An important public service announcement

Uruguayan footballers have shared their lives with humans for more than 12,000 years, and that coexistence has contributed substantially to our overall quality of life.

In Merseyside over 39% of households share their lives with Uruguayan footballers, but sadly, a minority of these footballers do not live up to their image as mankind's best friend.

While over 81% of attacks occur in private homes, it is clear that dangerous Uruguayan footballers in public places pose an unacceptable risk for the community and are a significant issue for regulatory agencies.

However, knee-jerk legislation responses that follow on from public outcries after attacks are neither the most productive nor efficient way to address these situations.

Internationally renowned experts suggest cost- effective methods determined through rigorous scientific data collection and analysis will assist in the protection of both Uruguayan footballers and the public.

A summary of suggested approaches:

• Scientific data collection and interpretation to correctly diagnose the correct course of action.

• A nationally uniform approach to create dangerous Uruguayan footballer policy and legislation

• A national database that would store all information on Uruguayan footballer attacks

• Regular analysis of incidence reports

• Ongoing Uruguayan footballer Management Officer training

• To implement Club Specific regulations in legislation. While all Uruguayan footballers can be aggressive to humans, evidence suggests attachment to Liverpool Football Club is a worthy indicator of increased aggression levels

• Post campaign monitoring must be completed to ascertain a dangerous Uruguayan footballers campaign's effectiveness

The majority of the papers outline the advantages of analysing the parts of dangerous Uruguayan footballer legislation to generate a best practice holistic approach, creating long term community benefits.

Legislation should be created with expertise and a thorough understanding of the complex issues and factors surrounding dangerous Uruguayan footballers.

This important public service announcement was brought to you by the OSSA (Office of Satirical, Statistical Analysis). Note: 73.4% of all statistics are contrived and 103.9% of statistics are exaggerated.

Celebrating success and men behaving badly

I’m back baby. Just like the mysterious White Walkers from Game of Thrones, I’ve risen from a cold dark place to wreck havoc on everyone south of The Wall.

A lot’s happened in sports over the past couple of months. Most of the action has taken place off the field. To quickly recap:

The dog ate Shane Watson’s homework, the Aussie men’s 4x100 relay team put in an application for residency at St John’s College, and the Cronulla Sharks successfully graduated from the Lance Armstrong School of Excellence Performance Outcomes (EPO). 

Meanwhile Ben Barba was busy auditioning for 'The Shire Season 2', Josh Dugan’s Joel Monaghan inspired tweet (minus the canine, Gods be good) got him fired and Kurtley Beale put his hand up for a league contract with his best impersonation of 'The Origin of the Species'.

Finally, Giorgos Katidis has been banned from international football for his Nazi style salute, Paulo Di Canio was hired for his…and I’d hate to be in Oscar Pistorius’ shoes right now (too early?).

Oh, and Mario Balotelli was caught having a fag in a train dunny - and it wasn’t George Michael.

There’s a wonderfully enigmatic Italian maxim “The mother of idiots is always pregnant.” I enjoy philosopher poet Monty Python’s far less cryptic: “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”  

So with the sporting spotlight clearly focused on men behaving badly recently, I thought it appropriate to celebrate some on-field success, and what better place than the Theatre of Dreams!

When the little c#nt of incest spawn ‘King’ Joffrey removed Lord Eddard Stark’s head it shocked the world, setting off a chain of events resulting in chaos, betrayal, bloodshed and treachery – or just another day in South-Western Sydney.  Similarly, when Kun Aguero shocked the footballing world with virtually the final kick of last season, cruelly taking another Premier League title out of the grasp of Sir Alex Ferguson, the balance of power in the EPL shifted. The very foundations on which the Premier League was established were crumbling.

The four kingdoms – Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool – were in disarray. United’s forces, shell-shocked by their end of season capitulation, were facing down an enemy hungrier and armed to the teeth. Arsenal, growing fat off the success of yesteryear, lost the stomach for the fight. Chelsea, despite a famous victory over Bayern Munich, were stricken by internal turmoil and backstabbing for political advantage. Meanwhile Liverpool, under the leadership of The Imp, continued to lose any form of credibility.

But like Lord Tywin Lannister, Sir Alex spent the entire summer plotting the downfall of his enemies. A Lannister always pays his debts, and when SAF successfully signed the sell-sword RVP in the off-season, he would have known that in this Game of Thrones he edged evermore closer to regaining the crown.

Revenge is a dish best served with a 15 point gap at the top of the table, and with this in mind Sir Alex will be relishing tonight’s Manchester derby. I’m sure this fixture has been circled in his calendar since the start of the season, albeit with the expectation of a title decider rather than a final kick to the gonads of an enemy lying stricken on the muddied battlefield.

Sir Alex has seen off the challenge of many claimants to the throne – Wenger, Houllier, Mourinho, and Benitez – but none will be more satisfying than silencing the noisy neighbor and potentially putting a final nail in Mancini’s coffin. The Italian has the polished yet smug look of the Kingslayer, but like any man who bones his twin sister his elegant appearance belies a darker side that needs to be extinguished.

