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Post by assisi on Apr 22, 2021 17:15:35 GMT
Is anybody on the forum a sports fan? I've noticed there have been very few discussions of sport here. On the bus in today, I was reading a long article on my smartphone about Graeme Souness's tenure as Liverpool manager in the 90's. Interesting character. A flinty Scot who was incredibly successful as a player and then turned around the fortunes of Rangers in Scotland, famously signing the first Catholic player, who doubtless is a daily communicant, since there was such a fuss about his religous faith. My interest in him lies in the fact that I "supported" Liverpool in the nineties, when I was very interested in soccer, after my interest was roused by Ireland's first World Cup Finals in 1990. In the time I supported them, Liverpool went from being all-conquering to complete failures. (Every cause I support, however, passively tends to plummet in its fortunes. This is why I'm amazed Leave won the Brexit referendum and Trump won the 2016 election. But 2016 was a special year, it seems. Anyway, I digress.) It's very interesting that, in time he went from playing in England (in the seventies/eighties), to managing there (in the nineties), he said players had become much more cossetted and emotional, that they had to be managed and have their hands held rather than just told what to do. I rarely watch sports now, but soccer is still my favourite to watch. I sometimes think I would enjoy indoor American games like basketball and ice hockey. I have an article on strange sports coming out in Ireland's Own at some point. I started off as a 7 year old supporting Spurs (traditionally the Jewish club in London) because I liked their colours and badge. I joined the supporters club and got badges and rosettes sent to me. I then followed Celtic until a few years ago. Unbelievably they have recently failed to achieve the lauded 10 championships in a row this year due to atrocious management, and I mean atrocious. Neil Lennon and the CEO being the chief culprits along with Irish businessman Dermot Desmond, chief shareholder, him of the big moustache whose true love is golf. I followed the Cycling Tours in the 90s due to Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly and was in Paris to see a beast of a cyclist Miguel Indurain of Spain win the Tour. Indurain (Big Mig) who took five successive titles, had lungs so big they displaced his stomach, leading to his trademark paunch. Pity that cycling was marred by drugs. Professional cyclists were a rare breed of tough independent endurance men, who wouldn't think twice of elbowing a great rival in the rush to the front. I also followed the motor grand prix because of an Irish owner Eddie Jordan for a while even going to Silverstone one year to watch the practices (we all really wanted to see someone skid off the track to break the monotony). I've watched the Ireland rugby team for years and was totally into the Irish teams of the 1970s when the scrum players were carrying as much fat as muscle. The commentators from Wales, I think, used to have the habit of making the Irish players sound like great Celtic heroes by articulating their full names - 'here comes the bellowing Maurice Ignatius "Moss" Keane from the Kingdom of Kerry'........or suchlike. Over the last year I've been watching more boxing and athletics. There used to be a little golden age of Irish runners in the 1980s which included John Treacy, Eammon Coghlan, Ray Flynn, Marcus O'Sullivan and Frank O'Mara. Here's a video of the latter 4 runners setting a world record 1 mile, four man relay that still stands today as far as I know: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1DVUWj22N4
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Sport
May 19, 2021 12:02:49 GMT
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Post by Séamus on May 19, 2021 12:02:49 GMT
Ladies Competitive SportDefinitely, it is very important for a girl to engages in physical exercise. Without Exercise I imagine in this day and age obesity, poor health or lack of stamina are unavoidable. Once a Lady gets marriage, once the babies start coming every year, as they do in the blessed Catholic marriage, it is difficult if not impossible to avoid it when one has never been active. Childbearing, child-rearing, carrying around toddlers, heavy housework, and keeping up with the day's demands are challenging enough when a mother is in excellent physical shape. Should Catholic girls engage in sports that involve competition? I wonder what are the effects of sport on a woman's character? positive and negative! May 1912, West Cork. I certainly think Women should be active if they can - walking, running, swimming, something that they enjoy. I'm not so sure that they should compete in Rugby, MMA (cage fighting) or boxing as these are violent contact sports that were aimed at men and are more suitable to men's need to burn off excess energy and physicality. I cringe when I see a women getting violently kicked or tackled around the stomach area as I think they may well some day have a baby in the womb and don't want to be causing themselves future problems. The only other problem is that sports and training have a tendency to become almost addictive. Better to enjoy the sport/leisure as an enjoyable pastime rather than to pursue seriously to the detriment of other things. "What have you done? Who gave you permission to alter England's lion's?"