Sport

As the European Super League debate has played out in England, many voices have suggested the solution to billionaire ownership lies in Germany and the 50+1 rule.

There needs to be a little more explanation here. Why does billionaire ownership have to have a solution?

Billionaires creating a cartel, sure, that’s something that has been solved and should have been. But rich folks owning what are, usually and on average, losing assets is a problem?

According to Swim England, the sport’s governing body, 95% of black adults and 80% of black children in England do not swim, and only 2% of regular swimmers are black.

Agreed entirely that swimming is a less common leisure activity among those blessed with more melanin. But 2%? That’s hardly a problem, 3% of the country is so blessed after all…..not out of normal statistical variation then.

“How many siblings can say they play professional football?” Lauren James asks, laughing. Manchester United’s teenage striker is reflecting on the extraordinary footballing journey that she and older brother Reece have shared, since first kicking a ball against a fence as kids, to becoming two of English football’s hottest young talents.

Charltons (and there were cousins/uncles there too), Nevilles just off the top of my head.

Ability at sport being genetically related even if not determined, d’ye see? Brother and sister being a feature of the rise of women’s sport, the sibling bit is old.

Damon Hill, the former F1 world champion, has admitted he has been sent on a speed awareness course twice.

Despite having only sporadically jogged before all this, I’ve run 600km in the past 12 months. I’ve stretched, flexed, accumulated gear and tracked every metre via apps (my full total is actually 642.8km, but who’s counting). To outside eyes, it might seem like I’ve found a burning passion for the hobby, but I’m here to report quite the opposite. I run, and will continue to run, but I hate running with every fast-twitch muscle fibre of my being.

Well, yes, but. We’re talking about a mile a day. That’s 15 minutes at a brisk walk (marching speed) rather than even running. Actually, it’s about the distance I used to swim when the pools were open.

That is, he goes for a daily trot. For this there is gear and apps? It’s actually the same distance as I do on my little elliptical machine. Or, as John B puts it:

he prides himself on having run 50k a month or 1 mile a day – when I was 70 I did a couple of 50km races under RWA rules (they took me 6 hours 9 minutes +/- a several seconds each) and did up to 100km in a day in training although recently lockdown (and the after-effects of a torn quadriceps from a long jump) has restricted me around 100km per week. In my 50s I knew a couple of guys also in their 50s who not only *raced* (as distinct from just running) marathons but raced London-Brighton (yes, I do mean that they *raced* it in their 50s!! – I never got near to thinking I could even run it). This wimp got paid to run one-quarter of the distance that this over-70 does in his rehab programme from a major tear in his quadriceps …

Is it young people today? Or just that it’s in The Guardian?

At least, if you’re to be a successful entertainer over time you do what the audience wants:

Millwall persuade players not to take the knee but to link arms in effort to stop boos
Players collectively agree to stand arm in arm and parade an anti-racism banner at The Den

Why not just not?

There is a temptation, not unreasonably given the pain etched across the faces of Millwall’s black players, to characterise fans’ hostile reaction to their taking the knee last Saturday as racism, as the latest provocation by a club who love to be loathed. Except the booing of the gesture did not take place solely at the Den. It happened at West Ham and Colchester United, too, suggesting that this was as much a rising swell of discomfort at the injection of potentially divisive politics into sport as a display of naked prejudice.

If the audience doesn’t want it then why do it?

Farrell’s kicking didn’t help. But I thought that France had the best of that match most of the way through….

The Rainbow Laces campaign aimed at tackling homophobia in sport has been slammed as completely ineffective.

Changing the colour of your bootlaces doesn’t stop you calling the fly half a noncy boy poof when he kicks rather than passing to you.

Funny that really. It’s almost as if wearing different coloured ribbons and bracelets and vulva hats and the rest makes no damn difference and that couldn’t possibly be true, could it?

Daily Telegraph campaign praised after Government says ban on children’s sport will end after lockdown

Everything is going to return after lockdown, isn’t it?

It’s probably a better try in fact. But, weirdly, it doesn’t have quite the excitement of this one:

It’s not just the extra 10 metres, nor the crowd. Dunno why therefore. Maybe the way that a kick and a hack – which has to go just right of course – isn’t quite the same as a sprint?

