Believing Doesn't Make It So-Part 2

And so we eventually come to Part 2 of our piece on memes at a time when one of the more crap ones has got some of football's most respected commentators, no I'm sorry what i meant to say there was the extremely hirsute and slightly pointless Richard Keys and the totally fucking annoying Andy "we're all neutral but I have my head up Ferguson's arse and I really hate Liverpool but I am in no way a bitter blue" Gray have been canned for making sexist comments. Three quick points 1- Sian Massey wasn't crap and indeed only made one error which was a handball but I'm biased and the ref was Martin Atkinson who was just awful 2-even if she had been crap it would have been because she was a crap lino who was a woman NOT because she was a woman 3- a lot of women (and men) don't know about football and are quite happy in that ignorance and belittle those of us who do, criticising such women would not be sexist. Criticising a female lino or ref or chief executive simply because you assume that ALL women are ignorant, wilfully or not, is braindead in the extreme. The teams we've trained were all girls teams they contained national reps, regional players, FAI cup winners  and NCAA ranked players from the US and at no point did their femaleness ever come into question, well maybe there is one thing as its very hard to find a decent woman keeper in any women's sport with the good ones standing out by a mile. And to be honest, we have no idea how the offside rule works anymore so Sian Massey's decision should be praised as a correct if difficult call for a lino- and conversely if she had fucked up its because she failed in this regard- irrespective of whether or not she is in fact a she. BUT neither should she be exempt from criticism because she is well as we have pointed out a she. Either way Andy Gray is a tit.

Anyway, rather perversely here's no 4

4 - Referees Deserve Respect

There is a clarification we feel is important to point out before we start which is that we do NOT believe that referees shouldn't be treated with respect but we wish to point out that our mater, a woman with a passing interest in sport unless she's at a match at which point she becomes a dervish of invective, always brought us up to believe that respect has to be earned. Like all earnings therefore, it can be affected by such things has cuts from outside and non attendance at work and can also be increased by being bloody good at what you're supposed to do. Thus, respect only can be said to be automatic because one has shown through previous performance that one is good at one's work and has built up a reputation as such NOT because one happens to do what one does. It's sort of the complete opposite of politics

In this context, to be a respected ref, make as many decisions correctly as possible, explain why you made them don't be a dick and don't assume that every player will tug the forelock and twist their flat cap coz of trouble 't mill. To presume that all players can and will respect you just because you are the short fat old bloke(or blokette) in the black can only lead to an inevitable breakdown in the game because then it is that respect and ultimately the authority which should , in theory at least, lead to respect rather than the other way round, collapses with inevitable consequences. Not that we advocate for no respect for refs; we have seen all too often in Gaah, what happens when no-one respects a ref and it never ends well for the man in black. To tell people that they must respect the referee and that respect is deserved automatically undermines any ref that makes any decision which is felt by one side or the other or any individual player is unfair. Some would point to the difference between footie and egg chasing in this regard. apparently not questioning decisions and accepting them is a sign of respect but one no-one ever asks is why is respect a one way street. In the last round of the Heineken cup a player was sent off for what was called a spear tackle but wasn't while a guy stood on another lads head and was given the rugby equivalent of a time out on the naughty step. There is no consistency and if a ref appears to be playing by his own rules, then retribution will be sought and respect lost.
The right way to go is force players to respect the ref but to preach acceptance of their decisions. The authorities need to accept that players and management teams will never agree with every decision the officials. By insisting on respect from the outset they can only erode that respect but if they were honest to accept the reality of football and focused on the kids and making them aware of it being okay to disagree with a ref but not to deck him, and also allowed refs the time to explain their decisions-which is another problem with automatic respect in that its lets refs off the hook as any questioning of a decision is in essence dissent- then respect is earned, grown and solidified rather than as it is now, lost, reduced and eroded.

