Transfer Fees

I have spent most of the evening watching BBC Sport's live text of Transfer Deadline Day. The BBC really offer a brilliant service here, but what's amazing is the amount of money being spent on players. Torres for £50m, Carroll for £35m, Suarez for £23m and they are only the big ones. Can football, or more importantly, the clubs, afford to maintain this level of spending on individuals like this. And we haven't even mentioned the wages!

Torres: class player but exceptionally injury prone.
Carroll: been in trouble with the law back home in Newcastle and currently injured, meaning that presumably the medical has been waived.
Suarez: unproven in English football.

I have a real fear that English football will collapse financially if clubs continue spending at this rate, and to think that Chelsea are tightening their belt. They can tighten it a whole lot more now that they are £50m lighter!

As many have siad on various social networking sites - if Carroll is worth £35m, how much would people pay for Messi?

The mind boggles!

Kevin Muscat Tackling School

A true loss to English football. The claim that he got the ball is brilliant and one can only assume that his Equity Card is in the post! You won't be surprised to hear that he was banned for 8 games for the offence. A Sussex boy - born in Crawley.

Poor old Andy Murray

I would never claim to like tennis, in fact I have been known to be positively anti-tennis, but I have to admit that I watch Andy Murray's destruction at Melbourne by Novak Djokovic. You could argue that the Scot (he'd have been described as a Brit had he won!) tried his best, but the Serb was frankly too good. Tennis is not a game I watch very often, with Wimbledon fortnight leading to unplugged televisions at our house, but since it was a Brit (fair play to the lad) who was in with a chance of winning a "slam" one had to offer one's support. Fat lot of good it was though. To see our Andy so totally stuffed was not a pleasant experience for anyone, and I'm sure that his chances of winning a "slam" will be discussed immensely in the press over the next few days. Not only has Djokovic hit his straps but there are others such as Nadal and Federer for Murray to contend with.

I hope he does win one eventually, I really do, but on his showing today, that elusive "slam" seems a long way away!

Not bad - should have kept it on the floor really - technique questionable

Genius Mime Aritst 2

Genius Mime Artist

What's the problem with female officials?

Sky Sports commentators Andy Gray and Richard Keys were caught on microphone debating the merits (or lack thereof) of female officials at the Wolves versus Liverpool game at the weekend. They clearly didn’t realise the microphones were on because their comments were not the kindest.

So what’s the problem with female officials in any sport? Nothing in my view, the problem is that games such as football and cricket have been male dominated for so long that some find it difficult to accept that a female official could be competent or even better than a male official – some would perish the thought.

I have played in both football and cricket matches with both female and male officials, and regardless of gender they have made good decisions and poor decisions. In fact, one of the best refereeing displays I’ve seen was by a woman, and one of the worst was by a man being mentored by an ex-Premier League referee with the idea being to fast-track him into the football league.

What the likes of Gray and Keys have forgotten is that football (and other sports) are now far more widely played, and therefore understood by women. Cricket has also seen a huge injection of money and resources recently and girls/ladies teams are far more commonplace. Ironically Gray and Keys were debating whether the assistant in question, Sian Massey knew “the offside rule”. This immediately highlight’s their own ignorance of the game in that football doesn’t actually have rules but laws. Only competitions have rules. The same applies in cricket, and I was once booked for pointing this out to a referee. He never registered the booking with the FA, surprisingly enough.

What people need to focus on in all sports is not the gender of participants or officials, but their competence and ability to perform the function they have been asked to do. Week in, week out there are contentious decisions made by officials in both football and cricket, generally made by men. The fact that cricket is trying to minimise human error by using Hawk Eye and other technology and football is desperate to resist it only goes to show that football is unwilling to move with the times.

It will be interesting to see what happens, if anything, about the two Sky men, but they very quickly offered apologies, clearly realising that they had at the very least dipped a toes into some extremely hot water.

The actual Farage barrage!

Pure Poppycock - Autotune the news - genius!

