Who wants to be Gary Neville?

This story broke a couple of years ago, but I've only just stumbled across it now...so apologies if you've already seen it...

Imagine a football squad made up of the likes of Henry, Kaka, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Carragher, Cafu, Essien, Gerrard, Terry, Messi, Rooney, Van Nistelrooy, Casillas...You might think it's Real Madrid on another spending spree, but no, this team plays its football in the lowest division of the Coronation League in Birmingham. It's not Manchester City is Lynam Athletic, named after everyones favourite sports broadcaster, Des Lynam...

Lynam Athletic were losers...they finished dead last in the South Birmingham Sunday League last year and they'd had enough. They were going to be winners. So they transferred leagues - evidently a lot easier for a Sunday League team than for Celtic & Rangers who'd like to do the same - and decided they needed a new identity. So, one by one, they changed their names by deed poll. If you're not familiar with the term, that means they have legally taken on these new names. They need new passports, new driving licences, new bank accounts - everything!

So Darren Yeomans became Thierry Henry, Kevin Alban became Cristiano Ronaldo, Majid Ali became Ronaldinho. Out went Jon Barber, Paul Blears, Dan Branch, Darryl Brown, Marc Clifton, Connor Edgcumbe, Ian Flatt, Chris Gray, Pete Hall, Nick Hall, Neil Kimpton, Andrew Mullan, Jon Robins and Ben White. In came Jamie Carragher, Dani Alves, Cafu, Michael Essien, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Lionel Messi, Kaka, Iker Casillas, Fabio Cannavaro, Hernán Crespo, Petr Cech and Wayne Rooney. A team of world-beaters if ever there was.

They chose their names according to the position they play, and all players had to have played in the Champions League to qualify...Paul Blears plays right back and the only right-backs he could think of were Dani Alves and Gary Neville ... He chose Dani Alves saying "who wants to be Gary Neville?"

Class! If only we'd done this at Westbury Wanderers a few years back!!

Ashes to Ashes...

Approaching the end of day two in the final test match and England have a real good chance of beating the Aussies in the deciding 'winner takes all' game.

Unfortunately, having been mainly disappointed by English cricket for the last 30 years, I'm not yet in a position to start celebrating! So many times England have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; and with so much time still to play (3 days) against the 'don't know when they're beaten' Australians, we won't really know where we stand for a day or two yet.

For Americans reading this, it won't mean much...but imagine if Baseball was truly an international game, where nations regularly played against each other (Think the World Baseball Classic, but taken seriously...) in series' with over 100 years of history. Think Yankees v Red Sox on an international scale, with national passions not local rivalries stirring the pot.

So let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that these scenes can be repeated next week... at the moment I'm about 50/50!

"It's just not British..."

Here's a story that caught my eye - Bloodgate. If you don't follow British sport, and in particular Rugby, you may have missed this one.

Dean Richards, a legend of English rugby, was banned from coaching for 3 years after accepting responsibility for a 'fake' blood injury by his team Harlequins against Leinster in a Heineken Cup tie in April. Long story short, it was a close game and winger Tom Williams faked injury to allow fly-half Nick Evans, a drop goal specialist, to return to the field late in the game. The laws of Rugby allow for a substituted player to return to the game as cover for an injury...

The 'quins physio (now working with England...well not any more I guess) has been banned for 2 years and Williams 4 months. These are pretty substantial bans, plus the club has been fined over £259,000 or more than $400,000 which is a significant amount for a Rugby club.

The greater realisation that this is a wider issue - Cheating is such a dirty word - has now hit the IRB (International Rugby Board) and the RFU (English Rubgy Football Union) who will no doubt be keeping a closer eye in the future. And the old saying that 'cheats never prosper' held true, as Leinster held on to win the game 6-5 and ultimately won the whole competition.

Here's the view of former England player, and now TV pundit, Jeremy Guscott

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/8207752.stm

And we're off...

It always amazes me how quickly the first day of the Premier League season comes around...and every year it seems to get quicker! I think that is more a symptom of getting older than a shorter off-season!

I'm a little short of time today, but I thought I'd get in a few predictions and we can see where we fall short next May...

Premier League Champions - Chelsea

FA Cup Winners - Arsenal

League Cup Winners - Tottenham

Champions League Winners - Barcelona

I don't see Man Utd winning the league for a 'fourth' (thanks Gary) year...I haven't seen enough yet to show me that they won't miss the spark, energy and creativity of Ronaldo...but I hope to be proven wrong. I think Chelsea will get their stuff together with Ancelotti, but I think Liverpool missed their chance last year. Man City could sneak into 4th ahead of Arsenal...

Oh yes, and Bristol City will finish 7th in the Championship - just missing the play-offs again...

I'd be intrigued to see your thoughts...