Links on Friday

Footballers. They’re generally into Page Three models, Essex nightclubs and flash motors. Innit. But, it turns out that plucky title-challengers-Liverpool are sheltering the EPL’s only hipster footballer Daniel Sturridge, the “Kanye West of the Northwest”. It’s a fair call, and Vice asks valid questions about why footballers are so uncool generally (remember when George Benson was every player’s fav musician in Roy Of The Rovers questionnaires?), but I say Sturridge is number two hipster – doesn’t get more street than Andy Carroll off his tits at a festival wearing a flouro vest, does it?

BPNIyD9CUAAt7BX.jpg_large

Further ‘Scottish football managers are generally angry’ news:

Baseball fandom get the New York Times data journalism treatment. Interesting, nerdy stuff – but it seems sportreview.net.nz-favoured Oakland Athletics have  no fans. Kind of like sportreview. Ahem.

American Football team logos designed as proper football logos. Some of these are awesome.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Etc

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team.  Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK / Cartoons / Links on Friday

Thanks for bearing with the ten year posts team, I know it’s been a hard slog. And thanks again for reading. It’s always a thrill to know that a few people enjoy reading the site and get a laugh out of it. As always, the aim of the site is:

I love sport, and I love New Zealand. We Kiwis support our sports people admirably, but take it all a bit seriously. I just want to inject a little humour. Relax, it won’t hurt a bit.

Also thanks to the other sports bloggers, who are a little thinner on the ground now as say five or six years ago (Twitter has a lot to answer for here). The likes of Graeme , JRod, the Beige Brigade (one of the finest fan-lead organisations in the world)’s Paul Ford, Hadyn (the Dropkicks!), Duncan Grieve‘s lamented DeadBall and all the others I’ve missed. It was a lot of fun being part of a group of (mostly) guys who gave a lot of fucks about sport, on the field, but also about the issues around it, the creep of commercialisation and where where the sporting organisations were taking their sports.

The site has evolved over the years from a pretty straight links-blog-with-a-little-comment to the cartoons, to the links on Friday, to the satire, to the ‘analytical‘ stuff to what it is now. Yes, I know the site is not updated as frequently as its heyday, and that pragmatically, with my job, I’m not as actively annoying.  Hopefully that’s balanced out a little, where possible, with some behind-the-scences stuff from the BLACKCAPS. Here’s when I went to Bangladesh and, um, here’s that other time I went to Bangladesh. Ahem.

Some of the posts I’ve enjoyed writing the most are from my own sporting experiences – as someone that spent most of my OE trying to visit sports events, the sportreview.net.nz top 12 stadiums post was a great place to record all that (top three are Waikato Stadium, Eden Park and White Hart Lane, spoiler fans). There’s also my two attempts to cover myself in glory and lager at the 1999 Cricket World Cup in Cardiff as the BLACKCAPS beat the Aussies, and the All Blacks v Italy pool match in Huddersfield that ended with an un-sanctioned meet and greet with the team in a Leeds nightclub, also in ’99. You may also enjoy this write up of playing cricket in a friendly fixture / piss up in Wexford, Ireland.

1999, what a year! Making friends with Glen Osbourne in Huddersfield.

Scoreboard 200608

1999, what a year! Celebrating wasting the Ockers in Cardiff.
Some other stuff that you may enjoy are the sportreview podcast – start with this French test preview. Try also Sport’s top five Fight Club duos and the Top ten tragic moments in New Zealand Sport.

I’m still taking Stalkipedia entries, you know.

I enjoyed the site the most during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the one we bloody won. Reminisce on the semi-final,  the final, Stephen Donald’s recall and those bloody jerseys.

If you’re having a look through the site, start with the Greatest Hits.

I think that’s about it. I think the site can be summed up best by ‘caring about sport’ and ‘having fun’, and I trust that if you’ve found your way here you do one, or the other, or both.  Good on you, sport needs more like you.  Righto.

2013-10-14 07.30.05

That Bangladesh bat-signing shambles in full.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Links on Friday

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team.  Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK / Cartoons / Links on Friday

This is the 127th post tagged ‘Links on Friday’ – hopefully the extensive yet sporadic coverage of Roy Keane, Kevin Keegan, own goals and  Zombies has made your Friday log-on a little more entertaining. Here’s some of the best YouTubeage from over the years.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Cartoons

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team. 

