TOP 100 SOCCER SITES
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| Harry Redknapp and Spurs are 'mocking me', says Roman Pavlyuchenko Roman Pavlyuchenko claims manager Harry Redknapp is "mocking" him by leaving him out of Tottenham side. telegraph.co.uk |
Asia eyes 2018, 2022 World Cups Considering South Korea's success in 2002, it should come as little surprise there are so many Asian nations preparing bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. cbc.cacbc.ca |
Arsenal confirm Campbell's return • Defender signs contract until the summer• 'I'm so happy and I'm ready to give my all'Arsenal have confirmed that Sol Campbell has completed his return to the club on a deal that will run until the end of the season.The 35-year-old played 45 minutes in a midweek reserve match against West Ham and confirmed his desire then to play again for Arsène Wenger. However, he is not expected to be involved in tomorrow's Premier League trip to Bolton.The move completes a dramatic turnaround for the defender, who began the season playing in League Two at Notts County, making only one appearance before quitting. Wenger allowed Campbell to train with Arsenal following his exit from County, with his efforts persuading the Frenchman to sign him up again. It is the first time Wenger has ever brought a former player back to the club during his 13 years in charge."We are delighted to have signed Sol Campbell until the end of the season," Wenger said. "For both club and country, Sol's career just speaks for itself. He is a hugely experienced and intelligent footballer, who will bring a great amount of quality and knowledge to our squad. Sol as a player and a person will be an enormous asset to us."Sol has been training with us since September and during this time he has shown he still has the required fitness, hunger and passion to compete at the top level."Campbell won two Premier League titles - including in the unbeaten Invincibles season of 2003-04 - and two FA Cups during his first spell at the club, before moving to Portsmouth in 2006. He now hopes he can provide some leadership to the Gunners as they attempt to keep pace with Chelsea and Manchester United in the battle for the title."I'm so happy to be rejoining Arsenal," Campbell said. "I have many great memories from being here before and still have many friends at the club. I've been working very hard at the Arsenal training ground, I feel really good at the moment and I'm ready to give my all. We're in a strong position and I want to help Arsenal be successful this season."ArsenalSol CampbellPremier LeagueKaty Murrellsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
A lost home for pursuers of the trivial When the Colindale library closes in 2012 the fear is that another refuge for the metaphorical anorak will not take its placeLast week's announcement that the British Library's newspaper depository at Colindale will be shutting its doors in 2012 is a significant blow for sports fans. Over the past decade I have spent hours absorbed in its collection and quickly recognised that a considerable proportion of the community that gathered there were people engaged in research on football, whether writing books or simply finding the material to furnish their own peculiar obsessions. On some days they would even outnumber the family tree surgeons who, with pencils poised, would painstakingly leaf through reams of newsprint in search of an elusive mention of an obscure ancestor.When Sportspages, the Charing Cross Road book shop, closed down I had often wondered where those who had found a haven among its statistical histories had ended up. The man who reeked of Dettol and spent years crouched on his haunches by the football shelves furiously eviscerating each Breedon club complete record and jotting down his finds, or the hare-eyed chap with the roll-up permanently wedged behind his ear who would badger the staff to open each incoming box from a particular publisher with the rather disarming cry of "Anything fresh?"The answer was simple enough – they had moved up the Northern Line and been displaced to Colindale and they had substituted local newspapers for reference books as their primary resources. Many seemed to be engaged on projects that would not only never get published but also actually never get written, the quest to produce something definitive ultimately making the perpetual research process an end in itself. I remember one telling me that he was aiming to compile the greatest database of UK swimming records in history and found the very elusiveness of the material the fascination of the challenge. To my knowledge it has never seen the light of day but I confidently expect to see him on my next visit to the library still beavering away.I can sympathise with the predicament. There is no better way to get a flavour of the football era you are writing about than to immerse yourself in the contemporary reports in local newspapers. The problem is that it is endlessly diverting – come across a report of boys found guilty of stealing tomatoes from a greenhouse and sent for "borstal training" or an advert that reads "Lager used to be a summer drink, until Skol!" and your mind can wander away from your quest to find out how Leicester City's Colin Appleton had fared in a match against Burnley. But for putting flesh on the bones of your subject, I can think of no more rewarding distraction.The bones themselves from 1970 onwards, at least if you're interested in league clubs, can, of course, be found in the pages of what habit still forces me to call "Rothmans". Those beloved blue, fractured spines that adorn my bookshelves are the positive legacy the firm that promoted itself as the jet-setter's oily rag of choice has left a generation of fans. Unlike Wisden with its breadth of beautiful writing and its fascinating byways that could steal away your day, its football counterpart's principal attribute is the comprehensive detail of the data.Even in its modern guise, the yearbook continues to fulfil its remit of providing the authoritative seasonal summary. But now that all the statistics you may ever want are no more than a few clicks away, the game's "bible" has become for me more of a traditional purchase than the much-anticipated herald that a new season is upon us. Gone are the days, too, when in the shop we would expect to sell 400 copies on publication date and wrap up a thousand by the time the Charity Shield kicked off.It was never my favourite annual – that dubious honour goes to the Almanacco Illustrato del Calcio, Panini's peerless Italian reference. We used to shift those by the hundred, too, as well as Finnish Jalkapallokirjas, Spanish Don BalĂłnes and Dutch Voetbals. If you wanted to find out about European football back in those days, there was no other place to start. It's brilliant that you can access most of that information for free now but I still mourn the loss of the camaraderie