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Reply | Spurs v Man Utd
at 18:16 18 Feb 2025
Back in the first attempt to create a "sawker" revolution in the USA i.e. before even NASL, never mind MLS, some of the big TV networks started televising local games.
They got Danny "The Prince of Blarney" Blanchflower, a rare educated former footballer in those days, over to co-commentate/analyse.
To say the least, he wasn't impressed by what he was seeing in his first game, and called it as it was. Eventually he described something as "dreadful". At half time the Editor called him aside, and gave him an instruction to be "more positive."
Second half starts and at the first miskick, Danny observed that "That was positively dreadful".
His contract was cancelled after the game...
Edit: Omitted to mention that by far the best analyst I ever heard was your old guy, Terry Venables - didn't just tell you what you'd just seen, but explained why it happened. Glenn Hoddle is also a bit like that (if you can stand all his other mannerisms, that is). [Post edited 18 Feb 18:19]
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Reply | Evertons new staduim
at 18:02 18 Feb 2025
@RangersDave: "Right next to a waste water management company, and has detracted from the wonderful old docks area."
I'm not sure of the relevance of the first part?
As for the second, not having a pop at you, what do you consider to be "wonderful" about a vast Victorian industrial wasteland, which hasn't seen activity or habitation for nearly half a century?
And which no-one else was a damned bit interested in doing anything with, any more than they are with the other disused docks further along.
Imo, if this stadium leads to regeneration of an otherwise unused, unwanted and frankly barren space near the city centre, then that is surely a good thing?
(Meanwhile, when the Docks were originally built, there were probably people complaining about the despoilation of the old salt marshes which were formerly there.) [Post edited 18 Feb 18:04]
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Reply | Marriage. Tunes to waltz down the isle to..
at 14:03 11 Feb 2025
Which reminds me of the time a mate of mine, a Portsmouth lad and lifelong Pompey fan, got married.
When he stood up to make his speech that afternoon, he started off:
"Today is the happiest day of my life...[Pause, quick glance at his watch] ...Portsmouth have just been promoted to the First Division!"
Footnote: Pompey lasted one season in the top flight, the marriage not much longer. |
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Reply | Sam Kerr on trial
at 22:13 5 Feb 2025
I wonder what her (white) mother thought of that? |
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Reply | Sam Kerr on trial
at 22:35 4 Feb 2025
Had she shown some contrition, offered to pay the Cabbie for all his trouble and apologised to the policeman, I'd say that she'd have got away with a Caution as to her future behaviour.
For I don't imagine the CPS would ordinarily bring a prosecution for something so relatively minor , if only because the Courts are busy enough as it is.
If her brief cannot get her off, then she'll deserve everything she gets (imo) |
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Reply | Andy Brassel
at 12:11 4 Feb 2025
Father Dougal: "Why's Father Jack in hospital, Ted?"
Father Ted: "Medical Tests"
Father Dougal: "Sure what would he know about Medicine?" |
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Reply | Sam Kerr on trial
at 12:08 4 Feb 2025
Apparently SK's partner is pregnant. I wonder who the surrogate father is?
John Terry perhaps? |
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Reply | Wineshttps://loftforwords.fansnetwork.co.uk/
at 16:36 30 Jan 2025
Tbf to her, her views were endorsed by a Pope:
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/103656064/photo/pope-kisses-tarmac.webp?s=1024x
And he drank a lot of wine. I mean, he had to be carried around in a chair.
Anyhow, I once participated in a proper winetasting and the first couple of samples didn't do anything for me, while all round me people were talking of pear drops and wet grass etc.
Then the sommelier introduced an Aussie Shiraz, and I immediately said "Leather" (from the bouquet, I suppose).
Anyhow, she congratulated me on my "nose" (if you knew what I look like, you'd appreciate that's the first - and last - time anyone's ever done that) and said that's what she recommends to go with beef. |
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Reply | Wines
at 18:56 29 Jan 2025
It's really only that big a rise for Port (£1.30) and Sherry (97p).
For lower alcohol wines you're talking just a few pence extra; for average strength wines around 13%, it's a 20p-30p increase; while for 14% it's +43p and 14.5% it's +54p.
And for some strange reason, when you get to 15%+, the rise is only 11p.
All here: https://www.enotriacoe.com/blog/new-duty-rates-february-2025 |
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Reply | 3rd runway at heathrow
at 18:30 29 Jan 2025
It's already been done elsewhere eg Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris:
[Post edited 29 Jan 18:36]
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Reply | How about a few “not a lot of people know thats”
at 14:12 29 Jan 2025
"Heroin" was originally just a commerical brand name for Diamorphine, which became generic, like eg Hoover.
It was legal in the USA and elsewhere, until progressively banned (eg USA in 1924, UK in 1920):
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Reply | How about a few “not a lot of people know thats”
at 00:31 29 Jan 2025
Kaliningrad was one of the host cities in the 2018 World Cup Finals in Russia. It staged 4 games, incl England 0 v 1 Belgium, in a brand new 34.5k capacity stadium built specially for the tournament:
(I strongly suspect Putin was making a political statement by having them included as a host.)
After the Finals, the stadium became the home of the region's main club Baltika FC, who eventually gained promotion to Russia's top tier last season, after 25 years in the second.
