UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
from Photographers Blog:
NFL touchdown in London
By Suzanne Plunkett
British sports fans are a serious bunch. When it comes to football (they never call it soccer), many would rather lose their home than miss their team score a winning goal. Club allegiance is often demonstrated with tribal passion - influencing tattoos, clothing and even choice of marital partners.
When American football makes a rare appearance in London, it's somewhat of a surprise to see the seriousness of the sport replaced with a more frivolous obsession: cheerleaders.
That's not to say British fans have no interest in the sport. When the Chicago Bears took on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a showcase game at Wembley Stadium in October, I spoke to plenty of Brits among the American expats paying homage to their national sport. Many professed as much fanaticism as the American supporters who had traveled from the States specifically to see their team.
But as a photographer who had covered both kinds of football matches on either side of the Atlantic and grown to love both sports, it's hard to ignore a few major differences in the fan experience.
from Left field:
Strauss’s side still not England’s best
According to International Cricket Council statistician David Kendix's calculations, three England sides before Andrew Strauss's present team would have topped the test world rankings too if the current format had existed.
In reverse chronological order, they are Mike Brearley's side of 1979-80, Ray Illingworth's 1970-3 team and the 1955-9 squad led first by Len Hutton then Peter May.
Brearley's side had the young Ian Botham in his athletic prime when he scythed through opposition sides with quick late swing.
The opposition, though, did not that at stage include the best Australian and West Indies sides who had contracted to play for Kerry Packer's World Series. England's 5-1 Ashes win in Australia in 1978-9 was against a virtual second XI.
A similar reservation applies to Illingworth's men. The 1970-1 Ashes win in Australia was a triumph for a tough professional bunch captained shrewdly and including Geoff Boycott and John Snow at the peak of their powers. But the Australians had just been thumped 4-0 by an undeniably great South African side who were then sent into 22 years of apartheid enforced isolation.
That leaves the 1955-9 England side, who retained the Ashes both away and at home.
from Left field:
ICC name best test team of all time. Right or wrong?
The ICC has unveiled the best test team of all time as voted for by fans on the governing body's website. The ICC offered a shortlist to choose from.
Here it is:
Virender Sehwag
Sunil Gavaskar
Donald Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar
Brian Lara
from Photographers Blog:
A Royal prayer to the weather gods
It can't be very often that I have the same thought as Prince William, or indeed his fiance Kate Middleton. But after today's visit to Darwen in northern England I'm sure there was at least one point, as the rain bounced off the pavement, that we were all thinking the same thing; I hope the weather is better than this on the 29th!
It was billed as the couples last public engagement before the big day and myself and Reuters colleague Darren Staples had arrived at our separate venues early in the morning to set up and claim our positions.
Security and competition from other photographers means the call time is usually at least a couple of hours before the VIP's arrival. This is fine when the weather is on your side, but after a gloriously sunny weekend England's famed April showers chose today to put in an appearance and soaked us to the bone.
When covering football as a photographer you are always prepared for sudden changes in the weather, but protocol dictates that waterproof trousers and hiking boots aren't usually de rigeur for royal visits and smart attire is neither comfortable or waterproof.
Keeping your cameras dry is the main priority in these situations so with rain covers applied and them tucked under umbrellas for safety the only thing is to tough it out and get wet. The last thing you want to hear from the palace PR team is they are running late, but late they were. It was only 15 minutes but long enough to ensure that by the time they arrived the rain had finally penetrated my gore-tex jacket and the puddles in my shoes were ready to accept fish.
from FaithWorld:
400-year-old King James Bible found in English church
(Frontispiece to the King James' Bible, 1611)
A printing error helped a 12th century English village church realise it owned a rare 400-year-old King James Bible, the book that changed the world. The edition that had been sitting on a ledge in the pretty Anglican church in Wiltshire, central England for the past 150 years, barely touched and much less read, is one of only a handful that still exists.
Although a sign above the book indicated it dated back to 1611, it was only after the parochial church council of St Laurence in Hilmarton decided to get it authenticated during the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible that they made their discovery.
"I noticed it like everyone who uses the church noticed it as an old Bible that was sort of there, but no one was sure about its origins until very recently," council member Chris Mastin-Lee told Reuters.
St Laurence stopped using the Bible after the introduction of more modern versions, and fewer than 200 original printings of the 1611 King James version are believed to exist. The St Laurence Bible, whose heavy handset Gothic script was printed on linen fabric, lacks any gold leaf or ornate illustrations, and was authenticated as a second edition because of a tell-tale misprint.
from Left field:
Cricket World Cup — live
Join us for coverage of the revamped Cricket World Cup on the subcontinent. Follow all the drama here with regular posts and some of the best photographs around. Comments welcome!
There are 12 teams playing in this cricket world cup and the actual elimination starts from the Quarter Finals where 8 teams are expected to play the knock out stage. And as you see we can upfront predict the 8 teams that will be qualified for this stage. So the gap between these 8 teams and the other 3-4 teams is so big that the preliminary matches are of no importance at all other than viewership and making money. ICC should seriously think and make this game more popular.
