Met this fella in Bari today.
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I’m off to Italy for Ireland’s qualifier with the Azzuri in Bari on Wednesday, via London for a couple of days thanks to Ryanair’s logistical Tourettes.
It may not be as good as a lion in a sidecar on a wall of death, see above greatest pic ever taken©, but it will be prettay, prettay close if we get, say, four points between Bulgaria and the Azzurri.
Jump the fence writes about the significance of the two games this week here.
I’ll blog away for the week and I’ll tweet the buildup and aftermath of the game and the match itself if i can get phone coverage in the stadium/cell/behind barricaded embassy gate. Goodbye readers. The two of ye can keep each other company for a bit.
The BBC business site has a feature on the GAA today here.
And in other news Liverpool fans, Human League are once again a-top the hit parade, Bobby Ewing was in the shower the whole time and the Berlin Wall is definitely still standing.
Martin Kelner – in his weekly Screen Break column has gone in studs up on John Inverdale – particularly regarding the BBC presenter’s fast-and-loose use of the word ‘literally’.
The “Irish players know the eyes of the nation are literally upon them,” he said on Saturday, allegedly. Jamie Redknapp regularly transports footballers to the magnetic north pole on a weekly basis of course as he often suggests they’re, ‘literally, on top of the world’. Top, top punditry, Richard.
Kelner goes on to pick apart the BBC’s coverage of the championships – Austin Healy in the stand, the unintentionally hilarious Sonya on the line, Eddie Butler in the gantry with either Brian Moore or the excellent Philip Matthews.
And then we have RTE. When Ireland beat Romania on penos in 1990, famously the country was snapped back to the Montrose Studio to find Dunphy and Billo in funny hats.
On Saturday, an RTE runner was dispatched to the bowels of Montrose as the full-time whistle went in Cardiff. There, in the corner of a dusty archive stacked neatly between Bibi Baskin and a rotting picture of Gerry Ryan is a worn box marked ‘comedy headgear; use in case of emergency’. It is returned in haste through the corridors to the studio. We, the viewers, return to Donnybrook after the dramatic finale to find, lo and behold, our panel of experts wearing an imaginative melange of millinery, happily gazing back at us – like cows who caught their reflection in a puddle. Absolute gold. (Pic of Mr G Hook from Vic)
Their punditry in general has been pretty run of the mill; Hook draws wild comparisons all day – most things are like Obama, it seems – Popey needles him a bit, offers some sensible opinions and Conor O’Shea fills the John Waters archetype on the Late Late vying for talk time between the Dunph and Eoin Harris. It does what it says on the tin.
My own inclination in general, when I have a choice between the national broadcaster and a British channel in covering any sporting occasion is usually to buy Irish. The difference between the two rugby-wise is really the segments between matches where the BBC treat us to some quality VTs like Keith Wood interviewing Declan Kidney, Woodie close to tears waffling about what we need to do to win and atone for all those past misses, Woodie and O’Driscoll etc. Jonathan Davies often brings a lot of insight to the party too.
Some Irish reader left this remark on the Guardian blog:
Jesus H Macy. Ryle Nugent is definitely not bad enough to drive you into the arms of Fred Cogley surely? Into the arms of the BBC however? Maybe, some – not I – would say.
But then a man’s relationship with his television sports commentator is like that between and man and a woman. And, God knows, there’s not many Eddie Butlers on the dancefloor of life. Quite literally.
The PROC imagines a few more career options for the Ireland boss after his most recent success.
What Kidney might say if he found life on Mars:
“I think we just weren’t looking in the right places all along. We all agreed that we didn’t want to be in the wrong places finding the wrong things so we decided we would go to the right places instead and find the right things. We need to thank the Martians also for the part they played in firing laser beams at us. When a side raises their game you must be up to the task and that’s ultimately what we did.”
So, Ireland won the Grand Slam – in almost-unbelievable, comic-book fashion.
Then, Bernard Dunne shocked a lot of us and won the world title at the O2 after an absolute epic fight that saw Cordoba leave the ring after the 11th round TKO on a stretcher.
And Manchester United’s Dimitar Berbatov injured his Bulgarian self – meaning he won’t be prowling the Irish box beneath Hill 16 on Saturday.
What a day. We probably should’ve held the budget before kick off in Cardiff.
Yesterday saw the start of March Madness – the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 Basketball Championship – and more importantly for many Americans the informal deadline for the completion of March Madness brackets, which is a national obsession.
Millions will attempt to predict the outcome of all 63 games between now and April 6th, when the last two remaining teams will play in Detroit for the title of national champions.
And like the rest of the nation, President Barack Obama has revealed he is just as preoccupied – despite his pretty heavy workload at the moment – with the tournament.
For the record, he has declared – with the confidence and purpose that marked his presidential campaign – the University of North Carolina will win outright.
Check out the vid of the Potus explaining his logic here.
The Cork Admirals — Leeside’s American Football team — have been in contact about the start of the IAFL 2009 season.
It’s a massive, massive operation keeping a side in operation – preparation began last September. Along with the coaches, 25 of last year’s players return to be joined by the brave 2009 rookies.
If in Cork, get down to Kennedy Park @ 10am on Sundays to get involved. There’s a place for everyone in the choir; that’s the great thing about this particular sport. Visit www.corkadmirals.net for more.
I toggged out last season and gave it a go for a piece I wrote for the Irish Examiner.
