A Plan

A plan is what I need. I am no more closer to finding the truth of life than I was when I first started searching for it. I guess this is why everyone finds it hard to express it and content themselves with dedicating their life to a cause.

That is one of the definitions of life you come across: people believing in something and working for it relentlessly all their life, only for it to be mocked at by higher life forms.

The reality is humans are not immortal. It is not to say being immortal is any more useful. I say 70 years on this planet is really enough. It must be an optimal time planned by the One(I will not say God because it is a term coined by wise ancestors and is meant for religious purposes or answering questions that do not have answers). Why would I say 70 years is enough? Purpose. A human throughout his life doesn’t know his purpose. Why is there so much ambiguity. Why are there so few rational answers. And how insignificant is a single human. Is living a life all about the ride or the end.

Anyway I should get back  to the plan before I deviate into paths that lead nowhere for now. I am confident as I grow, my wisdom will to0 and I get know more of the One’s big plan for us mortals.

The plan:

Forget speculation about the future.

If I want to be happy, I have to work towards what I want to become.

What do I want to become?

1. Have a great body. Be super fit. Run a lot.

2. Rich. Need money.

3. Learn the guitar. Though the start is the guitar, its really about wanting to express my thoughts through music. Go on to other instruments.

4. Read a lot of books. The elders know. I am the humble pupil.

5. Become dependable. Discipline. Fulfil responsibilities.

6. Learn a fighting art. Man was made to be aggressive and you need to learn the art.

Well. Its time for the plan.

Things I need to do:

1. Plan every weekend for the week ahead.

2. Plan every day. Life is not easy. Keep painting yourself a false picture and you are a dead fucking duck.

3. Make a diet plan. I know its not easy but being fit involves taking care of what you eat.

4. Ask others for help. Life is a lot about social interaction. The animal kingdom depends a lot on social interaction.

5. Practise the guitar everyday for 30 mins. One small step at a time.

6. Put off learning the fighting art till you make your own money.

7. Be a shark in academics. Enjoy the ride. Sweat now, reap the rewards later. Remember that you will get your reward, only it will be after a little while rather than an immediate one.

Modern Day Hardman Cahill

The Best Modern-Day Hard Man Is…

John Nicholson

Excuse the homo-erotic subtext to this question but, where have all the hard men gone?

It’s not long since almost every top club had at least one hard man; one man who could frighten the crap out of opposition players with a mixture of intimidation, aggression and the occasional outburst of undiluted violence all mixed up with rugged tackling and crunching headers.

Football, like the English language is constantly evolving, and in recent years seems to have evolved to exclude the hard man from the game. Here’s my question; is it a good thing? Am I the only one to miss him?

The best hard men were not simply psychotic nutters who went around stamping on people, mthough they were that as well, no, the most effective hard men were physically strong, excellent ball winners, and good passers. Their job was to break up play, and protect the flair players from being kicked to death by the opposing centre-half.

In the olden days the best example of a hard man was Ron Harris. If you never saw him, Chopper was extraordinary. He’d shock any young fan of today’s game. His job was simply to hurt the opposition’s best players – anything football-related after that was a bonus, but not strictly necessary. Early on in the 1970 Cup Final, he stamped on Eddie Gray’s calf to reduce Gray’s effectiveness. It worked. Job done.

But I was never a fan of the Chopper-style hard man. Too often he ruined the game by maiming the players you most wanted to actually watch.

However, the 70s were full of hard men like Larry Lloyd, Tommy Smith and Norman Hunter, who, along with being ruthless tacklers, were also good distributors of the ball. They didn’t usually just deploy violence for its own sake, it usually had purpose and application. The principle of instant karma was always a popular one in 70s football; you hurt my tricky winger, you get a kick in the nads.

These were more visceral days – any player who was weak minded or physically lightweight was shown no mercy. It’s surprising no-one died.

Which brings me to Souey. Grame Souness was probably the most skilful hard man ever to walk a football pitch. He was an extraordinary, attacking midfielder, the like of which we will never be allowed to see again.

At times he mowed into players with a ruthless malevolence which was both utterly exhilarating and totally sickening in its sheer, raw violence. I once saw him in 1974, during his reign of terror at the Boro, taking revenge on a hapless defender for some perceived injustice.

As the player booted the ball away, Souey ran full speed into him, his boot up at thigh height. He stamped right down the bloke’s thigh, down past the knee, down the shin and stamped on his foot in one, king-fu inspired movement. Naturally, his victim fell to the ground in pain, but rather than leave the scene of the crime quickly, Souey leaned over him and screamed abuse in his face. Even by the standards of the day, this was extreme behaviour.

I have to say, the fans loved it. It might be morally wrong, and these days it’d bring the full weight of the law on and off the pitch into play. He’d be hauled up in front of the world’s media and castigated for his irresponsible behaviour. But these are different days. At the time, we loved it; all of us. Were we all thugs back then? Sometimes I do wonder.

In the 80s Souness continued his assault and battery style of playing at Liverpool and later, Rangers, while Vinnie Jones began his reign of bollock-grabbing insanity. The true inheritor of Chopper Harris’ slash and burn approach, his Wimbledon days will never be forgotten as a period of unremitting, ugly, but rather successful, thuggery.

