Sportsthoughts (3)

Posted on December 2, 2011 by John S

The Euro draw

The draw for the European championships next summer took place today.  Sighs of relief all round at England’s draw: France, Ukraine (joint hosts with Poland) and Sweden.  Far from easy, but worst case scenario with the seeding would have been Spain, Portugal and France. Group of Death (there must always be one and it usually involves Holland) is… Holland, Germany, Portugal and Denmark.  Not easy for Ireland either: Spain, Italy and Croatia.  A group of near-death.  And then for completeness, the Group of Life, or maybe, of the East:  Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic.

Can we qualify from our group? Should surely, but here are some grim stats from the Opta Joe tweet (which I recommend) :

  • France are unbeaten in their last five games against England. They won four.
  • England’s win ratio against Sweden is only 32%.
  • Ukraine are the only team to beat England in the last two qualifying campaigns. And they are the hosts.
  • England have never won their opening game of a European Championship.  Lost four, drew three.  This time it’s France.

Opta Joe likes to end with a single word that sums up the stat.  Put these four together. Stuffed.

But if we do get through to the quarter final, is it an exit to Spain or Italy?  Please not Ireland! It’ll be on penalties. Probably Spain, assuming they top their group and we come second in ours.   Saw an Opta stat the other day. England have been in seven penalty shoot-outs. Won 1, lost 6.  But the one win, in Euro 96, was Spain.  And we did beat them the other day… Victorious!

Welcome back Martin O’Neill

While it’s always sad to see a football manager being sacked – always the scapegoat for players’ poor performance – it’s good to see Martin O’Neill back in the Premier League. I like his passion for the game – it’s in his eyes – his fierce insight, his humour.  I like the way he gets the best out of teams, gets them playing football which may not be the most beautiful, but is exciting.  He plays simple lines, usually 4-4-2, making the most of the all the pitch, breaking fast, staying organised.  A Northern Irishman playing a classic English style, the style that won English teams – Liverpool, Villa and of course, Forest, the team he played for under Brian Clough – a lot of European Cups in the 70s and 80s.  Is the style outdated now? Well, it’s out of favour with the big teams at the moment, but they often revert to it when desperate for a goal towards the end of a game.  Its main weakness, if the midfield stretches too wide, is that the centre of midfield can be overrun (see English national team on many occasions).  But played intelligently, with the second striker dropping back where necessary – in that hole –  and at least one wide man tucking in when necessary, then it’s not actually so different to any of the in-vogue formations.

O’Neill is now criticised for his time at Villa.  Three sixth places in a row.  The fans would probably give anything for that now.  Had there been a bit more money at the club, he probably would have been in with a shout of a fourth place finish. Like Everton, Tottenham in recent times, maybe even Newcastle this season.

How will he do with Sunderland, where he knows there is no more money for players?  Well, Steve Bruce has bought a lot of new players, and most arrived with good reputations, so a bit of organisation, a bit of motivation and I’m sure they’ll turn it round.  I’d go for 10th place this season.

I feel a bit sorry for Steve Bruce.  He’s not well liked amongst fans – ex Man Utd, whinges a lot about refs, has been quite disloyal to sides in the past.  But listen to him talk, and he’s very honest, clearly in love with the game, a good man. The media has been saying he hadn’t moved with the times – the new formations and tactics, the technology on the training pitch, understanding his players as individuals, and so on.  I don’t know how true that is, but there did seem a pattern (before this season) of Sunderland starting well then falling away. Fitness issues? Motivation and strategy when the going gets tough? Hope he gets another club, anyway – the Championship might suit him best.

England rugby – don’t blow the inheritance

The revelations from the leaked report on World Cup failure last week were pretty stunning by any standards. Of course they were selectively reported – the good stuff, if there was any, was conspicuous by its absence.  The players’ disdain for the coaches (except Graham Rowntree), the claims of poor preparation, the favouring of established players (especially those who’d played with Johnno in the 2003 World Cup), the focus on money and endorsements, the general lack of discipline, was staggering.  After all that time preparing together, how could that have happened? Or maybe because of all that time together? What screamed out was lack of leadership: both at the top, but also within the playing ranks.  And lack of self awareness – everything was someone else’s fault.  We, the viewers, could see the lack of leadership on the pitch at the World Cup.  It was surprising.  Now we can understand why.

So Johnno went, but no replacement yet, and probably only a stop gap until the summer. No surprise, as the leadership at Twickenham is in disarray.  There is no-one, really, with the authority to appoint a new manager, or head coach, or Director of Rugby, or whatever the bloke who picks the team and gets them to play is called. So we will wait until the summer and then get someone like the South African, Nick Mallett. That will be fine, if he is backed up by strong coaches and is supported properly by the blazers – with no-one briefing against him the moment England lose a game, as they will.

The opportunity must be taken to sort out management at all levels, because there are so many good young players waiting to step up. Just to take Quins: George Lowe, Jordan Turner-Hall, Sam Smith, Seb Stegman, Joe Gray, Joe Marler, Luke Wallace, Chris Robshaw, to name a few. And not to forget Danny Care, Ugo Monye, Mike Brown.  In fact, convert Nick Evans to an Englishman and play the whole Quins team! All the top teams could probably roll off a similar list.  Some of the players mentioned may not be quite good (or big) enough in the end, but there is such rich talent out there.  Please don’t waste it Twickers!

