Mihir Bose's Blog, page 69
May 2, 2012
The FA should be congratulated, not pilloried, for wisely taking a punt on Hodgson
Insideworldfootball.biz
The conventional view in English football is that the Football Association, in going for Roy Hodgson as the next England manager, has made the safe choice. The argument is the people's favourite, Harry Redknapp, would have been the bold move.
How utterly absurd. Redknapp would have been the easy choice, hailed by the media and the supporters. It is Hodgson who is the brave, unconventional appointment, and the FA ought to be congratulated.
I am not saying this because Harry, according to his court testimony, does not read or write much, whereas in Hodgson the FA will be getting something of an intellectual.
The conventional view in English football is that the Football Association, in going for Roy Hodgson as the next England manager, has made the safe choice. The argument is the people's favourite, Harry Redknapp, would have been the bold move.
How utterly absurd. Redknapp would have been the easy choice, hailed by the media and the supporters. It is Hodgson who is the brave, unconventional appointment, and the FA ought to be congratulated.
I am not saying this because Harry, according to his court testimony, does not read or write much, whereas in Hodgson the FA will be getting something of an intellectual.
May 1, 2012
Brian McDermott: I wish I’d played for Arsene Wenger at Arsenal
After an unfulfilling time as a midfielder with the Gunners, Reading manager is looking forward to having another crack at the top flight
Evening Standard
Brian McDermott has had much to celebrate taking Reading back to the Premier League but his personal horizons stretch far beyond the Berkshire club. A child of Irish immigrants, who grew up in an area of Slough that was a mini-Ireland, you can almost feel the regret in his voice as he recalls playing for England at youth level.
“I feel very Irish and I never played for Ireland. One day it would be an ambition of mine to manage Ireland. But not for now. I’ve got so much to do in club football and at Reading.”
Evening Standard
Brian McDermott has had much to celebrate taking Reading back to the Premier League but his personal horizons stretch far beyond the Berkshire club. A child of Irish immigrants, who grew up in an area of Slough that was a mini-Ireland, you can almost feel the regret in his voice as he recalls playing for England at youth level.
“I feel very Irish and I never played for Ireland. One day it would be an ambition of mine to manage Ireland. But not for now. I’ve got so much to do in club football and at Reading.”
April 30, 2012
At home: Lord Moynihan
The BOA chairman and former minister of sport talks about the boycott of the Moscow Olympics, his hopes for London 2012 and the ‘worst statistic in sport’
FT
Lord Moynihan’s home presents a peculiar problem. Situated just outside Tunbridge Wells in Kent, it is not difficult to find, nor are the imposing electrically-operated gates an impossible barrier. The problem arises once you drive inside. I become so confused by the many driveways that I arrive at the back entrance feeling like a tradesman at Downton Abbey.
Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), emerges. “You have managed to arrive at the part of the house that is 160 years old, built for the governor of the Bank of England. Not many people manage that,” he says, reassuringly. And then he provides another piece of history that casts a different light on Britain’s class stereotypes.
Click here to read the full article
FT
Lord Moynihan’s home presents a peculiar problem. Situated just outside Tunbridge Wells in Kent, it is not difficult to find, nor are the imposing electrically-operated gates an impossible barrier. The problem arises once you drive inside. I become so confused by the many driveways that I arrive at the back entrance feeling like a tradesman at Downton Abbey.
Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), emerges. “You have managed to arrive at the part of the house that is 160 years old, built for the governor of the Bank of England. Not many people manage that,” he says, reassuringly. And then he provides another piece of history that casts a different light on Britain’s class stereotypes.
Click here to read the full article
April 26, 2012
Beyond the Premier League ‘top table’ clubs should adopt a “realistic” blueprint for survival
Insideworldfootball.biz
Change in football (let alone the wider society) is difficult to predict. It is often best left to historians with their long lenses to look back and tell us when one era ends and another begins.
However, despite the fact that we do not know for sure who will win this season's English Premier League title, it is my firm belief that this campaign marks a momentous season of change in the Premiership – the third such change since the Premiership started 20 years ago. This shift not only affects the top of the League where the power lies but also the survivors at the bottom.
Change in football (let alone the wider society) is difficult to predict. It is often best left to historians with their long lenses to look back and tell us when one era ends and another begins.
However, despite the fact that we do not know for sure who will win this season's English Premier League title, it is my firm belief that this campaign marks a momentous season of change in the Premiership – the third such change since the Premiership started 20 years ago. This shift not only affects the top of the League where the power lies but also the survivors at the bottom.
