Sport of Kings? Hardly!

All the kerfuffle last weekend over what was said between the trainer and owner of More Joyous has resulted in even more comment and editorialising than usual over the relationship between gambling and sport. 

Now, don't get me wrong, that's a debate worth having, but it's certainly not worth having over horse-racing.  Does anybody really regard horse-racing as a sport?  It's surely only ever been a vehicle (non-pun intended) for gambling.  Who keeps up with who's winning the jockey's championship or which is the leading stable and I'm only assuming that records of these things actually exist.  They sure aren't reported on.  Ironically, if they do exist, the only people outside the industry who could tell you about them would be the gamblers. 

Whenever horse-racing is reported on in the sports news, it's not accompanied by any league ladder or speed/time results - they just tell you how much money you'd have won had you backed the winner or the top 3.  Imagine the football results being given by only showing you the the pick-the-score and pick-the-margins dividends.  

If horse racing is a sport, let's start seeing it in the news without the gambling information.  After all, they don't announce the lottery results in the sports segment, do they?

Hartley-Poole

I discovered today that not only does Hartlepool have players named Hartley and Poole, but that they also both scored the other day.  Brilliant!

This, in the words of that pigeon and sparrow-feeding chap, "gives me a sense of enormous well-being."

There should be more news like this.

I Wouldn't Bet On It

The leading sports story this morning was the guilty verdict from the trial of the two Pakistani bowlers who had bowled no-balls to-order for betting purposes. 

There has subsequently been much talk of the example that this set and how players would now be more reluctant to risk getting involved in the so-called spot-fixing.  And great for the game this would be if it were so.  What everybody seems to have conveniently forgotten is that it wasn't the ICB's anti-corruption team that exposed this cheating; it was the News Of The World tabloid that set up the sting to expose this racket.  Ironically, that paper was axed as a result the telephone-hacking scandal.  So, just who is going to keep cricket on the straight-and-narrow?  The ICB?

Two B's Or Not Two B's

Next Monday's English Championship promotion play-off is between Reading and Swansea.  The winner will be promoted to the premier League and receive in excess of 50 million pounds for just being there one season.  The rewards are even more if they can stay up.  It's little wonder that the fixture is known as "The richest game in football" but spare a thought for the bottom three in the Premier League who will be moving in the opposite direction.

This year it was tighter than usual and with the title already decided, all of the interest was at the other end of the table.  With the exception of West Ham, whose fate was already sealed, the make-up of the bottom three was still unknown.  Five teams (Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool, Wigan and Wolves) were struggling to avoid joining the Hammers. Only three could survive. 

It wasn't planned, but last Monday morning I woke up at 2.04 am.  I turned on the radio and, sure enough, the brilliant BBC World Service sports show was on.  It was half-time in all of the matches.  Over the course of the next 45 minutes, as goals went in around the country, so the fortunes of these teams changed, at times within seconds.  The second-last slot was taken by the quixotic Blackpool who were gradually reeled-in by Manchester United.  Now only one spot remained.  As the coverage crossed-over to each ground, tumultuous roars could be heard at the news of goals at other grounds.  The tension was unbearable.  Eventually, an injury-time goal by Spurs consigned Birmingham to their fate.  Of the five teams, only Blackburn had avoided being in the bottom three at any stage of the 90 minutes.  Wolves had managed to drop into the relegation zone on two separate occasions before escaping.  For the record, for those of us with an alphabetical (i.e. trivial) bent, for a while there, all of the "W's" were going down before it was eventually determined that West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham were the unfortunate three.

This is the kind of drama, the glimpse into the abyss, that for all their wealth, finals, grand finals, superbowls and, ironically, promotion play-offs cannot create.  What great radio it made and what a great medium radio is to deliver that kind of excitement.  It doesn't much help the insomnia though.

