Re: Another Drive4show 'Anything goes' thread

[Diggers]

First topic message reminder :

I don't mind Paul Walsh at all, there are at least another 5 on the Sky Soccer Saturday that are way worse. Thompson is annoying , Nicolas just as bad, Merson is funny in an are you simple kind of way. George Best used to be worst of the lot.
I always found Graham Taylor's commentary annoying , that was his voice more than anything though.
In athletics Colin Jackson is very poor as is Denise Lewis.

[golfermartin]

I think you will find that all the teams that have won a World Cup have a star for each of those victories. It started in 2004. So why should England not sport the star? This is clearly an attempted wind-up by a jealous Scot

[super_realist]

I think you will find that all the teams that have won a World Cup have a star for each of those victories. It started in 2004. So why should England not sport the star? This is clearly an attempted wind-up by a jealous Scot

I said I knew it was due to the world cup, but living in the past is no way to move forward.

Uruguay won it twice, but who cares about their two stars? It's irrelevant rubbish.

[golfermartin]

I think you will find that all the teams that have won a World Cup have a star for each of those victories. It started in 2004. So why should England not sport the star? This is clearly an attempted wind-up by a jealous Scot

I said I knew it was due to the world cup, but living in the past is no way to move forward.

Uruguay won it twice, but who cares about their two stars? It's irrelevant rubbish.

I which case you should have expressed the opinion that all football teams should ditch the star not just focus on England's

[Diggers]

Well done England. 50-50 match against the Italians and probably quite a tight one, just who nicks a goal really. Nice to play Italy in a big match at a tournament, doesnt usually happen for some odd reason.

[McLaren]

Golfermartin

I reckon super_realist is the sort of scot that has never left his town let alone Scotland. These types tend to be rather odd and hold an irrational hatred towards England and console themselves with SNP voting to get over the misery of their existence. They clearly come on golf boards to spread the misery as well.

[golfermartin]

Golfermartin

I reckon super_realist is the sort of scot that has never left his town let alone Scotland. These types tend to be rather odd and hold an irrational hatred towards England and console themselves with SNP voting to get over the misery of their existence. They clearly come on golf boards to spread the misery as well.

[kwinigolfer]

Lots of calls for goal-line technology but surely there needs to be offside instant reply also - even if just a challenge system.

The linesman who missed the "goal" also missed the offside in the build-up and another just minutes before.

If the "goal" had been allowed, England would have been robbed. Ukraine just were denied something they should never have had in the first place and, irony of ironies, we all have John Terry to thank that justice was served. (Never thought I'd say that . . . . . )

Slippery slope - where does it end.

[SmithersJones]

Lots of calls for goal-line technology but surely there needs to be offside instant reply also - even if just a challenge system.

The linesman who missed the "goal" also missed the offside in the build-up and another just minutes before.

If the "goal" had been allowed, England would have been robbed. Ukraine just were denied something they should never have had in the first place and, irony of ironies, we all have John Terry to thank that justice was served. (Never thought I'd say that . . . . . )

Slippery slope - where does it end.

That's exactly why I don't think this type of technology fits football as a game. In all the other sports where it's used, the ball is dead and all of the reviewing takes place during time, give or take, that wouldn't otherwise be filled with action. In football, it's theoretically possible for the ball to be in play for the full 45 minutes of a half, so if a ball did or didn't cross the line, it'd be necessary to review every bit of action from the last time the ball went out of play prior to the possible goal. It's the same in all other games, but the period in question is one point (tennis), or one ball (cricket), or from the last tackle (RL). In football it could quite conceivably be minutes, and given the amount of cheating and general foul play that would inevitably be seen I doubt a single one of these would ever be given.

[mystiroakey]

Goal line tech is a great starting point in my view. Once that is dealt with we can move on to other ways of improving reffing in the game.

Its a start.

If goal line was appied yesterday- We would be pushing for an offside system! it would at least be progress

[mystiroakey]

Smithers- i dont advocate replays- we are passed that on a tech level.

Sort out goall line. hawk eye or whatever system..

move on to things like gps chips or even a hawkeye(camera tracking) on players for offsides- the tech is there, to give instant decsions

[SmithersJones]

Certainly if it can reliably be done live, then ok. When I said this type of technology I meant the hawkeye review type of system. I don't believe that's currently used live in any other sports, though I'm happy to be corrected on that.

