What a weekend for British Sport
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Liverpool and other stuff.
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PR Disaster
Football PR is out of touch. Read more
English arrogance!!!!
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County Cricket in Chaos
The Morgan report is causing concern. Read more here
Murray suffers in Melbourne, Panesar in Paradise and Rory tries to tame the Tiger
A contrasting day of sporting emotions, Andy Murray suffers more heartache in a major as Monty Panesar returns to the world stage. Read more here
Inspiration in Innsbruck
Lizzy Yarnold has superbly won the Gold Medal in the Skeleton Junior World Championship currently being held in Innsbruck. This follows on from her first Senior Skeleton winning performance last week. Travel Places provided the travel arrangements for the team. Full details of the event can be found on the BBC website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/winter_sports/16740767.stm
Anguish in Abu Dhabi
England's senior run scorers from last year have again failed to capitalise on the solid base created by Alistair Cook and Jonathon Trott. The pair put on 139 runs after skipper Strauss agained failed. From 166 for 2 England have collapsed to 207 for 5. Pietersen and Morgan have bothe failed again. Bell has made one scoring shoot from the 29 balls he has been in. Let's hope that Matt Prior is in good shape. England need a decent lead; I don't think England will want to be chasing more than about 200 batting last.
26th January 2012
Bad man Balotelli.
Once again Ballotelli lets himself and his team down. His blatant stamp on the head of Scott Parker. Quite rightly the FA have charged him with violent conduct and he faces a 4 match ban, this is his second offence. City may appeal, but if they do and lose the ban could be longer. Howard Webb, Britain's so-called No1 referee, managed to miss this incident as well the forearm smash inflicted by Lescott on Kaboul, missed both incidents. It is an indictment of how poor his refereeing has become since the debacle of he World Cup Final. Again he missed a cucial red card offence; his failure to act, because it was a World Cup Final, allowed the players to get away with any sort of tackle or infringement. He is, in my opinion, far too cosy with the players. Both Parker and Bolotelli had been booked, so it was likely that if they clashed during the game something might happen. The clash happend and Webb is adamant that hadn't seen the incident because he looked away. A decent referee would have kept his eye on the aftermath of the clash as it was always likely something would happen.
Bluster at Bognor.
My football mate and myself set off to Bognor on Saturday to watch the Rocks play Corinthian Casuals in a Ryman Southern League match. A good ground and a decent game spoilt by a very high blustery wind. Bognor always try to play a good passing game and generally manage to deliver, however, the wind made things very difficult. No matter a good contest with Bognor winning 2 -1 and they remain top of the league. They are also top of the league in respect of biggest crowd of the season and average crowds. A great atmosphere with a decent referee produced a decent game. Tremendous value at £8.00.
My football history brain started to click in whn I started to think about Corinthian Casuals. They are one of the great names in English football. The existing club was born out of two clubs, The Corinthians, who were formed in 1882 and the Casuals, who were formed in 1883. The two clubs joined together in 1939. Much of the early England team came from the Corinthians. The history of these two clubs is fascinating and can be read in full by accessing the following website.
www.corinthian-casuals.com/clubinfo/history.php
24th January 2012
Brilliance in Buenos Aires.
GBs Womens Hockey team continue their superb performances in the Champion's Trophy currently being held in Argentina. They started off by beating South Korea 3 - 1 in their opening match and then followed that up on Thursday by beating current World Champions, Argentina by 2 goals to nil. They now qualify automatically for Sunday's final regardless of the outcome of their last group game against New Zealand. Medals at the Olympics beckon.
Wingey Warnock.
Neil Warnock has complained that his time as management at QPR was undermined by players and officials tweeting against him. Given that he signed the arch tweeter, one J. Barton, is he really surprised with what happened? Perhaps he should question his own judgement in signing the ex jailbird.
20th January 2012
Debacle in Dubai.
England's sorry collapse in Dubai suggests that they either went into the game under-cooked or over-confident. The batters, with the exception of Matt Prior and possibly Jonathon Trott, need to have a serious look at the video replays. The shot selection was poor and given that the pitch was very even-paced and should have only rewarded hard work by a bowler , the scores made by England look even worse. The bowlers bowled well as a unit and yet Pakistan still managed to score 338. That shows the how bad the England scores were. In other words rubbish.
19th January 2012
England v Pakistan Test Series
Watching the battle starting between Pakistan and England in Dubai had a very surreal feeling. Here we have the No1 test side in the world playing against, arguably the most in-form side in the world, and only a handful of people watching. Apparently the only part of the ground that is full is the media centre, which is full of journos, many of whom are there just on the remote possibility that one of the Pakistan players over-steps and they can all file the headline" Are they still at it".
Pakistan's spin attack is high-class and although you could argue that three of England's to five got out to poor shots, it was probably the quality of the bowling that induced those poor shots. The early signs seem to indicate that, when comparing the impact Swann has had so far with the impact the Pakistan spinners had right from the off, the apparent decline over the last year in his ability to take wickets has more and more credibility.
Tennis in Melbourne
Did anyone really expect any better from the four Brits who lost in the first round yesterday? Given that Keothavong was clearly ill and shouldn't have started, with the possible exception of Baltacha all were playing players they would never expect to beat. Watson needs strength and better first serve and Robson needs to stay fit for longer than a couple of months. Both girls will cement their places in the top 100, which means automatic entry into the main tournaments and can only be good for both of them.
16th January 2012
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