The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Move over, Bellingham, Loftus-Cheek coming through. Yes, the Lewisham-born star is ripping up the rails in Milan. Maybe you should be looking at him, Chelsea.

[Mick Harper]

Cocklecarrot at Braga vs Qarabag

Don't forget that, when forming a wall to defend a free kick, the last man is not the wall but the 'draught excluder' lying down behind it. Especially when he has his head back to avoid being hit in the face by the ball. Unlike arms, heads count for offside purposes.

[Mick Harper]

News from India

* My colleague Cocklecarrot-sahib is perturbed because England were awarded five runs when an Indian batsman 'ran on the pitch'. I had to explain to him that although this was only the second time such a penalty had ever been exacted in a test match, and despite it being the batsman's first offence, and despite the fact that he was embarked on a quick single and needed to avoid the onrushing bowler, England need every run they can get.

* Sales of tape measures have mushroomed since Ben Duckett revealed he uses one to keep his hair in a tight bun on doffing his helmet having reached his century. Metric or Imperial are equally effective.

* The gentleman playing that noxiously over-familiar tune on his bugle has asked me to point out that he only plays it when an English batsman hits a boundary and it is only noxiously over-familiar to people who just watch the highlights when only balls going for boundaries are shown. But I told him to 'play taps' as we brass band folk say.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Cocklecarrot writes: Some of you, I know, are worried about this new concept introduced during the Newcastle/Bournemouth match of 'sustained shirt-pulling'. Lots of people have been ringing me up, "Surely shirt-pulling is an absolute not a relative offence."
"I don't know, dear, I'm only his mum."

[Mick Harper]

Perhaps someone can confirm this distant memory of mine. Orthodox spinners, like say Lock and Laker, could bowl all day and not once offer up a full toss or a long hop. And it was nothing out of the ordinary. Only leggies and Chinamen would do this and then only sparingly.

Unless I'm being deceived by only watching the highlights, all England spinners do this about once an over. And I'm not talking about your 'occasionals' -- batsmen turning their arms over when the new ball's due or they're playing for a declaration. They now open the bowling.

[Mick Harper]

The Indian intelligentsia are infamous for using English idioms that are either out of date or being used in not quite the right way. When speaking continuous English, they can get the grammar wrong because they are mentally translating from Hindi. Hence, when I heard this on the Day Four highlights

[Mick Harper]

Porto 37 Arsenal 0

That's fouls and shots on target respectively. Yes, the secret of dealing with Arsenal is out. Rough 'em up. Reminds me of Troy Deeney on a wet Watford day not so long ago. Goodbye, season.

[Mick Harper]

Have you noticed how terribly black Aston Villa are? Something that will interest Enoch Powell, ex-manager of their bitter rivals, Wolverhampton.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Arsenal have been championing black African talent for years, they had a team of nine black players in 2002, and by 2005 they had an entirely foreign squad announced for a game. Wenger worked out you could get more for your money.

[Mick Harper]

I trust everyone spotted Wiley's bogus list. He went from black to black African to foreign. Is Saka 'black African', Wiley, and did we get more for our money by getting him from Academy United?

[Mick Harper]

I'm a traditionalist by nature but, I like to think, a progressive traditionalist. So for example I have taken this new bazball to heart after previously excoriating it. I did however point out that it should not be over-indulged in by Mr Root when we're up against it. He took my advice and put England in a supremely good position at the end of Day One of the fourth test in our quest to square the series, with a carefully compiled century.

On Day Two he was ideally placed to apply a bit of belated bazball, being left with nos 9, 10 and 11 at the other end. Alas, nos 9, 10 and 11 decided they had to play bazball with a vengeance and were all out in five minutes, leaving Joe to trudge off the park looking rueful, his bazball talents untested and our once great nation possibly in the bin of world cricket.

I still have faith in bazball but not in the England management who introduced it.

[Mick Harper]

My Medium story about Munter Hunters FC (see above) continues to amaze. As I have griped endless times, my stories get fewer views than women do of my body but MHFC has got sixty. Now this is not entirely unprecedented -- I'm getting towards two hundred stories on Medium so one or two stuck to the wall -- but the views are garnered overwhelmingly at the time of publication and get added to one at time sporadically after that. MHFC gets them regularly and in relative spates, six just yesterday.

All of them from non-members of Medium so they must be learning about it from somewhere out there in the boonies and it is not because either me or Medium put it there. This pleases me, but vexes me too.

[Mick Harper]

Another 50,000 sell-out to watch the Matildas. The Aussies like their women and they like their sport. And they like to win. One-nil up after thirty seconds. Ten-nil at full time. Uzbekistan's fondness for women and sport is clearly not in the same league. Ballpark. Universe. Religion.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The FIDE chess candidates tournament is in danger of not happening as some of the candiates have not been given visas to Canada.

The problem is most likely that 8 candidates are either Indian or Russian, and Trudeau is claiming both countries along with China are up to no good. India, it is claimed, were responsible for shooting a Sikh nationalist or, err, terrorist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on.... Canadian soil.

Still, would a chess player be involved? Unfortunately there is precedent. Kronsteen was participating in Venice against the Canadian grandmaster MacAdams when he receives a hidden message...."You are required at once"