One Way Love

Sport-wise, I've had a cracking 8 months.  Last October, St George, broke a 31-year drought by winning their first NRL Grand Final after five failed attempts during that period.  Then, in the early hours of Sunday morning last, I watched Manchester City break an even longer dry spell by winning the FA Cup.  It was their first trophy of any description since 1976 and their first FA Cup win in 42 years.  This is all great.  England even hold the Ashes.  By any standards, it's a rare alignment of the sporting planets in my life.

I appreciate that there are far longer suffering fans than me but nonetheless, the realisation that I was 14 when Saints won their previous Grand Final and only 11 when City won the League Cup in '76 quietly stuns me.  To think that the last time I felt this good about sport, I was only just at high-school.  When I try to picture myself back then, I do know that it would have not occurred to me to think, "Hold on to this; it's going to be a long time hereafter".  Whole decades of my life have past in which my sporting teams have not repaid my emotional commitment to them.  It's surely been a very one-way relationship.    

So, as joyous a week and an 8 months as it's been, it really does beg the question, "Why do we put ourselves through this?"  I'd be lying if I said had a clue, so I guess I'll just carry on celebrating!

The Biggest Loser

England losing to Sri Lanka by 10 wickets with 10 overs to go was a pretty dismal effort, the symmetry of the scoreline only serving to magnify the scale of the thrashing.  Not one wicket taken.  You really shouldn't be getting clobbered like that in the knock-out phase of the World Cup. 

As bad as that was though, England weren't the biggest losers of the evening.  Not even close.  For at the same time, we also had the State Election results in NSW.  Such was the one-sided nature of this contest that the words "bloodbath" and "slaughter" were being used to describe the result.  And that was in the opening remarks to the coverage - before there were any results to report on.  I've never seen an election where there was so much certainty before they started counting.  And so it turned out.  According to Luke Foley, who had the unenviable task of being the Labor spokesman for the coverage, it was their worst performance since the 19th Century.  Now that's some defeat.

Close Shave

While it wasn't the best game of the final series, the A-League Grand Final certainly had a grandstand finish last Sunday.

Brisbane Roar's 2 goals in the last 3 minutes of extra time, took the game to 2-2 and into a penalty shootout, which they then went on to win 4-2.  That also took their unbeaten run to an amazing 28 games.

The real highlight however, occurred before the match. Robbie Slater boldly tipped "A two-all draw with Brisbane winning the penalty shoot-out".  This was followed by manic shrieks of laughter from co-panelist, Mark Bosnich, who promised to shave his head and run around the ground naked if it ended that way.  Well, after consulting the police, the streak is apparently off but he is going to have Robbie Slater shave his head on 30-March, the hair being donated to a friend's children's alopecia charity.

Great tip, great bet!

Alphabet Football: The B&W Show

The English Premier League is entering its final phase, and as it stands, it looks like this:

Pos	Team	Pld	GD	Pts
14	Blackburn	29	-12	32
15	Blackpool	29	-15	32
16	West Brom	29	-15	32
17	Birmingham	28	-12	31
18	West Ham	29	-13	31
19	Wolves	29	-15	29
20	Wigan	29	-23	27

That's a lot of teams beginning with "W" currently propping up the table, and a lot of teams beginning with "B" sitting nervously above them.

If it were to remain as it stands, the bottom 3 would be the same bottom 3 that were there at the start of the season when the teams were listed alphabetically.  If things are to be resolved alphabetically, this must give great heart at the other end of the table to Arsenal fans.

The only team missing from the alphabetical tussle at the foot of the table are Bolton Wanderers, who are doing very nicely thank you, in 7th spot. 

This is a shame, from a purely lexical point of view, as they'd potentially qualify as either a "B" or a "W" when taking their full name into consideration.  On that basis, I'd also be worried about what the future holds if I was a "W"est "B"rom fan.

ICC Nothing At All

The opening ceremony to the ICC World Cup was held last night in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Perfect! It's over and I managed to miss all the dancing. Now let's sit down and watch some sport. Oh, there's nothing on! That's right, no cricket. At all.

I've already discussed the uselessness of opening ceremonies but you've got to hand it to the ICC to take them to a new level of pointlessness.

Only cricket would start a tournament with a rest day...

Ashes Flashes

Amid the carnage that was the second Ashes test was a great line from Ian Healey: 'The Aussies will be saying, "We've got them right where they want us".'

As the 3rd one starts with spinner Beer drafted ( see what I did there?) into the team, headlines featuring the words "Beer and Skittles" surely await.

While My Qatar Gently Weeps

Actually Qatar must be laughing uproariously. Well I must say, I never picked that one.

If nothing else it did serve to show the truly Byzantine nature of the voting process. In the second round Qatar's vote count actually went backwards. After all those months of assessments, one guy changed his mind in the middle of the vote. Ridiculous! As no doubt will be the heat.

Funnily enough, we now have Sepp Blatter proposing to change the scheduling of the tournament. Surely, the heat and the scheduling requirements should have been part of the assessment but logic appears to have little to do with it.

2018,2022...2026?

The World Cup venues for the next 2 tournaments will be decided very shortly. Local pundits have been talking up Australia's chances for the 2022 tournament but in the last few weeks I've heard two analysts say that we've got no chance.

Firstly, there's money. Put simply, the USA outstrips everybody when it comes to size of venues and the TV revenue they can generate. The latter is particularly dependent on which timezone the event is held on. In contrast, according to the latest reports, Australia will generate the least income.

Secondly, and this is the one not often mentioned as everyone fixates on 2018 and 2022, China is apparently bidding for the 2026 World Cup. If that's so, it's hard to see FIFA not awarding it to them and therefore means that there is no way that two World Cups in succession will be awarded to the Asian zone. QED as my maths teacher used to say. For you young folks that's Latin for Quite Easily Done.

But let's see if something other than money calls the shots. I for one, am not holding my breath. England and the USA are my tips.

Summertime Blues

Another 4 years, another Ashes series. In years gone by, we'd have taken a long lunch in a pub, taking advantage of the summer timezone difference with Queensland, and watched the entire first session.

In those days, a test series seemed to span the whole summer starting in late November and running through to late January, over the Australia Day weekend in Adelaide. The timing of the tests seemed completely in tune with the rhythm of the season.

Nowadays, all five tests are finished after the New Year test in Sydney. And you don't go drinking at lunchtime anymore.

What are we supposed to talk about for the rest of summer?

Close The Openings

I heard today that 4.5 billion people watched the Olympic opening ceremony. That's a lot of people. I wasn't one of them. I just don't get the whole point of having hours of people dancing and singing before a sports event.

Accepting however, that there is clearly a huge audience of people not like me, I don't see why they don't save a lot of money by dropping the sport event altogether and just holding the opening ceremony. You wouldn't have to build new stadiums or an athletes village. You wouldn't need the athletes. You also wouldn't have to wait every four years. Conversely, and most importantly, having had all these cermonies through the year, when we did actually get round to having a sporting event, you then wouldn't need an opening ceremony to accompany it. That way, when the next Olympics comes around, I could just sit down on the first evening and watch some sport!

Foregone Conclusion? Apparently So.

Ok, so NSW have already lost the series so the third game is something of an irrelevance.

It would also appear that plenty have written them off before the game even starts.

Check out the prices of the teams' jumpers at the local Rebel Sports store.

Salt with those wounds, anyone?

Damn Lies & Football Statistics!

One of the great things about the World Cup are all the statistics and history-making moments that come out of it. My favourite two:

• Italy only allowed their opponents to have 6 shots on goal in 3 matches. Unfortunately, they also allowed 5 goals to be scored from these 6 shots...
  
  
• Even more amazingly, if Spain or Germany go on to win the World Cup, the only unbeaten team in the entire tournament will be New Zealand!