Football: a window into the bowels of society.

Football can be a horrible realm at times and although it is just a game it can sometimes act as a window into society. This season alone we’ve seen that racism is far from being eradicated with the treatment of Patrice Evra by a fellow professional and that being of high status will result in preferential treatment by the criminal justice system.

If nothing else, these events that occur within football show that certain things are seen as unacceptable by society. For example Luis Suarez was wholeheartedly condemned by every corner of the footballing universe and beyond (with the exception of Anfield) for abusing Evra and when university student Liam Stacey made unpleasant remarks about Fabrice Muamba during and after his horrible heart attack playing for Bolton in the FA Cup he wasn’t only condemned, he was thrown behind bars for 56 days.

Keeping in Touch.

It’s local election time again on Thursday so it isn’t much of a surprise to see those familiar red, blue and yellow coloured leaflets popping through letterboxes across the country, each one attempting to persuade us all to vote for so-and-so in any way possible.

My local area has predominantly been Liberal Democrat territory for many a year both in both local and national level. Andrew Stunell has been the local MP for 15 years now and they’ve controlled the local council for a very long while with my councillor in particular being a Lib Dem too. His name is Dave Goddard and he’s the leader of Stockport Council.

Now, I’ve voted Lib Dem at every single local election in the past but on Thursday my cross will not be going into Goddard’s box. Not because the Lib Dems voted in favour of the student fee increase, though that would usually be a good enough reason, but because the communications representing his campaign are disgusting.

You Wouldn't Kick a Kitten.

The Grand National was today and I noticed that the BBC broadcasted it under BBC Sport. That’d be nice and all if it was actually a sport! Horse-racing just isn’t a sport, why do so many people pretend that it is?

All horse-racing exists for is to generate cash by allowing people to bet on which horse they think will win. For this reason horse-racing is here to stay because money is far more important than the welfare of humans never mind animals.

Just because people bet on it does not constitute it as a sport. I’ve already written about this in the past and summed up my argument with this paragraph:

“The fact is, if the government put a blanket ban on betting on all sports, horse-riding would die overnight. Football wouldn’t. Rugby wouldn’t. Nor would any other real sport. Horse-riding exists for one purpose, betting on it. Have you been in a betting shop recently? It’s depressing. All you find is a tatty old man clutching the Racing Post looking desperately at a television as his horse tumbles over and takes a bullet right between the eyes. His life’s become so desolate you feel it’s him that deserves the bullet. Put the poor guy out of his misery.”

Again: NOT A SPORT.

A Game of Two Books.

I’ve noticed recently that a lot of football clubs have had their appeals turned down by the FA. Liverpool’s Alexander Doni had his wrongful dismissal claim turned down yesterday and QPR’s Shaun Derry lost his appeal earlier in the week for his red card against Manchester United where he fouled an offside and diving Ashley Young. If you can’t get let off for that, when can you?

This has made me wonder: why are clubs still bothering with appeals?

Seriously, I can’t actually remember the last time the FA overturned a decision. The ratio must be close to 500/1.

Seventh Heaven? - Mario Kart 7 Review.

Though the 3DS was critically acclaimed upon its birth into the marketplace back in 2011, it had a very slow start with pretty underwhelming sales. This was largely due to the relatively high price tag and the poor catalogue of games that were on offer at launch.

Nintendo rectified this by firstly lowering the price making it more affordable for their customers to actually buy one, and then they boosted the catalogue before Christmas by adding Ocarina of Time, a remake of the N64 classic; Super Mario 3D Land, a brand new Mario Land; and the big one: Mario Kart 7.

Mario Kart has always been a huge staple for Nintendo, appearing on every single console since its genesis on the SNES. In terms of gameplay it’s as simple as you’ll find – Mario characters racing about in go karts, but this simple formula is so unique to Nintendo that many have tried to replicate it, and all have failed. In terms of racing games, this is as good as it gets; you can keep your realistic F1 games – all I want to do is toss a barrage of red shells at the leader and steal first place!

Game Over? Not yet.

Video game retailer, Game Group, finally went into administration in March and the outlook looked pretty gloomy to say the least. A massive 609 shops across Britain and Ireland were sadly closed down with over 2,000 employees made redundant in one fell swoop. Time was ticking down ominously as Game prayed someone out there would stick another pound in and press continue.

And at the very last second someone did! Yes it was OpCapita, the private investment firm that pulled Comet from the mire not so long ago, who threw down a quid and took on the company. I was a little surprised that GameStop didn’t make the purchase as that’s what I thought they would do when they withdrew from the UK market last year; leave, wait for Game to drop into administration, buy them and have instant access to the UK market. But instead it was OpCapita who, like an extra life, swung in and dragged them from the jaws of hell.

Viva España.

What a crazy season of European football it’s been. We’re now in mid-March and England has just one representative in all European competitions – Chelsea, and they’re going through a bit of a crisis themselves!

The worst thing about that sad little fact is that only Arsenal and Chelsea were actually in the last 16 of the Champions League. The other two, Manchester United and Manchester City, couldn’t even get that far, finding themselves in the same European competition inhabited by Birmingham City, Celtic and Malmö (no, I don’t know where that is either).