But as hard as Jones undoubtedly was, easily the hardest player in the 80s was South Yorkshire’s finest, Billy Whitehurst. Alleged to have beaten the s**t out of Jones while they were both at Sheffield United, Billy is also supposed to have earned money while at Oxford doing bare-knuckle fights with local gypsies! Now that is f**king hard. You’d not catch John Terry doing that now would you, more’s the pity.

By the time Billy quit in 1993, the hard man was already in decline but ‘Razor’ Ruddock was still elbowing people senseless, and Stuart Pearce was still out there, playing with a broken leg and doing full-body tackles on anyone who stood still for long enough. Who didn’t love Psycho?

And then there was Roy Keane. In his pomp, Keane was one of the finest exponents of the hard man tradition. Sent off for vicious hacks and knee-breaking stamps, he brilliantly mixed his violence with high-voltage football skill of the highest order.

At his peak he was an irresistible force of nature. Mad, bad and dangerous to know, love or loath him, he was always compelling to watch, and he was crucial to Manchester United’s dominance and success.

His confrontation with Paddy Vieira in the tunnel a couple of years ago was possibly the last old school hard man moment. It was, in all senses of the word, great. Am I wrong to feel that? Maybe. But I do feel it.

I know in these more gentle football days of high skill and fast pace, the hard man is seen as an anachronism, and anyone who admits to a joy in seeing a bit of ruthless on-pitch aggression is seen as a retard, especially by younger generations of fans who have grown up with a different tradition of football. Perhaps society and sport is keen to be more sophisticated in the 21st century. Maybe play-acting and feigning injury have replaced the hard man. Times change…maybe it’s for the better, maybe it’s not.
I don’t see the Ben Thatcher-style forearm smash as part of the great hard man tradition. That smacked more of the over-reactions of a weak man. Anyone can just whack the living s**t out of someone, but the top notch hard- an knew how, when and why a player needed ‘livening’ up.

The hard man role – in the way we understood it in years gone by – has been made impossible by the outlawing of most forms of tackling, and the instant red cards given out by refs for players who sneeze too violently, let alone those who tackle someone around the neck with their muscular thighs.

In the Premiership, the art form barely exists at all, and where it does, it has had to change and adapt to the new football environment.

If I was to ask you for a list of hard men today you’d be hard pushed to make it a long list or draw it up very quickly. Take a player like Didier Drogba. I suspect he’s as hard as nails, but because of all the play-acting and wussy behaviour, you can’t call him a hard man. No hard man would ever pretend he was hurt when he wasn’t, nor would he show it if he was – that would be to show weakness. The Drog fails on all those counts.

A player like Paul Dickov is a tough little b***ard and like a lot of very small men could start a fight in a monastery, but he’s not a hard man in the Keane or Souness tradition.

Brian McBride, who shares his name with the boss of Amazon.co.uk – which incidentally is another place you can buy my book Footy Rocks – is a true hard b***ard centre-forward. When viciously elbowed by De Rossi in the USA v Italy game during the World Cup, he didn’t flinch, even as the blood streamed down his face. He stood there, dazed but resolute. We need more men in the game who can take a whack and not weep about it. McBride looks like the sort of tough-assed Irishman that gave the NYPD such a fearsome reputation in the 30s. Thick-necked and made of granite, McBride is as hard they come, but he doesn’t play the hard man on the pitch. He is just innately tough, he’s not an inheritor of the hard man tradition.

Liverpool’s John-Arne Riise took a good nutting last week and didn’t go down, revealing unexpected hard man qualities in doing so. But he’s not a player who uses that in his game as a rule.

So who does that leave? Richard Dunne and Andy Todd are tough sods, as is Scott Parker, but for me, the only true inheritor of the mad, hard b***ard role, the man who you’d least like to get the wrong side of, is Everton’s Tim Cahill.

Cahill has an assassin’s cold, dark, black eyes. His unusual Samoan/Irish parentage in itself sounds like a genetically tough-assed recipe.

He’s nasty, aggressive and though a bit of a short arse, is as physically strong as anyone who plays the game. He’s all muscle and he’s got the look of a feral dingo. He walks the line in most games and uses his aggression to progress Everton’s midfield attacking options incredibly successfully.

Like loads of Aussies, he’s competitive to a point where it hurts, and he hates losing. In his first season at Everton he was top scorer and he’s got five already this season – his good form is in no small measure responsible for Everton’s success.

In an earlier era, Cahill would have played more like Souness, and would have been encouraged to do so by Moyes, who likes the physical game. But maybe because he can’t play that way, we actually see the best of him, and because of that, football is the winner.

His game relies on controlled aggression, fierce determination, excellent timing and great positioning for all those late headers in the box he’s made his trademark. If he was busy kicking lumps out of everyone, the more skilful side of his game might be lost, and that would be a shame.

The old school hard men days will never return, but while there are players like Cahill around, in some way, the tradition is continued. Fair f***ing dinkum mate.

F365 – Fergie’s ramblings

* “My greatest challenge is not what’s happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their f**king perch. And you can print that” – Sir Fergie publishes his own epitaph in an interview with The Guardian accordingly printed in 2002.

* “I can now understand why clubs come away from Anfield choking on their own vomit and biting their tongues, knowing they have been done by the referee. It would be a miracle to win here” – Ferguson’s reaction to a 3-3 draw with Liverpool in 1987.

