Most Viewed Sports Blogs (166)

Hope everyone has a fantastic day. Its good to be ALIVE.


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Don’t be surprised if Novak Djokovic in just a few years will make his comeback as one of the world's biggest sports names.

It is not the first time a world champion has been knocked out for not doing what the politicians ordered him to do. Right now, many are very satisfied - but in hindsight, the process against Nole will be seen as grotesque and completely unreasonable. And people will be ashamed of the racist undertones and lies that the political circus is currently driven by.

Muhammad Ali was also not doing what the politicians demanded. The boxer would not allow himself to enlist in the U.S. Army and take part in the Vietnam War. And the punishment was harsh and unfair: a sentence of five years in prison. He was deprived of his boxing license, his World Cup belts - people would not even recognize his name. That was in 1967.

But just three years later, the world looked different. The mood of the people was reversed. There were huge demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the racially divided USA.

Muhammad Ali had thrown his Olympic gold medal into the river after an episode in his hometown Louisville. He had walked into the town's fine restaurant with the medal around his neck and ordered two cheeseburgers.

- We do not serve negroes…
- And I do not eat them! Just give me two cheeseburgers…

The Olympic champion was kicked out of the restaurant just because he was black. And in Vietnam, blacks accounted for a quarter of the casualties, even though they accounted for only 12% of the U.S. population.

The US Supreme Court overturned Muhammad Ali's prison sentence, he was acquitted of all charges. He made a rock-solid comeback when the Champion of the World got his boxing license back.

He was right! He sure was the Greatest, even when he went an impressive 32 laps against the Parkinsons. Billions of viewers saw the sport's biggest icon stand with the torch and with trembling hands light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony in Atlanta. That was in 1996.

Muhammad Ali died in 2016, 74 years old.

This is a delightful variant of the game if you understand the rules. Unlike games like golf and bowls, there is no green fees payable although there may be ball fees applicable in certain cases.

Another advantage of this version is that you won’t need any special gear like in the normal game; it is played with the existing equipment providing that such equipment is in prime condition. The game is played on a pitch and the pitch is normally laid out in the middle of a double bed. As a variation, a rug in front of the fireplace, the couch in the lounge, or the kitchen table will make very good substitutes for the bed. Even the wall of a shower cubicle has produced some exiting games.

You can play a limited over version of this game at work in which case the pitch is laid out on the office desk. This variant is called a ‘quickie’.

When in dire need to play, the pitch can be laid out on a car’s backseat but this is not recommended for the ‘not so young’ players because if the pitch is longer than the field. it may cause some discomfort to older players.

The game is usually played by two players; the visitor and the owner of the pitch. The owner of the pitch takes strike at the one end where she has to cover her wickets while the visitor will deliver his balls from the other end. The visitor is advised not to deliver his balls too quickly. He should spend some time exploring other regions of the pitch and pay some special attention to the two pavilions at the far end of the pitch.

On the other hand, the owner of the pitch should not guard her wickets too efficiently as the visitor may not come to play on the pitch again if he does not score.

The pitch is usually carefully prepared; sometimes the grass on it is kept very short to assure a smooth delivery of the ball and to get some lift from a good length.

Occasionally a third player may join the game while it is still in progress, in which case the player receiving strike is said to be caught behind the wickets. The visitor is deemed to be caught with his pants down and may be in trouble if the third player has any residential claim on the pitch.

Finally, it is important to leave the pitch in the condition that it was found and to leave no markings on it (unless specifically requested) lest the pitch may have a permanent grounds man. Prospective players should note that most pitches become unplayable at times due to periodic maintenance.

Hey, we have a long weekend coming up.

This is just for fun, not for money. Sorry to disappoint those who worship money.
Here's the deal. You get 100 points for picking the winner of the game.

Your choices are either the Kansas City Chiefs, or the San Francisco 49ers.

Plus, you get up to 60 points for picking the number of points scored by the Chiefs
and up to 60 points for picking the number of points scored by the 49ers.
So, the maximum of points you could get is 220.
However, you lose 1 point for each point the actual final score for that team
is from the score you predicted for that team. So, if you predict the Chiefs will score 24 points and they score a total of 30 points, you would get 54 points for that part of your guess.

