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The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Fair Play Breaches Leave Molyneux Euro-hopes in Tatters

Fined £200,000 and ordered to cut their squad from twenty-five to twenty-three. One's heart goes out to Trevor ("Mr Gloves") Cheeseman and Solomon ("No Nickname") Akinbolah who won't be on that plane to Alma-aty.
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Mick Harper
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More than 70,000 Newcastle fans sign petition demanding takeover answers -- Guardian

Just as I predicted Geordies are upset about not getting the squillions rather than where the squillions were coming from. But what was most fascinating was the reason the Premier League found Mohammed Bin Salman not a fit-and-proper person. Nothing to do with Kashoggi or Yemen or denying the most basic of human rights to his citizens but because he was pirating the satellite signal from the rights-holders for Premiership games.

One can see where the Premier League were coming from on this but the real clue to general Saudi Arabian mores is the fact that the only other people in the world doing this are pub landlords in eastern England building big antennae to pick up Dutch Sky without having to pay for it. Truly the richest sovereign fund in the world is run by a bunch of bazaar shysters. No, it must stay with Mike Ashley. Wait... just hold on there a mo...
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Mick Harper
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Actually I'm doing the Saudis a bit of a disservice here. Let me tell you the full story. Qatar operates Al-Jazeera which is monumentally popular and monumentally destabilising throughout the Arab world. So the Arab world is trying to get it closed down. They announced that Qatar was an Iranian stalking-horse on their side of the Gulf and have blockaded it by air and land. Not a light matter when Qatar operates an important airline and airport hub and all the planes have to laboriously go round Arab territory. But the Qataris and Al-Jazeera are doing just fine.

"Please can we have Premier League etc football matches beamed to us," said the Saudis.
"Fuck off," said the rights holders, Qatar TV.
"Er, excuse me, your majesty, but if we can't show any football the masses will rise up and sweep us into the Arabian Gulf," said the head of the Not-being-swept-into-the-Arabian-Gulf branch of the Saudi secret police.
"We'll have to pirate it," said Mohammed Bin Salman.
"There may be trouble ahead," said the head of security, "but while there's moonlight and music and love and romance, let's face the music and dance."
"It means ditching Newcastle."
"Every cloud has a silver lining, your highness."
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Mick Harper
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Hatty just rang to say I've got Abu Dhabi mixed up with Qatar. As if. Me, a recognised expert on the Arab World and all things Al-Jazeerian. Still, I have changed all Abu Dhabi references to Qatar just to humour her.

Hatty, does that mean our Emirates Stadium is named in honour of the good guys or the bad guys? I don't want to not buy a season ticket for the wrong reasons.
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Mick Harper
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Time Stands Still For No Man

2016 16-year-old Naseem Shah impresses Andy Roberts
2019 16 years and 269 days old Naseem Shah makes his test debut against Australia
2019 Naseem Shah becomes the youngest person to get a hat trick in a test match
2019 Naseem Shah is entered into the World Under-19 Cup
2019 After protests Naseem Shah is quietly withdrawn from the Under-19 World Cup
2020 Seventeen-year-old Naseem Shah plays in First Test against England.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:

And then the usual staring-down-the-barrel predictions. Bob would have said, "All I want is a decent effort and we're still batting at tea tomorrow." This lot? It's all to do. Clear heads needed. Fatal to go into your shell. Play your normal game. If we want be No 1 in the world, this is the time to step up to the mark. No reason we can't gouge out a result.

Yes there is. They've got ninety mile an hour bowlers on a pitch that's doing plenty, two leg spinners that are turning it square and we're a batsman short. You're ex-Test players, you must know that chasing two hundred and fifty is a losing proposition against E L Wisty's XI on a Scarborough shirt-front. We've got no chance tomorrow. So why not tell us? We can take it. We're all grown up. Remember there is a reason that Bob Willis was a fixture for several decades. There isn't a magic formula but being unkind about fellow-professional cricketers is a sine qua non. Are you grown up enough for that? There's a vacancy for the next few decades if you are.


