Agony Aunt needed

[Sweder]

Dear Deadrie (or is that Dreary),

I'm depressed.
Once again Didier Drogba makes a mockery of our Beautiful Game. This time he has the audacity to speak openly of his latest indiscretion after the match, claiming that the ball comes to him and what else can he do but handle it?

Frankly 'what else can he do' but sod off and play ****ing basketball.

Sour grapes?
You bet your sweet FA.
It burns in my throat but I hope Liverpool give that bunch of preening, cheating, fatherless a**holes a good tonking in the Cup - and then fall to Alan Pardews Claret & Blue Army in Cardiff.

Yours in sport,
Dis Illusioned.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Dear Dis Illusioned,

Your grief is understandable, but the solution is simple: drink more beer.

Auntie RC.

[El Gordo]

I thought you'd be pleased about Drogba, Sweder. At least it's taken the 'diving' spotlight off Van Nistelrooy. Arsenal have Pires; Liverpool Alonzo (I think).

Yes, it's bad, but it happens everywhere and has done for a long time now. The solutions are simple -- one or both of:- 1) Technology. TV replays watched by someone off the pitch who is in contact with the referee. 2) Retrospective punishments to be applied more widely than they are now. You can appeal a sending-off from a straight red but not from two yellows. Makes no sense. It would be hard to retrospectively change the result of a game or disallow a goal, but a goal scored from an advantage created by blatant cheating could at least be punished by a 10 match suspension or a £1m fine or the deduction of 3 points. Believe me, that would soon stop it.

[Sweder]

My preferred form of punishment would be public flogging, then shooting.
Drogba would probably fake death and get up to score a later winner.

I can't abide Van Nistelroy's childish behaviour any more than © Ronaldo's instant crumpling (just add your own shirt tug) or in past years Roy Keane's eyeballs-out pursuit of officials and self-styled forms of 'justice'. I wince evey time the Pires Aliceband start warming up, or Wenger confirms the awful advance of his malignant myopia. But my heart soars at the sight of Giggs on the wing; my jaw drops in reverence as Henri destroys defences with lightening speed of thought and foot, and I roar with raw pleasure at Rooney's primordeal power.

I find myself trapped, yearning to see entertaining, free-flowing football to lift the spirit but equally keen to see justice done. The sadness for me is that Chelsea, despite their complete dominance of the game here, deliver neither.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

At the risk of breaching copyright (though I'm sure the authors/publishers wouldn't mind), I'll quote from Kathrine Switzer and Roger Robinson's book "26.2 Marathon Stories":

If you are losing faith in human nature, go and watch a marathon. Tap into the energy of tens of thousands who are out on the streets in the early morning with the sole purpose of urging on people they have never seen before and will likely never see again, yet whose effort they admire and want to encourage. At a marathon you hear none of the partisan tribal boasting and jeering that mar team sports. Onlookers may be watching for one runner - a husband, daughter, friend, grandmother, local hero, village mailman - and they will raise the decibels for any runner whose face or colours they recognise. But they support them all. They want every runner to win, which simply means to finish.

Few of the runners in a marathon are very good at running, but the crowds stay for hours and do their best to help. They are unfailingly generous, benevolent, encouraging, and cheerful, despite the total lack of spectator facilities and information. They have nowhere to sit, no shelter from the weather, no cheerleaders or entertainment. Yet - and it surely is amazing - the citizens of places as diverse as Los Angeles, New York and Soweto suddenly, one day a year, unite as a community of goodwill, peaceful, patient and positive, without the slightest formal organisation or incentive. They simply decide to go out to see the marathon, pick a spot, and squeeze randomly together along the edge of a gutter.

Given your involvement with that kind of world, is it any wonder that you're now finding football so disillusioning?

Frankly, even at my level of running, I'm now finding the tribal ferocity of team sports to be overwhelmingly disheartening (yes, SP, even cricket bothers me at times)

Focus on the running. Van Nistelroy and all his over-paid compatriots can take a running leap (metaphorically) into, er, somewhere else.

