Sports Category
Sports news, commentary and scores with wit and added value. We compare and contrast the best and worst sports reporting in the mainstream press, blogs, TV and online. We love the English Premier League (Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and Manchester City) and all things football but we cover cricket, rugby, the Olympics, tennis, golf, F1 and highlights of the sporting year.
FA Community Shield Photos – Chelsea 1-3 Man Utd: Scholes And A Squirrel Steal The Show
THE FA Community Shield photos are brought to you by the Squirrel of Substances (what is that on its coat and did it stick to his fur in John Terry’s car?) and Fabio Capello’s grin for a departing Ashley Cole (picture 6).
The score: Manchester United 3 – Chelsea 1. Paul Scholes was brilliant.
Game on:
Manchester United Training Day In Photos And Wayne Rooney’s Hot Dogs
BEFORE those pictures Manchester United’s open training session on the Old Trafford pitch (a chance to get the concession stand workers up to speed), news via the Sun that Wayne Rooney has invested £10,000 on underfloor heating – “in kennels for his pampered dogs.” Wayne’s Bichon Frisés Daisy and Bella and Fizz and Coleen’s French mastiff (or the other way around) are available for panto, prostitutes and hospital visits. Now for those photos – and look out for Paul Scholes’ tan lines…
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Watford Beat Norwich In Photos As Football Season Kicks Off Early
WHEN Norwich lost 2 – 3 to Watford in the Championship, football began again in the UK. The fans might be still playing the Spanish Waiters XI on the costas, but at Carrow Road the action was on grass and with real goals. We took photos:
Manchester City New Team In Photos And A Who’s Who
TO the Manchester City Training Session for a Press Conference that would unveil the club’s four latest signings: Aleksandar Kolarov, David Silva, Yaya Toure and Jerome Boateng.
The only thing that can stop City winning the Premier League – or else buying a new one and winning that – is if the visiting fans start wearing bikinis, and so corrupt the morals of the watching owners and fans back home in the Emirates. It’s a plan that just might work…
Note: Get a load of Tevez’s expression (pic 3). Remember when you were big news, Carlos?
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Posted: 6th, August 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
Amnesiac Cesc Fabregas Stays As Arsenal Laugh Off Desperate Barcelona: Photos
CESC Fabreagas, the Arsenal skipper with no chant to call his own, says he is happy to stay at Arsenal and it no sure what all the fuss was about him going to Barcelona.
Says he:
“Firstly, I would like to apologise to all the Arsenal fans for not speaking sooner about my future but I’ve not known what I was going to do until this moment.”
No. Cesc has spoken about his future. He has said over the summer – and you have to listen hard to hear him over the sin of Barcelona company men speaking for their paymasters and the fact that his mouth is being covered as a Barcelona shirt is pulled over his torso:
“When you see that things are going so well for [players at Barcelona], I think I would like to go to Barcelona. Then if they want me or not is another thing. It’s what I want and what I would like.”
And:
“It is not up to me any more. It’s just now about Arsenal and whoever else has to be [involved] and that’s it. I don’t want to say anything else.”
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Posted: 6th, August 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (4)
Liverpool Beat Rabotnicki Skopje In Photos And China’s Old Jokes Home
THEY start the football season early at Liverpool. The once mighty Reds saw off Macedonia’s now mighty Rabotnicki Skopje 2-0 – 4-0 on aggregate – in the Europa League. They may one day start playing earlier should Chinese businessman Kenny Huang buy the club and have kick offs moved in line with one billion new stakeholders’ lunch break.
Whether or not Mr Huang is backed by the Chinese government appears to be debatable. If he is, will those old jokes about Liverpool fans nicking your car hubcaps die like, well, thieves in China? Pictures from the match now follow:
Arsenal Open Day In Photos And A Summer Of Fabregas Quotes And Shaved Legs
OFF to the Emirates stadium to watch Arsenal train in the sun. All eyes on Cesc Fabreagas, retuned from what looks like failed plan to move to Barcelona. The question burnt on a thousand lips was: “Has he shaved his legs and chest?” Cesc ran past within touching distance of the Anorak. Robin Van Persie, of Holland, gave chase. This was Holland v Spain in the World Cup final all over again. But Van Persie resisted all national instinct to kick the Spaniard in the chest.