(rect.attr-Lee Jones) There's been a movement in England to redesign the iconic Three Lions sport logo,with a view to including a lioness and a cub,rather than the three males and make it inclusive (aside: the O'M[e]ara coat-of-arms has the same three lion symbol). Not sure how they know whether all three lions on the 1872 design identify as male? As good a point as MrAssisi has,many will argue that male contact sport can lead to infertility also. When I was a teenager it went around that the well rewarded women athletes from the communist side of the Iron Curtain avoided menstrual interference through deliberate pregnancy, usually aborting after Olympiads. If so,if widespread,the era would have embodied the worst case of the body cult since ancient times. One thing I like about Lewis' That Hideous Strength is the unusual creation,even in conservative circles,of couples and old or ageing people as the heroes that inhabited St Anne's. No Hemsworth Thors or Gadot WonderWomen. Nobody becoming a hero through body-cult alone. Similar photos of early twentieth century ladies teams playing Australian football dressed very much like Mary Poppins exist also. It might be worth noting what a history of the Victorian-cum-Australian Football League mentioned about it's male players- "The Magpies (Collingwood.F.C,still a top team) started a new trend in 1907 when they took to the field with the bare knee exposed...shorts that finished above the knee and long socks stunned the footy world". I saw a 1920 photo yesterday, in an archive column, of a (male) Western Australian club who were wearing shorts not unsimilar to today's soccer leagues,so either the shock died off quickly or Western Australians were less stunned. I wonder which, women in particular,would have been tougher? Margaret Mitchell's description of the fictional Wilkes barbecue and ball is worth remembering. The belles were carrying more material on their persons than there were cotton plants in the fields and had their breathing restricted with torturous corsets but somehow were expected to remain graceful for the two gatherings with four grand bedrooms between them as their only facility,ball dresses packed in stagecoach trunk. I can't imagine many of our sport stars managing this.
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Sport
Jun 16, 2021 13:59:42 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Jun 16, 2021 13:59:42 GMT
Ladies Competitive SportDefinitely, it is very important for a girl to engages in physical exercise. Without Exercise I imagine in this day and age obesity, poor health or lack of stamina are unavoidable. Once a Lady gets marriage, once the babies start coming every year, as they do in the blessed Catholic marriage, it is difficult if not impossible to avoid it when one has never been active. Childbearing, child-rearing, carrying around toddlers, heavy housework, and keeping up with the day's demands are challenging enough when a mother is in excellent physical shape. Should Catholic girls engage in sports that involve competition? I wonder what are the effects of sport on a woman's character? positive and negative! May 1912, West Cork. "(John) Hassall (English artist +1948) wrote for an Irish paper in which he declared: 'By 2008 electricity will have solved the problem of domestic work,the tides will supply us with electricity. Instead of having to work and clean and scrub, women will merely press an electric button. The result will be that women will give all their time to the cultivation of physique by means of games and athletics. A magnificent race of women will be the result. That women will be six feet tall,will I incline to think, not be at all exceptional in a 100 years'"(cf Lucinda Gosling,review of biography of Hassall,father of billboards,who incidentally, once created advertisements against women's suffrage) The oldest qualifying Australian athlete for the Tokyo Olympics is Mayo-born 44-year-old Sinead Diver,a Limerick University Irish Language graduate who, failing consistency with her name, is actually a long distance runner,only taking the sport up in her 30s after becoming a mother (would have been almost eerily to the year of the above prophecy). Good luck Mrs Diver- looks like staying off the Coke isn't a bad idea after all.
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Sport
Jul 23, 2021 11:54:21 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Jul 23, 2021 11:54:21 GMT
A black bear was reportedly seen in Fukushima (Olympic)Baseball/Softball stadium earlier this week(already hosting games before the opening ceremony). If almost empty stadia are part of a "new normal" it will surely be questioned whether it's worth any country's while hosting games as in the past. Images of people celebrating the acquisition of the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane earlier this week seemed more like a motley crew in an scene from Greenacres or some other sitcom. Nobody asking if,whatever Tokyo's gains or losses this time, with freedom of movement for tourists no longer a given,can the extravaganza even survive?
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Post by cato on Jul 23, 2021 19:12:03 GMT
A black bear was reportedly seen in Fukushima (Olympic)Baseball/Softball stadium earlier this week(already hosting games before the opening ceremony). If almost empty stadia are part of a "new normal" it will surely be questioned whether it's worth any country's while hosting games as in the past. Images of people celebrating the acquisition of the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane earlier this week seemed more like a motley crew in an scene from Greenacres or some other sitcom. Nobody asking if,whatever Tokyo's gains or losses this time, with freedom of movement for tourists no longer a given,can the extravaganza even survive? A useless piece of info. Ireland won a silver medal at the Olympics in 1924 in Art. The lucky winner was none other than Jack B Yeats for his famous swimmers in the Liffey. I don't know if the subject matter had to be arts related.
