Throw Back

English football is enjoying a welcome renaissance and its all thanks to the cultured skills of those renowned artistic denizens Rory Delap and Aron Gunnarsson. Yes folks, the long throw-in is back.

Although hated by that indeterminable bunch known otherwise as ‘the purists’ the long throw is a proven and effective method of doing what the England midfield seem incapable of; namely getting the ball into goalscoring opportunities. So, as David Beckham remains a fixture in the England line-up for his ability to deliver ‘a quality ball in’, why no similar praise and fawning over the throw-in style of Delap?

Perhaps this foot to hand bias has its roots in the history of the game, after all, the long throw has never really found favour with football’s authorities. To prevent the game’s early players using the then one-handed throw-in technique to hurl the ball way downfield like a quarter back the FA changed the rules. In came the two hands behind the head two feet on the floor technique, and that was thought to be the end of the long throw.

Until the 1970 FA Cup Final and the long throw renaissance courtesy of Ian Hutchinson’s pioneering windmill technique. Hutchinson believe that by continuing the throw motion after the release propelled the ball even further, with Chelsea’s winning goal arguable proof. Twelve years later the long throw produced another Cup Final assist from QPR’s Simon Stainrod but it was not until the end of the century that the art reached its zenith.

The long jump had the all American tussle of Mike Powell versus Carl Lewis, the long throw however had the all British dominance; Andy Legg versus Dave Challinor. The pair trading world records whilst an expectant nation looked on with vague interest. Legg of Notts County, Birmingham and Cardiff, the blond tousled poster boy of the throw set the initial record. But he was eventually beaten by throw-in champion of the people Challinor. With the aid of towel-armed ballboys and strategic advertising board gaps Challinor topped out at 46.2 metres in 2000.

As with other aspects of the game the long throw-in also had its showboaters; enter that latter day footballing cavalier Steve Watson. Taking his cue from footage of obscure Estonian full-backs on Sportsnight Watson introduced the somersault throw-in to English football. Using a hand spring to gather more momentum it was believed that distances up to seventy metres could be achieved using this technique, as well as countless crooked necks and slipped discs on amateur football fields the length of the country.

In Ken Bray’s ‘How to Score’, the author suggests that a long throw should be easier to defend than say a free-kick or corner as the ball is usually in the air for longer, giving defenders more time to react. And yet despite the science an effective long throw continues to reduce even the most talented defender to all the composure of a cat that’s just fallen in a bath.

Given its effectiveness why is the long throw now considered a last resort? Does it stem from the modern consumer approach to football fandom? Many supporters are no longer happy with just a win, having forked out a considerable fortune for their ticket they want instead to be entertained. Gary Neville’s long throw used to be a regular feature of Manchester United attacks, but not anymore. Why throw the ball into the box when you could throw it to the feet of Cristiano Ronaldo for a stepover or seven? As consumerism has taken hold at Old Trafford Neville now appears as reluctant to wheel out the party trick as a teenager at a family Christmas asked to ‘sing that song you used to sing’ for an overly doting grandmother.

While some players have been honed into free-kick specialists the long throwers have been left to their own devices, as unwanted as the last volauvent at a wedding buffet. As the game moves from the objective to the subjective the long throw in has slowly become the wind turbine on football’s coastline. Functional and effective, yet commonly perceived as ugly, a blot on the landscape. However, I ask of you, please look again. Open your eyes that little wider and instead view them in late afternoon as the setting sun glints of their blades and you need that last gasp equaliser at any cost, then perhaps you will finally understand their worth and see that the long throw-in, like the well delivered free-kick, can become a thing of beauty

Olympic Education

The thing I love most about the Olympic Games, all Olympic Games, is their ability to draw you into sports that at all other times exist on the very edge of your consciousness. Over the course of the past fortnight I have been enthralled in contests in sports I know very little about; taekwondo, canoeing, boxing, BMX have all held me captive on my sofa.

As a result I can subsequently justify the hours spent using the red button to follow everything from Handball to the Heptathlon as an educational venture. The Olympic Games has taught me things, and here are just a few of them;

1. On Their Own, Britons Aren’t That Good
However, throw in a bike, or a boat, or a horse and we’ll meet you on the podium.

