Off Topic Other Sport

Thank you all... I've not been on the site for a while, got a lot going on at the moment with work & family, but the nod of appreciation is much welcomed...

 

No, I'm warming to you now I know you were actually born north of the river.

Like Stick I was born in Middlesex, but the region I was in suddenly became London when I was about 10.. Strangely enough I've been a lifelong Yorkshire cricket fan.

 

Whoever had the idea of running the Paralympic Games alongside the Commonwealth Games deserves a medal. Thoroughly enjoying the whole lot.

 

Been some fantastic swimming and athletics so far, and the gymnastics was very impressive.

 

The whole of the Commonwealth Games has been a revelation this past few weeks with some outstanding performances from even the lesser known athletes. I also feel that the competitions have a real feel good factor about them with the crowds cheering for the last placed athletes as much as the well known stars...

The Olympics may be the pinnacle for the top stars of the world but these Commonwealth games have been a joy to watch and reflect more the participation of the sports rather than the solely driven goal of other tournaments...

Long may it continue...

 

We all have different opinions of football players and coaches, that is only natural, and I have my own views too. Chelsea manager, Thomas Tuchel, does not go down too well with many people, but, you know, when he was with PSG he did a lot of very kind and generous things for people who were not so well-off, with no thought to what it might cost him financially. Look it up. Regretfully, I cannot say the same for the Spurs manager, Antonio Conté, a fine coach but a right prick IMHO. As I said, just an opinion.

 

Stick/Bustino: Getting right-back Ethan Laird on loan for the rest of the season from Man.Utd. seems to be an intelligent and worthwhile move by QPR? He is young and has been doing very well on loan with other Championship clubs, and seems to be a very likeable lad. Starting to get hopeful, again!

 

Oh well, apologise for bothering you both on this, but I am fed-up with the QPR football forum site. No names are needed, but I have more than once been answered with ill-mannered sarcasm, bordering on an outright insult, particularly by one person who has a hell of a lot to say for himself, especially as I have been a Rangers fan long before his father first experienced an itch in his loins. Have always been pretty thick-skinned, had to be in my line of work, but bugger the forum football sites, they can go to blazes.
Rant over!

 

“…long before his father first experienced an itch in his loins.”
Swannie, I quite like that. Never heard it put so succinctly and gentlemanly before. There again, my back street milieu generated more basic expressions. Say no more!

 

Tuchel versus Conte…..handbags at ten paces!
My God! What has football become?
I think the officials could have chosen two better gladiators than that pair. They’d have fed them to the lions in the Coliseum and returned the entrance fee.

 

Sorry mate, only just seen this

 

That's OK, Stick. Bit of a gamble before he has settled-in, but I hope he plays tonight. That defence really needs tightening-up, and of course we need so badly to score goals, not having to rely on the R's brilliant goalkeeper to have to show the forwards how to do it!

 

Yes, it was pathetic for sure, but I thought I'd put in a good word for Thomas Tuchel, not such a bad guy. However, I admit I was probably too harsh on Conté, but he really is inclined to get my goat!

 

QPR 0 - Blackpool 1
Like most R's fans, I'm sure, am now suffering from the grim Déjà-vu syndrome. It ain't nice!

 

You could make a fortune backing QPR to lose games they should win and win games they should lose.

 

As if to prove my point

 

Point proven, Stick, I am gobsmacked with the result!

 

I hope you are around Pilgrim as i watched a programme on Netflix which would be right up your street, The Figo Affair: The Transfer That Changed Football

A lot of the stuff I already knew, but the way that the transfer was carried out was a real insight in to how players are tapped up, persuaded or coerced in to a move, and that was very revealing to me, as i am sure that is how many of the big transfers around the footballing world works... The whole Presidential election thing was another eye opener and is something that i am presuming is a big big thing in Spain, not so much over here is it... ?!?

Figo was a great player, one of those who just made the game look very simple, and you do get the feeling that he was a torn man at the time and the decision he had to make. But he seems to have found his peace in what went on, the polar opposite to how the vast majority of the Barca fans think of him...

It's a good watch, and i advise you to seek it out...

 

Just to be polite, I replied to your message because I wasn't planning to watch the documentary as I had read a couple of reviews that said it didn't tell anything that wasn't already known (well, that was known in Spain, of course). This afternoon I watched it and indeed "nothing new under the sun".

First thing I have to say is that for any football fan in Spain over 40-45 years old, the faces on the commentary are very familiar, including those of the two most important sports journalists of the last 30-40 years, especially one (not the one who gives the exclusive but the one who has Gaspart and Florentino on the set together). For someone who is not from here, most people don't say anything.

There is one piece of information that he does not add to the documentary, and that is important. He doesn't mention that Florentino Perez had already run for the presidency of Madrid five years earlier and had lost to Ramón Mendoza. This character (in the broad sense of the term) was a very peculiar president, a self-made man, and who, for example, was the owner of the best horse yard in Spanish turf in the 80s. He boasted, and it was true, that in the 70s, when Spain had no relations with the USSR, he went in and out of Russia whenever he wanted to do business there. He was, as they say here, "a snake charmer". The fact is that in those elections Florentino won in the face-to-face vote (ballot boxes) but when the postal vote was added up he lost. Years later, it became known that many of the postal votes for Ramón Mendoza came from members who had been dead for years.

So Florentino learned his lesson and in the 2000 elections he went all out. You tell me that here in Spain the elections to be president of the clubs is very important, and it is true, but with nuances. It was true in the 80s and 90s but after that, when most of the clubs became Public Limited Company, there are no more elections. The only four clubs that are not a Public Limited Company in the first division are Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna. Those are the only clubs that have elections because the president is elected by the members, the others do not.

In the case of Real Madrid, I think I have already commented that it is actually almost impossible to be president because the requirements to be president are difficult to meet. They are anti-sheikhs and anti investment funds or mega-millionaires requirements, namely: to be a member of the club for more than twenty years, to have Spanish nationality and to guarantee, with a personal guarantee, not a bank guarantee, fifteen percent of the club's budget, which would now be around 150 million euros. Who is running against Florentino Pérez? In the last fourth elections' nobody.

And finally one last point, it is said that Madrid fans are the most demanding en the world, and it is undoubtedly true. In what club would the president be sacked after winning two Champions League in the last three years? Well, that's what happened in the elections that the documentary talks about. Lorenzo Sanz brought the elections forward by a year thinking that it would be impossible for the members not to vote for him, but... Florentino arrived with Figo and...