Every away game involves a long flight, as much as 12 hours duration if playing in the East - don't know the Russian for "Is that all you take away?" |
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Reply | How about a few “not a lot of people know thats”
at 00:07 29 Jan 2025
A footballing equivalent?
[Meanwhile] another largely forgotten national team emerged on what is now German territory. In July 1948, the Saarland FA (SFB) was formed in Sulzbach, near Saarbrucken. The Saarland is the relatively small area in southwestern Germany surrounded by Rhineland-Palatinate, Luxembourg and the French region Lorraine.
After the Second World War, the Saarland became an autonomous French protectorate. During the SFB's AGM in 1949, a vote was held over whether or not the association should join the French Football Federation. Although the Saar's government was in favour of the move, the members of the SFB voted to stay independent by a large majority.
And so, under president Hermann Neuberger and as an "association based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state," the Saarland FA applied for FIFA membership in 1950. On June 22, the world governing body accepted this application, which means that the SFB became a proper FIFA member three months before the DFB did.
On Nov. 22, 1950, the country of 950,000 inhabitants played its first official international. Seven of the 11 starting players came from the Saarland's biggest club, Saarbrucken FC, three from Borussia Neunkirchen (a club that would spend three seasons in the Bundesliga in the 1960s), one from Ensdorf FC. They defeated Switzerland reserves 5-3. The Saarland's national manager was Auguste Jordan, an Austrian-born naturalised Frenchman who also coached Saarbrucken FC.
Jordan soon went back to France, to manage Racing Club, and so Neuberger needed a new coach who would guide the team through the qualifying games for the 1954 World Cup. He found his man in Wiesbaden, a city some 100 miles north-east of Saarbrucken. SV Wiesbaden, a club then in the second tier of German football, were coached by the former international and Dresden club legend Helmut Schon. When Neuberger offered Schon the job as national coach, the latter accepted.
When Schon's team travelled to Oslo to play Norway in the World Cup qualifiers, it was the first time they met not a reserve side but a proper national team. Neunkirchen forward Gerhard Siedl scored the winner as the Saarland came away with a 3-2 victory. The return match, watched by 40,000 in Saarbrucken, finished scoreless. Yet the Saarland didn't make it to the World Cup, because there was another team in this group -- none other than West Germany.
Who knows what would have happened if Siedl had scored in the first meeting, staged in Stuttgart. But Jupp Posipal cleared Siedl's ninth-minute effort off the line and the West Germans went on to win 3-0. (The return match in Saarbrucken was another close affair, but West Germany won again, 3-1, and travelled to the World Cup in Switzerland to make history and lift the trophy.)
After those qualifiers, the Saarland went on to play another nine internationals. The low point, in terms of naked results, was a 7-1 mauling at the hands of Uruguay in June 1954, the high point a creditable 1-1 in May 1956 against Switzerland's first team, which had held Brazil to a draw three weeks earlier.
The Saarland's final game was a 3-2 defeat in Amsterdam against the Netherlands on June 6, 1956. About eight months before this match, a referendum had been held in the Saarland [where[ the majority of Saar people said no -- in this case to plans of making the Saarland neither French nor German but an independent state under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The referendum was, in effect, a vote pro-Germany. On Jan. 1, 1957, the Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany. The SFB left FIFA with immediate effect and became a regional member association of the DFB.
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/37403049/saarland-forgotten-internati |
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Reply | How about a few “not a lot of people know thats”
at 23:52 28 Jan 2025
He was genuinely heroic with his wartime service, for despite the trauma and injury he suffered in the first War, he volunteered for the second at the age of 43 - easily old enough to avoid Conscription.
Was also a very prolific playwright, including most famously 'The Ghost Train', regularly restaged since; also made into a film, as were numerous others of his plays.
After WWII he was a theatre director, but a business partner diddled him out of his money, meaning he had to return to acting in his 50's, to scrape a living.
And apparently it was only getting the role in Dad's Army at the age of 72 which got him back on his feet financially, saving him from destitution in his final years.
And here's a photo of the great man, aged 25:
Might I be excused now? |
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Reply | How about a few “not a lot of people know thats”
at 12:30 28 Jan 2025
Maybe it's just me, but I didn't realise just how bloody heavy Gold is until I visited the Museum in the Bank of England where they have a machine which allows you to lift an ingot. Strewth!
Googling reveals that at 19.3g/cc, it is nearly twice as heavy as Lead (11.4g/cc), and if you've ever had to shift even a small sheet of Lead you'll know how heavy that stuff is.
While Platinum at 21.45g/cc is heavier than both, making it the heaviest metal. |
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Reply | How about a few “not a lot of people know thats”
at 11:57 28 Jan 2025
Whereas at Bank Station on the Central Line Underground, the platforms are notably curved, rather than straight.
This is because the Bank of England insisted that the line/station (built 1900?) must avoid being tunnelled directly under the BofE's vaults i.e. where they keep the gold.
I also read somewhere (I think) that when the underground lines were first being built, the locomotives were causing so much vibration and noise etc, that the potential damage to buildings above was so great that the whole concept was in danger of being stopped.
So the engineers then replaced the locomotive engines at the front and back of the trains with smaller ones spaced along the trains' length, thereby spreading the load and reducing the vibration etc. |
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