Joe Kinnear makes shock return to The Magpies

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In an extraordinary development the Newcastle United manager for the 2008-2009 season, 66 year old Joe Kinnear has been appointed the Magpies’ new director of football for recruiting players. Joe is much admired by owner Mike Ashley and MD Derek Llambias for his turbulent spell in Newcastle which was aborted due to ill-health. Whether manager Alan Pardew is involved in this restructuring or feels undermined by Joe’s influence in assembling the squad, remains a matter of intrigue.

Newcastle was seen struggling last season and it is expected out of Pardew to see them get a top 10 finish. Pardew’s reaction is awaited. Kinnear confirms with Sky Sports News that the deal is sealed with owner Mike Ashley and he intends to meet Pardew during the course of the week. Newcastle, who finished fifth from bottom last campaign, are yet to announce Kinnear’s appointment.

The former Wimbledon manager said his intention was to improve the team, tactfully adding that he would not interfere with selection or tactics. He considers himself a good judge of players and a better tactician. Having been involved with anything and everything to do with football, he intends to make Newcastle way better than the present state of affairs they are in.

Kinnear continues that when he sees a good player, he knows a good player. Should the present crop of players in the club not be good enough in his judgement, he would skilfully allow them to move on. On a positive note, he feels that there would be no nagging issues between him and manager Pardew. Kinnear’s intention is not to pick the team. The sole purpose of his appointment is to make sure Newcastle gets the best possible team on the field.

FA introduces insurance scheme

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The Football Association has been forced to set up an insurance scheme owing to the culture of players being sued over bad tackles. From next season all 11-a-side teams will have to pay up to £82 a year in cover as part of the National Game Insurance Scheme.

There have been cases where players have tried to sue opponents over broken bones owing to rash challenges on the field. From the next season, 15 player squads of Saturday and Sunday league teams will have to pay £26 for the basic package and £82 for the most comprehensive one.

Mike Dowling, secretary of the Birmingham Amateur Football Association feels, it is not so much about the money but more about the cumbersome processes. Personal accident cover which is mandatory may not be as expensive as your kit but is in no way hassle-free.

Most basic insurance which costs a player £2 a season also needs doctor’s certificates and letter. Yet the benefits may be a paltry £100 a week if you break a log and are off work. In case you have children and pay a mortgage to pay off, this amount is pretty negligible for all the hassle undertaken.

He admitted there was a compensation culture problem. In the six seasons that he had been secretary of the Birmingham AFA, there had been three cases of players trying to take litigation action against opposing players or the opposing team. Even a referee can be cited. Usually players try to get most out of a no win, no fee solicitors situation.

NGIS is being provided by the FA’s appointed broker Bluefin Sport. Mike Brown, secretary of the Amateur Football Alliance, says that FA have formed a deal for clubs which is cost effective and fits football. Former Chelsea and England star Graeme Le Saux appears in a two-minute video promoting the plan.

Chris Brunt recalls his first meeting with Sir Alex Ferguson

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The first time Chris Brunt had met Sir Alex Ferguson was during his schoolboy days at a trial. At that time Ferguson was the boss of the Red Devils. Chris was then representing a team from Belfast and they had come for playing in England at the United’s former training ground.

Brunt , it appears, had always been a fan of the United club and so overawed was he at meeting up sir Ferguson that he could not recollect the exact words the legendary star had said. Vividly he recalls it all to be about United and Rangers that he had spoken.

Chris Brunt today plays for Middlesbrough. He is also a team member of the Northern Ireland international team.  His knowledge about Sir Ferguson and United dates back to the age of when he was two and Sir Ferguson the manager of United.

Chris Grant mentioned that he had been in the scout when he had met Sir Ferguson and that taking an autograph was something that was not a done thing then. In the process he had missed out that opportunity when the great legend would take the scouts into his office and speak to them one to one.

Sir Ferguson would be appearing on the field for the final time on Sunday and the event is being prepared for by the authorities. Chris Brunt, who would also be playing indicated that the plan of Albion players forming a guard of honour for the match is something he does not appreciate.

