6pm kick offs - just not fair, surely?

Hey, 

Rangers played their rearranged match with St. Johnstone in Perth on Tuesday. Playing a midweek match, on its own, is nothing new. However, what makes this particularly newsworthy is that the match kicked-off at 6pm, in order to allow it to be screened on television and not to clash with the night’s Champions League fixtures in Madrid and Milan.

The decision to push the kick-off back by roughly two hours represents, yet again, the wishes of fans being ignored. Perth is 60 miles away from Glasgow and, combined with rush-hour traffic, the 6pm kick-off was tough for away fans – and indeed many of the St. Johnstone fans also – to make. If decisions were made in the interest of fans, such kick-off times would be unheard of, however we all know that this is not the case. The money received from television money is in many aspects the life-support of many clubs, and the scars of the collapse of Setanta Sports have yet to heal. The SPL are keen to not bite the hand that feeds, and if that means working yesterday’s match around Inter Milan versus and Shalke – a match where a clash in of interests does not seem likely – to keep Sky and ESPN happy, then it is something that has to be done.

Of course these arguments about the interests of fans being ignored are very much regurgitated ones. It was only a matter of months ago in which Henry McLeish’s report on the state of Scottish football was published. The report, which was highly critical, proposed an expansion of the Scottish Premier League from its current twelve to fourteen or sixteen. This idea was popular amongst fans; it eliminated the prospect of boredom that a small league can create, such as travelling to away grounds two or three times a season. Bizarre scenarios which have occurred this season in which Celtic will meet Rangers seven times would be all but removed if they were meeting each other less in the league. Needless to say, these proposals were popular with Strathclyde Police also; fewer matches would lead to, theoretically, less violence, or at least less opportunities for violence.

When the SPL teams met to discuss such proposals however a different conclusion was reached. Most of the clubs declared a preference for the opposite of what the fans wanted, and that they wanted a smaller, ten-team top tier rather than an enlargement. Doing this would allow four guaranteed fixtures of the “big” games in the SPL, such as the Old Firm, Edinburgh derbies and such like. As a commercial product for television rights, four Old Firm derbies are easier to sell than two, especially with the bad-blood following last month’s match. Although this is not what fans want, those in favour believe a smaller league is more sustainable, since attendances in Scotland aren’t great. But surely if the league reflected the wants of the fans, a rise in attendances (and subsequently gate receipts) would follow?

Although no decisions have been made at the top table on such proposals yet, it highlights the cruel reality of football not just in Scotland but elsewhere; money talks. This is not new, but hopefully Tuesday’s 6pm start is just a one-off due to a cramped fixture schedule following the harsh winter postponing fixtures. But one worries that it can become common practice, the way it has been done in the Europa League. 

DC 

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New Year, New Problems

Hey,

So, the first blog of 2011. Exciting eh? Well, no, not really. I'm writing during the break I have between my two rescheduled exams. This is rubbish for many reasons:

a) they were meant to take place last month
b) I couldn't celebrate my birthday since I was revising for exams. Exams, as it later turned out, were a month away
c) I have two on the same day
d) they are on a Saturday

A mixture of factors, I'm sure you'll agree it is not ideal. But there you go. Anyway, I hope you had a good new year (seems like ages ago now). I'll try and keep the blog going again this year, even if it is just for my own enjoyment. It's nice to look back on too.

Arizona Shooting Thingy
A tragedy? Yes. Preventable? Probably. Sarah Palin's fault? Well...

It isn't really Sarah Palin's fault. She didn't put the bullets in the gun, nor did she tell him to. But her rhetoric throughout the November mid-terms was aggressive and, involved, err, guns. Lots of guns. Shoot 'em down! Don't retreat, reload! Rar! Etc. Of course this sort of military rhetoric is common in the US. British slogans and campaigns can be aggressive, often harsh attacks of character and policy, but not to the extent of across the Atlantic, and not to the same degree as the Tea Party (thank the Lord). We do use war as a metaphor, but only really in sport, or when England play Germany/Argentina at football. It's use in sport is usually to try and paint sportsmen as victorious warriors, bleeding and bruised but defiant. Nothing epitomises this more than the image of Terry Butcher. It sounds like an oxymoron, but we use war imagery in an almost naive way.

