Why is the cricket team playing football?

I have a friend who's a medical doctor who states that nobody over the age of 18 should be playing football.

Given the number of injuries and injury scares they've had over recent years, it does seem quite surprising to me that the England cricket team still think that kicking a football around is a good warm up for a cricket match...

As you sow...

Hilariously, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is claiming that teams are fouling United's Cristiano Ronaldo so often referees think the winger is diving.

Um. This is not a chicken and egg situation. Ronaldo has dived so regularly that referees became suspicious, and gave the defenders the benefit of the doubt when Ronaldo hits the deck.

That's the benefit of the doubt, not carte blanche, of course. It's probably not surprising that Ferguson waited until after a match where the defenders had become too blatant, with one of them sent off as a result, to make his complaint.

None the less, if strikers realise that regularly diving will result in them being tackled more without repercussions for the defenders, hopefully this will result in a few less strikers hitting the deck without being touched.

Football

On the BBC pages appears this quote

We're simply a better team

Croatia coach Slaven Bilic

Can't argue with that, really. England are out because they deserve to be.

Are we out yet?

Are we out yet? No

Are we out yet? No

Are we out yet? Nearly.

Someone needs a kick up the pants when it comes to English football players. Inventing the game and having the best league doesn't mean you can sit back. Failure to qualify might help.

The media scaring off any half-decent manager doesn't help either.

Sensible punishments in football? Are you mad?

After the debacle at the end of the Celtic - AC Milan match, some punishment was inevitable - the stupid fan was identified and banned for life, and now Celtic have been fined £25,000 for improper conduct of supporters. AC Milan, however, see their play-acting goalie banned for two matches - a more severe, and more deserved (by the player) punishment. AC Milan, for their part, have largely been very fair and polite about Celtic, and were probably hideously embarrassed by Dida's antics.

Celtic vs Roma post match verdict

Firstly - blimey. The Scot in my office is well chuffed at the moment, with his homeland having suddenly remembered how to play the beautiful game.

I said it was the first time since the early 20th century they could claim to have one of the best teams in the world with a straight face without getting instantly laughed at. He pulled out the 1978 World Cup team list and said it was one of the best teams in the world at that point. I admitted it had a lot of great players in, but suggested that getting knocked out in the first round of the World Cup isn't a claim for greatness.

Secondly, suggestions that they should be punished for the slap on Dida. Well. Um. Dida would appear to be a bit of a wimp on this evidence...

Didn't England do well today?

No, not the cricketers, 135 is a crap score and the Aussies will go hell for leather to see if they can beat us so heavily we end up behind Zimbabwe on run rate, and my gloating of earlier will be as ashes in my mouth. Damn, now I've reminded myself of the Ashes again.

No, I'm talking about the women footballers. Hampered by the myopic FA, who did their misogynistic bit to stop women playing football for years (banning them from using FA grounds from 1921 to 1971), women's football in England is well behind the continental game. Particularly Germany. So drawing 0-0 in the Women's World Cup against the Germans is a great achievement.

Mind you, I bet the Germans would have won if they'd had penalties in the first round.

Grim start to the football season

It is one of those statistical anomolies, but this week there seem to have been a number of sad occurences in football - the death of Ray Jones of QPR in a car crash, the collapse and death of Spain and Sevilla's Antonio Puerta and tonight I hear the Forest-Leicester match has been abandoned after Clive Clarke collapsed in the dressing room. I hope it is just the news coming so soon after Puerta's death that is making me view this as such grim tidings.

UPDATE: Clive Clarke did have a cardiac arrest, was treated with a defibrillator in the changing room and is now in a stable condition in hospital. I hope they'll find out what caused his collapse soon, and he'll have a speedy and permanent recovery.

Scarborough FC, 1879-2007

I'm not a particularly great football fan, but I am a fan of sporting history so it is always sad when you have one of the oldest football teams in the world dissolved.

Hopefully, they will return. My personal preference would be to see them run by the fans Seadog Trust.