Frankie about to get crushed in a rare moment of action

On Sunday we (me, Jayne, Chrystal and Charlie) went up to Essex to see an American football game. We are not mad sports fans, it is just that Frankie has started playing for Sussex Thunder, they were playing an away game in Billericay, and my family live up there so there were several birds to be killed with one stone.

Just to show that I would be the last person in the world to be offered a job writing for the sports pages of a US newspaper, here is my match report:

Sussex won and at no point did I have any clue what was going on.

These are all players waiting for their chance to get on the pitch. There are another bunch already on the pitch.

From the perspective of somebody who doesn’t know the first thing about the game, it is a strange sport. The teams are huge – at least 50 per side – but only a few are on the pitch at any time. Every few minutes everything stops and all the players change.

It is a bit like rugby, but play seems to be in spurts of about 2 minutes, if you are lucky, followed by several minutes of huddling, plotting and substituting everybody another few times.

My dad used to describe football as just about the only game which a visiting alien could watch and quickly work out the purpose and most of the rules. American football is very much not like that. I think the Americans like their sport complicated and capable of being turned into reams of statistics – which is why I am surprised they never went for cricket. I know it can’t be that difficult because in America 10-year-olds and Republicans can understand it, but the frequent interruptions to play didn’t really give me any great desire to learn more.

The half-time score

What I can say is that the Essex Spartans had a much cooler outfit. It was all black. The team looked more like some form of riot police from Robocop. Unfortunately that didn’t help them much because they got thrashed 28-0. Frankie says he ended up as MVP, which turns out not to be some sort of motorcar, but the equivalent of man of the match.

On that basis, we like the game because it turns out that Sussex Thunder are pretty good and Frankie is doing well, and so we don’t care that we have no idea at all what anything means or that supporters are outnumbered by players by a significant margin.

Also I got some nice photos, a few of which will be suitable for making soem new banners for the top of this site.

One thing is for sure though, somebody is going to get one hell of a good view of the proceedings – best seat in the house.

• This guy is all over Murray. No wait! What a comeback 30 each!
• First to 100 right?
• Now they’ve both got 40. Can’t be long now
• 1 nil. Murray out of Wimbledon. It was an exciting match
• Hold on. Look like it’s best of 3
• @gazbeirne I think you get 15 if it’s a really good shot and only 10 for mediocre one. The crowd have keypads to vote. 1-1 next game wins it
• Both these players look the same. Let’s just say whichever one wins is Andy murray
• Man this goes on way too long. Surely they can tell who is best by now.

It would be nice, for a change, to have commentators who knew even less than me rather than who think they know absolutely everything.

I can haz soap!

It is New Year’s Eve so I am casting my mind back over the past twelve months.  If you have a blog it is compulsory.  I think its a tradition or an old charter or something.  So looking back, the international year of the frog, or 2008 as it is better known, has been an interesting one.

Music

All the critics have been going on about Elbow, MGMT, Glasvegas, Fleet Foxes and other bands who I’m sure are good but who have passed me by.  For me this has been a bit of a heavy metal year, with new albums from Motorhead, AC/DC, Metallica and Guns & Roses: all good stuff to turn to when the singles charts seem to be full of reality TV talent show stuff.

I only got to a few live shows in the year, all good and all very different from each other: Paul Weller, the Chemical Brothers and Manu Chao – plus the cream of local young bands of course.  Event of the year was surely Jay-Z at Glastonbury which was well worth staying up to watch.

Television

There was the last series of Doctor Who under Russell Davies’ control, and the last full series with Tennant in the title role.  All very good, especially Blink, and much as I have enjoyed Tennant I am quite looking forward to a change.  I reckon Philip Glennister should have the part and bring a little bit of Gene Hunt to the character…

The car-crash series of the year has to be Bonekickers: so bad that it was un-missable.

The X-factor,  Big Brother,  Strictly Come Dancing, and a host of theatre audition shows continued to pollute the airwaves, which may explain my increasing reliance on DVD box sets.

