afx237vi's profile

afx237vi
1285
Name: Andrew
Homepage URL: http://www.cageofmonkeys.co.uk
Location: South Wales, UK
Gender: Male
Member since: November 19, 2004
Last visit: May 25, 2009

afx237vi has posted 15 links and 381 comments to SportsFilter and 4 links and 40 comments to the Locker Room and 1 column.

Sports Bio

Sports I'm a fan of:

Soccer: Big fan of Swansea City, my local team, but I don't really support any particular Premiership side.

Rugby Union: Again, the Neath-Swansea Ospreys are my favourite team, but I prefer to watch international matches.

Cricket: You can't beat a bit of cricket now and then. Despite being Welsh, I do like to see England play well and was pretty excited when they won the Ashes last year.

Cycling: Not just the Tour de France. I love to watch cycling, whether it be the one-day classics or the three-week grand tours. My favourite riders are Tom Boonen, Alejandro Valverde and Damiano Cunego: people who compete all year round.

As well as those four, I'll basically watch any sport that's showing.

Recent Links

From Exeter City to the 2010 World Cup... via Singapore?: After struggling to forge a professional career in the lower leagues of English football, John Wilkinson was about to pack it all in and quit the sport. Then the Singaporean FA came calling, and he now has a realistic chance of competing at the next World Cup in two years time.

posted by afx237vi to soccer at 10:10 AM on February 06 - 9 comments

Broken Faces: During 2006, photographer Denis Rouvre travelled throughout France to document Top 14 French rugby matches. Granted open access to the locker rooms, he captured portraits of 220 players immediately after they left the pitch. "Bruise, grimy, bandaged, these smiling or grimacing faces reveal the impacts, the high stakes, the solidarity." (Note: Lots of Flash. Click Work ? Broken Faces.)

posted by afx237vi to culture at 08:22 AM on September 12 - 4 comments

The 6th Rugby World Cup: kicks off tomorrow with the hosts France taking on the Argentineans. The BBC and the Independent have each compiled a handy team-by-team guide of the 20 nations taking part. [more inside]

posted by afx237vi to other at 05:06 PM on September 06 - 10 comments

Fantasy Tour 2007: In amongst all the scandal, there was actually a race in there somewhere. So congratulations to qbert72, the winner of the inaugural fantasy Tour de France!

posted by afx237vi to fantasy at 08:33 AM on August 01 - 5 comments

Fantasy Tour: The scores on the first rest day are...

posted by afx237vi to fantasy at 05:46 PM on July 16 - 11 comments

Recent Comments

Substitute

The trailer in the BBC article makes it look rubbish, but the Youtube clip looks much better. I love sporting documentaries like this - real candid, fly-on-the-wall film-making rather than the more staged talking-head stuff you usually see. I will definitely check this out.

posted by afx237vi at 03:59 PM on May 08

Hawk attacks 13-year-old at Fenway Park

No problem. I was aware of the nickname A-Rod from various spofi FPPs, but rarely venture into any baseball threads, so didn't know his full name.

posted by afx237vi at 10:32 AM on April 04

Hawk attacks 13-year-old at Fenway Park

OK, I think it would have helped if I'd been American. Alex Rodriguez? Virtually unknown outside of America. Sorry.

posted by afx237vi at 09:40 AM on April 04

Hawk attacks 13-year-old at Fenway Park

And you won't believe the name of the girl. I don't get it.

posted by afx237vi at 08:48 AM on April 04

SI: The Vault

This is awesome. Thanks nemo.

posted by afx237vi at 09:26 AM on March 23

Arsenal's Eduardo Da Silva injured in outrageous tackle, possibly ending his career.

Here's a good article by David Busst, the former Coventry player who had his career ended by a similarly gruesome leg break.

posted by afx237vi at 07:31 AM on February 25

Arsenal's Eduardo Da Silva injured in outrageous tackle, possibly ending his career.