So, lets say you pick the 49ers to win by the score of 27 to 16
and the 49ers do win, but by the score of 31 to 12.
You would get the 100 points for picking the correct winner, plus (60 - (31 - 27)) + (60 - (16 - 12)) = 212. It would be very difficult to end up with no points, unless you don't put in your guesses.

To play you get one chance to place your guesses. No changes
Your guesses must be placed before this Sunday at 6 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time).
The actual kickoff of the game is at 6:30 pm EST.

Whoever has the highest total score will be crowned 2020 CS Superbowl Champion until next year
and I will post the hierarchy of the CS finalists scores on this blog after the game is over.

Good luck

I have a snail halfway up the kitchen wall, and would like to offer it to sale to the highest bidder.

I have to say right away I have not seen this snail in action. However, its presence on the wall argues a speed which would encourage breeders and owners of racing snails to add it to their stable.

Firstly, I live in Scotland, therefore my doors and windows have impressive seals. Draughts are not encouraged in a cool country known for gale-force winds 350 days of the year. For the same reason the door did not remain open at any point for long enough to allow normal entry.

Secondly, there is a dog flap in the door. Not a cat flap, which a sufficiently determined and muscular snail could perhaps push open. This is a foot-square dog flap. Even the cat has to exert some force to open it. The snail is a mere inch and a half long.

It is therefore clear that this snail lurked either on the doorstep and shot inside when I was taking out the trash – impressive enough in itself – or waited patiently for the dog or cat to thrust a nose out, listen to the creatures of the night, and pass through the flap to use the toilet that was once my courtyard. It is a fairly quick process - maximum 50 seconds.

QED. This is a quick snail.

I've got into the habit of watching the BBC News when I eat dinner, recently whenever I have dinner and the time varies on whether I'm hungry, it's Sportsday & not news, as this mainly consists of football (soccer) I'm not the slightest bit interested, football used to be Saturdays but now it's every day of the week On the actual news this week a piece about football Sky TV & BT have paid £5.136 billion for rights to show football games live, Sky paid the bulk at £4.176 billion, that's for 126 matches a season for 3 years Now on Facebook today I saw this on my wall -



Out of me & 3 Sky Tv execs which is the one

Has the world gone mad, where a UK footballer can be paid half a million pounds a week to kick a ball around but the UK prime-minister is on £142,500 A YEAR, or am I the one

I've been wondering why it was so quiet on the blogs and forums and duh, Olympics! International event, every CS member has a team striving to do their best for them ...

Go teams!!

I wasn't here last time round, so I wasn't expecting it. In theory I have two teams to support, the UK and SA. To my shame, I didn't even watch the opening ceremony, was it good?

June 3, 2016 marked the death of arguably the greatest and most beloved Black athlete in history: Muhammad Ali.

No sport has exploited athletes, particularly Black athletes, quite like boxing. The very first boxers in America were African slaves. White slave owners would amuse themselves by forcing slaves to box to the death while wearing iron collars.

Even after the abolition of slavery, boxing became the first sport to be desegregated so that white boxing promoters could continue to exploit Blacks and make money from the deep racism in American society.

Eugenics was used to justified slavery, and the pseudo science of the time “proved” that Blacks were not only mentally inferior, but also physically inferior to whites.

Ironically, early white fight promoters unwittingly created a space where Black boxers could destroy white supremacist ideas of society and racial hierarchy.

The 1910 victory of Jack Johnson against “The Great White Hope” launched one of the greatest nationwide race riots in U.S. history. Out of that embarrassment, in which a Black man defeated a white man, Congress passed a law outlawing boxing films.

With a brief look at the history of boxing, it is abundantly clear that the races and cultures that have suffered the most at any given time always tend to produce the greatest champions.

Boxing has a tendency to both attract and indeed pray upon talent from underprivileged minority communities. Through boxing, one can read a direct chart of the underprivileged in America. The sport highlights the line of minorities who struggle to make it up the ladder, until they succeed, and then disappear from the boxing scene. Tellingly, the minorities that remain in the ring today are a consequence of still being on the bottom rung of America’s economic ladder.

You had the waves of underprivileged Jewish boxers, then Irish boxers, Italian-American boxers, African American boxers, and now, increasingly Hispanic boxers.

In a society that is so violently racist, the sport of boxing became an escape valve for people’s anger. Boxing symbolized a twisted manifestation of the American dream, where minorities have to, literally, fight their way out of poverty.

