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SEZ LES: Football? Give us a break ... you must be joking
YOU will have heard even the most ardent football fan say it. Usually some time during the quietish weeks of June ... "It's nice to have a break."
Except, there really isn't a break for football anymore is there? Some senior football of sorts is still going on.
England's last game was June 10. The Under 21s then started their European Championships whilst the Confederations Cup - the mini-rehearsal for next year's World Cup in South Africa - is underway.
Both finish this weekend. But you may have noted that, next Tuesday, next season's Champions League starts up again - and we'll still be in June!
Okay, it's only the first preliminary qualifying preliminary-qualifier or whatever it is, between some teams I've never heard of, don't know where they're from and can't pronounce anyway.
But with the second legs the week after and the UEFA Cup's successor, the Europa League, starting up the following week, it really means football hasn't actually had a break however much you are pining for the day your club starts playing pre-season friendlies.
And so that's 12 months without a break and we'll definitely get another 12 months without one. Next year it's the World Cup.
Starts June 11 and finishes a month later by which time pre-season friendlies will be underway.
Incidentally, talking of World Cup and the Confederations Cup, what I am not looking forward to - if the Confederations Cup games I've seen are anything to judge by - is the cacophony made by the hooters seemingly dished out to supporters in South Africa.
It is a deafening background and I found it distinctly offputting to have this din baring away.
If this is to be the sound of the World Cup next year, then I may prefer to watch in silence. I suspect some bright spark has come up with the idea it enhances the atmosphere. Ruining the enjoyment more likely.
Keeping on football, it's not often that Barcelona, Internazionale of Milan and AC Milan share a level playing field with... Rotherham United.
But if you cast your eye down the illustrious list of venues staging the Europe leg of U2's World tour this Summer you will find (in addition to Berlin's Olympic Stadium, Stade des France, Wembley Stadium, the Millennium Stadium) the Nou Camp, home of Barcelona, and the San Siro home of the Milan clubs.
Alongside these comes the Don Valley Stadium, home of... you've guessed!
As you would expect, the Aussies are taking this Ashes lark pretty seriously. And they're leaving nothing to chance it seems.
They have banned cakes, pastries and biscuits at lunch and tea. No butter or marge on sandwiches and only lean meat.
Mike Gatting, famed in his day for shifting a huge plateful at lunch followed by a generous portion of pudding with lashings of custard, would have turned pale.
They always said of the ball that Shane Warne so famously dismissed him with at Old Trafford on his Ashes debut, that it would never have got past Gatt had it been a ham roll.
It's a real pity that Michael Vaughan hasn't got the runs that would have made him a shoo-in for the squad.
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There’ll be those who recall he wasn’t exactly creaming ton after ton for Yorkshire when Duncan Fletcher originally followed a hunch back in 1999 with spectacular results. But this was different.
When, to a man throughout Yorkshire, we wanted him to get runs, it was unfortunate that we got more explanations and excuses than runs.
He’s been in-form, playing well but not getting the runs. A bit like playing nice football and making chances but missing them and conceding goals at the other end.
With his Yorkshire contract up in September, there’ll be a lot of hard thinking being done. Some commentators have been tipping that a future in the TV commentary box beckons.
Not for the Ashes surely?
n I’ve had a little gripe before about the sporting efforts of the late night local TV news slot on BBC1. They regularly manage to muck it up.
On Monday we were told (quite rightly) Yorkshire had been in Twenty20 action against Notts but had lost by 11 runs.
In the background was the caption which included the following: “Notts 154dec, Yorkshire 154dec” Eh? Make sense of that then!.
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Weather for Sheffield
Friday 10 February 2012
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