5- The Premiership is Poorer This Season

If you people want to make a comparison, it would be advisable not to say something is worse if you cant say what exactly was better. So when was the premier league better? Last season? Clearly not, because the same players are almost to a man-Mascherano is the only real departure- still there and teams like Hull are gone. Hull simply cannot be better then the teams that replaced them. Remember this was a team who needing a win on the final day met a scum B team full of kids and not only lost but were outclassed yet they still stayed up because there were three teams even shitter than them.The season before that the league contained Derby who finished on 11 points and with a goal difference of -69; before that Sunderland 15 & -43. So for this to be a shit season it would have to be worse than at least one of these seasons. of course it could be that the pundits on boards might be referring to some golden age of pre-premiership football when every team was capable of challenging and beating everyone else-which raises an inherent contradiction which we will address anon- but absence makes the heart grow fonder and time makes glasses more rose tinted. While the premier league has had problems with uncompetitive teams- the narrowest gap between top and bottom since its foundation is 41 points and its never been less than 54 since the turn of the millennium- it should be remembered that the last time Blackpool were in the top flight they won four games and that was in 1970 and if three points were awarded at the time the gap would have been 67 points between them and  winners Arsenal. Taking a random year in 78-79, Chelsea finished bottom having won 5 games and with a GD of -48. In another definitely not randomly chosen season 73-74 Leeds were champs on 62 and Norwich bottom on 29 with the Scum 2nd bottom on 32. Had the three points system been in place the gap between 1st and 21st  would have 42 points and united would have been further adrift of the teams ahead of them. What has been lost is that the two point system implies a competitiveness that simply wasn't there-interesting to not Liverpool finished 2nd having only 4 away wins that season. Teams that finish at the bottom are always likely to be bad teams, if they weren't they wouldn't be in the bottom three but as of this date 19/02/11 Wolves are bottom 33 points behind the leaders but have 7 wins. The ability to beat any team on any given day should be seen as a sign that the overall level of the league is quite high yet for some perverse reason competitiveness is viewed by football troglodytes as some sign of weakness in the competition. Clearly if the top teams are being beaten by lesser teams then they and by implication the league must be shit.

It may well be that this is not the best scum team ever-to us best scum team ranks with most pleasant serial killer as most unpleasant comparison- but they have only lost to Wolves in the league and frankly if our team played shit and only lost one game and were top by four with 11 games to go we would not of a shit, giving. Chelski were always likely to fade through ageing and have unsettled their side through panic buying - it wouldn't be the first time that remoulding a team mid season to accommodate a striker has backfired- and the Arse and Manc Blues are beholden to the contrasting whims of their managers and Spurs are very over rated and not great without Van Der Vaart, probably signing of the season. But its being harsh to every other club to assume that the because the top teams have struggled the league is shit. Is it not more likely the case that because the league isn't shit the top teams have struggled. All of the bottom three have beaten teams in the top four but instead of celebrating this naysayers impersonate Frazier from Dads Army with dire forebodings  of imminent ruin.The EPL isn't dying, it may even be in ruder health than its credit

Believing Doesn't Make It So-Part 1

So that's the mid season break over with and we have recovered our raison d'etre. Now, we could and probably will end up discussing the Scouse issue soon but as it is a new year, resolutions are in the air and we have decided that one of ours for MMX I (naturally followed by MMX II -Into The East) is to bust some conventions, investigate some standard cliches and basically smack memes across the head going shut up you fecker. So to begin and go forward, we will go backwards.

I - English  Football Needs a Winter Break

We have been vocal about football in winter but there are three simple points that have to be proven before we can begin to contemplate such a proposal, namely a-that the cold weather only affects matches in a period between December and early February; b- that the knock-on effect of moving matches either to earlier or later will not impact on either player welfare especially in a tournament year and c-given that, that the time off will allow players to rest, recuperate physically and mentally and that all clubs will restrict themselves to light training. Some Hope.

2- Football Should Look To Rugby To Improve The Game

Rugby is a game that is great to watch, fun to play but populated by the type of smug cunt that make life completely insufferable. And Rugby is a game in denial. It has convinced itself that it has evolved from its upper and middle class origins through amateurism- of course only people with enough money to be amateur actually are amateur- into a popular world game with both a vibrant upper game and massive grassroots development- Utter Bullshit. (There is little chance of an upset in their WC and where is Black Africa or Central and Med Europe)

But that doesn't stop 'pundits' from pointing footie towards things in the other game which they claim would be of benefit to the round ball game and in doing so palpably fail to understand either game. so lets take one at random and just thrash it with no regards to his feelings- a bit like rugby players  do to each other ears.

