Sporting Frenzy

On Friday in Wales a number of poor children were dragooned out into the freezing wind by the BBC and their Headteacher to shriek, jump, yell and wave their hands at the camera. The reason was that some years ago, the Captain of Wales Rugby XV, Sam Warburton, had attended the school and he was urged to great deeds in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup against France.

He lasted 18 minutes and was then sent off by the referee for a type of crash tackle, once conventional but now banned as dangerous, that he was alleged to have committed. There is dispute about this, fanned by the revelations that the referee had a French father. There has been only passing mention that Wales missed some kicks that might have won them the match.

In the meantime in soccer, Rooney, currently England’s Great Blotchy Red Hope is being questioned as being suitable for the squad for the national European soccer contests next year. He is banned for three games. He will be joined very likely by a groin strain or two, the odd metatarsal or cruciate ligament case with maybe one or two others not quite on top form because of treatment for something confidential.

There are other things in other sports. The common feature is that the greater the hype, hoopla and frenzy the more chance of it going very badly. The trouble is the sponsors who demand it, the media who feed on it and the money involved. In a saner world those in charge of the squads would keep clear of any of it and go gently and quietly.

In our preparation for the Olympics and the European soccer contest nobody has yet worked out what might happen if we have a bad winter. This is not a prediction, just mentioning the possibility. In soccer a serious fixture backlog could cause many problems next spring. In other sports a long and difficult period of disruption will have all sorts of unpredictable effects.

Moreover, Earth is twitchy again. For those who look at these things there are some worrying signs. I hope against hope that nothing will happen because we will all suffer one way or another. There is a volcano in the Canaries rumbling. In Iceland Katla, a large one, is having a noisy stretch, will it wake up?

But on the listing of those showing activity there is both Tambora and Krakatoa and at the same time. One or other would be bad news, both together catastrophic. There is a theory, amongst others, that the sudden end of the Medieval Warm Period and the coming of the Little Ice Age were caused by volcanoes erupting in series. What was all that about Global Warming?

Also, the Sun (that thing in the sky now and again, not the Murdoch rag) is said to be in a funny mood. For those who have a firm belief in deities it is a commonplace that they look on human pride and arrogance with disdain and at their leisure may wreak whatever punishment they think suitable. Watching our media at present anyone with basic human superstitions should be very anxious.

At least if all the satellites do go off I have plenty of reading to catch up on. If the power supplies become erratic there are the old woollies in the cupboard. But how will the rest of us fare if it is back to the past and no sport on the telly?

Playing The Game

This one is about two to three years old, but I could not resist.

Grounds For Concern

Lord Coe of Codswallop has appeared before us in his Savile Row suits and delicate personalised premium fragrances rather than the downmarket sackcloth and ashes to admit that Britain is a disgrace to civilisation and the world. The nations and peoples have been astonished and it is the talk of all the bazaars and holy places. An Englishman has broken his word.

The reason is that a modest sports stadium, erected at public expense for a three week sports binge in the summer of 2012, may have its future use altered in order to avoid the more humiliating fate that has befallen other Olympic facilities in the world in the past.

Two soccer clubs have bid to be the future operators. One, West Ham United, whose old ground is becoming creaky hopes to retain facilities for athletics. The other, Tottenham Hotspur, who rather than revamping their existing one at some cost, sees the Olympic Stadium as offering more scope and certainly far better transport links that the present one at White Hart Lane. The Spurs would keep it for soccer and entertainment events only.

Those who follow what is going on in the world beyond football and entertainment probably could think of a number of things in the past couple of decades which they could suggest represent a disgrace to the UK and a shame that is much more serious. As I want this post to be less than ten thousand words, I will skip the potential listing.

A world of brief sound bites and instant responses is also a world of short memories. Is it so long since there was a debate over Wembley? This is now our “national” soccer stadium, built by foreigners with money borrowed on the international markets.

