notion of such upward mobility a tenuous one. Access to the Champions League is access to the underclass of another hierarchy, one whose most affluent reside in a gated community patrolled by attack dogs and bastards.


The second-class nature of the competition leaves it with a problem. It is far more difficult for it to compel you to watch it; there is little inherent in the tournament that will have fans attracted to it without their consciously realising it. Fans in general, I mean; fans without a direct rooting interest in the competition. You watch a domestic league to find out who the best team in the country is. You watch the World Cup because it contains the best national teams on the planet. You watch the Champions League because it contains all, or practically all, the best club teams in Europe, and because it (so the unsteady theory goes) reveals who the continent's best team is. Leave aside the legitimate concerns one may have about the Champions League and its effect on European football; purely on the level of competition, that identity — a tournament for the best of the best — is its own raison d'être with its own inevitable attraction. The secondary competition doesn't have this.

The changes to the UEFA Cup brought about by those who their mothers presumably love have stripped away its identity. They almost seem designed to repel the curious. This is a dangerous approach when one can watch top-flight football from Friday to Monday and the Champions League on Tuesday and Wednesday. Even the most dedicated follower of the game will need to have the idea of another night's football sold to them. By taking away the UEFA Cup's best teams and feeding them to the 'roided-up Champions League, and then inflicting gridlock upon the Cup with a superfluous group stage, UEFA have failed. What remains for the fan is a gnawing sense of duty; that, on some level, one ought to watch just because. The pomp and ceremony of a continent-wide tournament is deflated by such flimsy commitment.

All this is not to say that the UEFA Cup, or the new Europa League, cannot be enjoyed. Sevilla and Zenit and Middlesbrough have given us some of the most engaging plotlines of the decade. Of course it can be enjoyed: it's a football tournament. The point is that these stories have emerged despite UEFA's tinkering. When a tournament is not lucky enough to be imbued with a lady-of-the-lake mysticism, it relies on whatever drama happens to happen; and, by the nature of things, it will happen, sometimes. But it won't happen all the time, and when it doesn't, it reminds you that it has become Just Another Tournament. It has no magic to fall back on. And when the body responsible for organising the tournament look like they are actually conspiring against it, this contempt for the competition will seep into its essence: If they don't care, why should anyone else?

Or am I being harsh on the blazers? Maybe they do sincerely believe in what they're doing, believe that they are genuinely enhancing football. Maybe they believe in the magical properties of the group phase, the official match ball, the guaranteed revenue stream, the erroneous application of the word 'league'. Homer bought the rock, didn't he?


Simpsons dialogue from the incomparable snpp.com Read more...

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Forever Is Forgettable

Unlike previous guest contributors to Sport Is A TV Show, Brian Phillips is neither a superhero nor a dubiously-credentialled academic nor an absinthe-soaked absurdist. Or is he? Hmmm. Anyway, you probably know him as the man responsible for the wonderful Run of Play, and the following is all his.

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"Everything's the worst."
— Liz Lemon

These magnificent palaces of justice, these incontestable equations, these airless vaults of truth. I'm tired of the league season, with its Wagnerian storylines and its glacial, accumulating march. I'm tired of being told that what happens in the fifth minute in October is as important as what happens in the ninety-sixth minute in May. I want a moment of lyric intensity, where the stakes are known and where the outcome is undeferrable. I don't just want a knockout game. I want a penalty shootout.



Of course, everyone hates a penalty shootout. Football purists look at a penalty shootout the way leered-at señoritas and barrel-dunked preachers look at a gang of Old West outlaws: as the kind of disruption they'd rather not see on Main Street. Penalty shootouts are unfair ("a lottery"), they emphasize the individual rather than the group (even Sepp Blatter dislikes them), and as a result, they're a terrible way to judge the footballing abilities of two football teams. (You could counter that judging the footballing abilities of two football teams is so difficult that football itself is often a bad way to do it, which is why penalty shootouts are necessary. But that's beside the point.)

To see the appeal of the penalty shootout, all you have to do is consider the last few weeks in league football, which, bless their scabbed souls, have given us essentially the opposite of a penalty shootout. We've seen teams in two major European leagues win titles on days when they weren't playing. We've seen a third team, Manchester United, win a title in the style of a progress bar indicating that a large file is inexorably being downloaded. We should have watched the Bundesliga, but we didn't.

The season has been thorough, fair, unsentimental, and accurate. Its coal-powered machinery was asked to identify the best team over nine months, and, screeching like an iron Brian Johnson and emitting frequent globes of steam, it's done so. The process worked. It's just that process was so grueling and eventually so anticlimactic that it's left me longing for the climactic anti-process of a penalty shootout.



A penalty shootout never calls to mind the slow tick of sand through the neck of a strangled hourglass. A penalty shootout works by the law of catharsis rather than by the rule of analytic scrutiny. In a penalty shootout, the players stand across from the goalkeeper, one by one, and try to force an ending. The stakes are immediate and clear. Where a league season is decided by divergent strands of effort and consequence that collectively add up to something in a way that's hard to grasp, in the moment of the penalty kick, everything is present at once. It involves guesswork. It's insanely dramatic. It may be arbitrary from a footballing standpoint, but as a human situation, it's riveting.