April 24, 2012
Brilliance of Barca hide improvements of English game
Play Up
The wonder of Barcelona should not make us think that the English game is back to the dark days of the 80’s and 90’s when route one football prevailed. That is what Wimbledon talked about and why they so lauded the so-called box-to-box players. The bewitching play of Barcelona often leads us to believe that the English game is in a worse state than it is.
These were more like runners than footballers, and would charge from their penalty box to that of the opposition hoping to connect their head with a long ball that had been floated over most of the field. The idea was that in the mayhem created by all these players trying to head the ball, there would be so much confusion that they might score a goal. Once that was done it was back to their own penalty box, kick every dangerous ball to row 52 and in the end emerge one-nil winners.
The wonder of Barcelona should not make us think that the English game is back to the dark days of the 80’s and 90’s when route one football prevailed. That is what Wimbledon talked about and why they so lauded the so-called box-to-box players. The bewitching play of Barcelona often leads us to believe that the English game is in a worse state than it is.
These were more like runners than footballers, and would charge from their penalty box to that of the opposition hoping to connect their head with a long ball that had been floated over most of the field. The idea was that in the mayhem created by all these players trying to head the ball, there would be so much confusion that they might score a goal. Once that was done it was back to their own penalty box, kick every dangerous ball to row 52 and in the end emerge one-nil winners.
Denis Law: Roberto Mancini has shown his class
The Evening Standard
Exclusive: Ahead of title D‑Day, striking great reveals his admiration for City boss and why he could not talk to Ferguson after that 6-1 derby humbling
You won’t hear Denis Law belittling Roberto Mancini if Manchester City’s dreams of a first title since 1968 are shattered this season. Some supporters may not be so kind to the Italian, given that he has spent £210million on players in two years and that failure for City would mean United celebrating their 20th championship.
The Premier League’s top two meet at the Etihad on Monday night, a match Sir Alex Ferguson has described as the biggest derby of his 26-year Old Trafford career with City just three points adrift of their rivals and with three games remaining.
Exclusive: Ahead of title D‑Day, striking great reveals his admiration for City boss and why he could not talk to Ferguson after that 6-1 derby humbling
You won’t hear Denis Law belittling Roberto Mancini if Manchester City’s dreams of a first title since 1968 are shattered this season. Some supporters may not be so kind to the Italian, given that he has spent £210million on players in two years and that failure for City would mean United celebrating their 20th championship.
The Premier League’s top two meet at the Etihad on Monday night, a match Sir Alex Ferguson has described as the biggest derby of his 26-year Old Trafford career with City just three points adrift of their rivals and with three games remaining.
April 23, 2012
Letter to The Sunday Telegraph: An English anthem would give us pride without prejudice
SIR – When British athletes win Gold for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics, God Save the Queen will play to celebrate. However, when it is England who take to the sporting field to play rugby or football, they should be heralded by an English anthem for an English team, just as Flower of Scotland and Land of My Fathers are sung as Scottish and Welsh anthems.
The modern idea of sport has morality at its core
The Independent
With increasing lack of trust in politicians and church leaders, sports stars have filled the vacuum.
Formula One's presence in Bahrain this weekend was the result of the sport forgetting a very important principle: that sport is more than just athletic activity or, in this case, buzzing round a circuit in hi-tech cars. Above everything else, it has a moral dimension.
By choosing to race in a kingdom whose suppression of human rights has been so widely broadcast to the world, the petrol-heads are not only damaging their own sport but also the credibility of the wider sports movement.
Cynics will say this is humbug. Formula One is probably the most unabashed money-making machine in all of sport. It is also a most curious sport. Given the technology needed, many would even question whether it counts as a true sport. And, unlike other sports, the real controller is not the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile but the rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone.
And while publicly Ecclestone is careful to say little about wider issues, he doesn't appear privately to be driven by morality. Last year, as controversy raged around the Bahrain Grand Prix, he told Zayed Alzayani, the businessman who runs the competition, that "if human rights was the criterion for F1 races, we would only have them in Belgium and Switzerland".
But this is where Ecclestone is contradictory. Formula One's rise has been made possible because, with increasing lack of trust in politicians, men of science and letters, and even church leaders, sports stars have filled the vacuum. Sport has also become a rare source of trusted news in an intensely sceptical world; a sporting result is a fact about which there can be no argument. And sport can also be understood by all, regardless of language or culture or intellect.
With increasing lack of trust in politicians and church leaders, sports stars have filled the vacuum.
