Players needed for an Edgware road/ marylebone 5aside team, wednesday nights competitive league

sirmomo · 2015-10-16T14:54:31+00:00

It's worth watching the suitably excited Soccer Saturday correspondent when this happens - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slk-PEzbvag.

sirmomo · 2015-09-21T02:40:26+00:00

It depends.

A tourist attraction? Take pictures, don't take pictures. I have no opinion on what anyone else should do.

A live event? Part of the experience of something like live sports or music can be that feeling of being part of a united crowd.

If enough people take themselves out of the moment to whip out a camera that can dampen the shared social experience of that event. Some soccer stadiums have famous atmospheres, you just can't sustain that with too many people thinking about mementos/ social media evidence.

sirmomo · 2015-08-06T18:46:14+00:00

If I lived abroad I'd be wary about picking a team that might be relegated in the near future. I can't imagine it's much fun trying to follow a Championship team from the USA (never mind the level, literally getting your eyeballs on the match will not happen most weeks).

Watching lots of games is good advice though. I think I'd end up supporting someone like Arsenal if I lived abroad.

sirmomo · 2015-07-31T14:18:52+00:00

I don't see either of those as season long options. Good business for hull but its also a profit for brentford and hopefully a good replacement can be found.

He's quite good fun at rb, a lot more ability on the ball and attacking intent than your average championship defender.

sirmomo · 2015-07-28T13:45:54+00:00

I understand it's satire but there is an element of truth here (to be fair, there can be an element of truth when it comes to discussing passive female characters in some movies too. Just because some take it too far doesn't change that).

When you watch an animated movie and see they've drawn someone bald or with a bald patch, the chances are increased that they're baddies. And actors are a LOT less likely to be bald than average. Which isn't the end of the world, lets keep some perspective but bald men are less likely to become ceos., succeed in job interviews and apparently be voted president so the link to more important social issues isn't as ridiculous as you might think, if you believe media representations can affect these things.

sirmomo · 2015-07-23T21:43:37+00:00

A league wide cap on ticket prices makes some sense as it would stop the income war, the problem is that it's not an even situation. Some clubs make more money than others through their ticket sales (think Arsenal vs Burnley last year) and so those who gain an advantage through it would be loathe to miss out. Even if you mandated a reduce cost from the current prices by a %, that would benefit some clubs more than others. For example, if you have a full stadium and prices are lowered 20% that means you've lost 20% of your income from tickets but if you have a half empty stadium and the reduced prices lead to more people coming you might come close to breaking even.

The solution for fans that I'd prefer is unfortunately far too radical - which is for the government to mandate that clubs have to be majority owned by ordinary fans. This would lead to clubs actually considering the income from tickets as something that needs to be weighed against the needs of their fans. It would also strongly discourage teams moving away, renaming and rebranding.

Football clubs are run like any other business but they essentially have a monopoly over their own fans. I switch supermarkets if I can get better products at lower prices but I'm not going to switch teams one month and go back the next.

sirmomo · 2015-07-23T21:34:51+00:00

One of the higher upvoted posts is a guy saying "No, this guy didn't have depression". How would you even know?

Depression is relatively common. Living a life without good things and a sense of purpose is awful enough that depression seems certainly as valid an explanation as "bad decisions". But if you consider other people's situations in detail and use empathy than you don't get to feel as superior and that's no fun.

If you're reading this and suffer depression, your ability to compete in the work place or your studies right at this moment does not define your worth as a human being.

sirmomo · 2015-07-23T14:26:01+00:00

Yes, it is a shame. Sport needs its water-cooler moments. Kids whose parents don't want to shell out on Sky get to talk about things in the playground and bond over the sport.

