Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

 

England Stats-a-go-go

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

England are out of the World Cup – and too right, because they were rubbish.

Everyone thought they could win it too – bookies made them 3rd favourites, we had better players than everyone else according to the 2 Alan’s on MOTD. And this was the golden generation – how could they NOT win the cup??

So I thought I’d take a look at whether or not we’re actually likely to win based on past World Cup & European Championship performances.

I’d like to work out whether we’re likely to win a major championship in my lifetime and how long I have to wait until we play well (and win) in a meaningful match against good opposition. I’ll go back as far as the 1970 World Cup, because I was born in 1976, and we didn’t quality for 1974 or 1978.
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The need for speed

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

How fast is it possible for someone to run the 100 metres?

Carl LewisThe record had been slowly inching it’s way down from ever since Carl Lewis‘ 9.92 in Seoul in 1998. Second by second, slowly but surely, and scientists in white lab coats were telling everyone that the limit of human speed was on a curve that would slow down year on year.

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Gigantico

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

David v Goliath. Rocky v Ivan Drago.

You can now add another one to that list as I read in the news today that David Haye will fight Nikolay Valuev on the 7th of November.

Ivan_Drago_v_RockyNow David Haye is no small man, he’s 6’3″ and is built like a brick outhouse. But even then he’s 11 inches shorter than the Russian and some 8 stone lighter. We all saw what Ivan Drago did to Apollo Creed in Rocky IV, heaven only knows how Rocky beat him but it’s got to be seriously off-putting when your opponent steps over the top of the ropes because he won’t fit underneath.

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Cricket grounds and legendary tour guides

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

What cricket grounds in the world do you think are famous? Or you’ve been there and they mean something to you?

That’s a question I tried to answer a few years back when I created a list of the most famous sporting stadia in the world and since then, I’ve been on a Tom Cruise-esqe mission impossible to visit them all.

hardhatLast time out I explained why I’d chosen 8 football venues and why a few others didn’t make it. The Millenium Stadium might feel a bit left out but it’s not my fault it wasn’t built when I created the list!

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Sporting Stadia – Part I: Football

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

So, The list.

Loads of sporting venues from all over the globe, plotted on a huge list in order to prove who’s more of a sports fan. There’s a multitude of power-ups, bonuses and extras that bump up your score – it’s so complicated it’d make Carol Vorderman wince.

Each sport has it’s own mini-list of venues – but instead of printing them all out as a big long undigestible list that would be about as exciting as reading through the Encyclopedia Britannica, I’ll go through each sport one by one.

bulldozerThis time it’s football and below is a breakdown of the 8 that made it onto the list plus a few others that didn’t – for those who missed it, you get a point if you’ve been to the venue and another one if you’ve seen a match there (max of 1 extra point). Oh, and if the stadium has been bulldozed you get an extra brucie bonus point.
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Sporting venues from around the world

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

A few years back I got into a discussion (ok, an argument) with a mate about who had visited the most famous sporting venues.

I’d been to Yankee stadium, he’d been to the Crucible. I’d taken in a match at the old Wembley stadium but he’d been to the Azteca stadium in Mexico.

As is usual in things like this (or maybe it’s just me), I drew up a list so we could keep score..

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Record breaker

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

I’ll make no bones about it, I want to be a record breaker and if Usain Bolt can do it, so can I.

I don’t know where this has all come from – maybe it stems from watching Roy Castle & Norris McWhirter on Record Breakers. They used to get a load of randoms (with the occasional celeb) in each week to break all sorts of records ranging from running the 100m backwards to knitting the worlds biggest blanket.

Perhaps it was when Kriss Akabusi took over from Roy…

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