Gary Speed

It’s hard to comprehend what might have compelled Gary Speed, the Wales football manager, to take his own life.  Outwardly he had so much going for him.  It really did look like he was giving the Welsh team a new lease of life, with players like Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey leading the way.  I don’t really want to know what caused that terribly sad outcome.  I hope it stays private, with his family and close friends.  Chances are that at some stage something will find its way onto the internet and into the press – the journos will only be doing their job. I’d rather, though, that we just remembered the excellent midfield player who was brilliant in the air, who won a Premiership winners’ medal with Leeds and played 86 times for his country. And the up and coming manager who was beginning to make his mark in Wales.

The outpouring of grief and shock, the eloquent tributes, the flowers, all showed the esteem in which he was held.  But it spoke of something else too: the sense of community amongst footballers and fans, which is so often overshadowed by the venality of today’s game at the top level; and a sense of awakened understanding that even rich, successful footballers can have problems. Only the day before Gary Speed’s death, the Guardian’s “Secret Footballer” was writing about it; Stan Collymore has been tweeting about his own experience.  Footballers-are-human-beings-shock, not just the arrogant semi-gods and yobs that they are mostly portrayed as – images they often encourage. Maybe something good will emerge from all of this: a greater humilty and sympathy on all sides? Oh, I doubt it, but one can but hope.


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The agonies of the rubbish golfer

Posted on December 1, 2011 by John S

Last Thursday and Friday I had my two annual outings on to the golf course, part of a get together with a few friends.

I love golf and I hate it. When you hit a beautiful drive off the tee – it can happen  – or a lovely five iron from the fairway, or a wicked chip out of the bunker, or a fifteen foot putt into the hole, all is well with the world. But the rest of the time…  aaaaagh!

Thursday was at Kirtlington Golf Club, a few miles out of Oxford. A newish course, not too many hazards, and some lovely views of the rolling hills and woods in the area. It was just me and my mate Dave.  Usually there is another, Jon, but he was plying his wares at a conference.  We started with a solid full English breakfast – very good value at about £6 – and hit the tee just before 11am. First shot since last year… topped and sliced the ball, went about ten yards to the right! Recovered, staggered along the fairway, massively overhit a few putts and got a ten. Oh dear. Next hole, smashed the tee shot as far as the ladies’ tee, about twenty yards ahead.  Again fought own incompetence and managed a ten.  This was not looking good. It got better, thankfully, and around the turn (holes 8 and 9) I managed a par and a bogey.  I then hit another dip and started to lose hope.  I had a cold and started to feel that made things impossible. Then, amazingly, I hit a decent tee shot and somehow the feeling of cold receded. I got another par and finished feeling like golf was quite an easy game.

In the end I scored 122.  A bit worse than usual, but not much. Dave was on a roll.  He got an 86, his best ever.  He proceeded to tell everyone he talked to about it. I would have done the same!

It’s the ultimate mind game, golf.  Every shot needs preparation, poise. The head must stay still. You stare at that little white ball and think, surely I can hit it.  But half the time your body says no, I cannot do it. The mind has to win.  Sometimes it does, often it doesn’t. If the head goes up, if you chase the ball, you are stuffed. You top it and it goes a few yards. Or you carve a huge lump out of the fairway, only incidentally moving the ball along.

But sometimes it all clicks, and you think, that was brilliant, why can’t I do that every time? And the next shot comes up and you think, what did I do right last time, and you’ve forgotten.

But it’s alright, it’s still fun, most of the time…

On Friday we travelled down to a course on the outskirts of Cheltenham, called Lilley Brook. A really beautiful setting.  The first twelve holes gently undulating, with some lovely trees.  Lovely to look at, that is.  Hell to play alongside – or amidst.  It’s as if they and the ball had a magnetic attraction. The start of the course wasn’t even that difficult.  But my shot making was even worse than at Kirtlington.  What was grim was that I knew that it got really hard when at hole 13 you climb up a steep hill and start to play holes where the moment you go off course you can slide fifty yards down a hill.

I was just all over the place.  My cold  started to feel worse.  I told myself it didn’t matter, it was just a bit of fun, but the frustration grew. I took 76 on the first 9, the easy bit! I stopped caring and actually had a good couple of holes on the outward nine.  Until we hit the hills…  The scenery is fantastic: wonderful views over Cheltenham.  But you look ahead as the exhaustion creeps in and think, how on earth am I going to get to the green?

As we ended I was beaten, beaten up. Jon, who was keeping the scores, announced them.  145.  My worst ever, by some way.  73 over par! No wonder I was knackered – I’d played twice as many shots as a scratch golfer would. But I was strangely relieved – I hadn’t gone over 150.

That evening I had a very sore right forearm.  All that fairway digging.  The forearm takes the impact as you slam your five iron into the turf.

There are all sorts of factors in play: only playing once a year, age, lack of talent, psychological deficiency, illness (this time). It’s so challenging!  But, you know, I’ll be back next year, looking forward to it in a bizarre kind of way.

I did have a lesson years ago.  At the time I used to hook the ball (to the left) a lot. I once lobbed the ball over some trees protecting a road from the course and heard the crunch of ball on car roof.  The professional said, looking at my positioning of my feet, that it was impossible to hook the ball.  Well I proved him wrong! He pointed out about five things wrong with the way I played and I decided I was beyond redemption.  I settled for mediocrity.  That meant scores of just over 100 in younger life.  It creeps up every year. Now something like 115 is satisfactory.  I hope the Lilley Brook experience was an exception, but I have to be prepared for the worst!

Doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things. But it’s so annoying, especially when after three attempts you hit that perfect shot. Why can’t I do that all the time?!

