Everybody loves Kev

There’s been precious little Kevin Keegan in these parts lately. I’m putting that right with a bit of gibberish from the lengthy KK page on my new favorite site, Danger Here. Bear  in mind he’s being questioned about the transfer window:

“Well, that’s like asking me who is on my Christmas card list. I sit down with the wife and I say ‘Did they send us one last year or this year’, and if they haven’t we rip the name up and throw it in the bin. But then, a couple of days after Christmas the card might arrive late so we do a card for them on the 28th and date it the 22nd and send it off and hope they don’t notice…I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.”

Imagine him and Stu Wilson having a chat. Here’s Kev on a bike:

Links on Friday

Having grown up near Te Rapa Straight, one of our great impromptu race-tracks I can confirm that the ‘Tron is NZ’s rightful home of barely-legal street car action, so it’s only fair to hand the mean streets over to the pros for the weekend. Good luck to everyone heading to the V8s, and go the Chiefs

Everyone remembers that Colombian goalkeeper’s Scorpian save at Wembley – but can you score like that? Bloody oath

Alex Higgins is Snooker’s George Best, with outrageous talent at sport and the booze

Southampton turn into Brazil all of a sudden and Kev scores a wonder-goal – only to be ruled out. Robbed

Mitchell and Webb are really funny

Links on Friday

Cricket? For the first time in my LIFE I switched from a test to watch Rugby League on Sunday afternoon, as we threw it away in the first innings. I’ll have more to say on this when I get a sec, but you should read Hamish McDougall and Paul Beige Brigade‘s roundups. Mike On Cricket has had excellent stat-y coverage throughout the series also.

Everyone loves Kevin Keegan, but depressingly predictably, he’s not the Geordie Messiah Newcastle fans were praying for, results-wise anyway. He’s not much of a cyclist, either. This clip comes complete with Alan Partridge-alike commentator and Kev’s insistence he’s OK, despite a mess of ripped flesh

Steve Nash is a big deal in the NBA – he’s also a Tottenham fan. Here’s a nice looking Nike TV spot he directed himself. You can see him kissing the Spurs badge midway through

Cross-linked from me other blog – The best muppet-based heavy metal primer you’ll see on the internet this week can be found here.

Links on Friday


Only a coupla quick links this week – It’s been a great week in Wellington, but I’m really looking forward to getting back home– Cricket catches – here, here, here and here
Let’s laugh at Will Carling – it’s fun
Kevin Keegan loses it – I might as well call this bit Youtube on Friday
Phone Guy – there’s one in every airport
Imagine a world without advertising – it’s easy if you try. This would be pretty cool, actually
Kill Zombies – Haven’t had a Zombie link in a while…

I’m backing England


Here kicks off sport review NZ’s Germany 06 coverage. I’m going to be providing some New Zealand perspective on the world’s biggest sporting event. Mostly from the couch. After some (pretty minor) soul searching, I will hereby be backing England in this World Cup. Here’s why.

I started off supporting England when I began taking a proper interest in Spurs in 1993 or thereabouts. It went hand in hand for me – I knew the players, the All Whites were pretty crap, so why not? It just felt right. I got a copy of the Italia ’90 semi final on VHS and watched it a lot.

It really kicked off with Euro 96 – Terry Venables had the coaching job, and put Teddy Sheringham, Darren Anderton and Nick Barmby in the team. Gazza was back, Wembley was bathed in sunshine, they had grey shirts, I had a Sky decoder – what could possibly go wrong?

“You look like you’re going to vomit” said my then-girlfriend when Southgate missed his penalty. Some welcome.

Then came France ’98. By now I was living in London, and had seen England lose to Chile at the old Wembley stadium with my brother and a couple of mates, a game notable only for the England debut of M. Owen. I warmed up with the rest of the boys from the office at a Southwalk pub, laughing at Scotland losing to Brazil. “This is brilliant” I thought – World Cup football in the same timezone! And booze!

England had three pool games to negociate, but no-one seemed too worried, all eyes were on the Argentina match. I watched from the floor of a Wapping pub in front of a big screen. It’s safe to say that by kick off, I’d had a few, my office went to a wine bar for someone’s birthday, so we could all get pissed beforehand, they were bloody considerate those guys. I remember Owen’s goal alright, and I remember leaping to my feet to celebrate (pre-Judas) Sol Campbell’s goal, only to be ruled out by Alan ‘bloody’ Shearer’s thoughtless elbow on an Argie defender. I remember using some very bad language on my stagger to the tube station afterward, and can only apologise to anyone Argentinean who may have heard it.

Then God Hoddle shot his mouth off and England got Keegan. I loved his Newcastle side like everyone else, but always thought he was a bit of a Muppet. By Euro 2000 I was living in Dublin and took my life in my hands cheering Shearer’s goal vs Germany in a Leopardstown pub – that didn’t go down to well with the locals (“It’s OK, we’re Kiwis” “Ye’re feckin eeejits”). England were a bit shit, of course, and this was the beginning of the end, Keegan was apparently great at ‘geeing the lads up’, but was utterly, cruelly clueless tactically.

I packed it in when they lost to Germany at Wembley’s last match in the worst performance and Keegan resigned immediately afterwards. “I don’t need this shit” I thought. “I’ve got enough bloody teams to worry about without these guys”. I watched Beckham beat Greece on his own impassively. I laughed at Seaman’s ponytail and Sven’s inability to keep it in his trousers. I tried backing Italy (The Sopranos) and Brazil (Ronaldo) in Japan/Sth Korea 02, but didn’t get tooooo worked up. Everyone loves Brazil deep down anyway. I watched Rooney go off injured and England going out of Euro 04 and felt a twinge of… something.

Now I’m back, chastened. The time is right, England can play some nice football. There’s loads of Spurs players in the team and squad. They’ve got a great chance of winning it, and they’ll have me yelling for them. I only hope they’ve been practicing penalties.

link