The Outsiders' Edge

(I am glad to bring back Ben Halls’ third article on the English sports scene. He has banged out more quality articles for us than illegal children fathered by Sven in the last 2 months. For more of Ben’s work visit the fine http://www.thebenhallsblog.blogspot.com/)

That was the worst idea in the history of sports; whoever thought of it should be kicked squarely in the balls. Probably with a steel capped toe. Possibly with a spike, it all depends if they try to do it again. I suppose I wouldn’t be completely opposed to showing them some mercy and just torturing them a bit rather than doing a Rambo on their gentleman area. But if they tried to pull a stunt like that again, I would petition for a castration with a meat cleaver.

Just like bad parents I will use this to dispense justice.

I suppose it is quite hard to know what I’m talking about, but let me enlighten you. The Premiership is currently on an international break, as the final qualifiers for next year’s World Cup in South Africa were taking place. This also means it is one of those special times of year when rival football fans stop their bickering and unite under the St George Cross to support England. Oh it is glorious, Chelsea and Arsenal fans hug and cheer, Liverpool and Manchester United fans sing the praises as Gerrard and Rooney play together and supporters of lower league teams get to see what it is like to watch games in stadiums with more than 7 people in them. Like at club level, nobody wants to talk to West Ham fans, but that’s fine. They aren’t human like you or I.

England had already qualified for the World Cup following their magnificent 5-1 thumping of Croatia a few weeks back. Still, an England game is an England game, and there was plenty to play for as if we could potentially qualify undefeated. This would have given us a huge confidence boost, and make it all the more heart breaking when we got knocked out in the quarter finals on penalties after a gutsy performance. Plus, the first of these two games was against the Ukraine, who are a decent enough team and as it was on a Saturday afternoon, a great excuse to start drinking a bit early.

But nobody could actually see that game. I can’t actually give you any analysis of it. Sorry about that. According to the match report though, we played well but lost 1-0 after a defensive cock up. Also, Robert Green became the first England goalie to ever be sent off. That is all I know.

These people are the Devil.

You see, the Ukraine vs England game was meant to be shown by Setanta Sports. But in the UK, Setanta Sports went bankrupt. The solution? The rights were taken on by a Swiss firm who decided to charge people £12 to watch the game online. For the American’s amongst us, that is $20. Now, there are two ways to analyse why this was the worst idea in the history of sports, and whoever thought of it should be kicked squarely in the balls. One by mocking, and one by looking at the issue seriously. Here, I shall do both. Because I’m generous like that.

First though, a bit of trivia for you – want to know how Setanta Sports, which is still alive in Ireland, Europe and America, got going? By two Irish guys buying the rights to screen Irish international games in a pub, and charged people to watch ‘em. Anyway, moving swiftly on…

The Mocking Analysis of Showing England vs Ukraine via the Internet

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but this was the worst idea ever conceived in the history of sports broadcasting and whoever thought of it should be kicked squarely in the balls. The only idea that might have been comparably worse than this was the idea to make Sven Goran Eriksson, who’s England management regime may have set our international team back so far it has wasted the careers of great players, the studio analyst. Sven has only ever made a good studio analyst on Special 1 TV.

Words cannot express the idiocy of this move. I’m not against watching sports online, not at all. I’m one of the shmucks that pay £150 a year to watch all of the NFL online. But £12 for 90 minutes of football? That is paying £1.30ish per minute of football. That is ridiculous. That is more than a sex chat line. Let’s just examine what else I could buy for £12.

1. Two packs of cigarettes
2. A quarter tank of petrol for my car
3. A taxi back from the pub
4. 1,200 penny sweets
5. 600 two penny sweets
6. A used copy of Bioshock so I can finally figure out what socialist nutjob Andrew Ryan is on about
7. A cheap trophy declaring me the world’s greatest love machine
8. A month’s subscription to ESPN UK
9. A month’s subscription to one of the naughty TV channels
10. A copy of Britney Spears’ latest album

All of those are better ways to spend £12. Even number 10. Especially number 9. It is estimated that only 220,000 bought the game online, down from 7.6m who watched the England vs Croatia game. That should be all the encouragement that companies need to not try an experiment such as that again.

The Vaguely Serious Analysis of Showing England vs Ukraine via the Internet

You cannot draw blood from a stone. This has been proven as scientific fact for quite some time now. Your most avid England fan already pays through the nose to follow their national team. Alongside a TV license, which you need just to have a television in your home, you will also need subscriptions to Sky Sports and ESPN. This costs about £80 a month. You just cannot ask someone to pay more for one match. Also, if you are paying £80 a month and any one of 4 companies has contracts with the FA to show England matches, how one of them weren’t offered the match is disgusting.

