February 23, 2012

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So not shaking someone’s hand is a crime, right?

February 14, 2012 By 4 Comments

Refusing to take the hand of somebody who you insist has wronged you is reprehensible.

Let me start by saying that if I were in Suarez’s position I wouldn’t have shaken Evra’s hand. And if I were Evra exactly the same and it has nothing to do with racism but a lot to do with perception.

Suarez, rightly or wrongly, has had his reputation totally ruined. Only two people know what happened between them of course, the rest of the case is based on media speculation, partisanship, whichever club you support, and blind loyalties, for or against Suarez or Evra.

So two things happened yesterday which surprised me a lot and one thing that didn’t surprise me at all.

The one that didn’t surprise me was the apology from Liverpool. The whole media circus built up around a ridiculous handshake was bringing the “brand” down and when the major sponsor starts talking about being worried then apologies will come out even if you believe they have a ring of insincerity (Of course they do people in the media, you said they were insincere so they must have been)

The things that surprised me included an absolutely brilliant rebuttal of the whole fiasco and hypocrisy made by John Barnes and written for The Times newspaper. What was surprising about it? They allowed an independent Liverpool website to reproduce it in full. They took it from behind their firewall to let people read it elsewhere! you can read it here.

The second thing is maybe not that surprising but tells you everything you need to know about the media and their mindset which leads onto an agenda. Pat Nevin, who I normally respect as a pundit despite his Everton and Chelsea past (it must be something to do with having played for Tranmere), stated that Suarez’s past is enough to know his character because after all he had bitten off the ear of an opponent while playing in Holland.

Erm not quite, Pat!

He bit an opponent, not a clever thing to do in itself, and got a seven match ban for it. Confusing him with Mike Tyson shows the mindset that is festering in the media. Suarez is the new bogeyman, a legitimate target in most eyes because he is a wrong ‘un of course, unlike brave JT who plays on like the national hero he is through the vile abuse he receives from the terraces.

So now we know that the media, the moral arbiters of all things good as we know because they a not corrupt, don’t pay off the police, don’t tap people’s phones, always tell the truth and never exaggerate of course have decided that not shaking someone’s hand is worse than the following because the sin of omission must make them better right?:

  1. singing ’96 is not enough’ as a direct reference to the deaths at Hillsborough. No mention in the press or rest of the media.
  2. singing ‘you know what you are’ to Anton Ferdinand. Kept a lot quieter than the Suarez incident.
  3. going into the tunnel at half time to try and start a fight.
  4. jumping into the crowd and attacking a fan. (this mustn’t be as bad because Alex Ferguson thinks that throwing Suarez out of Liverpool for not giving a handshake is a hell of a lot worse than what Cantona did all those years ago at Crystal Palace.)

Anyway we know we have a new bogeyman now so let’s look into what Suarez is also responsible for if he could be so vile as to have bitten off the ear of an opponent, which he did because someone on the radio said he did so he must have done it right?

  1. He was seen leaving Whitney Houston’s bathroom at the weekend.
  2. He was a good mate of Gaddafi.
  3. He is helping Iran to enrich Uranium.
  4. He was in a car following Princess Diana according to the Express.
  5. And of course he was on the grassy knoll.

Hypocrisy, lies and sexing up a story. Never been done before has it.

photo credit: Antony J Shepherd via photopin cc

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Is DRS Ruining Cricket? (Or Making it Better)

February 3, 2012 By

I am writing this eating lunch and 16 wickets have fallen currently for less than 200 runs on the first day of a test match after the side winning the toss decided to bat i.e. the pitch looks a good one. Now firstly I would like to say that the bowling from both sides has been excellent. Both Pakistan and England brought their game faces in the bowling department.

However the fear of being given out LBW by the tracking technology means batsmen are playing differently. Previously, especially if we are to believe Geoff Boycott, it was almost impossible to get LBW decisions in New Zealand or Australia as the umpires were bent! This changed some years ago with neutral umpires of course. We can also remember the Gatting incident with the umpire in Pakistan some years ago too when the England captain suggested that the Umpire wasn’t exactly impartial.

So how is DRS changing the game?

