Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

and yet still we don't have goal line technology

wtf this is disgusting

i disapprove of this man's death

The incident in which Joey Barton stubbed out a cigar on a youth player's eye occured at Manchester City's 2004 Christmas Party. The midfielder, currently on loan in Marseille, was dressed as Jimmy Savile at the time.

like it had totally never occurred to me why he had a cigar in the first place

the costume took on a life of its own and compelled him to hurt a kid

Could just one footballer please come out and be gay, so everybody can be really cool about it and the sport can get on with its life? Just one, it’s not much to ask surely? Football is beginning to sound a little desperate with its pleading. Rugby, cricket, they’ve all had their gay watershed moment. And until football does, too, it will continue to be presumed that the sport has not evolved enough to handle male homosexuality. (Hope Powell, the manager of England’s women, has been openly gay for years, without comment, yet that does not seem to count.)

The gay pressure group, Stonewall, has called again for football to tackle its ‘culture of fear’, while Anders Lindegaard, the Manchester United goalkeeper, has said that football needs a ‘gay hero’. So here’s a thought. Joey Barton continues his quest for intellectual and social respectability. Why not come out as gay?

Instant credibility, instant respect, untouchable by the Football Association or future employers. His past misdeeds mentally reprocessed and explained. ‘Well, of course he put his cigar out in that bloke’s face, Gary. He was a tortured soul, forced to live a lie.’And imagine the new material. A never-ending treasure trove for Barton’s Twitter feed: Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Oscar Wilde, Lady Bunny. And, let’s face it, with that new accent, he’s probably halfway there.

final sentence explains why this won't be happening soon

holy shit

i've omitted the author/source for a bit of fun

somebody who's cool with a little light homophobic joshery?

I'm imagining it as Joey Barton talking about himself in the third person.

ismael klata

fag

fie dem klattyboys

martin samuel is an inveterate mouthbreather and that's not just obesity induced respiratory trouble

is pressure group a britishism or just samuel idiocy

idk if it's just the bizarre occasional rap reference but i could swear there's a half-passantinoish trolling edge to samuel

And now part one of a very, very occasional series entitled Things The England Team Could Learn From Mildly Obscure Hip-Hop Tracks of The Early Nineties. This week: Buggin' Out by A Tribe Called Quest from the album The Low End Theory (a clip of which can be found below):

'I never walk the streets, thinking it's all about me
'Even though, deep in my heart, it really could be.'

That's the trick, you know, getting that balance right.

is pressure group a britishism or just samuel idiocy

was wondering the same thing

'Pressure group' is a Britishism. Stonewall use it themselves.

Stuart Hall appears to have been arrested for rape. I'm assuming this is an old crime.

Yes, it's being reported as a historical inquiry. I think as part of the Savile investigation.

where do we complain about Euro 2020?

Complain about Euro 2020 ITT

Too soon to start its own thread? I quite like the idea myself, but not all the big games being at Wembley. Give, I dunno, Reykjavik a chance.

That's some leadership right there.

americans amirite

http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bald_eagle_flag_small.jpg

Any excuse to bash Yurp

Eighteen years on and times have changed. As City prepare to host Manchester United on Sunday, having eclipsed their neighbours on the pitch by claiming the Premier League title last season, the next challenge is to emulate United off it.

Since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s takeover of the club in September 2008, they have gone from £1.5 million-a-year shirt sponsorship deals with Thomas Cook to a £350 million, 10-year shirt and stadium naming rights package with Etihad Airlines.

i love how this is presented as some sort of staggering growth rather than a sovereign wealth fund investing the best part of £1bn and then signing a contract with their affiliated airline

over 18 years, mind you

the citeh fans are now completely used to their new status, so that they're not even bothered to turn up to a routine champions league group game vs the altogether inferior ajax

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2244160/Didier-Drogba-hosts-Champions-League-party-Chelsea-players-Fernando-Torres-does-show.html

so gauche

no gaucho

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/06/article-0-1662C962000005DC-134_634x452.jpg

And the charity gets copyright, so everybody benefits from this.

is it me or is the dazzlement of the jewellery inconsistent with the manner of the win?

maybe a brass gumshield might've been more apposite

and matching brass necks

bdum tsch

Call me a traditionalist but it's a bit late to be throwing a victory party for one tournament after you've already pathetically limped out of the next one?

Spurs would never have mustered such a feeble showing in the Champions League. That place was wasted on these scumbags.

Drogba got out while the going was good though

drogba p much was the going

maybe if all the Chelsea players touch their rings together and shout his name it summons his return

^

Perhaps they'll get together and celebrate that Champions League victory every year until they all start to die off one by one?

http://i.imgur.com/WQHfu.png

lmao

Is that Avram Grant?

Gary Coleman, surely. They just didn't have enough space for "Coleman"

What'choo talkin' 'bout, Craig?