Also, not having it on the telly box means that it wasn’t on the telly at any pubs. Years of working behind bars has taught me one thing – having England play football on the telly puts money in the cash registers. Especially when it is kicking off at 5:15 on a Saturday afternoon. There are about 3 pubs a week closing due to lack of business, and without an England game windfall I’m willing to bet this decision put at least one pub out of business.

Finally, just look at the viewing figures again. 7.6m people watched England vs Croatia. I was in Vegas for that game, and I am willing to guarantee that there were at least another 12m people in the bar I was in. In total, including online viewers, people who paid to watch the game in a cinema and the British Armed Forces (who, rightly, get every game for free at their barracks) about 500,000 people saw the game live. Paying to watch sports online works well long term. The Ashes (which is cricket, I don’t expect you to understand) did very well being shown online, as that was 25 days of sport. The NFL Game Pass service, when it is working, does very well as I can watch every single game bar the two that are on Sky anyway. Anyone who takes a glance at Justin.tv during big sports events can see the popularity of streaming online. But for free.

Why couldn’t they figure out a system like the NCAA Final Four, which is streamed online for free and supported by advertisements. I bet if you offered England fans the option of watching the game with a scrolling advert bar at the bottom of the screen and occasional commentator plugs as opposed to not watching it at all, they’d take it. Just please, don’t do this again. It doesn’t work.

Oh yeah, we also played Belarus

I have no idea where Belarus is. I mean, if you showed me a map I could just throw a dart and get closer than an educated guess would. Its amazing how much sport has taught me about geography, actually. Far more than school ever did. Anyway, at the end of the day, it was a moot point as Belarus found their way to London to play. And we whacked them 3-0. Hazzar!

We actually played pretty well, even though we had the mighty midget Shaun Wright Philips on as a makeshift left winger. Peter Crouch and his amazing goal scoring tally (16 goals in 17 starts, although far less when coming on as a sub, plus the single season goal scoring record) continued to once again beg the question of why in the sweet name of all that is good and holy Emile Heskey continues to get the nod. The man is great at holding up the ball, and other strikers like playing with him, but he just doesn’t score goals. The only downside to Crouch is international refs tend to accuse him of elbowing people in the face when he goes for headers due to his enormous height. But other than that, the best thing to take from that match is that Crouch up front with Rooney must be the way forward, with Darren Bent, Carlton Cole and Jermaine Defoe battling it out for the other position up front. Emile has a role, but in this team he just can’t utilise it. Plus, unlike his international competitors, he isn’t a first team regular. In all fairness, neither is Crouch but after 16 goals in 17 starts and a two goal haul how can you count him out? Plus, he has the best quote of all time -  “Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for football I’d still be a virgin!”

Football let a man get a girl like that. Goddamn it..........

In other news, David Beckham got Man Of The Match, beating out two goal man Peter Crouch and midfield superstar Gareth Barry, purely on the merits of his beard. Look at that thing, it is both hilarious and genius all at once.

BECKHAM PICTURE – “This beard is so bad Chuck Norris just dug a grave to roll in”

Editors Note: Elevation will not permit any Beckham bashing on this website. He is far too dreamy. I'm an MLS fan. He is all we have.

England coach Swedish Chef… err I mean Fabio Capello, compared it to President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I think it’s a fair comparison. One of the comentators on the telly made a very good point though, in comparing Beckham’s role with LA Galaxy, which he played with England last night, to a quaterback. He just sort of chills in midfield and distributes the ball up the wing, or hands the  ball back to the defence. It was strangely effective, although not Man Of The Match winning.

England have a ‘prestige friendly’ with Brazil in a few weeks, then just two more matches for Fabio Capello to name his 23 man squad. I’m excited.

After the match, Capello said “Glor shbee gor durr durr, glunt bee orga bork bork bork!””

Other World Cup Qualifiers News and Notes

Going into the final games there were a few big teams in serious trouble, including Argentina and Portugal, possibly leaving the World Cup without two of the world’s greatest players – Messi and Ronaldo. However, in the end, there were no major shocks, although one or two teams not qualifying will raise a few eyebrows – namely Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria and Norway. Those teams sort of sound like they should be at the World Cup.

And even some of the really big, famous teams will have their future in limbo for another month, needing to play a two legged play off to secure a space. This means that teams like Portugal, Ukraine, Russia and France are still not securely through to South Africa 2010. Although one of them will probably draw the Republic of Ireland to play, and playing them is like holding a midget at arms length and kicking them in the testicles. That is to say, dead easy. After all, they deserve elimination after founding Setanta and starting this whole mess.

Don't forget buddy.

Elevation Note. Sorry Ben.