* “On you go. I’m no f**king talking to you. He’s a f**king great player. Youse are f**king idiots” – Ferguson doesn’t take kindly to journalists questioning the form of Juan Veron in 2002 and chucks them out of his press conference.

* “Kenny Dalglish has associates, but only a few friends. There’s nothing wrong with that because, at the end of the day, you only need six people to carry your coffin” – Ferguson’s guide to death, late 1990s.

* “He’s a novice. He’s come here from Japan and he’s telling English people how to organise our football. He should keep his mouth firmly shut” – Fergie offers Arsene Wenger a warm welcome to the Premiership in 1997.

* “I decided this man could not be trusted an inch. I would not want to expose my back to him in a hurry” – Sir Alex further endears himself to Gordon Strachan.

* “Our talk did not last long. I found him very hard work and quite surly” – Fergie’s recollection of his attempts to lure Alan Shearer to Old Trafford.

* “Rejection is an overrated hardship in football. So when Patrick Kluivert was so unimpressed by our approaches inn 1988 that he wouldn’t even do us the courtesy of talking to us, I had no trouble in believing that he was likely to be a bigger loser than us. As I write, there is a growing mountain of persuasive evidence that the Dutchman’s indifference indirectly did us a huge favour” – Ferguson wields a bitchy pen in his autobiography.

* “I don’t think anyone in the history of football will get the sentence Eric got unless they had killed Bert Millichip’s dog” – Ferguson’s considered reaction to Eric Cantona’s ban for attacking Crystal Palace supporter Matthew Simmons.

* “When an Italian tells me it’s pasta on the plate I check under the sauce to make sure it is” – Ferguson embraces diplomacy before ManYoo’s Champs League quarter-final against Inter Milan in 1999.

* “It keeps those f**kers from the media out” – Ferguson espouses the virtues of ManYoo’s ‘Fortress Carrington’ training-ground complex.

* “If there’s a prat in the world, he’s the prat” – Ferguson assesses the character of Jimmy Hill after the BBC pundit dared to suggest that Eric Cantona did not wear a halo.

* You’re a f***ing bottler Incey! You cannae handle the stage, can you? You are a f***ing bottler” – Extract from Sir Alex’s half-time ‘pep-talk’ in the Nou Camp in 1993 when ManYoo were battered by Barcelona.

* “They are the worst losers of all time” – Sir Alex’s gracious evaluation of Arsenal.

* “They say he’s an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I’ve got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast speaks five languages” – Ferguson refuses to be impressed with the qualifications of Le Professor, Arsene Wenger.

* “I think Sven would have been a nice easy choice for them in terms of nothing really happens. He doesna change anything. He sails along, nobody falls out with him. ‘The first half we were good , second half we were not so good. I am very pleased with the result'” – Ferguson reveals his dissatisfaction with his proposed replacement at ManYoo before he took a u-turn over retirement four years ago.

* “You scumbag, you ratbag, you dirty bastard” – Fergie greets Paul Bosvelt after the final whistle of a Champions League tie in 1997 in which the Feyenoord midfielder had taken a lump out of Denis Irwin.

* “He could start a fight in an empty house” – Ferguson demands a unique scientific experiment to be conducted with Dennis Wise.

* “Back to your usual self Jeff, f**king useless” – Sir Alex Ferguson implores former Premiership referee Jeff Winter not to hang up his whistle.

* “Ashley Cole made you look a c**t” – Ferguson’s reported observation to David Beckham following an unsuccessful FA Cup date with Arsenal in 2003 before the ManYoo boss kicked out at a stray football date with dramatic and, for Beckham at least, painful consequences.

Pete Gill

Antonio Cassano

I must have downloaded atleast 7-8 GB of football videos/compilations. I simply love watching them, players smashing in goals with the bohemian rhapsody playing in the background.

I am a lazy guy and there were days when I used to well have a kind of “starting problem” to haul my ass up to the ground. Then I used to listen to this compilation. It was named “Totti & Cassano”. The video used to barely show the excellent football played by the Giallorossi but the song “Rock you like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions was enough to get me off my feet.

Now we return to Antonio Cassano. Boy genius turned Super Brat.

The story of this lad is a very interesting one. He had a poor childhood. He was born in Bari, an unknown Italian town and he grew up playing street soccer. His talent was eventually spotted by a scout from FC Bari and a couple of years later, AS Roma come sweeping in with a multi-million offer of ridiculous of proportions for a boy so young. Cassano wins the Giallorossi fans over and becomes the darling boy of Italian football.

Club Captain and the King of Italian football, Francesco Totti took Cassano under him and they forged one of the most formidable striker forces in Italy. They played scintillating football together and became close friends.  Come fame, come money; most people in life get lost and Cassano was not a saint either.Money and fame come at a premium. And for this poor kid, they did come too quickly. He dressed extravagantly, he played extravagantly and he lived like a millionaire on a  holiday. Fame soon got to his head and he behaved like any player would. He turned up late for training, was drunk and partying  most of the time. His relationship with Totti was deteriorating and eventually broke up when Cassano dint turn up at some family occasion of Totti’s.  Then Cassano decided he wanted to further enhance his reputation as the bad boy when he refused to sign a contract extension and poor Roma were forced to sell him for a cut-price 5 Million dollars to Real Madrid. What happens to high profile players after they transfer to Madrid – they dont win anything ever again and their careers go on a downward spiral. So destiny took its path and here we arrive at a Cassano, who has sobered down, realised his mistakes. And to make him realise his mistakes, it took Real Madrid, Fabio Capello and 720 minutes on different benches across Spain.  Lets see the new Cassano now in this exclusive interview:

The big news – in more ways than one – centres around the weighty figures of both Toni Cassano and Ronaldo. It was revealed that the Italian attacker was so hacked off at his continued absence from the Real Madrid starting line up that he stood face to face – well, face to chest – with Fabio Capello after the game and blew a gasket.

