Well England didn't do very well in the World cup as you should all know because of the amount of coverage it got so i won't go on about that. Instead i'm going to talk about where the England team should go next, Now many people have said to use the younger English players and i believe this is a valid point to some extent because they will need to step up to full International level at some point but the problem could be making that step early and being "out of their depth" as they say. Now most pundits are saying that the English team should be made of completely of the young players who will then go on to participate at Euro 2012 but they need to qualify first and i think that is something that the pundits have forgotten because if the current England team failed to make it to Euro 2008 when they have a mediocre group, who's to say that the young players will do the same, at the end of the day most of these are teenagers playing against full grown men and they simply won't be able to compete at that level. I believe that they should use the younger players but guide them into the team gradually so that we qualify for Euro 2012 and then can maybe go onto win it. Another problem is that the young players aren't playing much football for their clubs so they will struggle at international level because that is a step up from club level and i know people say that the foreign players are stopping young english players getting into their club sides but i think that it's a bit of an excuse if i'm honest because England under 21's made it to their finals and didn't win and the only success Enlgand have had is at the under 17's championships just a month or two back so these under 21's etc aren't going to break into a team with full international players in it are they? and the clubs can't sell all their foriegn international player because it will mean that the clubs will drop and other teams will just walk over them.
Right i'll leave it there but feel free to tell me what you think of the situation and have a good summer!
Josh
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
A is for .......
hello all..
This blog post is going to be about the World cup as a whole, now the reson why this is slightly late is that im finding it hard to take that England were useless but never the less i shall continue. There is a slight variation this time for the fact im going to use the some of the Alphabet just to be different.
So...
A is for Atmosphere, The Atmosphere in South Africa has been described as one of the best ever and i would have to agree, i thought that although the vuvuzela's sounded awful to begin with i soon realised that they weren't that bad and helped create this atmosphere so congratulations has to go to South Africa for that!
F is for flops, The World Cup was full of big name footballers who for their clubs had the best season of their careers in most cases, Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi, Kaka to name just a few. Out of those players a total of 1 (Yes 1!!) goal was scored, that was Ronaldo against North Korea which was helped greatly by a big slice of luck.
S is for Stadiums, The Stadiums that were used in South Africa were fantastic at building the atmosphere and ofcourse holding enough fans but one problem that was a regular occurance was that they were never full to capacity, Now a reason for this is because FIFA made the tickets ridiculously expensive, A ticket for the World cup Final was $700 for the cheapest seats! now this is just ridiculous considering you have to add flights and hotels on top of that. People just don't have that sort of money it's just ridiculous.
V is for Vuvuzela, Now as you will probably know, there has been a lot of controversy about these, players have complained that they can't hear the manager talking to them and visa versa but I think they have helped the first African World cup become very unique, I have managed to acquire one of them and they do make a lot of noise but it's different to the normal air horns etc..
W is for Winners, Now the winners were Spain and personally i thought they played a lot of good football but also got the results to back it up. Now obviously many thousands of people were hoping England would win it but ofcourse they didn't even get close so we just have to wait another 4 years till the next time.
Thanks for reading and my next blog post will be just before the start of the new premier league season hopefully.
Josh
This blog post is going to be about the World cup as a whole, now the reson why this is slightly late is that im finding it hard to take that England were useless but never the less i shall continue. There is a slight variation this time for the fact im going to use the some of the Alphabet just to be different.
So...
A is for Atmosphere, The Atmosphere in South Africa has been described as one of the best ever and i would have to agree, i thought that although the vuvuzela's sounded awful to begin with i soon realised that they weren't that bad and helped create this atmosphere so congratulations has to go to South Africa for that!
F is for flops, The World Cup was full of big name footballers who for their clubs had the best season of their careers in most cases, Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi, Kaka to name just a few. Out of those players a total of 1 (Yes 1!!) goal was scored, that was Ronaldo against North Korea which was helped greatly by a big slice of luck.
S is for Stadiums, The Stadiums that were used in South Africa were fantastic at building the atmosphere and ofcourse holding enough fans but one problem that was a regular occurance was that they were never full to capacity, Now a reason for this is because FIFA made the tickets ridiculously expensive, A ticket for the World cup Final was $700 for the cheapest seats! now this is just ridiculous considering you have to add flights and hotels on top of that. People just don't have that sort of money it's just ridiculous.
