Posts Tagged ‘sport’

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.

This year has been the best year for Formula One I have ever seen. Right from the start it has been an amazing season and Monaco always promises to be an interesting race.

It was great, though it’s hard to say it was extra special given the standard of racing has just been so high this year. In the end, it was a fairly comfortable victory for Mark Webber, though the real victory was that we saw virtually no interruption to racing – the safety car was out briefly at the start (when it doesn’t really matter) and then remained in for the rest of the race.

Recently, I went indoor karting with work.

I was rubbish at it, almost everyone was faster than me, but it was never the less a lot of fun. It’s definitely the kind of thing I could get into with a bit more practice. I don’t quite have the money to buy my Formula One team yet, but a kart, well that’s a whole different matter…

As you may be aware, the 2012 IPL season recently started.

I haven’t got round to watching any of it this year, but if I was, one of the first tasks I would have to do is to pick a team to support (because obviously, it’s more exciting when you are supporting one side or the other).

The question is though, why would I pick anyone other than Chennai Super Kings? Having demolished their opposition in the final last year, and previously won the tournament in recent years before that, they’re clearly the best team. So it then becomes very difficult to justify supporting someone else.

It seems wrong to support a team just because they are the best team, but given I don’t have any geographic bias to work on as I would with English football clubs, how can it really be justified to pick anyone else given I obviously want to be supporting the winning team?

As some of you know, I write some of my blog posts in advance and publish them a few days or weeks later, depending on how many I’ve written recently. So sometimes I will write something and it won’t actually be published on my blog until a few days later.

This Saturday is the Grand National, the most valuable race in the racing calendar and one of the most prestigious after the Gold Cup. It’s also synonymous with real outsiders taking the crown. Whether this is a justified reputation or not I’m not entirely sure, but in 2009 it was won by Mon Mone – a 100 to 1 shot (which makes for a far more exciting headline than last year’s winner, Ballabriggs, 14 to 1 price).

Anyway, this year I’m tipping Neptune Collonges. Lets see how my prediction does in the race on Saturday – which totally coincidentally is about when this blog post would be published…

As you’ve probably heard about Dereck Chisora and David Haye recently came to blows during a press conference in Munich.

Officials and commentators have called it a disgrace to the sport of boxing and suggested that the two boxers should be given life time bans – not to mention that the police might want to get involved.

But actually, it isn’t a disgrace. What is a disgrace, is that in this day and age, we as a society, still condone the idea of two men getting into a ring together and knocking the shit out of each other until one goes down to the count.

Surely incidents such as this show us what is wrong with boxing as a general concept? Two men beat each other unconscious outside of the ring and it’s a criminal offence – but do it inside a ring and you’re a world champion! How does that make sense? No wonder these guys have a bit of a punch up at a press conference when there how life is based around violence.

Of course, the libertarian view is that if two people choose to get into a ring and beat each other half to death, then they should be allowed to. But that doesn’t mean we should be condoning it as a society – being racist for example is legal; the way we control it is to condem it as a society. Why should boxing receive a special exception?

Ultimately, we can only hope that boxing will go the way of Fox Hunting – we’ll come to the realisation that it probably isn’t the best idea to let two men tear into each other until one of them lies a bruised mess on the floor.

I’m a man who can deliver on his promises – last year I promised I would be booking the morning off to watch the Super Bowl and for Super Bowl XLVI, I delivered! You could of course argue that my willingness to take a day off because I was planning to be up very late isn’t really evidence of an ability to deliver to tough deadlines in any field of working life, but you would be wrong 😉 .

With the New York Giants having knocked out my beloved 49ers, who I have supported ever since I decided to pick a team to support and buy an appropriate shirt, I was firmly behind the New England Patriots and their very handsome quarterback Tom Brady. After all, there comes a point in life when you have to choose – are you a Patriot, or are you a Terrorist?

Unfortunately, with the Giants scoring a reluctant touch down with only a minute remaining on the clock, Brady couldn’t quite deliver a response. And that’s how I lost my housing deposit gambling on American Football…

As part of Atheist Society’s intro meeting activities, Will had organised a bowling trip. Well, organised is probably granting too much credit, but after a significant amount of faffing, we eventually hit the lanes.