We won.
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Mick Harper
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My predictions were even more spot on than normal. I hadn't realised at the time it was the second biggest run chase in the entire history of Old Trafford and the biggest run chase in the entire history of playing Pakistan. The fact that we won merely illustrates the AE adage 'Never judge by results'. Egg on the face is always a mark of distinction in this game.

On the selection front: remember when Dilley and Botham won the 1000-1 test against Australia? Well, Dilley was dropped for the next test because he was in the side for his bowling, which he hadn't done well. Have the selectors got the guts to drop Buttler?
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Mick Harper
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How is it 'clearly a penalty' when a defender is trying to clear the ball and Lionel Messi sticks his foot in from behind, touches the ball, but the defender who is innocently going about his normal everyday business of clearing his lines, kicks Messi's newly-arrived foot instead? If defenders are going to spend the rest of their careers not clearing balls on the offchance that high-priced superstars are going to come from nowhere then where are we all going to be? Sitting with Gareth Bale in a tapas bar watching the cricket that's where we'll be.
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Hatty
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Talking of Qatar, how will the airspace blockade imposed by its neighbours (Saudi, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt) affect the 2022 World Cup, assuming it goes ahead? Perhaps Qatar can come to an arrangement with the Saudis over television rights to lift the ban. It came as a shock to many that Qatar got the gig but then again, it does have immense media clout.
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Mick Harper
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Your AE Guide to Time Added On

When the board goes up and it says "3" that means anything between three minutes and three minutes fifty-nine seconds. Here's your first AE point: refs are such nice uncomplicated people they hate having fifty thousand people whistling at them for no reason they can think of, so it means in practice "three minutes and one second". But, if there is any doubt, when it's one minute added on to just fifteen minutes of extra time, you'd better believe it.

Now for the science bit that none of you understand. Substitutions are not deemed 'breaks in the game' for the purpose of adding time except if, in the referee's opinion, they are being made for the purpose of wasting time. Referees, being tin pot little arseholes, just love adding a whole minute to the number they first thought of just because they can, even though such substitutions late on take ten or fifteen seconds.

So what does "No Ole" Ole do on the stroke of full time, and a minute has been signalled? He brings on MacThingummy and they have to play two extra minutes. God, I wished they'd scored. Nah, not really. All the way with McTominay!
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Chad


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Yes the little time caption (in the top left corner) showing added minutes, normally reflects that on the fourth official's board. But last night it kept changing, and extra minutes were added to the caption as play went on. This happened at the end of each session.

Very confusing... what the hell were BT playing at?
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Mick Harper
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"I am sorry but we are in the hands of our broadcasting hosts as regards replays so we won't know whether it was a foul or not," said BT's Mr Commentator. On more than one occasion. Unless it was squeaky board time. That can happen when the fancied team is trying for a late equaliser. "Come on, you Still-Euro Whites!"
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Wile E. Coyote


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Wolves using a very small squad (44), about a third (well actually a bit under) the size of Man city, (120) about half Arsenal, Chelsea, (87) Tottenham (86). This is worth a look as Wiley favors force maximization., training and morale as being better than numbers.

Liverpool are at 66 just in case you ask.

Nothing is easy. Generals are important.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
Wolves using a very small squad (44), about a third (well actually a bit under) the size of Man city, (120) about half Arsenal, Chelsea, (87) Tottenham (86). This is worth a look as Wiley favors force maximization., training and morale as being better than numbers.

Liverpool are at 66 just in case you ask.

Nothing is easy. Generals are important.


I take it back. Wiley is going to take a look. I don't think too many others are applying J.F.C Fuller to sport.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
I don't think too many others are applying J.F.C Fuller to sport.


M'Lady tells me that J.F.C Fuller tried that with Falmouth Town A.F.C., but it was so spectacularly unsuccessful he died of shame and was buried there.

J.F.C Fuller also had a walk-on part in Peaky Blinders (via the country party meetings with Oswald Mosely), but they play the game by very different rules.

M'Lady favours Soviet Deep Battle tactics. Something to do with similarities to the longball approach?
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