Unfortunately for Eduardo, you can see from trox's pic that his foot was firmly planted in the turf when Taylor made contact. Nowhere for all that weight to go, except his leg. Yuck. I tuned in to the match as he was being stretchered off and you could instantly tell how serious it was. The stadium was deadly silent and the commentators were very hushed. In fact, Sky Sports refused to replay the tackle until they found a "safe" camera angle at half-time. So you knew it was bad, bad, bad. But how many awful tackles have there been this season - diving in at full speed, studs up and shin-height. Dozens. And after each one, the pundits have all said "how long 'til someone suffers a career ending injury?" Well now they have. Arsene Wenger reckons Taylor should never play football again. Maybe that's a heated statement and a bit OTT, but it should be a long, long ban. Counted months, not matches.

posted by afx237vi at 04:12 PM on February 23

Manuel Almunia hears dead people.

More award winning journalism from the nation's favourite newspaper.

posted by afx237vi at 03:40 PM on February 20

From Exeter City to the 2010 World Cup... via Singapore?

See also: Chris Birchall in 2006. "Six months ago, Chris Birchall was hanging out with friends in Stone, Staffordshire, trying to become a regular at League One Port Vale, and now he's eating chicken feet with Dwight Yorke and heading to the World Cup finals with Trinidad & Tobago."

posted by afx237vi at 10:12 AM on February 06

SportsfIlter last.fm Group

I added myself to the wiki and applied to the last.fm group too!

posted by afx237vi at 08:28 AM on February 04

Dakar Rally cancelled

The 2001 Ryder Cup was put back a year because the American team were a big bunch of wusses had concerns about post-9/11 air travel and security. It's a shame about the Dakar Rally. I'm not a big motorsport fan, but I sometimes caught the highlights on Eurosport in the past and it looks like a spectacular race. I saw the press conference today and they said there had been a specific threat towards the race, so I guess they had no choice but to cancel.

posted by afx237vi at 04:01 PM on January 04

For The Love of Sport: A Look Back

Michael Rasmussen being fired by his team just a few hours after winning the decisive mountain stage of the Tour de France, whilst wearing the yellow jersey. That was pretty damn big. Oh, also that time Jose Mourinho's dog became a fugitive, heroically evading arrest from London's finest police officaers.

posted by afx237vi at 09:28 AM on December 15

The Top Ten Obscure Sports in the World.

Dog racing obscure? Uh... okay. And also, I know all about surf lifesaving because I used to watch Home and Away (ya flamin' drongo). My favourite obscure sport has got to be kabbadi, a weird Indian version of tag that used to be televised every Sunday afternoon on Channel 4.

posted by afx237vi at 10:43 AM on December 03

McLaren drops Robinson and Beckham for final Euro 2008 qualifying group match.

Now all you England fans know what it feels like to be Welsh. Return of the home internationals tourney next summer?

posted by afx237vi at 04:49 PM on November 21

Martina Hingis reveals she tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon, announces retirement immediately thereafter.

For that matter, couldn't coffee be considered a performance enhancer? Pretty sure caffeine is banned above a certain level. I remember reading that cyclists (what else?) used to use caffeine suppositories in the past and current pros are only allowed two or three espressos before they start racing. Must annoy the Italians. They also used to use vast quantities of amphetamines, and I'm sure they must have dabbled in cocaine too. One of the most famous doping horror stories of recent years was Willy Voet's exposé of pot-Belge, a truly mind-boggling cocktail of amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine, heroin, painkillers and corticosteroids (no seriously). This was only 10 years ago, and they didn't use pot-Belge for any particular performance enhancement, but just to keep them going throughout the season. The performance enhancers were put on top of that. And now I'm rambling about stuff that has nothing to do with Hingis. I guess what I'm saying, is that sometimes you can dope without it being about sport. She's still young, doesn't really like tennis any more, has oodles of cash. It's happened to dozens of sports stars before.

posted by afx237vi at 05:23 PM on November 01