“I deserve to be in the team,” he squealed at his somewhat surprised manager, “have you know shame! It’s a disgrace. I saved your arse at Roma and this is how you repay me!”.

There has to be just a little bit of sympathy with Cassano’s position. He was one of the best players in the club’s preseason where appeared to have bucked up his footballing ideas up considerably. He even managed a goal in last week’s Ecija cup game. However, like Beckham, Cassano has become a victim of Capello’s desire to play with six defensive players and only one proper forward – Van Nistelrooy.

Another very unhappy bunny at the club is Ronaldo – who has been a regular bench partner of Cassano over recent weeks. Interesting, it isn’t clear whether they have to sit on opposite sides to avoid tipping it up and sending Reyes flying into the air.

lol 😀 

Manchester United: Sir Alex Fergusson

Sir Fergie’s Top Twenty Rifts, Rows And Ructions: Part One

Posted 08/11/06 09:13

www.football365.com

There’s been the occasional angry word or two since Sir Alex Ferguson arrived at Old Trafford on November 6, 1986…

Sir Fergie v Player Power
Ferguson’s reputation as a disciplinarian is as justified as it is infamous. One of the first players to suffer the Hairdryer treatment was Aberdeen winger John Hewitt. The offence? Overtaking Ferguson on a public road.

Upon arriving at Old Trafford, Fergie introduced himself to his new charges by announcing: “I don’t care who you are, or what reputations you have – I’m the new manager of this club and I’m in charg.”

He was to prove as good as his word. ‘Shocked’ at the heavy drinking culture he uncovered within the first-team squad, Ferguson embarked on a complete overhaul of the playing personnel, regardless of their reputation. Of the 11 players who started Ferguson’s first match, only Clayton Blackmore was still at Old Trafford beyond the summer of 1990. Seven were offloaded within 24 months of his arrival.

The list of high-profile casualties included Gordon Strachan, Norman Whiteside and Paul McGrath. In many respects, the overhaul set the tone for a 20-year reign which, even after the introduction of the Bosman ruling and the Sky/Premiership millions, has been the vanguard in the struggle against the rise of player power.

Sir Fergie v The FA
As a paranoid anti-establishment socialist with a persecution complex, it is hardly surprising that Sir Alex Ferguson has endured a few run-ins with the English game’s governing body.

“There is no chance of this happening if it wasn’t United,” is a familiar growled lament whenever a discplinary charge arrives at Old Trafford with a Soho Square postmark.

Nor has Ferguson ever attempted to disguise his belief that FA have a running vendetta against ManYoo.

Earlier this year he announced, “There is a scenario for every club in the country and another one for us – you know the FA and Manchester United.” Although that particular tirade referred specifically to the bannings of Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney following their Amsterdam Tournament dismissals, he may as well have been providing his commentary for any number of punishments meted out over the previous 20 years.

Prospects of a ceasefire are bleak. Ferguson and current FA chief executive Brian Barwick have a turbulent relationship stretching back to the days when the Liverpool-supporting Barwick worked at the BBC. Already convinced that the corporation had an anti-ManYoo agenda, Ferguson accused him of bias when the club failed to land the BBC Sports Personality of the Year team award in 1996.

Such is the extent of Ferguson’s paranoia that he even blamed Barwick for the number of former Liverpool players populating the Match of the Day studio.

Sir Fergie v Jim Leighton
One of Fergie’s least-acknowledged attributes is his ruthlessness. The decision to axe Paul Ince was partially motivated by a mistake by the midfielder that directly resulted in Everton’s winning goal in the 1995 FA Cup final. He never played for the club again.

Five years previously, Ferguson had stunned the football fraternity by dropping Jim Leighton for the FA Cup final replay against Crystal Palace after the keeper had endured a nightmare in the 3-3 draw. “I knew it would be controversial but I knew I was right,” explained Ferguson. No matter that the decision effectively brought Leighton’s club career to a juddering halt: “There was only one question to be asked – would Manchester United have a better chance of winning the Cup with or without Jim Leighton?”

A 1-0 win vindicated Ferguson’s decision, but the omission of the Scottish number one in favour of the relatively unknown Les Sealey still dominated the next day’s back pages. Leighton couldn’t forgive his manager for the snub -“Jim was selfish,” responded a testy Fergie – and his wife greeted the ManYoo manager at the post-final banquet with a two-fingered salute.

Yet the controversy served as a salient lesson to the ManYoo players that complacency – and the potential for failure – would not be tolerated. Ferguson’s impassive ruthlessness also left many of his peers in awe. “The decision showed how brave a manager he is,” commented Steve Coppell, manager of Palace in 1990. “Changing a player, to whom he had shown great allegiance, showed that cold, cutting edge which all top managers need.”