Well the bowler tries to get wickets in many ways. Spinners often used to try and frustrate players into getting out if there was nothing happening by bowling down the leg side until the batsmen would get bored and hit out. This isn’t good for test cricket. Ian Botham would bowl a load of long hops to Aussie openers in the hope of having them caught out on the boundary as they couldn’t resist the urge to hook. When the West Indies had the best quickies in the World they would terrify the batsmen out by aiming at the head, a modern day version of Bodyline.

DRS means the bowlers, especially the spin bowlers, are bowling flat and straight. They are just hoping to hit the pad and claim LBW and the umpires, knowing they are going to be proven wrong by the technology if they don’t give batsmen out, are more liable to give them out than before.

In the law of unintended consequences what does this mean? Batsmen are now terrified of letting the ball hit their pad so they play inside the line of the ball trying to get a bat on it rather than just planting the leg down the track and “pretending” to play a shot (previously the umpire wouldn’t give you out if you were playing a shot) This means that, as in the case of Matt Prior today, if the ball does turn you are more likely to miss it and get out (or get an edge and be caught)

However does it improve cricket or make it worse?

Watching a team score 600 then the other score 500 in reply in five days and there is a draw doesn’t make for enthralling cricket but does improve averages for the batsmen. 16 wickets falling in a day, the first day, of a test match doesn’t bring in the cash for the cricket authorities because their income depends on longer test matches not ones that are over in three days.

A balance needs to be struck. Currently “umpire’s call” means that there is an element of doubt and therefore the umpire is right (even when he is wrong) However, sometimes batsmen are given out when the ball brushes the pad but continues in a straight line onto the bat even if that touch on the pad is a split second before the touch with the bat. That should not be out. Also if the umpire gives a batsman out when the ball would just be shaving the stumps the umpire’s call remains and the batsman is out. The tracking cannot be so exact that a ball shaving the stumps should get someone out. It shouldn’t be out.

That’s my opinion anyway. What’s yours?

photo credit: Tc7 via photopin cc

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Why You Just Have To Love Athletic Bilbao

January 25, 2012 By

Those crazy Basques:

  • They want independence from Spain but want to be in Europe
  • They have sticky out ears except the ones that don’t
  • They are short and squat except the ones that aren’t
  • They have a different blood group except for those who don’t.
  • They have an unintelligible language. (They do so no arguments there)

Stereotypes and half facts (Maybe full facts in some cases) but you have to respect their desire to be different. Any region that purports to be a country based on a language whose only relative is a slight resemblance to Sanskrit and some blood cells has to be described at best as persistent.

And in football they are different too.

There are various football teams in the Basque country in Spain (Real Sociedad, Alaves, Osasuna). It is one of the traditional hotbeds of football in fact as the game was brought to the country by English sailors in the late nineteenth century. Bilbao wear the red and white stripes as a student brought over 50 Southampton shirts and gave them to the team after he couldn’t get enough of their previous color while in London, they had previously been wearing Blackburn colours.

Athletic Bilbao are a traditional club who stick to their traditions and this means they have that Basque desire to be different.

So why do you have to love Athletic Bilbao?

Well in a world of multinational, multilingual, multimillionaires Bilbao still stick to only signing Basque players. They have relaxed the rule slightly in the last decade or so and now sign players who have been brought up in the Basque country but may not have had “Basque blood” and they also sign players with Basque ancestry, the Jack Charlton rule of ancestry if you like, but essentially they are still a fully Basque team. This doesn’t come without its critics though. Within the basque country itself they are the big spenders constantly tempting younger players away from the other Basque clubs and they always have to pay over the odds in the transfer market because they can only buy the Basque players that come onto the market and are good.

When Celtic won the European Cup they famously didn’t have a player born more than 30 miles from the ground. That could never happen again could it?

Well this year Athletic Bilbao are currently fifth in the Spanish league and under the guidance of Marcelo Bielsa they are playing some of the best football ever seen at the Catedral with a young team brimming with talent. (Bielsa is not Basque of course, but then again neither was Howard Kendall but he managed them too)

As I write this they are playing away at real Madrid and losing 3-1 and they are down to ten players. However they could conceivably have been out of sight in the first half after a couple of awful misses before Real Madrid equalized.

If this team continues to develop as it currently is and more importantly holds onto its best players they could conceivably qualify for the Champion’s league this year. That would be an achievement in itself.

And then you would have to love Athletic Bilbao even more.

