Heroes and villains of sport: week eight

Alastair Cook

Heroes

Threatened with being dropped from the side not long ago, Alastair Cook has really taken the fight to the Aussies. Following his 235* from the first test in Brisbane with 148 in the second test in Adelaide. Cook has already played a pivotal role in the series having helped to rescue a draw in the first test and putting England in a position where they would find it difficult to lose the second test.

Due to Chelsea’s fourth straight league game without a victory, and the Blackpool v Manchester United game being postponed, Arsenal are currently sitting at the top of the premiership. Picking up three points against Fulham was due in no small part to Frenchman Samir Nasri, whose double helped them secure a 2-1 victory. Nasri has scored eight league goals for the gunners this season, not bad for a midfielder.

Monday night saw FC Barcelona host bitter rivals Real Madrid in the biannual El Classico. Home advantage is not an excuse that Real could use as Barcelona, in particular Lionel Messi and David Villa, ripped Jose Mourinho’s side to shreds. The final result, a resounding 5-0 to the Catalan giants, probably resulted in a few Facebook apologies.

Villains

Probably the biggest villain to sport this week was the snow. All SPL fixtures were cancelled at the weekend, along with Manchester United’s visit to Blackpool. The snow also hit closer to home with York’s sportsmen and women having all but one of their BUCS fixtures cancelled due to the weather. The snow also left YUsnow in the ironic position of having to cancel their weekly ski and snowboard race training, due to too much snow.

Of the 22 members of the FIFA executive committee, only two voted for England’s 2018 world cup bid. One was obviously bid chairman Geoff Thompson, but with at least five other executive committee members having promised to vote for England’s bid, it leaves a mystery as to where those votes went. To really rub it in, the executive committee voted to bring the world cup to Qatar in 2022, a country where it is illegal to be drunk in public. Lads tour Qatar 2022? I thought not.

One of the reasons that the FIFA executive committee chose not to bring the world cup to England in 2018 could be due to the BBC’s Panorama. Three days before the voting on the host of the 2018 world cup, Panorama aired a documentary alleging that three members of the executive committee had taken bribes from now bankrupt sports marketing firm ISL. It also included allegations that another executive committee member had sold world cup tickets allocated to him onto touts, netting a healthy sum of money in the process. Perhaps this is what put the FIFA executive committee off England’s bid.

On Wednesday night, crowd trouble once again showed its ugly face in the form of Birmingham City and Aston Villa fans. After City’s 2-1 Carling Cup quarter final victory over local rivals Villa, City’s fans took it upon themselves to run the length of the pitch to taunt the Villa fans, police were called to calm the situation as flares and seats were thrown by the rival fans.

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