V is for Vuvuzela, Now as you will probably know, there has been a lot of controversy about these, players have complained that they can't hear the manager talking to them and visa versa but I think they have helped the first African World cup become very unique, I have managed to acquire one of them and they do make a lot of noise but it's different to the normal air horns etc..
W is for Winners, Now the winners were Spain and personally i thought they played a lot of good football but also got the results to back it up. Now obviously many thousands of people were hoping England would win it but ofcourse they didn't even get close so we just have to wait another 4 years till the next time.
Thanks for reading and my next blog post will be just before the start of the new premier league season hopefully.
Josh
Thursday, 10 June 2010
The World Cup
The World Cup, Arguably the greatest show on Earth( well if your a football fan like myself). A tournament which showcases the greatest footballing talents the world has to offer and ofcourse as with every World Cup, the nation expects England to win it. Now in previous years i haven't been confident that England could actually repeat their triumph of 1966 but this year I believe we have a better chance than before, And here's my reasons why:
1) We won't meet any of the top 7 teams until atleast the semi finals, ofcourse that leaves us the problem of potentially slipping up against a lesser known team but let's hope we don't
2) England Manager Fabio Capello played for Italy 32 times, Sir Alf Ramsey who was the manager in 1966 also played 32 times for his country.
3) Spain are the current European champions and the European champions in 1966 were Spain
4) Uraguay,Mexico and France are all in the same group as the host nation South Africa. In 1966 they were also all in the host nations group which was ofcourse England.
5) Last but not least North Korea have qualified for the World Cup this summer and the last time they qualified was, yep you guessed it 1966.
Now the last 4 points in that list may all be coincidences but I believe theres something else there because they are some quite extraordinary facts, Now ofcourse because i'm a football fan all i want to see on the 11th July is Steven Gerrard picking up the Jules Rimet trophy so i'm going to believe the facts above in the slight hope that they help England to win the World cup. I am very doubtful if i will but we can all dream can't we?
I am Josh Shaw and i believe England can win the World cup!
1) We won't meet any of the top 7 teams until atleast the semi finals, ofcourse that leaves us the problem of potentially slipping up against a lesser known team but let's hope we don't
2) England Manager Fabio Capello played for Italy 32 times, Sir Alf Ramsey who was the manager in 1966 also played 32 times for his country.
3) Spain are the current European champions and the European champions in 1966 were Spain
4) Uraguay,Mexico and France are all in the same group as the host nation South Africa. In 1966 they were also all in the host nations group which was ofcourse England.
5) Last but not least North Korea have qualified for the World Cup this summer and the last time they qualified was, yep you guessed it 1966.
Now the last 4 points in that list may all be coincidences but I believe theres something else there because they are some quite extraordinary facts, Now ofcourse because i'm a football fan all i want to see on the 11th July is Steven Gerrard picking up the Jules Rimet trophy so i'm going to believe the facts above in the slight hope that they help England to win the World cup. I am very doubtful if i will but we can all dream can't we?
I am Josh Shaw and i believe England can win the World cup!
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
superstitions, rituals and witchcraft
hello everybody,
i'd just like to say sorry for not posting a blog in a while but i've had many ideas floating around and have struggled to find enough material for a half decent blog so here it is....
Superstitions, Rituals and Witchcraft have been used in football ever since it began and some are insane while others just grotesque. One example was Sir Les Ferdinand. He joined Besiktas(Turkey) on loan from QPR in 1988,In his very first training session 35,000 fans turned up and before it had started a club official walked onto the pitch with a lamb, went on to sacrifice it and then smoother Ferdinand's face and boots in it's blood. Now I personally think this is crazy but if it's there way of doing something then we might as well let them do it. Now another example is from just before the 2006 World cup, a Togo chief voodoo priest "talked to the ancestral spirits" and he was told that Togo would go far in the tournament, he was nearly right aswell, they got thumped by Korea, France and Switzerland and scored only one goal, I'm thinking that someone would have been out of a job shortly after.
