Football - on Burnley (briefly), England and the World Cup.
Motorsport - Button - a worthy champion, 'Crashgate'.
Tennis - Andy Murray, just leave him be, part 11023.
And finally... - Silly names, silly puns and silly videos. Altogether rather silly.
Football.
In an earlier blog, I noted the peculiarity that was David Nugent signing for Burnley. Well, the sight of Burnley recording what may well be their biggest Premiership win of the whole season against Sunderland – three goals scored by two ex-Preston players – was a turn of events so bizarre I'm quite surprised the Rift didn't open under Turf Moor.
So England are off to the World Cup, amid a blaze of hype about this being our best chance yet to bring home the trophy (© the red tops 1997, 2001, 2005). Here we go again. Forgive me for being a tad cynical; all we've done to reach the finals is win two matches. Yes, you heard me right. Those matches are; v. Croatia (home) and v. Croatia (away). All the rest should be gimmes, quite honestly. Considering that A. this is supposed to be our national sport, B. the money poured into the Premiership (or EPL if you're from outside these shores) and C. the wealth (pun intended) of talent we admittedly have in this country, all the games not involving Croatia in this qualifying group bloody well ought to be put to bed by our players. Anything less is just laziness. Even beating Croatia is not exactly up there with historic footballing legend; so they once finished third in the World Cup? Big deal. Only the fact that England lost to them last time (in qualifying for Euro 2008), when they really shouldn't have done, has built up a fervour over beating a team that hasn't done anything in world football for a good decade into it being an achievement unto itself. Which it is not.
In the time since the last World Cup, English (and in some cases, British) sport has found a new level - GB+NI have finished fourth in the Olympic medal table, had two F1 world champions, had its best World Athletics championships since 1993 and been athletics (men's) Europa Cup champions, found its most successful tennis player in the Open era, dominated track cycling and uncovered two road stars, a first world diving champion and made names in swimming, in the pool and on open water. The football team's closest counterparts, the England rugby union team, defied expectation to reach the World Cup final and put up a great fight therein.
England's football team, meanwhile, has failed to make the last 16 teams in Europe for the one major tournament in that intervening period. They have now cemented their place amongst the last thirty-two names in the world, at the expense of those sleeping giants of the global game Andorra and Belarus. While I accept that they as a team have looked good in those games, putting away teams seemingly with a new found confidence and professionalism (well for all that money they fucking ought to be professional about it!). The first test comes against Brazil in the Middle East (because that isn't about the money at all); then the hard work actually begins. So far, the England National Football Team have achieved precisely this much:
________________________
End.
Motorsport.
Jenson Button. How can a man who won six Grands Prix in a season have his world title questioned - especially when no other driver has won more than two? Not only that, but he has been able to produce recovery drives when his qualifying performance has admittedly gone off the boil. His drive to secure the title was worthy of a champion - risky overtaking manoeuvres on Grosjean, Nakajima, Kobiyashi and Buemi (the latter from a car length's back - how on earth did he manage to brake so late?) showed unbelievable skill and mettle in a pressure situation sans pareil.
Furthermore, if Button doesn't deserve to win, then who does? Barrichello, for being AWOL when the Brawn was at its best? Vettel, who made errors at critical moments (eg at Turkey when he really should have won from pole) or Webber, quick on his day but just too inconsistent? If anyone pulls out the old 'he only won because of the car' - go and watch some fucking F1 and come back with something better. Champions in this sport are always made from a weighted sum of car and driver capability. When Nigel Mansell won in 1992 it was the culmination of a talented driver having a long career near the front, but with the destructively quick FW14B at his hands and feet, active suspension and all.
Anyone who has watched Jenson (as I have) from 2000, when he made his debut, would recognise a driver whose smooth driving style means he gets the best out of a good car, but is less able to make a bad car drive well, unlike say Hamilton who likes a tail-happy car anyway. But remember, champions always come from good cars, so Jenson's style meant that he would be up there with the best this season. Recall for instance Imola 2004, when Button put his Honda on pole and drove away from Schumacher in the first stint, (albeit on a slightly lighter fuel load) - Schumi referred to his pace as 'mind-blowing'. Compliments like those aren't handed out like penny sweets in the playground.
Jenson's world title has been the hardest to win - an early lead whittled away while the other teams caught up has left us on tenterhooks for months and put him under incredile pressure. More pressure, I suspect, than most of us would be able to handle. That alone should be reason enough to deflect criticisms of worthiness for his world title.