Cesc’s summer of quotes:
“When you see that things are going so well for [players at Barcelona], I think I would like to go to Barcelona. Then if they want me or not is another thing. It’s what I want and what I would like.”
“It is not up to me any more. It’s just now about Arsenal and whoever else has to be [involved] and that’s it. I don’t want to say anything else.”
The Barcelona players play tag with Cesc’s emotions – and you thought Gary Neville was the biggest company man in football:
Xavi: “Villa and Cesc [Fabregas], if he comes too, are welcome to help us to continue playing the football that characterises us and achieve further success,”
Gerard Pique: “I had a similar situation at Manchester United. I am a Barcelona fan, I wanted to return and I am convinced that Cesc will come here.”
Xavi: “It is criminal for a player of Cesc’s quality not to be winning the biggest prizes in football. He really has no choice but to leave. He is making the right decision and I hope the Arsenal fans wish him well.”
Xavi: “Two years ago I said Cesc would end up playing for Barcelona and now I have it more clear than ever. It is clear that Cesc will come to Barcelona.”
Lionel Messi: “I would love to play with Cesc, because we have shared many things together in time. We agree on the fundamentals of Barca football.”
Xavi: “Arsenal need to understand they are only delaying the inevitable. If we don’t manage to get his signature this season then Arsenal only really have him on loan for a year – because there is nothing they can do to stop him joining next summer.”
Puyol: “He is having to stay at a club where he no longer wants to be for another year. I wonder how intelligent it is keeping a player who doesn’t want to be there.”
Messi: “I am still confident Cesc will come home this summer. Arsène Wenger is an intelligent and decent man and he knows where Cesc’s heart is. It is only natural he is trying to keep Cesc, but I don’t think he would keep anyone long-term whose heart is at another club.”
Pictures:
Posted: 5th, August 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
In Photos: Manchester United Thrash Airtricity As Chicharito Gives Hope
TO Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, Dublin,to see Paul McGrath watch the game and Manchester United thrash an Airtricity Select XI 7-1. Not too long ago Wayne Rooney was smoking a fag and urinating against a wall. Now he looked fit and hungry and ready to play against Chelsea in Sunday’s Community Shield.
We also saw new signing Hernandez – who obligingly goes under the Abba-esque terrace chant-waiting to-happen nickname Chicharito. He scored. There is hope for tomorrow.
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Posted: 4th, August 2010 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
In Pictures: Liverpool’s Mascherano Scowls As Roy Hodgson Takes Training
LIVERPOOL’S new manager Roy Hodgson looked on as Javier Mascherano trained with the look of petulant toddler write on his face. It might have been the rain. Why the expression? It might just be his face. Or it might be that Mascherano would rather be in Milan. Liverpool’s Danny Wilson was there, as was Joe Cole, the England makeweight keen to prove that if you can’t make the weight at Chelsea you can still win the title. Also nice smiley faces on Daniel Pacheco and Ryan Babel, Alberto Aquilani, Emiliano Insua, Fernando Torres, Lucas Leiva and Steven Gerrard…
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The ‘Daffodil Derby’ Football Mascot Race In Pictures
THE results of the inaugural ‘Daffodil Derby’ football mascot race are in. In first place is Derby County’s Rammie the Ram (how do they think up those zany names?), ahead of Hartlepool’s H’angus the Monkey and Leeds United’s Lucas the Kop Cat in third spot. The race was part of the launch of a new partnership between The Football League and Marie Curie Cancer Care. It was all clean fun until someone lowered the tone by dressing up as a complete **** and claiming to be called ‘Tim Lovejoy’. Sick stuff. But we rose above it and enjoyed ourselves, nonetheless…
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Alex Higgins: The Life And The Funeral In Pictures
ALEX Higgins, the Hurricane who lived an admirably misspent life on the snooker baize and betting shops lawns, was laid to rest in Belfast. They came to salute a local hero. Someone called him the ‘People’s Champion’. It’s a sentimental turns of phrase for the life of a sporting champion who made the heart beat a little faster.
