THE WEAK IN SPORT for Monday, December 11, 2006
The Miracle of Hindmarsh Stadium
Late yesterday afternoon, on a sun-drenched football pitch somewhere in the suburbs of Adelaide, eleven and a half thousand ordinary people (most of which, being South Australians, were very ordinary indeed) were witness to a miraculous revelation heretofore unprecedented since... well, ages. Ladies and gentlemen, the New Zealand Knights have scored a goal. Themselves. No, not an own goal, and not via the other team scoring an own goal either. The goal in question was netted by Chinese midfielder Lelei Gao wearing shirt number 31 - given that A-League squads are capped at 18 players, this says something for the number of utterly crap players the Knights Who Say 'Fuck We're Rubbish At Football' have been dumb enough to sign, only to try to get rid of in subsequent weeks when their utter crapness has become apparent. So the Knights have managed, finally, to score a goal; now all they need to work on is the not-conceding-a-goal bit. Needless to say, the Knights failed on that bit.
Adelaide Untied taxed an equaliser and probably should have nabbed the moderately large cheese on offer, after they woke up and started playing in the second half once their grandad had gone for a pensioner nap. The theory that Brazilian goalscoring legend Romario was signed for his striking ability rather than as a cheap, tawdry publicity stunt (are there ever any other kind?) took a thorough pounding for the third consecutive week as the old grey mare proved once again that he ain't what he used to be. The conclusion seems clear: if he can't manage to bang any in even against the New Zealand Knights' incontinent back four, he ain't here for his goalscoring. Romario was signed by Adelaide Untried on a four-week guest appearance deal from US Major League Soccer (urghh) side Miami FC - quite appropriate given south Florida's reputation as North America's retirement home - and the success of the Romario venture has encouraged Adelaide Unitard to trawl through testimonial match squad listings for more crowd-swelling legends of the game who might be considered ever-so-slightly past it by most people's reckoning. In recent media comments Adelaide _unted PR manager Siimon Slicktwat unctiously namedropped the names of several potential targets, including Alan Shearer, Zinedine Zidane, Roberto Baggio and George Best, any of whom had at least as much goalscoring potential in the area as Romario had demonstrated to date in a red shirt, if not more so. "But not David Beckham, obviously," Slicktwat demurred. "We have standards to uphold."
More Bingles than Christmas with Lara's family
(And no, we're not going to use that as an excuse to run a photo of her. But we did think about it, granted.)
One sport clearly not in need of high-profile comebacks from retired stars seems to be V8 Supercars. Judging by the championship-deciding round at a smoke-wreathed Phillip Island circuit (some of which was apparently caused by bushfires, rather than by multi-car accidents), the organisers have no need to book up Michael Schumacher for a guest stint. While Schumacher, the most interesting man in Switzerland (he collects watches you know) may be gone, his spirit clearly lives on in the antics of Triple 8 Lucky Star Golden Palace Racing's Craig Lnowdes (as was splashed across the side of his car) and the Toll HSV Dealerer Team's Rick Kelly. In a tale oddly reminiscent of R.Kelly's hip-hop namesake, who ran on the wrong side of Johnny Law (brother of Jude) after allegedly engaging in sexual relations with a minor, Lnowdes carried on like a sulking, petulant juvenile throughout races 1 and 2, before R.Kelly nailed him from behind in race 3 and totally fucked him. Which didn't do much for the whingometer readings out of the newly-Choadafone-sponsored (and hence hastily-repainted) Ford outfit. R.Kelly copped a drive thru penalty (he had to sit in the Maccas queue behind a Prado full of screaming brats while their henpecked mother ordered Happy Meals for all) for his part in the incident, which was probably marginally more than he deserved given that Lnowdes had moved over to block Kelly into the hairpin, and was far enough across to be kicking dust off the verge on the inside of the track - coincidentally the same offence he'd been bleating to the officials over ref. Kelly's teammate Party On Garth Tander in Race 2, until the officials gave Tander a drive thru (who went to KFC instead). However, despite the race stewards subsequently ruling Kelly had no further case to answer, Lnowdes and Team Eight Eighty-Eight (Three Fat Ladies) deigned to lodge a formal protest with the Australian Vee Eight Super Car Organisation (AVESCO, the dumbest acronym in world motorsport), to be heard (and probably dismissed) later today. Memo to wee Craig: this may be where declaring publically a few weeks ago that AVESCO were trying to rig the championship so that Holden would win, MIGHT just come back and bite you on the arse, sunshine.