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Post by Séamus on Aug 1, 2021 13:00:22 GMT
A black bear was reportedly seen in Fukushima (Olympic)Baseball/Softball stadium earlier this week(already hosting games before the opening ceremony). If almost empty stadia are part of a "new normal" it will surely be questioned whether it's worth any country's while hosting games as in the past. Images of people celebrating the acquisition of the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane earlier this week seemed more like a motley crew in an scene from Greenacres or some other sitcom. Nobody asking if,whatever Tokyo's gains or losses this time, with freedom of movement for tourists no longer a given,can the extravaganza even survive? A useless piece of info. Ireland won a silver medal at the Olympics in 1924 in Art. The lucky winner was none other than Jack B Yeats for his famous swimmers in the Liffey. I don't know if the subject matter had to be arts related. I couldn't help noticing as I scrolled down down results, more through curiosity than anything else, that a lot of European countries have won medals for Taekwondo and quite a few also for judo, while Japan had done well at skateboarding, thought of as American subculture. Of course a sport couldn't be universal if Asians alone won martial arts, Americans conquered skateboard, BMX and baseball, but I wonder does the popularity of the new interests happen at the expense of a nation's older disciplines? (As rowing and boxing have a tradition in Ireland we're not considering it at this stage)
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Post by Séamus on Aug 23, 2021 12:23:07 GMT
Best of congratulations to the Treatymen-hurlers. Would Mr Maolsheachlann be very annoyed if I brought it up that the brother of one player attended the traditional mass chapel yesterday?
Two sides of the same current-events-coin today brought home just how much sport can permeate society and society can permeate sport- several female Afghan athletes are being given entry visa into Australia to continue their careers. The lady parliamentarian who spearheaded this was herself once a (Winter) Olympian. A newspaper interview today showed a more poignant aspect: "Curtis McGrath should be fully focused on his mission to win Paralympic gold, not tossing and turning trying to justify his Afghan sacrifice....'Was losing my legs worth it?.... before last week I would have said yes'... Revealing his fears for the well-being of mental wellbeing of the 26,000 Australians who served (in Afghanistan) McGrath has had to struggle with the question of his own sacrifice"
It might be interjected that Muslims or fanatical Muslims are far from the only people in history to plant landmines or similar,such as had caused McGrath's injury. International Express recently had an article on the tradition of combat marine mammals in Russia and, previously,in USA, particularly beluga whales,dolphins and sealions,who have as one of their principal tasks the location of underwater mines. Not forgetting the Diana era.
After much lamenting of the situation,McGrath's story ended on a positive note as the (canoeing and kayaking champion, incidentally) decides that a bus load of school children may have been saved through his actions and misfortune. "Regardless of what happens now,I know I made a difference..." The stuff that make international games worthwhile surely.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 23, 2021 14:12:39 GMT
Best of congratulations to the Treatymen-hurlers. Would Mr Maolsheachlann be very annoyed if I brought it up that the brother of one player attended the traditional mass chapel yesterday? I will allow it. My mother was from Limerick and I spent my childhood holidays there, so I am pleased to hear of their win. I don't watch Gaelic games myself, though I feel somewhat ashamed of this. I've always felt more of a culchie than a Dubliner at heart.
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Sport
Oct 15, 2021 8:27:23 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Oct 15, 2021 8:27:23 GMT
It's unusual,though I'm guessing not unprecedented,to have a GAA player dominate the back page of the West Australian newspaper,but today we have it. Or him. Specifically Mr Ultan Kelm of Fermanagh,now contracted to Fremantle Dockers (Australian) Football club.
Bearing the name of an obscure Irish Saint largely remembered for his authorship of a poetic prayer to Brigid,is striking,even for those who perhaps don't pick it up- the headline was 'Ultan-ate Universe'. Good luck.
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Sport
Jul 14, 2022 3:14:19 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Jul 14, 2022 3:14:19 GMT
A bit of furore over Elena Rybakina's grand slam win and whether the Duchess of Cambridge was entirely happy to hand the dish over...I'm surprised that some voices haven't tried also to deny Djokovic his win for his antivax stance;nb looks like being unvaccinated doesn't effect the healthier populus too much. Sir Mo Farah's interesting storyline is a counterbalance- how sport and other cultures can help to transcend and overcome the situations of life...when,for a brief moment,the politics is paused (and we decide who is and isn't male or female).