Now, I realize that if you were carried to a temple on a mountain and given the power to legislate all of football, you would have to side with justice, would have to love the league season in its massive impartiality. And most of the time, I do love it, or at least regard it with an appreciative terror. But at the moment, encased in prose, I care less about justice than about the prospect of escape. I like Paul Doyle's argument that when 120 minutes of team play have failed to produce a winner, it makes sense to break the teams down and test their component parts; but my feeling isn't anywhere near that sagacious. I just want a moment when the context and the act, the event and the meaning of the event, are simultaneously apparent.



Barcelona scored dozens of beautiful goals in La Liga this season, but apart from maybe Messi's penalty against Espanyol in September, the only moment they've given us with that kind of significance was Iniesta's equalizer at Stamford Bridge, and that came out of nowhere and produced a feeling that was more surprise than anything. In a few years, I'll remember that Man Utd won the Premier League this season, but ask me how they won it and all I'll have is a hazy sense of defensive consistency. Whereas penalty shootouts — Italy-Spain in Euro 2008; Chelsea-Man Utd last year, with Terry's slip and Ronaldo weeping in the mud — occupy a disproportionately large place among moments I look back to with awe.

So before the machinery resets, before the engineer goes back to the clockwork mountain and starts pounding out more periodic tables, let's have one moment where we believe that anything could happen. This isn't a plea for a draw in the Champions League final, though I guess in some sense it has to be. All I know is that I've spent two months learning a lesson, and I'm ready to feel like the top of my head has been physically taken off. Read more...

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Sane planning, sensible tomorrow

The way things are going, I might end up posting every sports-related video by The Onion. Anyway, here's the latest.

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Smooth is the new smooth

As I sit before my computer wearing my "I WATCHED THE UEFA CUP FINAL!" T-shirt, allow me to point out the first Shakhtar Donetsk goal, scored by "Not The" Adriano:



This was noteworthy to me because the finish resembled one of my favourite goals of recent years: the second goal scored by Hernán Crespo for Milan in the 2005 Champions League final (a goal that made it 3-0 to Milan, a goal that everyone has understandably forgotten, a goal that appears from roughly 2:30 in this clip):



When I saw the Adriano goal in real time, I saw it as an error from Werder Bremen goalkeeper Tim Wiese. I wondered whether he had gone to ground too readily, making it easy for Adriano to chip him. The ball appeared to have passed close enough by Wiese that he ought to have stopped it. But the replay made it apparent that Wiese did little wrong. The chip by Adriano flew just over Wiese's shoulder. When you think about it, it's the perfect shot to beat an onrushing goalkeeper. With so little time for the keeper to react, it's extremely awkward for him to manoeuvre his arm in such a way as to block it. (The comedian Lee Mack once suggested that the cruellest thing you could do to a cat is to stick a piece of cat food under its chin. This is the footballing equivalent.) In addition, it keeps the trajectory of the chip reasonably low, so making it more easily controllable. It's a beautifully efficient way to score.

Do players consciously (or unconsciously) think like this when they execute such a kick? I doubt it, though I'd like to think they do.

(As it happens, the best part of the Crespo goal is not the finish but that pass from Kaká. That belongs in a time capsule.) Read more...

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Oh, José...

You may have seen this already, but it's too good. This is Zlatan Ibrahimović during Inter's game with Siena on Sunday. Zlat, apparently suffering after Inter's title celebrations on Saturday evening, pleads to be taken off by José Mourinho. Mourinho proceeds to use his substitutions one by one, neglecting to withdraw Ibrahimović each time. The pièce de résistance comes when, with the final change, Mourinho opts to swap goalkeepers. Zlatty's reaction is...well, see for yourself. Say what you want about Mourinho, but dude's a showman.

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The section labelled "SHIRTS"

It's that time of the football season again. The anticipation has been rising and now, at last, the storylines that have been developing all year are being resolved. Yes: next season's kits are being released!

And who better to analyse, dissect, rip to shreds in an orgiastic bout of clarification than your humble correspondent? Well, several people, actually. But our pay-scale is apparently not attractive enough for them. Tofu and crap minimalist furniture don't pay for themselves, it seems. So you're stuck with me. Hey, maybe this will become a series, when we're desperately scrabbling around for something to write about during the bleak, desolate summer months. Isn't that exciting? Anyway, here is the first in a series of at least one. Hope it makes you sick!

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NEWCASTLE UNITED


A couple of interesting innovations here. Firstly, notice how the chest area now comes with an optional stick-on white panel. This is really handy for when you wake up in the morning so sickeningly ashamed of the club you have become shackled to that you can't bear to be seen sporting their badge or the logo of the disgraced financial institution whose continued sponsorship has exacerbated the embarrassment that has hung over the club like the the stench over a city where the bin-collectors' strike has just entered its fifth exciting year.

Secondly, we have the adidas stripes on the shoulders. These are a graph representing the depth of the shit the club is in, and, using adidas' patented SweetJesusHelpUsNow® technology, will actually retreat towards the collar as Newcastle sink towards League One/extinction/armed insurrection. It has been reported that once the stripes disappear completely, the actual Messiah will appear on the centre spot at St. James' Park and steer Newcastle to the Kingdom of Heaven, or maybe a Europa League spot, but adidas have not confirmed this as yet.