Make the most of... your spellchecker
Show us your Big Willie
Neanderthal boofhead William Mason, currently contracted to perform football related services to the Canterbury-Bankstown District Rugby League Club, has buggered off to the States to try out for the New York Jets NFL team, on the basis that he is both big enough and stupid enough to give gridiron a bash. The Jets and the NFL's interest in Big Willie's Stylez (or lack thereof) relates primarily to his athleticism, size, aggression and ball-carrying skills, and not at all to the fact that the Jets are even more desperate than that guy who married Barbra Streisand - they're a woefully mediocre seven-and-six in the monumentally useless AFC East division, well adrift from division leaders New England, freshly spanked by the perpetually appalling Buffalo Bills (famous largely for losing four consecutive Stuperbowls in the '90s) and about as likely to make the playoffs as the New Zealand Knights. Nor has it anything to do with the league belatedly noticing a population of over 20 million consumers just across the Pacific from California and down a bit, almost none of whom have purchased a NFL replica jersey in the past few months, and even less of whom could reliably distinguish quarterback hero brothers Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. Indeed, most Bulldogs fans would be lucky to be able to tell Peyton Manning from Eli Manning, Bernard Manning, Bernard Fanning, Manning Clark, Manfred Mann-ing, Nelson Manningdela or the Manning Bar at Sydney Uni.
Then again, many Bulldogs fans would struggle to distinguish their arse from their elbow without reference to an Anatomy textbook
Australia ashes in England's beer again
After their shambolic final day performance in Adelaide, where talismanic wankmaster Kievien Pietersien scored more runs with overthrows than with the bat, and Jones and Giles continued to apply layer upon layer of comedic varnish to their coach's hilarious assertion that they were picked for their batting, England's Ashes bandwagon appears to have dissociated with its wheels, the road, any sort of map, and the plot, all at once. Even so, England's last useful captain Michael Vaughan has dismissed vigorous media speculation that he is moments away from returning to the squad and usurping work-experience captain Frederique Flintoff, declaring that he will not be returning before the end of the current Ashes test series. "Are y' fookin' kiddin' lad?" Vaughan garbled. "Why 't fook aye owt t' do tha' and all, bah gum? T' lot of 'em are up t' shite, ahh begorrah bollocks." Vaughan's reticence to play in the series is despite his recent form in his last two comeback games for the ECB Academy IV: Citizens On Patrol against assorted Westralian XIs that would have made him right at home in the England middle order, with well-compiled scores of zero and nine.
Meanwhile, the sudden retirement of serial day five runchase shot-selection clusterfuck artist Damien Martyn has resulted in an unexpected call-up for gollywog-haired cult hero Andrew Symonds. This marks a surprise reversal of established Cricket Australia selection practices going back to the 1980s, under which popular cult hero cricketers were invariably dropped in favour of overrated newbies who nobody liked, as was the case in 1992 when Martyn himself replaced Dean Jones (before he was a racist) and repeatedly before that with David Hookes in the 80s (before he was a statistic.) The Weak In Sport calls upon CA to extend this policy to its fullest, logical extent: to give Deano his number three spot back, you lot of bastards. If nothing else, just so bearded Saffer Hashish Amla (not heard from since the controversy, you may notice) can barrel in off the fast-bowlers run-up and serve him up some tasty chin music. May be a bit comical given he's a spinner by trade and a pretty gumby one at that, but at least it'll pull a crowd...
The Doctor is OUT.
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