Sir Fergie v The Media
Sir Fergie regards the press with the same level of suspicion that a Scot holds for happiness.

In recent years, the ManYoo manager has boycotted the BBC, Sky and even the club’s in-house station, MUTV, over perceived criticisms.

Last December, Ferguson announced that “the media have a hatred of Manchester United” before marching out of a press conference precisely 74 seconds after it had begun. Nor is his criticism restricted to their treatment of ManYoo. A month ago, he announced: “The problem in this country is that the media have a perverse way of looking at success. They want to ruin young people. It’s different in America. Time and time again you’ll see tickertape parades down Fifth Avenue. We don’t praise our heroes that proper way here. They’re always looking for faults so they can sell a newspaper, get a front page.”

Ferguson has never hidden his contempt for the Fourth Estate. Even hapless hacks have been known to suffer the infamous Hairdryer. The threat of a boycott is constant – and often inflicted.

Arguably his most infamous confrontation with the press occurred in the spring of 2002 when it was suggested that the £28m purchase of Juan Veron hadn’t been entirely successful. “I’m no f**king talking to youse. Youse are all f**king idiots,” thundered a purple-coloured Ferguson before summoning club security to escort the offending journalists off the premises.

Sir Fergie v Brian Kidd
In view of the level of success they shared at ManYoo, the relationship between Sir Fergie and Brian Kidd, his assistant manager for ten years, was surprisingly fractious.

Ferguson’s autobiography records a series of niggling disputes, culminating in an enraged Fergie aghast at news that Kidd had, unknown to him, advised the club’s board against signing Dwight Yorke and recommended John Hartson instead. “Hartson? Are you serious? Do you think of John Hartson as a Manchester United player?” was the printable gist of Ferguson’s understandably incredulous reaction.

The impression fostered by Fergie’s good book is of a peculiarly remote relationship. “I saw Kidd as a complex person, often quite insecure,” wrote Ferguson.

When Kidd left Old Trafford in December 1998 to take charge of Blackburn it was the timing rather than the departure itself that dismayed and irritated Fergie.

In April 1999, the pair clashed in public – as opposing managers with ManYoo travelling to Blackburn for a game that the home side had to win to ward off relegation.

Ferguson’s put-down was withering in its contemptuous indifference. Feigning ignorance, he claimed that he had failed to console Kidd on Rovers’ relegation following the goalless draw because he hadn’t realised the terminal significance of the result. Yes, and the Pope doesn’t know where the Vatican is situated.

Sir Fergie v Paul Ince
Of all of the many, many changes Sir Fergie has made to ManYoo’s playing personnel over the past 20 years only the decision to pursue Ralph Milne rather than John Barnes can be definitively stated to be more contentious than the sale of Paul Ince.

After a trophyless season, the summer of 1995 was a momentous period for ManYoo, witnessing the departure of Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis and the birth of Fergie’s Fledglings. The public were incredulous. Alan Hansen’s double-negative observation in August that “you don’t win nothing with kids” stuck in the public’s mind because it chimed with what many had already concluded.

Doubts even spread as far as the Old Trafford board. Yet Ferguson was adamant: Ince had grown into a ‘Big time Charlie’ and too big for his boots. “I felt Paul was no longer playing to the discipline I demanded,” he explained. “If footballers think they are above the manager’s control, there is only one word to say to them – goodbye.”

Eight months after bidding the self-titled ‘Guvnor’ farewell, Ferguson celebrated the capture of his second double. As for Ince, he failed to win another club honour after leaving Old Trafford.

Sir Fergie v The Grey Shirts
As the official ManYoo website soberly notes: ‘Third kits are usually all blue but the club has also used all black and on one occasion in the mid ’90s used all grey.’

Such bland commentary barely hints at that extraordinary one and only appearance however.

It occurred in April 1996 when ManYoo travelled to Southampton. Trailing 3-0 at half-time in the grey shirts, Ferguson ordered his team to change strips. With what remains one of the most famous excuses for a defeat ever provided by a football manager, a livid Ferguson complained that, as the shirt had been designed to be worn with jeans rather than by a football team, his players were camouflaged on the pitch by blending into the fans in the background.

The shirt was immediately withdrawn two years ahead of schedule. Perversely, it was a favourite of the fans and reportedly one of the club’s best-selling shirts of all time. ManYoo fans must be fond of jeans.

Sir Fergie v Kevin Keegan
The precursor to football’s most famous televised breakdown was, Sir Alex continues to maintain, entirely innocent.

“The widespread assumption that remarks I made after our home match with Leeds United on 17 April 1996 were designed to upset Kevin Keegan, the manager of Newcastle United, was quite wrong,” Fergie wrote in his autobiography.

And even with the benefit of knowing the incendiary effect they had in the vulnerable mind of Keegan, Fergie’s post-match remarks appear to fall short of ‘cunning mind games’. The suggestion that Leeds wouldn’t be in the wrong half of the Premiership table if they had replicated the determination they showed against ManYoo throughout the season could hardly be quibbled with. Nor was Fergie’s “hope” they repeated that same determination against Newcastle 12 days later unreasonable.

But, whether by design or otherwise, the comments were the spark that saw Keegan’s inner turmoil, already building a momentum of its own as his side spurned a 12-point lead, dramatically explode after the Toon’s 1-0 win at Newcastle.