A win tonight and United can begin celebrating a record 20^th league title, whilst it also has the capacity to send Mancini back to Italy. The Dothraki Warlords funding Mancini’s empire won’t be at all pleased with another abysmal turnout in Europe followed by an embarrassing capitulation in the league. They’re liable to use Mancini’s powder blue scarf as a noose. A sight most welcome across greater Manchester and the seven kingdoms of Westeros.

And they lived happily ever after...

I’ll start by saying I don’t cycle. I haven’t ridden a bike this millennium. Heck…I’ve never actually owned my own bike. I look terrible in tight, fluoro coloured Lycra. I’ve never shaved my legs – my razor would never forgive me. I hate waking up before dawn, and I prefer my morning coffee with a bacon and egg roll, not sweating like a bank robber after a 75km ride. And when I’m driving around I fantasize about knocking cyclists over ‘Deathrace 2000’ style (just kidding about that one!!!)

All that said I am completely, totally and utterly obsessed with the Tour de France, and in particular, with the Lance Armstrong doping story.

I was never an Armstrong devotee. I've been a fan of Le Tour prior to his rise to prominence. Despite not being a cycling aficionado I was drawn into the history and tradition of the sport, the team versus individual dynamic, and the fact it’s the most physically grueling test in sports.

The Armstrong narrative just made the Tour all the more extraordinary. Young, brash Texan rising up the world cycling ranks is diagnosed with cancer. He fights back to beat the disease, and even more miraculously, returns to the sport and ‘wins’ seven consecutive tours. He puts cycling on the map in the US, raises hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research and awareness, sues anyone who so much as raises as eyebrow over his stunning results, and pisses off all of France. What’s not to like?

Ever since the release of the USADA reasoned decision in October 2012 I have been enthralled with the Lance Armstrong doping story.  It is simply fascinating.  This wasn’t just about a guy getting a competitive edge. This was Michael Corleone taking on the other New York families. I immediately purchased ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ and ‘The Secret Race’. I couldn’t put either of them down. And then I re-read ‘It’s not about the bike’…and WOW…incredible in retrospect. It’s like reading the New Testament after it’s revealed that Jesus of Nazareth was a local con-artist.

Most recently I was glued to the Lance versus Oprah interview, which got me thinking about the biggest cover-ups in sport. With that in mind, here are my top five sporting fairy tales:

Back to the future: It’s the year 2120, and tennis in the United States is totally decimated. There are no juniors interested in the sport, they haven’t had a Grand Slam champion in over 100 years, and Nick Bollettieri’s tan is starting to fade. In an act of desperation, officials commission a cyborg to return to the 1990’s in the hope it will win multiple Slams, breaking an array of records and cementing tennis as the USA’s sport of the future. The cyborg is affectionately known as Pistol Pete. Catching wind of their cunning scheme, European counterparts, using neutral Switzerland as their base, send back a more advanced cyborg – Roger – scheduled to arrive as Pete’s batteries begin to fail. Roger proceeds to crush Pete’s records and set a new benchmark for tennis excellence. US tennis never recovers.

Happy birthday to you: LeBron James is without doubt the best basketball player on the planet. His combination of his size, quickness, athleticism, durability and basketball IQ is unparalleled. He was a phenom in high school, dominating his contemporaries and making the transition to the pros seamlessly. In years to come it will be uncovered that Nike, having forecasted the steady decline of Jordan, the adultery of Tiger, and the doping of Armstrong, planted a 25 year old LeBron in high school to generate the next sporting superstar.

Messing with your mind: Back to the tennis, and after watching yet another round of Eastern European mind meltdowns in the women’s draw I am convinced that 50 years from now someone will discover documents that expose the biggest doping scandal since the Lance Armstrong era – that former KGB doctors administered human growth hormone to thousands of female Slavic children in the 1990’s, without realizing the serious side-effect of pre traumatic stress disorder (total mental capitulation in the face of the slightest amount of pressure). The net result of this human experimentation is the most frustrating and boring era in the history of women’s tennis.

It’s all in the family: The Mortimer family name is ingrained in Bulldog folklore. Brothers Steve, Chris and Peter are synonymous with the club’s most successful and dominant period in the 1980’s. In 2009, seed of the Mortimer loin Daniel trots out for hated rivals Parramatta. Little Daniel debuts mid season with the Eels languishing mid table, but a strong run of form sees them finish in eighth position and qualify for the Grand Final. Mortimer contributes 10 tries from 16 matches, and the Blue and Gold Army is ecstatic. Not only did we have the hottest young half in the country, we stuck it to the Doggies who couldn’t believe Morts turned his back on their club. The following season Daniel is exposed as an overpaid, undersized and limited rugby league player and languishes in the reserves while eating up the club’s salary cap. At the 2012 Mortimer family Xmas party, father Peter gives Daniel a big pat on the back. His uncles raise their glasses and toast the latest in the Mortimer line to f#ck up the Eels.

Did that really happen? Remember the last day of the 2011/12 English Premier League season, when Manchester City were 30 seconds away from sending their club into an irreparable tailspin, only for Kun Aguero to score with the final kick of the game, thus denying cross town rivals United another championship? That never happened.