Andy Roddick fired off a 103-mph serve at David Letterman this week.
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The sun never set on the British Empire they said, and the same can now be said of TV’s sporting world. A particularly dedicated coach potato can view a bottom-of-the-table clash in the Brazilian league, and then take in an interprovincial camogie game before lazily flicking to horse racing in the north of England. But is it now possible to watch – for 24 straight hours – live sport on the television? I tuned in and turned on to find out on Saturday.
With American broadcast heavyweights ESPN taking on the muscular Sky, the BBC seemingly beefing up their coverage of major sports events this year and RTE continuing to punch above their weight, one can now sit in your front room on any given day and watch as-it-happens action bounce into your sitting room via a series of spinning satellites.
For some assignments in journalism you wear a flak jacket, a look of authority and a St Christopher’s medal. And if you’re expected to turn your back on a war zone to deliver a crisp 120-second piece-to-camera, maybe you don’t hit Beirut’s disco-bars ‘til the sun come up over Lebanon.
For other reporting jobs, the preparation can be less Woodward and Bernstein and more Doheny’s and Nesbitt’s. How many of us have set the alarm to rise early on a weekend morning to watch a match half the world away, under the familiar fog of a hangover? It was with a very real sense of journalistic integrity then, reader, that I too undertook my task, shackled to a very sick head.
Therefore, I cannot vouch for the authenticity of everything I am about to relay to you. My notes were hastily scribbled on the back of an eircom phone bill. The line has since been disconnected.
However, I will faithfully and earnestly attempt to retrace the steps of my journey through the cathode ray tube, to a full day of sporting entertainment. This is post watershed stuff. As they used to say on Dragnet, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Read the rest of this entry »
If any of you are college football fans who enjoy the soulful grooves of Bill Withers c 1972, then this is the video for you!
The USC Trojans adopted the famous Lean On Me as their team anthem this year. The side’s coach brought in the R&B legend to a squad meeting as a joke. And then they all jammed.
This is Lance Armstrong abandoning the Tour of Ireland yesterday in Cork city centre, just before ‘the monster’ he had come to tame – St Patrick’s Hill – yawned in front of him. The above quote was the honest analysis of a very annoyed American woman who walked back down the hill in front of me after over an hour at least of standing in the most violent Leeside monsoon, still clutching a Livestrong banner.
The conditions were truly crazy and I wouldn’t blame anyone for dipping in for any early shower rather than complete the two circuits of the famous 25% gradient. Mark Cavendish, who I was looking forward to seeing most, I must admit – pulled the same trick as last year and bailed at the bottom too.
But though the Manx star was one of the twin pillars this tour was built upon this year, he’s a sprinter. He doesn’t urge people to come out and see him on the streets, wear his yellow wristbands or, generally, wrap up his sporting endeavours in charitable works. Lance does.
The 37-year-old Armstrong, who travelled from Cork to Dublin last night to host a three-day Global Cancer Summit in the capital, which opens today, tweeted: “rough day on the bike. The ol’ back was not in a good way and St Patty’s Hill wasn’t looking too cozy”.
Let’s forget the apple-pie abbreviation of Patrick’s Hill; the fact is it wasn’t too cosy for thousands of Armstrong’s fans as they stood, soaked to the bone, waiting for him. Shouldn’t he have taken at least one lap of the city centre circuit, maybe?
This was my view – a pretty bad one – of eventual winner Russell Downing climbing his way up the slope. As Gary Imlach said on the television coverage, which I’ve just watched back, “the hill seperated the men from the visiting superstars.” The abandonment was Armstrong’s last act as an Astana rider. I have a feeling, sadly for his many supporters in this part of the world, that the superstar won’t visit next year with his new RadioShack team.
This post first appeared on the Irish Examiner sportsdesk blog.
Ireland one cap wonder Owen Coyle masterminded Burnley’s win over Man United last night. Check out the goal he scored over the summer when he lined out for the Clarets reserves.
Eurosport commentary, Milan San Remo, 1992: “And it’s Kelly in there as well! A previous winner of the race; what a finish we’re going to have. The firemen are behind pumping in the coals to try to catch Argentin, anybody with anything left in their legs is trying to get in position before the descent of the Poggio.”
Many of you – those, perhaps, more familiar with recessions which are more PJ Mara than NAMA – will remember March. 21, 1992. That Sunday afternoon, Ireland kicked off their Five Nations campaign in the Parc de Prince, in front of 50,000 people with a 32-point drubbing; Right Said Fred’s Deeply Dippy may have pumped from the kitchen radio as you checked on the much-anticipated weekly roast and, Carrick-on-Suir’s Sean Kelly was about to earn his last-ever victory in a classic after a professional cycling career that creaked under the weight of achievement.