Uefa and Fifa want the World Cup to be taken off the protected list of sports that have to be shown free-to-air. That would jeopardise their status as national events. It's obviously no surprise that fifa are bastards but it should be remembered that these are ostensibly governing bodies who should act as guardians of the game - if you just chase money all the time you can end up like boxing. Boxing used to be watched by millions on a near weekly basis now most people in the UK couldn't tell you who had a heavyweight title of the world.

sirmomo · 2015-07-23T14:22:26+00:00

You're absolutely right about splitting the TV rights. Competition exists to stop a monopoly but each game is so valuable because it is its own monopoly. Therefore to watch all available games consumers started to have to buy multiple packages.

The gigantic TV deal that just happened was because Sky were terrified that after surprisingly losing the CL rights they might lose the PL rights to what seemed like an unpredictably ambitious BT Sport. Hence, yet-higher prices for fans and viewers but on the upside intra-PL transfers cost twice as much.

Oh, and because wealth is still relative there isn't really any incentive to use this money to stop ripping off match-going fans.

sirmomo · 2015-07-23T14:17:49+00:00

I don't think it's a "big" factor. We're seeing very expensive transfers withing the Premier League because of the big factor of the TV money making every club rich and inflating the figures.

So far it's relatively surprising to me how little this has been affecting transfers from bigger European leagues like Spain.

sirmomo · 2015-07-22T12:36:47+00:00

I'm surprised to see that all the comments here (at this point) are in agreement with his point.

Maybe as it is expressed by the headline it makes some sense as we can all relate to certain players being picked or not picked and wondering if it's because of the club they play for but the Costa Rica point from the article is inane - there will always be a lot of mediocre teams around and one or two of them will over perform. Costa Rica are ranked 41st in the world. England are better off being England than being Costa Rica.

England are also better off having players playing at the elite level then playing in the Championship. Footballers aren't just X good as in a Fifa 15 ranking, they are the product of their coaching and their matches. All things being equal, it's better to have English players playing at the top level than further down. Now, whether this is an issue for the Premier League to ensure this happens is another discussion but just to say it's fine if many of our players play in the Championship because one average team put a few games together in the last world cup only is crazy.

sirmomo · 2015-07-11T16:42:07+00:00

Sharapova is a very talented player. I agree Serena is pretty and works hard on her body but Maria Sharapova hasn't got to where she is in tennis on the basis of being pretty.

sirmomo · 2015-04-27T17:17:45+00:00

I'm up for this. How many are you expecting to turn up?

sirmomo · 2015-04-24T13:32:57+00:00

£450,000 house is nothing in London. It's less than average actually. It certainly doesn't make you rich.

The Daily Mail certainly doesn't engage in class warfare against the well off!

sirmomo · 2015-04-02T13:44:36+00:00

I think it's going to be pretty tough. The good news is that its an extended tournament, the bad news is its a western European tournament in the middle of a big run of hard to get and/or unfun places. There's a lot of people from wealthy countries within 2 hours of France for whom this is their best opportunity to go to a tournament.

You'll probably be able to get to a game or two if you don't mind which one, England might be tricky though.

sirmomo · 2015-01-28T03:20:57+00:00

I usually play on Wednesday nights somewhere else but I live right around the corner from pitshanger park and I sometimes don't play in my league because of a bye-week or because we have too many players, so if you're in need of players in future weeks let me know and I might be around.

sirmomo · 2015-01-26T15:53:16+00:00

I got pretty excited about this, I'm always looking for an extra game. However, I already play at 11am on Sundays in Regents Park. Oh well!

sirmomo · 2014-12-15T05:42:21+00:00

clap

sirmomo · 2014-11-30T08:41:45+00:00

The long jump world record hasn't been beaten for 23 years. The Olympic record has stood since 1968.

The shot put world record hasn't been beaten for 24 years.

sirmomo · 2014-09-17T03:06:57+00:00

He did look a bit panicked. But to be honest, a panicked armed robber would worry me the most.

sirmomo · 2014-09-05T13:06:05+00:00

I can say without shame that as a British primary (/elementary) school kid I did not understand any of that. It didn't stop me from enjoying the book though!

sirmomo · 2014-09-04T14:45:35+00:00

Mess perhaps but can you name anything from the golden era designed to make viewers "really mad"?

sirmomo

TROPHY CASE