“A lot of things have been said over the last few days, some of it almost slanderous. I’ll tell you now, I would love it if we beat them. Love it!” a hysterical, finger-jabbing Keegan wailed to a stunned audience of millions live on Sky Sports.

Keegan claimed that he had lost respect for Ferguson. The rest of the footballing fraternity concluded that he had lost the plot and Fergie, who collected the title a week later, was depicted as a modern-day machiavellian mind games genius.

Sir Fergie v Manchester Police
Upstanding citizen of the community that he is, Sir Fergie isn’t accustomed to falling foul of the law. However, a black stain was cast against his name when he was arrested for driving along the hard shoulder of the M42. Yet, as his lawyer revealed, he had a very good reason: The avoidance of a very ugly brown stain.

Ferguson, a Manchester court was informed, was suffering “from severe diarrhoea”. Given the uncomfortable circumstances as he queued in traffic, two options presented themselves: “One is unthinkable and one is to take evasive action.”

Ferguson was subsequently acquitted.

Sir Fergie v Liverpool
Ferguson hates losing. And so his hatred for Liverpool after they spent the first five years of his Old Trafford premiership winning trophy after trophy is considerable.

Fours years ago, in an unusually reflective interview with The Guardian, he announced: “My greatest challenge is not what’s happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their f**king perch. And you can print that.”

Such is the bile-stained antipathy towards all things scouse stemming from the manager’s offfice at Manchester United that many suspect that a persuasive factor in his u-turn over retirement in February 2002 was Liverpool’s victory at Old Trafford a month earlier. In all competitions, it was Pool’s fifth successive victory over ManYoo.

For Ferguson to depart in such circumstances was inconceivable.

 

 

Ronaldo and Cassano

The big news – in more ways than one – centres around the weighty figures of both Toni Cassano and Ronaldo. It was revealed that the Italian attacker was so hacked off at his continued absence from the Real Madrid starting line up that he stood face to face – well, face to chest – with Fabio Capello after the game and blew a gasket.

“I deserve to be in the team,” he squealed at his somewhat surprised manager, “have you know shame! It’s a disgrace. I saved your arse at Roma and this is how you repay me!”

There has to be just a little bit of sympathy with Cassano’s position. He was one of the best players in the club’s preseason where appeared to have bucked up his footballing ideas up considerably. He even managed a goal in last week’s Ecija cup game. However, like Beckham, Cassano has become a victim of Capello’s desire to play with six defensive players and only one proper forward – Van Nistelrooy.

Another very unhappy bunny at the club is Ronaldo – who has been a regular bench partner of Cassano over recent weeks. Interesting, it isn’t clear whether they have to sit on opposite sides to avoid tipping it up and sending Reyes flying into the air.

😀 hahaha quite a funny article from http://www.laligaloca.blogspot.com/

Some Firefox stuff October, 2006

Viewing your Cache

November 1st, 2006

Ever wonder what is in your cache? Type ‘about:cache‘ in the address bar. This will bring on stats on your cache, then at the bottom of that page is a link ‘List Cache Entries’ which may take a bit too load if your cache is large. This page will list all your cache entries. Also, you can directly access the cache entries page by typing in the address bar ‘about:cache?device=disk‘. Now, keep in mind Firefox uses two caches, disk and memory. To view your memory cache, type in the address bar ‘about:cache?device=memory‘.

Also, there is the CacheViewer Extension which allows you to view the contents of both the disk and memory caches. It will also provide a GUI preview of the content, besides showing how much of your disk space and memory is being used up by the cache.  Once installed, CacheViewer will be available via your Tools menu.

 

 

Gambling against the Dollar – NYTimes

Gambling Against the Dollar

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: November 1, 2006

A couple of years ago, Robert E. Rubin — éminence grise at Citigroup and the Democratic Party’s economic wise man — decided that the United States dollar was headed for a fall.
Nearly everyone who spends time thinking about the American economy believes that the value of the dollar has to fall at some point.

The United States has been borrowing enormous sums of money from other countries, largely so that American consumers can turn around and buy the computers, clothing and other goods those countries make. Like all borrowing booms, this one will eventually subside. When it does — and foreign investors stop buying so many dollars to lend back to us — the dollar will drop.

With this chain of events in mind, a former colleague of Mr. Rubin’s at Goldman Sachs had been whispering in his ear that anybody who didn’t have 20 or 30 percent of his holdings tied to other currencies was “out of his mind.”

Yet as Mr. Rubin told me last week, his finances at the time were “totally dollar-based.” (As are yours, in all likelihood.) So he decided to bet against the dollar by buying options on other currencies. It turned out to be a very bad bet.

This is a column about why Mr. Rubin’s logic made perfect sense — why it still does, in fact — yet why most people who have made similar bets in recent years have taken a bath. Warren E. Buffett cost Berkshire Hathaway almost $1 billion last year shorting the dollar. On the opposite end of the investing spectrum, I put a small amount of my retirement savings last year into a T. Rowe Price mutual fund that is linked more directly to foreign currencies than most foreign-stock funds are. It has delivered a return of negative 7 percent.

But it really is worth trying to understand what’s going on. In the end, the value of the dollar will go a long way toward determining how well Americans live: which food we can afford to eat, which cars we can buy, which foreign policy we can pursue. As Mr. Rubin says: “It is vitally important. It has the potential to affect all of us.”

