- This topic has 23 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 19 years, 11 months ago by
.
- Posts
And as for Rooney, as one caller on our local radio station put it, "He kicked a bloke in the nuts – what did he expect".
Ha ha
There was some yoyo on another forum who was appalled because Ronaldo winked after rooney got sent off.
How unsporting!
However, I was thinking, I’d rather someone winked than planted their boot in my Davina McCalls.
Steve
I think a large part of the responsibility for the pressure on the players in the England football team can be safely laid at the feet of the British press.
It is scarcely necessary to comment on the character of the far-right wing owners of our redtop newspapers, (blacktops for that matter), their having long been a by-word for, at best, a desperate shabbiness and cynicism, but of course, the journalists they employ are little more than mouth-pieces for their prejudices. It would be nice to think that sports might have been left unsullied by this influence. Alas, it is, if anything, all the more starkly revealed. ÂÂÂ
Between World Cups and European Championships, an extraordinary number of column inches seem to be devoted to pillorying our professional footballers for their high salaries, though precisely why the law of supply and demand that the far right so keenly champion in connection with other occupations, not least entertainment and journalism, should by any manner or means apply to football players at the top levels, I’m sure can only be attributed to two factors: 1) It is has traditionally been a working-class sport; and 2) it’s a handy source of winding readers up. I’m sure, they consider that stirring up their readers, exciting their emotions in any way at all helps sell their product. And doubtless they are right.
It happens that the English public at large, of largely Anglo-Saxon extraction, is by nature among the least worldly-wise, (although correspondingly naturally spiritual people), so that the combination of this whirligig of exultant glorification and despicable vilification by the press, on top of the already historic class divisiveness of English social culture, is scarcely likely to anchor the players caught up in this mad maelstrom in any kind of a stable sense of entitlement; a self- assurance which even the most villainous professional circles (of which there is no lack among the more monied and “respectableâ€ÂÂ
fair enough all round. but for our ineptitude in shoot-outs we’d be up against france, and cup matches can be won by playing badly, as people put it, as we proved. then it’d be the 50/50 chance in a final and as the results have shown in this cup again, anything is possible.
i know everyone would like to see the home team win by playing super-stylish stuff but failing that, any old dodgy win would be a fair second best as like it or not, after time we’d all almost forget the way it was done but still remember the result. not that we have to worry about this for at least another 4 years.
the only thing i can say with hand on heart from this world cup is that my friend has got me back from the derby as i was told from before christmas that laying england was the safest bet this lifetime. i didn’t do it but those that did will enjoy the semi’s and final i think.
fancy picking 4 strikers and not 1 capable of taking a penalty !
oh, and aranalde, what i meant to say about the 9/10 people and football is exactly what you said – 9/10 people in this country probably have about the same level of knowledge and interest in football, ie, not a lot.
can’t see many flags today ?
Grimes – spot on about the press. The English fans, players and, yes, the coaches deserve much, much better than they get from their national press. Sven made some very pointed references in his conference after the game the other night which left one in no doubt about his own thoughts on them and I am sure the players are adversely affected by the negativity that pervades English tabloid ‘journalism’.
Another glaring example of the British journalists’  cliche mentality this evening, Cormack.
I think it was the journalist TV commentator, Mottie’s old side-kick/rival, who started blethering on about – I kid you not – how there were fewer fouls, because the referee wasn’t penalising the players, in order to allow the game to flow. Immediately he said that, the ref took out his first yellow card to a player!
It’s surely obvious to most people who don’t just mindlessly parrot the received "wisdom" of football’s chattering classes,  that the closer teams get to the final, the more anxious they become to avoid being carded. The ref simply avoided carding players until they fouled in a cynical and at least potentially injurious way.  Not rocket science is it.  (Though you’d think it was rocket science to our judges, who don’t seem to take much account of the degree of malice involved in crimes).
I was reminded of those two early fouls against Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, respectively, in an earlier match, when our half-witted friend said something about a player – can’t remember the precise expression -stamping his authority on his opponent. Not as explicit as that, but that was the sense! Like the Republican chickenhawks in America. They talk a tough battle. The game’s hard enough even on the bodies of the athletes they are, without their being hacked down by lesser players.
The headline of some mutt in a paper today bawled that McCallister must do such and such! MUST! Oh, is that sooo….?
I had to laugh at the end of this match, thinking of the extra motivation so kindly granted to the Italians by a German tabloid, which called them mummy’s boys. What a curse on countries the tabloids are.
Divide and rule. As long as the working class are busy attacking each other, their uppity brethren who’ve moved up the economic ladder so brilliantly, they won’t be worrying too much about the shenanigens of many of the rest of the monied people and their bizarre rates of remuneration. That’s your newspaper owners for you.
Sure, the ref had a great match, but a significant part of it was down to the players’ protecting their own best interests.
it would be nice to think that the European Championships will be as well refereed as today’s match, at least in the later stages, but after the refs’ disgustingly cynical tolerance of Greece’s  hacking game, I’m not too hopeful. The players in cynical teams take it in turns to get yellow-carded for hacking down their star opponents.
And by the way, prophetic words of yours the other day:
"Big Phil will have their measure again as he knows that, while England have a few genuinely fantastic players, if he shuts them down by flooding the midfield and sticking a couple of men around Rooney then he’ll be well on his way to ensuring that the England WAGS will be able to return to the much more pressing matter of planning their charity evenings and OK magazine photo shoots without the added distraction of having their men stuck out in the middle of the continent playing in a stupid football tournament. "
<br>(Edited by Grimes at 11:21 pm on July 4, 2006)<br>
(Edited by Grimes at 11:24 pm on July 4, 2006)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.