 

photo credit: txadonak via photopin cc

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Luis Suarez, Spanish and Racism

December 22, 2011 By

Luis Suarez is a racist apparently.

Despite the fact that Patrice Evra said he wasn’t.

Despite the fact that the FA statement says he isn’t.

Despite the fact that there is no proof of what he is alleged to have said to Patrice Evra.

Despite the fact that what he said and actually has admitted to have said means nothing at all in his home country, and he said it in his native tongue after supposedly being called a Sudaca by Evra which is a hugely derogative term for South Americans in the Spanish language. Evra speaks Spanish by the way.

But he is a dirty, cheating foreigner isn’t he, so obviously he must be a racist, and a granny killer and worst of all he must dive on the football pitch.

Let’s get this straight shall we.

Spanish, especially South American Spanish is littered with words and terms like this that mean absolutely nothing in the context of how they are said. The FA is politicizing the words said by its own prejudices. One of Suarez’s own teammates in the Uruguay team is known as El Mono. The best Uruguayan player ever and captain of the 1950 World Cup winning team was known as El Jefe Negro. It is totally normal there, not necessarily right from our perspective but normal. Even Pele in Brazil was known as “La Perla Negra”

What is behind this?

Luis Suarez has been fed to the wolves in a political game being played out between the FA and Sepp Blatter/FIFA. The FA want to be shown to be strong on racism (However I am sure that they will manage to find a way to exonerate the England captain caught on camera saying something much worse of course because he is not a dirty, cheating foreigner)

The FA has been shown to be totally incompetent sucking up to a totally corrupt organization such as FIFA and not realizing the political machinations necessary to get anything done within FIFA. The FA is totally embarrassed and therefore needs to be seen to be proactive on something over which it has jurisdiction.

They have decided to throw the book at Suarez because he is an easy target having previous in the eyes of the authorities and also being a foreigner. There is also a feeding frenzy in the press and rent a quotes are being hired out all over 24 hour talk radio to condemn Suarez. It is interesting to see the difference in treatment of the England Captain, who also has previous on many occasions, funnily enough.

Suarez hasn’t had an even break on the pitch since that United game and it is not because of this incident. It is because of the comments by Alex “Whisky Nose” Ferguson that he dives. It must be true therefore. Even when he was taken out in the Everton game while trying to get jump of the way he was blamed for the referee’s wrong decision to send off the Everton player. He has had at least four clear penalties not given because of Ferguson’s comments. It can’t be a foul because he is a diver.

He gets kicked from pillar to post in every match and yes, he complains, loudly, expressively and vehemently. This makes him very unpopular with other team’s fans. “He cannot do this.” “He should just take it.” He stopped Ghana getting to the World Cup semi finals by handling on the line then celebrating when the penalty was missed. He tried to eat an opponent in Holland ;-) . He is a foreigner. Therefore he is a cheat.

So throw the book at him right?

Ridiculous.

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Our Olympic Dreams are Shattered

October 19, 2011 By

When the announcement was made that the 2012 Olympics would be held in London, we broke open the champagne. My wife, daughter and I live four miles from the Stratford site, so we were sure we’d be able to get involved. We looked forward to seeing events, and maybe volunteering to help out. It would be the greatest party ever.

2012 Summer Olympics

Image via Wikipedia

My daughter worked out that she and her friends would be 15 in Olympic year, and set her heart on some kind of role, such as volunteering to help, or taking part in a ceremony at the opening or closing. As a pupil at a local school, we were sure there would be some activities. We were wrong. As a governor at two schools less than a five-minute drive from the games site, there has been no benefit at all, and no involvement of the children in the Olympic project. Furthermore, worries about child protection have meant that only over-18s can volunteer or take part in ceremonies, crushing the hopes of thousands of local children, many of whom will be outside the fence, tearfully looking in when the games are on.

Then there’s the ticketing fiasco. We didn’t apply for tickets, for a reason I will explain shortly. However, many of our local friends did. Hardly anyone received any tickets at all. Despite having been affected by years of construction and transport “upgrades”, there’s been no thought given to any gesture towards local people, other than a two-fingered one from the London 2012 organisers. Around the UK, we don’t know anyone among our friends that received more than a fraction of what they applied for. No-one got near the athletics or the swimming.

