Category: Sport (Page 12 of 24)

autumn rugby fever

November 8, 2005 / rob

I don’t know why the autumn rugby test internationals are exciting, but they are. Perhaps it’s the welcome break from football, or the feeling that winter is approaching, which makes me long for the pub and the feel of a barber jacket, although I have never owned one. Or the smell of leaves. (Stop it). 
 
There is something pointless yet meaningfull about it all. I yearn for the All Blacks to win the grand slam, walk away with the tag of best team in the world, safe in the knowledge that when it comes to the World cup, they’ll balls it up. 
 
I love the new faces in the England team, the desperate scramble for places. I really enjoy the fact that the matches mean nothing, yet one bad performance can somehow be almost career-ending. Both style and results are equally important. 
 
It’s also a hemisphere battle, always South v North. The double header of England vs Australia and Ireland vs New Zealand this Saturday is very tasty. It gives the imagination free flow. (So if Wales are 40 points worse than the All Blacks, and Ireland lose by just 10, does that mean… etc etc) 
 
Which leads me to think every year: each autumn all three major Southern Hemisphere countries come over. Why not do a North v South match? Include France, forget the lions for a while. It might just be silly idea, but it could be something special.

Lessons in finding your target audience #452

November 1, 2005 / rob

Advertising products during football programmes is just obvious, right? Cars, phones, booze, they are all easy choices. 
 
So, we have a Tuesday Champions League match featuring Liverpool. Cut to the ads. A new electric shaver – yes, that’s good. Next up – footage of a boy pouring a goldfish from a plastic bag into a pond. What could this be? Voiceover: “It’s good to be out in the open” Yes yes, where’s the car/phone/holiday/creditcard? 
 
“So that’s why Philips have introduced the new open MRI scanner.” Scene of woman in hospital, looking like a model, grinning as she is about to have a wonderful MRI scan. 
 
What on earth is going on? Since when has needing an MRI scan been a fun, aspirational thing? And how big is the market for MRI scanners anyway? And during the football? 
 
You can just hear the pub banter – “Mate, mate, you should really upgrade your MRI scanner – it’s looks shit. And now they’re open. Brilliant. Look at mine.”

I will not make sense

October 27, 2005 / rob

It’s that time of year again. A couple of weekends ago, thousands of people were irritated by Nike. Again. This time, it was Hyde park, Battersea park and some others as well. I got caught up in the Battersea park run. It was hugely annnoying. (<a href=”https://minto.net/blogs/archives/55-Nike-nightmare.html”>see last year for what it’s all about</a>) 
 
Why? It’s not the disruption, or even the music. It the slogan on every shirt. And people are still wearing these bloody shirts as they go running round London. 
 
This time it was: “I will run a year.” 
 
What the hell does that mean? Really. What does it mean? “I will run FOR a year”? In which case, is that non-stop, like Forrest Gump, or just once a week? And if you give up after a year, then that’s not much good, is it? 
 
“I will run a Nike race each year”? More likely, but a poor sentiment. 
 
“I will run around London wearing this fucking shirt for a year”? Ah, now we have it.

Henry and Bruno – predictable in different ways

October 18, 2005 / rob

ITV had all the sport last night. Champions League football, and the Frank Bruno documentary. 
 
Both were predictable. In the football, Scholes was sent off for ManU, and <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4349012.stm”>Henry scored an amazing goal</a>. He now has overtaken Ian Wright’s 185 Arsenal club record, and probably 70 of those goals would be in any other player’s top 10. If he goes elsewhere, I fear for the gunners, who have over-achieved in terms of spending power for many years. 
 
But the Bruno documentary was sadly predictable in other ways. Frank was a national treasure, an icon, a decent boxer and a hell of a puncher. He never shook the “Uncle Tom” tag, gabbling about it as soon as he had won the world title. But the worst aspect was all those friends who watched him descend into masses of drugs, sleeping in the garden, strange phone calls in the middle of the night, feeble stunts and hopeless DJing, and did nothing. Yet they all are happy to chat on TV about it. Poor Frank, bit of a mess, not the brightest, losing it. And, oh look, he’s gone mad. So why didn’t you DO something? The predictability is not that Frank had mental health problems, but that his “mates” did sod-all to help.

Football crazies

October 12, 2005 / rob

A strange week in the beautiful (ugly) game. Jonathan Woodgate seems to be on a <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4332894.stm”>scoring frenzy of own goals</a>, England <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/4326110.stm”>qualify</a> for Germany 2006 thanks to other results just as the knives sharpen for Sven and Becks, and <a href=”http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7110585c-3a81-11da-b0d3-00000e2511c8.html”>Sep Blatter goes all greed-is-bad</a> on, of all places, FT.com. Football is very weird at the moment. 
 
But never mind football. What is <a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1586025,00.html”>Megan Dodds obsession with Roger Federer?</a> And who is Megan Dodds, you may ask. I have no idea. She seems to merit a Q&A in the Weekend section of the Guardian.

Hardcore cricket

October 6, 2005 / rob

The super series should be the Lions of cricket – but it lacks several things: 
 
– the tour atmosphere – it’s too quick, an in-and-out job 
– history, which can’t be helped 
– passion. It all seems a bit half-hearted 
 
There is an excellent piece summarising all this on <a href=”http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/221079.html”>cricinfo </a>(which has become one of my favourite sites.) 
 
