1.“It’s hard to convey accurately just how problematic it is to do a job at the festival without the reassuring presence of Google and the dozens of specialist racing websites at your fingertips. For two days there we were transported back to the grim old days of sports journalism by scavaging for A4 press releases, rifling through old copies of the Racing Post and – shock, horror – using a smidgin of actual imagination. The scars will be some time healing! All that was missing were those ancient, gargantuan typewriters, the suffocating whiff of Sweet Aftons and a line of phone booths with sweating reporters screaming their copy down the line to the once mighty army of copytakers.”
2.“I first met him when I was presenting the BBC’s Grandstand in the early Eighties. He wasn’t a performer in those days but was one of the backroom boys who some of you might remember seeing in the studio shot. He was what was known as the ‘racing sub’, collating results and information on that sport. He was noisy and blustering, “a difficult man to ignore but well worth the effort”, as the late Bob Monkhouse would have said. And then he became famous.”
3.“We went to a nearby doctor, and we sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. It’s fair to say that things did not get better at that point. I will explain the symptoms just slightly for effect … I could not sit down so I walked across the room and grunted like a madman. People were holding on tight to their children. I twice had to go to the bathroom where I unloaded comical vomiting sounds that could be heard pretty much throughout Tampa, which was bad since we are in Orlando. At that point, I told Margo that we probably should go to the emergency room because it was possible that an alien was trying to emerge from my stomach.”
4.“Valeriy Lobanovskiy was a man with the Midas touch. “Golden generation” is a term bandied about all too freely these days, but the pioneering coach was able to forge great sides during each of his three spells in charge of Dynamo Kyiv between 1973 and 2002. The Ukrainian won countless trophies, and it was under his stewardship that Dynamo became the first team from the Soviet Union to win a major European honour.”
5.“I’d like to put on the record that I never made President Mary McAleese stand on the grass because we had the red carpet in front of us. It was the Ireland boys (who didn’t have the carpet in front of them). If they had stayed where they were, then she would have been on the red carpet. I didn’t even know the president was coming to the game. It’s not what you are thinking about. We were do or die. That was as much a do-or-die game as you would ever have (England had lost three Grand Slam deciders). If we had lost that game… when your coach tells you there’s nowhere to go… we knew it already in our heart of hearts. There’s nowhere to go if we lose this game. If Kaplan had said “guys shuffle up”, we would have shuffled up.”
6.“Luis Suarez is describing the goal that secured his passage from South America to Europe. Dispensing briefly with the services of the interpreter, he re-enacts it instead, albeit while remaining seated in a small interview room at Liverpool’s training ground. With his arms out he sways one way and then the other, before drawing a curve through the air with his left hand. He continues to speak in super-fast Spanish but I get the drift. It seems he beat two players, nutmegging one of them, before lifting a glorious left-foot chip over the goalkeeper.”
7. “It’s eerily familiar territory. Ten years ago, Dunne himself acknowledged that he was at a career crossroads due to unprofessional behaviour, often associated with alcohol. He famously approached journalists at the infamous barbecue before the 2002 World Cup, with a cigarette in one hand and drink in the other, to query why people were so concerned about his lifestyle.”
8. “The press corps gosh and golly as the man of the hour approaches. They can just about glimpse him in the antechamber, all stubble and cigarettes, an awe-inspiring sight of rippling manliness. They coo like pigeons hand-fed with golden grain as his lips – those lips! – let fall little drops of Miltonic majesty, his trademark claro, dale and boludo. The warmth from those dark eyes turn their souls to so much margarine. He speaks with the unadorned authority of a master craftsman, whispers one. A latin Jesus, sighs another. But hark, he’s here! Lights, camera, action!”
The Sunday Papers: some of the week's best sportswriting
1. “It’s hard to convey accurately just how problematic it is to do a job at the festival without the reassuring presence of Google and the dozens of specialist racing websites at your fingertips. For two days there we were transported back to the grim old days of sports journalism by scavaging for A4 press releases, rifling through old copies of the Racing Post and – shock, horror – using a smidgin of actual imagination. The scars will be some time healing! All that was missing were those ancient, gargantuan typewriters, the suffocating whiff of Sweet Aftons and a line of phone booths with sweating reporters screaming their copy down the line to the once mighty army of copytakers.”