We didn’t apply for tickets because I decided to volunteer for the PR and media team. Though I put in my application over two years ago, I still hadn’t received a date for an interview when the ticket lottery opened. I knew that as a volunteer, I’d be busy during the games, so decided not to apply at all.

The 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic Stadium at St...

Image via Wikipedia

My Olympic volunteer application form specified three areas: Press and Media (First preference), General PR team, (second preference), Brand protection (Third preference). Why? Because I’ve worked in radio and TV for over 30 years, I’ve been in over 3,000 media interviews, I’ve written several books on media skills, I’m a Chartered PR Practitioner, and I run a successful media consultancy advising major global brands. I knew there were no guarantees, but with a requirement for over 5,000 volunteers in PR and media, I thought I had a pretty good chance of selection.

I did get selected for interview, but not for the press and media team, not for the general PR team, and not for the brand protection team. I was selected for the transport team. I rang to enquire what this meant, and was told “It’s either driving officials to and from venues, or it’s helping to run the car parks”. I meant no disrespect to cabbies and car park attendants when I said “What???” Of course, I requested a change of team. “That’s not possible” I was told “You have been allocated to the team best suited to your skills, and there is no appeal”. I assume “best suited to my skills” means that I can drive, or point at a car parking space while wearing a yellow vest.

We’re very, very disappointed. For years, my family and I have looked forward to the Olympics coming to our part of our city. We all feel badly let down. As things stand, we’ll probably go abroad and rent out our house, so at least we get something from the Olympic debacle.

It just goes to show that to get things wrong, you need a Government official, but to really foul things up, you need an Olympic committee. I’ve lost interest in London 2012. Roll on 2013.

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English Complacency – Sports

October 12, 2011 By

Once upon a time, we English (I actually call myself British) were known for stoicism, the great stiff upper lip.

The crest of the England national football tea...

Image via Wikipedia

The Leaders in English Complacency

Footballers! I spent a glorious 3 months in Cyprus last year, during the Football World Cup, I spent £70 on my new England shirt, had my name on the back, shipped to Cyprus etc (hence the expense), I am more of a rugby fan, but when my countrymen step out to show the world we are to be counted, I like to do my little bit.

But what an embarrassment the England squad were, there was no heart and soul in any of the matches, no national pride and certainly no team players. We had 11 of the greatest players on the planet and not even 10% of a team. In my past life, I ran and trained sales teams, and complacency was not allowed, full stop. I spot it a mile off, I have a sort of complacency meter! I actually cut up my England shirt into little pieces in a tantrum, and have not watched a match since, no qualifiers, nothing, if they are not proud to be playing for their country, why should I? Our national players suck.

2nd Place in the English Complacency Table

This has to go to our Rugby team, the mighty boys who I would walk over coals to see play, I so wanted to go to New Zealand this year to see them, but couldn’t afford it, maybe in 2015 I thought. Afterall, these are the boys that won the cup in 2003 and made it to the final in 2007, the bookies were stupid with the odds they gave, had 16/1 at one point at William Hill, there was an easy few quid I thought!

But no, we sent out a team that are becoming just like the football team, we were only playing in the last 20 minutes, when panic set in, the boys stood up to be counted! But you cannot wait until the end, you cannot wait to see what the other team bring and match it, you take it to them with every sinew, every muscle and every thought should be, win, win , win.

I said far too many times that if we play like this against the major teams, they will have our pants down, and France did, I am obviously not a fan of the French, it is how I was raised, but they out played us, they made us look like schoolboys, what a team, the French must have been extremely happy that day.

The Welsh scored in the second minute against Ireland, I was up at 5am to watch that match, to watch Ireland win, they didn’t, because Wales wanted it more, and they took it. Fantastic game of Rugby that was. I would love to see Wales win this, and I believe they can, think that would wake up our team, when they realise the cup is only over the road.

What Has Happened?

World cup England

Image by doug88888 via Flickr

When did we start to become such a complacent country? When did this become the accepted norm? Is it our media, over hyping the celebrities and sportsmen and sports? Jenson Button was useless when he was on the media pedestal as the great British hope, then stormed through it when they left him alone. Are they causing such self worship that our once great team players are up their own arses?

Come on England, I want the goose pimples of pride I used to get when I heard the national anthem belted out in a stadium, bring it back!

