TV broadcasters apologise for swearing at boxing matches which are broadcast after the watershed. Repeated dropping of the F bomb during primetime is not something that they will want on the games they pay a lot of money to acquire the rights for.
TV broadcasters apologise for swearing at boxing matches which are broadcast after the watershed. Repeated dropping of the F bomb during primetime is not something that they will want on the games they pay a lot of money to acquire the rights for.
They won’t broadcast it live any time soon. Mind you, players might stop swearing at referees so much if they realise everybody hearing them scream “fucking blind cunt” at Stuart Attwell at half four on a Sunday afternoon might mean the endorsement deals from Gucci and Bose start drying up.
Who was the “star” in that Euro 88 team? It was probably the first tournament I watched with any interest, I remember the 86 World Cup but was more interested in riding my bike and trying to climb trees at that age but by the time 88 came around I was fully on board. I’m not sure if I was aware at the time or it’s just a lifetime of memories being cloudy now but from England it always seemed like the Dutch produced incredible players (this continued throughout the 90s and 00s) but to my eyes in 1988 Ruud Gullit was the man. I was so excited when he came to play in the Premier League and he rocked up at Villa Park, even if it was when he was trying to be a sweeper but spending most of his time as a No. 6.
I wish I’d seen more of Van Basten. I’m old enough to have watched Euro 88, but his club career was played in leagues that weren’t on TV where I grew up. Even by the time Serie A was getting shown regularly in the UK (1992/93 onwards) it was just as the injuries were starting to bite. It’s sad really because as I understand it there wasn’t really a decline with Marco, he was on top of the world then it was just over. In some ways it means his legacy was secure because people didn’t have to watch him hobble around the pitch trying and failing to recapture former glories, but the sad truth is he was finished as a footballer at 27. If only he’d been 20 years younger as who knows how great he could have been with modern sports science and rules which protected forwards from being kicked as much as they were in the 80s.
It was the mid 1960s for London and the mid 70s for Birmingham. I think the rest of the country was also mid 70s.
Leamington. Warwickshire is one of those counties that lost a lot of its population to boundary changes, historically it would include Aston Villa, Birmingham City and Coventry City. Warwickshire’s cricket stadium (Edgbaston) is very much in Birmingham.
If you are into video games, the windmill on the badge of Leamington FC is the same one as you jump through in a car in Forza Horizon 4, which was made by a studio based in Leamington Spa. Sadly it’s had no sails on for at least 18 months, I think the owner got pissed off with people going up there to do social media shit and leaving looking like a tip on a daily basis.
Reminds me of watching Uruguay play somebody (probably Portugal) in the World Cup with one of my friends who is a lapsed football fan, the sort of guy who will watch the Champions League final and England in tournaments but takes little interest in the day to day events of the game.
Him - “Who does that Valverde play for? He looks incredible, I think we (meaning Aston Villa) should sign him.”
Me - “Real Madrid.”
Him - “Oh. Ok. Maybe not then.”
He’s got three years left at Bayern. They don’t need to lock him down any further yet.
Such is the problem with golden handcuffs. There are probably a dozen clubs where Sancho would be a good fit and see him recapture his Dortmund form, none of them can afford the financial package it would take to find out.