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CHELSEA


There has been much speculation as to why this particular design was selected. Is it an attempt to resemble those new-fangled rugby jerseys, to lend the wearer an intimidated air of stud-raking, ear-biting menace? Does the lighter section emanating from the collar and running down towards that central panel represent the River Thames flowing into the North Sea, the darker section at the bottom thus signifying the continent, the piece as a whole therefore symbolising the English game's new outward-looking era? Is it a representation of oil gushing from the earth, the source of Chelsea's might? None of the above; the real reason is far simpler. Adidas consulted with senior Chelsea players, asking them to choose from a number of potential jerseys. On being shown the above, and asked to note the "false breastplates", the players unaccountably spluttered with laughter and insisted that this one be chosen.

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BARCELONA


Next season's Barça jersey has not been swoosh officially revealed as yet. However, we swoosh do know that it will once more bear swoosh the UNICEF logo, maintaining the club's proud tradition swoosh of never having swoosh allowed the hallowed blaugrana colours to be tainted by association swoosh with base commercialism Kappa Kappa hey.

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BOLTON WANDERERS







Bolton's new offering draws its inspiration from one of British pop's greatest moments. At the 1996 Brit Awards, Michael Jackson's grandiose rendition of 'Earth Song' was gatecrashed by Pulp's Jarvis Cocker. Cocker was unhappy with the messianic overtones of Jackson's routine, which involved him being raised high above the stage on a cherry picker, and which later had him clad all in white as the diseased peasants beneath Jackson touched him and were miraculously "healed". Egged on by his bandmates, a tipsy Cocker jumped onto the stage, bent over and made hand gestures indicating flatulence. He was bundled off the stage by security guards (dressed as the aforementioned diseased peasants) and was arrested amid false accusations that he had assaulted some of the children on the stage.

I think it's pretty obvious what Reebok have done here. The barcode-like stripes represent the average fan, disillusioned at the fact that they have been turned into customers by football clubs. What the shirt tells them is that they can be "healed" by giving themselves up to the power of naked capitalism, here shown as the huge logo of a betting company surrounded in pure white. The barcodes are clamouring to touch the misshapen pentagon (clearly modelled after Jackson's face) and so be cleansed of their doubts about modern football.

But what about the absence of a Jarvis? What are Reebok trying to tell us? Perhaps they are saying that there is no hope, that we must accept the inevitable. Another possibility is that the shirt is, in fact, a sly piece of subversion from someone in Reebok trying to bring the system down. In this scenario, the absence of a Jarvis is actually a promise that a Jarvis will one day come, wiggling his arse and puncturing the pomposity of Big Football. Then again, the message might be: "You can wait for a Jarvis to arrive and save you, and he might even succeed in taking us down a peg or two; but he will soon have a breakdown and re-emerge with an album which, though actually really rather terrific, will be a gigantic commercial failure, and the band will make just one more record before disbanding, whilst Jacko will recover from his personal problems and sell out 2,374 shows in London, and where will you be then, eh? EH?" A fascinating shirt.

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ARSENAL



With their new away shirt, Arsenal abandon the sunshine yellow of their latest work and enter their abstract expressionist phase. That deep, troubled blue hints at the abyss. It is based on the colour of the sea at a depth just above that at which light is no longer visible. You can really feel the melancholy rippling through this jersey. A fourth consecutive trophyless season is obviously weighing heavily on the club, leading them to contemplate the unforgiving nothingness of infinity. The addition of a tag bearing the club's Latin motto, abandoned when a new crest was introduced in 2002, mocks the fact that Arsenal's best days are in the past, in a time when some words from a dead language adorned their kit.

What of the lighter, thin stripes, though? Those sharp and distinctly un-Rothkonian boundaries between the stripes and the background, and that almost celestial blue, like shafts of light, seem to point towards an optimistic future, no? Not a bit of it. It is merely an ironic nod towards Arsenal's annual League Cup exploits, recurring regularly to taunt the club with their promises of a brighter tomorrow which will never arrive. And so you are once more sucked into that brooding blue, that eternity...that forever nothing...that neverending finality...death...death...death...

If this shirt were a newborn child, it would be called Payne. Read more...

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World's worst...canvasser

Um, yes, hello, lovely day, isn't it? With the sun and some clouds and the birds with their, uh, birdsong and all that kind of thing. Oh, yes, my name is Fredorrarci and I represent Sport Is A TV Show, and I'm here—

...No, no — Sport Is A TV Show. It's a blog, you see, and I—

...Uh, no, you won't have seen anyone else from Sport Is A TV Show around because, um, I am, in fact, so to speak, its only representative, you see, haha. Um, what it is, you see, the reason I—

...Well, you've heard of it now, haha, um. Now, as I'm sure you're aware, voting is, in fact, open in the EPL Talk Awards, and I hope, as it were, to convince you to vote for Sport Is A TV Show in the category of best EPL blog. Here is, uh, a list of the blogs nominated—

...Yes, it is a fine list, I, uh, haha, can't disagree with you, uh, there—

...No, no, haha, I assure you, I'm not the joke candidate—

...No, I don't even own a multi-coloured wig or any such, um, things, such as that kind of thing, um. No, I'm quite serious about my candidacy—

...Yes, I have written on some of the other blogs on the shortlist, that is true. I, uh, suppose that a vote for them could be looked upon as a, uh, vote for me in a strange kind of way, I guess, haha—

...No no no, what I mean to say, um, hahaha, is that you should still vote Sport Is A TV Show, because, um, I firmly believe in the, uh, firmness of our, um, uh, beliefs, that is to say, my beliefs, to be accurate, and truth and accuracy are so important and so, in, uh, lack, that is, I mean, so lacking, and I truly feel that a vote for Sport Is A TV Show is a vote for, ahem, what is, that is to say—