[mystiroakey]

No it isnt used live yet- only on replays and reviews, in cricket and tennis.. But the tech is there to come so it could be used live in the future. Football needs a live enviormoment to stop play straight away- goal line first then i believe offsides could work as well- when the tech has improved to at least a better margin of error than human error anyway!!

thats a good point i think to note- it doesnt have to be perfect yet- it just has to be better!! And the fact is if it is implemented then we have a starting point wereby the tech can be imporved upon

[kwinigolfer]

Smithers, mysti,
The sport that I watch that's most similar to footie with the continuous play is ice hockey in the NHL.
Too detailed to go into too much but there's basically a comprehensive review process that CAN be back-"dated" for review.
I wouldn't advocate that for football, partly because the fans are clearly out of the picture as far as understanding exactly what's going on. Maybe OK in the largely prawn cocktail atmosphere of the NHL but not at Anfield.

[McLaren]

a microchip transmitter in the ball and the heels of the players could surely give an offside decision within a millisecond?


Kwini

That is exactly the point I made when watching last night, but I would still like to see goal line technology brought in.

[super_realist]

Golfermartin

I reckon super_realist is the sort of scot that has never left his town let alone Scotland. These types tend to be rather odd and hold an irrational hatred towards England and console themselves with SNP voting to get over the misery of their existence. They clearly come on golf boards to spread the misery as well.

Total claptrap, I have a dislike for Scotland, the Scottish and scottishness too, I'd never vote snp if you paid me, have lived and worked abroad plus work in a global industry with people from all over the world, whereas mac is a librarian, and can only leave Edinburgh city limits by way of public transport.

I actually like England, the English, but admit to a dislike of Gerrard, Cole and Terry.

[Diggers]

Id rather not bother with the new technology. Leave it to the officials and keep the game flowing, nothing better than a good debate about what should have been.
I mean by the rules of the game last night Rooney had a stonewall penalty when he was dragged back by the shirt in the box. Yet nobody even mentions that, always strikes me as odd what causes controversy and what doesnt.

[super_realist]

Re. Rooney. All that money on hair transplant and it still looks scheisse.

He looked pretty slow to me too.

Mac have you any idea how much differential gps required to that sort of accuracy would be? It's not just a handheld gps like you have for your Doak book course exercises. Centimeter accuracy would cost in the region of 25k for a great big box . I doubt you could do it accurately in a lightweight boot.
Hawkeye software is less accurate but more cost effective and quicker to review

[lorus59]

I think the problem with the smaller countries and England has a lot to do with with the media. I have an on-line account with "the football pools" and the other day they sent me an email and I quote,

Play for England!

After Roy's Boys held their own in Donetsk yesterday against France you have a reason to be patriotic!

The are assuming that all the people in the UK will be cheering England. I am actually from Northern Ireland so why would I have a reason to be patriotic? It's little things like this that makes us turn against them.

[McLaren]

Super

Who doesn't work in a global industry?

[super_realist]

Mac, what are you talking about?

[mystiroakey]

I think the problem with the smaller countries and England has a lot to do with with the media. I have an on-line account with "the football pools" and the other day they sent me an email and I quote,

Play for England!

After Roy's Boys held their own in Donetsk yesterday against France you have a reason to be patriotic!

The are assuming that all the people in the UK will be cheering England. I am actually from Northern Ireland so why would I have a reason to be patriotic? It's little things like this that makes us turn against them.

what a weird thing to say- they arnt assuming that at all. they are just targeting the larger demoigraphic and its just a spam email. The problem is how people take these things

[lorus59]

I think the problem with the smaller countries and England has a lot to do with with the media. I have an on-line account with "the football pools" and the other day they sent me an email and I quote,

Play for England!

After Roy's Boys held their own in Donetsk yesterday against France you have a reason to be patriotic!

The are assuming that all the people in the UK will be cheering England. I am actually from Northern Ireland so why would I have a reason to be patriotic? It's little things like this that makes us turn against them.

what a weird thing to say- they arnt assuming that at all. they are just targeting the larger demoigraphic and its just a spam email. The problem is how people take these things

Who ever wrote it was probably English. If Scotland or Wales were playing, I'd be very interested in how the email would have been written. If they had added "If you are an English fan" to the email it wouldn't have been a problem. The ironic thing is my email address ends with ".ie" (Ireland) not .com or .co.uk.