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Chris "Kip" Carrier

Kip's natural habitat is at the mac messing around with websites and graphics . . .

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Super League Playoffs – Week 1 Thoughts

September 27, 2011 By

It’s that time of year again. After 27 weekly rounds the top 8 clubs in the land have been decided and we were to be treated to a feast of rugby league over the weekend as the teams battled it out to get through to the next round. Or at least we thought that is what would happen. In reality we were given one very entertaining game and three non-contests. Take a look at the results below and I’ll leave it to you to decide which game was the entertaining one!

Warrington 47-0 Huddersfield
Catalan Dragons 56-6 Hull K R
Wigan 18-26 St Helens
Leeds 42-10 Hull

But that doesn’t tell the whole of the story.

In my opinion 2 of the games were ruined by the man with the whistle -Warrington -v- Huddersfield and Leeds -v- Hull (for the record I’m a Leeds fan).

Huddersfield were penalised out of the game by the referee who seemed to be using a different set of rules to what we’ve been using all season – 7 penalties in the first 5 minutes, none of which would usually have been given. Huddersfield’s game focusses primarily on their big, tough forward pack. When they started being penalised for playing as the normally do, that took away the biggest part of their game and made it easy for Warrington.

Catalans -v- Hull KR was another poor game as Hull KR didn’t get off the bus, they were quite simply woeful. Credit is due to Catalans who had some fantastic performances, notably from Steve Menzies who continues to roll back the years and show he is still one of the best around.

Wigan -v- St Helens was the pick of the games and the one that most people wanted to watch. It was a fantastic game from start to finish with St Helens deservedly taking the win. There were quite a few errors from both sides, but that all added to the entertainment. With some bizarre referring decisions along the way for good measure

Leeds -v- Hull was about as memorable as the last time these two sides met when Leeds struggled to a 20-0 victory. With the players on show we should have been treat to lots of attacking rugby. But what we got was patches of fantastic rugby from Leeds and a very lethargic performance from Hull. In-between all that the referee was intend on blowing the pea out of his whistle at every opportunity for any minor indiscretion, which we normally see go unpunished.

Time and time again we see these big games spoiled by the officials; we attend the matches and turn on the TV to watch the game, not the referee. Blowing the whistle for anything and everything a) ruins the game and b) frustrates everyone from the commentators to the players. As an ex-player myself the players prefer it when the game is allowed to flow.

The standard of refereeing has always been suspect in Rugby League, but unless there are more referees coming through the ranks to put pressure on the existing crop there isn’t really any incentive for them to perform at the top level each week as they know they will get a game the following week. Don’t get me wrong, the referees are nowhere near as bad as they were this weekend during the rest of the season, but this weekend really highlighted our shortcomings.

Now onto the games and teams from the weekend. Every team looked a little tired and didn’t perform anywhere near their best. These are the top 8 teams in the country and the aggregate score of Home Team 163-42 Away Team in no way reflects how good these teams are. The fact of the matter is simple: the players are shattered. Some of the Wigan and Leeds players have played close to 35 games this season (due to their Challenge Cup runs).

I have no doubt that the 2nd week of the play-offs will be far better (it can hardly be any worse) and the Grand Final will be a fantastic occasion. But more or less straight after the Grand Final the players will the thrust into the International Arena for the 4 Nations tournament, where we will probably under-perform again because the players are exhausted…

Rob Scott
When Rob is not exercising his love of Rugby League here for us on Blokes, he’s taking care of bookkeeping and accountancy in West Yorkshire
Images courtesy of http://www.superleague.co.uk/
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Why the Premier League is Killing English Football!

September 15, 2011 By

The Premier League maybe the world’s most watched league but is the pursuit of individual club glory robbing England of a future generation of players?

A guest post by Stephen Cleeve

Most English fans watching the recent international against Wales were not impressed, the Welsh fans enjoyed singing “fourth in the world you’re having a laugh” and at the end of England’s one nil laboured victory over a team rated 114th in the world murmurs of discontent spread around Wembley stadium.

Footballer in goal by Stephen Cleeve

Own Goal?

This problem can only get worse. Manchester City are by far and above the biggest spenders in the league and to be fair to them what do they care about the lower league youth systems, do they need to care? I think they do.

