The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Just when you thought you had it sorted, you haven't.

1. You hear Man Utd have solved their striking problems by shelling out sixty five big ones for Cunha.
2. You wonder to yourself how they are going to solve their problems with the other ten positions (eleven if you include the manager).
3. You switch on YouTube and see Victor Gyokeres of Sporting is being discussed.
4. You click on it because he's one of two candidates for the Arsenal No 9 shirt and also available for sixty-five million.
5. You find it's all about Man Utd and Victor Gyokeres. "Will he suit United?" "Will United suit him?"

Will I be suited to the funny farm? "No, Mr Harper, just a jacket. Put your arms through these. That's nice. Was it the Transfer Window? Yes, I know, but don't you worry, we've got a whole ward full. You'll feel right at home."

[Pete Jones]

Two of the smallest market teams in the NBA have reached the championship round, making the NBA conspiracy theorists rethink their worldview. I swear.

[Mick Harper]

Player power is coming unexpectedly to the fore in the transfer jungle. The clubs and the agents are used to sorting things out among themselves but they've run into a perfect storm:

1. A great many top clubs are chasing the same limited number of top players who are available at any one time.
2. The amount of money washing about generally has sent transfer sums through the roof.
3. But it has reached a roof because the clubs, though awash with money, cannot spend it as they like due to 'fair play' limits.
4. Hence the clubs can only offer the same ballpark amount for and to any particular player.
5. "Well, son, you can go to Juve, Athletico, Bayern or Arsenal. It's no skin off my nose which one you choose."
6. "I'll go to Arsenal, I've heard the comprehensives are first class in that area of London."

[Mick Harper]

While Arteta is in hot water because he lost to PSG in the semi-final after previously beating Real Madrid in the quarters, Simone Inzaghi is in even hotter water because his Inter side lost to PSG in the final after beating Barcelona in the semis.

Arne Slot's advice to managers: get knocked out by PSG in the last sixteen when nobody's looking.

[Mick Harper]

Delap for England? I'm not so sure.

[Mick Harper]

A new bit of Fair Play brinkmanship has come into vogue. When the pundits say, "They'll have to sell players before they can buy any," this used to mean what it said. But now, when everyone costs the same (high) price and everyone is in for everyone, you have no idea which precise players you are going to end up 'getting through the door'.

So everyone goes all in at the start of the window and then, depending who they get, start to sell duplicates from the squad. The trouble is the players you don't mind letting go are all on sky high wages, those wages will 'break the wage structure' of the club you are trying to offload them on, the player (or his agent) won't accept a drop in wages, so sits tight.

I can foresee UEFA/PL being faced with every top club in Europe having broken Fair Play rules, they will all have points docked, so it will be as if nothing happened.

[Mick Harper]

Why do we get...?

(a) Lovely weather when we're playing a test match against Ireland (for Chrissake)
(b) It stays lovely for the one-dayers against equally hapless West Indies
(c) The weather breaks on the last of the one-dayers when it doesn't matter
(d) It pours down for the test matches against India
(e) The wiley Pathans spin us out 5-0 between the showers on sticky pudding pitches
(f) We solve Global Warming
(g) We get back to the good old days when everything was drawn, abandoned or cancelled without a ball being bowled.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The struggle to get into 'the League' (i.e. the top four divisions in the football pyramid) is titanic. York ended the season in second place in the 'National League' (i.e. the fifth division) twenty-three points ahead of Oldham and twenty-eight points ahead of Southend.

However it was Oldham that made it in, beating Southend in the play-off final. Never mind, Shrimpers, better luck next time.

[Mick Harper]

Real Madrid 1 Sheriff Tiraspol 2

Remember that? It happened back in 2021 and remains the greatest upset in Champions' League history (Sheriff were ranked 175th in Europe at the time). But that's not why I'm digging up this nugget of an inglorious past.

I have only just discovered who Sheriff are. More to the point who they are the champions of. It's Transnistria. Though since nobody recognises the place, and certainly UEFA doesn't, they qualified by coming top of the Moldovan league.

So who or what is Sheriff? They own sixty per cent of the Transnistrian economy, that's who. The other forty per cent is mostly the local steel mill. It's not a bad model. Imagine if, say, Arsenal were responsible for sixty percent of Britain's GDP. It's worth thinking about.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

He was their third choice, his main attribute was that he was English, so enabled Man City to meet their minimum English criteria, at a mere £ 1.5 million a year he was a real bargain.

[Mick Harper]

I got my pocket money stopped when we lost the first game 11-0. I was so distracted by this turn of events we lost the next game 13-0. Come on, you Sandhoppers!

[Mick Harper]

Are you all getting in the lager for the big six-pointer against Andorra tonight in the first of the World Cup qualifiers?

It's a little known fact that they wanted to set up an annual Iberian tournament based on our own Home Championship of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. For political reasons -- Franco was in power -- it couldn't be Castille, Catalonia, Portugal and the Basques (that would have been something!) so it had to be Spain, Portugal and Andorra.

But the Bishop of Carcassonne, who was titular co-regent of Andorra, vetoed the proposal on the grounds that Andorra wasn't in Iberia. The French/Spanish border has always been a sensitive issue. That's why Andorra has never amounted to much in international football. So little known, I've had to invent all this.

[Mick Harper]