The Neverending Story (Or the emotional rollercoaster of being an English sports fan)

An inspiring tale of adversity
and ultimately, Redemption

We all want a good movie to have a few ups and downs, plot twists and to put the us through a range of emotions. We want to be engaged and affected by the characters, to feel disconsolate and despairing because of their troubles, inspired and encouraged by their fortitude, and ultimately uplifted and contented by their triumphs. We want to feel like they've earned the happy ending, they've demonstrated enough vivacity and vigour to warrant our affections. We want to see them grow and develop as time progresses, overcome frailties and conquer obstacles. We accept their mistakes and lapses in judgement, we endure the frustrations and we retain a glimmer of hope regardless of the dire circumstance. Overall, we want some kind of satisfactory conclusion, ideally a famous and emphatic victory.

Beckham's England career - the ultimate
footballing redemption story

Is it not the same with the saga of supporting a national sports team? The players and managers, wins and losses, injuries and suspensions, qualification and seemingly inevitable elimination, the undying hope of ultimate success? Teams show growth and development, promise and aspirations, they suffer disappointments and under-achievements, they demonstrate great skill and physicality before lapsing into old habits and insipid performances. Forever our teams seem to be showing encouraging signs, in a period of rebuilding and looking to the future. 

How can it be with a constant turnover of personnel involved there is no significant change in the relentless cycle each of our major international teams follow? It's like a Bond movie, the characters are different each time and the events vary slightly but ultimately the same basic things happen. The only difference is Bond always come out winning. 

We've all known a bit too
much of this in the last 25  years

Let's look at the football team and our endless pattern of:
a) promising major tournament qualification campaign with new players involved and a building sense of hope and expectation
b) a few poor performances & results in friendlies against major nations to keep our feet on the ground
c) some kind of drama / media storm in the months before the tournament itself
d) an ultimately disappointing tournament with "wholesale changes needed"
e) back to the start, rebuilding, getting rid of dead wood and bringing in new faces to refresh the whole cycle

The truth is that our young players, initially showing so much promise and excitement, rarely become anything spectacular. Over the last 20 years there has been 13 English winners of the Young Player of the Year award but just 7 Player of the Year awards. Only Gerrard and Rooney have won the Young Player and gone onto win the main one. Even worse, the Football Writers award has gone to just 5 Englishmen in 20 years. The issue of an increasing influx of foreigners is for another time, but the lack of development from promising youngster to world-class talent is sadly reflected by our national team never quite making the step up. 

The table shows our FIFA world ranking since 1992. I nearly used the word "progress" but evidently that's not really suitable. What it does show is that with all the ups and downs in rankings, we should have done better than one semi-final in the last 25 years.

Following the cricket or rugby teams is hardly much better. The rugby team have of course known some recent success with the World Cup in 2003 and some 6 Nations wins but when you see the coach describe your team as "courageous" you know there's something wrong. Similar to how Scotland are repeatedly described as brave without ever improving, we have now come runner up 4 years in a row and are apparently still a young team maturing and building towards the world cup. Rarely do you hear a blunt opinion such as that of the RFU Chief Exec who is demanding higher standards. With less range of teams to compete against there is more consistency in terms of rankings but the same cycle of hope and disappointment goes on here.

I can't bring myself to write about the cricket team at the moment, and I don't think series against New Zealand and Australia this summer are going to help much.

Who's Daring to Dream?

Among the many things I love about the World Cup is the huge variety of opinions, articles, talking points, disagreements and perspectives it provokes. Go on any decent website and there are as many different articles as you could hope to read, discussing every possible aspect of the tournament. You can read about the teams, players, previous tournaments, the infrastructure, the impact on the hosts, impact on previous hosts, basically anything.

But without doubt the best thing (possibly including the matches, that remains to be seen) is the debate (yes I mean arguments). Who's in your All-time XI, who's in your fantasy team, who will win the Golden Boot, do Messi/Ronaldo need to win to be considered among the best players ever, who should start for England and how far will we get? There is virtually nothing on which you'll find yourself in complete agreement with someone else. If you do, the only thing I can recommend is you debate things a bit more.

Of all the contentious issues, there is one that most clearly identifies the optimists, pessimists, realists and idiots. How will England do? 
A couple of years ago I wrote a post about England's chances going into Euro 2012. Before the tournament, there was a genuine sense of realism about the England football team and our chances in such a way that there was no huge feeling of devastation when Diamanti tucked home the decisive penalty. Winning the group failed to inspire any genuine hope and rightly so given the insipid performance produced against the Italians.