Erected at the beginning of the 1920’s for an Empire Exhibition it became a half decent dog track and speedway stadium used occasionally for football of one sort or another. Once and once only I was wined and dined there with a seat in the Royal Box, it was a surreal experience.

It was used for the 1948 Olympics and some Commonwealth Games but in general was rarely used for athletics events or other sports. It did make a venue for other things. Billy Graham converted thousands to God there following his success with Richard Nixon and there were some rousing pop festivals. There was the soccer World Cup of 1966, was it Argentina or Germany who won?

Anyhow, the soccer bods, by now in control of the new Wembley project dumped the idea of athletics facilities despite the huge government support given to it. Similarly the new Twickenham ground for the Rugby Union avoided the issues that athletics might bring. There have been other major stadia built, also without reference to such sports or the possibility. There was once White City, home to the 1908 Olympics now lost to us all.

This left us with Crystal Palace which was built in 1964 and is now one of five National Sports Centres and becoming run down. Crystal Palace FC soccer once played there but were evicted in 1915 by the military going to Selhurst Park also now suffering wear and tear. They want to return to a new stadium on the site but have considered whether the athletics facilities should be retained.

Are you beginning to have the impression that it is all a long, confused story which does not make a lot of sense? Similarly are you wondering how such a highly centralised state and media operations could make such a sorry mess of the whole business?

There is also the question of whether beyond 2012 there are to be big crowds for athletics. Lord Coe may beg the question by doling out free tickets, again at public expense. But this is not really the answer. The question has arisen before and we know what the answers were.

Up in Sheffield Blunkett and friends put on a World Student Games in a new stadium at a staggering loss. Now it is an arena for all sorts of things, but the basic one is that Rotherham United, a lower division soccer team play their home games there with a great many empty seats in view.

Then there is Eastlands, The City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games after a failed Olympic bid and then substantially altered to become a soccer stadium for Manchester City and other events.

Personally, I think the Olympic Stadium should be put into Trust and Leyton Orient and Dagenham & Redbridge soccer teams could share it. Failing that, it might make a superb multi layer covered fungi growing food factory. That way it might even turn in a bit of profit.

Incidentally, in the next few years council taxes in London will be going up by more that the rate of inflation.

Our German Cousins

One of the byways of history was that in the late 14th Century before he usurped the throne from King Richard II, Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV spent quality time in Lithuania with his supporters during 1390 and 1392/93 helping the Teutonic Knights impose their vision of Christian authority in Eastern Europe. The lessons he learned were put to good use during his revolt of 1399 and later, by his son, King Henry V on his campaigns in France.

During the Reformation there were close ties between Protestants north of the Rhine and Britain. In any case the extent of trade and contact by those in eastern England and Scotland with Northern Europe and notably the Hanseatic League helped shape the future of the British economy. By the 19th Century the idea of a common Anglo-German history had been around for some time. The notion of England being an Anglo-Saxon people conquered and dominated by a greedy French elite was part of the debate.

Most people put the mutual good will of this period down to the late afternoon of 18th June 1815 when Field Marshal Blucher marched his Prussians on to the field of Waterloo to tackle the French reserves and make it impossible for Napoleon to win. It helped to give the day to Wellington and the hastily put together British and Dutch army who had forced a stalemate on the French. Blucher tipped the scales. Previously, The Kings German Legion became a part of the British Army serving with distinction against the American Rebels and in other theatres of war.

It followed the contacts of the 18th Century when the only senior available Protestant with some sort of claim to the throne was the Elector of Hannover who was duly installed as King George I. Historians tend to regard the Hanoverians as something of a comic turn amongst our various sovereigns, but King George III despite being stricken by porphyria, then regarded as madness, was a man of science and the arts.

The arts earlier had gained not simply from German influence but the strong Italian interests they brought with them. This could have some curious twists. Handel who had been at Hannover arrived in England before King George I with a body of music much of which had been derived from his time in Italy.

Shortly before leaving Hannover he had composed some songs in German. One of the tunes was later borrowed to become the melody of “Will Ye No Come Back Again”, something of an anthem to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s attempt to seize the throne and restore Medieval Catholicism to Britain with the added benefit of the more recent Inquisition.