felt by subscribers to those defiantly "old technology" volumes.We used to refer to it jokingly as statistical pornography but the majority of its devotees exhibited such a charming and self‑knowing helplessness about their infatuations that their enthusiasm shaped the atmosphere of the shop and sustained the business for years.When Colindale closes in 2012 I fear that another refuge for the trivia-enchanted sports fan will not take its place, somewhere that you could always wear your metaphorical anorak with pride. The internet provides things we could never have envisaged but the library's sense of community may be lost forever. I shall miss it.Rob Bagchiguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Today in Sport: Discuss the day's big stories Discuss the day's big issues, send us your favourite links, follow us on Twitter and take a look at our 2010 sport calendar7.55am: Good morning and welcome to our daily sports news blog. Throughout the day we will update this page with news, links, and what's expected to happen in the hours ahead. Time permitting, we'll try to wade in below the line, answering your questions and comments. We'll shortly have an update on how we expect the news to develop after the morning meeting but in the meantime here's what has happened at the Australian Open while you've been snoozing:In the men's last 16, Nikolay Davydenko took his winning streak to 13 matches with a gruelling five-set win over Spain's Fernando Verdasco, while Novak Djokovic cruised to another straight sets win, this time over Poland's Lukasz Kubot.In the women's last 16, Venus Williams recovered after losing the first set to Francesca Schiavone of Italy to reach the quarter-finals after a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win. While her sister, Serena, had no such drama as she beat Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-4, 6-2. Other sport talking points: The New Orleans Saints reached their first Super Bowl after a thrilling 31-28 overtime victory over the Minnesota Vikings. They will face The Indianapolis Colts, who beat the New York Jets 30-17.Algeria's quarter-final victory over Ivory Coast in the Africa Cup of Nations. A surprise defeat for Didier Drogba's team?And, of course, Robinho's likely farewell at Manchester City. Had City not tried to fit him into a "system" - which seems to be Robinho's main point of contention - would they have seen the best of him?Oh, and with Man Utd, Liverpool and now Arsenal out of the FA Cup, is it a disappointment this season? Or is it better for it?9.15am: Laura Robson has stormed through her first-round match of the Australian Open girls' championship, conceding only one game against Belinda Woolcock of Australia. Looking ahead, Andy Murray is last on tomorrow against Rafael Nadal, around 8am GMT. TD9.20am Roger Federer has motored through the first set of his fourth-round match against Lleyton Hewitt, winning it 6-2. Can anyone stop him? TD10.00am: Today's Rumour Mill is in, wondering whether Yossi Benayoun could be heading east, and trying to come to terms with the fact that Robinho really could actually, finally, be leaving Manchester City. Meanwhile, Roger Federer is now two sets up against Lleyton Hewitt. TD10.15am: Here's what we're expecting today:* Press conferences from Liverpool, Spurs, Burnley, West Ham* Portsmouth are hopeful their transfer embargo will be lifted* Zambia v Nigeria and Egypt v Cameroon in the Africa Cup of Nations* England's rugby union squad get-together* And Bill McLaren's funeral11.15am Lleyton Hewitt made a bit more of a fight of it in the third set, but Roger Federer has gone through in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, and will meet Nikolai Davydenko in the quarter-finals.Elsewhere, crowds have turned out to honour Bill McLaren on the day of the rugby union commentator's funeral in his home town of Hawick.And Kevin Mitchell has blogged on why Frank Warren will soon get over the loss of Amir Khan. TD11.54am: Having your Dad's cast-offs at your disposal isn't always a blessing ... unless you're Darren Ferguson. It was only a matter of time before Manchester United's youngsters started to show up on loan at Deepdale; the first of those is the 19-year-old Danny Welbeck, who has joined on a season-long loan, although whether he is a blessing or not is a moot point. Preston certainly need pace in attack (the heavy-set Jon Parkin and Neil Mellor lollop more than sprint) and Welbeck needs regular games to prove that he can be more than a bit part player in the top flight. GR1.00pm: Two sides have dominated the Africa Cup of Nations above any of teh other nations: Egypt and Cameroon - and we'll have live minute-by-minute coverage when the two sides meet today in the quarter-finals at 4pm. While giving his mind a break from writing about the tactical nuances of Russian teams in the 1950s, Jonathan Wilson, our man in Africa, has penned this blog on why Ahmed Hassan and Rigobert Song face a legacy-defining battle. GR1.55pm: Calum Davenport has pleaded not guilty to a charge of assaulting his sister. While Notts County need to find ÂŁ2m by Wednesday to see off a winding-up from HM Revenue and Customs in the latest exciting twist in the development of their "project".JosĂ© Mourinho predictably put himself centre stage after Internazionale's 2-0 derby victory over Milan yesterday. Read Paolo Baldini's analysis. TD3:15pm Steven Gerrard has recovered more quickly than expected from his hamstring injury and could face Wolves tomorrow, which is good news for a Liverpool side who according to Martin Skrtel will apparently have loads more energy than their rivals in the run-in, the Reds being unencumbered by the tiresome burden of trying to win other competitions. They could even finish third, he says.In racing, Denman is being geared up for a Gold Cup prep-run at Cheltenham this weekend.And Barry Glendinning will be along shortly to give you minute-by-minute action from the Egypt-Cameroon Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final. Follow it here. TD5.10pm: Apologies for the lengthy silence, this afternoon's been a bit of a busy one in the office. Football Weekly is now up on the site though, you can take a listen here. Up for discussion today, among other things: Robinho's possible departure, Wayne Rooney's red-hot form and Ricardo Fuller's earrings. KM6.17pm: That's about it blog-wise for today but there are a couple of pieces of breaking rugby union news to bring you: Steve Borthwick will retain the England captaincy for the Six Nations and Matt Stevens will join Saracens next year when his two-year ban for cocaine use expires. Elsewhere, the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final between holders Egypt and Cameroon has gone into extra time, with Egypt now 3-1 up. Thanks for your comments today and see you tomorrow. KMGregg RoughleyTom Daviesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |