So it’s viva Espana at long last. A good final I thought but not a thriller and the right team won. Brilliantly taken goal from Torres who is quite a player. Liverpool are privileged to have him. Pity about the tattoo though – just why do footballers want sanskrit on their arms?
This time I thought it would be interesting to listen in on an interview between Alan Green, the highly opinionated football commentator (‘disgusted’ of N Ireland) who comments on everything under the sun bar the actual game he’s watching and Steve MCClaren, prize tosspot, luckiest man alive and newly-appointed manager of FC Twente, following his sacking and £2.5m pay-off from the FA after his hopeless tenure as England’s worst ever manager and recent lucrative media career as ‘expert’ pundit for the BBC at the Euro 2008 tournament.
Well I haven’t written a posting about the Euro 2008 tournament so far (well I did one early on and two spoof interviews, but apart from that not one). To compensate for not having a side to follow at the event I’ve been running a sweepstake type of bet with a bunch of old mates. So I have been writing about events though my daily updates have been via email to the guys (and my sis) in the betting competition. Last night my side, Sweden, went out of the tournament (taking my £10 stake with them) so I thought it was a handy time to return to the blog with some thoughts on the tournament which has of course completed its first stage now. Continue reading
Well the Mike Parry-Sir Bobby Robson interview seemed to go down OK so I thought I’d follow up on a couple of the suggestions for further guests. This time a spoof BBC interview conducted by the master of the convoluted question Garth Crooks and the ever available Graham Taylor whose penchant for stating the bleeding obvious is obvious to everyone except the BBC it seems…
‘Good morning everyone this is Garth Crooks here and my guest today is Graham Taylor, ex Watford (twice), Aston Villa and England manager of course. Good morning Graham – indeed is it acceptable to say that at a time approaching noon or would a simple welcome Graham be more appropriate to the time (which as I speak has just turned midday I notice) Graham? Er what was the question Garth? Actually I haven’t asked one yet Graham – well I did in so far as enquiring about the most apt way to introduce you, though it was slightly rhetorical in its phrasing. Ah, right Garth…an awkward silence ensues. Continue reading
I thought last night’s match between Italy and Holland at the Euro 2008 Championships was an absolute cracker. Italy are a very fine side (and World Cup holders let’s not forget) but they were made to look ordinary by an inspired Dutch team for whom Sneijder had a fantastic game and scored a lovely flowing goal. All that was good about football was contained in last night’s match. But all the little things that I dislike were evident too and it got me thinking about others… Continue reading
Have you nerticed how Mike Parry, Talksport’s barmy presenter, has a habit of mangling people’s names? He either gets them totally wrong or mispronounces them horribly – especially if they are foreign names. I’ve also noticed that the same affliction affects Sir Bobby Robson. Picture the scene then in the Talksport studio, Mike Porky Parry is conducting an interview with Sir Bobby and they are discussing the key players to watch out for at Euro 2008…. Continue reading
So the mighty Mc Quiff has gone. Gawd knows how much it really cost the FA to pay him off and tactical/media assistant (ha!) Terry Vegetables and head of positive thinking Brian ‘stephen hawkins’ Beswick and head goal-keeping coach (that’s a f**king laugh) Ray Clemence. I suggested £5m flippantly in a pique last night but I bet it’s not far awry. Today at the press conference SM suggested that all the critical/key questions would be answered not now but in the fullness of time. In FAspeak this means that ‘I’m prevented from saying anything negative under the terms of my multi-million pound pay-out but but once the silence-period has been observed, I’ll reveal all in my revelationary multi-million pound biography’. So the fu**wit walks away with let’s say £4-6M of opportunity before he works again.
As Sir Alex Ferguson once said. Except that he was saying it after Man U had just won the Champions league Trophy after a topsy turvy match. Tonight we witnessed a nightmare result for England losing 2-3 to Croatia and thus failing to qualify for the Euro 2008 tournament. All we had to do was draw for gawd’s sake and having fought back from 2-0 down we still managed to snatch defeat from a successful position. What a disastrous qualifying competition this has been. England have been largely dreadful throughout as they’ve been led by the £10m man with no managerial skill whatsoever, sad McClaren, surely the worst England manager of all time.
Pasta Paulie 