My argument about the shootings in Arizona is this; the man who shot the bullets was 22 years old, meaning that he would've been a teenager whilst the scandals of Columbine and teenage suicides were all the rage. He is of a generation that, accused by the right, of being brainwashed and changed by the rhetoric of artists like Marilyn Manson and the like. A decade on, has this generation changed? The words of Palin can be taken on board by vulnerable, sensitive Americans and it could've possibly led him to the actions that he did. Both had an influence on impressionable people, albeit one would argue that Manson's intelligence is superior to that of the potential Republican Presidential candidate for 2012. As I said, this is not Palin or the Tea Party's fault, but maybe she should be more careful with she says next time. The only difference between Palin and Manson is make-up, after all.

The VAT Rise
We are all in this together, but some are in it more than others...

Last week's news I know, but it's impact will last longer the delicious chicken stir fry I had on the same day. It was wonderful. Anyway.

Increasing VAT to 20%, in my opinion, is wrong. Gideon is justifying his actions by saying that the alternative Labour proposed, an increase in contributions through National Insurance, is a "tax on jobs". My argument is, is that such a bad thing?

Say this is a "tax on jobs" as the right proclaim, it is also a tax on people who have jobs, so surely it makes sense for people in employment to pay their way as opposed to people who are not in employment to do so. Of course there are people who abuse the system, but let's be Hobbessian about this - we pay our way so the system works.  I rather live in a society in which those who can afford to pay, do so. The VAT increase may be "fair" in the sense that everyone is effected, but at the same time it is not "fair" since everyone is affected differently. An increase on VAT hits the pocket of the poor harder than the pockets of the rich, as it simply means a higher percent of income, and this will affect the ability to spend. How can we be encouraged to spend and help revive our economy if we have less money? Obviously this would be the same if it were taken from N.I contributions, but the hit would be of a similar level to everyone. As it is, the VAT increase will hurt the poor. Combined with the news that the Conservatives are cutting staff budget by 17% (3000 jobs to you and me) in the next year in Manchester (and similar places in the north such as Middlesbrough and Sunderland) when some of the more genteel, conservative (big C or little c depending on your view) areas are experiencing lighter sanctions when we are all "in this together" just doesn't fair. But fairness is in the eye of the beholder, or the beholder of the Treasury. Whichever you prefer.

 DC
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Where did that year go?

Hey,

I’m pretty sure that this will be the last blog of the year due to work and all that. It’s a year that started and ended in The Crofter, albeit on different sides of the bar. 2010 has been good in my opinion. These are the highlights…

* The year I did pub golf for the first time

* The year I stopped mongering fish

* The year I started being a bar man

* The year I ended up in Belfast for the 12th July

* The year I went to Italy

* The year I went to a Kilmarnock match

* The year I caught (nearly) every World Cup match

* The year I met Pete Wentz

* The year I got this shiny new netbook I’m writing this on!

* The year I started blogging an awful lot more

* The year my teenage years ended

* The year I started living in a proper flat

* The year I voted for the first time in a general election

That’s about it, I think? If anyone knows anything else I did (within reason) then let me know. If not, that’s it I guess!

 

See you in 2011,

DC

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Alternative Sports Personality of the Year 2010

Hey,

So, a jockey won Sports Personality of the Year then. Much has been said about this, as many have questioned if he was really the deserving winner. Even more has been said about the justification of Phil Taylor coming second for dominating a game which is best suited for the pub.

I'm going to avoid these arguments, for I do not see the point of Sports Personality of the Year anyway. For you see, the awards aren't for Sports Personality as such, merely it is a trophy for the person who has won the most trophies. You can be a dour sod, the physical conception of the colour beige, and still be Sports Personality of the Year. It has nothing to do with personality at all, or how an athlete entertained the public, making them laugh, cry or moan - examples of a personality, you could argue.

We don't look back at past winners with fondness, but with a shrug. Zara Phillips? Meh. Ryan Giggs? Aye he's good at football, but have you seen him with an autocue? It's awkward. I have nothing against Giggs or Phillips, they are great atheletes. But are they great personalities?

With this in mind I propose my own Sports Personality of the Year Awards...

Young Sports Personality of the Year: Mohammed Amir

Amir is only 18, but he is a bloody good cricketer. So good infact that he is Pakistan's main seam bowler and in the summer he was dismantling the English top-order with so much ease comparisons to Wasim Akram were flying about.

Unfortunately for Amir, he had many talents. Like Ricky Wong in "We Can Be Heroes" who was both a world-class actor and a Ph.D student of physics, Amir also enjoys acting. So much so that in a match against England he performed a no-ball. On purpose. For Money. It was showmanship that many theatre veterens (and book makers) loved. The boy has potential, but like Wong, he will have to choose soon between acting and cricket - otherwise things, as we have seen with this little stunt, will get really complicated.