I probably haven’t bowled since hitting up Xscape with the McCrew three years ago. As such I was very rusty and only bowled a 98 in my first game, allowing James to smash his way to victory.

I recovered a little in the second game, bowling a 124, but that’s still not exactly an impressive score and I failed to make any strikes in the second game. Still, for the £3 that the evening cost us each, you can’t really go wrong.

We had a very interesting discussion at work today, when I brought up the idea that you should do away with separate competitions for men and women, and just have one unisex league.

Football is a great example of this. Women’s football is not a popular sport by pretty much any measure. Faye White, captain of the England team reportedly earns £16,000 a year. That is just above minimum wage and for the most part, even women in the top flight of their profession cannot earn anything other than what would be considered a semi-professional wage, having to have another job as well.

Women’s football is barely televised, if at all. Not to mention garnering little respect from people like FIFA president Sepp Blatter who suggested that women should “wear tighter shorts and low cut shirts… to create a more female aesthetic” (and you didn’t think it was possible to lose any more respect for Sepp Blatter 😉 ).

There is a simple solution to this problem.

Just combine men’s and women’s football into one unified league structure.

This is much more inline with equal opportunities. At the moment, women are absolutely and unreservedly banned from competing in the top flight of football of earning a professional football’s wage, entirely because of their gender. Even if a woman was the best player in the world, she would be limited to playing in a league which earns less than half what I do and receiving very little exposure.

Allowing both genders to complete in the same league means that everyone gets the chance to complete on a level playing field, based on their ability.

Now, to address some of the concerns.

Firstly, the idea that women aren’t as strong as men. This is somewhat of an issue in football, but far more clear in other sports (boxing or hammer throw for example). But this doesn’t matter. When it comes to equal opportunities, you need to give everyone the same chance, and some people are always going to be better than overs.

You could argue it is better for a woman to compete on the top flight of women’s football than a lower tier of a mixed gender league system, but I disagree. Separating the leagues presents a ceiling to which they cannot rise above, no matter how prestigious people might try to suggest it is.

Secondly, the idea that women aren’t as good as men. It is true that the top flight of women’s football isn’t the same standard as men’s, but that could be down to a number of factors. Women are unable to complete in professional men’s football, so don’t have the opportunity to play week in week out against top competition. Society generally has a bias towards men playing football (not helped by the fact that only men are allowed to play in the top leagues). Statistically, more men play football than women, so statistically you’re also going to get a better standard.

But none of these reasons say that women can’t play football as well as men, it just says that in the current setup in society, they generally don’t. But again, it presents a level playing field it you give everyone the same chance.

I think it is also worth considering that a lot of people simply aren’t going to make it, female or male. You can make the argument that women would never make it into the World Cup squad in a combined league, but then neither would I. I’m not that good at football. I used to play for my school team, I trained, but I was never that good, let alone world standard.

Yet nobody says, “well we should have a separate world cup for geeks, because they can never compete with real men.” Why? Because we’re given the same opportunity. If I had the skill we could be up there. Whereas a woman who did have the skill, couldn’t.

Finally however, you don’t have to have to accept it as a perfect solution. It isn’t. Women would really, really struggle to make it into the top flight of football (though we can’t say for sure because women don’t have the same opportunities to train up through the professional system as men do).

But, all it has to do is be better than the current system.

Even if women only made it into league one or two, they would still earn more than they can at the moment. They would be able to compete in games which were televised more and gain far more exposure, encouraging more girls to participate in sport. Finally, it would make things more equitable because everyone would have the chance to compete, based on ability, in the same competition.

Last Saturday saw the final of the 2011 Indian Premiere League. The two teams who were fighting out were the Chennai Super Kings and the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The Super Kings made a fantastic start, reaching 205 runs by the end of their innings. This left the Royal Challengers with a huge hill to climb and when Chris Gale fell in the first few balls, you knew it was all over.

The cricket was followed by the UEFA Champion’s League final between Manchester United and Barcelona. Man Utd played reasonably well but were ultimately completed outclassed by a team with mirrored the superb play of the World Cup winning Spanish side.

The biggest surprise of the day however was that I actually spent some time watching sport. Could it be that two years working in the sports betting industry has finally got to me? Is this s a sign that the rapture is on its way after all? Only time will tell…