So with it all kicking off on Thursday evening, how are we feeling this time around? There's a certain satisfying symmetry with England starting where they left off in the Euros, aiming to avenge that defeat and put right the dour and lacklustre style of play from 2 years ago. Lots has been made of the exciting young talents of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Sterling, Lallana and Barkley but whether they're quite enough to inspire blind optimism in a naturally wary nation remains to be seen. Surely it will be the same old story. Surely warm up draws against the might of Ecuador and Honduras tell us all we need to know. Surely...

I can't help myself, I'm going to put it out there that by 1am on Sunday morning, there'll be the faintest of glints in the eye of even the most cynical of England fans. 

Will ladies' football ever be a truly popular national sport?

This weekend sees the beginning of the 3rd Women's Super League (WSL), the elite competition of ladies' football in the UK. Eight clubs now compete to be crowned the greatest in the country. With a competition specifically designed to raise the profile, standard and professionalism of the game now entering its 3rd season, has it started to yield the desired effects? 

In terms of money, it faces the dilemma of wanting to increase the finances involved, but simultaneously avoid a huge imbalance in the favour of larger clubs like Arsenal and Chelsea. Consequently, clubs are currently only allowed 4 players on a salary of £20,000 or more. And, yes, that is an annual salary.

At the end of last year's WSL season, the BBC presented a Q&A with the FA Head of National Game, Kelly Smith (read it here, and its recent follow up video here). Inevitably the tone was positive, that progress was being made and that interest and support was up. Unquestionably, overall attendance has increased 10% and the highest attended individual match (5052 spectators at Arsenal vs Chelsea) was more than twice that of 2011, although it taking place at the Emirates may have benefited this somewhat as well.

Most sports across the UK have seen a significant swell in interest and participation post London 2012, and women's football is no exception. At the Olympics, interest was high, with an average attendance of 25000, including 70,000 seeing Team GB beat Brazil in the Group Stage, and 80,000 watched the USA beat Japan in the final, both at Wembley.

But is there a danger that it will be like many other Olympic sports, in that the general public don't really care about it unless there is a major tournament on, or it happens to be on TV? How many people go onto the BBC's Women's Football page specifically to look up results or get the latest club news? Who knows what the Cyprus Cup is, or whether beating Canada twice in a month is remotely significant or impressive?

Last weekend Rachel Yankey became England's most capped football player, joint with Peter Shilton, with 125 national team appearances. A huge congratulations to Rachel for such a feat, but I fear it will be looked upon a bit like players who play hundreds of times for minor nations in the men's game, becoming more of an obscure pub quiz trivia answer than an achievement inspiring awe and respect.

Women's football is hardly new in England, having been played (and popular) in the early 1900s, until what turned out to be a 50 year ban from 1921 stopped its genuine progression and growth in its tracks. And now that men's football is so utterly universal and financially significant, it will take a massive ongoing effort from all quarters for the ladies' game to get a real foothold in the market. The reality is also that a large percentage of the female population still strongly dislike football. Saturday night dates ending at 10.30pm for Match of the Day may have something to do with this, but until there is a wider enjoyment of the sport, it may be hard for the game to really grow and develop.

Although it is unfair to compare to the men's game, there are definitely positive signs that the game won't sink into a post-Olympics hangover and back into relative obscurity. Chelsea have just signed a Brazilian superstar for the new season, ESPN are continuing to provide significant WSL coverage, the BBC are showing some of the matches from this summer's European Championship and the FA WSL Cup has ongoing sponsorship from Continental, one of the biggest sponsors of major football tournaments in the last 20 years.

In terms of the national team, there are an awful lot of similarities to the men's side of thing (unfortunately). Looking ahead to this summer's European Championships in Sweden, we currently sit 7th in the FIFA rankings, not quite able to break into the very top levels, but always close enough to get our hopes up. Sadly, we appear to be similarly afflicted by major tournament woes. At the Olympics, Team GB won all 3 group games, including beating Brazil, only to tamely limp out 2-0 to Canada in the Quarters. At the 2011 World Cup, we again won our group, including a victory over eventual champions Japan, only to lose in the first knockout round, on penalties, having conceded an 88th minute equaliser. They are still England after all.