[mystiroakey]

Lorus pal- do you not understand that your batch email would have been sent to a million email adresses and they really isnt any point to try and filter out certain emails. They have just targeted the largest demographic. But it is just a businesss decision, not a reflection of an English feeling

[McLaren]

Kwini and other us posters

How is this going down across your way?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18522383

[Diggers]

Surely everyone in the UK supports England in the big tournaments ? What would be the point of following one of the useless, pony little countries, and I use the word country loosely, more like biggish counties really. I suppose its a bit of fun like backing a 250-1 shot at the National but everyone must accept there is only one "real" football team from the UK ?

[McLaren]

Diggers

I am scot who has always supported England in tournaments, especially if they pick a few man utd players. It would help if some of the really unlikable characters like Terry and Gerrard were not in the squad.

[Diggers]

I dont think Gerrard is at all unlikeable. He has had one out of charachter fracas in his whole career. Other than that he has been low profile, footballers get hammered for being Jack the Lad but he gets it for being downbeat and private, you cant win really. You will rarely find a sports journalist with a bad word to say about the bloke, and much like Murray he is said to have a wry sense of humour. I admit the scouse accent is annoying buy its hardly in Jamie Carraghers league.
I'll give you Terry though, he is scum.

[kwinigolfer]

Mac,
If it wasn't on the BBC I wouldn't have known about it. Pretty sordid though.

[McLaren]

I just find the comments really funny. People seem to be suggesting that the left (people who support EU human rights laws heaven forbid.) would see the father sent down for murder. Which is odd to start with as I imagine the offence would be manslaughter.

[mystiroakey]

Gerrard obviously is part of the liverpool massive isnt he- and its probally his lifestyle that has got him into a few issues- but lets be honest by many reports he doesnt seem to have a choice of even moving clubs?

[super_realist]

Diggers, you don't think England are a 'pony' team?
For a country their size they are lamentable. Actually think they may reach the semi though.

[Diggers]

Im not sure it would be manslaughter. If you systematically beat someone to death wouldnt that be homicide ? Depends on how the law works in that State I guess.
Its a difficult one, I can uinderstand totally why the guy did it and think I may well do the same, but I also dont agree with the principle of anyone taking the law into their own hands.
I believe they are reviewing the laws in various States which allows you to protect yourself if attacked etc and then take further action. Apparently it's led to quite a few deaths of would be criminals and there was a high profile one where a youngish youth was killed recently, Im sure Kwini knows more about this than me ?

[Diggers]

Diggers, you don't think England are a 'pony' team?
For a country their size they are lamentable. Actually think they may reach the semi though.

50 million isnt that big, if its by population a football mad country like Brazil who have 200 million should win every tournament..mind you they usually do I suppose.
We have a shot at the semis for sure, not much between the sides.

[mystiroakey]

Personally the fact is he killed a man based on being tempoarily insane.

He killed the man in the act. So i think the outcome is fair. He didnt even have a chance to weigh up his actions

If he killed the man at a later point then we could call it taking the law into his own hands and maybe there would be a case for premeditated murder- but obviously with a reduced sentance(IMO)

[Diggers]

Personally the fact is he killed a man based on being tempoarily insane.

He killed the man in the act. So i think the outcome is fair. He didnt even have a chance to weigh up his actions

If he killed the man at a later point then we could call it taking the law into his own hands and maybe there would be a case for premeditated murder- but obviously with a reduced sentance(IMO)

That depends on how long it took to kill the guy, which I confess i have no idea of. If he systematically beat him to death for 10 minutes then he had plenty of time, if he strangled him while dragging him off then perhaps not.

[super_realist]

Diggers, you don't think England are a 'pony' team?
For a country their size they are lamentable. Actually think they may reach the semi though.

50 million isnt that big, if its by population a football mad country like Brazil who have 200 million should win every tournament..mind you they usually do I suppose.
We have a shot at the semis for sure, not much between the sides.

Yes, but they do have considerable success, despite fewer resources, money.
France, Italy, Germany Spain all achieve. How come England are so bad.

[Diggers]

Germany has 30 million more people, Italy 100 million more, France 15 million more, Spain is a few million smaller so more comparable. But France and Spain havent achieved that much more than England, in fact Spain just happen to be on a hot streak right now. History is forever changing, now happens to be there time.