The match itself was very important in the words of Chris Brunt and not just because it would be Sir Ferguson’s last appearance at the field in an official position. Their team would need to win the match and get 50 points to secure the eighth position he mentioned. It would be Sir Alex’s desire to win this last match as manager of Manchester United and it was up Chris Brunt and his team to make sure that his dream did not come true.

 

Stoke footballers in trouble over pigs head prank

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The trouble began when Kenwyne Jones found a pig’s head in his locker at the training ground. Jones was sure that it was Glenn Whelan who was  responsible for this prank and ended up smashing the wind screen of Glen’s car. The issue is currently being investigated by the Stoke City club officials.

The team has their final match lined up on Sunday with Southampton, so team officials are going to need to talk to both the players before that. A social media site carrying a caption “Locker room banter gone wild” posted the picture of the pig’s head. The post was by another team member, Brek Shea.

Kissa Abdullah, Jones’ partner, tweeted that humour which hurt someone’s belief and more so religious beliefs was not at all an accepted norm anywhere. Whelan, who is from Republic of Ireland and takes the teams mid-field position is whom she also accuses of placing the pig’s head wrapped up in Jones’ clothes in his locker.

The club officials have officially announced that investigations have begun and that the incident was completely unbecoming of whoever committed it. The club also mentioned that disciplinary action would be initiated against the perpetrator(s) of the act. They have however included that both acts of placing the pig head in the players locker as well as the player reacting and breaking the windscreen to be warranting disciplinary action. The investigation is being taken on by chief executive of the club Tony Scholes.

Kenwyne Jones hails from Trinidad and first played in the England league matches for Southampton in 2004. He moved to Stoke three years ago for a contract amount of £8m. He rarely speaks to the camera and has a principle of “put god first” which he had mentioned during one of his rare interview. Whelan on the other hand has been with Stoke since 2008 and is one year older than Jones. Whelan had also been named by Michael Owen as his suspect for an incident where his car had been covered with eggs and flour.

 

First e-book edition of Soccer in Sun and Shadow published by Byliner

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First e-book edition of Soccer in Sun and Shadow published by Byliner

First e-book edition of Soccer in Sun and Shadow published by Byliner

“Is there any book more evocative of ‘the beautiful game’ than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom?”  —Vanity Fair

“It’s all here. Everything you should know about soccer, the world’s game.”

Los Angeles Times

Soccer in Sun and Shadows ,which retails at $9.99, is one of the greatest sports books written in our times, and we have the internationally celebrated journalist and author Eduardo Galeano to thank for it. Mark Fried has translated it into English, and it is now available as an e-book for the first time.

Packed full of charm and wit and carrying the kind of insight only a true fan could relay, The New Yorker has said that it “stands out like Pele on a field of second stringer”. It has also been named one of the all time top 100 sports books by Sports Illustrated.

Originally appearing in Spanish in 1995, now revised and thoroughly updated, Soccer in Sun and Shadow traces the sport from its roots in China to the Brazilian slums where the dance form capoeira reshaped it into a soccer “made of hip feints, undulations of the torso, and legs in flight,” and finally through the great moments of a century’s worth of competition in all corners of the globe.

These stories come addictively fast and furious, vignettes with the searing impact of great photographs. And as would be expected of one of our most accomplished historians, Galeano sets every one of them against a greater context: the wars being waged, the cultural shifts transforming societies, and what inflames him the most: the inexorable influences of money, sponsorship, television, and any form of cold, hard calculation that aims to place winning for its own sake above the beauty and glory of the game.

“[I am] a beggar for good soccer,” writes Galeano, who grew up in Uruguay hoping to become a professional soccer player. “I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’ ” The past century’s great players, from Di Stéfano to Cruyff to Maradona, reward him with such moves, and we are all the richer for it. At times hilarious, at others heartbreaking, one thing it never lacks is humanity. Soccer in Sun and Shadow is a fan’s book, and it’s much more. Featuring artwork designed by the author, it has been called by theSan Francisco Chronicle “a loving tribute to the game and its culture, and a celebration not only of soccer but also of life.”