Charlie, the half Polish plus Italian, French and Danish-German man whose tiny tincture of Scottish blood was marginally greater than that of King George II was not a Handel fan but more one for the Vespers, Te Deum’s, and Palestrina which had fallen out of fashion in Britain. Clearly he had no taste and had to go.

The Monarchy became entwined with most of the German elite and their many Kings, Dukes and Princes etc. After the Hanoverians had run out of legitimate male descendants, Victoria came to throne and bore her family by a Prince of the House of Saxe Coburg Gotha, Albert. He was not much liked but respected for his morals, industry and commitment to progress, the arts, education and all that. His Great Exhibition of 1851 was a tribute to British progress.

He did meddle a little but died too young to do much harm as did the Hanoverians but the absence of an Absolute Monarch or Dictator and the authority of Parliament and The City enabled things to happen. With German music, literature and forms of philosophy impacting on British culture the love in seemed destined to go on for a long while. Germany was not united until 1871 and whilst the Prussians had been a threat to the French and Austrians this was regarded as a very good thing in Britain.

But then in the 1890’s Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived at the top in Berlin with a group of cronies with different ideas, chips on their shoulders about Britain and an ideology and belief in German mastery. The British, in the meantime, failing to invest enough in industry and embroiled in too many adventures felt it necessary to buy off the French.

The installation of King Edward VII, a man devoted to the pleasures of Paris, helped things along. Very quickly Britain was tied into to treaties with not only France but Russia of all people that were secretive as to their purpose and in which Plans B and C were wholly absent. This meant that Britain’s politicians had begun to fall out with Germany although those in the Arts and Culture still loved them.

Germany in the meantime had allowed its foreign policy to fall under the sway of the General Staffs of the Army and Navy and also make treaties that were secretive and in the case of hostilities forced issues. Together with military planning that required rapid mobilisation, again with no Plans B or C and no provision for negotiation the result was World War I in 1914.

By its end in 1918 the idea of German closeness was regarded as treason. The Royal name of Saxe Coburg Gotha was dropped in a hurry in 1917 with the arrival of Gotha bombers over London and Windsor was chosen as the new name to the fury of the existing Lord of Windsor who had not been consulted. Quite why Stirling, a much better name, was not chosen is one of those mysteries. Some Northerners would have liked Pontefract but that was too complicated and in any case the castle was a wreck.

For over a decade after 1918 we thought we had stopped them in their tracks. Then because of a flawed electoral system and economic crisis in 1933 a party came into power on a minority vote that was led by another obsessive nutter with a mad bunch of cronies. These National Socialist Workers Party (Nazi to you and me) ideologues under Hitler were determined to change everything and stamp their authority on everybody and engage in wars for the sake of it. The result was World War II and the end of British Empire and a few other things.

Since then whilst the Germans would have preferred to forget the whole thing and get on with making money and telling people what to do, the British have found it difficult to adjust. Unluckily football is a sport that has attracted too much nationalistic nonsense around the world which is used by the media to hype up the interest and add to the income stream and related sponsorship deals. There are too many ghosts at too many feasts.

So on Sunday who do I remember? My uncle who was at Dunkirk? Or Bolingbroke in Lithuania?

England Are Down But Not Out

England might beat Slovenia and in that case they will certainly qualify for the next round of the World Cup. What happens next will be what happens next. In the past I have seen so many teams somehow stagger through a competition or season to do remarkably well at the end despite all the woeful predictions, insults and making hard work of their games.

Algeria were always going to be difficult. Fast, skilful and well coached they have a good record in African competition where they have faced some very useful teams. The USA were going to be big, physical and again well coached. They were never going to be a push over however much the wishful thinkers felt. The Slovenians run and run and have the full range of skills.