2. Water Polo is Brutal
I turned it on just as the camera zoomed in to see an Italian substitute having their nose reset. Oh, and this was the women’s game.

3. Rowers are Posh
All of them, every single one. Britain takes a team of about a hundred of them and not a single dropped a ‘H’ to be found.

4. Gymnastics in Volleyball Must be the Norm
Women’s Pool Match; Brazil versus Cuba. One of the Brazilian team keeps the ball alive by simultaneously performing a ‘dig’ and the splits... the commentators are unmoved.

5. Olympic Archers are Damn Good
Coverage of the archery begins with a split screen of archer and target, and as this the same manner in which darts is televised my brain tends to compute the distance between the two objects on a similar ratio to that in darts. One panning shot later and I’m blown away, the targets are placed at one end of an arena, and the archers take up a position on the Mongolian border.

6. Commentators Swap Shifts
I can only assume that this is the reason why silver spoon gargling voice of equestrian Michael Tucker was to be found commentating on the Water Polo. Unless of course at a BBC planning meeting a typo omitted the word ‘water’. The result was pure Alan Partridge as Tucker morphed every statement into a question for his expert co-commentator; “Oh, and that was a great... er... lob shot, was it?”

7. World Sport Needs More James DeGales
Appearing on the BBC’s final Games Today show after his Boxing Gold James DeGale took Gabby Logan a flower from his winners’ bouquet, his delivery, not quite as chivalrous. “You’re a pretty girl innit, you get things like that”

Pro Set and Match

One of the best things about having a teacher as a parent is the swag. Anything half decent that my dad confiscated from his comprehensive school classes would, having failed to have been claimed at the end of the week, eventually find its way to me. My contraband included bouncy balls, rubic cubes and most memorably a vast stash of Shooting Star football cards circa 1992.

This element of my youth was returned last week when, for reasons too long and dull to explain, I received a job lot of Pro Set football cards from the same era. As precious as my ‘acquired’ Shooting Star collection was to me, there was no denying that Pro Set were the collection that really mattered. They covered the other divisions, and they even had the England badge on.

So, at the age of twenty-five I had finally made it as the nine-year-old I never was, and was plunged into a nostalgia induced coma at the same time. Robert Fleck, Tony Daley, Glenn Hysen, Sheffield United sponsored by Laver, references to Plough Lane and Ayresome Park. The last fifteen years has been a very long time in football. In fact, of the 250 or so cards the nearest to a current player are the recently retired duo of Dion Dublin and Teddy Sheringham, of Cambridge and Millwall respectively in the world of Pro Set.

These cards are from the 1991-92 season, the last season before the Premier League but it’s a world away from the TV savvy hyperbole of the Sky generation. In fact two graduates of Match of the Day’s ‘state the obvious’ school of punditry are in this collection; what looks like a thirteen year old Lee Dixon and an even younger Alan Shearer. And even Alfe Inge Haaland could find a touch of affection for the gawky looking twenty-year-old Roy Keane.

What makes the cards is the player biogs printed on the reverse; whole careers in no more than fifty words. In amongst the seemingly archaic five figure transfer fees (and less; I could have bought Derby’s Phil Gee with my student loan) are some great descriptions. Tottenham’s Gudni Bergsson is described as being ‘upright’, whilst the profile of QPR’s Jan Stejskal is strangely anecdotal; “Manager Don Howe wanted an experienced goalkeeper and remembered Jan’s fine displays for Czechoslovakia in the World Cup. He negotiated the deal and the big man from Prague made his debut in October 1990 against Leeds United”. That’s all of it.

The contrast between the pre-Premier League football world suspended on these cards, and the subsequent Sky spawned product is staggering. 1992, just four years before David Beckham lobbed Neil Sullivan, and football shorts are still so obscenely short that in the present day only the Pussycat Dolls would wear garments of a similar length. Thanks in part to Derek Mountfield, Tony Coton, Eddie McGoldrick and the Snodin brothers moustaches are still rampant across the top flight. And most tellingly of all, parts of Steve Ogrizovic’s nose are still pointing the same way as the rest of his face. Ah, the memories

Gold Weighted

Death in a car crash is not the opening five words you expect from a blog that perturbs to be a less than serious look at sport, but please stick with me, it gets a lot less dark. The death in question occurred last year and it is that of Susann Steiner, the wife of German weightlifter Matthias Steiner. After his wife’s passing Matthias made it his destiny to win the Olympic +105kg weightlifting title in her honour.