Rugby World Cup: A great Six Nations warm-up

A thoroughly unusual and surely unique sensation overcame me at around 9.05am on Sunday morning. 

Having arisen hours earlier to do my standard 10 mile run, 1 hour Bible study and a plethora of unquantifiably charitable good deeds, I turned onto the ITV website and endured the un-skippable adverts, to find I'd just missed the Haka. As I settled in to watch what I expected to be a whole-heartedly enjoyable devastation de l'equipe francaise (Blogspot won't let me do accents, so no criticism please), it came as something of a shock to find myself supporting not those of an All Black nature, but their Gallic opponents.


I've previously noticed that it can be difficult to determine who you want to win a sporting contest until a moment of great tension, such as a hawk-eye call or penalty shootout, when your true desire is revealed. Can you imagine the surprise then to find in those early moments that I genuinely wanted France? I've pondered long and hard how a true patriotic English sports fan with suitable disdain for anything tricolore could possibly be supporting them with more than a passing interest but nothing conclusive comes to mind. A mystery left unsolved.(*obviously if it was against Germany or Australia one is entitled to support France, or indeed any nation on the planet to be honest). 



The truly remarkable effort from the French does set up the 2012 Six Nations to be a potential classic in the history of the tournament. On the eve of the Rugby League Four Nations, it appears as though the annual northern hemisphere round robin could similarly be between four nations. Any of the below must consider themselves strong contenders for the title:



Ireland - defeated Australia during the WC and always difficult to beat, they do have away matches at England and France but 3 home games gives an advantage. They beat England so convincingly to deny them the Grand Slam earlier this year, it'd be crazy to rule them out. A lot might depend on which of the 3 O's are still there (Gara, Connell and Driscoll). William Hill current odds 6/1


Wales - won over many neutrals during the RWC with attacking rugby stemming from a young and energetic team. Considered in most parts as unlucky to go out but a more than mediocre kicking performance and a shaky display in the groups against Samoa suggests they're not quite the finished package yet. Similar to Ireland, they have 3 home games in the 6N, but their away games are in Dublin and London so they'll have to really perform to come out on top. William Hill: 3/1


England - reigning champions who, let's not forget, have a team with vibrant youth and attacking intent buried deep within them. Ashton was joint top try scorer for the RWC, Tuilagi is showing the promise to be a great, and Toby Flood will surely grow into the No 10 jersey which must now be permanently vacated by Wilko, whether he wants to retire or not. Would need to be the first team since Ireland in '09 to win the 6N despite playing 3 away games but with two of them at Scotland and Italy, they'll be in the hunt, regardless of whether Johnno is still in charge. William Hill: 5/2

France - World Cup finalists, beating England and Wales on the way, the mercurial French have been installed as favourites and 3 home matches, including hosting England and Ireland will stand them in good stead. It remains to be seen how Philipe Saint-Andre's management will affect them but if they perform anywhere near the level they produced against New Zealand, it'll be hard to beat them. I can promise my inexplicable spell of amour des cuisses de grenouilles will not be recurring. William Hill favourites at 7/4


After my attempts at making predictions at the quarter final stage, I think I'll steer clear of putting my neck on the line for the time being...

A World Cup to remember, even by English standards

So England's World Cup has come to an end. And what a journey it has been. Going from one glorious performance to another, consistently punctuated by professional and high class off-field incidents. It seems only fitting to put together some form of memorial to commemorate such an epic campaign - for future generations to gaze upon and draw inspiration for their own battles ahead.
Much as the modern generation of football fan looks back to the footballing greats such as Pele, Beckenbauer, Di Stefano, Cruyff and Maradona with nought but youtube videos to convey their greatness, so it shall be in just a few short years, when names such as Tindall, Wilkinson and Johnson fade from memory. The pitiful offerings of 2003 shall be resigned to DVD extras, as the feature length presentations focus on the events of the last month or so and the glory showered upon our great nation by its oval-dropping throwing representatives.


I appreciate that the wealth of material available has meant that others have put together brief timelines, referring to a few of the more celebrated happenings, but here's a brief run-down of my own of how things have panned out so well for us recently:


11/9: Encouraging signs from the word go as the new All Blacks (black is the new white) grind out a win against mighty rugby nation Argentina, England apparently "composed under pressure" - Wilkinson a particular highlight, safely putting away 3 kicks, and missing just 5.