Go deep into the bowels of the league system and once you pass the leather seats of the premier league, the padded seats of the championship, money for youth teams is still paid to those sitting on the hard plastic seats of division one and two. But go one league further down to the crumbling concrete terraces of the Blue Square Premier League and suddenly the payments stop. There may be tiny hand outs but they are just, that nothing significant, but yet these lower leagues are the soul of British football.

Hollywood stars such as Vinnie Jones kicked the ball around at Wealdstone when he wasn’t working on the building site, Jermaine Beckford who is now at Leicester and was at Everton last season played for the same team. Volkes at Wolves started in non league and so did Neil Taylor playing for Premier new boys Swansea who until recently was playing at Wrexham FC. The list is huge and it’s the dedication of youth team coaches, helpers, local sponsers and the odd wealthy chairman who keep this conveyer belt going.

The problem though has an easy solution, so easy that the guys at the top don’t want to implement it, or maybe they haven’t even thought of it! All that needs to be done is to add a youth tax to all transfers over £ 1 million (that way smaller clubs are not affected). The Premier League alone spent £ 468 million in the last transfer window so a 1% tax would have yielded £ 4,680,000; a huge sum for the smaller clubs and one that is insignificant to the trophy hunting big boys.

Spanish footballThere have been other, more complicated solutions to the problem that have been implemented by the FA which have been disastrous. For example clubs can only sign boys that live within a 90 minutes drive of the ground clearly didn’t work. Chelsea’s youth team that played Watford in March this year in the youth cup had English sounding players such as Kalas, Pappoe, Conteh, Chalobah and Lalkovic maybe some of these chaps are English but not many of them. Clearly all Chelsea have done and they are not alone is to find a good player abroad and relocate the family to England, close to their training ground. Chelsea’s policy explains why they have only managed to bring just 2 players namely John Terry and Josh McEachran from the youth team into the first team in over a decade, a disastrous return on investment.

Roman Abramovich is desperate for Chelsea to win the Champions League so maybe he should look at the current Champions Barcelona for inspiration. When they outplayed Manchester United so convincingly in May at Wembley, seven of their players that started that game came through La Cantera, Barcelona’s famous youth academy and 5 of those were born in Catalonia. Indeed most of Barcelona’s silky team are Spanish and the best of them did not cost Barcelona a transfer fee.

So the moral of the tale – if the Premier League big guns are so desperate to spend enormous sums in pursuing their dreams and if as it seems their success rate in developing new players is going to continue to be as appalling as it currently is, then maybe a small transfer tax distributed to the lower league teams that play underneath Division 2 would at least allow the thousands of volunteers around the country the equipment and resources that they need to do the job for them. In any case once they have been developed the next generation of home grown stars they can always buy them; the big boys can’t lose.

Stephen Cleeve

Stephen is a football fan who loves collecting football memorabilia 

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An old gaffer, the whores of Babylon, and a quiche

September 3, 2011 By

My old headmaster was, as they say, a character. Known as “Dogs”, Mr Akers ran a boys’ comprehensive as if it were a grammar school, mortor boards and capes were de rigeur… and to say I didn’t particularly enjoy my time there is a classic case of British understatement. Many are the stories told about Akers, and I had a chance to reminisce about them and learn some new ones this weekend.

Every Easter the school organised a sailing trip on the Norfolk Broads and chartered a fleet of rather charming traditional wooden Broads sailing boats. I went on this trip only once, with my chum Julian, a chap in the lower 6th who skippered (Paul) and teacher called Angela – I can’t remember her surname.

Some 30 years later, Paul, Julian and I met up at Hunter’s Boatyard in Ludham on Saturday morning. This time I had Ben my younger son (13), Julian his elder son Jeremy (7) and Paul’s entire family (wife Zoe, William and Alastair – oh and the dog!).

Zoe drove their wee motorboat, Paul hopped around on all three boats that made up our modest flotilla. Julian, Ben, Jeremy and I loaded our gear into Wood Sorrel – just next to her was Wood Rose, the yacht I’d sailed on as a kid all those years ago! Astonishing to see here still working and in great condition. In the boatyard was a beautiful new boat taking shape – a Millennium project that’s so far taken 5 years….