See all the other cartoons that aren’t as good as these ones.

Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK / Cartoons 

25 July 2005 – first one

Clive

23 July 2008
Dingo deans double agent 230708

25 July 2010
Dingonightmare270710

See all the Dingo Deans Double Agent cartoons.

12 March 2009
Superdobbers 120309

20 February 2009
Tech talk with Phil Waugh 200209

28 November 2005
Worldcup281105

29 March 2006
JM in England

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: NEWSDESK

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team. 

Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK

Read all articles, which are worse than these, tagged NEWSDESK.

24 June 2011: Stephen Donald resting up on Kapiti Coast beach

NEWSDESK: Former All Black Stephen Donald has made himself at home on a Kapiti Coast beach. Donald, who was dropped from the All Black training squad this week, was discovered by Peka Peka Beach resident Gladys Coronation, who was out walking her dogs. “I thought I was seeing things, it’s pretty unusual to see an All Black in this neck of the woods. He seems content, but he’s just… sitting there.”

Coronation contacted the Department of Conservation, who are advising that people should remain at least ten metres away from Stephen Donald at all times, and that dogs should be kept on a leash. “Donald could deliver a vicious peck if he feels threatened. Best case scenario is that he eventually swims back out to sea,” said a DOC spokesperson.

The residents of Peka Peka beach have taken Stephen Donald into their hearts, and are taking it in turns to stand guard. “I’d love to throw a blanket on him and say ‘Just forget about fucking up in Hong Kong, bro’ but you have to let him be. You just have to let him be,” said local hardcase Gavin McEyebrow.

17 September 2007: French to All Blacks – ‘We will steal your girlfriends’

NEWSDESK: French efforts to win the World Cup are moving from the playing field to the bedroom, launching a campaign to distract the All Blacks by stealing their girlfriends. Experts believe the players’ unrelenting focus on World Cup preparations, not sweet nothings whispered in ears, could leave them exposed to a brigade of oily French marauders.

Alarm bells are ringing in the All Blacks’ camp at the potentially disastrous consequences sudden, unexpected heartbreak could have on the campaign. Despite smelling mainly of garlic, onions and cheap aftershave, French men are renowned for their sensitivity to a woman’s physical and emotional desires, compared with our Kiwi fellas’ grunting emotional unavailability. Tactics at the French gits’ disposal include admiring the starry lights of Paris by night, getting caught in the rain and seeking shelter in a cafe, browsing second hand bookshops wearing a beret, and speaking French, the language of love.

The All Blacks are now playing catch up, learning key romantic French phases like “Ici, ayez une chemise de polo d’Adidas, je l’a obtenue libre” (Here, have an Adidas polo shirt, I got it free), “Là où sont mes chaussettes propres?” (Where are my clean socks?), and “La jeune mariée d’emballement est sur le câble ce soir, bébé” (Runaway Bride is on cable tonight, baby).

17 April 2007: England lose, un-invent cricket. World Cup thrown into chaos

NEWSDESK: In a bold move, England un-invented Cricket following their crushing nine wicket defeat at the hands of South Africa. Former ECB Chairman David Morgan told reporters “Our supporters have long faced taunts about England inventing the game, but being crap at it. Well, sod you lot quite frankly, we can ruddy well un-invent it. That is all.” When pressed further while leaving the press conference, a clearly tired and emotional Morgan blurted “You Aussies think you’re so smart – well stick this up your jacksie, Trev.” before being quickly lead away.

Chartered accountant Micheal Vaughan said “Obviously we’ll take full responsibility for ending Cricket forever – that’s life. Batting first after winning the toss wasn’t the best move, but hindsight’s 20/20 isn’t it? We just have to make the best of it.” Yorkshire plumber Andrew Flintoff: “Well the lads are pretty disappointed at how its worked out, but we mustn’t grumble, we’d had a good innings. We’ll always have fond memories of 2005, and that WAS a tremendous piss-up afterwards.”

7 September 2011: All Black selectors get drunk, select backline

NEWSDESK: All Black selectors confirmed they were “pretty wasted” when selecting the team to face Tonga. Forwards coach Steve Hansen told a packed press conference: “We had a few selection headaches, so Smithy brought a box of Woody’s. It all kicked on from there.”