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
Does anybody actually care who captains England?
Last week, when Chelsea held a news conference to preview their Champions League match against FC Copenhagen, manager Carlo Ancelotti spent the first 20 minutes fielding questions about John Terry's re-instatement as England captain.
The Chelsea press officer finally stepped in in an attempt to steer the subject back to club football by asking if there were any questions about the forthcoming match or for fellow guest, defender Branislav Ivanovic.
"Yes," came the first reply. "Branislav, what do you think of John Terry as a captain?"
The feeding frenzy continued through the weekend and into England's preparations for Saturday's Euro 2012 qualifier against Wales. Rio Ferdinand was "understood" to be furious. "Sources" said he had considered retiring from international football. Capello was widely attacked, ironically, for releasing the news through the media and then for not acting quickly enough to "clarify" the situation when that self-same media cut loose on the matter.
Finally, on Tuesday, Terry was wheeled out by England to face the press.
The defender duly said all the right things. He was "very delighted" of course and yes, Rio had been in contact to say congratulations, proving "what a great man" he was.
Terry decided that the players saying nothing when Capello asked them if they had any questions on the issue was proof that they were all behind him, though he did admit that he was probably "not everybody's cup of tea".
yes, Europeans put hardly any importance at all on the captain. The armband is flung around from person to person based on appearances. In Italy if the player with the most caps is on the bench and comes on, the captain has to give him the armband. But if he forgets no one cares
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
Scotland on their way back to London, but England match must wait a while
Scotland's soccer team return to London for the first time since 1999 at the end of this month -- but they won't be playing England at Wembley.
Instead they will face five-times world champions Brazil in a high profile friendly at the Emirates Stadium which should be filled close to its 60,000 capacity.
If that game goes ahead without trouble -- which is the most likely outcome -- it could give added impetus to the English FA's plans to host a one-off "home international" series in 2013 to mark their 150th anniversary.
That could then mark Scotland's return to Wembley for the first time since the stadium was re-opened four years ago.
The game against Brazil though, and Scotland's return to London, evoke memories of the days when Scotland were regular visitors to Wembley, playing England there in alternate years in the world's oldest international series that began in 1872.
The reasons why the matches ended after the short-lived Rous Cup in 1989 following the demise of the Home Championship between the four British nations in 1984, have been well documented down the years.
Questions began to be asked after the 1977 game at Wembley when Scottish fans rioted after a 2-1 victory, demolishing the goalposts and wreaking havoc on the Underground and in central London.
from Left field:
Don’t discount Ireland for the Six Nations
By James Illingworth
The 2011 Six Nations kicks off shortly in Cardiff with much of the pre-tournament hype suggesting a two-horse race between France and England.
England's favourites tag among English bookmakers looks unjustified if it is based on one decent performance in November against Australia, with the 2010 grand slam winners France surely still the team to beat.
But one quirk of the buildup is that Ireland appear to have been overlooked as serious challengers, a point not missed by England coach Martin Johnson.
As his Welsh counterpart Warren Gatland was doing his best Jose Mourinho impression by announcing that his team are planning to 'wind-up' English hooker Dylan Hartley, Johnson was keen to remind us not to write off the 2009 grand slam winners.
After being installed as third favourites, Johnson suggested that Ireland have 'slipped under the radar', a tag that may play into the hands of Brian O'Driscoll's side.
Munster's demise in this year's Heineken Cup has led to speculation that Ireland's golden generation of players are past their best with the new crop of talent needing a few more years to find their feet at international level.
and Wales have no chance….it’s been said before wrongly
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
Aston Villa’s Bent buy will flummox O’Neill
If eyebrows were raised when Aston Villa decided to spend up to 24 million pounds on striker Darren Bent then former manager Martin O’Neill’s forehead must have been pinned to his living room ceiling when the news broke on Tuesday.
The absurdity of the switch lies not in the inflated figure or Bent’s abilities on the pitch and in front of goal, but in the timing of Villa chairman Randy Lerner choosing to dig deep into his pockets.
O’Neill walked out of the Midlands club just days before the start of the season after being told transfer funds were scarce and the £18 million to be raised from the sale of James Milner to Manchester City would not be reinvested in the squad.
Just six months later, however, Villa have splashed a mammoth fee on a player who has been permanently on the fringes of the England squad while a further six million was spent last week in French midfielder Jean Makoun.
Lerner, who was not shy in ploughing in the pounds prior to putting the brakes on in 2009, issued a statement two days after O’Neill left saying he "no longer shared a common view as to how to move forward”.
O’Neill, he bemoaned, did not appreciate the need to bring wages in line with revenue.
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The Wall
Try as I may, I cannot understand soccer but la football! I am an impassioned fan and usually watch three games each Sunday (of course hoping for a Bills win). I enjoyed this article.