Never meet your heroes. I learned that harshest of lessons when former Stone Roses lead singer Ian Brown personally threw me out of an after-show party, with the wafer-thin lie that there was one too many bodies in the room and ‘the fireman’ wanted me out. But Kelly disagrees. The Tour of Ireland gets underway on Friday and with box-office names like Armstrong and Cavendish, the country’s budding pros and amateurs alike will be cast as supporting stars in a production sprinkled with a little Hollywood magic. Yesterday I too climbed on a bike, to cycle in the slipstream of greatness.
“The gap still looks about the same and Kelly is leading the chase. He’s got to do that because Sorenson is behind him and Sorenson won’t do any work at all.”
We’re at the bottom of Seskin Hill – a twisting, knotted climb on the outskirts of Kelly’s hometown. The intimidating slope is carpeted in a morning’s rain while loose pebbles see the former world number one skidding expertly along a lane which is hemmed by high ditches, dragging long marks like isobars on the surface.
In the meantime I’m furiously fumbling with a loose wheel and an upturned mountain bike in a pair of ill-fitting cycle shorts, odd socks and a borrowed An Post team top. Passing motorists slow to walking pace and wind down their windows to gape at the apparently professional rider on the side of a mountain in Waterford who looks like he thinks ‘the spokes’ are a trendy New York rock band. I see them, through a veil of tears, mouthing in astonishment: “Kelly’s team are gone to shite, anyway, Mary”. Read the rest of this entry »
I should have done this last week maybe, but with the dawn of the new football year there’s been plenty of great stuff to read:
‘Tipperary teen sensation’ Kevin Coleman has started a really impressive website called Back Page Football. This year I’ll not be embarrassed in my Fantasy Football leagues thanks, largely, to this article.
The spirit of David Peace is channelled for this inspired Premier League preview at Sport is a TV Show.
Darren Norris loves Arsenal so much, he wears Perry Groves pyjamas to bed. On the Examiner sportsdesk blog he reflects on the Gunners’ spanking of Everton this weekend.
While south London’s Andy Fifield went west to peer through the gates at Stamford Bridge before posting this blog by standing outside a fashionable Fulham Road cafe to steal the wi-fi. Probably.
ESPN ‘Sports Guy’ Bill Simmons has his view of the world game redefined by a trip south of the border for the Mexico-USA game last week. Check it out here.
And in other news, Eoin Butler meets Traveller bareknuckle boxing champion, turned Evangelical Christian preacher Dan Rooney.
Dog fighting enthusiast Michael Vick is out of the Big House and now playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. Plenty of Sports Illustrated coverage here.
Finally, how does Usain Bolt compare with other 100m legends, you ask? Have a look at this then.
Politico have analysed every word Obama has uttered in a speech, off-the-cuff remark or news conference since taking office.
He’s mentioned “basketball” 33 times, but, tellingly “hockey” only once.
He’s clearly not an NHL fan but amazingly the President has referred to hoops more than “gay” and “abortion” combined.
I can’t find any reference to baseball, American football or soccer. Though I know he certainly spoke about throwing the first pitch at the All Star game last month. In a White Sox jacket. Check it out here.
Someone in America has compiled a list of the 50 most bad-ass moments in sport. Here’s a few of my favourites:
Gridiron star Tyrell Owens scores a touchdown, sprints to midfield, slams down the ball, and celbrates in the Dallas Cowboys’ star. This is like Graeme Souness planting the Galatasaray flag in the centre cirle that time. Watch what happens to T.O.
Darryl Dawkins prompts a chorus of tut-tuts from men in suits and wild admiration from fans when he shatters the backboard with an aggresive dunk in 1979.
George Foreman comes out of retirement to become the oldest heavyweight champ at 45 with a shocking 10th round win over Michael Moorer.
We’ll have to do an Irish version soon. Suggested entries: John Aldridge v the FIFA guy in the cap in Orlando; the ‘three-stripe affair’ that rocked the GAA in the 1970s and Donncha O’Callaghan’s risque adverts for a shower manufacturers. Any more?
Writer and director John Hughes died of a heart attack in New York yesterday. If you were to pick your favourite sports moment from one of his many films – movies that defined the 80s and 90s – you’d have quite a job.
Scenes that stand out are the opening gymnastics footage in Weird Science, Chevy Chases’s Clark W Griswold racing Christie Brinkley in his Wagon Queen Family Truckster or the final shot from The Breakfast Club on the 50-yard line of the school’s football pitch.
For me though, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was the peak of Hollywood’s output and the classic summer scenes in Chicago’s Wrigley Field were some of the film’s most fun.
Former US President Bill Clinton has been clicking through the gears on the global news cycle for the past 24 hours. He showed up, as you’ll know, in North Korea in a surprise mission and left on his private jet with two American journalists, freed after being sentenced to 12 years hard labour by the rogue state.
In what smacked of a Hollywood action movie sequel, Clinton got the old gang together – in his entourage were his former White House chief of staff, John Podesta, and Clinton’s personal physician, Roger Band, while former Vice President Al Gore welcomed them home.
Clinton had a meeting with Kim Jong Il for an hour and 15 minutes and a dinner with the Dear Leader that lasted about two hours. They may have talked about golf.