12/9: Celebrating the dizzy heights of the spectacular 13-9 win over the Pumas, England descended upon the Altitude bar. A few harrassed females and thrown dwarves later and commendably the lads created a few more headlines to really raise the game's profile and get youngsters interested in the sport. One can only applaud such dedication.

13/9: As well as Courtney Lawes being banned for two matches for a gentle rub on the temple with his knee-cap, Martin Johnson's defensive skills get another run out, this time defending the decision to allow a slightly more unusual form of training. Namely, bungee jumping.


18/9 & 24/9: England take it easy, coming through a couple of matches against lower ranked teams and starting to appear as though they actually care about winning rugby matches more than doing as much for New Zealand's tourist office as Murray from Flight of the Conchords.


29/9: Two England coaches unfairly suspended for helping an old man (Wilko) by giving him a different ball to kick with after the one he had been using kept frustratingly dodging the gap between the posts. Such care for the elderly should surely have been commended but alas not in this instance, and in this a so-called gentlemen's sport. Lamentable.


1/10: The second month of the tournament begins with another famous win, preserving our 100% record, but I think enough has been said about the monumental victory over the Highlanders, and just what a strong position England were in at this stage. 


3/10: Delon Armitage banned for the quarter final for an over-exuberant neck hug during the Scotland match, his attempt at affection seemingly misinterpreted by the authorities.


4/10: Manu Tuilagi becomes the first of 3 (also Moody & Lawes) to be fined for doing his best to resuscitate the economy by the supporting small businesses with a bit of dental advertising. 

8/10: Having been to the last two finals, and beating France on the way on both occasions, it was only right that we let them have their moment au soleil. We couldn't throw the game of course so decided instead that a 16 point half-time handicap was more appropriate. Made it look realistic you see. We were also ever so good sports throughout the match, regularly giving the ball back sportingly, even when there was no injury or apparent reason to do so. Good old chaps those English boys. I'm sure they just wanted to return to their families anyway; I gather for some there may be things to discuss back at home.

9/10: Our favourite Samoan then decided to celebrate a successful campaign and particularly his own form (which was actually good), with a quick dip in Kiwi waters. Turned out to be a relatively expensive one for him but no doubt it was refreshing, and gave us all a bit of eye candy so everyone's a winner really.

And that was that. A treat for all to behold really - well organised, disciplined, professional and ultimately successful. Who wouldn't want an 80% winning percentage and a quarter final place? It's more than we've done in football world cups for more than 20 years. Similar standard of penalty taking to 1990 as well. A month and a bit to make a country proud of its sporting heritage and skill - surely Martin Johnson will choose to leave now on a high - quit while you're ahead as it were. 




DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE IS SARCASTIC - ENGLAND'S PERFORMANCE ON AND OFF THE FIELD DURING THE RUGBY WORLD CUP 2011 HAS BEEN SIMPLY AWFUL AND EMBARRASSING TO WATCH AND FOLLOW. 
(I thought I'd be a little less subtle than the last article which proved a bit much for certain dimwitted folk to understand)

A World Cup fight at Close Quarters

No more group matches, no more working out point difference, bonus points and qualification permutations. We are at the do or die stage. This World Cup has finally reached a genuinely interesting and difficult to call round of exciting Quarter Final matches. 


Bar the NZ-Arg match, which is unlikely to have the edge of our seats and the ends of our nails worn down, there are 3 truly close matches ahead. These are the top 8 IRB ranked teams in the world and as per last week's rankings they were paired as 2 vs 3 (SA-Aus); 4 vs 5 (Eng-Fra) and 6 vs 7 (Ire-Wal). France's defeat to Tonga has since seen them drop to 8th but make no mistake, they aren't just making up les nombres...


England - France
As amusing as it would be to continue a very thinly disguised attempt at English sporting arrogance (and endeavour to evoke a further remarkable barrage of abuse from those whose understanding of sarcasm and irony is about as advanced as Jonny Wilkinson's involvement in twitter), there's simply no way England can confidently assume their semi-final place is secure. The "convincing" Six Nations win was only 9-9 at half-time and a missed Yachvili penalty just before the break could have made for a very different result. 
England are going with Flood and Wilkinson, the fairly blunt instrument that has been Tindall dropped ruled out with an horrific dead leg, an injury so devastating and crippling that it was kept completely under wraps until it happened to be that Johnson had to reveal that he didn't want our royal centre to play. Extra kicking options, wingers with 9 tries in 5 matches between them and a self-belief that we're better than our Gallic rivals in disarray makes England strong favourites.
As much as I might try to suppress my patriotism, it seems to be winning out over the English sporting cynicism, so I'm going to go for a 21-13 victory pour les Blancs.


