The Times Handed Its Arse by Football Club

The Times, or at least The Sunday Times, has a history of getting things wrong about Hitler.

And it seems to have happened again. This was the response by Schalke 04, a German football team, to the latest mistake…

Sports Betting & Upper Class Yobs

I think I’m prepared to bet that we are going to see a stark example of the British class system in action in the next few months.

You see, at the Epsom Derby, which is a jolly day out for many of the more rah-rah elements of society, it seems that there was a bit of crowd trouble.

What I expect to see unfold is that the individual offenders will be singled out and put on trial, which is all as it should be.

One way that it will provide us with a clear example of the British class system is that if the offenders  turn out to be upper-class types, they will most probably be treated as individuals who became a little over-enthusiastic on the day. If they were not of the “right sort” then they will probably be much more harshly treated.

However, this won’t be the most glaring thing.

I’d bet my wife’s left ball (joke) that whatever happens, the people who frequent racecourses will not be subjected to the kind of collective punishment that all football supporters have to suffer because of the misbehaviour of a few.

 

Great Missing The Point Moments In History – 8 – Finnish, Not Finished

Whilst not of the social import of some of the others in this series, this is still a classic.

It’s a radio caller not quite grasping why very Scottish-named Antti Niemi wasn’t getting a game for Scotland…

Train Etiquette

Some West Ham fans showing Chelsea fans the correct train etiquette…

That Hypocrisy Meter Again…

Don’t you just love Westminster.

BBC had the story in the image below up today.

The MP in question is Damian Collins (that isn’t him in the photo, that’s Chuck Blazer).

You might be interested in this article about Collins in the Independent. It’s about MPs who own homes in London yet still claim rent.

 

Those two links in conjunction makes me wonder about the other thing we learned about Westminster today, which is basically that they are destroying expenses records to make sure no one can look into them and some other MPs felt fit to comment on it.

I can think of another one who has had some serious questions about his expenses over the years, but given his current position of running for what no one has even tried to make an important post yet, I’m not sure any journalists will bother to bring it up.

Support In Semi-Expected Places

In this little piece about the amazing story of the small Basque team SD Eibar, who have made it into the top division in Spain, there’s a little mural on the wall behind them at one point. You might want to take a look at their away strip too.

 

Coincidence or Design?

In this period in the run up to that referendum thing that everyone seems to be talking about, isn’t it strange that Rangers would release a strip with a union jack pattern under the main colour and then Celtic release a tartan one?

NB – that may not be the actual sponsor on the Celtic one.

Explaining FIFA (corruption) To Americans

This is amazingly well done…

For Your Listening Pleasure – 2 – Beyond The Pitch

I’ve started to do a little something on other podcasts that I think are worthy of note.

This is because as well as making my own, I rather like the medium and think there are a lot of good things out there that don’t get enough exposure. Therefore, I’d like to add what little I can by way of listeners to some of these people.

The second in the series is Beyond the Pitch. It is a football podcast but the level of discussion is miles above what you’d normally find by turning on the TV or radio. They confront the corruption and social problems surrounding the game, it isn’t a “he was offside” type chat.

They also do quite informative episodes on the game in different places around the world. That said, one of the hosts is a Manchester Utd fan and there is the occasional Man Utd episode and I tend to skip those as I am not that interested in them.

Where it is at its best is in the episodes that confront corruption and dodgy dealings in the game. Two recent episodes in this regard were fantastic. The first one here spells out the very real problems that football has in being used as a vehicle for  human trafficking. As you can see, it’s a much meatier topic than “he was/wasn’t offside”.

The second one is about match-fixing and gets into incredible detail about who, how, where and when.

This is the homepage and this is the RSS feed.

Saturday Matinee 31 – The Fix

A short but interesting documentary on the subject of match-fixing from Al-Jazeera.