[Sweder]

Well said, MLCMan
I enjoyed the 10k in Melbourne yesterday, not least the spirit shown by the Brit and the Kiwi, hopelessly outclassed yet, in a style we appreciate here more than most, finishing having given every ounce of effort.
With that in mind I'm about to tiptoe, buttocks firmly clenched, onto the hills for a healing 5 miles.
Or maybe 10

[El Gordo]

A second "well said" from me. I ran a race yesterday that confirmed all this. http://www.runningcommentary.net/index.htm#060325

[El Gordo]

From The Sunday Times March 26, 2006


Rod Liddle: Enjoying fear and loathing in west London

[INDENT]IF THE Football Association wanted to cheer everybody up, they would deduct six points from Chelsea for their fans’ behaviour at Craven Cottage last week. And then another three for the team’s performance on the pitch. I’m not saying that this would be a correct decision, merely that it would make most of the country very happy indeed.

There is no greater fun to be had than in confirming a paranoiac’s conviction that we’re out to get him. Until a month or two ago, Jose Mourinho would conduct post-match television interviews wreathed in Armani and infallibility, a wry smirk playing about the lips. These days, if he deigns to appear at all, the smirk has disappeared and he has begun to resemble Patrick McGoohan during those later, claustrophobic episodes of The Prisoner. Where once there were sweetly turned insights, now there are swivel-eyed rants at referees, the opposition and perpetual, dark allusions to shadowy, unnamed authorities. Which is so much more enjoyable for the rest of us.


This is what comes, Jose, of having unrestrainedly lapped up the earlier praise, regardless of whether it was deserved. Now, when the defeats come, there must be some other, external, cause. But Jose has never been one to allow for the intrusion of good luck when his team has won. There is not the slightest doubt that Chelsea’s win over Barcelona in the Champions League last season was far more fortuitous than Barcelona’s victory this time around. But Jose swallowed the praise for the good fortune of a referee missing a blatant foul.

With this recently acquired benefit of spiteful hindsight, we might venture to suggest that Mourinho’s tactics in last year’s semi-final against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge were every bit as remiss as Claudio Ranieri’s at Monaco the year before. And nor was this year’s capitulation at the Nou Camp a tactical triumph; playing Robert Huth at centre-forward is just one step away from having David James come up for corners in the last minute. It is often said that we love to see the mighty fallen; but better still to reappraise the mighty and find them pretty ordinary. Hell, even that grey coat is looking a bit 2004-ish.

It is not just Jose we’re reappraising, but the Chelsea team, too. That win over Barcelona last season was also the last time they played memorable, thrilling football. This year they have been obdurate and consistent — but also anaemic and, from time to time, witless. They are still capable of grinding out one-nil wins, but now they do so with a pantomime of cheating, flouncing and whining.

I write all this out of jealousy, of course. But it is not Chelsea’s undoubted success that irks me, rather their attempt to wrest from my team, Millwall, our cherished title of Britain’s most reviled club — and we’ve worked long and hard to secure that title.

But these days, ask around and you’ll find Chelsea are truly loathed in a way that exceeds even the animus directed at Manchester United in their pomp. Partly it is down to Mourinho’s wearying antics and incessant moaning, partly it is the fact that their games are sometimes very, very boring and partly it is that vast legion of arriviste supporters, for whom the names of Cooke, Mulligan, Dixon and Bumstead will remain forever a mystery. Partly, too, it is their immense good fortune in having the rather frightening Roman Abramovich as an owner. It is true: nobody likes Chelsea — but the crucial difference is, they do care — they seem to be horribly perplexed and hurt by it.

And indeed, a lot of the bile is unfair. As a team, Chelsea are certainly no more boring than, say, Middlesbrough or Everton. Their fans may, as Liverpool supporters continually aver, lack a sense of history — but then, unlike Liverpool fans, they have not yet resorted to throwing human excrement at the opposition supporters. They may lack the spark to win the most important matches, but they still win most of the rest — something which I’d settle for.

We should have been a little more measured in our praise last season, I suppose. Tell somebody over and over again that he can do no wrong and eventually he’ll end up believing you. Whisper it quietly: Jose Mourinho is no different from the rest of us. [/INDENT]

[Seafront Plodder]

Congratulations must go to Reading for securing promotion to the Premiership next season.

I bet their accountants are already celebrating the saving in travel costs since they won't have to travel to Sunderland.

[Sweder]

Hey Andy - any chance of a couple of season tickets for the Madesjski (sic) next season? Might be worth investing - I'll wager there'll be some cracking games there.