Author: Richard Irvine

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Cricket Sadists’ Quarterly out now

In between turning himself into a one man Ashes multimedia empire the likes of which has Rupert Murdoch reaching for the adult diapers, JRod has released the third edition of The Cricket Sadists’ Quarterly. It features Mr Sporadic Sport Blog himself, yours truly, with a piece called ‘How to watch cricket on telly’:

Before you do ANYTHING, you need to draw the curtains. Cricket is a summer sport, and while sunshine is great for sunburn and your neighbor’s fucking vegetable garden, it’s only good for ruining the picture on match day. Block that shit out. Next, you need to turn your television’s sound right down and turn on the radio. Don’t worry that the pictures are generally 30 seconds behind and you spend the day always knowing what’s about to happen like a amateur  clairvoyant – TV with radio is like mowing ‘I AM SERIOUS CRICKET FAN’ in your lawn. Plus you get a superior class of statistician on the wireless.

Buy the mag / download the mag. Get in there.

Eden Park ill-prepared for large crowds of people

NEWSDESK: The unrest at Saturday evening’s twin Rugby League  internationals highlighted Eden Park’s unsuitability for hosting large groups of people observing sporting events. “Our re-development was designed with Auckland NPC matches, test cricket or ACT party rallies in mind. We’re talking 12 or 13 people, max,” said Steve Commodore-Lease, a spokesman for Eden Park. “Next thing we know, there’s farkin thousands of League fans showing  up on Saturday night. Lucky we’d installed, like, seats in those big buildings.”

Eden Park’s research tells them they could be placed in a similar situation for the ‘Rugby World Cup’, to held in 2011. “We knew something was up when they started building a train station next door, we were all ‘Waaaaait a minute.’ We’ll compare notes with Christchurch’s AMI Stadium, they’re  hugely experienced in hosting unpopular sporting events,” said Mr Commodore-Lease.

Beautiful flux

A McSweeney’s review of Tony Hawk’s book contains this neat little passage:

Note: Starting in the early eighties, Hawk dominated ramp skating in ways that would be literally impossible to overemphasize. I’m not merely talking about his success in contests, although until he retired in 1999 he was all-but unbeatable, but rather I’m referring to the extent that his innovation and abilities consistently eclipsed those of his peers. To watch him skate was, and to a degree still is, to gaze into a widening chasm between skateboarding’s present and past. Whenever he dropped in on a ramp, the accepted boundaries of the sport were in a thrilling, beautiful flux.

Steve Hansen clocked driving 31kph under speed limit; dodges ticket

NEWSDESK: All Blacks assistant coach Steve Hansen was apprehended after a leisurely vehicle pursuit along Cashel Street in Christchurch at Labour weekend. The radar gun recorded his speed at just 19kph in a 50kph zone, but Hansen was not issued an infringement notice.

“Of course I let him off – he’s with the ABs. And a Mason,” said arresting officer Dane Handlebar. “Still, though. What a fucking nana.” Hansen’s treatment is consistent with that one time Grizz Wylie was found asleep at the wheel in the Shirley clubrooms carpark and was offered a taxi chit and Chocolate Primo by police.

One day, Hong Kong could be global Rugby champions

A Mormon missionary stands at your door and enthuses about the Hong Kong Bledisloe match to establish rapport.

G’day my mate. How’s your saveloy situation?

No sir, I’m referring to Saturday night! You gotta stock up on snacks and beverages, ‘cos it’s big game night, amigo! We’re going head to head with the Aussies! At Rugby! Mate. I thought the Bledisloe couldn’t BE more extreme, but now they’ve taken it on the road to a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.

Woah. That near-capacity crowd won’t know what hit em.

It’s gonna be huge – half of the Hong Kong crowd will paint their little faces black, half will be paintin’ ’em yellow, and the rest will be painting half black half yellow to show they don’t care who wins, they’re just stoked to be part of the global rugby family. And that they’ll only buy officially IRB endorsed merchandise.

Elder Zach said the match is a thinly veiled excuse for ex-pat backslapping, old school tie network deal making and a 72 hour wanton piss-up. I say look out for the Dan Carter air show – bam! It’s Sonny Bill Williams – tackle buster to the max! Can you handle Steve Hansen – getting freaky and outta control! There’s no stopping rugby in Asia – imagine Jackie Chan kung fu kicking off the scrum! Imagine eating egg foo young while taking in some serious oval ball code! Imagine going up against a ninja to claim the loose ball! Elder Zach’s going to owe the rugby union fellas a pretty big apology after this one -gimme five!

Typical

So you take the ‘other’ North London team, stick them in the Champions League after a few (lasagne-induced. ahem) near misses, play Inter at the San Siro and they produce a fairly business as usual Tottenham result. You know, three nil down after quarter of an hour, man sent off, a breezy hat-trick and almost getting a result in the hardest match of the round. Typical.

Bale’s hat-trick was marvelous, he strolled through the aged Inter defence like Justin Beiber wowing ’em at a New Zealand First rally. We’ll know we’re a proper Champions League team when the first thought isn’t ‘hope we can hang on to Gareth Bale’, but ‘fuck you, we’ve got Gareth Bale’.

Bloody good on us. We’ve played everyone now and we should be used to the air up here. We’re a respectable second in the group and the aim now is beating Inter at home and getting out of the group. And a cheeky Rooney bid in January.

Commonwealth tame

The Commonweath Games. You’d get bigger crowds if Gerry Brownlee was caught in a fisherman’s net and the contents of his belly were publicly examined.

Deadball has dismissed the event like Richard Hadlee showing a hapless batsman the way to the changing shed, and I agree, mostly. Anywhere that sevens and netball are the main attractions is a bit TV One and slippers, innit? I AM enjoying seeing little-covered sports like squash, track cycling and lawn bowls on the telly, and if I was still a sifty student I could watch Sky TV’s games mosaic for days on end, just letting the sport wash over me like Cleopatra forcing her minions to entertain her before slipping into an ass milk bath. Or something.

Predictably and depressingly, we’re picking up a steady stream of silvers and bronzes and fourths. Our main medal hopes are in sports where we’re able to  bully the shit out of everyone else, like sevens, netball, whatever Valerie Adams does and Who Has The Most Racist TV Presenter. We do better at the Olympics.

Predictably and depressingly, the Australians are cleaning up. Sure, they don’t look happy about it, sporting surly scowls like 12 year old being made to attend their weird cousin’s 21st, and in protest, have developed the most startling innovation of the games – winning, then giving the officials the fingers.
Think of how many giving-the-officials-the-fingers opportunities have been missed through the years.
Dubbed Fingari Kari, it’s the ultimate self-foot-shooting when you’re a few seconds away from collecting the medal and being carried back to the games village on the shoulders of your team mates, towing a box of condoms on wheels. It’s brilliant. And bizarre – what goes through an athlete’s mind? Apart from ‘fuck this shit’.

I kind of hope for Delhi’s sake that Delhi can somehow turn these games around (and this could only be achieved by introducing surprise events like ‘Who can park a car on Prince Phillip the most accurately’ and ‘10000 metre Queen annoying’). Otherwise, the only bright spot for residents who’ve had to make room in their city for pushy sports parents toting inexplicable lanyards, camcorders and shitty attitudes is that they’ve rung the deathknell for an outdated institution that’s been overtaken by, well, pretty much any sporting event that’s not called ‘the Commonwealth Games’.
Can Delhi turn these games around with new events ‘Who can park a car on Prince Phillip the most accurately?’ and ‘10000 metre Queen annoying’