...Well, no, I suppose you could vote for those blogs, or even, I think, that is, going forward, um, any of the blogs on the list, I mean, yes, there are a lot of very good blogs on the ballot, and I mean, you should, I think, follow your heart, and indeed, your head, that is, you should feel free to exercise your democratic right, indeed, some would say duty, to, um, as I say, going forward, uh, oh dear, we hope, that is, I hope, no, we sounds much better, oh crap, am I saying this out loud?, um, our policies will prove—

...You think I'm bearing up well considering the ritual humiliation I will surely receive when the results are announced? I, um, haha, thank you, I think!, haha, well I hope my message came across and that you'll, uh, vote for me, or vote maybe for someone else, or, you know, whatever you elect to do, so to speak, hahaha, just my, uh, little joke, uh, there, ahem, and that, you know, you at least get out there and vote, I mean, it is so impor—

(Door slams shut.) Read more...

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Thattaway

If I know you at all — and I rather think after all this time that I do — you're thinking right now: "I wish I could read something which pretty much tells the world of football to go screw themselves, what with their constant whingeing about refereeing and what have you". Well, your ever-considerate correspondent has tended to that aching in your soul and provided you with exactly as you desire. The bonus is that it's on The Run of Play, which means that after you're done reading my post and agreeing wholeheartedly with it, you can peruse said site and explore the treasures therein. May I suggest you start here?

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Albert Londres and the Tour de France: "Your wife is your bicycle"

Being the second of two excerpts from Albert Londres' reporting on the 1924 Tour de France. The first is here. Once more, the translations are by Graeme Fife, and his footnotes are included where appropriate.

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Toulon, July 7, 1924

As soon as they got off their bikes, the 'Marshall' resumed his role. The Marshall is Alphonse Baugé. He is commander-in-chief of all racing cyclists — those who race in the Tour de France, the Six Days, the Classic races and on the road track. He is, I believe, the only man alive today capable of working a miracle. He'd have a young boy riding a bike without saddle or handlebars. One day, Alphonse Baugé will be canonised.

He wears a dark-blue uniform, cut like pyjamas, with red wool piping round the jacket. You can't mistake him; he's got a dentrifice Mistinguett smile. He follows the race in a closed car, and it's not only his car that's closed, it's his mouth, too. At every start, the secretary general of the race sews his lips together with brass wire. The other day, out of pity, I thought I'd push a straw into the corner of his mouth to give him some air. He refused. He's a stickler for the rules. At the end of the stage, the secretary general takes a pair of scissors from his pocket and cuts the wire. Alphonse Baugé takes three deep breaths, declares that his heart is still beating, pauses to take stock, then goes off to the riders' hotel.

In Brest, I'd hardly crossed the threshold of the Tour de France dining room when I heard "So, you say it makes no difference to you whether you sing at the Opéra or the Batignolles?"¹ Baugé was talking to Curtel. Curtel wanted to abandon the race, complaining that he'd ridden 1,200km and only earned 650 francs. "In Marseille," he said, "I got 500F for 300km."²

"Well no, you're not a great artist; you're happy to be a provincial baritone playing in knockabout comedy."

"What?" replied Curtel. "I'd rather get 100F at the Batignolles than 5F at the Opera."

"Have you no self-respect? Haven't you even got that?" He put his hand over his heart. "Don't you maybe think how proud your old parents are?"

"Hang on," said Curtel, "my parents aren't that old."

"You don't want to know, you've closed your mind. Listen, I'll give you an example. You know Kubelik, the great violinist? Right. You think Kubelik would drop the violin because he'd only earned 650F? No. Kubelik is an artist.³ So then. You too, you're an artist of the pedals. For the first time you have the honour of riding the Tour de France, this beacon flame of cycle racing, and for some story about 650F you'd let that go?"

"If I kill myself for 650F, what am I going to live on afterwards?"

"Stop. You're no better than a hack, a dumb labourer, a boot-shine boy, a dish washer-upper. You understand nothing about the beauty of the handlebars. Suit yourself. You disgust me."

We arrived in Bayonne. The assault on the Pyrenees started the next day. Five or six riders were faltering with nerves. In comes Baugé to the hotel foyer to see what's going on. "You're going to abandon, you with your system for the Pyrenees?"

"What? I haven't got a system for the Pyrenees."

"Of course you have a system for the Pyrenees: you're going to quit when the whole world is waiting for you on the cols?"

"Oh no Monsieur Baugé, no one's waiting for me at the cols."

"I tell you the whole world's waiting for you; you know that as well as I do. Your old Pyrenean grandmother will be handing you flowers on the summit of the Tourmalet tomorrow."

"I don't give a f... for flowers, M. Baugé. I tell you, I've got no tendons left."

"It's not a question of tendons."

"What am I supposed to push with, then?"

"Go and find your masseur. He'll give you tendons. Listen son, have you got no heart?"

"Yes, but I don't have any tendons."

"Don't think about that. Think about your success, about your name in the big Paris papers. Think about the hero's welcome they'll give you at the station when you get home if you finish the Tour."

"For heaven's sake, M. Baugé, I keep telling you..."

"Yes, yes, you tell me you've got no tendons. Understood. Very well. So, be an undertaker, not a racing cyclist, you understand me? Goodbye."

Next time, it was Luchon. When the guys arrived they were as cold as a decomposing corpse. They went off for a bath. They came back for dinner. "You think this is any kind of profession?" they were saying. Baugé put his head round the door. "It's not a profession, it's a mission."

