Compiled by JOHNNY WATTERSON
Could be a long season for F1 racing
THERE is little to be said for laying out your ignorance in print but heavens that Polish F1 driver injured in a car crash, his name barely registered. With the start of the season less than 30 days away, that level of F1 illiteracy could be irreversible without the some 'Conversion Therapy.'
Sadly, Robert Kubica’s hand is not so good after he hit a church in Italy with his rally car.
So as you wait with baited breath for further clarity on the issue of adjustable rear wings, zero keel suspensions, open fronted diffusers or the new Russian F1 team of Timo Glock and Jerome d’Ambrosio, ponder the notion that just about everyone who watches F1 has, unlike fans of soccer, rugby, tennis, golf, swimming, running, fly fishing, GAA, hockey, sailing, trout tickling and conkers, probably never had the chance to play it in school.
“Yeah I played a bit of F1 when I was younger but gave it up for the Leaving Cert,” doesn’t have an authentic ring. It’s the longest F1 season ever with 20 races scheduled. That’s a lot of noise for one campaign, maybe even enough time to know the drivers.
McCarthy finds himself in a right 'situation'
THERE IS a comical, buffed-up bloke in MTV’s Jersey Shore with six-pack abs and who calls himself ‘The Situation’. The guy is a meat head. But when he rolls up his tee shirt for the squeaking girls, he causes a ‘situation’. James McCarthy became that meat head. He has become the ‘situation’. Bah, international football; Scotland one day, Ireland the next. And a national coach, who may only ever be fully understood if the entire Irish media take Italian night classes; a boss who doesn’t have the phone number of the only guy that hasn’t tuned up.
McCarthy knew he was supposed to be in Dublin two sleeps after scoring a couple of goals for Wigan but it was wise Shay Given who stepped forward.
“Very young I suppose,” said Shay. “It’s about growing up. It’s about getting older and wiser.” Shay always talks sense. “He’s going to be big,” he added. McCarthy probably liked that bit.
He’s got a sick note for tiredness and a bit of injury or both. But the hand writing looks like that of his friend’s big brother. Remember that geezer from Liverpool . . . What his name? . . . Albright, Aldridge. He played for free chips in Ramsdens with ‘Big Jack’ and a pass from Krish Naidoo into Miss Ireland contests at Rumours. Those were the days.
But praise the Lord on high, McCarthy found someone who understands him. Stephen Ireland. McCarthy spoke to him. Ireland made a lotta sense. That’s interesting. He sought the only professional footballer who declared his live grandmother dead so as not to play for his country. Life is so full of choices.
Tomorrow ‘Drico’ might let ‘Deccie’ swing. He might turn up at Aviva or not. He might say he got good advice from a rock of common sense, Gavin Henson. He might say to Deccie that it depends on how knackered he feels after the effort of that try in Rome; tell the coach that Parisse “wish boned me”, Castrogiovani “speared me”, Bergomasco “high tackled me” and there was a bit of “bag snatching” in the rucks.
Contador's numbers just don't add up
OJ ‘The Juice’ Simpson was both lucky and unlucky. The American football superstar slipped the murder charge of Nicole Simpson Brown and Ronald Goldman by beating the odds.
DNA analysis of blood found on a pair of Simpson’s socks was identified as that of Nicole Brown. Following tests at two laboratories, the chances of it not being Nicole’s blood was 9.7 billion to one. Each sock had about 20 stains of blood. The jury believed the odds were weak enough to let OJ walk.
There is no similarity between the allegations made against OJ and three times Tour de France winner Alberto Contador. But like the American footballer, the Spaniard is fighting numbers. He tested positive for the banned clenbuterol last July and protesting his innocence blamed it on eating contaminated meat imported from Spain.
Among the 83,203 animal samples tested by EU countries in 2008 and 2009, only one showed traces of clenbuterol and that animal did not come from Spain. Even the most enthusiastic supporter of Contador’s innocence would agree those are lengthy odds.
And OJ’s bad luck? In 2008 he was found guilty of armed robbery and kidnapping and sentenced to 33 years in prison with a possibility of parole after nine years. He is currently serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada.
Cheerleaders are bowled out
A SUPERBOWL denuded of cheerleaders for the first time in 45 years and once again female athletes denied the chance of making a fair dime in a man’s world?
