Category: Sport

My favourite over-used phrase comes from tennis. Whenever a Brit is knocked out of a tennis tournament, they aren’t defeated – they crash out. Andy Murray lost earlier this morning and Google News tells me that there are already 171 articles about Murray that include the phrases “crashes out.” Glad to see that sub-editors remain…

I was genuinely surprised today, to learn that the rally once known as the RAC Rally, had been run this weekend. Now I’m not an especially big rallying fan, but since it became “WRC” branded, it seems that it’s becoming harder for the passive fan to see. Once upon a time it ran for the…

Here’s an interesting little tale about something happening over on the other side of the pond. We all know how premium TV works in the UK. If you take either Sky or Virgin Media services, you have to pay extra for premium sports. If you don’t, the best you might get is Eurosport, Motors TV…

Soccer Scene in Carnaby Street has two main windows which are regularly handed over to major football kit suppliers. So you’ll regularly see one window given over to Nike’s kit deal with Man Utd or Liverpool’s new Adidas away kit. This morning, there was a new window display for Puma featuring a red shirt I…

Not this again. Today’s Telegraph has a banner at the top of the front page proclaiming that one billion people will be watching today’s Arsenal v Man Utd game. What on earth are they on about. One person in six is watching a UK club match? I think not. As I’ve said time and again,…

So what are we meant to think about the proceedings at The Tour de France this year? To re-cap, we first had T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone from a test during the beginning of June. He was immediately kicked out of the Tour, but in Germany things went a…

Finally this weekend, the Tour de France arrived in London. I love cycling, and I love the Tour, which has become an important part of my summer of sport for many years now starting when Channel 4 used to cover it. Channel 4 long gave up on showing much over the summer except reality trash.…

Before I head off into town, I thought I’d share this, which I made to watch riders as they go past. It’s a list of start times, rider numbers and names. I could find names and start times, and names and numbers, but not all three together. So a quick bit of Excel has left…

Wow – finally football clubs are doing the decent thing, and withdrawing alcohol sponsors’ logos from their kids size football strips. Other sports including cricket clubs are doing the same thing. Well – I say “football clubs” and “cricket clubs” when I actually mean the Portman Group is doing it (they’re the people who are…

To Arsenal to see the final game of the season. A draw meant that Man Utd deprived Chelsea of the Premiership title. But isn’t it just typical of Mourinho that when the steadicam operator was circling him as he want onto the pitch he swears at the cameraman. The BBC’s highlights carefully cutaway in time.…

Yesterday Australia won the cricket world cup final – or as the organisers would have us call it, the ICC CWC 2007. It just trips off the tongue doesn’t it? It was a complete farce of a final, coming after a long and dull tournament that had its own tragedy. The Aussies got to celebrate…

So thick and fast after the Boat Race came ITV’s coverage of the Malaysian Grand Prix this morning. Now I make no secret of my disinterest in the engineering competition sport. There’s little to no overtaking, and new rules are introduced and dropped on a whim. This season there seems to be something about different…

An article in this week’s Broadcast (behind a paywall I’m afraid) explained the broadcast complexities with covering something like the annual Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race. It takes 38 cameras, two helicopters and and goodness knows how many other people to cover it. Last year there was an issue with open microphones when ITV cut…