Formula One's presence in Bahrain this weekend was the result of the sport forgetting a very important principle: that sport is more than just athletic activity or, in this case, buzzing round a circuit in hi-tech cars. Above everything else, it has a moral dimension.
By choosing to race in a kingdom whose suppression of human rights has been so widely broadcast to the world, the petrol-heads are not only damaging their own sport but also the credibility of the wider sports movement.
Cynics will say this is humbug. Formula One is probably the most unabashed money-making machine in all of sport. It is also a most curious sport. Given the technology needed, many would even question whether it counts as a true sport. And, unlike other sports, the real controller is not the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile but the rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone.
And while publicly Ecclestone is careful to say little about wider issues, he doesn't appear privately to be driven by morality. Last year, as controversy raged around the Bahrain Grand Prix, he told Zayed Alzayani, the businessman who runs the competition, that "if human rights was the criterion for F1 races, we would only have them in Belgium and Switzerland".
But this is where Ecclestone is contradictory. Formula One's rise has been made possible because, with increasing lack of trust in politicians, men of science and letters, and even church leaders, sports stars have filled the vacuum. Sport has also become a rare source of trusted news in an intensely sceptical world; a sporting result is a fact about which there can be no argument. And sport can also be understood by all, regardless of language or culture or intellect.
April 20, 2012
Charlton are already a match for half of the Championship, says club chairman
Evening Standard
Last Saturday night, as Charlton celebrated promotion to the Championship, Michael Slater sent a text to Chris Powell saying: “I think it is a time for a vote of confidence”. As the chairman recounts this story he laughs and says: “Chris got the joke.”
Just in case there is any doubt about the future of the manager the 46-year-old financier adds: “We’ve been in the doldrums with three years in League One but the momentum has started.”
It is 15 months since Powell was handed his first managerial role but after a mixed time last season, which ended with the club in 13th, Charlton have been almost unstoppable this time round. They have held top spot since the middle of September and their victory at Carlisle saw them become the first team in England to win promotion this term.
Powell might speak of recreating the Alan Curbishley era at The Valley but Slater proudly proclaims: “We are in the Powell era. We’re starting our own bit of history now.”
Last Saturday night, as Charlton celebrated promotion to the Championship, Michael Slater sent a text to Chris Powell saying: “I think it is a time for a vote of confidence”. As the chairman recounts this story he laughs and says: “Chris got the joke.”
Just in case there is any doubt about the future of the manager the 46-year-old financier adds: “We’ve been in the doldrums with three years in League One but the momentum has started.”
It is 15 months since Powell was handed his first managerial role but after a mixed time last season, which ended with the club in 13th, Charlton have been almost unstoppable this time round. They have held top spot since the middle of September and their victory at Carlisle saw them become the first team in England to win promotion this term.
Powell might speak of recreating the Alan Curbishley era at The Valley but Slater proudly proclaims: “We are in the Powell era. We’re starting our own bit of history now.”
Not Just a Game Anymore- why sport has become so central to modern culture
History Today
On February 8th this year two events took place in London. In a crown court Harry Redknapp, manager of Tottenham Hotspur, a football club which has not won England’s league title for 51 years, was cleared of tax evasion charges. A few hours later Fabio Capello, England’s Italian football manager, resigned. The speculation was that Redknapp would succeed Capello. Interesting as these events were they were not earth shattering; indeed they paled in comparison with news from around the world. The regime of Syria’s President Assad was bombarding the city of Homs, aided by Russia’s and China’s veto of UN action, while in the US the 2012 Republican race to find a challenger to Barack Obama had taken another turn. Yet that night football led the BBC’s News at Ten. Even The Times, which described the Syrian impasse as the ‘most serious East-West confrontation since the end the Cold War’, devoted its whole front page to football matters; Syria did not even rate a mention. So how did sport become so important?
On February 8th this year two events took place in London. In a crown court Harry Redknapp, manager of Tottenham Hotspur, a football club which has not won England’s league title for 51 years, was cleared of tax evasion charges. A few hours later Fabio Capello, England’s Italian football manager, resigned. The speculation was that Redknapp would succeed Capello. Interesting as these events were they were not earth shattering; indeed they paled in comparison with news from around the world. The regime of Syria’s President Assad was bombarding the city of Homs, aided by Russia’s and China’s veto of UN action, while in the US the 2012 Republican race to find a challenger to Barack Obama had taken another turn. Yet that night football led the BBC’s News at Ten. Even The Times, which described the Syrian impasse as the ‘most serious East-West confrontation since the end the Cold War’, devoted its whole front page to football matters; Syria did not even rate a mention. So how did sport become so important?
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