Delhi Jealousy Belies Little Britain

Today marks the start of the Commonwealth Games, but so far all we have heard from the British media is how it has been beset by problems.  One cannot help feeling there is a touch of the old colonialist attitude towards the reporting of the build up to these games: how dare those darkies believe they can hold a successful international competition!  An excellent article by Mick Hume makes this point.

This of course follows on from the criticism of Beijing 2008 which, I can guarantee, in two years time will have provided a better competition than our overrated dump of a capital (what else did Seb Coe mean when he said London would not match the Beijing Olympics).  Want to see how well we can organise things?  How about a major golf competition in Wales which has been delayed by the surprising element of weather. Who would have though there would be rain in Cardiff in October?  Not the organisers of a British hoster Ryder Cup.

And if Britain is so great at hosting major international sporting events as the BBC and other media outlets are so quick to have us believe, what did Olympic president Jacques Rogge mean in 2002 when he said the Manchester Commonwealth games had gone a long way to restoring Britain's credibility in terms of hosting big sporting events.

World Half Marathon Championships

It was a rather strange site waking up this morning to see some of the top half-marathon runners racing past my house but it was certainly an exciting and welcome one. The course was quite disruptive to people living in South Birmingham particularly if one happened to be, as I did, cut off by the course but had been picked to provide a potential record breaking time. Unfortunately that did not happen on this occasion (not helped of course by Paula Radcliffe having to pull out at a late stage) but I understand the winner of the international female race broke her own personal record.

Califonia Day 2: San Francisco and Baseball

Prior to the beginning of our holiday, my friends who were already in California had booked tickets for the baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies for the evening of 31st July. It was therefore an easy decision to spend our first full day in San Francisco prior to the match in the evening. Our driver had taken the car to work, so we got to San Francisco using the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) which runs for part of the route along the centre of the highway. One frustration was that the ticket machine only gives change up to $4.95, but I later found out that there was a change machine behind the ticket machine. Doh!

We got off at Powell Street and decided to take the San Francisco Cable Car to Fishermans Wharf. The Cable Car is like an old-fashioned tram that can get up and down the roads on the steep hills that are part of San Francisco (the film Bullitt is set in the city). The queue was incredibly long and a couple of us left it to buy a day ticket from the local booth (which quaintly, uses a scratch-card style system to choose the date one is travelling on, similar to the West Midlands daytripper cards for buses and trains back in the 80's). The ticket also allowed travellers to use other Muni transport in San Francisco. Back in the queue, we were harrassed by beggars and buskers which did not make for a great first impression of the city. When we finally got onto the Cable Car, it was rather overcrowded. For the first (and possibly only) time in my life, I got off at Fishermans Wharf with an appreciation for Travel West Midlands.



We wandered around Fishermans Wharf where I caught my first glimpse of Alcatraz and Clam Chowder in a bread bowl (although the latter really is an East Coast dish). For some reason, we finally settled for pizza for the third time in three meals. We spent some time walking around San Francisco, including the Ghirardelli shop in the square and an interesting street on a hill with a rather winding road that I am sure people were driving down just for the sake of it.



We got back on the cable car (past a non-threatening busker that looked like Michael Moore with a showman bunny sidekick) and ended up walking through the San Francisco business district, where a bunch of cyclists suddenly seemed to be cycling through the city. We unsuccessfully tried to get on the bus N or P to get the the AT&T park where the Giants play, before realising it was actually an old-fashioned (or should I say new-fashioned) tram and getting on it halfway towards our destination, not before we had walked past the Bay Bridge, however, an impressive bridge in its own right taht holds its own against the more famous Golden Gate bridge.

We managed to get to the AT&T park in time and quickly worked out that an innings is over when three people are out. Baseball is a strange game, and my prior belief that it was rounders for girls was only tempered by the fact I have seen how much more competitive the girls at the school I work for play.



Baseball is an intriguing game, but surprisingly for a US sport I have to say that I don't think it is as exciting as the British version, cricket. Many people believe soccer will never be big in the US because the yanks will never see the excitement of a nil-nil draw (and to be honest, neither do I). However, Baseball scores are more similar to football than to cricket, which is much more high-scoring. I think culturally, baseball is too embedded in the American psyche to be under an real threat from cricket, in particular, Twenty20 and the Indian Premier League which I can see one day turning into a true world series with clubs participating from all over the world. The Test-loving purists will hate it, but I think it would be great to see cricket competing commercially with its sister American sport. With India's ascent to superpower status and with its burgeoning population, surely this is only a matter of time?