I’ll be back, next year, hoping for something better, but enjoying the whole experience. Sort of.

Love and hate.

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Sportsthoughts (2)

Posted on November 22, 2011 by John S

Managerial Angst Part 1 – the Premier League frenzy

It’s November and the speculation about the futures of Premier League managers is in full flow.  Of course the futures of those at the bottom – Steve Kean at Blackburn and Roberto Martinez at Wigan in particular – are vulnerable; but it’s the fate of some of those at the top which is the more intriguing.

First we have “AVB”, Andre Villas Boas. Brought to Chelsea from Porto with much fanfare and expense. The man who would finally turn Chelsea into the new Barcelona. Hasn’t worked yet, but might if he is given time, but will he be?  The successive losses – QPR away 0-1, ending up with 9 men; 3-5 at home to Arsenal; 1-2 at home to Liverpool – have clearly created shock waves at the Bridge.  It looks like there are six or even seven teams this year competing seriously for the top four places and Champions League entry. As John Motson – good ol’ “Motty” – commented on the Radio Five Live Monday Night Club tonight, we have the bizarre situation where there is more interest in next year’s Champion’s League contest than the current one, which is only four games in. Proof that the real excitement in sport is the anticipation rather than the reality.

So AVB is trying to introduce a Barcelona/Porto pressing game with the defence up on half way and much of the real defending being done in midfield as soon as you lose the ball. But it isn’t functioning too well just yet, and the slow-paced John Terry and slightly crazed David Luiz in defence, and the ponderous John Obi Mikel in midfield, are being exposed.  I’m sure if they stick at it it will come together – Chelsea are a formidable machine.  But will Abramovich panic and bring Guus Hiddink back, now that he has been released by Turkey?

And talking of wanting to be Barcelona, this was Arsene Wenger’s vision too.  He has come tantalisingly close.  Arsenal were one Niklas Bendtner poor touch from dumping Barca out of the Champion’s league last year. The margins are so fine: last season is declared a disaster by Arsenal fans.  But it could have been magnificent.

Wenger’s vision has been shattered by the forces of very big money. I hope I’m wrong, but doubt I am.  Over the past few years, the Emirates Stadium years, the business model has revolved around developing young players, ultimately turning them into a prize-winning unit.  But the heart has been ripped out of the vision by the departures of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri. Fabregas at least had the familial ties to Barcelona: he was always going to go back at some point.  But Nasri’s move reflected the new realities – the Man City oil money. The massive wages that Arsenal can’t, or won’t afford. Nasri wasn’t cheap when he was bought from Marseille, but he was still part of the development policy.  Now the question is, who’s next?  Robin van Persie, for a last big pay day to City?  Alex Song to Barca? Every Arsenal fan must live in fear that they have become a very high class feeder club.

And the interview that Wenger had with the French sports paper, L’Equipe, which was reported in the British papers this weekend, gave us the first hints that maybe Arsene has accepted that his way of doing things won’t work.  So what will he do?  Leave Arsenal, accepting that his vision can’t be achieved?  Start using the money from 60,000 punters per home game to buy seasoned pros? Who knows.  But there is a fin de siecle feel – even as the team are doing really well and are fighting back into that coveted top four.

Tell you what I’d like. Arsene for next England manager.  Knows English football. Massively respected.  Plays the game the right way. Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera and Lee Dixon as his assistants! Fantasy football. Dream on…

And to complete the London triumvirate of angst, ‘Arry at Spurs.  Heart problems, accusations of tax evasion, just as Spurs are playing better than they have for many a year.  They went third tonight with a routine win over Aston Villa. Gareth Bale torturing the Brummies, Scott Parker and Luca Modric bossing midfield.  As a West Ham fan, I’m supposed to dislike Tottenham, but I never have.  I used to go to White Hart Lane quite a lot in the early eighties and enjoyed their stylish but flakey football.  Not unlike the Hammers, just a bit more successful. They’ve ditched the flakiness for now, but if Harry goes, what will happen?  Will they blow it just as the real step up beckons?  If I were a Spurs fan that would be my worry.

Managerial Angst Part 2 – did Johnno have to go?

England’s rugby team had a very disappointing World Cup.  There was so much potential: Flood, Foden, Ashton, Youngs, Croft, Lawes, Tuilagi.  A youthful spirit mixed in with the hardened pros.  Surely semi finals at least.  But it all went horribly wrong.  After some of the vibrant displays of the past year – trashing the Aussies a couple of times, winning the Six Nations – the team seemed to retreat into its crab-like shell when the competition got going.  The adventure went out of the team and nerves took over. Endless penalties conceded, balls knocked on at crucial moments.  Panic rather than belief.

What happened?  Why did an excellent team bottle it?  Repercussions from dwarf-throwing bars and general lary behaviour didn’t help, but surely that didn’t do for them.  They basically lost their confidence in their own ability. And the Management – Martin Johnson in the lead – seemed to revert to the old-style Leicester up-the-jumper approach, which Leicester don’t even play anymore.  Crush the opposition with forward power then turn it on.  Worked in 2003.  Only problem was that our forwards weren’t powerful or quick or clever enough.  They were good, but not superior to other teams.  So the tactics concentrated on areas where the team wasn’t dominant and didn’t exploit the aspects where we were strong – the pace of Aston and Foden, for example.

Easy to say from the armchair, but it all felt like a hugely missed opportunity. England probably should have made it to the final, most likely then to lose to New Zealand. That would have been honourable.