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Sport
Nov 1, 2022 23:42:20 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Nov 1, 2022 23:42:20 GMT
Everyone's commenting on how well the Irish cricket team played against Australia, despite losing (didn't see it). Makes up for the blow to more traditional horseracing- one Irish horse due to race in the Melbourne Cup yesterday didn't start, three Irish equines that started the race but didn't finish.
If questions about Irish identity and sport have always existed, interesting comparisons can be made with current happenings in England: "when rugby union turned professional a quarter of a century ago there were optimists within its ranks who saw the English club as a potential cash cow. Two premiership sides down (through insolvency) seven weeks into the new season and that hope had been dashed" (sport writer Neil Squires)
Having unprofessional players was never a major issue in GAA, but with England's superior population one might have expected top salaries for other codes besides soccer-football before the 1990s... after all they even home the actual district named Rugby.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Nov 2, 2022 9:42:02 GMT
Everyone's commenting on how well the Irish cricket team played against Australia, despite losing (didn't see it). Makes up for the blow to more traditional horseracing- one Irish horse due to trace in the Melbourne Cup yesterday didn't start, three Irish equines that started the race but didn't finish. If questions about Irish identity and sport have always existed, interesting comparisons can be made with current happenings in England: "when rugby union turned professional a quarter of a century ago there were optimists within its ranks who saw the English club as a potential cash cow. Two premiership sides down (through insolvency) seven weeks into the new season and that hope had been dashed" (sport writer Neil Squires) Having unprofessional players was never a major issue in GAA, but with England's superior population one might have expected top salaries for other codes besides soccer-football before the 1990s... after all they even home the actual district named Rugby. I don't think anyone in Ireland cares about beating Australia once we beat England! I've never been able to watch the game myself, but I appreciate its existence and its appeal to others. Perhaps Rugby League siphons off revenues from Rugby Union? When I was in Hull I was surprised to see so much hype about an upcoming Rugby League match. Still, as you say, one would expect both to be able to exist comfortably in such a sports-mad country.
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Sport
Dec 12, 2022 12:05:04 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Dec 12, 2022 12:05:04 GMT
The Atlas-Lions making the 2022 World Cup final four has caused much interest, mostly for being the first African or Arab nation to do so. A distinctive element that would interest me more so (it's not as if the European sides don't have plenty of players with both African and PanArab ethnicity) would be the comparative budget of Morocco's leagues- wages, salary caps,facilities- against the nations they've defeated or in comparison to France, Croatia or Argentina?
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Sport
Mar 13, 2023 12:12:01 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Mar 13, 2023 12:12:01 GMT
"The escalating row and fury over the BBC suspending soccer legend Gary Lineker as host of popular show Match of the Day threatens to bring down the network's top executives"
I know quite a few people who have either stopped watching televised sport,or won't allow their children to watch,due to the (fairly worldwide) due to what they see as constant politicization,whether by one knee-ing, players refusing to sing anthems, rainbow armbands and pride rounds, (in Australia) first nations rounds with the wearing of aboriginal dots, anti-violence-against-women rounds and whatever else- Hamilton now includes the transgender-intersex chevron on his helmet. While I've heard few British (or Irish for that matter) conservatives ever making positive comment about the BBC, I would have thought that trying to keep sport apolitical wasn't a bad thing. Certainly,as was the case in Ireland, national games in particular can be a strong kernel within nationalism; Mr Lineker's views on illegal immigration and leaving the EU are a vastly different thing.
High-profile support he may well have,but there are plenty of rank-and-file families who've had more than enough.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Mar 13, 2023 12:23:06 GMT
"The escalating row and fury over the BBC suspending soccer legend Gary Lineker as host of popular show Match of the Day threatens to bring down the network's top executives" I know quite a few people who have either stopped watching televised sport,or won't allow their children to watch,due to the (fairly worldwide) due to what they see as constant politicization,whether by one knee-ing, players refusing to sing anthems, rainbow armbands and pride rounds, (in Australia) first nations rounds with the wearing of aboriginal dots, anti-violence-against-women rounds and whatever else- Hamilton now includes the transgender-intersex chevron on his helmet. While I've heard few British (or Irish for that matter) conservatives ever making positive comment about the BBC, I would have thought that keeping sport shows apolitical wasn't a bad thing. Certainly,as was the case in Ireland, national games in particular can be a strong kernel within nationalism; Mr Lineker's views on illegal immigration and leaving the EU are a vastly different thing. High-profile support he may well have,but there are plenty of rank-and-file families who've had more than enough. As much as I dislike Lineker's virtue signalling, I want to be consistent. I don't want anybody to be cancelled. I don't see why sports presenters shouldn't air their political opinions, it's not really relevant to sport. I also suspect that the BBC suspended him as a way of embarrassing the government.
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