Some of the England players are not long out of tricky injuries. Also, it is clear that the FIFA guidance to referees has meant that teams need to be very wary of using some of the heavy mob tactics too often used in the past. To win the World Cup means playing seven games against very fit teams. It means your players have to survive. This entails avoidance of injury and critically too many yellow cards and as few red ones as possible.

At the moment it is in the balance, but looking around the groups there are some class teams who have come unstuck and may not make the next round. There are going to be very few easy victories. It may well be that England do not make it. If so, OK that’s the way the cookie crumbles, so can we all remember that there are other things to worry about?

If necessary and England just have to grind the beggars down then so be it.

Football Crazy Football Mad

As the football industry staggers towards the next opening of its player trading period, the media and much else is swamped with speculation, forecasts and all the spin and hype that money can buy, and expensive money at that, the interest on debt will be at market rates. The English Premier League is one of the leftovers from the last boom. Were it not for the huge tranches of money paid in by Sky TV, ESPN, a couple of media sideliners and a few global gamblers the whole shebang would be worthless.

Once, Sky had a monopoly and set a price convenient for them and which did enrich a number of clubs, but the EU and others wanted competition. This according to market theory should reduce prices and make goods or services more accessible. But it was not competition; it was a contest between members of a cartel to grab what they could. Guess what? The poor old consumer is now paying a lot more, getting a worse service, the money that used to trickle down the leagues no longer does, and they have stoked up a money frenzy bigger and better than either the Emperors Nero and Caligula could manage.

At the dawn of 2010 what have we got? It is conceivable that by the end of the year in the English league there will be no Premiership clubs in East Anglia, or south of the Thames and Avon (the Midlands one) outside North London. At present none of the East Midlands clubs are there, and that may still be the case by 2011. At the moment the West Midlands is still in there, but without the big money.

In North London, Fulham is owned by a persona non gratis who funds it out of a fashionable retail store and whose money is off shored. Chelsea is owned by a Russian oligarch, whose money is off shored. West Ham United is quasi-nationalised in hock to a bust company in hock to a bust state owned bank (BSOB). Arsenal has mega-debt and whose ownership is now in dispute between the Russians and the Americans, will the gas be cut off before the dollar implodes? Tottenham Hotspur is owned by some interesting people that I have lost track of.

Oop North, down in the basement, of the original clubs in the League Accrington Stanley held on by a whisker from the pursuing tax man, and Notts County are a bargaining counter. In the Premiership Liverpool are in mega-debt to RBS (a BSOB) and blowing fuses in a way eerily reminiscent of the early 1950’s when they were suddenly relegated. Everton are struggling, faced with the familiar issues of too little money and too many ambitions, and like Liverpool with a stadium issue that is costing them time and money. In the 1950’s they too were relegated.

Man U have mega-debts in the USA that could go badly wrong, but Man City have found some god-fathers, but only so long as success is found. All the other clubs are financially on a wing and prayer; meanwhile large cities like Leeds, Sheffield, and Bradford have no Premiership team. The North East has only Sunderland, but Newcastle United may rejoin them, less by the quality of the squad, but more by the fact that they did keep a good many of them, enough to give them an edge over an increasingly weakening Championship League but they have little money to spare.

Around the clubs are a cloud of financiers, agents, dealers, public relations people and whole ungodly crew of the media. It might all just become difficult. Where are all the new fans going to come from to replace the old? A good many older ones are becoming fed up with being ripped off. Many games seem to have more seats vacant, and as for TV, which underpins everything, some of us are getting bored. Setanta miscalculated and paid the price.

What happens if the oligarchs and others realise that there are better ways of having fun and attracting media approbation than wasting money on a futile chase for football prizes. The world has other prizes to offer, and other places to seek and to hold them. What happens if the BOSB’s have to pull the plug on their worst and most toxic lending, and this includes football clubs and their bosses?

Back in the 1870’s to 1890’s members of my family were involved with both Everton and Liverpool, and cousins with Morton and others, including the Royal Engineers. Down the decades there has been continuous contact and interest until recent years with both personal and family involved with this team or that as well as interest and support. Now it is going and almost gone, the professional game is simply a major financial operation based on hype and the media, and has become increasingly removed from its old fan base. Moreover the finances simply do not make sense any more.