Ireland - Wales
The Celtic clash has been well covered by Ben Dirs so I won't labour to expand upon his analysis but I can't help feeling it is going to be worth the early morning start. These two expansive, attractive rugby-playing nations are 1-1 in World Cup head-to-head but 63-46 to Wales all-time and Ireland have never made it beyond the quarter final stage. But after a famous victory over the Wallabies in the pool, and a convincing dismantling of a potential banana skin in Italy, the Irish must be brimming with confidence. Wales have had a couple of close shaves, one nearly sneaking a win against the world champions, one narrowly escaping going down to the less-than-mighty Samoa. A swansong for greats like O'Driscoll, O'Gara and Williams will only add to the drama.
The fact that I have them in my work sweepstake has nothing at all to do with the fact that I believe Ireland will come through for a 24-17 win.

Australia - South Africa
An absolutely mouth-watering clash between 2 of the 3 teams to have ever defeated the All Blacks in the RWC. They share a 1-1 world cup record and have both won the tournament a joint record 2 times. Remarkably, Australia have never been ranked 1 in the world and the reigning Tri-Nations champions have a losing 26-40 overall record against the Springboks. That said, they beat them in both of the Tri-Nations clashes and go into the match marginal favourites, despite the form of new record South African try scorer Bryan Habana. 
Not too sure why, but I've just got an inkling that it could be the Springboks' day and I'll go for a closely fought 18-14 win for the Africans.


New Zealand - Argentina

By no means a guarantee without the talismanic Dan Carter but the dominant All Blacks who, dismissive of the pressure on them, have looked thoroughly solid thus far, start as overwhelming favourites against a team they've not lost to in 13 matches. Argentina will no doubt do what they do well, and keep the tide at bay for periods but there'll be no stopping New Zealand making their 6th semi final in 7 world cups.
No second consecutive semi for the Pumas unfortunately, going down 37-9 I reckon.

Dominant England on course for World Cup Glory

Another devastatingly convincing performance from England, overcoming the gritty and ugly-rugby playing Scots to prevail yet again and preserve our perfect 100% record. No matter what opponent is put in our path we show the strength of character and high level of skill and mental attitude to display our utter superiority over the rest of the rugby world and cruise through one comfortable victory after another.

A team unified, convincing, focussed and dominant

It's a shame that we'll only have to beat France and then some Celts before winning the final because no doubt those small-minded and jealous nations who don't win the World Cup will say we had it easy and make up nonsense about us fixing the draw. I'd almost rather have come second in the group so we could get New Zealand done and dusted before beating the Wallabies and Springboks easily. Tactically this might have made sense therefore to lose to Scotland but we're just such winners, there's no way we could allow ourselves to lose. We obviously gave it some thought, but just decided in the 76th minute that we may as well just win every match, not least for the stats and whatnot. 


Now that the Quarter Final draw is complete, we can look at how weak the other 7 teams are and therefore how comfortabe England should find the next 3 weeks:


New Zealand have lost their only good player through injury and seem certain to fall apart now. They've not exactly been convincing to date anyway, only 36 tries and 240 points scored so far and that meagre total mostly just from biased refereeing influenced by unfairly Kiwi crowds. They've already got the benefit of playing at home, I don't see why the majority of the fans should be from the country as well


Argentina could only scrape a win against Scotland, reliant on a late try from the right wing so we're clearly streaks ahead of them - also evidenced by our crushing obliteration of them earlier in the tournament. Could well meet them in the final cos they're in the weak half of the draw but nothing to fear there.


Australia lost to Ireland who we of course destroyed only a few weeks ago. They're even worse than the All Blacks for complaining about all their injuries and look disjointed and ripe for the picking. A shame we probably won't be the team to knock them out cos that's been fun the last 2 World Cups. 


South Africa were reliant on the ref deciding that James Hook's penalty hadn't gone over otherwise they'd have been staring down the barrel as well. They've been leaking points very freely, that's 24 now in just 4 games, and that includes 16 in one game! Wouldn't catch England conceding so many points in a match during a world cup. 