Sometimes I like to point out the weirder pictures that are used on sports sites, and here is one…. it’s in a review on the BBC of <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/4312638.stm”>who should replace Simon Jones</a> on the Pakistan tour, but they have used a really weird picture of the bowler Liam Plunkett. It looks like they have put one of those S&M red balls in his mouth, like in Pulp Fiction. See what I mean? 
 
<img src=”http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40877000/jpg/_40877588_plunkett203.jpg” alt=”” />

Murray on the rise

September 30, 2005 / rob

I can’t get excited by Andrew Murray breaking the top 100. I know it’s good, I know, I know. He’s only 18, he’s the future. Stop it. 
 
The reason why I am not popping out of my shorts like the British media is that a player breaking the top 100 is so run-of-the-mill for other countries. We latch onto success and smother it so hard, and then get upset and criticise when whoever it is we just put on a pedestal doesn’t quite win the big one. It’s a self-destructive streak, and it’s played out in offices and pubs all over the country. I hate it. 
 
So, yes. Murray is in the top 100. And as if to prove it, <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/4296600.stm”>he backed it up</a> and in his next match beat a very good player in Robby Ginepri, who was in the US Open semi. That should move him into the 80s. 
 
This is a remarkable achievement for a player that started the year ranked 400+. His potential is huge. Yet, he could also be another Tommy Haas (lots of promise, lots of injuries, lots of disappointment, no big title) or a Magnus Norman (currently residing in the “Where are they now?” file). Or, God forbid, a Tim Henman. 
 
You smiled at that, didn’t you? You hate Henman. We all do. Bloody choker. That’s the problem. We all have a go at Tim, but he’s actually far better than we think. If Murray matches his career, we will be fortunate indeed.

The world according to Woodgate

September 23, 2005 / rob

There are facts, and there are opinions. Here are the facts: 
 
– Jonathan Woodgate transfered from Newcastle to Real Madrid in 2004, for �13.4m. 
– He was injured. He stayed injured for a long time. 
– After a year of inactivity, he made his <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4273704.stm”>La Liga debut for Real last night</a>. 
– He scored an own goal, and was sent off for a second bookable offence after 65 minutes. 
 
Here’s Jonathan’s take on events: 
 
“It was not the best start in the world.” 
No, no it wasn’t. It’s pretty fucking awful. I would call that the worst start you could imagine. 
 
“I want to thank the public, who were brilliant when I was walking off. They were all clapping and cheering.” 
Hmm. Now I know “Woody” isn’t an intellectual, but did it not cross his mind that the crowd were possibly being sarcastic? No? Not a chance? They were pleased with his performance, were they? Were they?

The trouble with football is…

September 21, 2005 / rob

Cricket, apparently. I have seen enough articles bemoaning the state of football and singing the praises of cricket to think that they are being autogenerated by some virus. Such short memories we all have. 
 
The Premiership has made one big mistake, in my view. It has been marketed as a thrill-a-minute league. The marketing was always going to attract more non-traditional fans. 
 
By traditional fans I mean people who have grown up supporting one club, and will support it till they die, and will always buy the kit (if they can). 
 
By non-traditional fans I mean those whose loyalties are thin, who might be able to talk a good game, but for whom the game is not a life-death thing. They are probably middle-class, have never been in a proper fight in their lives, and have only been to a handful of matches. Me, in other words. 
 
By boosting the revenues through Sky, ticket-price hikes and the ever-changing kit, football got a huge financial lift. That has disappeared as the thrill-a-minute league has lost its lustre. And now, lots of 0-0s, the dominance of Chelsea, the dull formations that are the current vogue, and the wonderful Ashes have made people worry for the future of the game. Apparently, the most interesting thing in the premiership is Wayne Rooney’s temper. 
 
Well, they shouldn’t worry. Football will pick up again. There have been dull years before, and the extra fans will return if the games get better. The World Cup next year will revive interest – it always does. 
 
In the meantime, I have given up trying to describe how boring the footy is. Instead of saying the Premiership is as dull as [insert something very dull here], I have taken to describing other boring things “as dull as the Premiership”. People seem to know what I mean. If it catches on, then the game can definitely be given the last rites.

Oh, just make it up.

September 15, 2005 / rob

Having gorged on the Ashes coverage and analysis, I was going to present a best-of links to savour, but got distracted by this: 
 
<a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/robbo/4223558.stm”>Davo v Robbo</a> 
 
I’m sorry, but what are the BBC playing at? This isn’t insightful, clever or funny. It’s pretty hopeless. In fact, it reads like a sixth-form radio skit. Why set up two stereotyped, fictional cricket commentators? There are plenty that exist in the real world. Why not have a head-to-head between Lillie and Brearley? Ah, of course. This is quicker. Make up the drivel instead. 
 
To compensate, I will give you a <a href=”http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/engvaus/content/story/219208.html”>proper cricket link from Cricinfo</a>. It’s an excellent piece of stats about the Ashes, showing where England had the advantage. 
 
Oh, and <a href=”http://sport.guardian.co.uk/ashes2005/story/0,15993,1570440,00.html”>here’s another</a>. Weirdly, it’s by former Goldman Sachs / Chairman of BBC Gavyn Davies, but he’s very clever so we shouldn’t be surprised he can do sport as well as write about economics, advise the government, run the largest public-sector broadcaster in the world, be a senior partner at one of the major investment banks, etc.