I am from Birmingham, England, and I am a fan of many sports, including F1, snooker and cricket. I don't much care for "soccer".
My name is not of British decent, but of Ukrainian decent. My grandfather was from Lvov, a town in Western Ukraine. During the Second World War, he ended up in Britain.
I am the reigning ArmchairGM Pool and Chess Champion, and I hope to retain my Pool trophy in 2008.
A look at the sports week's biggest losers… A public service by guest host Alex Holowczak on behalf of Christof
Welcome to the latest guest edition of the Friday Fryer, where we take a look at who was the sports world's biggest idiot(s) this week.
I volunteered to step into Manny's shoes, who was stepping in for Christof's shoes during his absence. Manny would be here, but I wanted a go. I hope to bring a unique international flavour to the Fryer this week.
Today is also a special day in American Chart History. On April 4th, 1964, The Beatles were not only #1 in the charts, but they were also #2, #3, #4 and #5! They had 12 songs in total in the top 100 (it was 14 the following week)! They had two albums out, and they were #1 and #2 in the chart! I have embedded #1 for sake of musical accompanyment to the article, and as a little guessing game, try to guess the songs that were 2 to 5, and the others that were lower down the chart. That leaves you with 11 songs to guess. Why have I done this? Well, they're English, and so am I!
Chambers really annoys me. He was caught as a drug cheat by the British Olympic Association, and returned after a ban this season. He has qualified for the European Indoor Championships through rules loopholes, and says he is going to the Olympic Games in Beijing, threatening to launch into a length legal battle.
Not content to ruin Atheletics, he turned his attention to American Football! (Dang, I'll have to mention something American!) Turned out he was useless, and so he moved on to Rugby League. It is famed over here for having a zero tolerance attitude to drug testing. But the Castleford Tigers signed him, to help with charity work, and to have a trial as a player. Chambers has the benefits of a top quality training facility.
I believe Chambers should call it quits. He claims to be doing it for the good of Athletics, but he can't see that he's ruining it. By taking the BOA to court, he will be draining money that the BOA could use to benefit every sport sanctioned by the BOA.
Chambers should be banned from any sport for life, and I've been particularly disappointed with everybody's reluctance to tell him to "sod off".
Styles is a British referee, proclaimed to be one of the better ones at that. He was seen by many to have a chance of refereeing the FA Cup Final this year, which is a very big deal.
In my opinion, it is the worst refereeing decision in recent times. The last goal saw McSheffrey run into Sun Jihai, and fall to the floor. As a result, McSheffrey won a penalty! It shouldn't have even been a freekick to Manchester City, let alone a penalty for the other team!
So, for blowing his chance at the FA Cup Final, Rob Styles deserves his nomination.
2008 promises to be an emotional year for Pean. He poured his heart and soul into sharing his memories at his beloved Yankee Stadium, and went for one last time to the old venue in order to liveblog the game. It promised to be a highly exciting day, and one that would be remembered for generations to come for those in attendance.
Pean went to the last ever final day game, battling driving rain to get to the stadium ready for the off. However, there was a delay due to the rain. No problem. But later, as the outfield failed to dry, the game was cancelled, and there was no game on the last ever opening day game at Yankee Stadium.
To further increase his frustration, Pean then watched as a gorgeous spring day shone down on New York.
Pean avoided the Fryer due to not being able to control his fate.
Max Mosley is President of the FIA, a job that holds great power and responsiblity. He has been hugely controversial in his time. The debacle at the 2005 United States Grand Prix was his fault. No shadow of a doubt in my mind. If he had permitted a chicane to be built, there would have been a race. Sure, F1 would have lost £millions. But the integrity of the sport would have remained.
This week however, Mosley made a complete balls-up. He was rumoured to have slept with five prostitutes, whilst performing a series of acts linked to Nazi Germany.
Mosley has been excellent for the safety of road cars around the world, not only in F1, but in public automobiles. His other contributions have been a lot to be desired, and whilst it seems unlikely that Mosley will be ousted before his probable retirement at the end of the 2009 season, I think he should get the boot a little sooner.
Mosley's act of stupidity was enough to make him do 56 laps around the edge of the fryer, before losing control and crashing into it.
I enjoyed writing this this week, and I think a rotation policy of writing the Fryer is the best way to take this forward (unless Manny wants it back!) until Christof returns. Signup in the comments.
yeah, Alex, not only is there no Philly, but there's no US Sports in it (unless you count F1, but that's not really an American sport, we just have 1 race a year in it)
Justin, my understanding is that in Europe, one refers to themselves as "British" if they are an inhabitant or citizen of Britain, whereas in the US, we refer to ourselves as "British" if previous generations of our family came from Britain (or if the person actually came from britain)
The differences amongst Britain, England, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Wales, Scotland etc. are all open to interpretation and frankly bloody confusing!
I am technically British, you are right, although that means I come from the UK. However, it is not wrong to say you are English, that would just make you British. It may be European soon if we don't get a vote out of it.
If previous generations of your family are British, you still call yourselves that? Under that logic I'd be Ukrainian. That wouldn't make any sense over here. Also, I'm not 100% Ukrainian living in England, I'm only 25% logically Ukrainian.
Yes, for instance, the majority of my family originates in Ireland, therefore I am Irish. I get how the European system works, and think it makes more sense, but w/e
lemme try again:
"I Saw Standing There", "You Can't Do That", "All My Loving", "Roll Over Beethoven", "From Me To You", "Do You Want To Know A Secret", "Thank You Girl"
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Can't Buy Me Love
I Feel Fine
She Loves You
A Hard Day's Night
Love Me Do
Twist And Shout
Do You Want To Know A Secret
Please Please Me
A little more readable:
I Want To Hold Your Hand , Can't Buy Me Love , I Feel Fine , She Loves You , A Hard Day's Night , Love Me Do , Twist And Shout , Do You Want To Know A Secret , Please Please Me , She's A Woman
My list was just a list I found of any Beatles song that charted in 1964. I am more a fan of the 1966-1970 Beatles. But it's all pretty good, regardless of year.
banning doesn't prevent you from certain actions...like editing your profile...
besides, knowing tyrone, I'm sure his lurking...so any new users could be tyrone...lets assume s/he's not...but you never know...
To be honest (as some of you know), with TB suggested all this legal crap and then "MikeyJ" making a comment for which I banned him (after debating whether or not i could and perhaps overstepping the CoC bounds i designated for admins on the whole), I presumed they were the same, but without evidence...which is why i didn't ban TB right then...
I then tried to figure out if the IPs were the same...but being generally illiterate to such details, I could not...fortunately, Dan et al has access to that, so the problem was fixed.
once again, not knowing enough about it I'm not really sure...
I don't think there has. That was part of the reason I included him. Also, I wrote it on Tuesday, so it was vivid in my mind at the time. I planned to get rid of him if something better came along. But nothing did.
Tough crowd...get nominated for going to a baseball game?
Luckily I was able to go on Tuesday night for take 2...I actually had baseball to watch so I couldn't write about it :)
I'm sure whoever eventually volunteers to step up next week (a point that seems to have been missed here...) can go back to the traditional Philly bashing.
Well, I know it's a long way off, but if no one actually does volunteer for it. I'll step in Jemele Hill style. I haven't written anything in awhile, but what the hell. But only if no one else wants to step in.
i think manny has served as the gatekeeper (not that he should/has to, but it makes it orderly, which is nice)...so just let him know about next week (or whenver) and do it up!
I am from Birmingham, England, and I am a fan of many sports, including F1, snooker and cricket. I don't much care for "soccer".
