Recent Sport Articles

The sad state of English football

Veterans of what used to be the terraces at football grounds are for the most part a difficult-to-shock bunch.

When some of them walk out during the first half of a game, not because of the performance of their team but because of the truly poisonous atmosphere their fellow fans have created, it’s time to sit up and take notice.

Regardless of how poor a manager Steve Kean, the former coach of Blackburn Rovers is, absolutely no one deserves the abuse he’s been subjected to now for months.
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Banning the hijab in sports: bigotry rears its head again

contribution by Iman Qureshi

News that Fifa has banned the Iranian women’s football team from participating in the Olympics on account of their headscarves has been met with much criticism, but the real issues are not being addressed.

Whether it’s sexuality, gender, religion or race, sport seems to be the perpetually reoffending schoolyard bully.
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Olympics, World Cup: please God, no

I remember going on a business trip to Glasgow which happened to coincide with the seventh world congress of flower arrangers. Perhaps because I did not appreciate the popularity of this pastime, I didn’t think to check for any clash of dates on that particular score.

So it was that 32,000 attendees – predominantly ladies of a certain age – and poor old me descended on No Mean City at the same time. It was hard to get a decent hotel room, and the resultant shortage of taxis made me late for more than one appointment.

In a country where infrastructure is as woefully inadequate as it is in Britain, major events inevitably put a strain on the inhabitants of the places in which they take place.

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Stopping VAT abuse alone could save our school sport

Michael Gove is planning, for all practical purposes,to end sport in UK schools. As the Observer noted: yesterday

A battle is raging at the heart of government over a decision by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to slash £162m of sports funding in English schools as the country prepares for the 2012 Olympics and bids for the 2018 World Cup.

So for the sake of £162 million all but the richest children in the UK are to be denied access to competitive sport. But let’s ignore the political incompetence in Gove’s plan and instead ponder the alternatives he might have considered.
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Why Brazil has more sense than the Netherlands

contribution by Kate Blagojevic

The World Cup has offered us welcome distraction from the constant scare mongering.

They all tell us “We know what is best for you, shut your eyes, open your mouth, take the medicine it will cure all our ills. Watch the football, drink your beer, stay on the sofa, there’s a good chap.”

But the World Development Movement and others don’t want you to stay on your sofa. We have campaigned for decades to stop institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank from forcing developing countries to introduce public service cuts, privatisation and reductions in government spending.

Sound familiar?
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Does Jeremy Hunt illustrate why class still matters?

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, recently revealed his vast ignorance of British footballing history whilst managing to insult thousands:

[A]s a Minister I was incredibly encouraged by the example set by the England fans, I mean not a single arrest for a football related offensive and the terrible problems that we had in Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980s seem now to be behind us and I think, you know, there is small grounds for encouragement there even though obviously we are very disappointed about the result.

Anybody with even a basic knowledge of English football will know that what happened at Hillsborough had absolutely nothing to do with hooliganism.

That Hunt was shadow secretary for the same office during last year’s 20th anniversary Hillsborough memorial services is an even greater indictment of his callous ignorance.

But could there be something more going on?
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The left is now ahead in the World Cup

Six out of eight group winners in the group stages shows that left-of-centre countries have hit form as the World Cup enters the knock-out stages, as we continue Next Left’s unique political guide to the world’s greatest sporting event.

While Brazil, Argentina and Spain were favourites to win their group, strong performances from Uruguay, Paraguay and the USA left the political right trailing, with only Holland and Germany topping groups.

There are nine left-of-centre nations in the last sixteen, as Japan’s victory to knock out Denmark proved enough for an overall majority, with Ghana and Portugal also qualifying from the group stages. (But Australia’s third game victory was not enough to put them through, with prime minister Kevin Rudd falling in a party putsch the same morning).
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Do the England squad need better incentives?

One has to feel a bit sorry for North Korea’s football squad. Despite a spirited performance against Brazil yesterday on Tuesday, and managing to go in 0-0 at half time, they lost 2-1.

By any normal standards it was a remarkable result for a squad in which only 3 members play overseas.

Indeed cheer might be taken from the fact that the 0-0 draw between Portugal and Ivory Coast was probably one of the worst world cup games ever, suggesting that North Korea might produce a surprise upset and qualify for the knock-out stages.
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The football world cup is not xenophobic

We’re only three days into the World Cup, and already I’m tired of the drone. I speak not of the Vuzuvelas, but of the naysayers who dismiss the World Cup as being somehow xenophobic.

Laurie Penny was at it last week, now quoted approvingly by fellow Orwell Prize nominee Madame Miaow. Even my friend Ste Curran was at it earlier, and I expected better from him.

These curmudgeons assume that any time two teams from different sides line up against each other, it is inherently warlike.
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Why I find it difficult to cheer England at football

contribution by Madam Miaow

Football — the continuation of war by other means.

The trouble with football (collapsing a whole long list into a handful of bugbears) is that its mindset bears an uncanny resemblance to the belief in “my country/party right or wrong”. It appears designed to programme the collective brain out of thinking and nuance, making those same synaptic connections that can only deal with black and white, binary three-minute hate. Us (good) and them (bad).

Coming out of the Second World War, which devastated huge swathes of the globe, we valued our intellectuals and artists for helping to make the world a better place.

Nowadays, changing social conditions means social engineering, militarising society and the creation a nation of gladiators. From Sky to Skynet, turning you into a combat machine. Prepare to be assimilated.
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