My next example will leave you in stitches or at the very least a slight chuckle for you non-football fans. Barry Fry had just been given the managers job at Birmingham when he was told about a story of a curse put on the ground fro ma disgruntled old gypsy lady. The advice he was given to lift this curse was on the stroke of midnight on the eve before their next home game he was to pee in all 4 corners of the playing surface now many of us would have told the person where to shove their advice or something along the same lines but no Barry Fry took the advice and did exactly what it said and 15 minutes before the match the following day he was incredibly happy but this was to last just 15 minutes because Wolverhampton Wanderers scored four goals without reply. Now this is down right CRAZY! For someone to actually believe this has you wandering how he became manager because he obviously has no common sense.
Anyway ill leave it there but one last thing John Terry is famous for his superstitions and they include always sitting in the same coach seat on the team bus, always listening to the same music in his car on the way to training, parking in the same space, using the same urinals in the home dressing room and he even wore the same "lucky" shin pads for a decade until he lost them at the Nou camp(Barcelona). Now this is going completely over the top but anyway thanks for reading and I hope you carry on reading.
Josh
i'd just like to say sorry for not posting a blog in a while but i've had many ideas floating around and have struggled to find enough material for a half decent blog so here it is....
Superstitions, Rituals and Witchcraft have been used in football ever since it began and some are insane while others just grotesque. One example was Sir Les Ferdinand. He joined Besiktas(Turkey) on loan from QPR in 1988,In his very first training session 35,000 fans turned up and before it had started a club official walked onto the pitch with a lamb, went on to sacrifice it and then smoother Ferdinand's face and boots in it's blood. Now I personally think this is crazy but if it's there way of doing something then we might as well let them do it. Now another example is from just before the 2006 World cup, a Togo chief voodoo priest "talked to the ancestral spirits" and he was told that Togo would go far in the tournament, he was nearly right aswell, they got thumped by Korea, France and Switzerland and scored only one goal, I'm thinking that someone would have been out of a job shortly after.
My next example will leave you in stitches or at the very least a slight chuckle for you non-football fans. Barry Fry had just been given the managers job at Birmingham when he was told about a story of a curse put on the ground fro ma disgruntled old gypsy lady. The advice he was given to lift this curse was on the stroke of midnight on the eve before their next home game he was to pee in all 4 corners of the playing surface now many of us would have told the person where to shove their advice or something along the same lines but no Barry Fry took the advice and did exactly what it said and 15 minutes before the match the following day he was incredibly happy but this was to last just 15 minutes because Wolverhampton Wanderers scored four goals without reply. Now this is down right CRAZY! For someone to actually believe this has you wandering how he became manager because he obviously has no common sense.
Anyway ill leave it there but one last thing John Terry is famous for his superstitions and they include always sitting in the same coach seat on the team bus, always listening to the same music in his car on the way to training, parking in the same space, using the same urinals in the home dressing room and he even wore the same "lucky" shin pads for a decade until he lost them at the Nou camp(Barcelona). Now this is going completely over the top but anyway thanks for reading and I hope you carry on reading.
Josh
Monday, 5 April 2010
Footballer's face time and tattoos
Footballers face time is when a player scores a goal and immediately after every television camera, every flash bulb, every fanis focused on them but this can cause a footballer to do the most ridiculous things from boxing with the corner flags to converting a triple somersault with a half pike. there have been instances where players face time have proved costly for them, For example, David Norris scored and during his face time he made a handcuffs sign to show support for his former teammate Luke McCormick, who had been jailed for seven years after crashing his car into 2 young children after drinking for most of the night before. The punishment for David Norris was £5000 plus 2 weeks wages.Now onto the subject of showing your love to the club you've supported since you were young. The most common way of doing this is by getting a tattoo, Because players don't seem to stay at a club for too long its better if you get the clubs badge tattooed on, but some people aren't quite that clever. For Example, A Manchester city fan was so overwhelmed with the news that Kaka was joining the club that he went to his local tattoo place and had a tattoo done with Kaka written across his chest, now this wouldn't have been too bad had Kaka moved to Manchester city but instead he decided to stay at AC Milan. Another example is Newcastle fan Robert Nesbitt he was so in awe of goal scoring machine Andy Cole that he got Andy's face tattooed to the full length of his calf. Problem with this one was that Andy cole moved to Manchester United just 3 weeks later. So maybe the only sure fire football tattoo law is to go for the club's badge or chest. That's all for this blog thanks for reading.