The simplest way to explain the problem is to say that the United States has been living beyond its means. Both the federal government and American families have been spending more money than they take in, leaving both in debt. To close the gap between our resources and our spending habits, we have borrowed from abroad. It’s the only option.

The net amount of money leaving the United States — that is, the amount of money we need to borrow back to support our lifestyle — has soared to $800 billion a year. “It’s just stunning,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “It’s unprecedented.”

The big question now is how will the situation reverse itself. It could happen gradually, with other countries slowly reducing their purchase of dollars. This wouldn’t be horrible, as Americans discovered when the dollar dropped in the 1980s. But most of us would be worse off for the simple reason that foreign loans would no longer be letting us live beyond our means.

The other possibility is that an unexpected event — a spike in oil prices, say — could cause foreign investors to cut their dollar purchases sharply, bringing all sorts of economic havoc. Edwin M. Truman, an economist who spent a quarter-century at the Federal Reserve, compares the situation to a merry-go-round that is moving too fast for its underlying mechanics. It gradually loses speed, leaving its riders disappointed but unscathed, or it stops suddenly and throws some of them off their horses.

Whatever the outcome, a decline in the dollar will probably be part of it. That’s why Mr. Rubin made his bet. But the dollar didn’t cooperate. While no longer at the highs it reached in 2002, it has stayed strong. Mr. Rubin ended up losing more than $1 million (which, certainly, he can afford) before getting out of the currency market.

Throughout his career — as an arbitrage trader at Goldman, as the Treasury secretary who led the 1995 bailout of Mexico — he has argued that decisions should not be judged solely on the outcome. Somebody could do a perfectly good job of weighing the relevant risks, make a call that maximizes the chances of success and still not succeed, because the world is a messy, unpredictable place.

Mr. Rubin and the other dollar bears look a little like the skeptics of the real estate boom back in 2005. For years, those skeptics warned that things had gotten out of hand and that reality would soon reassert itself. And for years, they were wrong. The longer they were wrong, the more out of touch they sound.

How is that housing boom going, anyway?

Email: leonhardt@nytimes.com

Throw the Satellite into orbit!!

Huge ‘launch ring’ to fling satellites into orbit

• 16:00 03 October 2006
• NewScientist.com news service
• David Shiga

 

Enlarge image

A ring of superconducting magnets fires a projectile off a ramp at 8 kilometres per second, fast enough to reach orbit (Artist’s conception: J Fiske/LaunchPoint)

Enlarge image

A cone-shaped shell would protect the payload during its passage through the atmosphere into space, and includes a rocket at the back end to adjust its trajectory (Illustration: J Fiske/LaunchPoint Technologies)

 

An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a new study funded by the US air force.

Proponents of the idea say it would be much cheaper than conventional rocket launches. But critics warn that the technology would be difficult to develop and that the intense g forces experienced during launch might damage the very satellites being lofted into space.

Previous studies have investigated the use of magnets to accelerate satellites to the high speeds required for launch. But most have focused on straight tracks, which have to gather speed in one quick burst. Supplying the huge spike of energy needed for this method has proven difficult.

The advantage of a circular track is that the satellite can be gradually accelerated over a period of several hours. And the setup is technologically feasible and cost effective, suggests a recent, preliminary study of the idea funded by the air force’s Office of Scientific Research.

The air force has now given the go-ahead for more in-depth research of the idea. The two-year study will begin within a few weeks and be led by James Fiske of LaunchPoint Technologies in Goleta, California, US.

The launch ring would be very similar to the particle accelerators used for physics experiments, with superconducting magnets placed around a 2-kilometre-wide ring.

Mach 23

The satellite, encased in an aerodynamic, cone-shaped shell that would protect it from the intense heat of launch, would be attached to a sled designed to respond to the forces from the superconducting magnets.

When the sled had been accelerated to its top speed of 10 kilometres per second, laser and pyrotechnic devices would be used to separate the cone from the sled. Then, the cone would skid into a side tunnel, losing some speed due to friction with the tunnel’s walls.

The tunnel would direct the cone to a ramp angled at 30° to the horizon, where the cone would launch towards space at about 8 kilometres per second, or more than 23 times the speed of sound. A rocket at the back end of the cone would be used to adjust its trajectory and place it in a proper orbit.

Anything launched in this way would have to be able to survive enormous accelerations – more than 2000 times the acceleration due to gravity (2000g). This would seem to be an obstacle for launching things like communications satellites, but Fiske points out that the US military uses electronics in laser-guided artillery, which survive being fired out of guns at up to 20,000g.

Long-range weapons

The US air force’s interest stems from the ring’s potential to launch small, 10-kilogram satellites into orbit, though the team says it has not been told what kind of satellites these are. Aeronautics researcher Alan Epstein at MIT in Cambridge, US, who is not on the team, says the ring could potentially be used as a weapon.

Aside from microsatellites, the launch ring would be ideal for delivering supplies to support human spaceflight, such as food and water, which are not sensitive to such high accelerations, Fiske says. “Nearly all of this materiel could be shipped via launch rings, resulting in major reductions in the cost of manned space activities,” he told New Scientist.

Such a launch ring is technologically possible, but getting the projectile safely through the atmosphere would be challenging, says Epstein.