[McLaren]

The details on exactly how he killed the guy seem a little sketchy, but assuming he just grabbed a rock or something and hit the guy on the head it would seem a reasonable thing to do to stop a Cuddle in a bad way.

Anyway, as long as a proper investigation was carried out we cant really complain. It will be a worrying trend for America if you can just kill someone, say it was in self defence – or defence of others – and just head home without being interviewed or with no evidence being gathered.

[mystiroakey]

Yes as long as the facts were spot on.. I am assuming that dna was checked out etc as well as everything else

[Lairdy]

I'm for not having video technologies either. Think about it - was that over the line? Lets go to the video referee. Really? In football? A big part of football is how you react to decisions and dealing with momentum changes etc. I was for employing line judges like in tennis for these big tournaments but considering that Muppet in the black couldnt see that was over the line on tue night, whilst looking directly across it, then what's the point?

I'm pretty neutral when it comes to England in tournaments. Found myself willing them on against Sweden and the Ukraine and its probably largely down to a large dose of English realism this time round. But it is Germany who I'll be supporting all the way to the final. There is lots to admire if you look at how they run their club football and the plan put in place for the national team after another flop at 2004. Things are done properly over there without too much pizazz. Anyone else sick of watching the Spanish and hearing about how great they are? I find myself shouting just shoot already ffs!

[mystiroakey]

Blatters tweet made me laugh.

Neccesity now- Why now sepp??

why not before?..Was it only because you think england benefited?. Or am i just over paranoid?

[golfermartin]

If goal line technology had been in force the goal would have been given - incorrectly, because he shouldn't have got to shoot - it was offside. As far as I can see it was just one mistake cancelling out another. If you introduce technology for one type of mistake, you need to have it for all possible mistakes.

[mystiroakey]

golfermartin- if the goal had been given it may have showcased an unjust offside decision- and we would be pushing for an better way of officating those decisions.

Its all progress

[mystiroakey]

however blatters comment is kind off odd timing because this is actually the best example we have for not having GLT. So it kinda tells me that blatter just has an agenda

[oldparwin]

It's always the same, they put these old fogies in charge and they are opposed to change, they want to keep the game in the past, and not move with times, and sorry to say football is the worst culprit.

They still want the referee to make decisions rightly or wrongly on what he saw or did not see, then the referees get slated for being wrong, when they have the technology to help the referees to be right all the time, same with goal line decision, camera' s never lie so why do we not use them.

Being a great at your sport does not mean you are the right person to run it, the fans are clambering for fairness in the game, and are being ignored, due to very ignorant people who are running it

[navyblueshorts]

Just how carp were France in their Euro 1/4 tonight??? And they had the cheek to suggest England were negative.

[McLaren]

Navy

They were really poor, and used two right backs??

[Diggers]

If you looked at the Spanish starting line up at first glance it was more defensive than the French. Alonso, Busquets and Xavi all deep midfield players and Sliva and Iniesta and Silva in front, narrow, tight and compact.
Of course they just pass and move constantly, no better way to defend than to keep the ball. Must admit I'm finding it pretty dull to watch though. I'll be pulling for the Portuguese and a bit of Ronaldo magic.

[mystiroakey]

If every football game was like that then i wouldnt watch the game. But as the occasional a one off its not bad to watch the different syles of play, even if it is more the game we know of 'keep ball' rather than football.

However i believe the french tried hard but were made to look rubbish byh the spainish. It takes some going that. Spain and Germany are both playing to expectations.

[super_realist]

Germany has 30 million more people, Italy 100 million more, France 15 million more, Spain is a few million smaller so more comparable. But France and Spain havent achieved that much more than England, in fact Spain just happen to be on a hot streak right now. History is forever changing, now happens to be there time.

Italy has 150m people does it? Are you on crack?

Spain have a euro and world cup and France two euros, a world cup and a world cup runner up since 84. England have two semis. Hardly similar to what Spain or France have or worth being proud of. It is Englands level, due to their poor mentality.
Portugal and a number of other countries have done that semi final 'achievement' before. In fact I think even Sweden might be able to match that record and have qualified for just as many tournaments.

England are like the robin soderling or Jo wilfred tsonga, firmly in the second tier of the game.

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