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:

sportreview.net.nz Hayden Roulston arse coverage

Check out this clip at 1’50 – that’s Hayden Roulston‘s arse. He had a bad fall on the cobbles during the weekend’s Paris-Roubaix race and Did Not Finish.

The clip gives you a good idea of Paris-Roubaix, or The Hell Of The North’s fairly frickin insane racing style – when it rains, you get a kind of Mad Max / muddy Galstonbury raver hybrid on bikes. Riders have to cope with several cobbled sections, guaranteed to shake bikes and riders’ fillings loose. This prompts much discussion on modifying sleek road machines to take cobble-related punishment.

Further Hayden Roulston arse coverage from the Belgium Knee Warmers blog:

No-one knows quite where to look, eh?

sportreview.net.nz is off piste for the week

No sportreview.net.nz this week. Reading list ’til next time:

The No-Stats All-Star – Michael Lewis, NYT

Lance Armstrong Rides Again – Douglas Brinkley, Vanity Fair

The pain of pedal power – Simon Scardifield, The Times

‘Happiness was defined by the moment when you slotted a Subbuteo football past your best friend’s goalkeeper’ – Extracts of Graham Taylor and David Baddiel’s Subbuteo reminiscences, The Guardian

Sex, drugs and shoulder pads – The unbelievable story of the implosion of the Dallas Cowboys – Jeff Pearlman, The Observer

Non sport: Playing The Beatles Backwards: The Ultimate Countdown – Jamsbio

Googling shit up with Garth George

Today, NZ Herald go-to curmudgeon Garth George rails against John Key’s proposed national cycleway. Sandwiched between heart-rending tales of being forced to ride a bike to school and smug reference to his “warm, dry, powerful motor car” are six quotes about cycling.

I tweeted that Garth probably had wiki quote open while thundering out his column. I was wrong.

But I *did* find five of the six quotes Garth padded his bluster out with on Quotegarden’s cycling page, which is the first result when you type ‘cycling quote’ into Google.

So, I present the following table just so we’re clear where Garth got his material for today’s column from:

Garth George quotes from Google’s first hit on ‘cycling quote’

The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine. – John Howard

You never have the wind with you – either it is against you or you’re having a good day. – Daniel Behrman

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. – Ernest Hemingway

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. – H.G. Wells

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it – if you live. – Mark Twain

Garth George quotes from somewhere else

If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest aesthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it. – Maria Louise Rame


The professionally pissed off Garth George

So, sportreview.net.nz apologies to Garth for thinking he was a wikiquote man instead of a first-result-on-Google  kind of guy.

Lance Armstrong new bike pics

@lancearmstrong twittered his new bike:

More here, here and here.

A new Lance Armstrong bike release is usually accompanied by the kind of fanfare and careful media management a David Beckham fart attracts in the UK. But LA has simply taken a few snaps with his Blackberry and uploaded them into cyberspace himself. Having him on Twitter is awesome, his media handlers must be having kittens.

What I learned in 2008

2008 lacked last year’s dangling carrots of World Cup glory, or the crushing, crushing disappointment. Still, with the Olympics and Euro 2008 to go with full Rugby and Cricket programmes, there was plenty to watch, write and bet online about. Here’s what I learned:

Crusaders fans threatening to support Australia against the All Blacks have very short attention spans

TV reporters going to find Crusaders fans threatening to support Australia against the All Blacks look very foolish indeed

Graham Henry and Richie McCaw are pretty good at what they do

Even that won’t get Rattue back on side

The Black Caps are an effective test cricket side like a Jelly Tip is an effective sunhat

Ricky Ponting gets pretty narky when he loses

But then Andrew Symonds, Micheal Clarke, Mike Hussey and Brett Lee aren’t as good as we thought they were. At least Ponting can bat

Australia’s fall is a god send for sports writers and columnists filling word count over the holiday break

Hayden Roulston is a shit hot cyclist on the track and the road, and is just a fucking cool guy

Lance Armstrong is on Twitter

Even the Rugby League World Cup got exciting toward the very end after all

It’s not quite the same without Flem

Juande Ramos isn’t as good as I thought

I had to re-think my dim view of Harry Redknapp

Iain O’Brien is a pretty decent cricketer and blogger

W e can win Olympic golds after all

The Tour De France reached yet another low point despite the cool bikes – roll on 2009

Just getting rid of Bracewell isn’t going to fix everything

sportreview.net.nz related learnings include:
It’s nerve-wracking but fun to sit alone in a broom-cupboard-like studio to talk on the radio. I was stoked to be asked, and with with how it came out, managing to get a few pre-rolled zingers in

Bloggers don’t get picked to coach the Black Caps too often

I enjoyed scanning old photos and writing up my fav stadiums and trips

Robbie Deans is a double agent

Even with 15 minutes’ trouble to set up a CafePress store, people don’t buy your shit

PowerPoint is still the best for making cartoons

There’s nothing like a semi-organised cartoon archive

Kids make blogging time scarce – must focus

This year I really enjoyed JRod’s blog, and Hadyn Green’s Field Theory was always good for a Friday afternoon uniform debate. I met Graeme for a beer and to talk tactics. I joined Twitter, quit, and got back on it. This was my first year on a proper domain and on wordpress, and I’m very happy with both.

Thanks to everyone that’s read, commented and linked to sportreview.net.nz  – I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Sometimes this blog feels like a ‘if a tree falls in the forrest, does anyone hear it’ situation, but I love doing it – your participation is much valued. I go by Wil Wheaton’s adage that “it doesn’t matter how many people ‘get’ your work, as long as the right people do’. You’re the right people. Ta.

Lazy days of summer

It’s summer hols, and for sportreview.net.nz that means very little time spent on sportreview.net.nz. No, this time is better spent on SR junior, sleep, the xmas ham, beer and bashing out Eagles numbers on the axe. Not literally. You know what I mean.

Sport doesn’t sleep though – here’s what you’ve missed:

NZ played the West Indies at 20/20. Yawn. Gayle got out in Hamilton, the WIs lost, no co-incidence there. Ryder and McCullum got an opening partnership together, a great sign for the one day series.

Australia were down trou-ed across the Tasman. This one got more time on the SR remote than the Napier test, put it that way. After we softened them up *hollow laugh*, South Africa have thoroughly defeated the once great Aussies, hanging on to their mantle as the world’s best like a groom after a three day stag do trying to play pinball. Despite the stand out performances of Smith, De Villiers, Steyn and Duminy, South Africa look like a team, with several blokes firing at once, and everyone stepping up to do their job, exactly the opposite of the Australians. They know the axe is about to swing in their dressing room, and look like they’re waiting to see who will be hit. Chris Rattue pointed out it’s tough on the Aussies they have to deal with a Shane Warne-adorned sightscreen throughout this series. The first thing Brian Clough did when he took over Leeds in the 70s was take down the pictures of Bremner, Hunter, etc from the walls – that’s what the Aussies need, to start again and create a new empire. Ricky Ponting produced a couple of great innings to show he’s not about to pull a Kim Hughes just yet. If he can bring the new look side up to speed, he will have done something far harder than Taylor or Waugh.

I got back on the bike. Was fun – but flat. I need to fnd some hills. @lancearmstrong has nothing to worry about at this stage.

Actually, not a lot else has happened. More importantly, I haven’t gone for a fish yet. Laptop down. See you in 2009.