A lightly kebab-stained team sheet revealed the surprise combination of Sonny Bill Williams and Ma’a Nonu, and the inclusion of Isaia Toeava. “I was as surprised as anyone to see Kahui on the wing. Lucky Kronic has been banned, it could have been Mils at centre!” said Hansen.

23 April 2009: Tua / Cameron fight moves to nightclub car park

NEWSDESK: Top Kiwi heavyweights David Tua and Shane Cameron will go toe to toe in the car park of Hamilton’s Troppoz night spot in November. Originally scheduled for Waikato Stadium, then Mystery Creek, the 12 round fight now takes place in a roped off section of the 60 car capacity parking facility. “We’ve hosted a number of fights in our car park” said proprietor Greg Baartowel. “Ohaupo 2nd XV versus the cops in ’93 springs to mind.”

New Zealand’s newest boxing venue is pulling out all the stops to give fight fans their money’s worth. Corporate seating will be offered in a row of thoroughly valeted V8s ringside (“Patrons can specify Holden or Ford”), while general admission punters will get great views from temporarily erected trestle tables. ‘Mountain Man’ Shane Cameron will enter the ring from behind the bar, while David Tua and entourage will emerge from the disabled toilets. Baartowel is keen to emphasise the fight will be a family friendly event. “Like the cricket, if any kids want to get in the ring and have a fight between rounds, they can do so” he said.

29 May, 2007: Dunedin’s stadium debate resolved with formation of ‘Tagotown


NEWSDESK: She’s a hard road finding the perfect city, but the people of ‘Tagotown agree they’ve come pretty close. New Zealand’s newest city has risen from the ashes of the intense debate between the region’s rugby folk and the usual gang of lefty whinging soft cocks. The pro-stadium faction took matters into their own hands and erected a wall between the former Dunedin and their new home, ‘Tagotown. The wall runs from east to west through the the Octogon, and is comprised of worn out tackle bags and couches, many of which have been set on fire.

Wall foreman Steve Hotten laid out some of the city’s founding principles in an oration to the ‘Tagotown people upon the wall’s completion. “It’s pretty farkin simple. Number one – we’re building a stadium. Number two – we support Otago. There’s no number three. If you wanna wear bone carvings, go to Dunedin.”

Unpopular posts

22 September 2010: Delhi officials concede Otago scarfie interior design firm were poor choice

“Athletes bringing a synchronised swimmer back to their room may want to leave the light off, but that’s standard practice where we’re from.”

22 June 2012: Weepu eats Cruden

“When the lights came on, everyone was like ‘where’s Aaron?’. Yeah, you always regret eating a team mate, I’m gutted for him. Hopefully the boys can dig deep on Saturday night and win it for Aaron,” said Weepu.”

29 August 2007: Red faces all round as cylinder contains body parts, not turf

“I got some funny looks going into all those cemeteries with a shovel and saw, let me tell you. What a turn-up, eh?”.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: The banners

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing – thanks for reading, team. 

Regular readers will know poorly conceived jokes and crap photoshopping are sportreview.net.nz cornerstones. The site banner usually contains both.

The first. Clive was an early target of sportreview’s popgun wrath.

World Cup 2006 edition.

Cricket World Cup 2007 edition.

General header. Look how young Richie is here.

Rugby World Cup 2007 edition. Remember how optimistic we all were then team?

2007 turned out a bit shit in the end, if you remember.

First header after moving the site to WordPress from Blogger. Must have been in a hurry with this one.

Never really got over that semi final.

Screen-shot-2011-04-19-at-7.51.44-PM

The Subbuteo one, and the best IMHO. I should really go back to this one.

6140600_d15476345d_o

Stephen Fleming’s field for Jeff Wilson in the FICA Tsunami benefit match at Seddon Park.

banner20133

Godzilla at Hamilton’s Rugby Park, ahead of the Wales v Samoa match in the 2011 World Cup.

2013-12-17-15.07.21

This was the Seddon Park pitch ahead of the BLACKCAPS v West Indies third Test in 2013, fact fans. The sinkhole was photoshopped, just FYI.

