The Football Sin Bin

The recent furore over Thierry Henri's blatant cheating in the World Cup Play off game between France and ireland has again reminded me of the changes to the game that have come about since I used to play. In my day if you, for example, pulled somebody's shirt it would result in the awarding of a free kick and possibly a booking for the offender. Nowadays it seems as legitimate an action as kicking the ball. Standard procedure in the rough and tumble of the goalmouth scramble.

Actually, at this point I should point out that also in my day the metatarsal didn't actually exist. We wore boots that you could safely stand on without so much as a twinge being felt by the wearer. Since the introduction of ballet shoes into the professional game, shoes that offer no protection whatsoever, a part of the foot called the metatarsal has been invented. Easily identifiable as the bone that breaks should somebody tread on your ballet shoe.

Anyway, I digress. Cheating, for that is what it is, has become more and more prevalent in the modern game. I don't understand why more progress has not been made in the introduction of electronic gadgetry in football as has successfully been adopted in cricket, rugby and tennis to name but three. Video playback and additional officials monitoring the game seem perfectly logical to me. Especially in these times when so much can be lost because of a bad decision. It's not as if the game can't afford it, at least at the top level where after all most is at stake.

Much as I find shirt pulling and the introduction of the metatarsal to be particularly frustrating the thing that really hacks me off is the play acting that the overpaid prima donnas in the game adopt. This usually comes about when your £100k per week superstar trips over a blade of grass and claims to have broken his leg in three places. He gets his free kick and then makes a miraculous recovery. Let's be clear here - it's cheating.

My solution to this particular problem is simple. A sin bin. If a player goes down and claims to have a life threatening injury he should automatically go to the sin bin for ten minutes. If he is genuinely injured he will be grateful for the opportunity to get it seen to. If he's faking it then ten minutes off the pitch seems to me a suitable punishment for cheating.

The other affliction affecting the game adversely is the appalling behaviour of some players. Of particular concern is the way players harass the referee following a decision they don't like. Have you ever known a ref to change his mind following protestations from players? No? of course you haven't because it never happens. The answer? Send any protesting player to the Sin Bin!

Now I do appreciate that introducing such an idea into the professional game would result, at least in the short term, in the Italian national side rarely having 11 players on the pitch at any one time. So be it. They and others like them must learn that their performances that would in the acting profession earn them an Oscar nomination will not be tolerated in football.

National Express Lose East Anglia Franchise

So it is confirmed that National Express (NX) will lose their East Anglia franchise at the end of March 2010. This was actually the original end date but there was the promise of a three year extension to 2014 should National Express East Anglia (NXEA) meet certain performance targets. What must be galling for NXEA is that they have actually met the required performance targets and then some. However they have lost the franchise as a consequence of the NX Group losing the East Coast business because they committed to paying too much money for the privilege.

Judging by the reaction to this news, there will be few tears shed at the departure of NXEA. Why is this?

A brief history might be in order. (Rail privatisation is a complex business so concentration will be required at this point). Following on from privatisation, services out of Liverpool Street were split into three franchises. Firstly services out towards Cambridge and the west of East Anglia including the Stansted Express were awarded to West Anglia Great Northern (WAGN) - a National Express company. Services from Liverpool Street to Ipswich and Southend and all stations and branch lines in between were awarded to First Great Eastern - A Firstgroup company, famous up to that point for running bus services around the UK and actually called Firstbus. Lastly, rural services out of Norwich and Ipswich and the Intercity route from Norwich to London were awarded to Anglia Railways - owned by GBRail, a company created specifically to run this franchise.

To be fair I cannot comment on the WAGN service as I don't think I ever used it. However to the onlooker they did become infamous for having filthy looking trains. More on this later.

First Great Eastern (FGE) went on to become the second most reliable service in the country. The most reliable service being the Island Line on the Isle Of Wight. So, lets be honest FGE were the most reliable grown up railway in the country. They were also the only franchise to pay a premium to the government. So, in short they did everything that was asked of them and then some.

Anglia Railways became popular in Norfolk and Suffolk for the services they provided on the rural branch lines and for the services they introduced such as Norwich to Cambridge which went on to become very successful. Although I'm sure many would disagree I didn't regard their InterCity service as that great. The trains themselves were almost prehistoric and as such broke down with monotonous regularity. Anglia was also heavily reliant on government subsidies.