Ireland failed to even score a try against the Wallabies and we all know how easy it is to beat them in World Cups. I barely even remember the last time we lost to them, and I know full well we've never lost to Ireland in a world cup (and don't go on about how we've never played, cos you're just making excuses)


Wales conceded a try against Namibia and barely even got past Samoa! They also lost to South Africa so it's fairly obvious they're not a threat - I simply cannot imagine how a top class team such as England could ever lose to them so that'd be something of a bye into the final should they meet us in the semi. 


France - well this one speaks for itself. A dismal 20 point loss to New Zealand, eclipsed only in its embarrassingly poor nature by a shocking defeat to Tonga. They are in clear disarray, with a squad crippled with the sort of ill-discipline and irresponsible behaviour you simply wouldn't get from a professional outfit like England. It'll be almost too easy to breeze past them next Saturday. 


So there you have it, a solid, unified and disciplined England team playing convincing and attractive rugby lining up against 7 teams without a good phase of rugby between them. There's only one winner to this thing. You might call it classic English arrogance but what can you do when we're Simply the Best?




There may be an argument for ensuring you're well informed of a particular idiom when reading this article.

So we are at the World Cup after all

So finally England have come to life, and now that the matches are more regular and elimination/progression issues are being resolved, the World Cup has truly begun. About time too. 


New Zealand ominously dispatched their bogey team France, and look all set for the knockout stages and most likely a clash against Scotland or Argentina. Les Bleus meanwhile can look forward to taking on Les Blancs. Unless France are playing in white again and we play in black, in which case it's Les Blancs et Les Noirs but I don't think the race-relation PR people will be too happy with that. 


Regardless, it was good to see England firing again, albeit against a weakened Romania team. Make no mistake, this wasn't the same team that ran Scotland close a fortnight ago, they were significantly weakened, looking ahead to the match against Georgia, which could seal their qualification to the 2015 tournament. Rugby's very own version of Mick McCarthy and Ian Holloway. 


Still, Mark Cueto makes a big difference (although he only actually seemed to touch it 3 times), adds balance and takes away the reliance on Chris Ashton. Besides, we don't have too many players in our team who have scored perfectly legitimate tries in World Cup finals before (see video). It'll no doubt be a grittier match against Scotland so we'll need some more powerful, fast and accurate running to complement the centres Tindall and Tuilagi who offer powerful, strong and powerful running. 


One feature of the match was Wilkinson being removed at half-time for Toby Flood. The commentators seemed baffled by it, which in turn baffled me. Surely protecting our most injury-prone star would seem fairly logical at 34-3 up. A lot of big matches are coming up and having him fully fit is pretty important.


It also got me thinking, especially in light of the well-received comparison between Jonah Lomu and Ronaldo recently, how I've never seen Jonny Wilkinson and Michael Owen in the same room either. Have you?

Jonny Wilkinson

Michael Owen

Back in December 2002, a BBC article said "And his (JW's) modesty and good looks have made him on of English sport's top role models - rugby's equivalent of Michael Owen." You say equivalent, I say same person, tomato tomato (oh wait, that doesn't really work in a blog).


So let's examine the evidence, in order of how compelling it is:

• Both have an image as good clean, honest, Englishmen
• Both played for Newcastle and have had spells at continental clubs
• Both have won world player of the year awards (Owen - Ballon D'or 2001, Wilko IRB International Player of the Year 2003)
• Both have won BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards (Owen '98, Wilko '03)
• Both have been plagued by injuries throughout their careers, severely hampering both their international and club careers
• Both were born in 1979
• Both play at number 10 for England (yes present tense, come on Fabio, call him up)
• Both made their international debuts in 1998, aged 18
• Both have played exactly 89 times for England (correct as of 24/9/11)
• They look exactly the same (ish)

Your honour, I rest my case.




PS - if anyone stumbles across this article, just remember that it is sensationalist fiction writing from that well known tabloid The Times. 

Waiting for the World Cup to Kick Off

I can scarcely believe we're only a week into the Rugby World Cup. A relentless flood of nailbiting matches coming thick and fast, there's barely time to breathe between the end of one game and the start of the next. It's difficult to contain the excitement, building to a fever pitch crescendo of national fascination in the tournament.