A year on, and with just one lift remaining Steiner sat in second place. To win the Gold he needed to clean-and-jerk eight kilograms more than the leading Russian lifter. Steiner made the lift and as the buzzer sounded he dropped the weight to the floor and both he and the crowd erupted. Steiner’s incredible emotional celebrations lasted for nearly five minutes as he tore of his vest and dropped to his knees. Upright again he danced and yelled and hugged seemingly every coach in the arena, he was but a crowd dive away from scoring the perfect 10 celebration.

When he stepped up to the podium to receive the Gold medal he had strived for Steiner held a picture of Susann. The word love is often referenced in the context of sport, but in the modern era it is unlikely to have a more fitting occasion than Steiner’s Gold. These Games which be remembered historically for the achievements of Phelps and Bolt, but I don’t think there could have been a more Olympic story nor a more deserved gold medal than Matthias Steiner’s.

Frankly Exorbitant

I am an educated man, but I would very much like to punch Frank Lampard in the face. Daily. I make no apologies for this irrational desire, mainly because it’s not irrational. It started with that horrific advert for The Sun (“there are Supergoals like this”) when even in the world of professional footballers Lampard managed to sound remarkably dumb, and continued in ascendency this week when I found out just how much the man earns.

During the Chelsea, Portsmouth match at the weekend the commentators made a worryingly blasé reference to Lampard’s pay packet of £34million over five years. A figure as staggering as it is ludicrous. If I were to pay a footballer that much money then I would demand goals. Not just one or two a game, but for £34million I would expect a goal every time that player touched the ball. If so much as a defensive header failed to fly into the top corner I’d be demanding my money back.

Footballers used to justify their high earnings with the facts that their careers were comparatively shorter than the average worker. A fact I don’t dispute. However such are Lampard’s earnings that his career could last less than a month and he would be set for life. And thus comes another reason for a well delivered right hook; when this contract was finalised Lampard had the cheek to say; “...there has been a bit of a compromise on both sides”. Presumably initial talks broke down after Roman Abramovich failed to purchase both the moon and a particularly large stick.

Can a week’s worth of a game such as football really be worth as much as six years of being a doctor? I don’t like to brag, but I’m particularly handy at Guess Who (so much so that, owing to a triumphant identification of Pete with eight cards remaining, my girlfriend refuses to play me again), and as anyone knows the board game playing circuit is notoriously short (involving just family Christmases, rain soaked holidays in a static caravan, and chance finds during a house clearance). However, even when you take into account the potential repetitive finger strain injuries, I wouldn’t have the gall to demand a bigger pay packet than a nurse for my illustrious MB Games career.

To gain even more annoyance at Frank Lampard’s earnings you simply need to cast a look at the foot of the English League Two table. AFC Bournemouth, Luton Town and Rotherham United occupy the bottom three places thanks to a cumulative starting total of minus sixty-four points. The majority of these point deductions could have been avoided with just a week’s earnings of Fat (Cat) Frank. If this much money must exist in football then surely the plight of three community football clubs should be more deserving than one irritating midfielder.

Lines in the Sand

Like 1990s Childrens television favourites Bodger and Badger sport and politics ‘are never far away’. Not so much hurling mashed potato at an uppity landlady, but certainly getting into general mischief together whilst one has its hand firmly up the arse of the other. Be it in positive terms, such as the infamous ‘ping-pong’ diplomacy that warmed relations between the USA and China in the 1970s or in negative like the infamous war between Honduras and El Salvador which was sparked after a World Cup qualifier.

Far from this being a phenomenon of a simpler age, I believe that this interaction can only get stronger, particularly given the amount of money governments now plough into achieving sporting success, or hosting events such as the Olympics, and equally how much they invest in their armed forces. Why fund two operations when one can serve both purposes? In a world governed by PR and spin surely it’s only a matter of time before the slogan Medals Good; Air Strikes Bad reaches the Government Communications offices of the world and a nation gathers its generals into the war briefing room to listen to the spiel of some over paid PR consultant.