At 2pm, in the University of Limerick sports grounds the Cork Admirals – in their first title decider – will face the Limerick Vikings in The Shamrock Bowl XXI, the championship game of the ever-expanding Irish American Football League. But Pádraig Harrington will testify; he didn’t win the British Open in Carnoustie – he won it a long way from the cameras. So too, this modest victory tomorrow won’t be earned on a converted cricket ground – meticulously marked out to NCAA standards – in this league, and in this sport especially it seems, more than any other – it’s all about preparation.
On a Sunday morning, with a bipolar weather forecast – one minute the skies greasing the pitch with spitting ran, the next offering warm, stuffy sunshine which streamed into a regulation but claustrophobic helmet, I joined the Admirals on one of their three ‘rookie’ mornings. I quickly realised it wasn’t going to be cheerleaders, celebratory robot-dances on the end-line after a touchdown and yet more cheerleaders.
The Yankees open their new stadium on April 3rd; The Mets even earlier – March 29th. The New Yorker got a peek at the two.
As a follow up to Warren Gatland’s outburst this week – ‘Wales players dislike the Irish’ – I did a piece on other sporting rants for today’s Irish Examiner.
Babs Keating: The Tipperary legend took charge of a group of Offally hurlers boasting serious skill but with a reputation for being less than enthusiastic about their training.
When the Faithful were well beaten by old rivals Kilkenny in the 1998 Leinster final a furious Babs described his charges — whom he enjoyed a frosty relationship with — as ‘sheep in a heap.’ The statement was the full stop in an unhappy chapter for Keating as the insulted players effectively forced him out before they went on to take the All-Ireland title.
Rafa Benitez: Only the Liverpool boss, a man who has distilled football to a mathematical algorithm, could for the first time deliver what the British press desire — a rant — but have it scripted. Rafa decided — as Liverpool lay seven points clear at the top of the table — that he would preempt Fergie’s mind games and pick apart United’s Christmas fixture schedule. This was Kevin Keegan — I’d love it! — but with a hint of obsessive compulsive disorder.
John McEnroe: Think Big Mac doesnt deserve a place in the list? You cannot be serious! The guitar-playing, three-time Wimbledon winner’s constant and vociferous questioning of umpires’ integrity was the soundtrack to the 80s. “You will never work another match in your life”, “Explain that call to me” and “How the hell can that be out” were some of his greatest hits.
Lee Elia: This profanity-punctuated, post-game eruption following a Cubs defeat to the LA Dodgers in 1983 is the stuff of baseball folklore. It is the obscenity-laced soliloquy of a beaten man — he lasted less than two seasons in Chicago — yet he neatly summed up, in one explosive moment, the Cubs and the famously fickle Wrigley Field crowd. “The fans can kiss my ass, downtown, and you can print that! These nickel and dime people don’t even have a job, that’s why they’re at the ball game.”
Mike Tyson: If Tyson didnt exist, parents would have to invent him so kids would eat their greens. The man who chewed off Evander Holyfiield’s left ear reprised his bogey man role when he told Lennox Lewis: “When I’m ready I’m going to rip out his heart and feed it to him. My style is impetuous, my defence is impregnable and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat your children. Praise be to Allah.”
Damien Richardson: The former Cork City manager is a man of many, many words. “Whether one is blessed with a prodigious flair for articulacy or merely entrusted with a basic monosyllabic uttering of contentment,” he once wrote, “the relevance of this coming season will stimulate in every green and white heart at least a temporary escalation in embellished eloquence, so as to allow all an opportunity to express the most wondrous sense of anticipation and excitement that lies within.” But Rico might also be remembered for his succinct response to a cup defeat in Longford. City were ‘ridden rock solid’ he fumed.
Alistair Cragg: The man who put the Cragg back in lose your rag, got out of the blocks quicker than ever when he launched a full-blooded tirade from the Beijing track-side last summer while mistakenly thinking he had been eliminated from the Olympics. “Prominent names in this sport are sitting in Ireland and are talking about how we are not great like they used to be … It’s about time they acknowledged us instead of putting us down to make themselves look like legends.”
Joe Kinnear: Black and white may be the colours, but the Newcastle boss turned the air blue with a prodgious 52 swear words in the first five minutes with journalists in his new role. Unhappy — clearly — with the coverage his appointment received he describing reporters as “c***s” and “so f***ing slimy”.
“You’re not going to f*** me off or frighten me in any manner. Whatever you do, or whatever headlines you run, you’re not going to embarrass me. I’m not going to stand for it. I’ve come up here for a simple chance to f***ing prove myself. Get off my back and let me get on with my job. That’s all I ask. F***ing hell.”
The situation has since deteriorated.
Any more?
Apparently spurred by a missed opportunity to photograph – of all people – Gwyneth Paltrow, this guy now constantly carries a polaroid camera with him everywhere he goes.
He’s managed to pap hundreds of celebrity polaroid portraits – portroids.
Check out Lakers legend Magic Johnson.
And MCA from the Beastie Boys
Via new Irish group blog Culch.ie
Rick Reilly – now at ESPN on a gazillion-dolla contract, by the way – tried to buy as many tickets to sports games and events as he could with 100 quid this week. And then he wrote about it on his gold computer
At the last soccer World Cup I tried to see all 32 competing teams on a budget of €150 per day – that was tickets, accomodation, transport, beer. Oh and food, some days. I’ll have to stick the pieces up here at some stage.
The plan was hatched over a few weeknight pints in Fagan’s of Drumcondra but the inspiration came, I think, from a famous piece Reilly wrote for Sports Illustrated in 1992 when he tried to see every event at the Barcelona Olympics on a budget of $2000.
I’ve dug it out here.
