Archive for February, 2010
The Winter Olympics: a lesson in sport
Athletes of all sports could learn a lot from the Winter Olympics and Vancouver 2010.
Take the drama of the men’s short track speed skating 1000m final, where the new Olympic record holder Sung Si-Bak lost out to to his compatriots Lee Jung-Su and Lee Ho-Suk because he didn’t want it as much as they did. Overwhelmed [...]
‘He’s having a Phil Godman’
Pope and Swift, as of today, would like to suggest a new turn of phrase to the existing canon of sporting figures of speech. We propose that ‘Phil Godman’, from this point forth, may be used in the place of ‘nightmare’, ’shocker’ or similar noun. Thus, the phrase ‘having a Phil Godman’ implies that a sportsman [...]
Terry’s only crime is ‘clubultery’
John Terry has the right to feel hard done by in recent weeks. Despite the fact that demands for ‘Team Bridge’ t-shirts have gone through the roof and he has become the man everyone loves to hate, the Chelsea captain hasn’t actually done a great deal wrong.
Terry’s only mistake was shacking up with a teammate’s significant [...]
Betting tales: So near and yet so far
They say the best things in life are free and there cannot be many things better for a young man who enjoys sport, than winning a free bet. There have indeed been many an occasion when we have waxed lyrical about the joys of making money simply from correctly predicting that certain teams will win [...]
Separated at birth: Lords of the impossible journey
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Frodo Baggins’ Owen thought as he sat on the physio’s table for the millionth time. ‘That’s right, I’ll model myself on the Lord of the Rings protagonist. It’s perfect; he searched for the ring in the same way that I’m searching for full fitness. Both are almost impossible quests and yet  it Frodo is eventually victorious’.
That’s the [...]
Eco-martyr Neville shows PR has gone mad
Last week, Pope and Swift stumbled across a sentence that they never thought they would bear witness to. ‘Footballer Gary Neville has applied to build a flower-shaped eco-friendly house in Greater Manchester’ it read. Cue bemusement. Surely it was some sort of a joke, some sort of premature April Fool’s gag, Rio Ferdinand murking the Manchester [...]
When it rains on Robbie, it pours
At some point in the spring of 2008, Robbie Keane must have walked under a ladder, placed his new Nike boots on a table and spilt salt in the Spurs canteen all on the same day. That can be the only reason why the Republic of Ireland striker has endured the remarkable fall from grace that [...]