“I hear what you’re saying gentlemen, but I’m sure you’ll agree tanks and helicopters present a very old fashioned image of war. Dying children is not the image we want here. Ninety per cent of those we surveyed said they would not support a dictatorship that committed genocide, however eighty per cent were prepared to forego their basic human rights for a regime with a catchy theme tune, ideally ‘something by the Pussycat Dolls and a political broadcast featuring David Beckham. We need to show the people we’re in tune with the present, that we’re as hip as the hippest demographic”.

And before you know it trenches have been swapped for fine sand, peacekeepers traded for dancing girls, the sound of helicopters and artillery exchanged for generic pop music blasts and heavily armed soldiers replaced by athletic women in bikinis. And so there you have it, today’s womens beach volleyball match in Beijing between Georgia and Russia was the South Ossesian conflict of ten years from now.

Faced with the choice of footage of horrific shell damage to civilian buildings or a bespectacled Chinese man dancing in the stands to the Las Ketchup Song it doesn’t make me feel any less human to say I’d take option two... every time. The future of political peace does not lie in the corridors of the UN, it stands here, wearing very little, dusting sand from firm tanned buttocks in gratuitous slow motion.

Opening Shot

I know it’s wrong, but I find it really hard to watch any kind of opening ceremony without thinking of Nuremburg. A stadium full of organised propaganda, albeit with a little more emphasis on choreography than that managed by the Third Reich. It’s probably my fault for turning on the television when I did. In amongst all the historically symbolic dance and elaborate firework displays I managed to switch on to this year’s Olympics at the point of the hoisting of the Chinese flag. Not a grumpy face in sight; this is China as China sees it, all smiles, dancing and efficiency.

I blame the media obviously and their fascination, in the lead up to these Games, of the political aspects of the Olympics. In view of China’s human rights record and the oppression of the Tibetan people it is of course natural that the reputation of the host nation is brought under scrutiny. Parallels have been drawn to the 1936 Berlin Games which were used as a political platform for the Nazi Party. Whilst modern day China may not be in a league with Nazi Germany, there is no doubt that the Olympics offers the host country to choose the identity it wishes to portray to the rest of the world.

With that in mind perhaps more thought should have been given to the next segment; a representation of China’s foundation of the world’s first movable type system in which a multitude of type symbols undulated in formation. For a country whose human rights record is under scrutiny going into these Games perhaps they could have found an alternate way to represent this rather than have a large number of Chinese men confined inside tiny boxes.

I consider myself an educated man, open to all manner of cultural offerings, however there is only so much representative dance I can take in an hour. Let’s face it, China has a lot of history. And so with numerous dynasty’s still to go I bailed out, but not before the BBC had added a small caption at the bottom of the screen that said ‘Live from The Birds Nest’, the omission of the word ‘stadium’ suggesting this was not the opening ceremony at all, simply an incredibly elaborate main act in a Beijing cabaret bar.

Friendly Fire

I know a lot of people who are adamant in their support of their football club, but who have never been to a pre-season friendly. This is by no means a bad thing, in effect, I suppose it is simply the same as avoiding trailers to retain the element of surprise when watching a film. And to be honest in the same way a snippet of a nonsensical action sequence doesn’t quite match up to the whole story, watching your team play in un-numbered shirts, their shouts echoing across empty seats can dampen the enigma thrown at you via the flash graphics of satellite television.
However, for all the unfamiliarity in atmosphere, I maintain that these people are missing out on some of the glorious oddities of football. For starters there is the fixtures themselves.

Middlesborough versus Norton and Stockton Ancients, Queens Park Rangers versus China, or Doncaster Rovers versus Real Sociedad is the footballing equivalent of a burning camper van on the hard shoulder, you know you shouldn’t be intrigued, but you just can’t help but slow down and have a good old nosey.

This heady mix can get to even the most subdued of football fans. I know this first hand because my one and only pitch invasion came at a pre-season friendly. In the abridged version of a long story it came about due to one too many seafront beers and ended with a friend of mine rugby tackling a ballboy on the halfway line of Scarborough’s McCain Stadium in order to retrieve my beachball.