For the record, the Giants lost 5-1 in the only game they lost in this mini-series to the Phillies. The Giants have never won the World Series since the franchise moved to San Francisco. Will the Birmingham City of baseball be lucky enough to win it this year? On the current evidence it is unlikely - but then again, what would I know?

Bobby Robson 1933-2009

Sir Bobby Robson was the first England football manager I remember, starting with his ill-fated campaign to win the 1986 World Cup (failing to qualify for the 1984 European Championships was before my time).  England were on the verge of being knocked-out after a loss to Potugal and a draw with Morocco before a Gary Lineker hat-trick defeated Poland 3-0 in the final group game.  An identical scoreline defeated Paraguay in the second round, with another two goals by Mr Lineker which would take him 5/6ths of the way towards the Golden Boot he won that year.   An infamous quarter-final against Argentina, the first match between the two sides since the Falklands war, saw a moment of genius and a moment of disgrace by Diego Maradona send England home; Argentina went on to lift the trophy for the second time.

In 1988 an equally disastrous start saw England fail to recover from defeats to Ireland, Holland and the USSR to go out in the group stage.  Bobby Robson was continually villified by the national press, which continued into the 1990 World Cup where another slow start saw draws against Ireland and Holland.  Mark Wright scored to beat Egypt in the final group game 1-0 and England topped the group.  They went on to beat Belgium (in the last minute of extra-time!) thanks to a David Platt goal, and Cameroon in the quarter-finals after two Gary Lineker penalties.  This took England to the first (and only) World Cup Semi-Final since 1966, in which the Germans broke English hearts by winning the penalty shoot-out after Gary Lineker cancelled out a freak free-kick which went in after being deflected off Paul Parker.  For the second time, Robson's England had been knocked out of the World Cup by the eventual winners.

Normally the national job is the pinnacle of a managers career but if anything Bobby Robson went on to greater things while the national team seemed to go the other way.  PSV, Sporting, Porto, Barcelona and Newcastle awaited Robson in his twilight years, with success being achieved at each club.  His translator at Sporting, a certain Jose Mourinho, went on to become assistant manager with him at Porto and Barcelona, and has turned out to be a half-decent manager himself.  Newcastle would probably give a lot for him to be back as manager.

What I will always remember Robson for, however, was how he conducted himself with the utmost grace and integrity in the space of some vicious attacks from the national press (a situation which only got worse for his successor Graham "the Turnip" Taylor).  Despite, post-86, qualifying for every international tournament he could have, and getting us to our best result in a World Cup on foreign soil in 1990, my impression is he was never truly appreciated by the "experts" writing the football columns in the national press.  These same experts villified him at the beginning of the 1990 World Cup before claiming, with Paul Gascoigne maturing a little in four years time, England would have a great chance of winning the tournament outright in 1994.  Of course, England never qualified for the World Cup in 1994, and Paul Gascoigne never played in a World Cup again.  His biggest problem was that he was not Brian Clough.  Everyone thought Old Big Ead should have been the manager when Robson was appointed.  As such, the gutlessness of the FA overshadowed what Robson achieved for the England national team, which, save a dodgy World Cup win in 1966, was probably more than any other manager of the three lions could claim to have achieved.

The ProBrum Golf Test

Mike Rennie would wager that British Golf lovers and British euro-sceptics do overlap a teeny bit. It begs the question: who will they be supporting in the Ryder Cup? Can they swallow the hatred for the 12 stars they exhibit for the rest of the year over the three days Europe take on America to see who is the best at spoiling a good walk?

I am sure I read an article on the BBC a few years ago interviewing some prominent British euro-sceptics politicians on this very question. While I guess that many would have no problem supporting Europe, although they may have qualms with the EU flag being used to represent the continent, in this article many pretty much admitted they supported the US over the team with British representatives in, and one said he would prefer to support a US and British team taking on the rest of Europe (despite the fact this would be contrary to the history of the cup, where the UK played the US for the Ryder Cup). Unfortunately even with the aid of Google I cannot find this webpage so I cannot link to it; if anyone manages to find it please let me know.