So the knee-jerk instinct afterwards was to say Johnno should go, and he did resign this week. But should he have gone?  The examples of Clive Woodward (failed 1999, won World Cup 2003) and Graham Henry (failed 2007, won 2011) have been wheeled out as evidence that everyone deserves a second chance.  The experience of the first attempt providing valuable learning for the second.  Instinctively I feel that is right and would have been happy to see Johnno stay.  He probably shouldn’t have been appointed in the first place, but now all the experience has been thrown away and we start again.  Maybe he would never have embraced the new attacking spirit which prevails in much of top level rugby, but we will never know.

So who replaces him?  I don’t really have a strong view, except please don’t let it be Conor O’Shea at Quins.  We need him!

And whoever it is, can they rehabilitate Danny Cipriani, an incredible talent going to waste?

The happy days continue… errrr!

Quins won away to Gloucester in the Heineken Cup (28-9) and hardly anyone ever wins at Gloucester; West Ham beat Coventry away 2-1, after going behind, the Arse beat Norwich 2-1 away.  It’s all going so very well.  Waiting for the fall!

Future pub quiz question- who scored England’s 2000th international goal?

Daniel Majstorovic (og).

Gareth Barry’s header deflected in.

England 1 Sweden 0, 15 November 2011.

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Misty Thames – and where did the water go?

Posted on November 20, 2011 by John S

The Misty River Hop 

(Obscure Led Zep pun for aficionados)

Cycling from Kew Bridge to Hammersmith today, I witnessed the battle between the fog – just a thin film of mist at two o’clock, but thickening later – and the sun, which only peeked out briefly today.

Only had my iPhone for a camera, but got one or two nice shots, especially as the sun set.

These first two are taken from Kew Bridge, facing east and west.

Heading towards Barnes Bridge, it seemed to glow in the light of the setting sun.

In Hammersmith, on the Upper Mall, I stopped as the sun shone red through the regathering mist.  It looked like an Impressionist painting and the second of the shots below, which is taken with the iPhone zoom, which reduces clarity, actually works rather well for that effect, I think.

Just scrolling right, avoiding the full-on effect of the sun, the scene takes on a different hue.

The coming together of three elements – the mist, the setting sun and the river at low tide – created a scene of great beauty.  The gentle wonder of nature.

What happened to the water?

The tide is the tide. It goes in and out.  Always has done. But I’m still in awe of the changes the river undergoes as far inland as Hammersmith and Richmond.  Last weekend I took this shot at the western end of Chiswick Mall about half an hour before high tide that day. It was about 3.30pm. The water was beginning to encroach on the street. I might have been riding through water half an hour later. The second shot was taken at about the same time today, but this time it was low tide.  Which for this section of river means no water at all! See the red rings sitting on the crate. At high tide they float in the water and the crates are nowhere to be seen. It’s the same black boat in both shots.

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Have you heard? … (4) “Garage Inc” by Metallica

Posted on November 18, 2011 by John S

As I was watching Metallica, with Lou Reed, pulverise the Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat” on Jools Holland last week, my thoughts turned to the album which might be the least known of Metallica’s, but which is actually my favourite.  Heresy for any true Metallica fan because it was an album of covers, the songs that inspired the band. It was called “Garage Inc” and it was a double CD. I first heard it in 1999 when a good friend, who I will call “Dave”, bought it in Oxford HMV so we could hear it at a weekend party. We could certainly hear it! Again and again.  When I first heard it, roaring in the background, my reaction was, Wow! This really rocks, what is it? I didn’t try that hard that night to find out, but the following morning I picked up the CD and figured it out.

At that juncture I’d never been hugely into Metallica.  I’d had my metal phase in the mid -seventies, until punk came along in 1976 and blew everything apart. Ten minute songs about demons and wizards or hard lovin’ women lost their lustre at that point. And that was it for some time. I liked Metallica without knowing much about them.  “Enter Sandman” was a hit in 1991 and I checked that, but not much else.

So, I heard this rocking album and thought, I must buy this.  It was brilliant.  It was Metallica’s paean to the metal and punk music of the past which they loved.  But with their huge, scything riffs, and thrashing beats, they made the music their own.

Listen to their versions of Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” and Thin Lizzy’s “Whisky In The Jar. Not massively different to the originals  in structure (bearing in mind that “Whisky In The Jar” is originally an Irish folk song) but with Metallica’s piledriver riffs making them harder and harsher and faster. They go a bit soft and get out their acoustic guitars for  Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone” and it really works.  It’s their bit of light relief – and ours.  There’s not much let up on the album.

The whole album rocks, but my favourite sequence is the one that goes “Am I Evil?”, “Blitzkrieg”,  “Breadfan”.  The first is a song by a band called Diamond Head. It’s similar to Black Sabbath.  It starts with a thudding sequence of riffs, and then twirls in to a speedy machine gun  rhythm which again recalls Black Sabbath – “Children Of The Grave”, if you know about these things.  The lyrics are daft – My mother was a witch – but it’s just so brutal. Piledriving stuff. It’s not the heaviest sound I’ve encountered – that accolade goes to Slayer, whose “Reign In Blood “Album is so heavy – and fast – that listening to more than two tracks just does your head in. But “Am I Evil?” rocks very hard indeed.

“Blitzkrieg” is an interlude, a chugging metal riff which might even make you want to dance, in a leaping up and down sort of way. There’s a hint of Dutch prog rockers, Focus’s, “Hocus Pocus” in the riff.  And then it’s “Breadfan”, a song by Budgie, a Welsh three piece band, who did their best stuff in the mid seventies – I saw them at Leicester de Montfort Hall when I was still at school. It heads off at high speed, but Metallica insert an absolutely classic metal “slow bit” in the middle, a piercing guitar solo that takes the song to another level, before it succumbs to a chuntering riff and a return to the main theme. It’s a caricature, almost, of the genre. But a brilliant one. If you are laughing, it’s with, not at.