I was standing in a shop looking at a big HD screen showing a blu-ray disc of something very enjoyable and interesting. Doing this would be a whole lot cheaper in the long run than bothering about going to football matches, or even watching them on a Sky subscription. It was tempting, very tempting.

Premier League - Man U Transfer News

The 50% tax on personal incomes having deterred foreign players from moving to England has impacted on the Premier League transfer market this summer. So Manchester United have made a spectacular swoop for the entire defence of the Newton Heath Railways Club paying two years supply of Boggart Dark Mild in advance. Alf Ainsworth, Bill Burnham, Bert Blears, Fred Darling, Sam Straw, and Ebenezer Johnson, are said to be overjoyed at the chance of playing on a pitch with a lot of grass. They will be paid four times the minimum wage, with travel expenses, free kit, sponsored bicycles, and full national insurance. During the summer they will be able to learn trade skills in light maintenance work on the Old Trafford Stadium.

Season ticket prices will rise to £3000 a year, because of extra financing costs, the need for additional policing, and pay-offs to agents of past players. Sir Alex Ferguson has agreed to double up as physio’ and bookies runner in addition to his ordinary managerial duties.

Wembley - Its Deja Vu All Over Again

Arsene Wenger of Arsenal has joined the long list of those complaining about the poor quality of the pitch at the New Wembley. He should worry.

1923, the first FA Cup Final, West Ham United v Bolton Wanderers, cockles v tripe. Pay on entry, and no controls over numbers, so too many were admitted. After bringing in the police, some on horses and imposing positive policing (now much out of fashion), the crowd were driven back to the touch lines, and the game was played. That the pitch was not at its best was not a problem, by this stage of the season most grounds had little grass, and a lot of mud.

After the Empire Exhibition, there was then the issue of how to make the new stadium pay. No league club wanted to move in, too expensive by half then, the Rugger chaps were not going to give up Twickenham, and the few international matches would not provide enough revenue. Also, the charges for other games, schools football, and ladies hockey would go nowhere near meeting the bills. So the bread and butter income became the dog track. In 1948 the London Olympics gave it a spasm of fame, and bringing the Rugby League finals there added to it. But the pitch was always, well, not very good, but as typical standards were so low, who cared?

Cup finals were a strange event then. All the fuss was far removed from any other game. There was a stand in the middle where a man waved his arms conducting community singing, songs that you would never sing anywhere else in public out of a sense of foolishness and shame, the culmination of which was the dirge "Abide With Me". I think because it had been King George V's favourite hymn (this says a lot), and we were supposed to love tradition.

The World Cup was in 1966, and at this time some thought was being given to the grass. The dog track eventually disappeared. The trouble then was other big events, pop concerts, and notoriously horse jumping, including some events not long before cup finals. In this new age, managers of teams had found a voice, and some thought the pitch was a horror. I was at Wembley a few times around then, and there was certainly grass, although seemingly laid only the day before by a man, his dog, and a lad.

Now we have a New Wembley, a show piece of the nation and our latest government, at vast expense, going on for £1 billion all costs included. Not just the Cup Final, but the Semi Finals as well, to help pay off at least some of the interest charges on the debts. How is it that the Brit's when building any major project of national standing, make such a muck of it? The Atlantic Isles are covered with grasses, lawns, and utterly splendid swards of the stuff. These days even the humbles of League sides can keep a decent pitch surface throughout the season.

But not at Wembley. 86 years on and the pitch looks cuts up as badly as if a horde of fans, police, and horses have been running around on it. Worse, oh far worse, is that a Frenchman is telling us how to grow grass. To add to the insult, a Dutchman trying to be polite (it never works) tells us, well, on the whole, there is grass, but we should be encouraged by the fact that there are worse pitches in Africa. So England 0 Sahara Sandsurfers 5.