No, other than coming from the same place, I have no contact:

Billy Burns, the new Ireland fly-half, has insisted he will not feel conflicted if he runs out at Twickenham against England this weekend.

Burns, who joined Ulster in the Pro14 two years ago and qualifies to play for Ireland through his grandfather, made his Test debut off the bench in the win over Wales last Friday.

Born in Bath, Burns studied at Beechen Cliff School and Hartpury College before making over 100 appearances for Gloucester

There is an amusement that the older brother has turned out as fly half for England. Beechen Cliff is the school just up the road from where I grew up and is a comp. But retains much grammar school influence including playing rugby and having a – small – boarding section. It was the number 2 option for me instead of Downside. Rather better academically than D quite possibly, as it has turned out a Nobel Laureate, not something I think the monks have achieved as yet.

More, the family might be left footers given that they’re using Prior Park as a background for the company photo. And the local Catholic parish that covers that school area was set up by monks from D etc.

But this is all just same town stuff, find connections like that across any few people from the same town.

The one bit that produced a small smile – small, you understand – was the lad’s playing background. For Gloucester, not Bath, as youths. That business, it’s based in Bath, sure, but it’s on the Gloucester Road…..

World Rugby has recommended that transgender women do not play elite women’s rugby following a review.

New guidelines have been drawn up to cover the participation of transgender athletes in men’s and women’s contact rugby where it is possible to do so safely and fairly.

As a result, transgender men are permitted to participate in men’s contact rugby but the same does not apply to transgender women in women’s rugby.

“Given the best available evidence for the effects of testosterone reduction on these physical attributes for transgender women, it was concluded that safety and fairness cannot presently be assured for women competing against transwomen in contact rugby,” said a World Rugby statement.

Muscle mass makes this the only sensible outcome.

Do note the asymmetry too – it’s you possibly damaging others that matters. You want to put yourself at risk well, it is a contact sport. Thus F to M, your look out, M to F it’s the external effects that matter.

Prizes will be awarded for the spotting of the first claims of how transpohobic this decision is.

Even certain sportswear manufactures would hesitate to employ such a cynical co-opting of the Black Lives Mattes movement.

In 2018 he graduated in politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London

Maro Itoje is not going to have a healthy and balanced view then…..

Klopp was said to have the mentality of a Champions League player and the ability of a fourth-division player

Can;t sing that in the modern Britain:

England rugby fans could soon be banned from singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ at international matches because of its origins as an anthem for American slaves.

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) announced on Thursday that it was conducting a review into the ‘historical context’ of the song over concerns it is inappropriate.

A well-placed source said: “One option after consultations is to stop this being sung at matches.”

The use by the RFU on social media of the slogan “Carry Them Home” taken from the song’s second line has been suspended with immediate effect, the organisation said. Official merchandise using the slogan, including on children’s t-shirts, is still available for purchase pending the review….

Angels, heaven? Grossly divisive. Even the CoE doesn’t believe in that any more.

This is fun:

When the NFL first was made to formally address the embarrassing lack of diversity in its coaching and front-office ranks back in the early aughts, a scant three of the league’s 32 teams were helmed by minority head coaches. Seventeen years since the introduction of the Rooney Rule, which requires all clubs to interview at least one minority candidate for its openings at head coach and general manager, the grand total entering the 2020 season has inched upward to four: the Dolphins’ Brian Flores, the Chargers’ Anthony Lynn and the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, who are African American, and Washington’s Ron Rivera, who is Hispanic.

Lately it feels like we’re moving backwards. Only three of the 20 head coaching gigs that have opened up since the end of the 2017 season have been filled by minorities, an unacceptable outcome in a league where more than 70% of the players are African American.

Management of American football must reflect the society which is being managed. But the player roster of American football does not have to match the wider society.

Fun, eh?

Prompted by something in the comments, cricket at the Olympics. Only done once, at the 1900 games.

only two countries competed, Great Britain and hosts France.

The French came second of course. But this:

The match….did not attract first-class status.

So, it was possible – in fact it happened to most of the team – that they were reigning Olympic champions, gold medal holders, for a however much of the century they lived and yet the’d still not played a fist class match. I rather like that….for the bloke who turned out in 1923 for Oxford V Cambridge has played first class cricket.

Stolen from Facebook. I love little bits of history like this.