Well sort of. In reality there has been little more than a couple of interesting matches and a bunch of usual drubbings and odd unconvincing early performances from the bigger teams. Wales - South Africa was undoubtedly the best game of the tournament so far, with a good standard of rugby as well as plenty of drama, controversy and a near upset. England - Argentina was interesting but more in a painful, why am I being made to watch this agony kind of way. If you imagine a combination of the X-factor, Glee and Big Brother, somehow put together in an all-singing all-dancing repetitive, musical reality show, you're beginning to see what it was like. Besides that, we had unconvincing wins for Ireland and Scotland (x2), the All Blacks not at their best but easily good enough, the Wallabies playing like two different teams in each half, at 6-6 with Italy at half-time before cruising through 32-6, and France looking solid enough. 


But that was all last weekend, since then we've had a break for some reason. The (association) football World Cup in South Africa started on July 11th and there were 2 or 3 matches every single day without fail all through the groups, right until the last 16 matches were done (19 consecutive days), and even then there was only a couple of days break until the quarters. 


You can't really blame the English lads for getting out and keeping themselves busy. Steve Thompson and Dan Cole were obviously using their good looks and charm with these young ladies. I can't imagine there was any other reason they would want to be pictured with international rugby players for photos that would appear all over the world press. 
It was also good to see the dedication of our backs, not only putting in the hours outside of the training ground, but even working on their rolling mauls. I'm sure the dedication will pay off. 


One interesting aspect of the tournament so far has been the frankly dreadful standard of kicking (looking at pens and conversions). Not all teams are guilty (SA, Aus & Fra have struck 70% of more of kicks) but the following numbers don't make pretty reading. Look at the successful to missed kicks:


Wales - 4 scored, 2 missed (66%)
New Zealand - 14 scored, 7 missed (66%)
Scotland - 9 scored, 7 missed (56%)
Ireland - 3 scored, 5 missed (38%)
England - 3 scored, 5 missed (38%)


Undoubtedly the standard will improve as the tournament goes on and the kickers get used to the balls. Certainly England will need Wilkinson or Flood to be on top form because chances against the big teams will be few and far between. Playing a pool match every 3 years or so should give them both enough time to practise and ensure we see a lot of line judge flags in the air over the coming weeks...


Special, unrelated sporting mentions to Djokovic for being simply incredible yet again this year. And also for the England cricket team, a genuinely top class performance to beat the world champions 3-0. So much for just being a test match team. Once again I find myself with too many topics and not enough time

An All Black World Cup?

Ex England winger Ben Cohen: "I can't see New Zealand winning it. I think they will choke."


As the Rugby World Cup begins, the big question is quite simply, can the All Blacks do it at last?


Few sports can ever have been so utterly dominated by one nation. New Zealand are the leading points scorers of all time, have a winning record against every single other test nation, have held top spot in the rankings for more time than all other countries combined (at least 75% of the time) and have only ever been beaten by 5 countries in over 100 years of test match rugby, and only 3 teams have ever beaten them at a World Cup. They have won their world cup pool every single time and have never once lost a pool match.

And yet, not since 20th June 1987 have they held the great trophy aloft. Billed as great chokers, in the mould of the South African cricket team, they fail to perform on the biggest stage. 


They have awesome records against their major rivals, that is until they play them in the World Cup. 


They have beaten Australia 67% of the time (96 of 142 matches). In World Cups, 0% - they've lost both times they've played them (semi's in '91 and '03).
They have beaten South Africa 55% of the time (46 of 83 matches). In World Cups, 33% (1 of 3).
They have beaten France 73.5% of the time (36 of 49). In World Cups, 50% (2 of 4). 

"Mike Catt, door mat"

Against every other team they have won every single match. In other words, they are incredible and overwhelmingly capable, but when it comes to the crunch matches, in the semi's and finals, they just don't do it. What's perhaps even more amazing, given their record against the other nations is that they've only made 1 final in all those years since '87. That was '95, the year of Jonah Lomu. In the games leading up to the final they scored 43 (against Ireland), 34 (Wales), 145 (Japan - a record score), 48 (Scotland) and 45 (England). With such devastating scoring, against a South Africa team performing averagely, there was only one result. They'd scored 41 tries in just 5 matches. 
They managed 3 penalties and a drop goal, all from Andrew Mehrtens. Zero tries and a bizarrely absent performance from Lomu*. They'd bottled it, and haven't got close since. 


Is this year going to change all that?

