Posts Tagged ‘sport’

The 49ers have a lot to be proud of from their performance at Super Bowl XLVII.

When they first started bringing a box of squirrels, who enjoyed gnawing through electrical cables, to games, everyone laughed. But clearly they aren’t laughing any more.

The 49ers almost managed the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. The biggest deficit ever overturned was a mere 10 points, yet the 49ers found themselves having come back from a 22 point deficit with a first a goal. Clearly, they aren’t a team that is ever down and out.

The 49ers almost won – with only two minutes on the clock, we were 5 points behind with a first and goal. Unfortunately the Ravens defence held up, but statically, if the 49ers can put themselves in those situations, they are going to convert more often than not – especially now Ray Lewis isn’t around to coordinate the defence.

Colin Kaepernick is still only a second year, and this was still only his tenth NFL start. Most likely, he is only going to get better from here – he’ll stop wasting time outs, he may or may not throw less interceptions, and his game management will get better.

The 49ers have shown they have a great range of options – Frank Gore continues to run the ball brilliantly, Vernon Davis is back in the play calls and Michael Crabtree remains a strong target too. On the defence, players other than Aldon Smith showed they can sack a quarterback too.

And finally, David Akers managed a perfect record – sure, he wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t have come back for a roughing the passer flag, but hitting everything that counted at the Super Bowl, as well as making that NFL-record equalling 63 yard kick agains the Packers at the start of the season mean that Akers does at least have a few positives to take away from this season.

We did it! Long may my favourite team, the Baltimore Ravens, reign supreme!

Note to self: don’t forget to turn the other one of these off.

We did it! Long may my team, the San Francisco 49ers, reign supreme!

Note to self: don’t forget to turn the other one of these off.

Last weekend saw the NFL divisional playoff round. It was almost certainly the best weekend of American football that there has been this season. The Baltimore Ravens caused a major upset, when, at the longest odds to win the Super Bowl, eliminated the Denver Broncos, who were the favourites at the time, from the competition.

The San Francisco 49ers beat the Green Bay Packers to proceed on to the NFC Championship match, while the Atlanta Falcons kicked a winning field goal with only 31 seconds on the clock to beat the Seattle Seahawks in a tail biting finish. Only the New England Patriots’ confident victory over the Houston Texans really failed to provide such excitement.

You can read all about the matches over on A Brit Talks Football. Tonight the championship round takes place to determine who goes to the Super Bowl – you can follow my updates on Twitter.

Last weekend, myself and George headed up to Weetwood to watch the Leeds Celtics american football team play.

It was dry, but never the less very cold and due to what we suspect was the ambulance getting lost, the game didn’t kick off until an hour after it’s scheduled time – a risky move when you have so little day light these days.

By this point, we were too cold to watch the whole manage, but in the first half Leeds Celtics scored two touchdowns, both with two point conversions, against the Northumbria Mustangs.

What a grand prix season it has been – almost certainly the best in memory!

We started the year with half a dozen different winners in as many races, tyres went on and off like lightening and if you didn’t manage them probably – you could lose it all at the end. Exciting, wheel to wheel racing continued all year.

After all that, we came down to the final race of the year – and the championship race was still open with Vettel and Alonso only a few points from each other! We couldn’t have asked for a more exciting ending. Well, we could have, but it would have been entirely unreasonable.

It did get better though! The first lap, Vettel finds his car facing backwards, but he is able to keep the engine running and now he is on a mission to get right through the field, and catch Alonso to stop him tacking the title away from him.

In the end, he did, and what an amazing end it was. I hope 2013 is just as exciting, even if we are going to have to mange without Jake Humphrey.

As many of you know, for weeks now, it has been my dream to be the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. So, last week, me, George and Matt headed down to Yorkshire Rams training – a Leeds based American Football team.

It was rather intense – a three hour training session, roughly consisting of an hour of fitness, an hour of technique and an hour of practicing plays. None of us could walk for days after!

Almost every sport, even the dullest and boring, has one event that enjoys such a good atmosphere, that it makes the sport, at least for a brief period, actually watchable.

For American football, it’s the Super Bowl, for athletics it is the Olympics and for cricket, it is the IPL.

For golf, it’s the Ryder Cup.

A competition that takes place every two years, the Ryder Cup differs from normal golf tournaments in that instead of each golfer playing for themselves, it is a competition between two teams – Team USA and Team Europe.

So unlike regular golf that is dull and boring, in the Ryder Cup you are given the chance to cheer on your team as players work together to further their team and defeat their opponents. And the crowd really do cheer – it becomes something akin to a scene out of Happy Gilmore as the crowd scream for their side, even as the golfers play their strokes.

Team Europe having emerged victorious two years ago in Cardiff, they now went to Chicago (the venue alternates each time) to try and defend their title.

After day one is wasn’t looking too good – Team USA had a 5-3 lead and by the end of day two the lead had increased to 8-4, and only stemmed at that because of a magnificent finish by Ian Poulter who managed consecutive birdies on the last five holes!

So it came down to the final day, 12 points available meaning that without taking into account draws, we could only lose 4 matches and needed to win the other 8 to draw things 14-14 – thus allowing us to retain the Ryder Cup as the current champions.

Again, everything hung on Ian Poulter who was the only early starter to be trailing his opponent. If he could pull it back, there would still be hope for Team Europe to make their greatest comeback ever, but if he lost it would be all over.

By this point, the NFL had kicked off with the 49ers via the Jets, so my live blog of the game includes updates from both the NFL game and the Ryder Cup.

19:01:39

Poulter needs to win his game if Team Europe is to have a chance. Meanwhile, the @49ers will start from the half way line.

Somehow, Poulter did pull it back, gaining the valuable point for Team Europe, and our other golfers put in a magnificent performance too to bring things all level.

It all game down to the final two games, Kaymer v Striker and Molinari v Woods. On the last hole Kaymer managed to clinch the victory, ensuring we had at least equal points to Team USA, meaning that they wouldn’t take the trophy away from us!

As it happens Tiger Woods went on to miss a put that allowed Molinari to tie the game, and thereby give us a one point lead! This was bad news for the bookies who ended up losing a huge amount of money (money they wouldn’t have lost if it had ended 14-14).

Tired of Great Britain languishing near the bottom of the Olympic medals table? So am I. That’s why I’ve created the adjusted medals table.

This takes the so called official medals table and reconfigures it so that Great Britain’s medal count includes all the countries we used to own. This includes all the Commonwealth countries such as Canada, all the former colonies such as the United States and even countries we just invaded a large part of, such as France. I feel this is a more accurate reflection of our sporting legacy.

Oh, and if you do it this way, we’re doing very well!

Given our recent blows in the sporting world (we’ve just lost at the European Cup, and by the time I publish this I’m sure Andy Murray will be out of Wimbledon too), it’s easy to think that we’re just rubbish at sport (as a nation).

But there is at least one sport were Britain dominates the world – Formula One. Although a lot of the key names thrown around are people like Vettel and Schumacher, when you look at the figures, Formula One simply revolves around this country. Here are some key figures.

• 8 of the 12 manufacturers are based in Britain
• 9 of the 14 technical directors are British
• 2 of the 4 engine manufacturers are based in Britain
• Britain has 3 drivers – only Germany has more (with 5), everyone else has less (Finland, Australia, Spain, France and Brazil have 2)

Here is a full breakdown of each team and where they are from. I’ve highlighed the British connections in yellow, though with hindsight, I probably should have highlighed the non-British connections!

…and this is before I’ve even founded Worfolk Racing.