Which type of cricket is best?

There are three different types of international cricket to watch nowadays:

1.       Test Match

2.       One Day Internationals (ODIs)

3.       Twenty20 Internationals

Now, like most people my other half won’t allow me to watch all of the stuff that’s televised, so I have to choose very carefully so I can claim the maximum quota available without having to sit through stuff I’m not really that bothered by. It’s a tough choice and one I’m sure many people empathise with.

The reason there are 3 different types is surely because there’s a market for all three, and I reckon these are the markets:

·         Test Matches – aimed at the cricketing purest and the fan who either still plays or used to play regularly. They understand the intricacies of the game and have hours of time on their hands in which to watch the game.

·         Twenty20 Internationals – aimed at the cricket fan who likes a fast game, with something happening at all times. Played a lot under floodlights, it’s a good night out for a few drinks with friends. The bowler bowls, the batsmen hit, nothing more complicated than that.

·         One Day Internationals – this is a halfway house between the two previous incarnations of the game, where there’s a bit of intricacy and a bit of wham and/or bam. For people who would like to watch a Test Match but have a job to go to.

The choice is, of course, down to each individual. I like them all, but would put them in this order of preference: Test Match, Twenty20, ODI. The reason behind putting ODI as my least favourite is that it never quite makes up its mind whether to play the long, set a batsman up over a number for overs before dealing the killer blow, game or whether the players just go for it with both ball and bat. Parts of the game drift and seem endless. If you cut out the 30 overs in the middle, it would be great, but they already do that and call it Twenty20. Innovations such as powerplays for both batting and fielding sides have helped a little, but I get the impression that the public’s love affair with it is on the wane a little, certainly in Britain.

The biggest market for cricket is the sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) and they love ODIs and Twenty20s, mainly because the pitches they produce lead to boring draws for Test Matches, but produce loads of runs in limited overs cricket.

I suppose that the simple fact that cricket has different versions of the games that appeal to as many people as possible can only be seen as a good thing. The more people who watch it, the more money is generated and the better it gets.

In which case, all forms of the game are brilliant. Carry on as usual.

The World Cup Squad - Lutters' Lines!

My shared wisdom about Messrs Strauss and Flowers squad:

Click here!

Lutters' Ashes Lines Part 11

Click Here!

The Worst Premiership Team of 2010/11 so far...

This is a tough one, but having watched Match of the day week in, week out, I reckon this is it:
                                                           Scott Carson

Julien Faubert          Titus Bramble             Zat Knight          Nicky Shorey

Luis Boa Morte      Christian Poulson       Giles Barnes          Joe Cole

                              Benni McCarthy                  David Ngog

Subs:

Paul Robinson (Bolton Wanderers’ left back, not Blackburn’s ‘keeper)

James Tomkins

Nikolas Bentner

Frederic Piquionne

Wayne Bridge

Chris Baird

Richard Kingson (GK)

They’ve all been selected because they have played a number of games, and very little improvement had been noted.

Any differences of opinion? Write me a comment!

Reminds me of me in my heyday... a little bit.

Was surfing YouTube and found this - not bad!

What's gone wrong with Australian test cricket?

Australian cricket has been through a tough time of late. They have lost series both home and away in all forms of the game, most gut-wrenchingly, losing an Ashes series at home by a distance.

So what’s gone wrong?

Is domestic cricket Down Under failing to prepare would-be international cricketers for the step up to the international arena?

Is Australia in general just lacking talent?

The answer to all those questions is “No”. Australia are suffering from two things:

1.       Being very successful for a long period of time.

2.       Having so many great players retire at roughly the same time.

The problem with having such a successful side is that people become accustomed to success. This is not necessarily a bad thing as one must always have high expectations, but it’s almost impossible to maintain such success indefinitely. At some point there are going to be lows, and that’s when journalists start writing about a crisis in the sport. There is no crisis of course, but it’s very easy to sit on one’s laurels when success has been an expectation for such a long time, and so the other teams improve and catch up.