"Our mission," said Collé, "is to be with our wives, not to work till we drop."

"Your wife," replied Baugé, "is your bicycle."⁴ Tiberghien, in his silk-collared beige pyjamas, assured him that the bicycle had nothing to do with women. Baugé was already off again: "Of course it's a profession, and what a beautiful profession. Does it really mean nothing to you to hear all of France shouting 'Alavoine! Thys! Sellier! Mottiat! Bellenger! Jacquinot! etc.' for an entire month?"

"When you're vomiting your guts up, that's not because you're getting stronger."

"Listen: take Bottecchia. Do you think that if Rockefeller had offered him 50 large notes on the top of the Tourmalet he'd have quit? No. Because Bottecchia has an ideal."

"Yes: to buy a plot of land back home in Italy, build himself a house — him being a bricklayer — and plant his spaghetti."

"No, no," said Baugé.

"Oh, but yes," said Bottecchia.

By Perpignan, of 46 aces, only 20 were left. Sellier and Jacquinot had abandoned in Bourg-Madame; they were suffering too much.

"I understand that, my boys," said Baugé, "but you know, don't you, no rider ever becomes great without great hardship."

Between Perpignan and Toulon, two routiers went under the wheels of a car and were left unconscious on the road: Ugaglia first, then Huot. Their fellow-riders weren't amused.

"My friends," said Baugé, "I've taken falls too. I've gone under the wheels of a car. I was brought up in the business. I know what it's like. There are crosses to bear in our profession, like any other. You know what I'd do if I were you? I'd read Duhamel's Life of the Martyrs; it will put heart into you for tomorrow's stage. Take it from me."

"Can you get it in Toulon?"

"You can get it anywhere."

"Great. We'll go and buy a copy."

*

Notes

¹ Théâtre Les Batignolles: popular and music hall, in the heartland of Paris cabaret, near Pigalle and the Moulin Rouge, and not so far from the Opéra, at the other end of the cultural scale. There was also a velodrome on the Boulevard des Batignolles where, in the early days, men (who paid 12F) and women (15F) could learn how to ride a bicycle.

² Approx. gauge of money equivalents: Le Petit Parisien cost 15F; racing bike, 350F; suit, 95F; trousers, 25F; house in Paris, 25,000F; in suburbs, 15,000F; bottle of white wine, 1.90F; wages of a skilled tradesman, c. 30-40F per day; of a factory girl, 1.40 per hour. Team domestiques earned c. 1,500F per month and might get a purse of 10,000F for the Tour.

³ Henri Desgrange actually called the aces "the first violins". Londres has picked up on this.

⁴ Desgrange was adamant about sex and bicycles: they did not mix. A committed racing cyclist should not divert any of his energies into bedtime romping. And, since sex was natural, healthy and necessary to any red-blooded male, self-denial of sex during the racing season was the surest proof of real willpower. They could always make up for lost time during the winter. Read more...

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Albert Londres and the Tour de France: Convicts of the road

Several posts ago, I mentioned Albert Londres (above) and his writings on the 1924 Tour de France. Londres was a renowned French investigative journalist, best known for his 1923 stories on the infamous bagne (penal colony) at Îles du Salut, off the coast of French Guyana, to which Alfred Dreyfus had been banished a generation before. In his career, he also exposed the horrors of asylums, forced labour camps in North Africa and colonial exploitation in West Africa.

In 1924, this novice to cycling decided to follow the Tour de France, which he would dub "Le Tour de Souffrance" — the Tour of Suffering. He filed eleven stories from the race for Le Petit Parisien newspaper. I'll be posting a couple of these stories, the first of which is below. The translation is by Graeme Fife and comes from a booklet given away free with the August 1999 issue of Cycle Sport magazine. Fife's footnotes are included where appropriate.

Some exposition: Henri Pélissier was the defending champion. "Desgrange" is Henri Desgrange, the founder and patron of the Tour. He was almost gleefully sadistic about the arduousness of his race; according to him, "The ideal Tour was a Tour which only one rider would have the necessary power and endeavour to complete". He once advised a rider: "Suffering is the full unfurling of the will". Pélissier did not subscribe to Desgrange's philosophy and often let it be known, much to Desgrange's displeasure: he called Pélissier "a pigheaded, arrogant champion".

Anyway: onwards.

---

Coutances, June 27, 1924

This morning, we set out before the peloton...

We reached Granville as the bells chimed 6.00am. Suddenly, some riders came through. As soon as they appeared, the crowd, sure that they recognised them, shouted "Henri! Francis!" Henri and Francis were not in the bunch. Everybody waited. Both categories of riders went by — first-category professionals and the 'shadow men'. The shadow men are the touriste-routiers, a bunch of gutsy guys, independents not under contract to the wealthy bike manufacturers. They have a hard life but they've got plenty of fight in them. Neither Henri nor Francis appear. The news came through: the Pélissier brothers had abandoned. We climbed into the Renault and, without a thought for the tyres, drove back up to Cherbourg. The Pélissiers are well worth a set of tyres.

Coutances: a mob of boys chattering about the scoop.

"Have you seen the Pélissiers?"

"I even touched them," says one of the grubby little urchins.

"Do you know where they are?"

"In the Café de la Gare. Everybody's there."

