- 05:54 AM
- 11/21/24
| Name: | Pete |
|---|---|
| Location: | suburbia |
| Member since: | March 26, 2004 |
| Last visit: | July 16, 2007 |
Pete has posted 28 links and 55 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 1 comment to the Locker Room.
Fields of glory : 'His life, his skill, his service all merited the highest honour ... I pay humble tribute to his memory.' Don Bradman's reaction to the death in action of his great cricketing adversary Hedley Verity reminds us of an era when sportsmen excelled bravely in battle as well as on the pitch. As Remembrance Sunday approaches, we recall feats of true heroism and fortitude: from the pioneering black English footballer who died on the Western Front to the RAF fighter pilot who opened the batting for England to the rugby Lion who became commander of the SAS.
posted by Pete to culture at 03:37 AM on November 06, 2005 - 1 comment
Football fans are idiots : Football is pricier, more uncompetitive and less atmospheric than ever. So why do supporters still lap it up, asks a bemused Sean Ingle
posted by Pete to soccer at 03:22 PM on August 18, 2005 - 73 comments
Maradona the beacon in a noxious build-up : I don't think I've ever looked forward to the beginning of an English football season with less enthusiasm. For some of the reasons outlined in this article and the fact that my team are moving to a new stadium without any parking (!) I for one won't be counting down the seconds to the start of the new English football season. I'm going to the Ashes tomorrow, perhaps that will cheer me up!
posted by Pete to soccer at 02:59 PM on August 04, 2005 - 4 comments
Diminuitive urn continuing to capture imagination: You can keep the return of the Premiership, the Tour de France and Wimbledon, this is the sporting event of the summer. The Ashes have it all, five matches that will determine that world's best cricket team. If you don't know anything about cricket this is the time to find out. If you want to go, you can't. It's easier to buy dodo's eggs than to pick up Ashes tickets at face value (and I've got my tickets - I'm so excited I could wee!)
posted by Pete to other at 12:38 PM on July 19, 2005 - 23 comments
Liverpool consider deal to bring unhappy Owen home : The EPL is only a month away (if it ever really went away) and there's quite a bit of movement on the transfer front. Liverpool fans, would you welcome Owen back? Is Peter Crouch the answer? (IMO, only if the question is who is the most overrated, one-season wonder currently playing?) Surely no one would be silly enough to blow bucks on Luis Figo? I thought the Premiership had moved on from the days when it was a pension-fund for over the hill continental stars. By the way, no one has mentioned the departure of Vieira from Arsenal, do you think Arsene knows what he's doing? Is PV a spent force? Wasn't he Tony Adamson's appointed successor? What's gone wrong? Is Jermaine Jenas really being considered as his replacement? Say it ain't so!
posted by Pete to soccer at 05:51 AM on July 16, 2005 - 6 comments
Starfucker, you really are a twat. I posted an article I thought was interesting, why the personal attack? Other people seemed to find it interesting which is the whole point of this website. I don't want to get into a slanging match with someone I don't even know, why would you?
posted by Pete at 12:30 PM on August 19, 2005
Am I the only person who is totally ambivalent about the start of the new season? I don't think so. As a rather obsessive football fan of many years standing, I really couldn't care less at the moment and I don't think I'm alone. Attendances were down across the board yesterday as people seem to be falling out of love with the national game. Perhaps it's something to do with the saturation coverage, the greed, the arrogance (personified unpleasantly and for different reasons by Peter Kenyon, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole) and the spiteful atmosphere that pervades so many games. This article encapsulates my feelings about the game. Football needs to go away for a while, the tabloids need to put something else on the back cover and TalkSport needs to find something else for its pointless phone-ins. Maybe if it came back fresh some of us would be able to remember what we liked about it in the first place. Fat chance of that though in a World Cup year.
posted by Pete at 01:15 PM on August 14, 2005
I was at the match on Friday and Saturday and I can honestly say that Saturday was the most exciting sporting event I have ever attended. I was watching at home on Sunday morning and that was probably the most stressful sporting event I've ever had to sit through. Nice to see that the Ashes are catching the interest of non-cricket obsessives - especially as the football season kicked off on the same weekend.
posted by Pete at 01:57 PM on August 08, 2005
Can I just pose a question? What is so wrong with being a casual fan? Not everyone wants to dedicate a large percentage of their time and money following a team to every match, watching reserve games on a wet Wednesday night and naming their children after the Championship winning starting 11 of 1970. Some people go to sports for entertainment, for an evening out, to try something new. I get the feeling that some sports fans would like people to take an entrance exam and swear eternal devotion to the team before they're allowed to buy a ticket.
