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The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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I recognised the hill. They used it for a Hovis ad years ago.

Yeah and that Hovis kid did it in a flat cap over cobbles. None of yer fancy carbon fibre titfers and smooth tarmac.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Fulham vs Arsenal

This new football of playing it out from the back versus the full court press is not going to be an easy watch. When you've got to play high speed triangles just to get to the halfway line you can be sure that elegance, finesse and goalmouth hurly-burly are not going to be the watchwords.

What's needed? Someone who can ping the ball to either flank. Maybe a dribbler but only in the last third. There must be some up-and-over if everyone is pressing down the other end. But will they? People got tuckered just defending in two banks of four so what this new non-stop scurry is going to do is anyone's guess. (I am writing this after thirty minutes because I'm so restless. Half an hour old and already the season grows old. Not that I'm one to complain. Come on, you Panglossians.)
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Mick Harper
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Professional road cyclists spend their winters in wind tunnels experimenting with the best position, i.e. the least wind resistance, to adopt during time trials. Shaving a few seconds off when completing a fifty mile on-your-own bike ride is a worthwhile occupation even though the best position is not the most comfortable position.

In ordinary stages of a stage race this is immaterial because being behind another rider reduces wind resistance by an enormous margin so not being uncomfortable trumps everything. Of course you do have to remain behind another rider. but so long as you are in the peleton, this is guaranteed. There is an AE point to this, I promise.

Wind resistance is not detectable to the human body. You need a wind tunnel to find out. You have to be told to 'stay behind someone', to 'stay in the peleton' because it doesn't come naturally and you don't personally feel the benefit -- in fact it is minorly irksome. Adam Yates keeps forgetting this and characteristically rides on the edge of the peleton when it starts to thin out at the end of mountain stages. In his own mind this is probably because, riding for a weak team, he is not surrounded by domestiques and has to keep an eye out for someone breaking away at the head of the peleton. And unconsciously, "It's OK, I'm in the peleton."

Nevertheless, and unbeknownst to him, he is paying an enormous price because of the increased wind resistance. This does not show up, as per time trials, in a reduction in his speed since he can keep up with the peleton effortlessly. The price he pays is that his energy battling the wind resistance gives out a lot earlier than if he wasn't. For example, yesterday he would have won the stage except his energy gave out half a mile from the end. Someone ought to tell him but, it seems, nobody will. Maybe an AE-ist can pop round.
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Grant



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Is the very worst motto in sport the one from Spurs - To Dare is to Do
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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You're only as good as your last focus group.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Emmanuel Macron has joined the Tour de France. He's in a car, which hardly seems fair.
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Mick Harper
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We told Bale we weren't interested so now he's snuffling round Spurs. Words like dog, vomit, returns to spring to mind. Mind you, he's the least they'll need if they want to register a home win this season. They'll be all right though. Grand old club. Fallen on hard times that's all. What is it they say in their patois? Come on, you Spurs.
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Mick Harper
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Hands up anyone who wants to spend twenty million, for part of the season, on a player who can't even get into the Real Madrid first team squad.

Fun fact: I used to get my clothes from Mr Byrite.
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Mick Harper
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You probably didn't know it but Spurs were in a sudden death qualifier with Plovdiv (Bulgaria) yesterday. For the record, they were one-nil down with ten minutes to go but had a word with the TV barons who had a word with the ref, and two Bulgars got sent off. Result: Spurs went through. That's not why I'm telling you all this. Where were the TV barons?

Unless it was on something weird like Amazon Sport it seemed to be only available on the We Are Tottenham YouTube channel. I checked this out and it said it was a 'subscription channel' but nowhere did it tell you how to. Come on, you Spurs (supporters). Tell us what's going on.
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Mick Harper
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Zinedine vs Bale

That's where he made his big mistake. Managers have no business being against any of their players. They can hate them like poison, they can be moving heaven and earth behind the scenes to get someone shifted out of the club, but the player cannot know and nor therefore can any of the other players, the fans or the club's media trusties. Not even the board if they contain blabbers.