And then we were away – a shove into calm water with the gaff and jib raised – gently drifting downstream in the sun. With no engine, and very light airs, it wasn’t long before we were practicing the quaint art of quanting; all the boats come equipped with a vital piece of equipment for navigating the Broads called a quant pole. Almost as long as the boat, the quant pole is dropped vertically into the water as near to the bows as possible, then, shoving against the pole’s bulbous top, the shover (in this instance a handy 13 year old crew member) walks down the side deck to the aft deck – thus propelling the boat forwards. The pole is then plucked free of the sticky bottom and the exercise repeated and faint echoes of Akers shouting “Quant like a man, boy!” are heard among the reeds. Of course, the rules of the road changed as we had become a powered vessel, though this fine point was probably lost on all the Hoseasoners.

The first and major obstacles were the two low bridges at Potters Higham. The first is a classic stone built hump-back bridge with the central arch offering about 6ft of headroom – clearly not tall enough for a fully rigged sailing boat – unless the mast is dropped. So, a welcome break from the quanting as we tied up and did exactly that – the mast being hinged in a tabernacle and weighted at the base. The boys thought this was great fun, Julian and I recalled how we did this on the move last time, the fixing bar at the base of the mast wouldn’t come out, we were approaching this bridge and a major disaster rather rapidly – then with a desperate heave out came the bar and down went the mast and whoosh – we shot through the short low tunnel, just in the nick of time!

With the benefit of experience, we were much more controlled and sedate.

Much more wind the other side, and a delightful sail across Hinckling Broad, both boys took turns at steering – a reach and down wind, some gybing. A well marked channel down to the moorings at the far side of the lake and a very amusing dinner for 11 in the pub. Later, the two boys experienced their first night on a yacht. With the coachroof raised and the boom tent on, there’s quite a bit of room on board, and very snug and atmospheric it is too, with the traditional oil lamp glowing.

A fry up breakfast cooked and eaten al fresco – astonishing weather for the time of year. It was mostly wet and windy that Easter in 1980-whenever-it-was. We were in company this time too – Paul’s brother Ian and Andy Griffiths, both Akers’ acolytes, and his 6 year old daughter Jennifer were on Wood Anemone – so needless to say a “match race” was promptly organised. Now it may be that Wood Anemone got line honours on both occasions, but fine interpretation of the racing rules ensured that they were disqualified each time too!

Back across Hinkling broad and into the river. Tack, tack, tack, tack – be nice if we had a depth gauge, said Julian. Of course, just as he said that we discovered exactly how shallow the water is outside of the marked channel, and also just how deep the mud is as the quant pole sunk into it without helping one jot to extricate us from our muddy lee shore.

Just as we hit on the idea of using the kedge – a dumpy lump of concrete, Paul turned up on the motor launch and pulled us free. My son is somewhat dyslexic and he sometimes gets words confused – it was with great delight I heard him explaining later that we’d tried to pull ourselves free by throwing the quiche overboard and hauling on that!

After lunch we went back through the bridges, re-hoisted the mast and bimbled back, tack, tack, tack – interspersed with quant, quant, quant. Finally the right hand turn taking us back to Hunter’s heaved into view and we were on a beam reach then a reach, on a dying breeze, but with enough momentum to keep gliding along, slicing through the deep black mirror; momentum that took us nicely alongside having dropped the sails neatly on deck – the boys by now working well as crew.

All in all a very satisfying weekend, and with the rose tinted view of hindsight maybe the school wasn’t so bad after all. Just one tale about Dogs – as he was driving some boys out of the school in his car to go dinghy sailing, he espied some GIRLS from the GIRLS school just down the road. Now Akers had a thing about GIRLS – he really seemed to think they were the spawn of the devil and would lead all us boys astray – regardless of whether we wanted them to or not (which we did). On seeing these GIRLS, he exclaimed to the lads in the back “Godfathers! See boys see, those – those GIRLS – they’re worse than the Whores of Babylon!”

So, if you know of anyone that attended Purely High School for Boys, please let them know that the “Men-boys and the Whores of Babylon” will be meeting again on the Broads next year.

 

© Neil Fairbrother Interim Marketing Ltd.
As an Interim Marketing Director I bring a range of key skills in two main disciplines, Product Management and Marketing Communications, to companies in the Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) market.

