Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement. Anyone seen this show?



A mumbling Jimmy is joined at the breakfast table by three newspaper journalists of a Sunday morning to comment on the week in football. Typically - as with all breakfast based programming - none of the food is ever eaten. To be fair, there isn't much time for that, not with all the footballing clichés and tabloid guff they have to spout.

The show follows the same theme every week, and by this, I mean that is EXACTLY the same each week. Jimmy rants about footballers' earnings compared to 'his day' and bemoans the lack of a 'number 9' for England. The others try and tell him that Shearer has retired, but Jimmy won't have it. Then it gets to the favoured topic of England's failings, Jimmy tries his damnedest to restart the 'number 9' debate but noone will take him up on it. So he moves on to a lack of passion and discipline in the players, leaving just enough time to blame the entire problem of England's ineptitude on the influx of foreigners.

Every week.

Oh for a return to his wilder days - you'll need to wash your eyes out after that one.

Tags: england | jimmy hill

Interesting statistic on the official Everton site today:

"In a league table of matches between sides in the Premiership's top six Everton are currently placed second behind Manchester United and ahead of Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Bolton.

That point is illustrated by victories this season over Liverpool, Arsenal and Bolton coupled with draws at Anfield and The Emirates.

But for Chelsea's late flurry in the league meeting at Goodison, Manchester United would be the only side in the top six to have secured victory against the Blues."

Now, if we could only learn to take points from Man City, Villa and Charlton...

Tags: everton | premiership

Well, I did warn you that this might happen. I've gone and set up a speedway specific blog.



Hosted on Wordpress - which has been a delight to use thus far - it will contain all my speedway related outpourings meaning that readers of this blog aren't subjected to posts that don't interest them and hopefully to attract some readers to the new blog who similarly wont have to put up with my usual ramblings about football, music and current affairs. There is a major gap in the marketplace (can you tell I have just watched Dragons' Den?) blogosphere in terms of speedway and so hopefully I can get the ball rolling there.

Anyway, this should be the final mention of the sport here so add Hans Anderson's Swear Box to your bookmarks if you feel inclined or never hear of speedway here again. Probably.

Note: Some of my images aren't displaying at the moment due to Photobucket experiencing some technical problems.

Tags: speedway | photobucket

What a performance. Such a contrast from our last match against North London opposition - in the Spurs game, Moyes was roundly booed by elements of the support for his negative tactics and defensive substitutions. We went on to lose the game at the death. So to win at the death today - following a quite brilliant attacking performance, a promising first start for a young striker and an inspired substitution - was more than satisfying, particularly as it happened on Moyes' fifth anniversary.

Arsenal were injury hit in their defence (not their actual defence) but that shouldn't detract from a positive Everton showing. The old guard of Stubbs and Carsley played blinders, the former was a rock in defence whilst the latter probably played his finest game in a 4-4-2 for the club. If only he could have had that thunderbolt that cannoned off the cross bar go in. New boy Manny Fernandes improves with every game and together with Carsley he had the measure of the Arsenal midfield - on one occasion in the first half he made an absolute mug of Fabregas, hopefully that might find its way on to YouTube soon. Johnson was his usual harrying self and it was a fine finish for the goal - in quite atrocious conditions - but not one glove wearer in the Everton 11.

The march for Europe continues.

Update: That video now exists, see below:



Sign him up Davey.

Tags: everton | arsenal

Of course, for many, an additional attraction of Sky's speedway coverage is this lady:



I can't think why that would make any difference though...

Tags: speedway | sophie blake

It's all happening in terms of motor sport this weekend. We have the return of Formula 1 - Doctorvee is doing a great job of liveblogging every moment - and also the return of my particular favourite motor sport, Speedway.

It's not as well known as it deserves to be so for those unaware of the sport. Speedway is a form of motorcycle racing which takes place on a flat oval track on a surface of dirt or loosely packed shale. The racers use this surface to slide their machines sideways (powersliding) into each corner using the rear wheel to scrub-off speed while still providing the drive to power the bike forward and around the bend. Races feature four riders and are four laps long.

The bikes themselves are fairly unique in that they have no gears and no brakes. They run on methanol and accelerate faster pound-for pound than Formula 1 cars. The only way to stop a speedway bike is to pull a cut-off switch which is tied around the riders' wrists - a safety feature to deactivate the engine in the event of a crash.

Speaking of crashes, it's not uncommon for riders to collide such is the competitive nature of the sport and the relatively confined track. This YouTube video shows some of the crashes from recent years. Be warned, the audio is very loud on this. Quite why the Prodigy's Voodoo People was used ahead of their track actually titled Speedway, I don't know!



As a child, I used to attend home fixtures of the Eastbourne Eagles team with my parents but I've not been to the track for a long time now. Fortunately, Sky bought the rights to the sport and do an excellent job with it, you can't beat the atmosphere track side though, with the smell of methanol and dirt in the air.

Anyway, this was a brief post (well, it was supposed to be) to announce the arrival of the new season. I'll be posting a lot about it over the course of the next seven months so you've been warned.

Tags: speedway | elite league

And Toby Flood still finds time to fight over a balloon with a French counterpart.



Tags: rugby | 6 nations

Story.

Tags: levy | alan sugar

So, I walk past this place every lunch break whilst at work:



And I happened to notice a new sign up in the window:



Perhaps he's otherwise engaged deleting comments and admiring his visitor stats.

Tags: guido

Valencia to be thrown out of the Champions League after drawing Liverpool in the quarter finals.

Mark my words, it's almost a dead certainty.

Update: Ok, so it didn't happen quite like that. Liverpool couldn't have wished for a better draw though.

Tags: liverpool | valencia

My love for all things shoegaze is no secret. Stumbling around the mp3 blogosphere this rainy Sunday morning, I came across a quite brilliant video from Vancouver based Au4. Their debut release is described as being "an uplifting, ethereal trip through the rhythms of nature and the nature of dreams, mixing blissed-out ambience with melodic, fairytale songs". Which sounds pretty damn impressive I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway, the video then, is a short they play at their live shows and it's bloody brilliant:



Tags: au4 | shoegaze

Tags: red nose day