After a while the government came to the conclusion that too many franchises had been created across the country and that this created something of an administrative nightmare. For example, Railtrack, the predecessor of Network Rail would need to have contractual arrangements in place with each franchise and this would cause unnecessary red tape in the running of, say, Liverpool Street. The government decided therefore to consolidate franchises where possible and as such companies were invited to bid for the Greater Anglia franchise which would effectively be an amalgam of the WAGN, FGE and Anglia businesses.

The body responsible for the allocation of rail franchises was the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) headed up by one Richard Bowker.

Now it is here that the wheels begin to fall off. FirstGroup - those you remember responsible for running the second most successful franchise in whole of the UK in the form of First Great Eastern - were not even allowed to bid for the new franchise. The official reason was that they had incorrectly completed an application form. Extraordinary and to be honest totally unbelievable.

The shortlist of companies bidding for the franchise came down to Arriva, GBRail (Owners of Anglia) and National Express (Owners of WAGN). To ensure that FirstGroup stayed in the race they bought GBRail.

To the surprise of many including it is thought, National Express, the latter were awarded the franchise and so 'one' was born. It is still not clear where the name 'one' came from. Some say it stood for Operated by National Express and others that the word 'one' signified one franchise instead of three. Whatever the reason it was a disaster. The name was ridiculed from the start, as was the corporate look that was adopted by the company. Then came the introduction of a new timetable. This was a requirement of the franchise and whoever had won would have been required to do it. (Basically the timetable had to be made more 'robust' by adding delays into it). However 'one' made an absolute Horlicks of this new timetable which in my view set the tone for the remainder of the 'one' / NXEA franchise. I believe that they were on the backfoot from this point on.

During the 'one' franchise a certain Richard Bowker became chairman of National Express. (As chairman of the SRA he had blocked FirstGroup from bidding.) The SRA ceased to exist and the Department for Transport became responsible for overseeing the railways. Soon afterwards NX undertook a rebranding exercise which saw them adopt a single look and feel to their coach and rail operations. Out went the 'one' brand and in came National Express East Anglia. However, the stigma attached to the 'one' brand remained.

An observation made by many is that NX don't seem to take care of their trains. I mentioned earlier that WAGN trains always looked filthy and sadly NXEA trains have gone the same way. After 5 and half years there are still trains with FirstGroup colours on them. Indeed there are currently five different liveries on use.

In fairness to NXEA a lot of the issues attributed to them are not actually their fault at all. Most delays are caused by infrastructure issues which are the responsibility of Network Rail. And, as mentioned earlier punctuality is the best it has ever been. However, such is the dislike that passengers have for the brand it doesn't matter. In a TV news item last night one gentleman was blaming NXEA for a 2 hour delay at Ipswich caused by a lightening strike!

And so with the demise of NXEA surely it is time to draw a line under it all and start afresh? The new incumbent, whoever that may be, has the opportunity to start with a clean sheet of paper and a sixth livery for our trains.

(Can I ask that they put in for some new trains for the London Norwich route as a top priority. East Anglia deserves better than the hand me downs we have had to endure in the past.)

Why Are Ipswich Town Propping Up The Championship?

I am not an Ipswich fan. Actually, having been a lifelong Chelsea supporter I changed my allegiance to Colchester United a few years ago having lost interest in a Chelsea side that seemed to be successful only as a consequence of millions of the Russian fellas money being pumped into the team. And anyway, I live near Colchester so it seemed like a good idea and to be fair I don't regret it one bit. I feel more legit supporting a local team, even a League One team.

Anyway, I digress. Ipswich Town, a team a few miles up the road and as such the butt of friendly banter from Colchester fans and, from the other direction, not so friendly banter from Norwich City fans. Amongst much ballyhoo Roy Keane took over as manager of Ipswich earlier in the year and great things were promised. And yet here we are approaching the halfway mark of the season and at the time of writing Ipswich have won only one game and are second from bottom in the Championship.

Anyone with a vague interest in football will be aware of Roy Keane. He was a successful player and captain at Manchester United. But many people will remember his famous tantrum when with the Irish national side when he came home early from the 2002 world cup basically because he couldn't get on with the manager, Mick McCarthy. Much throwing of toys out of pram.