The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers cut their cheerleading squads more than 20 years ago and prior to last week’s extravaganza, when the questions were being asked, confirmed they would not become retro and glam up the sidelines.
Pittsburg took a particularly dim view of the scantily clad tumble turners and high kickers and in 1969, P45’d all of their cheerleaders. The leader of the Steelerettes, as they were known, approached Art Rooney, the team’s owner, and asked if they could update their old-fashioned look. In response, Rooney, as he could, fired the entire squad. The family, who continue to own the Steelers, never replaced them.
Green Bay dropped their cheerleaders in 1988 after a fan survey found that they couldn’t care less if the girls were there or not, thus consigning to the grave the myth that the sort of men who have to fight back tears at the merest whiff of Deep Heat wafting from an open locker room door, enjoy a little female distraction during down time in a ball game.
Few have suggested cheerleading is high art or that hairspray and dentistry are not as vital to them as boots that fit are to a wide receiver. But an argument well put says that the routines are athletic and as demanding as any gymnastic display. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders even had their own reality TV show.
On ESPN they enthusiastically hold cheerleading competitions and there are an estimated 1.5 million participants in all-star cheerleading in North America, while the NBA and NFL have professional cheerleading leagues.
A government report in the UK last year said that two out of every five, or, 37 per cent of schools surveyed are now offering cheerleading, as traditional sports such as rugby union, netball and hockey are in decline.
Godly soccer remains untouchable.
The chants are less engaging. Angel submitted this stanza to an American cheerleading website.
How about, How about, How about a color shout?
Crimson, crimson,
Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold,
Crimson, crimson,
Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold , gold, gold!
(repeat cheer several times and get crowd involved).
It’s less puerile than the doggerel from the annual Rugby Colours match between Trinity and UCD. Trinity chant “UCD is a Fact-Tor-Ree.” UCD reply “Trinity shites, Trinity shites.”
Angel doesn’t have a third level education.
Some find it a creepy, sexist sport that focuses attention on a sideshow of women with pompoms, belly tops and stage make-up and who only come to dancing life when the men on the pitch trigger it with a goal or touchdown. Some find the image sets the wrong example to impressionable young girls.
That view includes an assumption that adults have lost the power to teach children how to discriminate between a dance routine and being subservient or emasculated. Are the dancers with a rock band demeaning themselves or part of the act? But still, the view holds.
Twenty six teams have cheerleaders, while the Chicago Bears, the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions and the New York Giants do not.
They do, however, have obese players of over 350lbs, whose life spans seem destined to be shorter and wallets bigger than any of the girls rolling through the air.
Now, ain’t that a role model for your little boy?
Promising career is cut short
MOHAMMAD AMIR, the 18-year-old Pakistani bowler, was banned this week by the ICC for five years for deliberately bowling two no balls against England, where the front foot lands over a line that it was not supposed to go over. It’s called spot-fixing, which determines moments in a match as opposed to match fixing which determines the outcome. Both are linked to betting. The ICC say Amir cheated.
The five-year sentence is seen by many as lenient after Salim Malik, the former Pakistan captain, Hansie Cronje, the former South African captain, and Mohammad Azharuddin, the former Indian captain, all received life bans for a variety of betting offences.
Spot-fixing, it appears, is not as egregious as match fixing. That is causing a Jesuitical debate over the nature of cheating.
That Amir’s team-mates, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif, also received five years has created another philosophical conundrum. The ICC have fallen victim to believing the fallacy that all members of a team are equal.
The ill-educated teenager Amir and the captain Butt are as far apart as high and low caste, with history showing that cricket captains occupy the highest and occasionally the most corruptible positions. Cronje pressed two of his young South African players, Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams, to enter his grubby betting world.
A stunning talent, Amir, the youngest of seven children who was spotted playing street cricket in the remote village of Changa Bangyaal, made his first One-Day International and Test appearance in 2009 in Sri Lanka at the age of 17. In the summer of 2010, he won a man-of-the-match award for becoming the youngest player to ever take a five-wicket haul in England. He also became the youngest player to take 50 Test wickets earning praise from places it doesn’t usually come from.
Amir also showed little contrition and declined to help the ICC with their investigation, which might have earned him less than five years. Doubtlessly he made a wrong choice.
However, you must wonder whether the callow left hander fell under influences within the team, or has yet managed to escape them as he ponders the sudden halt to a promising career that barely even got started, not to mention a possible criminal prosecution in Britain.