We have all heard of Tebbit's Cricket Test which questions the loyalties of immigrants to this country. I wonder if there is scope for a "ProBrum Golf Test" which could determine whether euro-sceptics are loyal to their countrymen or their brand of politics?

Olympic Games

When I heard the target for Great Britain was to finish fourth in the medals table in 2012, I think I might have laughed out loud. Well I am not laughing now.

I do hope other nations do give us an easier ride than our journalists give foreign host cities, however. Four years ago there were questions over whether the civilization that gave us the Collosus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus could finish an Olympic stadium in time. This time, there were question marks about China's human rights record, Tibet and the quality of air which BBC journalists insisted on measuring on a daily basis in the run up to the games with a pocket-sized gadget.

Well, there are some who would argue the war on Iraq meant we should not have got the games, and I have made a list of reasons that could be made to boycott 2012. The way our government are going, quality of air due to a lack of decent public transport and nuclear power stations and lack of human rights could be the main issues for foreign journalists covering the games in four years time. Seriously though, it got me thinking about how another country could be as patronizing in their coverage of us in four years time.

Perhaps the Japanese could use public transport to get to the games in 2012 and hold up a camera to their stopwatch saying something to the effect of

"It is 8:00 on a week day in central London, the richest city in Britain. I have been waiting for a train for 20 minutes and there is still no sign of one turning up. This is how hard it is to earn a living in the fifth biggest economy in the world"

Hopefully he would finish the report before being manhandled out of the station by four burly jobsworth security guards who were concerned that a man with non-white skin was taking pictures on the tube using a camera.

Of course, it is not just London that benefits from the games. The whole country does. That is why Brum's Jewellery quarter has been overlooked and the contract for lapel badges has gone to China. Presumably this will mean more of the £10 billion we are spending on the games can be poured into the construction industry in London, which by some accounts is on its last legs.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it's the Betfair Blimp hovering over the skies of Calthorpe Park thanks to the Third Test between England and South Africa at the bullring of English cricket in Birmingham. Despite the fact that Edgbaston has the best win rate for England out of all six traditional Test grounds, England succumbed to a five wicket defeat as the Proteas did what the Aussies failed to do three years ago and chased down a record total for a fourth innings at Edgbaston of 281. As a result Michael Vaughan, one of the most successful England captains of all time, retired from the position today with Strauss, Pietersen and Flintoff being named as favourites to replace him and Paul Collingwood as One-Day Captain.

Where did it all go wrong for England? After winning the Ashes in 2005 and going unbeaten in Test Cricket the year before it all seems to have gone pear-shaped, with a 5-0 drubbing in the Aussie Ashes and series defeats to India and South Africa on home soil. The biggest problem for me has been the bowling, with the successful five-pronged attack of the 2005 Ashes being abandoned to accommodate a sixth batsman. The fact that England's two best bowlers, Jones and Flintoff have spent much of the time injured has not helped. Harmison was right to be dropped as in my opinion he has done very little apart from the tour of the West Indies where he made his name. Hoggard is brilliant on English soil, but is weak abroad and appears to be unlikely to take his place back from Sidebottom. Panesar has been an improvement on Giles in the bowling stakes, but not in the areas of fielding and batting. Anderson is finally beginning to show his potential and Broad is great with the bat as well as the ball. Perhaps the future will see Broad taking Colly's place but at the moment I suspect the selectors think Broad is too young to be given responsibility with the bat despite the fact he has excelled with it so far.

The captaincy is an interesting one. Freddie flopped in the role in the latest Ashes series and needs to concentrate on his batting and bowling so for me is a non-starter. Strauss is the natural replacement but I guess there is a question over whether he can inspire the team when things are going wrong. Pietersen would be a real gamble, but would the responsibility of captain help or hinder his batting? Ironically, after giving his wicket away for 94 and arguably costing England this Test, the result may mean he gets the captaincy so that he starts to exhibit the traits normally seen in fellow South African Graeme Smith. Alistair Cook deserves a mention as he has been tipped as a future England captain already, but it may be too early for him at this stage of his career.

