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Category: Sport including Liverpool FC

I Don’t Like Cricket I Love It

Cricket? What exactly is it? This beauty of a game involving bat and ball? It has something to do with the smell. In cricket both the bat and ball smell. The ball smells of leather and human perspiration. The bat smells of linseed oil. They are smells that have stayed with me albeit tucked away in a recess of my mind. ‘They’ say that football is the ‘beautiful game.’ As a football fan, I find myself reluctant to disagree with that. But ‘they’ are wrong. Cricket is truly the beautiful game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBRAzmaq5x0 Is Cricket a Team Sport? Cricket is seen as a team sport. It is. Yet, therein lies a paradox. The batter and the bowler are the individual gladiators within a team setting. The…

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FavFotoFriday: Leicester City

For those of you that don’t know Leicester City have just been crowned champions of the English Barclays Premier League. It is one of the toughest leagues to win in football anywhere in the world. Leicester City have come from nowhere to do it. In fact they were almost relegated from that league only last season.  They are one of the unfashionable clubs and their success this season has been cheered on by many true supporters of other clubs. It has been described as the Cinderella story of English football. This success is deserving of a place in #FavFotoFriday and not only because of the phenomenal nature of their achievement. It combines my love of photography and sport. Well done the Foxes!   Embed from…

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Hillsborough Disaster April 15 1989

The 27th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster will be commemorated tomorrow at Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club. “Tomorrow will see the last memorial service held at Anfield to pay tribute to the 96 Liverpool fans who died following the disaster at the FA Cup semi-final on April 15, 1989. The memorial service at Anfield will begin at 2.45pm, but those wishing to attend the event had to apply for tickets by March 31. Those without tickets for the service at the stadium will be able to pay their respects across Liverpool. The anniversary, which comes as the jury in the Hillsborough inquests are considering their conclusions, will be marked with a minute’s silence at 3.06pm – the time the match was stopped. Public…

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Rivalry Turned Into Hatred – Scousers and Mancs

Rivalry? Hatred? – Liverpool FC and Manchester United Just when was it that rivalry turned into hatred between the two most successful football teams in England? The gulf between the two clubs is much wider and longer than 30 or so miles of the East Lancs Road that physically separates Anfield and Old Trafford. To be precise,  that gulf exists between the fans and not so much the owners, directors and players of both clubs. I am not sure I could have written that last sentence when SAF was still manager of ManU. He stoked the passion of the fans on both sides with his now infamous statement that he intended to “knock Liverpool off their f***ing perch”! I became prompted to write this post in…

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BeinSports SkyCable Thank You Very Much

Wow! BeinSports and Sky Cable I thank you so very much! BeinSports is NOW available in Bacolod! Yay! 🙂 🙂 I must also thank Miguel of the Hat Trick Sports Grill bar for starting up the campaign on Facebook to  bring BeinSports  to Bacolod and Talisay. I don’t know what did the (hat) trick but whatever it was I am truly grateful. At times it seemed like I was the lone voice in the wilderness as I was missing my fix of English football in the Philippines. I had written about English football in the Philippines (or lack of) and was beginning to despair of ever watching Liverpool FC on TV ever again! They are not the only club I watch. There will be plenty of chances to watch…

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Red or Blue? Confession Time

Red and Blue – Only Colors Right? Red or Blue? What does it mean to you? Those two colors mean a lot to me. I got to thinking about the color blue earlier today, and it set my train of thought rushing along the tracks, whistle-a-blowing, steam wildly escaping and pistons clanging. The confession is nothing to do with the “blues” or depression. I have suffered bouts of that affliction in my life and believe I have finally vanquished the black dog. The “fessing” up is to do with my football team, Liverpool Football Club.  They play in red. Bill Shankly made them play in an all red strip in the belief it made the players look bigger and stronger. Our city neighbors, Everton, play in blue. Royal…

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The Demise of Liverpool Football Club

I never thought I would use the words  demise and Liverpool Football Club in the same sentence. Perhaps I am a little too gloomy in talking about the demise of a once great football club. Gloomy is par for the course this season (with notable exceptions Chelsea, Manchester City and Southampton – all away) as the results are grim. Some of the performances have been grimmer. Liverpool Football Club One of the Big Four To use a cliche – no team has a God-given right to win anything but the way Liverpool FC have slumped into mid-table mediocrity is alarming.  We used to be one of the “Big Four”. Now we are being undone by the likes of West Ham, Crystal Palace, Newcastle and Watford. We…

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Super Bowl L Super Bowl 50: Bizarre Facts

Super Bowl L Yes, you are correct, Super Bowl looks weird with the suffix Roman numeral L. I guess that’s a good enough reason for the organizers to rename it Super Bowl 50. You have to hand it to the NFL, they know how to organize a showpiece event. This year’s Super Bowl 50 will be watched by millions over the globe and at the same time rake in $ millions. An extravaganza like this doesn’t attract that many viewers if the product sucks. The product is the game itself. This is where I make full disclosure – as a Brit, I’m no expert on the game. I’m a football man, that’s soccer to you. I have watched NFL on TV back in Britain and…

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Bein Sports, Bacolod and the Hat Trick Sports Grill

Thank goodness for the Hat Trick Sports Grill  Bar in Bacolod run by Miguel Luis Rivero. He’s my hero! Some of you may know that I have been waging what seemed like a solitary campaign to receive Bein Sports channels in Bacolod. Bein Sports hold the rights from the English Premier League to broadcast English footy in the Philippines. It not only shows English football but also games from all over Europe including Champions’ League games.  Europe is where the best players in the world ply their trade. Think Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Neymar, Christiano Ronaldo, Aguero, Yaya Toure, Eden Hazard and Philippe Coutinho. My campaign is a long and weary one met with frustration at every turn. Read here  for the full story. I…

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Dreams and Songs – Fields of Anfield Road

The “Fields of Anfield Road” – “We had dreams and songs to sing” “Dreams and Songs” is taken from the “Fields of Anfield Road.” It is one of the iconic songs in the repertoire of Liverpool Football Club supporters on match days both at home and away.   Shankly Family Foundation I have met some great people through Twitter and many Reds fans of course! They include @Dream-n-Songs. This is a guy who has set up a new website called “Dreams and Songs to Sing.” He has a product range of clothing (threads) that nods to the iconic “Fields of Anfield Road” anthem. I have no affiliation with the site or this guy at all. The products seem sound enough but what impressed me was his statement that…

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