The big TV event from my own personal perspective was Sky and Virgin Media reaching an agreement so that I can now see Stelling on Sky’s Soccer Saturday and not have to endure the unremitting yellowness of Setanta’s poor equivalent.

Current affairs

The year has been dominated by the American elections and the economy.  Good result on the election: not so good on the economy.  Amongst all that there was a weekly story about government information going astray in the post or left on trains.  For some reason the stories dried up a bit after the Daily Mail lost a laptop with all their employees’ information on it.

The year ends with ordinary families worried about the security of their jobs but the Tory front benchers have managed to cling on to their own second, third and fourth jobs.

Deaths

Loads as usual: Harold Pinter, Heath Ledger, Roy Schneider, Paul Schofield, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman and Anthony Minghella from film and theatre.  Bo Diddley, Rick Wright and Isaac Hayes from music.  Not all was bad news though: Jorg Haider also passed on.

Sport

A fantastic year for sport, dominated by the Olympic and Paralympic games where Usain Bolt took the 100m and 200m gold medals (and world records), Great Britain exceeded all expectations and the verb “to medal” annoyed everybody.  On top of that we had a Formula 1 season that ended with a genuinely exciting race and another British triumph.

In domestic matters we had the Premier League turn into a soap opera with Manchester City becoming the richest club in the world,  Curbishley leaving West Ham after their best start to a season for ages, Keegan leaving Newcastle and Spurs…  well, Spurs found themselves well adrift at the foot of the table, sacked Ramos, brought in Harry Redknapp over the weekend and suddenly went on a winning spree – although their comedy goalkeeper has helped get them back down again.  As the year ends its a really tight league and just about anything could happen in the second half of the season.

Personal life

I don’t know why, but I started the year in a bit of a daze, more or less drifting along in auto-pilot, only really getting it together after the summer.   The arrival of Rojo during the year helped though.  He has been an endless source of amusement and entertainment.

Chrystal finished school and moved onto sixth form, while Chas passed his CBT and got himself a moped.

Work was good.  I ended the year with the same boss I had at the start, which is unusual these days, and we moved into new premises.  There were a few perks too: a couple of trips to Paris on union business and a day out driving big Mercs as a team-building exercise.  Glad we got that organised before the economy went tits-up!

We managed a small holiday, getting washed out in Yorkshire, but the weather contrived to keep our tent up in the loft for the summer.  Very disappointing.

2009

Somewhere along the way I got myself locked into a self-imposed discipline of using song titles for all my blog posts.  An annoying habit which I am going to ditch for the New Year – at last a resolution I can keep!

One thing that can help in the fight against obesity is to encourage more exercise, and one popular form of exercise is swimming.  The government is encouraging councils to offer free swimming to the over 60s and under 16s and is funding the scheme. 80% of councils in the country have taken up the offer apparently. I do not know if Mid Sussex is one of them (their web site is unavailable right now) but I do know that Crawley and Horsham councils are in the 20% of councils who do not want to give free swimming to the old or young.

Neither I nor anybody else in my household qualifies in either age group, but I still think it would be a good idea for Horsham and Crawley councils to provide every encouragement to swim more. It might help with the obesity problem and even if it does not it will add to general happiness in the area.

“The organisers ofLondon 2012 have promised the most closely integrated Olympic and Paralympic games yet” (Report, September 18). But why cannot the two be combined?  Faully abled and disabled athletes competing in their own events, on the same day and at the same venue wouldbe a true Olympics.”

I know I said it first, but Mike managed to say it much more succinctly.

Poster for Steven Seagal's band when they were playing in Worthing

Every time I pick up my guitar I prove Radiohead wrong.  Some people just don’t have a knack for music at all.  Unfortunately far too many of them find enough success in another field that they feel tempted to dabble in music too.

There is a long line of actors who think that if a few million punters enjoyed their films they will all enjoy them strangling a song.  Many of them are wrong, although one or two turn out to be not too bad: they do after all have the advantage of being performers in the first place.

Less successful in translating their talents to music are professional sportsmen.  There are some musicians who were involved in sport early in their lives, but only found any great success in music (Rod Stewart, Julio Inglesias, Sean Paul), and then there are the sporting superstars who try music and just sell a few records for their novelty value. For some reason Diamond Lights springs to mind here.

