Anorak

Sports

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.

Listed: XI football pundits who don’t deserve to survive the credit crunch

There are too many bad football pundits and commentators. Here are 11 we can live without…

Tim Lovejoy
Professional football bore with less charm than Peter Mandelson. Lovejoy is the poster boy for every football-loving, lager-swilling, vindaloo-eating, Nuts-reading, Ben Sherman-wearing, Sky dish-owning, Ford Focus-driving, small-town, small-minded lad. Yes, we know you supported Chelsea back when they were crap. Well done. Now shut up.

David ‘Platty’ Platt
Less-than-zero personality – god damn, his voice is dull – and his face is out of proportion, a bit like Admiral Ackbar’s.

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Posted: 8th, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


Moment of Zen: Vinnie Jones glassed during US bar brawl

I didn’t shed a single tear on hearing that Vinne Jones had been glassed in the face during a bar fight in South Dakota. Jones’ nose was reportedly cut to the bone after a pool player hurled a beer glass at him; Jones retaliated by attacking one of the perpetrator’s friends:

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Posted: 8th, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (3)


Want to make easy money? Bet on the Carling Cup semi-finals

ON Saturday 6 December, the draw for the semi-finals of the Carling Cup takes place.

There are four teams left in the pot. They are:

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Posted: 4th, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


Where did all the moustaches go?

IN Britain today, the only acceptable moustache today is an ironic moustache, perhaps grown for charity – in ‘Movember’ – or for a bet.

Who’s to blame?

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Posted: 4th, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


Video: the best dive in football history?

… Or should that be the worst dive in football history? We’re not sure. Either way, you have to admire his balls (cough):

For the record, this happened in a Colombian league match earlier this week. Incredibly, the ref awarded a penalty to home side Atletico Junior, which they duly converted. There is no justice in sport.

Posted: 4th, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


Listed: 10 reasons why American sports fans have more fun

1. Cheerleaders
It’s a bad thing that Americans need to be told when to cheer, but hey… some cheerleaders > no cheerleaders.

2. Guns
They have guns across the pond! And their sports stars are always getting into entertaining scrapes with them. This week, for example, NY Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress (real name) shot himself in the leg in a Manhattan nightclub. Awesome.

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Posted: 3rd, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (5)


Carly Zucker trapped in six-star reality hell

CARLY Zucker may have left the jungle but ‘I’m A Celeb…’ producers have reportedly ignored her tearful requests to fly home and get her hands on fiance Joe Cole’s “buff bod” (her words, not ours).

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Posted: 3rd, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (2)


Who deserves to be BBC Sports Personality of the Year?

In this era of professional sport, it’s strange that anyone still cares about the Beeb’s Sports Personality of the Year.

It’s also strangely refreshing that the award still exists, even if no one takes it too seriously. It reminds us of the quaintness of much of the BBC’s sports coverage in the 20th century – Sports Personality occupies the same memory bank as A Question of Sport‘s picture board, or the rousing intro to Ski Sunday.

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Posted: 3rd, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (5)


Video: Fireball tennis looks like fun

Hey kids, it’s the hot new sporting craze that’s sweeping the internet. Or not.

Don’t try this at home. Unless you’re a pyromaniac, in which case… go right ahead.

Posted: 2nd, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


Roger Federer is the most elegant sportsman on the planet. Who else is there?

Elegant
–adjective
1. graceful in form or movement

Roger Federer has been voted the second most elegant man on the planet, by Spanish rag Marca. Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld came first, improbably. Roger wuz robbed.

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Posted: 2nd, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (3)


Robinho attacks Man City team-mates. Or how to spin a story from nothing

THE richest club in the world (aka Man City) are on the express highway to becoming the new Chelski, and so the tabloids are desperate for some good City stories.

These stories come in two delicious flavours:

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Posted: 2nd, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


Video: Belgian footballer gives Nazi salutes to opponent

Watch and gasp as Helmond’s Daniel Guijo-Velasco gives two  – count ’em! – Nazi salutes in the general direction of Roosendaal midfielder Mels van Driel, during a Dutch league match on Friday night…

Guijo-Velasco, who is Belgian, twice raised his arm in a Hitler stylee, with the referee failing to take any action on either occasion.

When questioned about his actions after the match, Guijo-Velasco defended his behaviour by claiming that Van Driel was acting like “a German”. What a brilliant argument to defend the indefensible.

Helmond have since punished Guijo-Velasco with an internal suspension. Sounds painful.

Posted: 1st, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


Moment of Zen: Cristiano Ronaldo says cheese

“Just take the fricking photo already, I’m eating cake here. Gosh.”