Every song on the album is a labour of love.  It’s uncompromising and relentless. One or two are best avoided in polite company.  I can’t listen to too many tracks before I start to feel pummelled.  Beaten up and left gasping. The riffs are like chainsaws.  But it has a seam of melody too, something that many Metallica originals lack, though there are brilliant exceptions like “The Day That Never Comes” (my all time Metallica favourite).  Tunes and riffs –  you can sing along while you play your air guitar!

What could be better?

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Sportsthoughts (1)

Posted on November 13, 2011 by John S

An occasional series, mostly after a weekend of sporting delights.

England quite good shocker

And there we were – me included – extolling the virtues of the Spanish football team, ahead of their clash with England. Worshipping the tiki-taka (and hence Barcelona), positively lapping up the Sid Lowe articles in the Guardian about the overabundance of centrocampista talent available to the Seleccion.  Such evocative words – suggesting football played at a higher plane.  Xabi Alonso in Saturday’s Guardian, full of respect for the Premier league, but still bewildered by our obsession with the tackle. Saturday evening could only be an exhibition of the finer arts, the lumpen English there to provide the support act.

Er, final score, England 1 Spain 0. Yes, England 1, Spain 0. The journos and tweeters went mostly into “it’s only a friendly” mode. (Though some of the tweets were saying well played).  The stats showed Spain had 99.9999% of the possession. England were playing like Italy.  It’ll still be a disaster at Euro 2012.

Yeah, but England beat Spain 1-0. 1-0, 1-0 , 1-0!  Not 0-1, 0r 0-4, which we expected. FIFA thinks we are the fourth best team in the world.  NO-ONE in England does.  We are battered and bruised by years of shattered expectations.  Quarter finals, out on penalties, that’s the likely outcome. (That makes us top eight, but that’s not good enough – hey we won a World Cup a long time ago. And we have the Premier League and Sky Sports HD).

So how did this reversal of expectations happen? Well, England took the Jose Mourinho game plan vs Barcelona – stay deep, flood midfield, harry the centrocampistas and hit on the break –  and stuck to it. Had a few dicey moments, but until right at the end, managed to contain the Spanish waves of attack.  Maybe they weren’t at their sharpest – it was only a friendly – but they were still dangerous and they dominated possession.  But a James Milner free kick, a Darren Bent header against the post and Frankie Lampard nodding in, and we won. One-nil.

Good points for England (apart from winning).  Lescott and Jagielka (resuming the old Everton partnership) really solid at the back. Scott Parker heroic in defensive midfield. Lots of young players, like Jack Rodwell and Phil Jones doing well and getting good experience.  Against the best national team in the world. And Frank Lampard, dignified, intelligent, wearing the captain’s armband and scoring the goal, only weeks after he was being completely written off by the media.  Frank has been for so long part of the dysfunctional how-to-play-Gerrard-and-Lampard-in-the-same-team debate that his virtues can be forgotten.  Hardworking, versatile, skillful, eye for goal.  Getting on (for a footballer) but still a key man for England.  Remember he scored the goal that never was against Germany in the World Cup (only two feet over the line). At 2-2 anything could have happened.

So, an encouraging night for England. Doesn’t make us favourites for Euro 2012. But it has to boost the confidence. Leave the World Cup and the scratchy qualification behind and… believe!

The Heineken Cup – so intense!

After the England football, I switched channels to watch the last twenty minutes of Munster vs Northampton.  What a game.  So in-your-face. It was Munster 20 Northampton 18, then after a Ryan Lamb penalty, the English team 21-20 up.  It was like that at eighty minutes, but the ball was in play and Munster had it. Keeping the ball in hand, they had 41 phases before they finally engineered a position for fly half Ronan O’Gara where he could attempt a drop goal.  It was still a long way out, but he executed it perfectly.  23-21.  Heartbreaking for Northampton. Ecstasy for Munster.  The technique and patience and nerve involved in charging into a solid defence 41 times and not losing control of the ball is extraordinary.  And credit too to Northampton for holding out all that time.  The nature of rugby union, with its phases, its re-grouping and re-assault, builds a tension that is quite different to football, with its fluidity.  The nerves get shredded more in rugby, I find.

Talking of which, Quins only just inched past Connacht at the Stoop on Friday night. 25-17 in the end. I guess that as Connacht are the weakest of the Irish teams in the competition, and as Quins beat them quite easily in the Amlin last year, we weren’t expecting too much resistance.  But Connacht were excellent – a lot of pace, clever running, a solid scrum, rampaging forwards. A little ill-disciplined, which in the end was the difference, because Nick Evans kicked five penalties out of six.

It’s getting edgy now – 11 wins out of 11.  When are we going to lose?  Please don’t let it be the next game! Especially not in the Heineken. If we get past Gloucester next week, then the candidates must be Toulouse twice in December and Saracens in the Premier at Twickenham on 27 December. But y’know, the boys are looking good.  Maybe they’ll do an Arsenal. Les Invincibles.

(And then the Sarries will beat us in the play off final. Look, I’m a West Ham fan – I can’t help but expect the worst.)

Australia 21-9?