posted by Pete at 06:35 AM on July 23, 2005
"And overpaying for it" People are treating like Chelsea like an ATM. Need some money to service your debt? Think of a price for your star player, double it and Chelski will pay it. SWP has great potential but he's worth about £12mill at the moment. MCFC have doubled that and they're in business. What is Peter Kenyon being paid for? Anyone can get the best players if they're prepared to pay silly money. That doesn't make for great business, that makes Chelsea an easy mark.
posted by Pete at 01:59 PM on July 18, 2005
There's more insight into rugby and the Lions in these few entries than in the whole of the Lions management! There's an interesting article in today's Guardian which sticks the boot into Woodward and Campbell again - I thought you might enjoy it!
posted by Pete at 12:14 PM on July 13, 2005
The knives are really out for Sir Clive at the moment. I think people really respected what he did with the English team at the World Cup but they probably didn't warm to him as a person. A lot of ex-players from his generation don't seem to like him. Some people accuse him of arrogance and inflexibility. Others won't forgive him for deserting rugby for football. Making such a mess of the Lions (probably the biggest brand in world rugby) has brought all the critics out of the woodwork. Most people can probably see where they went wrong - squad picks, tactics, Alastair Campbell etc. but so good are the All Blacks that it's possible no one could beat them on that form. Whatever the result though, I really enjoyed the series, especially the Maori game.
posted by Pete at 01:09 PM on July 12, 2005
At last, our first posting on the Lions - it's been a long time coming. Excellent selection of articles. I watched the match in a Copenhagen pub(unfortunately amongst a group of triumphant Kiwis) and felt much of the performance was a question of chickens coming home to roost and pre-tour predictions coming right. Everybody seemed to know what was going to happen apart from the coach - too many over the hill English players, not enough of the talented Celtic players, reliance on size and set pieces rather than skill, too much emphasis on the size of the touring party and their much vaunted preparation rather than the quality of warm-up opposition and team-building and also the presence of both Alastair Campbell and Prince William (or is it the other one, the ginger one?) in the touring party. Either he's arrogant or hopelessly out of touch (of course, if they go on to smash the Kiwis in the next two tests feel free to rub my face in it!). Still, as things stand at the moment, I doubt Southampton are feeling as smug about their new director of football as they were a couple of weeks ago.
posted by Pete at 08:43 AM on June 28, 2005
It's actually four losses in row! Two against England (20/20 and one-dayer), one against Bangladesh (one-dayer) and one against Somerset! Of course, the Ashes aren't for a month so that's more than enough time for the Aussies to get their act together but it does show they're not the invincible force they once were and they are (might be) a team on the decline.
posted by Pete at 03:50 PM on June 21, 2005
Why the suprise? England beat the Aussies in their last one dayer, we beat them in the last test, and now we've beaten them in 20/20 - we're on a roll - Ashes victory is surely only a matter of time! I've got tickets to the second test and I can't wait. By the way, 'England beat Australia? But, but, that doesn't happen!?!' - two words for you - Rugby World Cup.
posted by Pete at 11:43 AM on June 14, 2005
It's the end of the football season folks (at least in Europe) and this is a meaningless tournament. Is anyone interested in the Lions tour of New Zealand or the Ashes? Real contests fought with passion. Just a thought, football dominates 9 months of the year, maybe 3 months off would be nice. We'll all come back in August fresh and excited as a 4 year old on Christmas Day!
posted by Pete at 01:05 PM on June 05, 2005
Actually, the West Ham fans could have done with at least another season down in the Championship. The team might (possibly) be called a class outfit on account of their history but their fans certainly are not. Constantly bleating about being too big for that division and that they belonged back in the premiership, I saw them twice in the two years they were down and on both occasions they looked like they were exactly where they belonged. They were a Championship version of Man Yoo - everyone hated their fans and everyone was happy to see them struggle. I'm sure we'll be seeing you again in 2006/07.
posted by Pete at 03:22 PM on May 31, 2005
Brace yourselves guys, I have bad news. Gary Neville has just pulled out, surely grounds for a refund?
posted by Pete at 02:44 PM on May 21, 2005
I'm shallow - I always think better of stars when I find out they're sports fans (with the exception of 'Scottish' football fan Rod Stewart). This knowledge doesn't excuse La Paglia's god awful English accent in Frasier though!
posted by Pete at 01:14 AM on May 07, 2005
Football fans are idiots
Fucker, I enjoy coming to this website and so I'm not going to engage in a childish slanging match with you. Do me a favour, don't read my posts and I won't read yours.