October 29, 2009
October 28, 2009
Singing just for you, covered in sequins
If you're simply dying to bear witness to my bewailing the state of modern footballing attire, mosey on over to the excellent Futfanatico and there you'll find it. Therein, I make the case for wholesale reform, inspired by pride, insane Italian horse races and copious quantities of opium tincture. I hope you will subscribe to my pressure group, and to Futfanatico too, for that matter. Read more...
October 26, 2009
Benny and the jet
Fernando Torres has garnered most of the plaudits for Liverpool's goal against Manchester United yesterday, and he did tremendously well to finish as he did, especially with Rio Ferdinand hanging off him. But Yossi Benayoun could hardly have made it any easier for him. Look at that pass, dear Lord.
October 23, 2009
The internet (abridged)
(H/T: EPL Talk)
(H/T: Ball Don't Lie, The Baseline)
Meanwhile...
Unsatisfactory statistics in football and basketball.
Onomastics with Uli.
The reason I daren't switch on 5 Live when there's a match on anymore.
When messiness is a good thing. That's messiness, not Messiness, though that's good too. (The author is right about that piece he links to, incidentally...)
Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Sea the Stars.
A chilling missive from a company contracted to Manchester City Footfall (sic) Club. A company called (*shudder*) Synovate. (Via WSC.)
Domenech, jazzman.
Wayne Rooney's face in a tree.
Song!
October 18, 2009
The Section Labelled "SHIRTS": Tottenham special!
Being the latest in our series examining the glory of modern-day football strips.
Tottenham Hotspur's 2009/10 kits pay homage to the classic BBC show Jim'll Fix It, whose central character also scared generations of children every Saturday. Like the participants in Jim'll Fix It, the Spurs players this season wear a medallion, one side of which reads:
FIXED IT
FOR ME
The reverse reads:
THE WAY
YOU'RE
THINKING
I'LL SEE
YOU IN
FACKING
COURT
SUNSHINE
October 14, 2009
Two random World Cup facts
― The attendance at the Chile-Brazil semi-final in Santiago, Chile was 76,594. The other semi, between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in Viña del Mar, attracted 5,890 spectators.
― The referee of the highest-scoring match in World Cup history, the 1954 quarter-final between Austria and Switzerland — Austria won 7-5 — was a Scot named Charlie Faultless.
Source: Complete Book of the World Cup 2006 by Cris Freddi.
For the day that's in it
On the day of a big, big Uruguay-Argentina World Cup game at the Estadio Centenario, here's some film from the 1930 finals. The Centenario was built for this, the first World Cup, and was of course the venue for the final between the two aforementioned teams. If I were to draw up a list of the matches in history I wish I could have attended, this would be very near the top.
Also included in this film is footage from Uruguay's triumphs at the 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games and from the construction of the Centenario. Enjoy.
(Long-time readers may remember that I posted this film before. Two things: those videos have since been removed from YouTube; and, more importantly, it's wonderful, so sssshhh.) Read more...
October 11, 2009
October 7, 2009
The future of the Old Firm: The Answer
You join us as we indulge in our occasional ritual: frolicking in the still warm, strangely greeny-bluey-white embers of an Old Firm game, where lots of stuff happened.
You know, that stuff. The stuff that happened?
With this great fixture comes that question which periodically recurs, like slopping out on Midsummer morn: what does the future hold for Rangers and Celtic?
Clearly, these two behemoths — who, it has been told, even people who don't come from Scotland have heard of — have so outgrown the scab-ridden serfs who make up the rest of the domestic game that the status quo can surely not be maintained. Time was that the pair dreamt of an Atlantic League, in which they would be pitted against the cream of the best northern European leagues that aren't the Premier League or the Bundesliga. Given that this competition would simply have been too damn good for an innocent footballing public to handle without succumbing to dangerous levels of wanton, government-toppling sexuality, it's no surprise that it didn't get beyond the blueprint. (Celtic's copy was a greenprint, I understand.)
The Premier League would seem an obvious place to rest that Glaswegian belly that can no longer be contained by the SPL's once snug but, you discover to your horror, decidedly non-elastic waistband. But doubts remain as to how willing the English game is to being the Old Firm's Lebensraum; the most concrete plan to bring Celtic and Rangers to the Premier League has them as dancing, prancing distractions so that we don't realise that Bolton have granted themselves perpetual membership of the elite just for being Bolton.
Anyway, why these two noble clubs should have to prove themselves worthy of entry to the gilded palace is unfathomable. But what is even more unfathomable is that no-one has yet come up with the eardrum-perforatingly obvious solution, to wit:
Celtic and Rangers should resign their membership of both the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association. Then, all those connected with either club should gather at two separate locations (obviously) before sailing west to a pre-determined island, say, somewhere in the north Atlantic. On the journey, the Celtic fleet would be serenaded by the Wolfe Tones, and the Rangers fleet would be serenaded by whatever the loyalist equivalent of the Wolfe Tones is. (And what fun they must be.)
Upon disembarkation, the two tribes could then establish their own league, where they can battle it out amongst themselves in the World's Greatest Derby every week — or every day! We could even let them use a football and call it sport!
Which island should be granted the privilege of hosting this league of leagues?
This is Rockall. Now, I know you're thinking about the chronic unsuitability of Rockall for this project. Yes, the island is a mere 8,500 square feet in area, far too small to contain the hordes that would descend upon it. Yes, that would necessitate a massive battle merely to gain the right to set foot on it, which would result in the loss of thousands. Yes, it's too small for a full-sized football pitch. Yes, the necessarily teeny tiny pitch would be insanely, insurmountably uneven and perched at a treacherous height. Yes, all that guano would make the surface tremendously slippery.