Josh
Josh
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
The magic of the FA cup
hello everybody,
In today's blog im going to talk about the FA cup, now for those of you that don't know what it is, it is a knockout competition which any english club can enter ( even your local sunday league teams) and was first introduced in 1871. Now for any die hard football fan, the FA cup means a lot to them but in recent times it seems to have lost people's interest. For Example, Wigan played Hull in which I believe was the 3rd round, now these are 2 premier league sides playing and yet the attendance was shocking, only 5335 people turned up, this is absolutely horrendous and although the tickets were £30 thats still relevitely cheap for a premiership match so i believe people missed out there, but it just goes ot show how much a matter of months can make because the final of the FA cup last year was between Chelsea and Everton and although they are bigger teams financially, they are still two premier league teams just like Wigan and Hull, the attendance on "final day" was 89,391. Now that is a huge difference and it upsets me to see this because the FA cup means a lot and its the only trophy in the country ( possibly world) that can put a sunday league team up against a premier league team and the history is just amazing.
well i'll leave it there
Thanks for reading
In today's blog im going to talk about the FA cup, now for those of you that don't know what it is, it is a knockout competition which any english club can enter ( even your local sunday league teams) and was first introduced in 1871. Now for any die hard football fan, the FA cup means a lot to them but in recent times it seems to have lost people's interest. For Example, Wigan played Hull in which I believe was the 3rd round, now these are 2 premier league sides playing and yet the attendance was shocking, only 5335 people turned up, this is absolutely horrendous and although the tickets were £30 thats still relevitely cheap for a premiership match so i believe people missed out there, but it just goes ot show how much a matter of months can make because the final of the FA cup last year was between Chelsea and Everton and although they are bigger teams financially, they are still two premier league teams just like Wigan and Hull, the attendance on "final day" was 89,391. Now that is a huge difference and it upsets me to see this because the FA cup means a lot and its the only trophy in the country ( possibly world) that can put a sunday league team up against a premier league team and the history is just amazing.
well i'll leave it there
Thanks for reading
Monday, 1 March 2010
Terry vs Bridge
hello everybody and before i start talking about my topic i'd like to say a big thank you to a Mister William Wivell (sorry if surname is incorrect) because william has reminded me about my blog and i will pay more attention to it in the future so thank you Will. Right onto my subject of this blog, It happens to be a footballing subject because that is one of my passions in life as some of you may know. So as you can see from the title im gonig to talk about the feud between the Chelsea captain John Terry and Manchester City player and ex team mate of Terry's, Wayne Bridge. Now this all started when a court injunction was lifted about the private life of these individuals and it turns out that Terry had an affair with Bridge's ex, now this obviously cause Bridge to become upset about this and rightly so, Bridge and his ex have a child together so ofcourse they'd be distressed but it doesn't end there because Bridge's ex has come out and denied everything but Terry hasn't so it's slightly confusing to say the least. Well this was roughly a month ago and i'm only writing about this now because on saturday lunchtime Chelsea and Manchester City played eachother, so as both teams lined up just before the match ready to shake hands and ofcourse there was a lot of hype about whether Bridge would shake hands with Terry and bets were being put on aswell with pretty good odds if i may say, so it came ot the handshake and Bridge was towards the end of the Manchester City line and as it went along the line everybody shook Terry's hand but then it came to Bridge and well they stared at eachother but did not shake so that was the end of that. Now this is where my main point of this blog ( sorry if i'm waffling but there was a fair bit of background knowledge you needed to know) In the week leading up to the match Bridge decided to effectively retire from international football because he can't play with Terry, now normally I would normally respect his decision but becausethe World Cup is in the summer and he was likely to be the main left back because of an injury to Ashley Cole, who himself seems to be bed hopping as they say but thats a seperate topic, so now Fabio Capello ( England Manager) has a problem because the 2 best left backs in the country are unavailable so it's not good and thats why I dont respect Bridge for that but i also think that Terry has done something incredibly stupid because he to has 2 kids and it's not a good situation for them to be brought up in so I sympathise with all the innocent people involved like the kids, so anyway i'll call it at an end there before you all fall asleep and i hope to have a new blog in the near future.
Josh
Josh
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)