C-Ron, posing with a young fan after the Manchester derby (in which he was sent off). The Portuguese prancer wears Sincerity, by Calvin Klein.

Posted: 1st, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


This sporting weekend: top 10 notes and conclusions

1. If most footballers don’t know the dictionary definition of irony, how come they’re so good at ironic applause? Stand up Cristiano Ronaldo, who was lucky not to be sent off after a few such claps in the face of ref Howard Webb. Still, C-Ron more than made up for it by being shown a red card, for blatant handball, later in the game. Stupid boy.

2. Arsenal’s inconsistency is, er, consistent.

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Posted: 1st, December 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


What We Learnt In Football This Weekend

“THERE is no Norwegian words for ‘baptism of fire’…” – Roy Hodgson, manager of Fulham FC, on Norwegian player Brede Hangeland’s performance against Aston Villa.

Posted: 30th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (3)


Weekend picks: Haka beats Morris Dance, and other predictions

Anorak has looked in the office crystal ball. The horror! The horror!

ALL BLACKS over England – Martin Johnson’s boys will struggle to face the haka without running back to the dressing room and hiding in the showers, so we don’t give them much of a chance in the actual game. They may contain the Kiwis for half an hour, but by the end the scoreboard will make messy reading for all those Telegraph-reading investment bankers at Twickers. Shame.

MAN UTD over Man City – In which the richest – although not the best – club in Manchester meets the Premier League champions. Despite the health of their bank balance, City aren’t in Man Yoo’s league… yet. United to win 3-1.

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Posted: 29th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (2)


Viral Video: Nicolas Anelka Taken Hostage

The world’s gone mad for pink boots

Even more unlikely than the pink fad, we hear that the man known to many football fans as ‘Le Sulk’ has a real sense of humour. Nicolas is quite the dressing-room joker at Stamford Bridge and even likes to quote Peter Kay, who he acquired a taste for in his days as The Best Player at Bolton Wanderers.

Funny old game indeed.

Posted: 29th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


Hardcore sitting: more extreme than it sounds

Hardcore sitting does not involve watching an entire season of 24 over the course of a weekend. Although we’ve been there and endured a concentrated dose of Jack Bauer, we couldn’t call it a sport.

Hardcore sitting does involve performing backflips and other tricks in a wheelchair. We haven’t tried it, but it definitely is a sport.

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Posted: 28th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


Football fashion: why can’t black be the new black?

Much has been made of Nike’s ghastly new pink boots, as sported here by Arsenal’s Nicklas Bendtner.

The pink boot was inevitable, really. From the moment that Alan Ball first pulled on a pair of white boots, for Everton in the 1970/71 Charity Shield (“They were crap,” squeaked little Alan), it was only a matter of time – it took almost 40 years, but we got there in the end.

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Posted: 27th, November 2008 | In: Back pages, Sports | Comments (8)


Carly Zucker’s naked bottom is more interesting than the Champions League

Last night’s Champions League action = meh.

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Posted: 27th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


Collateral damage: England cricket tour jeopardised by Mumbai terror attacks

As a result of the terror attacks in Mumbai, England have postponed their (already meaningless) last two one-day internationals against India. Fair enough.

More seriously perhaps, the Test series between the two nations is under threat. The second Test was scheduled to take place in Mumbai from 19 December, but there’s every chance that England will fly home without playing any more cricket.

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Posted: 27th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comment (1)


German ref perfects the double booking

Two yellow cards in one awesomely officious gesture? Check. German efficiency? You betcha…

Posted: 26th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


You’ve been crunched! Recession bites for Tiger Woods

General Motors is ending Tiger Woods’ $7m-a-year endorsement contract a year early.

Woods has been carrying the Buick logo on his bag for the last nine years and still had one year left on his contract.

But with GM currently begging for a chunk of a proposed $25bn federal loan, it would have been obscene to carry on padding the wallet of a sportsman who is currently too injured to play his chosen sport.

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Posted: 26th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comment


Listed: Top 10 Premier League stars who have lost their mojo

A whole list’s worth of schadenfreude for you to savour: ten footballers who have lost their magic boots…

10. Mikel Arteta (Everton)
Ran the show for Everton in the last couple of seasons, but now has the look of a man desperate for a phone call from one of the big four.

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Posted: 26th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (2)


Merde! William Gallas Victim Of Anti-French Bias, Says Frenchman

FORMER Arsenal star Emmanuel Petit claims that the British tabloid media has victimised William Gallas because he is black… er, French. French, that’s what we mean.

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Posted: 25th, November 2008 | In: Sports | Comments (2)