Tuesday, August 30, 2005

A sporting theme

Back to work today after another lovely English public holiday weekend.

England beat the Aussies in the Fourth Cricket Test match and we now look likely to win the Ashes for the first time in almost thirty years! - Brilliant

Manchester United remain unbeaten in the Premiership with three wins and they have not yet conceded a goal after three Premiership matches so far -
Brilliant

Last night (Monday) Annie and I with Ryan and Lucy went to Coventry Speedway.

Speedway is popular in England again after a few years in the doldrums. For instance Sky TV now shows live Speedway matches every week.

English professional football has many prima donna characters but there are certainly not many prima donnas in Speedway as we witnessed last night.
It is indeed a sport full of brave men!

Three or four riders had heavy crashes during the event and all of them dusted themselves down and got up off the track to ride again.

Considering these guys are riding 500 cc motorcycle machines that have no brakes and travel at 60 - 70 miles per hour within inches of each other, I reckon they deserve every penny they earn.

I am a great sports fan and I love to watch football which will always be my favourite sport but to see these speedway riders' bravery and risk taking is awesome.

Good luck to all speedway riders who literally risk their lives every time they take to the track in order to entertain their many fans.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Football Trevor? Well, I will say one thing about that watered-down, non-scoring game of just running about--it doesn't take all day to finish a game. American football (the real football) is supposedly sixty minutes of game time, but between the time-outs, clock stoppages, and commercials it takes on average just about three hours to play. Baseball has gotten totally out of control, with games going four hours or more now. And don't even think about attending a game unless you want to take out a second mortgage. Unbelievable. The saving grace in our ridiculous sport scene in the US is ice hockey. It's like soccer at high speed with big sticks and a little checker instead of a big ball. Players routinely go back into the game minutes after receiving several stitches in the head or taking the blade of an ice skate across the nose. It's fast, furious, and always on the verge of going totally out of control. And a person has to be in ultra-good physical shape to compete. I respect these athletes the same way you do the motorcycle drivers. They all earn their money.

Trevor Gay said...

Thanks for that Mike

We English invented 'soccer' - the 'real football' of course and it is huge in England.

I agree with you about Ice Hockey -those guys certainly earn their money - Annie has a nephew who plays Ice Hockey for England at youth level. Ice Hockey is not currently a huge sport over here but probably growing more popular.

I have always considered sport to be good for the soul - playing and watching.

American Football and Baseball sounds like a 'day out' - I do not know enough about either to comment so I will pass on that

I would say that Americans certainly no about presentation of sport.

Anonymous said...

You can claim soccer is football all you want, but no one this side of the pond will agree. ;-) Of course, the Australians think American football is for the timid. Australian rules football should actually be called "no rules footbrawl!"