Lackadaisical stewarding played a significant part in this discretion (they’d all gone off duty for a half-time cuppa) and such relaxed organisation is another pre-season speciality. Two summers ago I was at Meadow Lane the PA system relentlessly played the opening of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ for ten minutes despite a scratched CD meaning the chorus never once came into sight. It took the booming voice of a Yorkshireman in the away end yelling “Its stuck!” to prompt a member of Notts County staff to investigate.

Such is the overhyped media savvy world of domestic football in the UK that what was once a game has now become an experience. As such, its planned with slick precision that does not allow for an on pitch pursuit of an inflatable nor a faulty CD player. Pre-season friendlies may not have the noise and excitement of competitive matches, but for me at least its a much closer experience of the real world of football.

1992 and all that

In the run up to the Beijing Games and the start of Final Third’s Olympic Diary I thought it might be apt to kick start the sports blog with my first ever Olympic memories.
Whilst Seoul 1988 exists somewhere in my conscience as hazy as the Beijing smog tainted daylight the first Olympic Games which I genuinely remember are those of Barcelona in 1992. I think the main reason for these game sticking in my mind is that as far as Olympics go it certainly had the best theme tune courtesy of Freddie Mercury and that other woman whose name escapes everyone. As such for those who remember 1992 these Games took place not in Barcelona, but in BAARCALO-O-O-NAA!

And it was not just the theme music that stuck in the memory, there was the health and safety nightmare of the Olympic torch lit by flaming bow and arrow, the, for that time, fancy score graphics with the yellow numbers in a grey oblong box. And even in fashion’s nuclear winter which was the late 1980s and early 1990s the British team managed to produce a classic kit with a band of mini union jacks running down the sides of the athletic vests.

And of course there were British Golds, which as a sports obsessed nine year old, seemed for me the only possible outcome. Despite the achievements of Pinsent and Redgrave all my key memories come from the athletics track, each one of them accompanied by the almost sepia tones of David Coleman’s commentary; “Gunnell leads and goes for it. Gunnell goes for gold and Gunnell gets the gold”. Sixteen years on I still remember this word for word, not to mention; “And Christie comes storming through... its Linford Christie”.

It would not be Britain though if glory were not framed by triumphant failure. I speak of course of Derek Redmond. In his semi-final he pulled up on the back straight with a hamstring injury, but determined to finish he hobbled the remaining 200metres, the last one hundred with the help of his dad, to cross the line in tears. A very personal moment played out in as public a setting as there can be. It’s a shame for Derek Redmond that he was born British and not American; in the US the ensuing ‘triumph over adversity’ style media could have been enough to see him become their first Black president; in the UK he only made it as far as the first black referee on Gladiators.

Seasons in the Sun

Summer used to be a lazy time, lounging about in beer gardens and breathing in barbecue smoke in a yellowing evening sun. Although it could just be that I’ve watched one too many cider adverts I’m pretty sure that’s how my summers have been spent for more than half a decade. Conversely football was all autumn leaves, floodlights in the gloom and keeping warm through communal referee baiting.

There was a marked difference between the two; it was football or summer as binary opposed as day and night or good and Mark Lawrenson. I use these past participles deliberately because it seems, like those arrows on the Dads Army title sequence, summer has been gradually and steadily penned in by football. The close season is almost no more, football is steadily becoming a year round game which is never out of season, like badminton or Connect Four. In fact the close season was so small this year that it did not begin until 1:00am on Monday 30th June, and it finished just thirty seven minutes later.

The excellent Euro 2008 was a key factor in this particular summer’s football (or should that be football’s summer?). However, major international tournaments aside, the media have worked hard in recent years to blur football and summer as one. You see when you’ve spent nine months of the year hyping up your football coverage it would be bad marketing to subsequently admit the fact that there actually isn’t any football to cover. So instead we get a succession of stories on non-news, wall to wall, screen to page coverage about players who have not gone anywhere.

The thing is, as you may have guessed, I really like football. But then I also like a nice Mint Feast, and as nice as the Feast is, if I was given one every day of the year I would eventually crack and inevitably be found on a roadside somewhere reciting all those poor jokes off the lolly sticks at passing traffic. I like having a break from football, I want to have a break from football so please bring back the close season. Stop squabbling over the television rights to show obscure pre-season tours and in the words of Peter Kay; “Have a Solero and shut the f*** up”.