Team of the Year: Stjarnan FC

Who, I hear you ask? Well, as soon as you read a bit more you impatient little fiend it will all make sense.

Stjarnan FC are an Icelandic football team who became an overnight sensation with their goal celebrations. To put simply, they are superb (I recommend the fish and the toilet celebrations). In a year in which Coca-Cola tried to attach themselves to the concept of celebrations in cringe-worthy adverts which show Roger Milla parading about with a bottle of Coke and no teeth (coincidence?) the have been refreshing and a source of inspiration for many celebration ideas. Trust me, the fish celebration is very difficult to do.

Overseas Personality of the Year: Mother Russia!

They haven't really done anything great,nor do they really deserve it. But they paid me an awful lot of money to get this, and they threatened to break my legs, too. Putin knows judo. So hail to Russia, the worthy winners!

Sports Personality of the Year: Paul Gascoigne

Any footballer who can get himself inadvertently involved in the biggest man-hunt this country has seen in recent times aimed with chicken, lager and fishing rods is the only real candidate for Sports Personality of the Year. Incidentally, he won it in 1990, and we all love an anniversary don't we?

Fuck off snow.

I love living in Glasgow, but I am aware that some of the time it is not an ideal city to live in. When you add weather which is not uncommon to Minsk into the equation, however, it gets a lot more complicated.

Scotland, since the beginning of November, has been snowed in. As I have already said I live in Glasgow, but I am originally from Fort William (the home of Ben Nevis and not much else) which is a further 100 miles north. At the peak of last winter (which was bloody cold as well) it peaked at -17C. Which isn’t ideal, I’m sure you will agree.

It has not been as bad as that (yet), but after the “blizzard” which struck the city on Monday, Glasgow just collapsed. Not literally of course, don’t worry Primark is still here, but the transport infrastructure crumbled. Buses stopped. Trains stopped. Motorways were at a standstill. Even the Glasgow underground was suspended. This still confuses me; I mean, the subway stations are under the ground, surely? Glasgow to Edinburgh is a journey which usually takes forty-five minutes. Yesterday it took thirteen hours.

Broadsheets mostly ignored the weather, disregarding Scottish conditions being “pure Baltic” as news. Instead, The Times appeared to be more interested in someone on the radio saying the word “cunt” on air (it’s ok to say it, by the way. The more we use it the less offensive and more mainstream it will become. Come on, practice saying it now. Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!). There’s also a cricket match taking place on the other side of the world to be paying attention on – a match so far away that they can only cover events from two days previously because of the time difference.

The red-tops, however, had a field-day with the weather; the Daily Record headlined with “Road to Snowhere” (see what they did there?). The Sun, on the other hand, were far more dramatic with “Snow Apocalypse!”. That’s right. An apocalypse.

There is reason to complain: after all, we should be use to weather like this – we are Scottish, remember – and surely the maintenance of public transport is what I spend council tax on?

Ok, I am a student, making the last bit a lie. But if I did pay council tax (which I don’t) I would be furious (which I am not) because I would not have been able to get home (which I did). Infact, the only impact the adverse weather has had on me (apart from making me house-bound on my 20th birthday on Monday) has been the postponing of my exams, two of which were due to be today. Hence the reason I am writing this instead of an essay about 19th Irish immigration to Britain.

One last thing about Glasgow being twinned with Juneau in terms of climate; like any other “crisis” like when the World Cup was stolen in 1966, usually a folk hero is created. In 1966 it was a dog called Pickles who found the trophy; the equivalent here is a man called David Newall. Newall is the Secretary of Court at Glasgow University who is responsible for the postponing of exams for a further month. Due to this he now has an appreciation society on Facebook which has (at the time of writing) 235 fans. As one of those fans, I can only say God bless you David Newall, you beautiful man.

And the World Cup goes to... The Highest Bidder!

Hey, 


So, England's bid wasn't good enough for the 2018 World Cup. Or was it? No, no it wasn't. They lost.


We can look at the factors for the reasons why this was the case; the Panorama program "exposing" the "shocking" nature of how Fifa is run (this is not old news; Andrew Jennings' book on Fifa's corruption deals with the same issues as the BBC program did on Monday evening and was first published in 2006); the choice of people to speak in Zurich for the presentation - selecting David Beckham to speak (like, in sentences and that) is like asking a racehorse to prepare a three-course meal; 


There are a few things which I don't get; firstly, everyone seems surprised that the two countries with the most money/oil/contacts won (the great footballing nation of Qatar got the 2022 World Cup). Red-tops (and worryingly, some broadsheets) shouted 'fix' because England didn't win. Although England's bid was technically sound, it lacked the prime objective which Fifa tournaments - and especially Sepp Blatter - crave; a legacy. 