You won’t believe the number of ex-Tottenham managers in this post!

The newest ex-Tottenham manager, Tim ‘gilet‘ Sherwood was asked to jog on today after taking Andre Villas-Boas’s eye-wateringly expensive squad to sixth in the league.

Tottenham fans can be certain of a few things – our best players will be sold to United or Real Madrid and our managers will be sacked in a seemingly counter-intuitive fashion. Chairman Daniel ‘Step into my office’ Levy has binned no less than TEN managers since 2001. Admittedly the Premier League is hardly the bastion of managerial job security, but students of the game will note that during this period Arsenal had just Eagle look-alike Arsene Wenger, and Man U had just Sir Alex Fergusson (and Fergie Lite for just under one season) and have a shedload more trophies through that period than our two League Cups.

But, because you don’t have enough pointless run-throughs of other people’s misery in your life, here’s a run through Tottenham’s managerial hanging gallery under Levy.

New dawn, same as the old one

original

George Graham (1 Oct 1998 to 16 March 2001) belonged in Nick Hornby books, not at Tottenham. There were rumours that the Wembley crowd sang his name when we beat Leicester City one-nil in a depressing final, thanks to an Alan Neilsen scrambled-in-with-his-head goal, but I reckon that was bullshit. Graham’s era was all Alan Sugar scowling, ugly Pony kits and Ruel Fox. When Levy’s group brought Sugar out, sacking George Graham it was classic pandering to the fans by getting the boring football, one-nil, hoof-it-up merchant from Arsenal out of the dugout. Little did we know it was the start of a depressingly familiar pattern.

20131222T143659Z_1_CBRE9BL14LP00_RTROPTP_3_SOCCERHODDLE

Glen Hoddle (2 April 2001 to 21 Sept 2003) as a player is everything Tottenham is about. The unexpected and the sublime. No-one could stand around the centre circle spraying passes with their shirt out and socks around their ankles looking as cool as Goddle. His dedication to football’s aesthetics and un-willingness to tackle made him a hero at the Lane, and a misunderstood nearly-man for his country.

His nasty shooting oneself in the foot habit stopped him being great as a manager. With England, his fine team was knocked out by dastardly Argentina in a fantastic match, but then became embroiled in faith healer and unforgivably crass-comment controversies. At Tottenham there was euphoria and hope that finally we had a smart young manager that would lead us to attractive-passing-glory, etc etc etc. The reality was more mundane and Glenda was moved on six games into the 2003 season with Spurs in the relegation zone.

article-2025753-0CA0378200000578-381_468x286

Harry Redknapp (25 Oct 2008 to 15 June 2012) – I never really wanted him, but I was wrong. ‘Arry seemed a knee-jerk ‘let’s get a good-old-English-geezer-in’ appointment and too *West Ham* for us, but he soon showed he could match the best tactically and build a fantastic team. In his first season he sealed fourth spot with a squeaky-bum win at Man City. We had a decent run at the Champions League and WASTED Inter Milan  along the way with Luka Modric, an emerging Gareth Bale and, erm, Peter Crouch. Then there was the court case, the rumours he was off to his (probable) dream job with England and that whole missing out on the Champions League because of stupid Chelsea unpleasantness before Harry too was told to sling his hook.

avb_2566215b

Andre Villas-Boas (3 July 2012 to 16 Dec 2013) may yet become one of the best managers in the game, just not at Tottenham. His intense, academic, player-alienating moneyball approach had early success, but after spending an un-Tottenham SHITLOAD of cash on players with no Premier League experience between them and seeing them struggle, he was given the support of the board and time needed to put his managerial plan into action, despite the initial hiccups*.

*Just jokes, he was sacked.

The in-betweeners

jolberb

If Harry Redknapp felt like a knee-jerk-ingly English appointment, Martin Jol (5 Nov 2004 to 26 Oct 2007), Jaques Santini (3 June 2003 to 5 Nov 2004) and Juande Ramos  (29 Oct 2007 to 25 Oct 2008) felt like knee jerk ‘let’s get one of them Europeans in’ efforts. Santini was a mystery, hardly there really before resigning of his own accord. Ramos won a trophy (the good old League Cup), but was woeful in his first actual season, while Jol managed over 150 games in charge, almost making the Champions League early on (if it wasn’t for a dodgy lasagne). He certainly raised the bar, getting us into the top six or thereabouts consistently. Jol was certainly affable and had a decent amount of time, but was ultimately not the answer we were looking for.