Everyone was there. I had to push through to get into the bistro. The crowd stood in silence, just staring, open-mouthed, towards the back of the room where three jerseys were installed in front of three bowls of chocolate. It was Henri, Francis and the third was none other than the second, I mean Ville, who came second at Le Havre and Cherbourg. "You have a brainstorm?" I asked.

"No," said Henri, "only we're not dogs."

"What happened?"

"It was over a trifle, rather it was over a jersey. This morning in Cherbourg, a commissaire came up to me and, without saying a word, pulled up my jersey. He was checking I hadn't got two jerseys on. What would you say if I just pulled up your waistcoat to see if you really were wearing a white shirt? I don't like their manners, that's all."

"Why was he bothered about you wearing two jerseys?"

"I could be wearing 15, but I can't leave with two and arrive with one."

"Why?"

"It's the rules. We not only have to ride like animals, we either freeze or suffocate. It's all part of the sport, apparently. Anyway, I went and found Desgrange. 'I'm not allowed to ditch my jerseys on the road, is that it?'

"'No. You must not throw away any material belonging to the organisation.'

"'It doesn't belong to the organisation, it belongs to me.'

"'I'm not discussing it in the street.'

"'If you won't discuss it in the street, I'm going back to bed.'

"'We'll sort it out in Brest.'

"'It will be completely sorted out in Brest because I'll have quit.' And I quit."

"And your brother?"

"My brother's my brother, yes, Francis?" And they kissed over their chocolate.

"Francis was already on the road with the bunch. I caught him up and said 'Francis, I'm chucking'."

"It was like fresh butter on hot toast," said Francis. "Just this morning I'd got a stomach ache. I didn't feel at all good."

"And you, Ville?"

"Me?" replied Ville, laughing like a baby. "They found me in bad trouble at the side of the road. Both my knees were seized up, dead."

The Pélissiers not only have legs, they have a head. And in that head they've got judgement.¹

"You have no conception what this Tour de France is," said Henri. "It's a Calvary. Worse: the road to the Cross has only 14 stations; ours has 15.² We suffer from start to finish. You want to know how we keep going? Here..." He pulled out a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine for the eyes. This is chloroform for the gums."

"This," said Ville, emptying his musette, "is liniment to put some warmth in our knees."

"And the pills? You want to see the pills? Take a look, here are the pills." Each one of them pulled out 3 boxes.

"Fact is," said Francis, "we keep going on dynamite."

Henri continued: "You haven't seen us in the bath after the finish. Buy a ticket for the show. When we've got the mud off, we're white as a funeral shroud, drained empty by diarrhoea; we pass out in the water. At night, in the bedroom, we can't sleep, we twitch and dance and jig about like St. Vitus. Look at our shoelaces, they're made of leather. Well, they sometimes give out, they break, and that's cured hide. Just think what's happening to our skin."

"There's less flesh on our bodies than you'd see on a skeleton," said Francis.

"And our toenails," said Henri. "I've lost six out of ten, they get worn away bit by bit every stage." [From being cramped into the soft cycling shoes, rather like dancing pumps, under constant pressure against the toe-clips.]

"They grow back for next year," said his brother. The brothers kissed once more over the chocolate.

"So, that's it. And you've seen nothing yet; you wait till the Pyrenees, that's 'hard labour' [he uses English].³ We put up with all that, but we wouldn't make a mule do what we have to do. We're not work-shy, but in God's name we won't be kicked around. Physical punishment we can take, but we won't tolerate abuse. My name's Pélissier, not Fido. If I put a newspaper over my stomach⁴ and set out with it, I have to come in with it. If I throw it away — penalty. When we're dying of thirst, before we put our bidon under the running water, we have to make sure there isn't somebody 50 metres away working the pump, otherwise — penalty. You need a drink, you do your own pumping. The day will come when they'll put lead in our pockets because someone reckons that God made men too light. It's all going down the chute — soon there'll only be tramps left, no more artists. The sport has gone haywire, out of control."

"Yes," said Ville, "mad, haywire."

A young boy came up. "What do you want, lad?"

"Er, well, Monsieur Pélissier, seeing as how you don't want to any more, who's going to win now?"⁵

*

Notes

¹ Desgrange said that to win the Tour a rider needs tête et jambes (head and legs, ie. racing nous as well as physical strength).

² The French commentators still use Calvaire (Calvary), evoking Christ's stations of the cross on the way to his crucifixion, to describe a passage of extreme suffering endured by a rider, usually during a mountain stage. And at the turn of the century, the surrealist writer Alfred Jarry — a fanatical cyclist who rode his bike round and round his tiny apartment — caused a stir with a magazine article entitled 'The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race'.

³ This is the origin of the notorious phrase used by Londres: forçats de la route. Forçat means 'convict condemned to hard labour', as in the penal colonies, the subject of Londres' book Au Bagne; la route means 'the road'. Desgrange had used the same phrase some years earlier but, in his perverse way, as a compliment for the suffering he inflicted and the powers of endurance he demanded of 'his' riders. He said that the ideal Tour de France would be a race which only one rider managed to complete. What riled HD about Londres applying the words to the riders — especially the "cosseted" (HD's word) Pélissiers — was the innuendo. To make comparison between the privation suffered by criminals and the noble ordeal of the Tour de France was, in his view, despicable.

⁴ Modern sweat-resistant fabrics make the practice less common, but you'll still see riders grabbing newspapers from bystanders at the tops of cols to shove up their jerseys as insulation against the cold on a fast descent.