The modern image of Muhammad Ali, portrayed by the establishment, is one of a Black man dancing in the ring and shouting, “I am the greatest!” His image is now used to sell everything from luxury cars to soft drinks.

Despite the establishment’s whitewashing and Santaclausification of Ali’s image, history shows that the true Muhammad Ali was a staunch Black Nationalist, who was good friends with Malcolm X, and a member of the Black Power group, The Nation of Islam.

Ali was unquestionably the best boxer in history, not simply because of his achievements in the ring, but because he brought the fight against racism and war into professional sports.

Muhammad Ali grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, as the Black freedom struggle was heating up and beginning to boil over. Born in Louisville as Cassius Clay to a house painter and domestic worker, Ali was immersed in America’s racist nature from birth.

After winning the Olympic gold medal at the age of 18, Ali was so proud of his medal that he said he wore it round his neck almost all the time. Fellow Olympian W. Rudolph remarked, “He slept with it, he went to the cafeteria with it. He never took it off.”

Days after returning from the Olympic games, Ali was eating in a restaurant with the medal swinging around his neck and he was denied service by the white restaurant owners. Ali then threw the gold medal into the Ohio river.

Ali found answers to America’s racism in friend and mentor Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. “X and Ali were one in the same,” journalist J. Tinsley wrote. “Both were young, handsome, intelligent, outspoken African American men who scared the crap out of White America during a time period when racial tension was the norm.”

(Cont'd in Comments section)

So I decided to compare old military rifles from the same time frame to see which one was best. First I compared a Remington Rolling Block carbine from the 1870s to a Sharps .50 carbine from the same time frame.



My conclusion was the Sharps was a superior rifle. This is because A) Remington Rolling Block must be cocked to be loaded which creates a potentially unsafe condition (which historically did cause a few unintentional discharges around the world). B) The ejection of the fired case from the Sharps is very snappy and postitive. The ejection from the Remington is best described as sluggish, and as shown in the video, occasionally problematic.

I next did a comparison of an 1855 Trapdoor Springfield in .50-70 to an English .577 Snider Action. Sadly the video of the Snider didn't survive, but here is the Trapdoor Springfield version of the test.



I found reloading the American Trapdoor to be a little bit faster than was reloading the English Snider rifle. This is because the Trapdoor ejects the fired case automatically as soon as the breech is opened. However in the Snider action one first opens the breech, then manually slides the breech backwards to eject the fired case (with the speed of ejection being proportionate to the force exerted), then manually slides the breech back forwards. This adds a quarter second to the reload time for the Snider action. Otherwise they were about equal. Both are heavy full size rifles that you would not enjoy carrying on a march. Both have bayonets. Both are contermporary Infantry rifles

In a few days I will receive an English Martini Henry of 1871 manufacture (caliber .577-450 of course) carbine. It is a falling block action like the Sharps .50-70 carbine. I look forward to finding out which of the two designs was superior from a user perspective. Best to know which rifle to seek out should you suddenly find yourself stuck in the 19th century. :)

I can see why people find playing a sport attractive; it’s fun and the component of trying to beat an opponent gives it an extra edge, particularly for competitive types. There was a time when it was quite common for a firm to have a works football team, playing in a league consisting of other works teams. Apart from the personal challenge there was also the pride of your place of work to uphold. Other -non participating- employees could also take a legitimate interest in these matches and share in the glory or disappointment of the outcome. There were also inter village cricket matches with a similar reason for taking place. This all seems reasonable and it isn’t difficult to find purpose in it.

What I don’t understand is how sport became professional. Paying people to play a game seems quite odd to me. Being a completely non productive activity it more properly belongs to the category of hobby or pastime than profession. Regardless of how expertly someone can manipulate a ball with his foot, is it logical that the financial reward for showing that off is often far grater than that received for being a highly skilled tradesman, who actually produces something useful?

It could be said that there is entertainment value in sport, but why? It only becomes interesting if you have an interest in the outcome but why on Earth does anybody care about the outcome? It’s not like any of us has a real connection to the people we are cheering on and willing to win. It just doesn’t make any sense, the only good reason for sport is for its own sake, the involvement of money makes it completely senseless.

The World Cup should be abandoned immediately and I should get the £2 I invested in the works sweep stake back. And I’m not just saying that because I drew Senegal.