The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Wile E. Coyote]

Sadly statistics apear against you. Most likely falure in the Worldcups is down the middle. Mainly because the penalty taker often blasts over or hits the crossbar, having followed your advice to also put a bit of elevation on their balls. Maybe it's over excitement?

https://bbc.in/3Mb2Dxf

[Mick Harper]

Or maybe I wasn't talking about the World Cup. By elevation I meant not playing it along the floor as an ipso facto pass. This would be tantamount to taking the piss and an unmoving goalie would just pick it up and the pen-taker would get slaughtered. He'd never risk that. Blazing it over only arises when you're trying to beat-the-keeper by main force, and you're not when you're putting it down the middle.

When our man Ramsdale stood tall, the pen-taker wasn't given any stick since it still looked like 'a shot' even though it had no chance of ending up in the net. Ramsdale even helped the dude out by 'parrying it' before picking it up. Remember what Big Al said. "That's the worst penalty I've ever seen him take" not "That's the daftest penalty I've ever seen him take."

[Mick Harper]

It's no use, I just couldn't tell, even after freeze-framing. Was Rishi Sunak at St Mary's for PR reasons or because he really deep down cares? We'll soon find out. He's the Prime Minister so if he allows Southampton to be relegated we'll know deep down he cares more about football than he does about the Saints.

PS Who's going to be in for Ward-Price? Is a goal slotted from a free kick every now and again worth a lightweight in the middle of the park? For one of the constant strugglers... probably. Twenty-five million should do it.

[Mick Harper]

Did you see Erling Haaland's daughter celebrating a Man City goal at Goodison Park? And the fact she's been forced to wear the same hairstyle as her ponytailed dad? One phone call to social services and City's pursuit of the title is over.

[Mick Harper]

Spot the Correlation

[Mick Harper]

Cocklecarrot Corner

I know it's hard keeping up with handball, gents but you are paid to do so. It doesn't matter how earnestly everyone discusses 'intent', 'opposite his arm', 'unnatural position' and so on and so forth and so repeatedly by everyone at the ground, in the studio and for all I know looking down from God's heaven, it is all totally irrelevant. When someone has scored a goal and the ball has hit an arm on the way, it's no goal. End of. That's it. It's a question of fact not interpretation. To be technical, it's not even handball. But it is 'no goal'.

We turn now to Michael Oliver. I know it's hard keeping up with handball but you are paid to do so, so listen carefully. You have been told by VAR to go to the monitor to see whether the referee (in this case, a Mr Michael Oliver) has made an egregious error. Now unless you were watching some different footage to the rest of us, you hadn't. Only God in his heaven could tell whether it hit his arm or not. It might have, though it looked as if it only hit what we forensic anatomists call his 'shoulder'. So why, pray, did you overturn your own 'error'? It was a question of fact, and there was no fact.

You'd better pray because this will run and run. I haven't seen RefWatch yet.

[Mick Harper]

Gordon Bennet, ol' Dermo has made the exact same error.

[Mick Harper]

A lot of us find ourselves kicking our heels when it's a rest day in the Giro d'Italia. It's probably how the Renaissance got started. Brits second and third. Unlike the Renaissance.

[Mick Harper]

1. Brits first and second (we spiked the leader's drink with Covid and he's gone home).
2. Brits first and nowhere (they brought down our second-placed man with a craftily organised crash that carted him off to hospital).
3. It's like the Mille Miglia in Mussolini's day.

[Mick Harper]

Man City 4 Real Madrid 0

[Wile E. Coyote]

Well, I was expecting Real to win. Real normally improve as soon as the semis and final approach. English teams, in my opinion, tend to fade, they have never previously showed the sort of dominance that City have produced this year. So what do I know?

It has taken City 6 years of national dominance to get to European dominance which seems like a lot but, in Wiley's opinion, the Euro competion only really starts at the last 16, so maybe you are looking at comparatively few games against elite European teams, like Real or Bayern, the type that believe they will beat you, that have the mentality "we normally beat English Teams in the big games". Maybe it's just a normal number of games, say 20 or so (against the elite teams that were formerly considered the best), for the emerging team to acquire the psychological edge of knowing they are now the best as they run out on the park.

[Mick Harper]

Not bad, but lacks names and numbers. If you need a contrary example, consider Paris Saint Germain. They've been at it a comparable number of years and never come close.

[Mick Harper]

Basketball News

* The Harlem Globetrotters were founded by five foot three inch London-born Abe Saperstein in 1926.
* In 1948 and again in 1949, the Minneapolis Lakers (before they moved to Los Angeles, I've often wondered how they got the name) were NBA Champions. The Globetrotters beat them both times.
* Since 1952 their opponents have almost always been the Washington Generals a.k.a. the New York Nationals, the New Jersey Reds etc. The Generals’ only real purpose is to be the Globetrotters’ foils but they have to put on a good show, so they play well every game. Still, the Generals always manage to lose.
* A 1971 game started with the usual athletic agility and slapstick routines but the Generals played better than the Globetrotters that night and held a sizeable lead into the fourth quarter. Hardly anyone noticed because with the Globetrotters the score is an afterthought. Gradually though the Globetrotters realised they were losing and made a comeback.
* Then Red Klotz, the fifty-year-old Generals' point guard and captain, lofted a jump shot which accidentlaly went in, making the score 100–99 in their favour with only three seconds left. Meadowlark Lemon received the ball, the Generals put up minimal defence, Lemon hoisted a trademark hook shot but missed. The referee tried to stop the clock, but it was too late, the Globetrotters had lost.
* Children in the stands cried. Adults booed. Red Klotz said people reacted as if they had 'murdered Santa Claus'. The loss has not been repeated in the fifty years since.

Edited from https://medium.com/the-peculiar-truth/the-peculiar-truth-about-the-last-time-the-harlem-globetrotters-lost-a889364d2520

[Mick Harper]

Another day of the Giro, another day of pouring rain. I have been watching the Giro since its inception in 1909 and I've never seen the like. What better evidence of climate change?

Tomorrow things are back to normal. The route has been truncated because one of the mountain tops is still covered in snow. What better evidence that the whole climate debate has been overblown?

[Mick Harper]

Alkmaar 0 West Ham 1 (agg 1-3)

At the end of the match the Alkmaar Ultras (yer what?) waded into the West Ham players' family & friends enclosure (yer what?) seeking to discuss the finer points of the game. They had a pretty good reason to since the whole tie -- and a trip to a Euroland final -- hinged on an Alkmaar forward six yards out with only the goalie to beat having his legs taken out from under him by a lunging West Ham defender who got nowhere near the ball. You would think that worthy of discussion by one of the following:

the ref
the VAR bloke
the BT commentator
Robbie Savage
Moysie, at the post-match press conference
the BT studio host(ette)
the studio panel

But, no, they were all too busy celebrating the Irons pulling the irons out of this season's fire. (Yer what?)