⁵ Henri Pélissier had quit once before, in 1920, when he was penalised for throwing away one of his spare tyres. HD had said then that "This Pélissier knows nothing about suffering; he will never win the Tour". He was wrong. The ablest of the three brothers, Henri won in 1923, after a bad start. Trounced in the Pyrenees by Robert Jacquinot, his riding in the Alps was majestic. After his victory, HD was comparing his artistry to that of Monet and Debussy — never one to stint on praise or censure, Desgrange. He actually tailored the 1932 Tour to suit the youngest Pélissier, Charles, whom he favoured and thought unlucky not to have won. Poor climbing had reduced his chance so HD introduces time bonuses; Pélissier was a consistent stage winner. However, Charles Pélissier withdrew and never did win. Read more...

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Intermission

...and...relax.

We could all probably do with decompressing after the footballistic tumult of the last twenty-four-ish hours. So here's a song: 'Typical Girls' by The Slits.

You could consider this the remnant of a post I nearly wrote, using some lyrics from this song to represent the criticism of Barcelona's post-prandial indigestion last week:

Typical girls get upset too quickly
Typical girls can't control themselves
Typical girls are so confusing
Typical girls, you can always tell
Typical girls don't think too clearly
Typical girls, so unpredictable...

There's a thin line between irony and a self-righteous sense of entitlement, no?

What I love about this clip, apart from the song itself, is that the video clearly cost less than Beyoncé's bottle of water, and consists mainly of the group goofing around on a bandstand, yet is utterly, joyously fabulous.

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If Chelsea vs. Barcelona was the intro to a punk song, which one would it be?

Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think:

OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS!!!



Video via 101 Great Goals.

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Conflict and art

I'm not going to venture into the charred hulk of Arsenal-Man Utd. I made my peace with the inevitable after the Arsenal-Roma tie ("This was more like a crappy tale about a minor deity who a colonising force didn't even bother to incorporate into their own belief system. Neither team could have a role in this tournament greater than being turned into a shrew.") and that, as it were, is that. So we turn to face an overwhelming question...

With this post bringing the total to the sort of round number that may seem more important than it is, it seems apt to enter into the spirit of hollow nostalgia. I dug out a copybook inside which were notes from the prehistory of this blog — a time when the meaning of the blog was even more nebulous than it is now, if you can imagine that. The notes are on a motley grab-bag of topics and share a trait — shudderful earnestness. Thankfully, when I sat down to write the first post, levity came to the rescue, overcoming the cracker-dry bleuchness, setting a more pleasing tone for the rest of the blog and rescuing it from drowning in self-importance. (I hope.)

One of the stillborn opuses was a piece on the merits of attacking football. It would have been dreadful — a snotty, ill-considered screed. It put me in mind of the man in the Half Man Half Biscuit song, "found guilty of wearing a Brazilian shirt with a number 10 on the back, and swigging from a bottle of lager whilst talking of the 'beautiful game'". Shame, as well as actually considering the subject properly and realising that it was more complicated than I had allowed for (and I knew it), prevented me from fleshing it out. But it does indicate something useful, I think: a sincere belief that sport can be more than just watching some people run around and waiting for a result at the end. This belief is something I have occasionally examined here, in between the cheap shots at Alan Shearer (about whom, by the way, I've started to feel more sympathetic in recent weeks. Is that wrong?). It's nothing original, of course, and one of the great joys of having access to the web is the opportunity to see people take this idea and produce vivid insights into what lies beyond the literal.

All of which, I suppose, is a circuitous way of saying:

(a) If you haven't already read them, set some time aside before tonight's game to take in The Run of Play's readings on what Chelsea-Barça means, and Footsmoke's take on same;

and...

(b) I haven't looked forward to a match as much as this since...

...since...

...since Nadal-Federer, Wimbledon 2008. There! I said it! Read more...

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Between belief and disbelief

Lost beneath the sound of wires being tensed last week was a piece of news of potentially fundamental import for soccer. After years of mutual antipathy, FIFA and WADA finally agreed on a drug-testing policy for football. Under the new system, those players most closely scrutinised will be those involved in the Champions League and the international game, as well as those returning from long-term injury or suspension.

It's no surprise that it's been little discussed. Why would it be? Life must be lived, after all. And there is so much life at this stage of the season — gathered in the middle of a semi-final, poised on the edge of resolution — that it demands our attention, lest it fly past without us. There is little time or inclination to consider the navel at such moments.

Not that there is ever much of an appetite for this, anyway — not when it comes to drugs. When the matter is pondered upon, it is dismissed in the same synaptic flash. Football is such a technical game, the argument goes, and there is no drug on earth which will improve your technique. Cyclists take drugs. Baseball players and shot-putters and weightlifters take drugs. That sort of thing doesn't happen round here.

Perhaps this is so; but it would merely be down to chance, not because football is somehow innately resistant to it. No elixir will enable someone to pick out a pass through a forest of opponents; no potion will bestow upon its imbiber a killer feint. Some substances, however, will give you more upper-body strength, will make you run faster, will — and these are especially relevant — keep you going for longer and help you recover more quickly from one exertion in good time for the next.