 * Am I the only person to notice that Jonah Lomu and (Fat) Ronaldo are the same person? Immensely powerful, blisteringly fast, devastating finishers who utterly dominated a World Cup before having a poor and fruitless final, ending in defeat and surrounded by controversy and a mysterious illness. They each hold the World Cup scoring record, of tries and goals respectively. Both with 15. Also, they look identical. It's almost worth a blog post on its own

The (multi)national pastime of choking

I am an avid English sports follower, in all three of the following senses:
a) a follower of English sports
b) an English follower of sports, and perhaps most pertinently, 
c) an English follower of English sports

So, when, in my imperial arrogance, I assume that we should be capable of winning every sporting event we enter and am subsequently let down but abject unlucky failure, I can't help but wonder why.

Links golf proving tough for Donald

I was most recently prompted to think about it by the entertaining British Open Championships. Well done Darren by the way. If we glance at the current world rankings, one can't help but notice positions 1 and 2 being held by Englishmen. Yet neither Westwood nor Donald seems able to perform much better in Majors than their slightly less orthodox namesakes may have been able to.

Westwood hits the decks

The last time an Englishman won a Major was Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters so perhaps we're just chokers - even when we're the best in the world we can't win the biggest tournaments. When was the last time an English football team won a seriously tough match at a major tournament? You could say , Argentina 2002 with Beckham's so called redemptive penalty but that's a Tina that went out in the groups after failing to beat Sweden, certainly not Germany during Euro 2000 as they were eliminated with just a single point (against Romania) - so how far back do we need to go? Spain on penalties in Euro 1996, maybe the Dutch 4-1 during the group stages? Italia '90 it must be, we got to the Semi's, but played Cameroon (aet) and Belgium (aet) in the knockout stages. I am going to suggest the following:


England have not won a genuinely difficult and significant match in a major tournament since the World Cup Final of 1966.


As true as I believe that statement to be, it wasn't really the purpose of this blog. Rather than the typical English-sport-slating of every journalistic outlet in our green country (I mean literally, lots of grass & fields, not inexperienced, or jealous, or even environmentally friendly), I am going to suggest that a mental frailty or predisposition towards choking under pressure is no more of an English trait than football or tea are originally English inventions.

Who did Faldo beat in the '96 Masters? Greg 'The Shark' Norman - an Aussie. Famous for their determination to win, competitive mentality and strength of self-belief. Yet, leading by 6 shots going into the last round, he managed to play one of the worst final rounds seen until Rory's own version earlier this year. How could an Aussie choke like that?

In cricket, South Africa have consistently one of the strongest ODI teams, combining aggressive but reliable batters with economical but wicket-taking bowlers. They always have good numbers of all-rounders and are always among pre-tournament favourites. Yet they are always labelled chokers and always live up to their label as the tournament unfolds.

What about New Zealand? The All Blacks strike fear into the hearts of their opponents, and not just because of the Haka or Jonah Lomu - they are the strongest, fastest, most powerful and technically gifted rugby union team in the world and have been ranked No 1 in the world for nearly 3/4 of the entire time the rankings have existed. Yet every four years they somehow conspire to fail to win the tournament. We can only dream that this autumn will be the same old story.


USA's women were overwhelming favourites to win the World Cup a record 3rd time, but twice threw away the lead before producing 3 awful penalties to hand the tournament to Japan. Apparently "choke" is the wrong word so perhaps we'll just say that they bottled it.

Asafa Powell, one of the fastest men in history, regularly putting in incredible times, doesn't produce the goods when he's up against Tyson Gay or Usain Bolt - is he choking under the pressure of the big occasion? There innumerable occasions when other individuals or teams have collapsed at crucial moments. And, until only recently, the Spanish national team were routinely ridiculed for underperforming at major tournaments.

So my list of choking nationalities thus far includes the following: England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Jamaica and Spain. This blog is already too long so I won't go on but I think we can safely say, it's not just an English thing. Is it about a bloody-minded, winning drive? Let me ask you... is that what this picture says to you?

Perhaps I'm sporting romantic (that's not a romantic person who's sporty by the way) but I reckon that in the end, talent will win. Spain are easily the best team and now they win everything. Rory choked massively at the Masters but proceeded to dominate the USPGA like no-one since Tiger had done. I'm no sports psychologist but it seems to me that if you are capable of winning, you most likely will.