I was looking at my Twitter stream the other day, most of which is sport-related, and I saw Australia 21-9.  I assumed it was just another routine rugby league victory in the four nations, but then realised it was cricket.  Hang on, 21 for 9?  Australia?  Really? Wow! Yes!  Playing South Africa, who themselves had been shot out for 96 in their first innings.  The Aussies recovered to a mighty 47. Well done the tail enders.  But 47. Australia. What’s Going On? (With thanks to Marvin Gaye).

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Still in love with U2

Posted on November 10, 2011 by John S

Two things prompted this piece.  First I’m in the middle of writing about U2 for my book. Second, I read on an NME website post that Bono has been apologising about the band’s performance at Glastonbury, saying that amongst other things it was because he was wearing the “wrong shoes” on an ice rink – like stage.  If you saw the concert you’ll recall that the rain was absolutely hammering down at the time, so it can’t have been easy to work up a brilliant atmosphere.

Now, I still need to read the original article in Q magazine to see more of what he said, but my first reaction was, stop apologising!  I thought the concert was great, especially in the circumstances. Kicking off with three brilliant songs from “Achtung Baby”: “Even Better than The Real Thing”, “The Fly” and “Mysterious Ways”. How much better could it get? Well, it just stayed brilliant.  “One”, “Where The Streets Have No Name” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m looking For”. “Beautiful Day” (a little ironic in the conditions) and the three Live Aid songs from “Unforgettable Fire” at the end: “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Bad” and “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” at the end.  Of course at Live Aid they didn’t get to play “Pride” as Bono was dancing for too long with a woman he’d pulled out of the crowd. I didn’t twig while watching Glasto that they were making up for that by running those three songs together.

And they reached back to their early days, playing two absolute classics from their first album, “Boy”: “Out Of Control” and “I Will Follow”. For any longstanding U2 fan, the choice of songs was close to perfect.  If they’d done “New Years Day ” as a final encore I would have been completely satisfied.

I liked the way they wove snippets of other songs into the performance too.  “Jerusalem” was a bit over the top, but acknowledging Coldplay and Beyonce, other headliners, with “Yellow” and “Independent Women”,was a real act of respect.  Typical of U2.  There were bits of Bowie, the Beatles, The Clash and Curtis Mayfield, too.

There’s a book which was first published in 2006 to accompany a greatest hits selection, called “U2 by U2”.  I picked it up last year in HMV for a fiver.  I’d recommend it to anyone with any interest in the band.  It’s basically a whole load of interviews with the band about… everything.  From childhood, through all the music, to their adult lives.  It’s incredibly honest, self-critical, insightful about the music, and enthusiastic about music generally.  U2 are often portrayed as pompous and self-righteous, mainly because of Bono’s outspokenness.  But I think this is very unfair. He has used his position to argue for change in areas like third world debt. What’s wrong with that? Some of U2’s live shows went a bit over the top. So what, at least they were trying to entertain and experiment with their sound. Their love for music is transparent, they try to share it. They deserve plaudits rather than brickbats.

And so we read about Bono apologising about a concert which was actually superb. He, and the band, take the criticism seriously. I guess it’s hard not to – who isn’t hurt in some way by criticism, however unfounded? But they should always remember that they have made some of the greatest music in the history of rock’n’roll. “The Unforgettable Fire”, “The Joshua Tree”, “Achtung Baby”, “Zooropa”: is there a better run of albums? Only when you start to suggest Bowie, or Dylan, or Springsteen, or the Beatles, or Led Zep, or Radiohead, do you start to identify the company that they keep.

I really hope they remember that.

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The “veterans” take over the Thames

Posted on November 6, 2011 by John S

Joining the Thames at Kew Bridge today for a cycle down to Hammersmith, I quickly came upon an unusual scene.  The river on both sides was flanked with hundreds of boats – foursomes – all pointing upstream, poised to do something, but what? The lines started just after the bridge and went on almost down to Barnes. I checked on my iPhone and found that it was a veterans’ race from Mortlake to Putney – four and a half miles downstream.  Some of the crews looked a bit young to be classified as veterans, but maybe that’s just a reflection of my own advancing years.

Took a while for my brain to twig that yes, my iPhone did have a camera, and I took a few shots from Hammersmith Bridge and the surrounding area. See the end of this piece.  Lacking a zoom, the boats seem a bit far away, but you’ll get the picture.  I think there must have been a load of mini-races.  The first boats I saw in action seemed to be moving pretty swiftly; a few that I saw from the bridge were wavering a bit.

It reminded me of the time I tried rowing at university. I trained for a term in the summer of the second year, as part of the college football club eight.  We got to participate in a tournament called “Rowing On”, a prelude to Eights Week at Oxford when the top crews from each college slugged it out.  The best crews in Rowing On qualified for Eights Week. The rest of us had our own internal competitions.  For us footballers, beating the rugby and hockey eights was all that mattered.

It was the toughest sport I have ever taken part in.  Training was early in the morning before the best crews took over the river. Every muscle in your body seemed to have a part to play.  It was the best hangover cure I’ve ever encountered. You were ready for bed by 6pm the same day. Knackering.

Rowing On was the most intense sporting challenge I’ve undertaken.  You are going flat out for the whole length of the race.  But the intensity comes from the need for absolute concentration, because if you don’t “feather” your oars properly before they enter the water you will “catch a crab” and your boat will stop.  You will have let your entire team down.  Not like football when you can score an own goal, but go up the other end and score.  Not like cricket, when an error might put an end to your innings, but not the whole team’s. In rowing, your mistake will terminate the whole team effort. It is the ultimate team sport.

We got through – no crabs and we beat the rugby and hockey boys.  The latter crew did come to a halt. How we gloated. The muscles on my right forearm had swelled to twice the normal size.  It was the wrong arm, I should have been pulling most with the left arm, for an oar on the right hand side of the boat.  Oh well, at least I didn’t mess up.  We were dead pleased – the best of the college “joke” eights!

So, big respect for those rowers today.  Four and a half miles and all ages.  You did it!

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Have you heard? … (3) Clash reggae

Posted on November 6, 2011 by John S

The history of rock’n’roll bands turning their hands to reggae is not an edifying one.  “D’Yer Maker” off “Houses of the Holy” by Led Zeppelin is a candidate for their worst song ever. The Rolling Stones’ take of “Cherry Oh Baby” on “Black and Blue” was far from being their finest moment. There are plenty of other attempts at reggae that I don’t even want to think about. There are honourable exceptions.  Eric Clapton played a big part in bringing Bob Marley to the world’s attention with his excellent cover of “I Shot the Sheriff”. The Police fused pop and reggae to brilliant effect. “Walking on the Moon”, with its dub effects, really did sound like it was made in outer space. And Primal Scream used some heavy dub and bass techniques on songs like “Stuka” from their album, “Vanishing Point”.

But the Clash were different.  The reggae sound was absolutely integral to their music.  The reggae culture, coming together with punk in the streets of West London, under the Westway, was equally so. It was the most natural thing in the world for the Clash to take the wonderful “Police and Thieves” by Junior Murvin and turn it into one of their greatest anthems. Amid all the garage punk that personifies the first album, “The Clash”, from 1977, “Police and Thieves” stands out, taking the wistful theme of the original, a lament about the gang wars and police involvement in Kingston, Jamaica and turning it into a commentary about life in late seventies West London. Joe Strummer’s rasp and Mick Jones’s piercing guitar solo take it from reggae to an urban rocker, but the the bass and drums remain at its heart.

Even better was the single “White Man in Hammersmith Palais”, which somehow sums up what the Clash were all about.  It celebrates reggae music but also howls in frustration. Frustration that the the music in the Palais erred towards dance rather than rebellion, while the punks in another dimension were suiting themselves up for a bit of money-making.  OK, so this was a bit of Clash mythology about who were the true rebels, and they weren’t averse to a bit of dressing up;  but it was a clarion call at the time.  A call to celebrate the fusion of rock’n’roll and reggae.  Joe Strummer didn’t want to be the only white man in Hammersmith Palais. Most of all it was just a great reggae rocker.

After a lurch into rock with “Give ‘Em Enough Rope” (still a great album) , the Clash came back with “London Calling” in 1979. This was the album when they really began to branch out, taking in all the genres they loved.  Reggae was to the fore.  “Rudie Can’t Fail” was a ska beat classic, aligned with the Specials and Madness and all the other Two Tone bands. “The Guns Of Brixton” was sinister and confrontational, with the bassist, Paul Simenon taking the lead on vocals. The bass line found its way onto a brilliant fusion of dance and reggae by Beats International (featuring Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim) called “Dub Be Good To Me”. It was based on the SOS Band’s dance classic  “Just Be Good To Me”, with Simenon’s snaking bass giving it an extra dimension.  In  recent times Professor Green has taken “Dub Be Good For me” even further, with his “Just be Good To Green”. Great to see how music borrows and mutates to come up with fresh renditions. Finally, on ‘London Calling”, “Revolution Rock” steered to a more conscious reggae beat – it was a song that Bob Marley could easily have sung.

As a massive Clash fan, it is very tempting for me to say that “Sandinista” was the greatest Clash album of them all. A punk triple album, no less. Not one for the casual listener: therefore all the more attractive to the “real” fan.  In truth it would have made a superb single album, a really good double.  The reggae may not all have made the single album – there was too much of it – but for me, it was what made “Sandinista” special. The tune I love most is “The Crooked Beat”. As its title suggests, it features a loping bass line, which Paul Simenon (again) intones over. It’s not so much a song as a feel, a picture.  It conjures up the London streets, the office blocks, the people rushing from A to B, and a man at ease with himself just cruising through the mayhem.  Moving to the crooked, crooked beat. I don’t think they ever played it live.  It was a mood.

There was more great reggae on the album:  the jaunty “Junco Partner”, the eerie “One More Time” with its dub companion, and the echoey protest of “The Equaliser”.  “The Call Up” verged on reggae too.   The reggae rhythm was fundamental to “Sandinista”.  And it didn’t just borrow reggae: it turned it over, used it in ways that no-one had tried before.  The Clash gave as much back to reggae as they took.

“Combat Rock” didn’t advance the reggae cause, but “Ghetto Defendant” continued in the tradition of “One More Time” and “The Equaliser”.  There were a couple of other great reggae moments in the Clash history.  In between “London Calling” and “Sandinista” they released “Bankrobber” – my daddy was a bankrobber, he never hurt nobody – which was a joyous piece of music, with a wonderful dub version.  Celebration time. And then “Armagideon Time” – and dub – which featured originally on a 10 inch single called “Black Market Clash”. It was a cover of a song by a Jamaican singer, Willie Williams, which I’d never heard of. It had a kind of dark majesty, and an entrancing bass line. Needless to say, there was a magnificent dub version, called “Justice Tonight”.

When you listen to something like “Armagideon Time” and compare it with the Clash’s beginnings, like “White Riot”, you might marvel at how far, sonically, they travelled in their short career.  But at the same time it was all there from the start. The Clash, notwithstanding their rebel punk posturing, were rooted in all the sounds of seventies London. Rock’n’roll, metal, pop, R&B, dance… and reggae.  The reggae-rock-rhythm.