Since then he has a fairly luke warm go at management with a lacklustre performance at Sunderland and now at Ipswich. Recently his performances when being interviewed or at press conferences have shown a man who seems very angry at anything and everything, showing all the hallmarks of being nothing but a petulant bully.

Now am I the only one who thinks that perhaps the poor performance of the team on the pitch may be down to, basically, the players being afraid of their manager? If he behaves in the same way to his players as he does in his dealings with the media then they're probably living in fear of his outbursts - hardly conducive to getting the best out of anyone, especially the fragile egos of professional footballers.

And yet, despite their dire position in the league Ipswich fans still seem to revere Mr Keane as some sort of god. What is the hold he has over people?

Perhaps it's just me....

The BBC

I must confess that I have always been a fan of the BBC. Ever since I can remember - even in the days of only BBC 1 and BBC2 on TV - I found their output to be far superior to that of the 'third channel'. (in the interests of fairness I should perhaps point out that watching ITV was very much discouraged in our house. Something that I now realise was more common that a lot of people would perhaps own up to!). I drifted away to commercial radio when it first came out and it was still a novelty, but in more recent times as each local commercial station becomes part of a larger entity and loses its local feel I have returned to the bosom of the BBC. Well at least nationally - not sure I'm ready for BBC local radio just yet.

And then of course there are all of the other services that the BBC provides. Surely their online content is some of the best in the world. Their digital TV and radio channels again are far and above the opposition. Their 24 hours news offering is far and away the best presented and, in my humble opinion, most trusted news service on TV. None of the tabloid nonsense that Sky produces, or the downmarket offerings from ITV. And of course if you want a news channel with absolutely no news on it there is always CNN.

Some quick facts about the BBC: 8 national TV channels; BBC Red Button interactive TV; BBC HD; 10 national radio stations; National TV and radio services for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and over 40 local radio stations for England; BBC Online, BBC iPlayer, BBC Mobile and the BBC Channel on YouTube.

And all this without any commercials and for a paltry 39p a day.

So then, why do so many people want to change the BBC? Why do so many people regard the 39p a day as a tax?

Have the people who want to change the BBC ever seen TV abroad? Have they ever listened to anything comparable to, say, Radio 4 in the UK or another country? Do they not realize that the service provided by the BBC is the envy of the civilized, and probably not so civilized world?

I appreciate that it is impossible for an organization such as the BBC to please all the people all of the time. Indeed I don’t understand BBC3 so I choose not to watch it and the weather forecasts are quite extraordinarily bad. But these things pale when you take the service as a whole.

I fear that those who want to change the BBC are part of a bigger problem in this country. A seemingly growing number of people just like to complain about something so why not pick on the BBC? A number of people claim to never watch BBC TV or listen to BBC radio so ask why they should be subject to the license fee? Ironically I notice a number of people choose to voice these concerns on BBC websites. Presumably they want to be able to that for free then? The BBC has something for everyone, and I would be very surprised if there is anyone anywhere in the UK who owns a TV, radio or computer who has not used a BBC service at some point. If you have none of these then a) you won’t be reading this and b) stop whining as you don’t need a TV license.

ITV and other commercial channels complain that the BBC has an unfair advantage having a guaranteed income from the license fee. Surely we are not comparing like with like here? If a commercial channel produces decent output then people will want to advertise on it? If it produces dross then people won’t. Like so may companies who were happy to take the money when economic times were better, they now cry foul when the going gets tough. Should have put some money aside for a rainy day. BBC income is basically a flat line whereas commercial channels go through peaks and troughs – sometimes they will be doing far better financially than the Beeb.

There are those who complain of political bias at the BBC. The problem here is that the complaints come from all sides of the political spectrum which would rather suggest that the reporting is fair would it not? Those who complain have usually heard somebody make a comment that is not one they agree with.

Lastly, people complain about the amounts that certain celebs and management types are paid by the BBC. Surely this is simply market forces in action. The BBC pays what it does to compete with the commercial rivals. Simple.

So, I would ask those who whine at paying for Auntie take a long look at what they actually get and be grateful for what is the best broadcasting service in the world bar none.

Testing, testing....

This is a test. Testing testing. One, two. One, two.

Why can't sound engineers count any higher than two?