Among other things, it would be difficult to keep it from overheating and to make sure it follows the desired trajectory when subjected to winds and friction from the atmosphere, he says: “None of these challenges are trivial at all.”

Team member Michael Ricci, also at LaunchPoint, thinks these difficulties can be overcome. “They’re certainly not issues that can just be discounted, but we believe both of those are solvable,” he told New Scientist, citing previous research on nuclear warheads, which are designed to move through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

Cheaper by the dozen

If the ring launched hundreds of satellites a year, it would be cheaper than conventional rocket launches. With 300 launches per year, the team estimates the ring could put payloads into orbit for $745 per kilogram. If the launch rate reached 3000 launches per year, they calculate that would drop to $189 per kilogram. Today, it costs more than 100 times that to send payloads into space.

However, Epstein says he cannot imagine a demand for that many launches in the foreseeable future. Ricci counters that demand is currently being held back by the high cost of rocket launches: “If you had orbital launch capabilities at one-tenth or one-hundredth the cost, there’d be a lot more demand.”

If the results of the team’s upcoming, more detailed design study are promising, the team would like to proceed by building a small test version of the ring, measuring 20 to 50 metres across, although no funding has been promised for this as yet.

If everything went well with the test ring, the team would hope to attract funding to build a full-scale version, which would take about four years to build, Ricci estimates.

Although Epstein is sceptical about the prospects for such a ring, he cautions that if built, the ring itself could become a target for attacks. This is because of its potential for use as a weapon, launching missiles that could reach anywhere in the world. “The ring then becomes one of the most important targets on the planet,” he told New Scientist.

The end of West Ham?

Duo’s arrival is tip of the iceberg

http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,16368,2483_1573708,00.html

TEAMtalk feels the unsettling arrivals of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano at West Ham are part of a much bigger picture.

It was touted in some quarters as West Ham’s answer to the coup which brought Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles to Spurs back in the late 1970s.

Five weeks on, the arrival of Argentinians Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano threatens to break one of football’s proudest clubs.

West Ham have lost their last five games, including two in the UEFA Cup against Palermo.

They have not scored while Tevez has been on the field and Mascherano was dropped last weekend.

The club lurches from defeat to board meetings as takeover speculation mounts.

Like a good old pro, and the decent person he is, manager Alan Pardew attempts to steady the ship.

Then comes the ultimate proof of West Ham’s folly in the words of Argentina coach Alfio Basile, who said: “I hope they leave the club as soon as possible. They are half-hearted and I’m worried about that.”

If Tevez and Mascherano are ‘half-hearted’ – and Basile knows them better than most – then the decision to bring them to the Premiership in the first place was half-baked.

It is football’s ultimate marriage of inconvenience.

And a salutary lesson of what can happen when clubs are tempted by the lure of foreign money and the promise of opportunists who know the price of everything to do with land and location and nothing about the value of an old and revered football institution.

After all, the Israeli businessman linked with the bid to buy the Hammers, Eli Papouchado, admits he knows nothing about football.

“I don’t even know how many players there are in each team,” he says. “But I do understand that in every business transaction there is a real estate opportunity.”

It was as honest and direct as it was scary for English football.

Whatever you say about Roman Abramovich, he has thrown himself into the running and the tradition of Chelsea. He turns up at just about every match, his delight at his huge investment obvious in his pumping fists and broad grin.

For Abramovich, Chelsea is a whim which turned into a hobby which turned into a passion.

For the men at the gates of Upton Park football is a business vehicle, pure and simple. It is there, not to swell their hearts, but their bank accounts. They do not care about tradition but the pounds that roll in. They do not see fans among the Upton Park faithful, they only see potential clients.

Tevez and Mascherano did not arrive at West Ham from Brazilian club Corinthians because Pardew saw the need for a flamboyant striker and an accomplished defensive midfielder. Pardew had built a balanced squad, one which had reached last season’s FA Cup final and qualified for Europe. Pardew certainly did not need them but just caved into the temptation of having at his disposal two World-class stars.

The Argentinians came in a move apparently engineered by prospective buyer Kia Joorabchian.

Rather than the excitement and kudos which accompanied Keith Burkinshaw’s capture of Villa and Ardiles all those years ago, these Argentinians brought with them bewilderment.

How exactly do you get two World Cup stars for nothing?

There is an old adage that if things seem to be too good to be true then they usually are and at no time has anyone been convinced that they actually wanted to play for West Ham.

The suspicion is that they were part of a grander plan, the catalysts in the takeover shenanigans, West Ham merely a stepping stone on their path elsewhere.

Meanwhile, their presence does as much for West Ham harmony in the dressing room as a grenade with the pin taken out.

For now Pardew battles on, maintaining he has never threatened to quit, insisting his priority is “getting West Ham up the Premiership table”.

West Ham has flourished under Pardew. It was the ideal example of an English club; traditional and produced its own set of players from an academy among the best in the game itself. It played an attacking 4-4-2 and Pardew’s idea was to make West Ham play entertaining football for the fans. But make no mistake, as long as the current predators are around, the threat to a club rooted in the community, with an academy system the envy of the game and a history boasting Bobby Moore, Martin Peters, Sir Geoff Hurst, as well as Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Rio Ferdinand, is real.

English football should ignore it at its peril.