It makes you wonder what happened to the "factory" up there that was producing the likes of Waddle, Gascoigne, Shearer, etc.... Theoretically, Newcastle should have a ready made supply of fresh new local talent to pick from.
You know there used to be a story about when clubs wanted a player or two of quality,they would yell down the local coal mines........I guess the mines may be closed now!!!!!!!!?
Have you ever watched cup games before? These things happen. Football isn't like American football where you can seemingly predict everything. You get ups and downs
Of course I have Spurm but in this case I don't think Utd will win it or stop Arsenal should they meet. Arsenal won a tricky away match yesterday and will take some stopping. Their form is clicking in at the right time and they have four easy matches coming up in the CL.
Playing Cambridge away is football, but not as we know it, Jim. Bradford can play a bit as we saw. It's just an aerial and physical bombardment with teams like Cambridge.,
Didn't Keegan shut down their youth system or something? They've started bringing quite a few through in recent seasons, but nobody outstanding as yet. Takes time, though.
I don't mean to be disagreeable, but to may knowledge, there's no league in the world where the talent is spread as evenly as it is in the NFL, and few that are less predictable. The most successful teams, the 49ers and Steelers, have each won 6 championships in the 50 years since the Super Bowl started. Man U have won more than twice the titles (12) in less than half the time (23 years) that the PL has existed. There have been 14 different SB winners since 1992, in the same period that 5 teams have won the PL. The NFL is far inferior to football as a game. It's either total crap or an entertaining, violent cartoon, depending on your taste, I think. But the organization and competitive balance are both far superior, as is the officiating, thanks to the review system.
It seems to me, RWAEB, that contrary to US society in general, the NHL sets out to be very egalitarian. The NHL positively thrives on the socialist principle of spreading the wealth and talent around! Minnesota Marxists anybody?
But some hockey players are on the ice to knock the crap out of each other and get a few minutes in penalties,whereas if you tried that in the PL you will be red carded and likely banned for several matches. Of course,the hockey fans live for those moments!!!!! I don't think PL fans want to see that......?
I would disagree slightly with your comment re. inferiority - to a certain extent, I'm not even sure the games can be compared as they're so vastly different. I love the tactics that go into NFL, so even a low scoring game can be enjoyed where you can see the defensive sides to the team working well - it's like a game of chess.
A book's recently come out chronicling how the north east has ceased to be the hotbed of young talent it once was - here's a review: http://www.wsc.co.uk/reviews/63-General/12054-up-there Another way to look at it is to look at the players in the top flight coming through the north east teams' academies... Middlesbrough: Stewart Downing, Adam Johnson, Lee Cattermole, Brad Jones, Chris Brunt, James Morrison Newcastle: Andy Carroll, Steve Harper, Steven Taylor Sunderland: Jack Colback
It's the crashing irony. I look at it that the US takes sport too seriously to trust it to the free market, whereas the rest of the world takes it too seriously to trust it to societal control. Incidentally, I said the NFL, not the NHL, but even the latter mollycoddles losers and weaklings far more than real football would dream of. Well, ice hockey is really more of Canada's game. They're almost infinitely less violent than Americans statistically, so it's only fitting their national game is about the only one where punching people in the face is quite normal. I would say, yeah, sure, I like seeing hockey fights. Why not? I like boxing. I like ice hockey. Why not combine the two? My favorite fight happened the first year Mario Lemieux played in the NHL. He was 19, and went on to be one of the two greatest hockey players. It was and still is normal for someone to challenge a rookie to a fight. Losing is fine, but skating away can mean a short career. I watched Lemieux throw one punch, saw the other player fall down, and noticed a dark stain growing on the ice around the other player's head. That was the only fight of Lemieux's NHL career. He was quite a peaceful player by NHL standards, but the fact that everyone was a little afraid of him played a part in his success. Plotting strategy is the most enjoyable thing in the NFL, no doubt, and in baseball as well. Should you run or throw? Blitz? Roll out? Throw a low, outside fastball? Take a pitch? Steal? I thought, wrongly, that the other posters on the board now weren't serious fans. There is a problem with all this, though, which has bothered me more and more over the years. The strategizing is the main attraction because the game almost never actually takes place. It's 95% waiting, planning and commercial breaks and 5% game. Football is more like, what 70/30 playing? Maybe even 80/20? I still just can't get over how great it is to watch a game and then to actually watch a game, as opposed to oddly dressed behemoths standing around.
I never thought I'd say this,but I love baseball.Daft enough to be a Phillies fan.In fact I like it so much I had a heart attack watching them play in Cincinatti.Lucky for me the man in first aid room was a Red's doctor and he told me was a heart doctor.Got me ready,put me on the Red's ambulance and off to Good Sam's.That was in 2000 while visiting Cincinatti with friends!
I'm very glad you got through that okay, first of all. Having said that... ...a Phillies fan! My god. How on earth did you ever end up as a Phillies fan? I was born a theoretical Phillies fan, but both my brother and me ran screaming into the hills. I was born in Carlisle, which is about 50 miles closer to Philadelphia than Pittsburgh*. My brother took a class trip to see a baseball game in Philadelphia and decided, in about the only non-conformist move of his life, to root for the visiting Chicago Cubs. When you move five times in seven years, as we did, there seems to be a natural tendency to root for the away team--since you're always "away" if you see what I mean. I remember watching a gridiron game between two US army divisions in Munich, and asking who the visitors were, so I knew who to root for. Anyway, for some reason the Cubs' allegiance stuck to my brother and to me. 106 years without a title and counting. I don't like the Phillies at all for a number of different strange reasons, but above all because the Phillies were similar to the Cubs in being big losers, but unlike the Cubs managed to win a World Series eventually. I also think Philadelphians are on average more unpleasant than the residents of any other place. They're famous for booing Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Still, you're certainly no glory hunter, I"ll give you that. *It is in fact closer to both Baltimore and Washington than Philadelphia, but it was unthinkable to root for a southern team. Carlisle was the farthest town north occupied by Confederate troops, and anything below the Mason-Dixon line was still enemy territory, a century after the end of the Civil War.
I don't think I've ever watched a game of Baseball, just literally seen highlights every now and then on the news/ internet. Must get round to watching one, the speed those guys throw and bat is phenomenal. The only sport outside of football I watch consistently is MMA, I probably watch MMA more than football come to think of it, mainly the UFC but I also keep up with Bellator and WSOF (occasionally watch the odd Invicta and BAMMA event but that's a rarity). I'd recommend to anyone who likes a bit of combat sports to watch it, especially the UFC which is basically the Premier League of MMA. The training these guys go through is incredible, with most training a minimum of twice a day (usually between 2-4 hour intervals) with many of the top, top fighters training three times, all in various styles of martial arts (predominantly boxing/ kick boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu), with strength and conditioning plus fitness regimes added to the mix. I went to the UFC event held in London at the O2 last March, was a fantastic experience and I'm hoping to go to the recently announced Glasgow and Krakow events, if prices are within my budget.