Certainly, I had my only meeting with POTUS on the fairways. Yes, my friends, if I was detained in Pyongyang for five months, facing a lifetime of misery in a country existing in a shadowy Orwellian reality, and William Jefferson Clinton parachuted though the ceiling of the Great Hall, knocking Kim unconscious before carrying me up the steps of Air Force One like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, then frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d expect it.
I was lucky enough to walk inside the ropes on the Sunday of the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K Club in Kildare, following the emotional final round from Darren Clarke. So too was the 42nd President of the United States.
On a day when I managed to piss off childhood hero Boris Becker and screamed like a bobbysockser at Michael Jordan, I contrived not to embarrass myself with Clinton. He was however walking the course with Rick Reilly – then of Sports Illustrated, now ESPN.
Check out what happened when Clinton and Reilly first shared a gold course in the award-winning feature here.
For anyone wondering what the track is on the new Sky Sports promo with Jose Mourinho, it’s Australian pop combo the Temper Trap with ‘Sweet Disposition’.
Last week’s revelation that the Red Sox talisman David Ortiz as well as Manny Ramirez had tested positive for steroid use in 2003, had Boston fans feeling miserable once again.
Ortiz – or Big Pappy, as the baseball-mad city lovingly knew him as – was the heart and soul of the side that broke the so called curse that saw the Red Sox go 86 years without a World Series.
The title victories in 2004 and 2007 are now tainted in many people’s eyes. However, The New York Times, you may have heard of them, ruffled feathers this weekend, arguing that every team had it’s juicers and these wins aren’t diminished by these revelations. It’s worth a look.
THOUGH last night’s tie was to be a wake for a lost club, Cork City supporters may have instead witnessed the death rattle of Bray’s survival hopes at Turner’s Cross.
On a day of high drama off the pitch, the Leesiders overcame their visitors, reduced to 10 men after an hour, thanks to a Fahrudin Kuduzovic penalty after 36 minutes, leaving the Seagulls firmly rooted to the bottom of the league table as we enter the business end of the season. 
After a week of massive uncertainty surrounding the embattled club’s future, the game was thrown into further doubt when torrential rain on Leeside compelled ground staff to re-mark the pitch while volunteers swept sheets of rainwater from the surface. Referee Pádraig Sutton however decided the tie would indeed go ahead despite the difficult conditions with the ball often slowing to a stop on a turf pock-marked by puddles.
City took the lead after winning a penalty on 39 minutes when Danny Murphy picked the pocket of the Bray defence who were hampered by the quagmire conditions in the corner. Murphy fed Kuduzovic whose shot was well saved by Chris O’Connor but the Seagulls shotstopper then dragged down the inrushing Bosnian striker. The City number 10 pulled himself up to crisply convert the spotter into the old Shed End.
Cork boss Paul Doolin was just satisfied to take home the points. “I think we played some great football in patches. A one-nothing scoreline is always dodgy, and I felt we should have taken our chances, we certainly created enough.
“We played some great football and in the end we were happy to just hang in there and I have to praise the lads. They’ve been fantastic in really, really tough conditions” he added.
The home side had pegged back the visitors in the opening minutes; Kuduzovic combining well with Davin O’Neill in a new-look Leeside outfit after several dressing-room departures. 
But the first real shot at goal didn’t arrive until 25 minutes when Stephen O’Donnell stepped forward after a short free kick to arrow a low drive at Chris O’Connor in the Bray Wanderers goal.
The 3,055 or so City fans who filled Turner’s Cross on such an inclement night should have been rewarded after 29 minutes when Kuduzovic’s free kick into the six yard box invited Davin O’Neill to attack but he contrived to lift the ball over from almost beneath the cross bar. O’Donnell whipped another free-kick into the six-yard box where Dan Murray was stopping at the back post ready to nod goalwards, when team-mate Kuduzovic took it off his captain’s head with an unfortunate flick of his red boot.
Stephen Brennan was then sent off with 20 minutes to go when he talked himself first into a yellow card and then immediately afterwards a red card as referee Padraig Sutton had enough of the midfielder’s dissent.
Man-of-the-match Faz Kuduzovic may well brought home the match ball as he wasted two gilt-edged opportunites to add to the scoreline. But the result was always consigned to the footnotes on a historic day for the Leeside club. Bray battled admirably for the remainder, but the home side held the lead to collect a vital three points and perhaps more importantly a morale-boosting victory at the end of a traumatic week.
CORK CITY: Connor, Horgan, Murphy, Murray (c), Kuduzovic, Dennehy, Lordan, O’Donnell, O’Neill (Silagailis 81), Long, Cambridge (Kiely 69)
BRAY WANDERERS: O’Connor, Doyle, Knight (Coughlan 54), Foran, Webster, Brennan, O’Neill (Kelly 54), Mulcahy, Mulroy (Tuohy 72), Shields, Massey
Referee: P Sutton (Ennis)
This report first appeared in today’s Irish Examiner.