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We are all dreamers one way or another nothing wrong in that . As Oscar Wilde once said " We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars ".
Yes I've done that one . The bleep or progressive multistage fitness test. 18 m I think the distance is. Shuttle runs that get progressively herder as the time to complete them shortens . Uses 2 principles of training I outlined earlier - Overload and progression. Not specific to football but an excellent barometer of cardio vascular endurance . Has been used by top teams such as the All Blacks . As the test progresses aerobic fitness diminishes and anaerobic fitness begins to take over -as you can imagine it gets very hard to keep pace. Level 20 / 21 ?? I think is the ultimate shuttle. I think (it was a while ago now ) I got to the end of level 11 . I am not surprised Seb Coe did well he's slightly built which helps when you turn at the end of each shuttle . Also when he was in his prime he was timed at 6 x 200 m sprints. On a track he sprinted 200 m walked around the track to the start for the next 200 m etc etc. So his only recovery was walking 200 m to the start of the next one. Each 200 m was clocked at an identical time more or less which shows the man's cardio fitness was off the scale. I also read that his resting pulse rate was phenomenally low - probably due to insanely hard training regimes over time.
The 4 principles of fitness - Specificity overload , progression , reversibility. Overload - when you put the body through demands over and above what is normally required . progression - as fitness improves you increase the intensity. Reversibility - If you fail to maintain the required fitness level the body will naturally revert back to type or a state of homeostasis. SPECIFICITY - This is the one we are concerned with most because football is a sport like a lot of sports that uses specific groups of muscles and puts specific demands on those muscles .Likewise the cardio respiratory and skeletal systems. Football fitness is specific to football for instance and not swimming and vice versa.
The origin of the name comes from" S pecially P repared A merican M eat . It was a mainstay for the american forces in WW2 and supplied to the GI's . It retained its popularity post war with the home market hence its presence on supermarket shelves. Personally, I eat quite a lot of spam It's great sliced thinly and fried in a pan with one or two eggs . Try it you will see what I mean . There are 2 varieties of spam there is a tin of bacon spam and also the pork meat one , both can be fried to good effect.
Coconut is a well known term in the cities used to refer to a black/coloured person on the outside but a "white " person on the inside." White person" meaning that he /she relates ostensibly to white culture and norms which could relate to occupation / choice of domicility/ political views /friends and relationships/pastimes etc etc. Bounty bar is another derogatory term with racist overtones. There is no doubt the woman waving that flag with coconut on it was making a racist comment and should have been prosecuted.
There was a medieval bye law that made it legal to shoot a Welshman with a bow and arrow in the boundaries of Hereford Cathedral . Obviously relating back to the Marcher cross border raids of the 13 th century . I don't think it was repealed though.
Talking of SOE agents there was one who used to stay with her relatives who lived in Wormelow a village near Hereford. She used to stay with them when not away on missions. Her name was Violette Szabo a fluent French speaker who was dropped into France just before D Day . She got into a firefight with members of an SS division was captured and ended up being executed just before the end of the war . A beautiful brave woman - the house she stayed in , Cartref I think it is called is or was a museum in her memory ( Dont know if its still open to the public) There was a B @ W feature film made about her in the 1950's it was called " Carve her name with pride ".
There was a book published fairly recently called rogue heroes . It dealt with the formation and establishment of SAS under D. Stirling and later Paddy Mayne. Stirling was the man who got Churchill to finance this new secret behind the lines regiment . He was a very laid back guy who never fitted in to normal army life and in fact used this as a yardstick by which he admitted new recruits. People like Reg Seekings an ex boxer and tearaway . Paddy Mayne took over when Stirling was captured . Mayne was a larger than life character who possessed ice cool nerves and utmost bravery . Ministry of ungentlemanly conduct could well be attributed to him..... True story- Mayne and a group of SAS turned up at a Christmas party behind enemy lines in North Africa . He walked into the room which was full of Germans - it was an airfield officers' mess packed with people having a good time with lots of food and drink . He introduced himself and then stood there and unloaded a full magazine from his Tommy gun - total mayhem . He and his group turned and fled to their jeeps and escaped back to their base hounded all the way by irate Germans.