250 days ago
You get a different class of chant at the Oxford Cambridge women’s football match. Held in a 12,000 seater stadium, that of Cambridge United, more than 1,500 folks crammed into one stand made some noise. “I’d rather go to Durham than Oxford” they chanted. That is far more genteel abuse than that which daughter 2 and I used to hear at the old Upton Park.
547 days ago
The reference to the England women’s soccer team is explained HERE. I talk about Mike Lynch of Autonomy and why it is right that he has been extradited, THG (THG), nanosynth (NNN) ICG Longbow (LBOW), Aquila Energy Efficiency Trust (AEET), and Predator Oil & Gas (PRD).
770 days ago
As a progressive sort of chap, the second team I support in International soccer is, after Northern Ireland, our friends across the border in the Republic. But the Irish girls team don’t seem to like folks like me very much.
1454 days ago
Back in July polls showed that most folks supported Black Lives Matter. The few of us who pointed out that an organisation that wanted to defund Britain’s (unarmed) Police, end capitalism and the nuclear family and shut down jails while boycotting Israel was somewhat questionable, were dismissed by the liberal media elites as racist. They did not challenge the facts they simply smeared the sceptics. Those who dared to suggest that the late George Floyd was not exactly the heir to Mother Theresa were clearly alt-right freaks. The Premier League, BBC Presenters, Basketball England as well as the Metropolitan Police of Cressida Dick determined that we should all take a knee. But times have changed.
1893 days ago
I have watched West Ham women live, I watched them lose the FA Cup Final last year on the TV, gripped. I cheered on the brave Lionesses this summer. Supporting my daughter’s sporting career in ways you cannot imagine, I take women’s sport seriously. But to pretend that there should be equal pay for women’s soccer players with the men and that both games are of equal status, as the BBC does, is to deny the facts.
3112 days ago
I know I have been banging on about this all week but today I wake up having not smoked for three months and I am fecking proud of myself. It did it via cold turkey so there is no legacy nicotine in my body from vaping, gum or patches.
It was playing soccer with a range of nephews and nieces aged 7 to 16 on St Valentine's Day that made me quit. My lungs were burning after just a few minutes. I wanted to run but could not. Being outpaced by a 7 year old is just not on. Enough was enough.
And so today
3840 days ago
The head of the Premier League Richard Scudamore will almost certainly be fired next week. The media knives are out. His career obituary has been written already. His crime was to send some pretty unpleasant sexist emails to pals on his work email address.
Had Scudamore said publicly what he wrote in the emails he should have been fired. Had he sent them as a round robin to his entire address book she should probably also have been fired. But he did not. He shared private jokes (albeit not funny ones) with his pals.
Had the lads shared these comments in the pub there would not have been an issue. However technically ones work emails belong to one’s employer and so Scudamore seems likely to be toast. But do we really want to live in a world where to share an (unfunny) joke with a pal or indeed to send any communication that is not work related you have to switch from your work account to a Hotmail one and send it to your mate on gmail?
Has life really got that serious? The working day benefits from the odd light hearted non-work bit of banter and must we really all switch onto personal accounts to take part in such exchanges lest anyone be offended.
It strikes me that Scudamore has done a good job in promoting women’s soccer. He could continue to do that with folks knowing that underneath it all he is a bit of a sexist beast. I wonder how many men in the world of soccer are entirely beyond reproach in this matter? How many are prepared to stand up and say that they have never told a sexist joke or made a disparaging comment about girlies in private? For if that is the qualification to be CEO of the Premier League I very much doubt that there would be that many suitably qualified candidates.
We can live in a grey world with strict rules about what you may or may not say to a mate on a work email if we like. It all seems rather Orwellian to me. How long before email audits to establish that employees have never made an inappropriate comment are demanded by some PC imbecile with limited real world experience?
Or perhaps we might just get on with our lives and be judged by the end results we deliver? Is that too much to ask?
3840 days ago
The head of the Premier League will probably be sacked this week for sending sexist emails. This matter was debated on Newsnight on Friday with two England soccer players (women) taking part.
The England goalie Rachel Brown-Finnis kicked off but the main player was Eniola Aluko who also plays for Chelsea. I shall not hold that against her. Ms Aluko is, as you can seem a bit of a looker. If she fancies playing away in Bristol….
I digress, what really struck me was just how well spoken and articulate the two women were. Ms Aluko in particular struck me as thoughtful and intelligent. Am I being utterly sexist in observing that Women’s soccer players seem to be a far brighter lot than their Neanderthal male counterparts?