Whoever gets the captains job, with the Ashes only nine Tests and less than a year away, including a tricky tour to India, England's hope of winning back the Ashes looks slim at this point. As a captain, Vaughan was a tactical genius and will be very difficult to replace. As a batsman on recent form, less so, but perhaps his departure will signal the return to a five-man bowling attack; after all, even poor old Pattinson got a higher average than Vaughan in this series and two wickets to boot.

Bobby Fischer 1943 - 2008

I couldn't possibly begin to explain to someone not interested in chess the impact Bobby Fischer had on the game when in 1972 he defeated Boris Spassky to become champion of a game the Soviet Union had made their own at the height of the cold war, so I will have to point you to this article which will give you a flavour.

He never defended his single world title in protest at the nature of the chess tournaments were played, leading to a never-ending battle between Karpov and Kasparov in 1986 when his ideas were finally adopted and nearly bankrupted FIDE, the World Chess Federation.

In 1992 he came back defying US sporting sanctions against Yugoslavia, defeating his nemesis Spassky 10-5. He spent the final years of his life in Japan before taking citizenship of the nation which hosted the 1972 match, Iceland, to avoid extradition to the US in 2005. He spent some of this time praising the September 11 attacks and making the odd anti-Semitic remark despite being of Jewish parentage. Rabid anti-Americanism seemed to have replaced his rabid anti-communism.

There is a fine line between genius and madness, and I think we can safely say that Fischer straddled both worlds.

Eight Wishes For 2008

A few people around the blogosphere have been tagged with an "8 wishes for 2008 meme". Although I haven't, and to be honest, I wouldn't know if I had, I struggled to get to sleep last night even once the fireworks had finished and so spent the time thinking of what I would like to see the New Year bring. I quickly gave up and thought up the following, which are the product of a sick and depraved mind. I apologise now unreservedly for any offense caused.

USA

1) In a final attempt to secure his legacy, President Bush appoints an unborn child to the supreme court. As the most lively member, the child upholds Roe vs Wade. Mitt Romney accuses it of flip-flopping.

2) Unhappy with the choice of Republican Presidential nominees, the religious right throw their weight behind Mullah Omar of the Taliban, after he agrees to ban gay marriage, prevent gun control, stop (female) illegal immigrants from holding driving licenses and oppose female presidents. A new era of inter-religious peace ensues, where the Abrahamic traditions agree to bury the hatchet and some atheists instead.

Socialism

3) Hugo Chavez, upset at not being able to run for a fourth term in his own country, runs for and wins the American presidential election on an anti-American ticket.

4) Fidel Castro is invited to the Oxford University Debating Society and turns up in a Che Guevera T-shirt.

Religion

5) Richard Dawkins finds God, but not his car keys. He writes a new bestseller, called 'The Fob Delusion'.

Closer to Home

6) Boris Johnson blows his mayoral campaign after describing London as "the a**ehole of England". He is immediately given the freedom of Birmingham.

7) Jeremy Clarkson is found dead in the Helmand province while attempting to drive through it with "Man Love Rules OK" written on the side of his car. The Tipton Taliban's new spokesman, Richard Hammond, claims responsibility for the killings. (Note: this is topical)

8) Birmingham City are not last on Match of the Day.

Happy New Year!

St Andrew's Day

No-one was more surprised than me when yesterday the big eck swapped the nation of St Andrews for the club based at St Andrews, where he will resume his cross-city rivalry with Martin O'Neill which previously took place in Glasgow.

Although he undeniably produced some fantastic results at Scotland, I am not convinced his managerial record is as good as it is reputed to be. Nonetheless, Alex McLeish signing for Birmingham City is a massive coup for both the club and the city.

Football and Geography

"I'd like to play for an Italian club, like Barcelona"
Mark Draper, formerly of Aston Villa

I found myself like most of the country in the strange position of being a supporter of Israel on Saturday night and they did not let us down (unlike certain national football teams a little closer to home). Did anyone else notice the irony that the result of a football match between Israel and Russia had the potential to decide whether England would qualify for the European Championships? This crime against geography is presumably because UEFA and FIFA allow countries to join continental federations based on history and politics rather than actual physical locations.

