Danny Boy

If you don't already, I urge you to listen to the Danny Baker show on Five Live. Obviously 9-11 on a Saturday morning might not be amenable to most people, but the podcast doesn't half light up a grey drizzly February commute. Currently loving the Roman numeral footballers feature (VIDIC!) and of course the ever present 'Sausage Sandwich Game'. A couple of hours of irreverent fun of a vaguely sporting nature, all held together with Danny's infectious enthusiasm for the absurd. Worth checking out.

I Have Nothing To Say...

...that wouldn't be termed 'partisan', 'biased' or' sour-grapes' by many people who have not set foot on the left wing of a snowy pitch on a Sunday morning in February against a fat pub team of middle-aged cloggers from the arse-end of Tadcaster. I have, however, so I shall say what I like :)

Whilst tonight was one of the most entertaining games of football I have witnessed for a long time, the decision of the referee to award a penalty for the alleged 'tug' on Babel was an utter disgrace. I ask anyone who may have stumbled across this corner of the internet to look at the first leg and the Hleb incident on 65 mins (no penalty given) and then examine tonight's Babel incident on 85 mins (penalty given) and explain to me in no uncertain terms what the rubbery fuck was the difference? Eh? Nothing. Oh, apart from the referee. Either it is or it isn't a penalty. Yes or no. Black or white. Pinky or Perky. Cheech or Chong. Randall or Hopkirk (Deceased), etc...

For most of the game it was impossible to split the teams. I was discussing this at length with some Liverpool fans in the pub when the penalty as awarded; even they had the good grace to be embarrassed. The Guardian MBM commentary described it as "not entirely clear-cut". That should be in the dictionary under L (for Liberal). I know I'll almost certainly have calmed down by tomorrow but for now the result has a nasty aftertaste. Admittedly, us taking the lead on 13 minutes forced Benitez into a reluctant attacking formation. Perhaps we would have been better off scoring in the 89th minute. Now, for the purist, an almost certainly dour Liverpool-Chelsea semi-final does not fill the heart with glee. Oh well. Penalties, anyone?

Anyway, I keep reminding myself that Arsene told us in August that this team was "not ready". Having been top of the league and in with a shout of the semi-finals of Europe's 'super-league', all us Gooners begged to differ. Maybe he was right. Bring on 2008-09?And Theo...

Happy 25th Birthday, Eduardo

Arsenal striker Eduardo Alves da Silva is 25 today.

Rather a shame that his leg was shattered in two places on Saturday by an utterly disgraceful high tackle in the third minute from Birmingham City fuckwit* Martin Taylor**, isn't it?

~SQUEAMISH WARNING~
~DETAILED PICTURES HERE~

If it was malicious, and he intended it, ban him for life. If it wasn't, and he is just clumsy, he shouldn't be playing in the Premier League. Most Sunday morning pub teams (and I have played for a few) wouldn't accept tackles like that from their defenders; shin high, studs up, sliding in at speed.

Contrary to many, I am placing the blame firmly at the door of Alex McLeish, Birmingham City's manager. It is almost certain that, in the dressing room before the game, he fired his payers up with the instruction to "go and let them know they've been in a game", "get yourselves in their faces early doors" and "the way to beat Arsenal is to kick them up in the air". Unfortunately, if you do that with players of obviously limited ability, people get hurt. If that is indicative of how English club managers tell their teams to play against Arsenal, maybe that European Super League isn't such a bad idea. At least the swan-diving, shirt-pulling, face-spitting Italians play decent football :)

Seriously, though, I am livid. I don't buy any of this 'freak accident' bleating from certain sections of the media (and Garth Crooks can just fuck right off, while we're here). The studs-up challenge was banned for a reason. With the number of 'potentially career ending challenges' analysed on Match Of The Day each week, you'd think the authorities might have reviewed the punishment for such atrocities and forced both clubs and players to address the idea that this is unacceptable and remove it from the game. But no, as it stands, Martin Taylor will serve the same ban as Jeremy Aliadiere got for bitch-slapping a Liverpool player that same afternoon. Thank you, the FA, the Premier League and all you bloated paté-munching FIFA/UEFA suits - I hope you're happy.

Get well, Eduardo. Soon, if possible, but fully at least.

UPDATE: Patrick Barclay in the Daily Telegraph says similar

* you will know that I rarely swear on my blog but I cannot bring myself to describe him as a 'footballer'.
** whose nickname is 'Tiny', I assume referring to his brain.

I Knew It!

The first time I post about how well Arsenal are playing in nearly three months and THIS happens!