Australia has also had half their side retire at about the same time, and those players have to be replaced by those who are clearly not as good or better. Had they been as good or better than their predecessors, they’d have been selected. People like Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath cannot be replaced – England spent years searching for the “new Ian Botham”, a futile search as there will only ever be one.

Australian cricket fans clearly have short memories. Back in the late Eighties Australia were just as weak as they are now, but had a plan under Allan Border and ultimately it led to their world domination of the game in the Nineties and Noughties. They may have to go through the same process again.

Australia isn’t the only side who have fallen on hard times. Just look at the West Indies team nowadays compared to the teams they had in the Seventies and Eighties, teams that were almost untouchable with the likes of Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards at the helm. Now they struggle to give England a good game.

What the sporting public need to remember is that success is great whilst it lasts, but it is not a given that once your team is successful, that will last forever. If that were the case sport would be very boring, in fact it wouldn’t be a contest and no-one would go and watch it.

There is nothing wrong with Australian cricket other than they haven’t got the side that they had 5 or 10 years ago, and never will have again. They have to build from scratch once again, and there will be a few poor results for a while, but eventually it will all come good and people will once more forget the troubled times.

The longest week in the memory of humankind!

Thank God for that - I thought this week would never end! I suppose it's the weather, but this week didn't half drag. Have placed Super 6 bet with Sky - it's free people, and all you have to do it predict 6 results (hence the name). It's a free bet, so why not? They try to sell you bets on SkyBet, but one just have to have a lot of mental strength!

Here's the link: Sky Sports Super 6

There's even a bonus competition this week for the Spurs v United game.

Hours of fun - enjoy!

What's gone wrong with Australian cricket?

Australian cricket has been through a tough time of late. They have lost series both home and away in all forms of the game, most gut-wrenchingly, losing an Ashes series at home by a distance.

So what’s gone wrong?

Is domestic cricket Down Under failing to prepare would-be international cricketers for the step up to the international arena?

Is Australia in general just lacking talent?

The answer to all those questions is “No”. Australia are suffering from two things:

1.       Being very successful for a long period of time.

2.       Having so many great players retire at roughly the same time.

The problem with having such a successful side is that people become accustomed to success. This is not necessarily a bad thing as one must always have high expectations, but it’s almost impossible to maintain such success indefinitely. At some point there are going to be lows, and that’s when journalists start writing about a crisis in the sport. There is no crisis of course, but it’s very easy to sit on one’s laurels when success has been an expectation for such a long time, and so the other teams improve and catch up.

Australia has also had half their side retire at about the same time, and those players have to be replaced by those who are clearly not as good or better. Had they been as good or better than their predecessors, they’d have been selected. People like Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath cannot be replaced – England spent years searching for the “new Ian Botham”, a futile search as there will only ever be one.

Australian cricket fans clearly have short memories. Back in the late Eighties Australia were just as weak as they are now, but had a plan under Allan Border and ultimately it led to their world domination of the game in the Nineties and Noughties. They may have to go through the same process again.

Australia isn’t the only side who have fallen on hard times. Just look at the West Indies team nowadays compared to the teams they had in the Seventies and Eighties, teams that were almost untouchable with the likes of Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards at the helm. Now they struggle to give England a good game.

What the sporting public need to remember is that success is great whilst it lasts, but it is not a given that once your team is successful, that will last forever. If that were the case sport would be very boring, in fact it wouldn’t be a contest and no-one would go and watch it.

There is nothing wrong with Australian cricket other than they haven’t got the side that they had 5 or 10 years ago, and never will have again. They have to build from scratch once again, and there will be a few poor results for a while, but eventually it will all come good and people will once more forget the troubled times.

Radio Stations

I'm a BBC 6Music man normally, although a few of the weekend shows are quite chewy. In the evening (Monday to Wednesday) I listen to Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie on BBC Radio 2. Both 6Music and Radcliffe and Maconie offer a mixture of great songs and some new stuff. It costs me a lot of money keeping up on iTunes!