Of course, Israel is also in UEFA because a few countries in the Asian federation do not recognise its right to exist. Which got me thinking: if the People's Republic actually got independence from the old country and was recognised by the United Nations, but not Westminster could we then apply for membership of CONCACAF and play World Cup Qualifiers against the might of Mexico, USA and Canada? It is one benefit of independence that we could sell to the people of Birmingham

But let's not give Alex Salmond any ideas.

Usi 9mm

There has been a lot of discussion recently about foreign takeovers of British football clubs. My opinion is that if football is a business, as we are constantly being told it is, it cannot protect itself from globalisation which is a natural part of free-markets. Having said that, we don't want any old Johnny Foreigner running our clubs. There must be a certain probity about the character of any potential investors.

I believe the two Birmingham clubs have done well here. I doubt any Villa fan would want to go back to the bad old days of Deadly Doug. Randy Lerner, as well as having a great name for a student of sex education, has humbly said he is a steward of the club and it appears that the club is finally moving in the right direction after many years of neglect. There are a few question marks over Carson Yeung, not least as to whether he will actually take over at St Andrew's, but he seems to have an understanding of the city and football and could be an important contact in the emerging superpower that is China, giving the city and the club access to the huge Premier League marketing potential available in the country..

Other cities have been less discerning however. Manchester City have allowed the former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Sinawatra with his questionable record on human rights to take over the club. Meanwhile in London, the probity of the Arsenal-owning hopeful Alisher Uzmanov has been questioned recently by quite a few blogs concerned at his recent efforts to silence certain online critics, which affected among others Tim Ireland and local councillor Bob Piper's fine weblogs.

Many club owners are now saying foreign investment is vital to be able to compete at the highest level. However, should we be more careful about the types of people who are taking over our national sport?

I Don't Miss Cricket...

The cricket season is over and I am suffering symptoms of withdrawal. Warwickshire had a shocking season, being relegated in both league competitions and underachieving in the other two, including missing out on Twenty20 Finals day at Edgbaston. Ashley Giles has taken over from director of cricket Mark Greatbatch, and immediately pulled of a coup; he poached former South African and Warwickshire bowler Allan Donald from the England set-up to become the new bowling coach. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who picks a local side over the nation should be given the freedom of the Republic.

The international scene saw India and Pakistan make up for their World Cup humiliation by contesting the final of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 Cup. India go on to play the convicts in November, and hopefully will continue their fine form.

On a personal level, I won my Telegraph Fantasy Cricket Super League and Super 10, finishing in the top 100 of the Warwickshire supporters league. I am now legally obliged to change my name to Mrs Element, who probably took up 50 of the other 100 places.

United Blitzed by Coventry

Coventry pulled of one of the biggest results in recent Midland's footballing history last night by beating the mighty Trafford Borough at the Theatre of American Dreams. Blues face them on Saturday in the league and so will need to be ready for the backlash, after going out of the Carling Cup last night to a Robbie Savage's new team, and beating Liverpool 0-0 at Anfield on Saturday.
Villa were also stunned by Martin O'Neill's former club Leicester, meaning that Coventry are probably the best chance of West Midlands success in the league cup this season.

It would be great to see the Sky Blues back in the top flight, and hopefully under Iain Dowie's leadership they will be making a return next season. Coventry used to be legendary at staying up. The 96-97 season epitomised this, with Coventry needing to win on the last day away to Tottenham, and Middlesbrough and Sunderland needing to lose. Somehow they pulled it off, and they finally went out of the top flight after 34 years in 2000/01 season after losing to the Villa.

As Ron Atkinson used to say, if the Titanic was built in Coventry, that wouldn't have gone down.

Ferrari, FIA still F-up F1

I've pointed out on this blog before the "closeness" between Ferrari and the FIA, but surely McLaren's recent punishment in the spying scandal of a fine of £50 million and the loss of all points in the constructors championship was justified, right?

Wrong. Yet again the FIA has judged in favour of Ferrari despite the lack of evidence behind their claims. This is really becoming a joke. I think it is high time the manufacturers who own the major teams in F1 pulled out there cars from this debacle and start their own championship. Then the FIA can watch 22 Ferrari cars fight each other in some semblance of a sporting event, the outcome being a Ferrari win which for once they won't have to manufacture.

