News Of The World has it out for Gordon Ramsay. They were the ones to first report on Ramsay's affair(s), now they have dug a little deeper into the past. Apparently not content to take a philanderer at his word, they started digging into his footballing past. And guess what--they found some inconsistencies.
Wait. That's not the right term. They found bald-faced lies, and a lot of them.
This is the famous picture that Ramsay built his fib around. As News Of The World deftly points out, it's not of the level that Ramsay says it is. It's not of a first-team appearance for the Huns. In fact, it's from a testimonial against a Junior side.
But at least he got his name on the team sheet, right? No. This is the team line up from the day, helpfully spotlighted by the London newspaper.
"Trialist". No more, no less.
Ramsay's lies about his career with Rangers don't end there. Going back through interviews given over the last 15 years, since Ramsay started to push the idea that he was with Rangers before an injury ended his career, Ramsay had stated that he had played at least three first-team matches for Rangers. Unfortunately for him, such claims are verifiable. Ramsay never played in any of the matches he mentioned and, even worse for Rangers fans, he got the results incorrect, often making the team out worse than they were.
Curiously, Ramsay's lies about his career go back even further than these. He claims that he was spotted by a Rangers scout while playing for Oxford United in a FA Youth Cup match against Arsenal when he was 16. The problem with this is that Oxford United and Arsenal have never met in that competition. Oops.
The article linked above has even more wonderful lies debunked within, and includes the nickname given to Ramsay while at talking to fellow cooks about his time at Rangers: Billy Bullshit. Ramsay has always had a knack for stretching the truth, as well as self-promotion, it would seem. But, and I stand by this, all of these lies don't make Kitchen Nightmares any less entertaining. That show is awesome.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Footballing Nightmares
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
MLS Dying Before Our Eyes
Of course the solution then is to gouge out our own eyes, no?
So it's a bit of a massive hyperbole—I mean the league has seven quality bids on the table for its next round of expansion—but MLS attendance numbers are in, and they are down from last year.
It's okay, the sky is still up there. The drop was a modest 1.8% to an average of 16,459 a game. The league essentially tried to pin it on Kansas City playing in a 10,000 seat stadium—eating your own, bad strategy—but the Sports Business Journal article claims that even factoring out Kansas City for the past two years shows a drop in 2008.
The Galaxy led the league (duh) by averaging 26,000, which was up 7.2% from last year. Additionally they also drew well away from home as they broke their own road attendance record from last season. Basically, even though the team sucks, people still turn up to see David Beckham. Soccer in America, folks.
The biggest drag was FC Dallas. They had a drop of over 14.00%. Citing the article: "A spokesperson for FC Dallas said the team reduced the number of complimentary tickets offered this season and televised all home games for the first time, which affected attendance." Also, while Pizza Hut Park is a nice facility, it is at least a 30 minute haul (and a few bucks in tolls) from downtown Dallas. When gas is $4 a gallon, that shit matters.
Then there's this fun fact: The season ender between the Dynamo and Chivas USA, on Fox Soccer Channel, it got a Blutarsky. "The last game of the season on [FSC] between the Dynamo and Chivas USA delivered a 0.0 cable rating and 24,000 viewers." Awesome.
We're not bashing MLS. It might look like it, but we're not. Look here's a qualifier: That Dynamo v. Chivas game, it was totally meaningless in terms of regular season standings and playoffs, so of course it's not going to draw a big number. Both the Dynamo and Chivas USA saw their season attendance numbers go up about 6.5% and 5.5% respectively (particularly amazing for the Dynamo because Robertson Stadium is a bit of a dump). So yippee!
We actually want MLS to succeed. And why not? The better the league is, the more goal keepers we can continue to send to the EPL (suck it, Barlcays). It's just that, well, MLS attendance numbers are hardly the most reliable things to begin with. The San Diego Union Tribune covered this well a couple of years ago (see here and here). And when figures are possibly padded to begin with, what's a 1.8% drop really mean?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Good, The Bad, The WTF
You know the drill by now. I search high and low, for at least five minutes, to bring you some of the most disgusting and best-forgotten shirts of yesteryear. Sometimes I provide eBay linkage to current auctions. All the time, except when I actually like the shirt, I do my best to turn my disgust and outrage into a couple of paragraphs of witticisms, and usually I fail miserably.
Now, without further ado, I present to you the Ajax away shirt from the 1989-90 season.
Just to switch it up a little, so the format doesn't get too stale, I'm leaving the shirt for the bottom today. Scroll down now, if you like, and come on back when you are done. I'll wait.
*taps foot*
*looks at watch*
*whistles tunelessly*
So, what did you think? Would your opinion of the shirt be altered any if I told you it's currently set to sell on the ebays for around $80? "How can that be?", you ask. I'll tell you, friendo. It's fucking geometry, man.
Seriously, look at those triangles. And those other things by the triangles. What are those, rhombuses? (rhombussi?) I tell you what, if I had this shirt, I would be able to answer that question.
This shirt is multi-functional. Besides being a football shirt and a teaching aid, there is also a secret origami pattern hidden in there. I have it on good authority that if you fold the shirt just right, you get a map showing the location of secret Calvinist texts that would blow your mind.
If there is one thing to nitpick on this shirt, it lies not in the lower two-thirds, but on the upper blue field. You have all kinds of crazy stuff going on here. Why did Umbro feel the need to class the shirt up with pinstripes? It would be like Deion Sanders wearing a yellow zoot suit for TV, but wearing a demure set of cufflinks to offset the rest of the horror. My point--if you are going to go for the crazy, don't puss out, just go crazy.
One final point and one question for the reader. Those with good memories and longish readership of the column will undoubtedly have noticed that this Ajax jersey is built on the same template as this Scotland jersey. This really annoys me. I can understand if shirts look alike when the design is basic, but really, there was no reason to use this pattern twice. Secondly, has anyone ever bid on the shirts we highlight here? I know this one is priced pretty high, but some of the others have been reasonable. Anyone?
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