Real World Football

Whatever you might say about the professionalism controversies in England in the 1880s, it was the case then, and has been ever since, that practically all the actual football is played by amateurs. Snopes-type legends about amateur football abound. About street football, which is alleged to have honed ballplaying skills so well – you can…

All of the World Cup Balls 1930-2010

Here’s a gallery of all of the balls used at FIFA World Cups from the beginning. (H/T Metafilter). The top row of the gallery contains the kind of footballs that would have been familiar both to participants in friendlies in the 1960s and British schoolboys ninety years later. Row 2 contains what my generation might…

The World Cup Final 2010

It was, in the end, a Final for people who enjoy complex, technical, thinking football. There has been plenty of this throughout the tournament, especially from the three European semi-finalists, and the standard of commentary on television and in the press has struggled to keep up. It struggled in the Final too. In musical terms,…

Putting a Curse Upon Uruguay

Given that I’ll be shouting for the Germans in tonight’s 3rd place playoff, I thought it appropriate to show this clip of the Uruguayans – when the South American team were still World Champions – coming a horrible cropper against Scotland:

Weight and the Jabulani Ball

I just wanted to post a clarification to my previous post on the historic weight of the official football. The Jabulani ball’s dry weight is 440g. That’s 15.52 oz. (Typo corrected – Thanks to @darcysarto) You’ll recall that since 1937, Law 2 has specified the dry weight of the ball. It has to be between…

England v Algeria: Not Fear, But F*** Off

Four years ago, the press wanted an English manager who understood English players and the English culture. They got one. It didn’t work.  Then they wanted the players’ backsides (so arrogant! so wealthy! so.. what that bloke just said!) given a kicking. A disciplinarian – all Capello will now be remembered as – was duly…

Slapstick

Athletics, cricket and swimming have their blooper reels and ice hockey its fights. But only football has cock-up at its core. Only in football is savage and ridiculous public error key to so many significant moments and germaine to so many results. That’s down to the random element, of course, and (let’s get it over…

A Sport Blogger’s Reading Habits

These are my answers to a fairly random and unserious set of questions, culled from Norm and Tiberius Gracchus. I can’t help thinking that they are most aimed at exactly the kind of reader that I hate most of all – you’ll see what I mean. Nevertheless I’d be very interested to hear your own…