thehogs

well, keep in mind that after 1966 England over the 70's, 80's and ealy 90's was notorious for delivering horrifying levels of gang violence at games both in their normal league fixtures and whenever England played abroad. They were awarded the 1996 European championships which went well overall but made an incompetent bid in 2006 for a future World Cup and failed and seem to have been hugely over confident this time, simply expecting to win in the last days. Russia on the other hand made sure it did win. Some English commentators are pointing out that FIFA are taking a 'new world' attitude to the tournament at the moment, hence breaking in to the Russian market and the quite unexpected Qatar success. From that point of view, a European bid was 'old world'. Countries like Australia will come back again as will the US and of course who is to say that one of the bigger African nations starts getting ideas, now that S Africa has had a tournament. England could have a very long wait ahead of it.

Cant believe England gained ONE vote! (they had two overall but the other vote was themselves!). Someone in the England organisation made some horrible miscalculations and assumptions. The media coverage in the last 24 hours over here was that Russia was out and whilst the Spanish/Portugese bid would make it close the win was almost in the bag. To get just one vote in the opening round is astounding. I doubt if the violence at the game in England last night made a difference but Blatter in his speech mentioned his contempt for elements of the media and accusations of corruption - a very obvious indirect dig at the BBC that had run a TV documentary the day before the draw claiming corruption and fixed voting in previous World Cups. That went down well then!

some Man U fans see this as just a step towards the scenario with Ronaldo - resigned, big money, then headed to Madrid within a season. Same scenario could easily happy with fatty although if he keeps producing the same game on game below average performance of recent vintage they wont get nearly the sum of money once thought of.

It can be methodical to say the least. Cant say I hate it but it can make for fairly boring games. Soulless is also how I would describe Liverpool. I'm old enough to remember the Liverpool teams of the mid and late 70's that could produce some fantastic, explosive football with goals from anywhere on the field. The current version hasnt been close for a long time. When I think on it Liverpool-Chelsea games of recent years have been dreadful to watch.

Typical Wigan. Attrocious one week then pull off a result like that. West Ham doing ok at the moment.

he didnt do too much against Fulham on Sunday as Man U, just like last season, dropped some valuable points. Still too early of course but right now I would take Chelsea for the title.

First time someone has hit a hat trick on opening day since 1997. Have to say he wont get an easier one, West Brom looked totally out of their depth.

He did ok but the game was pretty much won when he came on. 3-0 but could easily have been a lot more.

they did away with the sudden death 'golden goal' used in the 90's as it was felt it encouraged defensive play as teams were too scared to play open football only to concede a devastating losing goal. Its a fact that soccer can be very attacking and still lead to a 0-0 result. I wonder how teams and coaches would feel if they were possibly faced with playing extra time, game after game after game in the section matches?

homer is back on just as it came to half time...so its more basketball!

I think its just because its being sent from somewhere else so it has to be downloaded first to then be streamed to you so you should never listen to live radio commentary for instance as it will be ahead of the game you are streaming.

wish whoever has the feed stopped switching to the basketball game!

forgot I had registered! game is on!

that homer link has the skins back up now! huge thanks! from here in scotland!

on homertv channel 13 seemed to have just a scoreboard??

justin just had the link pulled

do we want the second half?!! i fear for the fall out fom this game if the second is like the first. well, here we go

here you go: http://www.atdhe.net/index.html hit the link and it works ok for me

always found this funny : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4748292.stm Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal. The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders. They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi. "We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said. Mr Alifi, of Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat. "When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up." Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case. "They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper. :helmet:

if you look at the replay Pacmans corner had worked out that Hatton 'pump' movement so that Pacman throws that punch a fraction of a second before Hatton is starting to throw his, you can see it in both gifs - in other words Hatton is stepping straight in to the punch taking every ounce of energy from it. He is still in the motion of throwing his own punch as he starts to go down.