The good old Tottenham boys

article-2046388-003B297C00000258-75_468x331

David Pleat, Clive Allen and Tim Sherwood are cannon-fodder. Men with Spurs in their blood lured to the White Hart Lane bench on a hiding to nothing, then binned as soon as something better happens along. Expect to see Steffen Freund in this role in the near future.

And so, we enter another summer, a World Cup one at that with no idea who’ll be in the cockerel blazer at the start of the next season. sportreview.net.nz’s dream appointment remains Jurgen Klinsmann, but as he’s taking the USA to the World Cup, that seems unlikely.

Arsenal are a handy club to compare ourselves with, and even though their fans may grumble about lack of investment etc etc etc, with Wenger their team has out-Tottenham-ed us at the pretty football, they’ve been in the Champions League every year and have many more trophies that count. Maybe all this swap and change is part of the culture. Notoriously fickle Tottenham fans are quick to get on a manager’s back when things aren’t going swimmingly and Levy,  apparently a local lad and fan, is generally quick to give the fans what they want.  As he looks for his 11th Tottenham manger, he may reflect on his own role in overseeing this shambles.  Hopefully some out-of-the-box advisor advises picking someone decent and sticking with him. We’ve given everything else a go – why not have a crack at stability?

Links on Friday

The Guardian’s Word Cup: 25 Stunning Moments series is top class, going long on the great tournament’s best / grubbiest bits. Roy Keane walking out in Ireland is my fav so far, ‘cos it has  sportreview.net.nz fav Keano lore, with the backstory to one of the great sporting quotes: “You can stick it up your bollocks.” Bonus link: Dry Your Eyes Becks.

ESPN’s Rick Reilly with a long list of truths from his sportswriting career:
I would rather cover athletes than any other anything. They show up early. They are accountable. They suffer fools endlessly and punch a very small percentage of them. They’re forced to explain themselves daily and yet do it without bile. They push themselves places you don’t know exist. Exhausted, they perform feats, under pressure, that never fail to give me chicken skin.

Genre-busting ‘freaky basketball trickshot’ here.

The Who Will Punch Steven Adams in the Face Power Rankings has been doing the rounds on Twitter, and with good reason. Not only has Valerie’s brother made it to some Very Important Basketball Matches (my colleagues assure me), he’s a Jedi master at both ‘niggly elbows’ and ‘all-innocence reaction’ that anyone who’s played social indoor football will be immediately familiar with.

Links on Friday

sportreview.net.nz never really bothered getting to know the cavalcade of mustachioed, grimacing, gum chomping Aussies that tormented the Young Guns through the 80s and 90s. Luckily, Russell has all you need to know about top order tormentor David Boon with The Joy Of Six David Boon moments – it’s a sprawling run through the innings, the songs, the short leg magic, packed with links  and clips like the definitive tomb on the 52 cans saga, and the great man doing Talking Heads’ Once in a lifetime, would you believe.

Jon McAfee is best known for designing anti-virus software that ALWAYS needs updating, and going on the run and a bit bat shit crazy in Belize when wanted on a murder charge. Unexpectedly (or expectedly), his interview with a nerdy tech site on the hardware and software he uses to get things done is quotation gold:

“I change phones every two weeks to avoid being tagged by the NSA or some other agency, so I favor hardware systems that allow for quick and easy data transfer between phones.
“I also do my most productive security designs while having extended sex. I apologize if you think I am pulling your legs but, God’s truth, these are the facts.
“My favorite real-time software is the XM153 remote control software that comes standard with the XM153 50 caliber machine gun.”

Long read: It turns out all the credit for the LA Kings being any good and getting Wayne Gretzky and that goes to Alan Thicke. Yes the dad from Growing Pains. He schmoozes, he sings, and winds up best mates with Michael Jordan. 

If you Wikipedia ‘celebrated too soon’ and ‘you look like a tool, mate’, you will find this clip. Kind of like a thriller with a telegraphed twist at the end, but fun all the same.