We were utterly, utterly woeful. That'll teach me. Sorry, Arsene...

Swing Low

I am not the world's biggest rugby fan.

This possibly may have something to do with having sustained two broken ribs playing in my first ever game. Aged 13 and new to the school, I was placed at hooker by the games master who suggested that my 'excellent football skills' meant I would be 'useful with my feet' in the scrum. Well he was not wrong. At one of the early scrums, I adeptly hooked the ball back to our Number 8 against the head*. In the ensuing melée, I suddenly received a sharp blow to the chest area from the boot and/or fist and/or elbow of a rather annoyed (and much larger than me) member of the opposition front row. Unable to breathe, I collapsed in a heap and was carted off to the Sanitorium (yes, it was quite a posh school...) where I was tended to by the matronly, er, Matron and subsequently packed off to York General Hospital for X-rays.

Broken ribs are horrible. You can't laugh, cough or breathe properly**. They just 'need time to heal'. So that got me off games for about 6 weeks, during which time I started to learn the saxophone and decided to form a band.

But that's another story. The main reason for this post is the scoreline England 12-10 Australia in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup this afternoon; a bit of an upset, if truth be told, given that the Wallabies were clear favourites for the tournament. So jolly well done, chaps. Splendid result. No reason why you can't go on and repeat the heroics of 2003...

...just don't, in your desperation for non-injured, even half-fit, partly-English players, ask me to come in at hooker :)

* winning the ball on the opposition put-in at a scrum, in case you were wondering.

** oh, I forgot sneezing; that's the worst. 'Atchooooooooooooooofuckthathurts'.

A (Fairly) Recent Conversation On IRC

[14:18] (fourstar) so i went to Lillywhites yesterday and i was truly saddened
[14:18] (fourstar) it's just a f*cking 'Sports World' in a wonderfully famous & historic London building
[14:18] (greatbiglizard) tbh, it's been pretty ropey the last couple of years
[14:19] (fourstar) yeah, i didn't know - it is clearly the fifth circle of hell, staffed by incontinent meandering baboons, stocking only ill-fitting highly-flammable nylon sportswear, available in size (a) big-boned b*stard offspring of Giant Haystacks or (b) amoeba
[14:20] (fourstar) and now the aforementioned baboons have walkie-talkies
[14:21] (fourstar) so they spend all their time shouting random shoe sizes at the stockroom, the occupants of which are plainly out of their minds on ridiculously strong skunk (or busy contemplating the physical influence of supercoiling DNA-modifying enzymes and calculating the chemical energy of nucleoside triphosphates required to unwind the DNA double helix into single strands)
[14:21] (fourstar) but i reckon the former...
[14:22] (fourstar) anyway, they only ever have anything in a size 6 or in pink/yellow stripes
[14:24] (fourstar) w*nkers

Run Forrest (Hill) Run

In a weak moment, I managed to somehow agree to sign up for the Arbuthnot Securities team to enter the 5km (3.5 mile) JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge. So, eight weeks to get up to optimum fitness (although more pressing might be to purchase some suitable running shoes...) Anyway, one of my team members pointed me at Gmaps Pedometer, a Google Maps mashup which allows you to put in a route with various marker points and it calculates the distance run/walked/staggered. And this is my training route:

Gmaps Pedometer :: SE23 :: 3.7 miles

Wish me luck...

Keep Off The Grass/Clay/Grass/Clay/Grass/Clay (etc)

So the two top world tennis players, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, are playing an exhibition match on a half-clay, half-grass court in Spain*.

Interesting. I wonder if the Premiership might like to look into this idea. Arsenal could play Bolton on a pitch that is half perfectly-manicured bowling green, half sloping Sunday-league war-zone covered in molehills and dog turds with only one net and assorted WAGs lighting up the regulation B&H for half-time :)

* It doesn't say if they will be swapping ends within each set in the usual way; I am assuming not but feel free to prove me wrong?

Topgun Simmons

So I discovered the Kissing Suzy Kolber blog when it lost Best Sports Blog to Arseblog in the 2007 Bloggies awards*. Anyway, they're pretty funny, for merkins, so I bookmarked it. And now, their excellent, if somewhat near-the-knuckle, predictions for:

100 Future NFL Player Names

Particular highlights for me? Wutang Clanton, Scooter Cooter and Megatron Vampira (presumably a cross-dressing hard-running bomb-throwing base-stealing-oh-no-that's-the-other-ball-game quarterback). Pick your favourite.

* hmm, rather a lot of 'blog' in that sentence, I fear...