The only person I can think of who had a successful sporting career, followed by credible success in music is Yannick Noah, winner of the French Open and Davis Cup team captain.  He may not be a household name in the UK, but he shifts a lot of records in France and plays big venues.

Is he the optimum sportsman/musician?  Is there anyone who got as far in sport that has done better in music?  Or is there anyone who has sold as many records who achieved more in sport?   I can’t think of anyone, but I’m happy to be proved wrong.

Just because I like it, here is Noah singing one of his better songs:

I’m still not sure how shooting is any more of a sport than, say, darts but it was interesting to see.  In the first round there were quite a few absolute maximums, to the extent that somebody who scored 599/600 failed to qualify for the next round!   Personally I think that when a sport gets to that level of precision with so many getting 100% they need to make it a bit harder. Maybe move the targets a bit further away or something. Otherwise you end up with a group who are all as accurate as each other and the whole competition is abotu not making a mistake.

Got to love Skelhon’s hairstyle though.  The bright red mohican with ‘GB’ shaved into the side is not likely to catch on like Beckham’s styles do, but that’s OK.  I also liked his attitude with the interviewer who had run out of things to say and asked “So you’re from Stilton, where the cheese comes from?”   He said “No. Where the cheese is named after. It’s actually made in Melton Mowbray.”

I do hope that bit of trivia crops up in a future pub quiz…

The Paralympics are now held in the same city and venues as the Olympics: in the past they used to just be held at Stoke Mandeville every time.  The opening ceremony this time was bigger than some Olympic opening ceremonies: Beijing really put on a good show.  The event is getting taken more seriously all the time. Everyone is saying the right things about the medals being just as good as an Olympic medal and so on, but they are still treated as a poor relation in some respects.  At lunchtime today I went to check up on progress at the BBC website and at 1pm the medal table still showed the position at close of play on Sunday while the Monday schedule had no results on it at all.

During the Olympic games there were constantly refreshed text update pages, live video streams, and every time an event finished all the tables were updated.  If the medal table had not been updated within 5 minutes of Team GB winning something there would probably have been rioting in the streets, but the Paralympic updates were a day late. (Unless it was just something strange about the proxy server at work, in which case apologies to the BBC)

I reckon the whole Paralympic idea should be scrapped – and the events added to the Olympic games, which would have to be extended by a week or so to accommodate them.  Wouldn’t it be brilliant?  The wheelchair rugby medal would be just another Olympic medal.  Those who fetishise the Olympic medal table would have to treat the Paralympic events seriously as they would all count towards the final tally.

The idea is not as silly as it sounds at first.  Some sports already segregate participants by physical ability. For example, they recognise that it would not be fair to pit a 60Kg fighter against a 100Kg one in judo so they split the events into various weight classes, without everyone saying that one class is better than the rest.  All you have to do is add a couple more classes.

What, really, is the difference between segregating 45Kg boxers from 92Kg boxers and segregating one-legged cyclists from two-legged cyclists?   The events themselves would not be segregated.  A day in the pool would see the ‘normal’ 100m butterfly followed by the S2 200m freestyle.

If the prospect of having the Olympic games go on for 4 weeks or of having no capacity in the Olympic Vilage is a problem then just scrap some of the pseudo-sports like gymnastics or equestrian events.

Many of my ideas are, frankly, barking but I really can’t be convinced this is one of them.

However… if anyone wants I can always extend the concept and make it less sensible   The scope for events could be extended to include categories for high jumpers shorter than 165cm or sprinters over 150Kg. Actually…  it might just be that there are short people with incredible technique at high jumping who are denied their chance to shine because of an in-built disadvantage, so maybe its not so crazy after all.

Seeing some of the proceedings today I realised that the biggest risk to the London games is likely to be the weather.  One day of rain in China has caused several events to get postponed by a day, making it a race to get all the events done before the closing ceremony.  If we get a summer like this one in four years time we are stuffed!   I can’t remember seeing a roof on the plans for our stadium…