But just think about it. Think of the last remaining hardy, possibly psychotic, few. According to Wikipedia, "The rock's only permanent inhabitants are periwinkles and other marine molluscs", so the conversation would really flow. Think of how they would become civilised. Think of how they would have to learn to live together. Think of how they would pass around that crushed Tennant's can to denote whose turn it is to speak. Think of how their discussions would yield the conclusion that opposite extremes have far more uniting them than dividing them.
Or think of how the unforgiving briny would pluck them from the rock and cast them to a moist grave, whichever works for you.
No, Rockall is ideal, and not only for the above reasons. It is a disputed territory and thus a perfect symbol of mankind's stupid, silly stupidity. But better still, two of the countries who lay claim to Rockall are Ireland and Britain! It's a veritable metaphorgy!
In conclusion: on Sunday at 12.30pm, you missed Columbo: Étude in Black on ITV1. Read more... Read more...
October 5, 2009
The Occasional Biscuit: The almost illegal Elton Welsby
I hadn't planned on so quickly posting a second installment of The Occasional Biscuit, our series of vaguely sportological Half Man Half Biscuit songs. But then came the stunning revelation from the producer of Football Weekly that — no foolin' — he once saw Elton Welsby naked. And like any good HMHB fan, I immediately thought of the one image more disturbing than that, as presented by the band in the song "A Country Practice" from their 1998 album Four Lads Who Shook the Wirral.
Added bonuses: a passing tennis reference and an "Abide with Me" quote. And EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE SONG. Ahem.
Read more...
A token of the vagaries of life
If you didn't know who these people were, and you had to guess which one of them would die first, you'd never get it right, would you? Read more...
October 2, 2009
The Occasional Biscuit: Your travelling army of synthetic supporters & Free Paolo!
Time for the first in an actual, genuine series now on Sport Is A TV Show. Introducing The Occasional Biscuit, wherein we ransack the back catalogue of the mighty Half Man Half Biscuit for songs of theirs with some kind of sporting connection. Though sometimes that connection is tenuous. Very tenuous.
This series could be monthly, fortnightly or weekly: I haven't yet decided. It may not even always be on Fridays. You just never know with me. I'm mavericky like that.
We'll begin, like any course of medication*, with a double dose. First, an obvious one, perhaps, but nonetheless special for that. 'All I Want for Christmas Is a Dukla Prague Away Kit' was originally released on the Trumpton Riots EP in 1986, and is still probably their most famous song. Nigel Blackwell, the main man in the group, once told Champions magazine that he didn't much like it. But then, he's also claimed that 'Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo' isn't really about The Libertines. Pffft.
Here's it is, then, twice over: almost certainly the best song ever written about Subbuteo:
Second, a song which demonstrates how truly flimsy some of these sporting links are going to be. Listen carefully to 'Tour Jacket with Detachable Sleeves', though, and you'll spot it:
With thanks to Webbie — on whose Footballistic & Musical toes I'll try not to tread with this series — for suggesting the idea.
*Disclaimer: I HAVE EXACTLY NO MEDICAL TRAINING. Read more...
October 1, 2009
I've been writing about sport
I've had the pleasure of contributing to the latest issue of The Norman Einsteins, a really rather excellent monthly online sports magazine. Readers of David Winner's book Brilliant Orange will remember Hans van der Meer and his wonderful, unorthodox approach to football photography. My piece is about football pitches, inspired in a loose, impressionistic way by the pictures of van der Meer. Do give it a look see, check out the rest of the issue while you're at it, and if you like what you see, subscribe.
WOTSTS/MWNHIFPOTIPITPFTWEISQMQOBATADWIATS/MOWOHOOATDTSOS/MROTK?H?: "I Love L.A."
Time now to introduce a new feature here at Sport Is A TV Show, in which we provide a curious sportistic factoidlet and ask you, dear reader, "did you know" it. We're calling it "Were one to suggest that sir/madam were not hitherto in full possession of the information presented in the passage from the Wikipedia entry I shall quote momentarily, would one be accurate to a degree which is acceptable to sir/madam, or would one have overrated one's ability to determine the substance of sir's/madam's reserves of trivial knowledge? Hmm?"
So, "Were one to suggest that sir/madam were not hitherto in full possession of the information presented in the passage from the Wikipedia entry I shall quote momentarily, would one be accurate to a degree which is acceptable to sir/madam, or would one have overrated one's ability to determine the substance of sir's/madam's reserves of trivial knowledge? Hmm?":
"I Love L.A." is played following major sporting events in Los Angeles if the home team has scored or won. This occurs notably when the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Galaxy win and when the Los Angeles Kings score a goal during home games. In 2001, the XFL's Los Angeles Xtreme would play the song after they scored a touchdown, as well as when they won a home game. A Nike ad with the song was broadcast during the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. A modified version of the song was used for the 1985-86 TV season image campaign for ABC. [...] During the 2008 NLDS and NLCS, TBS or FOX would play the song at the end of any half-inning where the Dodgers produced a run. The song was also played over speakers when the Lakers arrived at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum following their 2009 NBA Championship parade.
Really? Wouldn't this be a bit like a team from New York or Chicago playing "Rednecks" after they'd beaten a team from the south?
These Romans are crazy. Read more...
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