In a column on Helium Simon Wright - http://www.helium.com/items/940069-what-soccer-can-learn-from-rugby- gives five things that footie could learn from egg chasing. One we can rid of straightaway; treating players on the pitch while play goes on is a fucking joke-its dangerous to the injured player and the medical staff and play should be stopped if the injured player is close to the ball. As for integrating fans, is that not as much a problem of the authorities ie. the fa, police etc exacerbating a problem by assuming the worst? There are fucktards in football who use tribalism as an excuse for violence, racism, gay bashing etc but at least football knows they exist. Rugby acts as if everyone is swilling pints and singing songs with each other and regarding the rugby as a bizarre form of dating agency rather than accept that it has its fair share of fucktards as well.(compare and contrast the Cantona and Brennan crowd interventions which also highlights the hypocrisy of violence within the game) Just because they're middle class and don't talk about it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Miking up refs has happened and we have never quite understood what difference it makes. maybe if refs were allowed or expected to explain their decisions after the game it might soothe the hostile beast but miking refs seems likely to lead to letters from Angry of Clondalkin.

We will deal with the issue of respecting refs later and so we turn to video technology. There is a facetious argument that football needs controversy - it may have it and get it but we are not sure it needs it- against technology which is counterpointed with the argument that in rugby they have used technology to remove doubt and allow for legitimate scores to be given if the ref is unsure (and illegitimate ones to be disallowed). This can only be put forward by two types of people; the blind and those who cant see.
What those who advocate video technology seem to forget is that there are major differences between the sports that use it and footie and that there are major flaws in the system but rather than have a reasoned debate about it they simply decide that FIFA is behind the times- maybe they are but their reluctance to introduce it may be down they have seen in action in other sports and haven't been impressed.

Having watched enough rugger and rug'be leeg to almost consider them sports worth watching instead of football rather than when there's no football on, we have come to the conclusion that video refs far from aiding refs has caused a bottling of decisions. Rather than use it to only check on groundings or if a player has clipped a touchline, the refs ask their mate in the van if there is a reason why they CAN'T award the try- look pal if you think its a try give the fucking try and have a bit of faith in your self. The video refs also don't have a remit to look at - or at least seem to act as if its the case- anything that they are not asked by the ref to rule on directly. ( this is definitely the case in RLRL which says that if the man in the van isn't sure it goes back to the ref for a final decision which means the ref is probably right. If the ref is probably right why bother with the video in the first place especially when it can't be used for controversial decision which don't end in scores. To assume that these are the only decisions which affect games is wrong so either use it for everything or nothing. And then three's the huge difference between the games, the natural break. If a try is scored there is a break as there is in football but if a goal isn't given then its play on unless there is a free kick, goal kick or throw but there is no guarantee  whereas in rugby there is a natural break even if a try isn't given so not only would they introduce video tech but they would introduce unnatural breaks in play. Of course they say wait til a break in play but what if there is a yellow card or red card incident or heaven forbid the other team scores. If the refs wrong in not allowing the goal then all that play becomes null and void which would go down like a bag of spuds. And again would be for goals only or for other incidents? If you want to look at goal line technology from other sports, why not see if the way an ice hockey pick causes a light and siren to go off is viable in a football. Football doesn't need to catch up with other sports on this issue, advocates of the position need to watch the other sports.

3 - Decisions Even Themselves Out Over  A Season

Crap Decisions drive people mad but nothing drives us madder than being patronised by smug middle aged men on couches and there is no more patronising statement then that over the course of the season decisions even themselves over the course of a season. 

For a start where this notion that there is a Blind Io style God of  footballing justice carefully and neutrally balancing the scales of footie has come from is beyond us as if such a personification does exist then they've been making a complete balls of it for years. It is more likely that the sporting Gods are a bunch of Lokis deriving merriment from the cock-ups that befall the unfortunate mortal on the pitch. If this ying and yang universe in balance does apply then Leeds would have won the title due to an offside decision in their favour;Clive Allen would have been credited with a great goal that didnt go in; Brazil would win a WC game due to an early blown full time whistle; United would have a bad decision not go in their favour; Liverpool would win a game through the intervention of a beach ball or England lose a world cup final due to a bad linesman. The only way we will begin to be less doubtful about this is if Gary Neville is sent off getting off the bus.

Part 2 will appear soon-but given that it took us 6 days to finish this dont hold your breath