As Smiley Culture once sang… level vibes, seen?

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Have you heard? … (2) John Martyn

Posted on November 3, 2011 by John S

Last night I was writing about John Martyn – the late and the great John Martyn. He died in 2009 after years of health problems.  He was a really distinctive singer – and guitar player. His roots were the folk scene, but at his peak, his music encompassed so much more.  I discovered him in 1977-8 with “One World”. Two other albums, a compilation called “So Far So Good”, also from 1977, and then “Grace and Danger” in 1980, had a big impact on me. The words below are what I wrote about these three albums last night.

“One World” was an extraordinary album. It was a real mix of influences.  It came out in late 1977, the height of excitement about punk, and yet the review in NME, about this moody, atmospheric album, mixing reggae sounds with jazz and folk traditions really appealed to me. I forked out for the album and wasn’t disappointed. It was different to anything else I had in my collection, and that made it one of my most played albums for a time. 

One of the most captivating features of the album was John Martyn’s voice. It was very distinctive –  somewhere between a slur and a growl, airier than say, Tom Waits, but just as indecipherable. But it was a voice that could sound as tender as anything when he sang a song like “Couldn’t Love You More”, one of the most beautiful on the album. With the unusual voice went a striking guitar sound.  It echoed and soared and shot fragments of noise into the air like a firework pouring out its effervescent light.  In “One World”, the guitar curled around Martyn’s voice like smoke in the cold night air, as a bass carved out a gentle passage below the main action. It was late night music, reverberating, soothing and entrancing.  “A Certain Surprise'” was softly jazzy and “Small Hours” conjured up the first signs of sunrise, with the guitar gently echoing and embracing the new dawn. A keyboard entered halfway through and sounded like the trickle of a stream through the forest.  John Martyn burbled a few words that didn’t mean much, but added to the atmosphere of tentative beginnings. A few of the songs, like “Dealer” and “Smiling Stranger” had an late night funkiness, blurry and atmospheric.  Perhaps best of all, after “One World” and “Couldn’t Love You More”, was “Big Muff” which was like a cross between cool funk and dub reggae, with all sorts of weird sounds shooting in and out and Martyn growling about getting away with powder puffs. It was album that was both perfect for chilling out, and intriguing in its use of sound, in echo and dub. There wasn’t actually any reggae on it, but it sounded like a dub album.  

I went to see the great man in concert in the early eighties, quite soon after I came down to London.  It was in one of the Victoria theatres, maybe the Apollo. I wanted most of all to hear tracks from “One World” and wasn’t disappointed.  He had a vast array of guitar pedals and wrenched all sorts of sounds from them.  Of all the other guitarists I liked, I felt he was closest to Robin Trower, his guitar like another voice. He was more fluid than Trower, his songs simpler, less assertive, which gave the guitar more room to glide rather than power through; but both made their guitars sing.

“One World’ was something of a bridge between his older folkier material and later jazzy work, which edged towards tasteful easy listening musically, although the Martyn voice usually managed to rough things up a bit.  I liked “One World” so much that I felt the need to find out more about his past music, and fortunately  there was a compilation called “So Far, So Good” which was ready to oblige.  You could hear where the atmospherics on “One World” came from when you listened to the wondrous “Solid Air” and there was a hint of “Big Muff” in “I’d Rather Be The Devil”. “May You Never” and “Bless The Weather” were up there with “Solid Air” as folk tunes with a laid back jazzy edge. The jaunty acoustic stomp of “Over The Hill” sounded like it could be on the second side of “Led Zeppelin III” and “Spencer The Rover” was a traditional folk song given the blurry Martyn treatment, and beautiful for it.  I’ve heard the song sung by a few artists since, but it’s John Martyn’s version that I remember best.

On the other side of the bridge was “Grace and Danger”, which came out in 1980.  Grace is a good word here: the album had a real grace.  It was a deeply heartfelt album, full of anguished songs about Martyn’s break up with his wife and one-time singing partner, Beverley. The music was less varied than on “One Love”, but it retained the tone and sophistication of a song like “Couldn’t Love You More”.  Except this time, the titles were “Baby, Please Come Home” and “Hurt In My Heart”.  Both those songs are so gorgeous musically, all flowing bass lines, and sweet, echoey keyboards… and so sad. John Martyn is almost weeping into the microphone. That slurring voice protects us from complete breakdown. “Sweet Little Mystery” is another lament that could be the happiest love song, until you realise it’s all about missing that mystery – that’s what makes him cry.

The jazz really gets going on “Lookin’ On”, an ambient jazz tune.  It’s perhaps no surprise that Martyn’s songs, often remixed, find their way on to all sorts of jazz/dance or chillout compilations. They have that late night-early morning feel. 

And “Johnny Too Bad” took a step on from “Big Muff” and wrapped a rasping guitar around a shaky reggae beat. It worked.  It had feeling. You wouldn’t have known that it was a cover of a song by a band called The Slickers, which featured on the classic reggae soundtrack album, “The Harder They Come”.  It was operating on a different planet.  It most definitely could have been a “One World” song.  It would have slotted right in. On “Grace And Danger” it was almost a bit of light relief.

Three albums that are right up there in my favorites.  All well worth a listen if you haven’t heard them before.

Couple of videos on You Tube below.  First is “Spencer the Rover” and second is “Dealer” from “One World”, which hints at how he was using effects.

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