The Funeral:
We looked on as Jimmy White, the Whirlwind, carried the body of Alex Higgins down Belfast’s Donegal Road to St Anne’s Cathedral. It was fitting.
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Posted: 2nd, August 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
James Bulger Killer Jon Venables Is Working For The Football Association: Daily Mirror Caught Offside
JON Venables is now working for the Football Association. As the Daily Mirror reports:
It was good enough for murderer Jon Venables in his latest trial and it will be introduced as an experiment by the FA this season.
A police van?
We’re talking video technology for disciplinary hearings.
The two pariahs of the tabloid news agenda are now linked – the killer paedo and the law-breaking footballer. Did Venables ever play footy to any decent standard? Just wondering if his life of crime was football’s loss?
Venables didn’t need to appear personally in court recently, he was linked to the courtroom by camera.
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Wayne Rooney Introduces WAZ, His Signature Scent
WAYNE Rooney is reminding us that he still possesses the common touch by urinating on bins outside the Panacea nightspot on Manchester’s John Dalton Street. Bottle the stuff and sell it as WAZ – the scent of the marketing department.
Indeed, readers, how times have moved on from those once halcyon days when Rooney was making headlines for being the White Pele the Less Short Messi and the Freckly Maradona – sometimes all three in one column.
Now La Roon spends his time taking the piss with a cigarette in his mouth and his cock in his hand in a Manchester alley.
Manchester Councillor Pat Karney thunders:
“I will be writing to him to point out that we are introducing a bylaw that will see people who urinate on our streets prosecuted. I would not want to embarrass him by taking him to court.”
And shame a nation.
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Posted: 2nd, August 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (5)
In Picture: David Beckham, Brooklyn, Romeo And Cruz Do Arsenal
MAROUANE Chamakh does his hair specially for his Arsenal debut, but all eyes are on David Beckham as he watches the Gunners play AC Milan games with his sons Romeo, Cruz and Brooklyn. Is this the future for Day-vid – showing up at matches with his boys and being photographed? Will eh tuedn to them and says, “I was once great, boys. I once wore the knickers everyone wanted and when I bent your mum over a bike and looked like I was about to shag her, like, say, a football would not shag his PA, people talked.” And the boys will look and in perk American accents say: “Sheesh, pop. Soccer sucks – but not like a PA, for example…”
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Posted: 31st, July 2010 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
2010 European Championships In Pictures: Dwain Chambers’ Smile Wiped Off And Other Sexy Photos
IN readiness for the London Olympics in 2010, Anorak has been to the European Championships at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain. We saw Jessica Ennis showing the kind of stomach muscle performance in the heptathlon that turns minds to grated cheese.
We lingered on Eleni Artymata, of Cyprus, Ivet Lalova, Bulgaria’s photogenic export, Romania’s Viorica Tigau giving it the full tongue and Georgia’s Mariam Kevkhishvili doing it for the big-boned everywhere. But the ebst part was seeing Mark Lewis Francis help to wipe the smiles from Dwain Chambers’ face. We don’t often fail to get behind our British athletes but in Chambers’ case we will make an exception…
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What Really Happened To North Korea’s World Cup Coach
WHEN North Korea’s World Cup team lost 1-2 to Brazil in their opening rubber, the news was positive and hopeful:
Kim Yong Gyu, 45, a researcher of the Academy of Sports Science, said the strong mental power displayed by the Korean footballers in the first match with Brazil, which won the World Cup five times, betokens good results of the Korean team in other matches.
No other reports appeared on the North Korean news service. The World Cup ended on that day – before the lads lost 7-0 to Portugal and went down 0-3 to the mighty Ivory Coast.
North Korea’s World Cup Fans Are Chinese: NSFW
The team then got together at the auditorium at the Working People’s Culture Palace in North Korea and were subjected to a “grand debate” in which it was discussed how they had let down the “ideological struggle”.
It’s a great panel show, a kind of Question of Sport with bite. In the What Happens Next? round, head coach Kim Jong Hun appears before a live studio audience of 400 sports fans from the Ministry of Sports, Pyongyang University, Kim Il Sung University, and Kim Hyong Jik School of Education.
Kim Jung Hun is accused of “betraying the Young Gen. Kim Jong Un,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s anointed heir.