Football fans are sometimes prone to complacent self-regard, to taking the "beautiful game" epithet too literally, almost to the point of dogma. Football's evident capacity for beauty can be elevated beyond reason in its contemplation. This ignores several things: that plenty of other sports are also capable of such beauty; that football is most often not especially beautiful (and that, indeed, the aim is just as much to negate the creativity we see as beauty); and that the ability to create beauty is partly, importantly, facilitated by being in a state of appropriate physical fitness. The first point is by the by here; but the latter two are important, because these principles can be directly affected by the intervention of chemistry (the synthetic kind, of course, not the mysterious "team" kind). It is not merely the sports that overwhelmingly rely on speed, power and stamina that are susceptible to these influences. Football is tough on the body; the pace of the game has increased, matches are frequent, and there is a growing desire for physical strength. Any team worth their salt would push the rules to their limits; and it is surely not unduly cynical to believe that some venture past those limits, not least when the approach of football officialdom has been, until now, less than urgent in clamping down on what problems there may be.


And this is the thing: we don't really know what problems there may be — or, perhaps, even what a problem is.

This is where the new testing policy becomes interesting. (That is, if it co-opts some of WADA's more Inquisitorial tendencies and is not merely an act of political expediency on FIFA's part — an issue for another day.) Our view on the issue of drugs in football seems vague and lacking in proper definition, because it has hardly been confronted. It has avoided the sleepless nights that currently has cycling staring at the ceiling in terror. If the new approach turns up something currently hidden behind a cloud of — what? Deception? Ignorance? Disingenuousness? — only then will we know how we really feel.

And how might that be? Maybe we would be shocked into shame. Or maybe it would have little or no practical effect. After all, morality and law are not the same thing. Law is definite. It may require interpretation, but it arrives at a verdict — something we surely appreciate as fans of sports, which require the constant application of such a process in order for them to function. But we don't live merely by law, and morality is fuzzy.

Consider cycling. Correct me if I'm wrong, cycling fans, but doping in that sport must have been an open secret for years. As far back as 1924, Albert Londres was reporting on how riders in the Tour de France had to resort to external assistance to get them through:

"You have no conception what this Tour de France is," said Henri. "It's a Calvary. Worse: the road to the Cross has only 14 stations; ours has 15. We suffer from start to finish. You want to know how we keep going? Here..." He pulled out a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine for the eyes. This is chloroform for the gums."

"This," said Ville, emptying his musette, "is liniment to put some warmth in our knees."

"And the pills? You want to see the pills? Take a look, here are the pills." Each one of them pulled out 3 boxes.

"Fact is," said Francis, "we keep going on dynamite."

It's been possible to know that this type of thing has been going on, yet lose oneself in admiration and wonder at the competitors' efforts. Baseball (again, correct me if I'm wrong) seems ultimately to have been more perturbed by the strike of 1994 than the recent spate of steroid scandals.

One of my favourite sporting memories is of Tyler Hamilton in the 2003 Grande Boucle. He crashed and broke his collarbone in the first stage. Not only did he finish the race — riding for three weeks with an injury that would do for most normal people — he won stage 16, which took in two hors catégorie climbs, following a 142 km breakaway. Come the finish in Paris, he was fourth in the general classification. That he failed a doping control in 2004 — and the Operación Puerto investigations suggest he was systematically doping during 2003 — barely diminishes the splendour of his achievement in my eyes.

(Hamilton, it should be noted, retired several weeks ago after failing another drug test.)

Maybe we would feel similarly about football. Or maybe we already do. The messy Juventus drugs scandal of the 1990s has, by and large, had little effect on our belief in football. What does this speak of? Is it that there are limits, but that they lie beyond the strict denotation of legislation? Is it a resigned acceptance of the human drive to get ahead any way one can? Is it that we are too busy living for the moment to care? Is it a collective delusion? Is it that football has become so big that it could not possibly be damaged by this? Is that we are afraid that it could be damaged by this?

Are different sports distinct realities? Are they subject to the same universal laws? Are they entirely their own cultures or does their common human element give them a common fate? Will we ever know?

What do we believe?


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I feel this should be pointed out

Note the dates:



René Higuita (Colombia), vs. England, Wembley, September 7 1995.

---

The Day Today, episode 5; original date of transmission: February 16 1994.

---

If you're wondering what the Division Two scores were:


The Arithmetic-Marjorie match was "postponed due to bent pitch".

The next episode had some more results:

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A post, containing some links

Though I set up a Twitter feed mainly to post links to stuff of interest, I forgot to tweeterificise (is that the verb?) a couple of doozies in the last few days. So here they are instead, along with two more I did remember to twittonisticate, but which deserve further highlighting. PLUS! PLUS! PLUS!!! A VIDEO! VIDEO! VIDEO!!!

* The Run of Play on what Tuesday's game means for Barcelona's identity. (Chelsea's identity is inextricably bound with the notion of evil, but that's hardly news.) As usual on RoP, you should read the comments as well.

STOP THE PRESSES!: Brian follows up on the aforelinked post with a, uh, follow-up post, which you really must read.

* Top-notch NBA blog Hardwood Paroxysm on how difficult it truly is to know what goes on inside sportspeople's minds: "Psychological assessment in sport doesn’t determine causes so much as it determines symptoms." A really good post.

* Off the Post with a news report from 1991 (I think) about Eric Cantona's trial at Sheffield Wednesday, before he scoffed at Wednesday's notion that he should extend the trial and instead buggered off to Leeds. And the rest, etc.

* Fisted Away, on top form as always, on Phil Brown's starting to refer to himself in the fifth person.

* Via the Guardian blog: Joyce and Beckett play pitch and putt.

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