Neil Fairbrother
Interim Marketing
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Why Inequality Ruins Everything. Spanish Football Returns

September 1, 2011 By

I was reading something recently about the quantities of money that come into football in different countries through TV rights. The article talked about the comparison between Spain and England, it was in Spanish and unfortunately I have lost the original source.

However here are the stats. Last year in England Blackpool got the smallest cut from TV of all of the premier league teams, they “only” got 45 million Euros. Manchester United, the team that was televised the most got 78 million Euros. Now that is a huge difference, a couple of star players being signed of course. However what it showed is that through the range of the twenty clubs in the premier league there was a roughly equal spread of the TV income thus ensuring that the smaller clubs could compete at least in a game between the clubs. It also ensured that the smaller clubs could avoid going into administration meaning that the league remains quite solid because after all even the bigger clubs need someone to play against.

Spanish Football Players

Image by cabezadeturco via Flickr

In Spain the big two are Barcelona and Madrid of course. Their income from TV dwarfed Manchester United’s with both getting 140 million Euros from TV rights. The next biggest beneficiaries were Valencia and Atletico Madrid with 45 million Euros. Notice a small difference of 95 million Euros there? There were five clubs that received 12 million Euros each, a modest difference of 128 million Euros each year.

Over the last six years in Spanish football Barcelona or Madrid have won the league and finished second every year except one when an inspired Villarreal managed to snatch second place. Everybody else is battling for third. To be third in Spain is to effectively win the league now in my opinion. However Valencia finished third last year 21 points behind madrid in second and Villareal in fourth were a very distant thirty points behind, almost a point per game!

This concentration of money and power in the top two is now having some disturbing trends which are being exaggerated more and more as the seasons go on. This year out of the top two divisions and 42 teams there are 17 who have no shirt sponsorship due to the crisis and the lack of opportunity for the brands to get exposure as all of the media concentrate on the Big Two to the detriment of all others. It looks like Valencia will actually manage to get sponsorship in the next week or so with a cruise line but for the third biggest club in Spain to be having this problem after the start of the season is extraordinary. Imagine Chelsea not being able to find a sponsor in England. Impossible! Well in Spain impossible is nothing.

Five of the teams in the top division are actually in administration to protect them from their creditors of whom one of the big ones are the players themselves who went on strike unless they were guaranteed their arrears. It has been admitted that the only reason that the league does not impose points deductions on teams going into administration is that it would leave the league tables looking like a farce.

During the Sunday football program on Sky at the weekend when talking about how good Juan Mata is Gordon Strachan said he often goes to watch Cartagena, I am going to assume he has a property in La Manga like many other footballers, and Mata is an exception. When he is at the Cartagena matches and comments about how good a young player is he is invariably told “Ah yes but he belongs to Barcelona/Madrid”. 80% of all stand out players in the lower leagues are already owned by the big two. Sid Lowe has written a great article about the “Bricking it” clause in loan contracts that is common now in Spain. You loan a player out to your rivals but he cannot play against his club meaning that you strengthen his loan club against all others and considerably weaken them against you. Real Madrid first put this clause into effect on all loans after being knocked out of the Champion’s League by Fernando Morientes while he was on loan at Marseille.

Sergio Canales

Image via Wikipedia

This year Real Madrid have outdone themselves because last year they bought the best young player in Spain, Sergio Canales, against the wishes of their manager Mourinho. As a result Canales hardly played all season stalling his progression at a critical time. Valencia now have him on loan for two years but he cannot play against Madrid! Valencia also have the option to buy him which may be the only way to get him playing against Madrid, however Valencia have the largest debt of any football club in Europe so whether they can exercise that option is another thing.

The other thing is of course that the matches between the Big Two now mean so much more because they are effectively league deciders. Twice European Trophy winners Zaragoza lost 6-0 at home to Madrid in their first match of the season at the weekend. This would have been unthinkable ten years ago and only thinkable under Franco because the refs were crooked ;-)

The only possible change on the horizon is that Malaga now have their own Sheikh like Man City. They still lost their first game of the season to Seville though after spending 58 million during the summer.

However after the results at the weekend the English league cannot get complacent. United putting 8 past Arsenal and Man City hammering Tottenham away are signs of things to come. Now if only there were 20 Sheikhs with cash to make fabulously rich footballers even more wealthy mmmm!

Time to stop so much inequality methinks in order to save football.

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