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Paraguay Footballer Strangles Referee – Larissa Riquelme Nurses: Video And Pictures
LARISSA Riquelme, we need your nursing skills. Paraguayan defender Jose Pedroso, of Rangers, is so upset at the referee’s performance in his side’s match against against Deportes Concepcíon. The ref at the Chilean second division match has ordered Ranger to retake the penalty three times. Pedroso grabs referee Marcelo Miranda by the throat. Pedroso has now decided to quit Rangers and return to Paraguay, where Larissa Riquelme awaits…
Here’s Paraguay’s most famous football star:
Posted: 21st, July 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (3)
Manchester United’s Wes Brown Is Moving ‘Upmarket’: His Shiny Home In Pictures
MANCHESTER United’s copper-topped defender Wes Brown is flogging his Alderley Edge home for £4.5million. Wes, Leanne Wassell and their two daughters and look for something “a bit more upmarket”. That a euphemism for “London”? Want to see what the house looks like inside?
The Open 2010: Day 1 In Pictures, Fags And Trousers
THE 2010 Open in Pictures: The golf is not all about the sex and the sex. It’s not all about Tiger’s Woods’ lust for other cats. The golf is about John Daly’s trousers as he tees off in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. The golf is about Germany’s Marcel Siem able to smoke and golf. And you thought men could not multi-task. The golf is about the bunker rakers and the men dressed by their mums dreaming of balls going into holes…
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World Cup Heroes: Nigeria’s Vincent Enyeama Is Mr Relaxed
EAT your heart out Robert Green. You only switched off for a moment. The calmest goalkeeper at the World Cup 2010 award goes to Nigeria’s Vincent Enyeama. In these picture from Nigeria’s match with Greece – they lost 2-1 – Enyeama is the picture of a resigned, melancholic calm:
Posted: 13th, July 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (3)
After The World Cup: What Happens Next – In Pictures
SPAIN have won the World Cup and while the nation celebrates in the traditional manner by infighting, serving drinks to drunk English tourists and writing personal thank you letters to referee Howard Webb, the Dutch look admirably bitter in defeat.
The Americans carry on regardless, happy to have beaten Team England and win the World Cup in all the sports that matter every year. The British news media gets back to the job of not reporting on anything to do with post-War Germany.
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World Cup: Do Pictures Of Miserable German Fans Make You Feel Better?
LAST night at the World Cup we said goodbye to Germany coach Joachim Low, Joachim Low’s hair, Joachim Low’s T-shirt vests and the multi-racial German team that should put those Nazi gibes to bed – until the next time England play The Hun. We continue to say hello to Spanish’s players’ hair and Spanish television presenter Sara Carbonero, girlfriend of Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas, and a Dutch team that look they’ve done time in a penal colony.
And so to our question of the day: Do pictures of miserable German fans make you feel better?
Gay Beaten By Dix: Nominative Determinism Race Blow
GAY has been beaten by Dix at an athletic meet in the Oregon. Nominative determinism can be tough. You can run… But:
Olympic bronze medalist Walter Dix edged out Tyson Gay in the former world champion’s hotly-anticipated return to the 200 meters at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting on Saturday.
“It wasn’t bad, but I was a little fatigued toward the end,” Gay said. “I tried to stay relaxed and bring it home, but it wasn’t enough.”
World Cup Photos: German Flair Or Spanish Hair For Holland’s Eye-Burning Resistance Fighters
HOLLAND wins. Britain’s last war-time ally is through. Oh, come on. The World Cup is a bastion of jingoism and arcane bellicosity. England gets behind the Dutch. They all look like resistance types. Up next for the players who dress like sherbet bonbons and answer to Enid Blyton names like Dirk, Robin and Wesley (the dog) is the multicultural free-flowing, flair-based Germany or a uniform-height Spain with good hair. Who’s yer old money on?
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Posted: 6th, July 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (9)
Tiger Woods’ Pro-Am: JP McManus Invitational Pictures
MUCH excitement and debate among the fans as Tiger Woods arrived at the JP McManus Invitational Pro-Am Tournament. What differentiates a pro from an amateur, even an enthusiastic one? Is is just money? Also there were Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Douglas, Michael Flately and Kyle MacLachlan…
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