Sports Special! – What you want to say… 7th July 2014 July 7, 2014
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Sport.trackback
Back Room in the SBP recently argued the following in relation to the Summer and the seeming hiatus in political activity…
Secondly, and, for many, far more importantly, there is the tidal wave of sport which washes over us.
The All-Ireland is under way, county championships are ongoing, there’s always some major tournament on the television, which this year is the big kahuna, the World Cup. There’s even something for the ‘I don’t like tennis but I do like Wimbledon’ brigade.
This is what people are talking about. It’s what they’re reading in the papers and it’s what they tune into the news to catch up on.
We are with the class, so, here’s what is intended to be a weekly thread for people to talk, sound off, discuss, give out, or whatever they want about sport… and by the way, if anyone has posts they think would be appropriate for the site on sport send them in…
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
On a full-blown downer right now after Dublin’s minor and senior hurlers just failed to turn up yesterday. I know some of the minor lads, contemporaries of my own youngest lad who always dreamed of playing hurling for Dublin but will never make it. Now I’m coming back from a dreadful downer but can Dublin losing two games of hurling be the real reason?
Had a great conversation with my barber a couple of weeks back. He’s a very serious-thinking kind of chap. He said that talking about football is perfect for blokes – cos it’s all rubbish, you can say this, that and the other… but you never give anything away about yourself. He says conversations are really contests where we are trying to find out bits of stuff about the other person. He often comes away from conversations cursing himself (“Damn, why did I let that slip. Now he knows I’m …”). But with football you are safe. You can spend an hour or two “talking” in the pub but really saying nothing and giving nothing away.
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The ancien regime, the black and amber tyranny, was returned to power in Croker yesterday – Dublin looked slow and tired…I am clinging to the hope that Daly’s training programme will have them peaking later..
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Daly’s training programme. Interesting, ar scáth. Yes, hope. There must always be hope. Lán dóchas is grá.
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I took an Italian friend onto the Hill for the games yesterday. Highly impressed, but he preferred the way Dublin played, and was unconvinced by my explanation that Kilkenny’s steady taking of points is the way to win games.
Tangentially, I’ve been on the Croke Park tour before, but it is exceptionally good as an introduction to a positive side of Ireland, and to some of the history of the twentieth century.
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Ah, you should have said you were in Dublin!
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Was in Croker also, very disappointing performance by the the Hurlers. Though Dublins tactics in the senior match of high balls into the full forward line was crazy.
Best part of the day was an American Tourist asking me if they stopped play for rain !!
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I had to explain the meaning of `Take your point!’ to my Italian friend, who was more impressed by Dublin’s play since they were passing the ball around a bit more and looking for goals.
`Do they look like men who stop for anything?’
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I thought I’d mentioned it somewhere already. Crimbo?
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This site has been doing some interesting stuff about the World Cup football from a lefty/theory perspective: http://straightoffthebeach.wordpress.com A bit heady and hit-and-miss at times (I’d say “wide of the post” but I’m not sure what or where the goal is exactly) but might be to the taste of some.
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Whatever sport we want, eh?
Well, the olympic shooting World Cup is on in Bejing at the moment, the Irish clay pigeon shooter (Korry, who’s our man in Oz, not Burnett who’s our local champion) missed the finals by four clays (117 but 121 needed to get into the finals). The larger Irish team was at the last shooting World Cup in Munich, and didn’t do as well as they hoped, but finished a lot better than teams from earlier years did.
And no balaclava jokes please, this is what it actually looks like:
And the Irish Chess Championships are underway in TCD at the moment too…
Just to be a bit different from the usual sportsball folk 😛
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Any sports. All sports. And good to hear about them.
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Fruitcake Russian Orthodox clergy dept:
Flourescent boots are ‘gay’.
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Personally I reckon wearing odd-coloured boots gives a team an advantage.
Subliminally an opponent is struggling with cognitive dissonance and somewhere deep down playing against one- and three-legged beings.
Imagine what could be done in a free kick wall with a judicious selection of rainbow footwear?
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I’ve got a gut feeling that Germany will shade it in today’s foreign game. Providing the ref hasn’t been got at and keeps the fouling under control.
Well that’s Germany finished, then.
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I’ve tipped Brazil from the start but now I’ve the same gut feeling as you Gewerker.
People saying this has been a great World Cup. I don’t think so. The game has become too predictable and uniform.
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Well, this is could prove to be the riot starter this world cup has been missing. The only really lamentable thing is that it’s given the commentators the chance to peddle German stereotypes.
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So a lamentable shower of feeble wasters are out, and civil unrest could be tipped over into revolution.
Sounds like a fine World Cup to me.
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On an actually sporting note, Scolari has to take some of the flack here for acting in the same way as del Bosque by playing his ‘old reliables’, in complete contrast to their actual pecking order with other players, I mean on what planet is Maicon a better RB these days than Dani Alves?
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The last lingering sentimentality about Brazil has died at this World Cup- I remember being crushed at them going out in 1982 and 1986. Delighted to see them beaten now.
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yeah i’d agree with that. For me the brawl that was Brazil v Colombia with just drained away any lingering affection.
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I think I committed the understatement of the decade when I said that Germany might just shade it. But that was genuinely the feeling among my co-workers here.
German Angst perhaps.
I’d like to risk another understatement: Perhaps mafia-capitalism and it’s political facilitators might not have it all its own way over the next decade.
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Schadenfreude dept: this is doing the rounds:
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Talking to no one in particular but since my family has threatened me with physical violence if I bring it up again, my dogs are back! While nothing spectacular in the big picture watching my dogs quarter respond to the whistle and lock on point is something behold. Watching a dog doing something it was bred to do and loves to do is humbling and exhilarating at the same time. Now if only summer would hurry up and get over with and we could get out under a tattered autumn sky.
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What sort of dogs are they?
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German short haired pointers
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Very nice. Big enough.
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Lady bird is over 60lbs and Basa (pronounced Basha) is well over 70lbs.
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Just after buying a foot beagle myself. Looking forward to training it.
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Enjoy it, there was a great quote that I just spent the 45 minutes looking for, unsuccessfully. But it was an inscription on a book jacket from a grandfather to grandson which went something like,”learn to love a dog and by and by you’ll learn how to love the world”.
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