The other weekend I had to do some ironing, so I stuck on the radio but wasn't in the mood for 6Music's weekend fayre, so surfed the dial, as it were. I found Absolute 80s - superb!

Ok, so you have to put up with Bananarama or REO Speedwagon, but John Farnham and Fiction Factory make it all worthwhile. For people of a certain age there's little better, and I am most certainly of that age. Escapism rules!

Here's the link: http://absolute80s.com/

You won't regret it.

England win 8 T20s in a row!

Terrific effort from England despite Shane Watson's best efforts. A last ball win with some youngsters at the crease. It might be a bit early to say, but this tour of Australia is really going to plan. What are the odds on England winning all three series? Can't find them anywhere. Might be worth a flutter!

What are the odds on England winning the World Cup (cricket!)? 9/2 with Paddy Power. Not sure that's worth a flutter especially with it being in India and Sri Lanka's back yard. Pakistan at 8/1 might be worth a fiver.

Lutters' Ashes Lines Part 9

My assessment of England's Ashes success, with hundreds and thousands:

Click Here!

Reminds me of another wicketkeeper not a million miles from here!

This sort of finishing got me 1 goal in 156 games for The Rebels

If you're not sure about cricket, watch this:

Aussies Smashed!

England bring the Ashes back in style with their third thumping win over the Australians. Fantastic achievement, although a poor Aussie side.

Australia need to get rid of the following:
Ponting
Hussey
Haddin
Katich
Harris (made of biscuits)

In come (regularly):
Hughes
Khawaja
Paine
Ferguson
Beer/Hauritz
A bowler

Give them a go, or England will just keep smashing them for years to come!

Rex The Dog "Bubblicious" - Great Video and Song!

Back to work

First day back today - everyone pleased to see me of course, especially the students. Some still in holiday mood, unable to calculate what 2 numbers multiply to make 3. No doubt they'll warm up soon.

As far as I can make out we are expecting Ofsted to come this term - this is obviously guess-work, but as many of the other secondary schools in the area have been seen recently, it's not a bad bet.

Talking of Ofsted, I was staggered to find out, through the medium of the Google search ("How much does Ofsted cost?") that the quango costs the taxpayer around £200 million per year, or around 5000 (of the higher paid) teachers - approximately one extra teacher per school apparently. You could even pay Yaya Toure's weekly wage at Manchester City for 15 and a bit years with that. Are they worth it? The public have been brainwashed into believing that a good Ofsted report is the be-all-and-end-all of the merits of a school, that and the league tables (another worthy educational cause).

In this era of cutbacks, will the government feel that it's not a good use of resources?

Fingers crossed, but I'm not saying whether it's to keep or get rid of it!

EP versus Steyning Town - 3.1.11

A draw: 2-2

EP should have won really, but as they say, that's football!

My feet are just about returning to room temperature 2 hours after the final whistle.

Ditched or Injured Aussie Cricketers (Anagrams)

Play this game on the what2learn site

Guess the Aussie cricketers - anagrams (plus clues)

Play this game on the what2learn site

Moodle - Making Interactive Games For Free

Want to put (educational) games on your Moodle page?

There's a great, free site called http://www.what2learn.com/ where you can "Make A Game".
All you need is 8 "questions" and you can choose the game type and question type from:

• Hangman type game (guess the word).
• Multiple choice.
• Find the answer.

The games are easy to set up and then you need to play them so you can get the "Embed code" at the end. Once you've copied and pasted the "Embed code", and paste into a webpage on your Moodle page (make sure that you are in HTML mode, by clicking on the button that looks like this: <>.)

Job done! Another of the many gems from Mary Cooch's book:

Get this book - it's great!

East Preston FC v Steyning FC

I'm reporting this game tomorrow - 11am kick off so no final lie in of the holidays for me.