***
The main story of recent F1 was actually 'Crashgate'. Erstwhile Formula One commentator James Allen was a great fan of game theory, and specifically its application to a Grand Prix. He would get very excited about the boffins and their computers back in the team factory, running through different scenarios and plotting their outcomes. He would talk about the unusual strategies employed by teams 'out of position' on the grid. Most ironically, he would hold up Renault and Nelson Piquet Jr's one-stop strategy in Germany in 2008 as the gold standard on the subject; the one which vaulted him from his 17th starting slot to an eventual 2nd, thanks to a timely safety car.
Well it seems the Renault team decided to take the idea a stage or two further a few weeks later in Singapore. Under the floodlights, team bosses Flavio Briatore and Pat Symmonds (according to Piquet Jr. and his father) asked Piquet Jr. to crash in order to bring out the safety car – timed straight after teammate Fernando Alonso's pit stop, which allowed him to take the lead since all other teams would pit under the safety car conditions.
Can I make one thing clear though: it is not really race fixing, is it? Fixing implies that all the variables that make sport what it is have been influenced to such a degree as to be nullified; this necessarily includes those normally outside the participants' jurisdiction (in this case, the Renault team). In this case, 'all' Renault did was to use one of their own team members to maximise their chances of victory.
From a purely sporting perspective, Renault therefore did nothing hugely out of the ordinary. It is no more 'fixing' the outcome of a race than using the second driver to back the field up, while the lead driver scampers off into the distance. How many times has commentator Martin Brundle referred to the teammate as a 'rear-gunner' for his leader? Perhaps Brawn should be hauled in front of the FIA when Jenson Button won the Monaco Grand Prix by virtue of his teammate being slow enough to allow Button to open up a large gap in the first stint before his pit stop.
That is not to say that what Renault did does not cross a line, however. Asking a driver to crash is presumptuous in the extreme; although the safety levels in F1 have improved considerably, a car crash is an inherently unpredictable event, even with one of the world's most skilled drivers at the helm. Young Henry Surtees was killed as a result of a freak occurance in an accident earlier this year in a Formula Two race; how can any team boss risk this of their driver?
Renault got away lightly with the punishment; a suspended sentence rather than a fine. McLaren's involvement in the also-lazily titled 'Spygate' scandal of 2007 cost them $100m (interestingly, Renault were also implicated, but not punished). Perhaps with Renault reputedly on the edge of pulling out of the sport altogether, the result is not a surprise, especially since that figure may well run a team for two whole seasons in years to come.
Tennis.
Andy Murray. Again. Sorry, Murray haters. I know there's a lot of you.
So Murray played in the Davis Cup with a slight wrist injury, and aggrevates it to the point of having to pull out of Tour tournaments - including the Shanghai Masters. He'll be losing a stack of ranking points in the process in this, the indoor hard court leg of the World Tour (at which Murray is arguably the best in the world and is defending 3 titles including two Masters). All to try and fight a losing cause for a team whose credentials are of practically no worth at all. Now that they have been relegated to Euro/Africa Zone II, I hope Murray gives up on Davis Cup altogether. Now can you please get off his back and let him get on with it?
Dan's
5 really silly names for sports teams:
Super Aguri (Formula One)
Evidently anything but super.
Total Network Solutions (now The New Saints) (Football)
Led to Sky Sports' Jeff Stelling's joke "They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight!"
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats (Rugby League)
Either name on its own would be bad enough, but both together? And the inclusion of 'Trinity' spoils the alliteration, surely the only reason for a name like 'Wildcats' in the first place.
Brisbane Roar (formerly Queensland Roar) (Football)
The fans of also-stupidly-named Perth Glory would chant 'Queensland Roar is a fucking stupid name, a fucking stupid name...'
Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni-Androni Giocattoli (Cycling)
Just too long.
Ridiculously contrived sporting puns.
When Manchester United first won the Premiership and FA Cup in the same season, it was largely attributed to the state of the Old Trafford pitch, which was often compared to an Arctic area of permafrost. Commentators said they did the Double on tundra.
The tennis player jumped out of bed in the afternoon, having slept in. Rushing down to the tournament grounds he looked at his watch once more and exclaimed, in his Australian drawl, "I'm not going to be on time for my match!". He was late, he knew it.
I wish I was responsible for this, surely the greatest headline of all time. It was from The Sun, referring to the time Inverness Caledonian Thistle (perhaps another contender for silly team names) knocked Celtic out of the Scottish Cup:
'Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious'.
Genius.
Video of the month.
Thank God for Cuddles himself, Cadel Evans, superbly winning cycling's World Road Race Championships in Mendrisio in September because it gives me a perfect excuse to show this snippet from an interview during the 2008 TdF. No doubt the related videos will highlight some other contretemps with the press. But for the sheer incongruity of him holding a cuddly lion while berating a poor reporter this is a winner every time.
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