The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Wile E. Coyote]

Wiley disagrees, this allows the defending team to reorganise. The more dangerouus throw-in is the one where the ballboy immediately flips a ball to the onrushing thrower, who then quickly takes the throw before the defence is ready.

Only works for home teams.

[Mick Harper]

Arsenal are still the only team that remembers you can't be offside from a throw-in and parks someone on the goal line. This is exceptionally weird (of the other teams).

Don Revie (I think it was) realised that for the defending side having a throw near their own goal line was exceptionally hazardous and Billy Bremner (or whoever it was) had a magic word that he shouted and everyone handy in all-white would rush to that quadrant of the pitch, led by Norman Hunter who would 'bite the legs' of any defender with thoughts of clearing the ball. 'Farmer' Giles and 'Sniffer' Clarke did the rest.

[Grant]

Rory Delap, the best ever throw-in taker, was a good javelin thrower at school. Maybe that combination - strong upper body strength plus twinkle toes with the feet - doesn't come together very often.

Although some PL footballers look like they should be able to pull off both accomplishments. Adama Traore, for instance, looks like he'd make a fine spear chucker (!) and is certainly good with his feet.

I think it comes down to modern managers not wanting to be embarrassed by relying on long-ball football. It requires an AE specialist like Tony Pulis to say to hell with tiki taka.

[Pete Jones]

Is there an equivalent for the following in sarker?

When a basketball team intentionally fouls a player (because he is a poor free throw shooter, they call it "Hacka-[insert player name]". This almost never works as a phrase yet they do it anyway. It comes from the fact that the human mountain Shaquille O'Neal ("Shaq") was a bad free throw shooter, and teams would "Hacka-Shaq."

Being completely uncreative, Reggie Miller the announcer just said, in seriousness, "Hacka-Mitchell-Robinson." Just drop it, at that point.

[Mick Harper]

Grant: You put an exclamation after 'spear chucker', so I assume you are referring to the black quarterback ringer in M*A*S*H. Reminding us that every kid in America can throw a ball a certain way, but can't bowl a ball for toffee.

A correspondent writes when I was checking with him about the originator of the long throw: 'I remember Ian Hutchinson as a Chelsea name from long ago but hadn't remembered he was a long throw specialist.'

Pete: If the person fouled had to take the penalty we might get less diving in the box. Or more. The only time someone gets shaqued is when the manager glares at you before a penalty shoot-out.

[Mick Harper]

Another twat sounding off from the terraces
--------------

Notes from Midweek Mar 16, 2024
Everything’s getting fractured. Nobody knows
where they are with the schedules.

I was watching our boys dispose of euro-fodder (Porto after pens, for your records) when the bloke on the telly said, “That wraps it up for Arsenal for three weeks until they play Manchester City in the big one. They’ll be well-rested.”

[Mick Harper]

Stat of the Week

[Pete Jones]

Stat of the Week

The $6B Boston Celtics took 60 three pointers last night, missing 45 of them - a record for misses. They barely lost the game to the New York Trousers. In the 3rd quarter, they took a total of 20 shots, 19 of which were 3-pt attempts. As a result, the befuddlement of NBA media is running high, acting like this is why they lost the game. Is there an AE principle about the illogic of judging decisions only by their results?

[Mick Harper]

Are you being serious? It is a prime directive. However, there is the wider point of whether according to 'the metrics' it is ever worth taking a three-point shot. But presumably this is a well-worn path in a sport and a country obsessed with analytics. (You might ponder why you are the only such country, that is an AE question.)

Slightly more interesting is the coincidence of scoring forty-five points while missing forty-five shots.

[Pete Jones]

My initial response to the "why we're the only country" question is, Is that even true? Then I assumed it was true and thought, "Everything is treated as business, even games - and here more than anywhere." Then I thought, Is that even true?

[Wile E. Coyote]

The whole idea that you should get more points for the extra difficulty of scoring at long range seems really weird to us, but I guess we need to try it for a season by awarding 2 goals for shots outside the penalty area. But then a free kick outside the box might be worth a possible 2 if converted, a penalty a maximum 1. So it doesnt feel right.

[Pete Jones]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Back to my favourite subject, hanky panky in the beautiful game.
-----------------

Footballer rewrites Dostoevsky March 30, 2024

Let’s say there’s this burglar in Paris and eventually les flics arrest him and he gets a year in the can. He moves to London, continues his evil ways and gets caught for this fresh set of downs. He finds himself up in front of the beak once more only this time he’s brought along a brief who has a whole new slant on crime and punishment.

[Wile E. Coyote]

In the good old days, punishments were real. Tony Kay Sheffield Wednesday, Everton and English international, got 7 weeks in jail, and a life ban. The only small consolation was that he had been awarded "man of the match", by the Sunday Record, despite contriving with others to throw the game Ipswich Town v Sheffield Wednesday match in the 1962–63 season.