It's always been a "thing" of Sepp Blatter's, this legacy idea. For Blatter, a World Cup should be more than a summer football tournament. The French World Cup of 1998 unified a country dealing with racial tension thanks to Zinedine Zidane's efforts for the hosts. In 2002, South Korea and Japan hosted the first World Cup to happen in Asia. This summer was the African equivalent in South Africa, and 2018 will be the first World Cup for a post-Soviet nation. Qatar will be the first Islamic state to stage the tournament. To put briefly, Blatter wants a lasting legacy for the countries involved, but this cannot apply to a first world country like England. Perhaps more significantly, Blatter wants a legacy for himself too. 

That's not to say money is  not important, because it bloody is. Fifa spin as much money out of these tournaments as they can; merchandise, sponsorship, television rights and ticket sales, for instance. They expect all this whilst contributing nothing towards the infrastructures needed for hosting a competition as big as the World Cup; transport links, accommodation and security are all expected to be covered for by the national Government. Fifa love football. But they love profit too. And so do the members of their board, it seems. Bribery and what not, dare I say, are not unusual in the corridors of power in Zurich. It may be just a coincidence Russia was branded a "mafia state" by the WikiLeaks scandal they same day their bid won. Of course, it may not be, because everyone loves a conspiracy.


England's bid wasn't exactly squeaky-clean either. In fact, the campaign team's treatment of the influential Jack Warner is no different to the way Vladimir Putin has been accused of treating Silvio Berlusconi in the recent WikiLeaks scandal. The FA, apparently, lavished him and his wife with gifts to help "persuade" him to vote for the English bid. Remember England playing that rather pointless friendly against Trinidad and Tobago in 2008? Probably not, it's not memorable and if memory serves me right it was unofficial to everyone except Dean Ashton, who still believes he has an England cap. Either way, the English bid wasn't as perfect as everyone says it is, it's just that it used its influence in the wrong way. What you need is a Prime Minister who knows judo. And Gazprom. That helps too.


DC 
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November Spawned A Gap Between Blogs

Hi,

Sorry it's been a while since the last blog. I wish I had an interesting and exciting reason why for this absence; some sort of coma induced by doing something amazing, like really amazing.

Instead, it has been because of course work. It's been a bit of a bastard, consuming all of November and, so far, most of December as well.  I know this is to be expected - it's the reason why I'm in Glasgow in the first place, but the deadlines and exam dates all just appeared like a stag on the A82. You know, the bit between Tyndrum and Crianlarich? Don't pretend you don't know.

The horrors that this time of year bring regarding essays and exams aren't over yet, far from it. I have two exams this Wednesday, and one next Monday. Then it ends for another calendar year (and what a fast year 2010 has been) and we have Christmas, which brings with it seasonal obesity, complaints about the weather and a longing for a return to Glasgow. Dare I say it, even going to O'Couture. I take that back. Of course I do.

No, there are two reasons why I am returning to this blog. Firstly, this is a great form of procrastination, up there with Robot Unicorn, watching Ashes highlights on YouTube and sleeping. The second reason is because it is my birthday tomorrow. It would be unfair on the blog of which I take some pride and fondness in for its last entry from a teenage body was a pishy play list of a recurring emo phase that I was experiencing.  It deserves more than that, I figured.

So, what does turning twenty actually mean? Currently, I'm not sure. So far the only things that spring to mind are purely literally, and mainly certain songs that I can no longer relate to (or at least pretend to be able to refer to). The list so far stretches to:
- Teenage Dreams - Katy Perry (not that I ever would relate to this song...)
- Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
- Teenagers - My Chemical Romance
- Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off - Panic! at the Disco (an odd choice for the unassuming, but it has the lyric "Let's get these teen hearts beating faster and faster)

Is there anything more to it? I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that the transition from nineteen to twenty  is pretty much just any other birthday, and that there's no emotional baggage required. That's not to say you can't have emotional baggage - to cry and go all soppy and reflective on seven years which changed you from a high-pitched geek who knows too much about the Bundesliga, to someone who is...well, essentially the same is optional. And I don't think it's an option I'm taking. The only thing of significance is that it's my first birthday away from Fort William.

DC x