The Irish Examiner’s Brendan O’Brien blogs from Prestbury Park after the wireless was at last turned on after three days.
2. “I first met him when I was presenting the BBC’s Grandstand in the early Eighties. He wasn’t a performer in those days but was one of the backroom boys who some of you might remember seeing in the studio shot. He was what was known as the ‘racing sub’, collating results and information on that sport. He was noisy and blustering, “a difficult man to ignore but well worth the effort”, as the late Bob Monkhouse would have said. And then he became famous.”
Des Lynam, writing in the Daily Telegraph, doesn’t seem to like Channel 4 oddball John McCririck.
3. “We went to a nearby doctor, and we sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. It’s fair to say that things did not get better at that point. I will explain the symptoms just slightly for effect … I could not sit down so I walked across the room and grunted like a madman. People were holding on tight to their children. I twice had to go to the bathroom where I unloaded comical vomiting sounds that could be heard pretty much throughout Tampa, which was bad since we are in Orlando. At that point, I told Margo that we probably should go to the emergency room because it was possible that an alien was trying to emerge from my stomach.”
Joe Posnanski has kidney stone trouble. Dose.
4. “Valeriy Lobanovskiy was a man with the Midas touch. “Golden generation” is a term bandied about all too freely these days, but the pioneering coach was able to forge great sides during each of his three spells in charge of Dynamo Kyiv between 1973 and 2002. The Ukrainian won countless trophies, and it was under his stewardship that Dynamo became the first team from the Soviet Union to win a major European honour.”
FourFourTwo find out what happened to the Dynamo Kiev side that reached the Champions League semi-finals in 1999.
5. “I’d like to put on the record that I never made President Mary McAleese stand on the grass because we had the red carpet in front of us. It was the Ireland boys (who didn’t have the carpet in front of them). If they had stayed where they were, then she would have been on the red carpet. I didn’t even know the president was coming to the game. It’s not what you are thinking about. We were do or die. That was as much a do-or-die game as you would ever have (England had lost three Grand Slam deciders). If we had lost that game… when your coach tells you there’s nowhere to go… we knew it already in our heart of hearts. There’s nowhere to go if we lose this game. If Kaplan had said “guys shuffle up”, we would have shuffled up.”
Martin Johnson speaks to Donal Lenihan about that incident eight years ago. He knows where to stand in Dublin now.
6. “Luis Suarez is describing the goal that secured his passage from South America to Europe. Dispensing briefly with the services of the interpreter, he re-enacts it instead, albeit while remaining seated in a small interview room at Liverpool’s training ground. With his arms out he sways one way and then the other, before drawing a curve through the air with his left hand. He continues to speak in super-fast Spanish but I get the drift. It seems he beat two players, nutmegging one of them, before lifting a glorious left-foot chip over the goalkeeper.”
The Daily Mail’s Matt Lawson meets Liverpool’s newest star.
7. “It’s eerily familiar territory. Ten years ago, Dunne himself acknowledged that he was at a career crossroads due to unprofessional behaviour, often associated with alcohol. He famously approached journalists at the infamous barbecue before the 2002 World Cup, with a cigarette in one hand and drink in the other, to query why people were so concerned about his lifestyle.”
Daniel McDonnell traces the roots of Richard Dunne’s latest off-field problems.
8. “The press corps gosh and golly as the man of the hour approaches. They can just about glimpse him in the antechamber, all stubble and cigarettes, an awe-inspiring sight of rippling manliness. They coo like pigeons hand-fed with golden grain as his lips – those lips! – let fall little drops of Miltonic majesty, his trademark claro, dale and boludo. The warmth from those dark eyes turn their souls to so much margarine. He speaks with the unadorned authority of a master craftsman, whispers one. A latin Jesus, sighs another. But hark, he’s here! Lights, camera, action!”
Irish blogger in Argentina Pegamequemegusta meets Checho.
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