The reason can be seen going back to last year and the move to China -- fervently desired by Bale on account of the million a week (so much for his 'desire to play'). When it broke down Bale blamed Zinedine. As if. But it doesn't matter. Instead of a super-sub worth nearly half a million a week, Real spent a year with a sulky-sub worth nearly nothing a week. And all because Zinedine couldn't put his arm round the poor little lamb and say, "Never mind, son, you're still right up there in my plans. They'll offer you a million three next time, you'll see. You just have to play out of your skin in the meantime."

And why couldn't he? Because Zinedine isn't a manager at all but the Greatest Galactico. Real Madrid runs itself, for better or worse. Those at the top never get on. You ask Ronaldo and Messi, you ask me and Isaac Newton. Never mind, Ike, you'll find being number two lifts a whole bunch of pressure. You'll start enjoying life all over again. Now go and sit on that bench over there and come up with a new theory.
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Mick Harper
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The French hated Team Sky, not just because it was the Brits always winning their race, but the manner of it. Sitting at the front mob-handed, dictating the pace of the peleton before finally dispatching one of their number up a mountain finishing stage using a thingummyjig that optimised their 'wattage output'. Hardly Jacques Anquetil versus the Angel of Toledo. So they made up rude songs about them.

All this was supposed to change when Ineos took over but they have insulted the French all over again by changing the name to Ineos Grenadiers, the name of an off-roader they've just brought out of the showroom. The French are now singing a new song

Some die of constipation,
And some of diarrhea.
Some of masturbation,
And some of gonorrhea.
But of all the world's diseases,
There's none that can compare:
With the drip, drip, drip, of the syphilitic prick,
Of a British Grenadier
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Mick Harper
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In what the commentators called a day which will go down in cycling history and probably one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time, one Slovenian beat another Slovenian in a time trial and won the Tour de France.
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Mick Harper
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Premiership Notes

Teams can play well or badly on the day but Manchester United's performance -- I am judging by the highlights admittedly -- seemed to indicate just a bad team. Ditto Arsenal, which I watched in (pain)full. However, the parallel is not exact since Arsenal can claim to be, in commentator-speak, a work in progress even if one has doubts the management structure will make that progress. With Manchester United that management structure has clearly failed.

The penalty awarded to Crystal Palace indicates we are in new territory. Now that VAR has created a quasi-court, we can expect quasi-judicial decisions. That is ones that are based on precedent rather than the facts of the case.

The 'all court press' is now the new normal. When no-hopers like Fulham or West Ham or Crystal Palace were playing a Big Sixer, the old-normal was to sit back in two lines of four and hope to nick a result, despite an adverse 23-4 shot count. Everybody has now discovered that the all court press actually levels the playing field. It is not now a question of being lucky but actually achieving rough parity if the fancy-dans are even a little bit off their game.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
Premiership Notes

The 'all court press' is now the new normal. When no-hopers like Fulham or West Ham or Crystal Palace were playing a Big Sixer, the old-normal was to sit back in two lines of four and hope to nick a result, despite an adverse 23-4 shot count. Everybody has now discovered that the all court press actually levels the playing field. It is not now a question of being lucky but actually achieving rough parity if the fancy-dans are even a little bit off their game.


No fear, the full court press is easily beaten, you just need a a tall strong centre forward, with a smaller inside forward to play off him. You just then lob it up there, over the advancing defenders, for the Big Guy to flick it on.
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Mick Harper
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Yes, good spot. They're already trying it even without the big guy because defenders are so unused to the hoofed long ball they keep muffing it. And when everyone's pressing he hasn't got three other bods to cover for him. In consequence, teams may adopt the Arsenal tactic of playing the goalie in midfield -- he was often found mooching around at the back of the centre-circle yesterday! Everyone else is still in the Dark Ages, employing the goalie as auxiliary spare man at the back. The 'keeper-sweeper' as they put in the coaching manuals.

Maybe Arsenal will put a spare man behind the goalie. The deeper-non-keeper-sweeper, if you will. They were after all responsilbe for the offside rule being changed from three men behind the ball to the present two when Herbert Chapman introduced his then revolutionary spare man concept and nobody could score any goals against them. True story! The origin of 'Boring Arsenal', I assume.
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