Colin McRae 1968-2007

There must be a curse on British rally drivers. After Richard Burns' untimely death nearly 2 years ago, his great nemesis on the dirt track Colin McRae died in a helicopter accident this weekend.

He was an incredibly exciting driver to watch, but I don't think he ever really achieved as much as he could have done in the sport. While already famous among those who followed the world of rallying, he was considered a mythical figure like Lara Croft in the US due to the computer game named after him.

There must be some classic races going on in the next world at the moment.

Londres 2012

London is currently not parte de angleterre apparently. In an astonishing piece of treachery, even for the cockneys, they have decided to take entente cordial a bit to far and are hosting the opening stages of this year's Tour de France. Which in French means "Tour of France". I.e. currently London is part of France.

Presumably this means Birmingham is currently the nation's capital?

This is all in aid of London 2012 apparently. "Promoting sport" is part of the official excuse, but I suspect the France have decided to pull out all stops to host the 2012 Olympics. After Paris' failure this time two years ago, they have decided simply to annex the winner.

I've always maintained there is an advantage to an independent nuclear deterrent.

When Two Tribes Go to War

Birmingham did not win the Championship, but West Brom and Wolves both made the playoffs and will face each other in the semi-finals.

It was not all bad news last week however, as Manchester and London both failed to get representatives in the champions league final. As for us brummies, we are just happy to have two teams in the top flight.

As Birmingham is twinned with Milan, I claim we will have representation in the Champions League final. There is a growing breed of latte-drinking football fan who will claim I am being unpatriotic by not supporting English teams in Europe. It is a club competition. Every red-blooded working-class football fan understands that football is tribal, and we fight against other tribes in our country.

Like Wolves and West Brom. The loser will not wish the winner good luck and hope that the Black Country has some representation in the Premiership next season. They will cheer on the winner of Derby-Southampton, even though it will be to the detriment of West Midlands football.

However, I'm a Brummie first and then an Englishman. I hope at least one of them gets into the Premiership so that the West Midlands has something to shout about again.

Update 13/05: I should be shot for not mentioning Walsall's excellent League 2 Championship win. The appointment of Dicky Dough was truly on the money.

Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong

Former Blues striker Clinton Morrison helped Crystal Palace beat Derby which put the second-city Blues back in their rightful place in the top-flight. Hopefully Birmingham will seal the Championship next week (there is a sentence you do not get to write often!) Even sweeter: three London clubs might take our place in the second tier. Is this part of a general malaise that will require more lottery funding to improve sports facilities in our glorious capital?

In other news, the convicts won a hatrick of world cups in ludicrous conditions. I stand by my predictions that this is the beginning of the end.

I hope.

Time For Fletch to Go?

The England Cricket team's humiliating defeat to South Africa has brought a barrage of criticism from the assorted ex-England players, coaches and writers who played cricket in a very different time and in some cases with a lot less success than the current captain. The consensus seems to be that Fletcher and Vaughan should step down, the latter from the one-day version of the game at least.

Now although I do believe Fletch has taken the side as far as he can, and Vaughan should not be selected for the one-day side, let us get things in perspective. We are likely to finish 5th in this World Cup; in the last two, we have gone out in the first round (including in 1999 when we hosted it). Our record in one-day cricket is rubbish; we are ranked seventh, in the last year we have been whitewashed by both Sri Lanka and Australia and drew a distracted Pakistan team 2-2. If it was not for the Commonwealth Bank Series, which was, let's be quite clear, a freak result we have achieved nothing in this format of the game over the last couple of years. So why did people expect us to beat South Africa!? The reality is the best four teams in the world are now in the semi-finals, a testament to the format of the competition.

There are many problems with the one day side, including selection and coaching. Nixon has done well but was never a long term solution; Panesar is not a one day player; there are no pinch-hitters like Mal Loye in the top order; and what the hell is the selection of Sajid Mahmood all about!? Fletch has never taken the one-day format seriously. Perhaps a specialist one-day coach could manage a one-day side, or perhaps Fletch will reconsider his position after the summer.

However, finishing 5th at the moment is par for the course.