England v Sri Lanka

Somehow England managed to win the first test at Cardiff. An awful display of batting led to the visitors achieving just 82 runs in their second innings.

Jonathan Trott got a double hundred (he's South African, and no matter how much he goes on about being proud to put on an England shirt, he's still South African), Alastair Cook and Ian Bell both got hundreds. A great batting performance against a poor attack. In fact, the Sri Lankans barely look interested in this series. I get the impression that limited overs cricket, be it 20 or 50 overs, is far more important to them.

Pietersen failed again - at some point he will get dropped, it's inevitable. For a top order batsman he is not scoring the amount of runs that he should. Australia got their fingers burnt with Ponting, Hussey, Katich etc. Let's not England go the same way. They have all been good players, but when they're past it, drop them. There's no room for sentiment in top class sport.

England have a chance to win the series comfortably now, and let's face it, the series was never going to be a massive crowd puller.

Those Nasty People At FIFA

The trouble is that it looks like sour grapes, the fact that England didn’t win in their bid to host the football World Cup, losing heavily to both Russia and Qatar. Lord Triesman claims that at least 4 FIFA representatives wanted a “bribe” in return for their vote, and a couple of representatives have already been caught and suspended for taking bribes.

Is it really any surprise that the whole thing could be bought? Russia and Qatar are major oil producers and up-and-coming world economies with big budgets and apparently few scruples. There’s even talk of English football breaking away from FIFA altogether due to the allegations of bribery and the apparent lack of interest from FIFA to investigate the claims.

I’ve been saying for a while that both FIFA and UEFA are dinosaurs in the world of football, refusing to move with the times as the sums of money involve spiral out of all proportion. Football will implode at some point for two reasons:

• The sums of money, both wages and transfer fees are unsustainable meaning that a lot of clubs will eventually collapse financially.
• The footballing authorities refuse to listen to what the people (the people who ultimately generate all the money for the game) actually want.

If I’m totally honest I have lost interest in most football. I follow “my” team, Brighton & Hove Albion, but that’s it. I actually prefer the lower league football to the Premier League due to the fact that the players actually still play the game rather than trying to con the referee or get an opponent punished, inter-mingled with moments of genius with a ball at their feet.

Why England felt that they could win the hosting of the World Cup without bribes only goes to show their naivety about how these things work. It’s all well and good to moan after the event but it looks a little pathetic since the bid, although strong (by all accounts), was blown out of the water. The better thing to do would have been to win the bid and then claim that bribes were required, or persuade someone involved in the Russian or Qatari bids to spill the beans.

Football is reputedly the sport of the people – if only the powers that be would remember that occasionally.

English Cricket and the England Team

I don't know about you but I do find it increasingly frustrating that England are recruiting players from other nations, mainly in cricket, but not exclusively. Remember the Mikel Arteta is being courted by England manager Fabio Capello, as has Manuel Almunia in the past.

I'm not saying that these people that were born in another country don't try very hard or don't deserve to play for England but I do worry as to why English youngsters aren't coming through the ranks.

The likes of Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen have openly admitted to coming to England to increase their chances of playing internationally, blaming the "quota system" in South Africa where a certain number of non-white players must be selected. They have to play for 5 years in England before they qualify but the financial rewards at the end of it are worth the wait.

The real worry is why young players born in this country are not making it.

Could it be that English youngsters don't have the dedication to succeed at the highest level in general?

Does England simply not have the talent?

I doubt it on both counts. What I think is happening is that sport is a results driven business and coaches/managers can't afford the time it takes to develop a young player so choose the quicker and easier option of a non-English player whose already got to the required standard. If the coach/manager waits, they could face the sack before all their hard work comes to fruition.

It's a real shame, but patience is not common in sport nowadays. Sport is a business that can't afford a couple of bad seasons whilst young players acclimatise.

I would also like to add that England are not the only country to do this!

Say What You See Sir Alex

Is he serious? He admits that Vidic handballed it but said that no-one could see it, but they should have got a a penalty for Owen falling over. He then says, and this is the bit that's unbelievable, he says that they don't get those sort of decisions in big games! I can only presume that age is getting the better of Sir Alex as they nearly always seem to get those decisions in big games, they just missed this one.

Football managers are a funny breed, but ultimately all the same. they see what they want to see.