Will put a link to the report on here when it's published.

Teachers - Moodle and You Tube videos

Are you at a school that has (understandably in a sense) blocked You Tube?
Here's a way around it:

Copy and paste the URL of the video you want from You Tube into either of these sites:

http://mediaconverter.org/ - you can only do 5 conversions per day (and sometimes it doesn't work).
or
http://www.youconvertit.com/ - set up a free account, although there is a limit on memory space used, it's pretty big.

Once you have converted the files (I convert to WMV file, so it can use Windows Media Player) then just paste them into a Webpage on your Moodle. Although do remember to upload the file to the page you want it on, something I keep forgetting to do. Then set up a hyperlink on your webpage.

This tip and others that I'll share are from the following book:

"Moodle 1.9 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds" by Mary Cooch. Look for it on Amazon - worth every penny if you currently find your Moodle page a bit dull. It looks like this:

5th Test at the MCG

England - unchanged.

Australia - Rookie skipper, rookie top order batsman, rookie spinner. Batsmen and bowlers out of form.

Surely it's a forgone conclusion - Australia to win by a good margin.

We'll see...

The Latest Lutters' Ashes Lines

Below is the link to my most recent cricket article - it celebrates England retaining the Ashes in Melbourne and explains why Australia have been so poor, in my view of course:

Click Here!

Ricky Ponting Batting Blindfold

Did he forget to remove it?

Click here!

Thomas Cook Worldwide Travel Vouchers

Thinking of getting these as a gift - don't bother! These are a real pain to redeem, either in store or online. What they don't tell you is that you need to pay in full initially, then redeem afterwards.

If you use them in-store, some poor sales assistant has to manually enter the codes (they have barcodes on the back - the vouchers, not the assistants, although I suppose they may have).

If you spend them online it gets even more ridiculous. You again pay upfront, then have to send the vouchers to some office in Bradford for them to count and verify. Since you may have quite a large amount, they suggest sending "special delivery" with insurance for the value of the vouchers. This will cost us around £10 to insure plus the cost of the "special delivery" itself.

In this day and age there must be a more efficient system, surely.

I ought to add that the sales staff in-store tell you repeatedly that they are easy to use, but fail to tell you about the posting them to Bradford bit, or any of the other conditions associated with the vouchers.

If you try contacting them:

• By phone - you get some bored bloke who repeats "that's how the system works" over and over again, not even bothering to feign interest.
• By email (if you can find it) - you get a link to their "Frequently Asked Questions" bit of the website and a "we know nothing about in-store, it's a separate company", with spelling mistakes thrown in for good measure.

Customer service - pretty awful, to be honest.

Have suggested they look at Amazon (where you can enter the codes in and build up credit) or Justgiving (where people pay straight into your "account") - both would be more efficient and user friendly. Am awaiting a response. The letter was reasonably sarcastic.

The moral of the story: Don't get Thomas Cook Worldwide Travel Vouchers!

Welcome!

Lutters here - got bored of my website (very timecomsuming to actually change anything), so thought I'd try this. Brief introduction:

• I am the only man since the war to have captained Worthing Football and Cricket Clubs - true, if not hugely impressive to those residing outside the Worthing area!
• I have retired from football (I ache too much and don't fancy running around a lot), but still play cricket (I field in the slips, have a short run-up and don't bat for long, so not too tiring). I had my most successful league season with the ball in 2010, taking 40 wickets.
• I am a maths teacher at a secondary school.
• I also look after the Moodle (a type of virtual learnign environment) at the school - I get irrationally excited about certain aspects of this, just to warn you.
• I like my music (Depeche Mode and current favourite band: Yeasayer) and the radio (BBC 6music and Mark Radcliffe/Stuart Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 - I will mention Splash FM too, as my chum DJs on there).
• I write a regular cricket column that goes on my local paper's website as and when I write one - Ashes topic surprisingly at the moment.

That's about it, but thanks for reading and hope you visit again soon.