Liverpool and other stuff

Much happened this weekend. We had the unedifying spectacle of Luis Suarez refusing to accept the hand of Patrice Evra; Kenny Dalglish suggesting that he hadn’t seen the incident and said he didn’t know it had happened when he was conducting his sour after-match interview with Sky’s Jeff Shreeves and then, at the end of the game, we had Patrice Evra dancing around like a demented fish trying to wind up the crowd.

Sir Alex then popped up and said that Suarez was a disgrace to Liverpool FC and should never play for them again. I don’t remember him recommending that Manchester United should ban Eric Cantona from playing again for Manchester United after the kung-fu incident at Crystal Palace.

Dalglish and Suarez have half apologised, incidentally neither of them directly mentioned Evra in their apologies, which seem, when read, that they might have been written by the office junior. To be honest the collective behaviour of all the personnel involved leaves a bad taste and, particularly in the case of Liverpool FC, a problem that won’t be resolved until Suarez and probably Dalglish leave.

That’s the bad news; on the good news front, Britain’s Davis Cup team managed, without Andy Murray, to beat Slovakia 3 matches to 2 and qualify for the group one play-off match against Belgium in the Europe/Africa zone in April. The winners of that match will be guaranteed a promotion play-off place, which could lead to qualifying for the world group.

The performances of Dan Evans, who won both his singles matches, were particularly impressive. He beat the world number 65 in his first game and then the world number 86 in his second. He is ranked number 276, which emphasises the achievement.

Given that last weekend the girls won through to the world group of the Federation Cup. Tennis, in the UK, may finally be on the up.

Jessica Ennis has started the year brilliantly; in the meeting at Sheffield she competed in three events, winning twice and equalling or bettering her best heptathlon scores in all three events.

20 year-old pole-vaulter Helen Bleasdale continues to surpass all expectations. Ms Bleasdale now sits as the no 2 vaulter in the world and continues to improve at every event.

Our amateur boxers have pulled out the stops with Anthony Joshua and Thomas Stalker both winning Golds at the Bocskai Tournament in Hungary at the weekend.

Our swimmers have collected medals from events in Sheffield and Sydney. Rebecca Adlington recorded her fastest 800m time of the year in winning the UK Universities Championships; Francesca Halsall in the 100m Butterfly and promptly swam faster than her close British rival, Ellen Gandy who had set the fastest time in the world earlier that day in Sydney, Australia. The girls are numbers 1 and 2 in the world.

The rowers are piling up pressure on themselves; the British team have qualified for 13 of the 14 Olympic classes and are expected to produce a prodigious number of medals at the Olympic regatta.

In F1, Joe Saward, as usual has just written an interesting article on his blog about the future of Formula One engines. www.joesaward.wordpress.com is the link.13th February 2012

Tweet