Franchise Football Now!

A revelation has struck me, a moment of Paulian clarity regarding English football. English football needs to be franchised. Often when we look across the pond at our North American cousins we mock the idea of the franchise. We can not understand a league that has no promotion or relegation. Or a city that can just buy a sporting heritage.

I always thought their was something strange about this concept and thought this would never translate to this side of the Atlantic, with our traditions and national game rooted in the heritage of the working class in the local area. After all it was Matt Busby that said it was the duty of Manchester United players to entertain on the weekend because the workers of the local Trafford park area deserved it to lighten their lives. This has always been my opinion football has been so deep rooted in our communities that it should be owned by the community. There is always the dream that one day your local club could win something. This dream is now dead in most clubs Football is now owned by the money men. This is where the franchise comes in.

If the English premiership was franchised the era the dominance by the club with the most money would be over. In America a franchise works because no club has more money than any other. The negotiations regarding contract are done on block and generally the team who wins the championship, whether it be the super bowl, Stanley cup or the NBA championship varies. This would be a good thing for the English premiership because unless your club is backed by a multi-billionaire your chances of winning anything are nothing. Some clubs will challenge the status quo for a season or two but the chances of actually winning are slim.

The argument against franchise is relegation keeps the league exciting. This is true, relegation battles are exciting, but to be in a relegation battle you have to lose more games than you win. If you survive relegation you are the tallest of the dwarves, but what have you really won.. Surely a competitive league is an ideal situation. At the moment the top four or five clubs have a mini-league that although can be exciting benefits nobody else. Recently Blackburn travelled to play Manchester United. Seventy fans made the thirty five mile journey as they knew they were going to lose.

Franchises are already happening every club is already up for sale by anybody as long as the purchaser has the money. If these people were buying franchises at least the process would be formalised and no matter how much money the purchaser had there would be no advantage as profits would be shared amongst the franchise teams. The lack of relegation and promotion would also would be an advantage for player development as no team is scared of being relegated there is no need to bring in seasoned old pros usually foreign to bolster the side in a relegation fight.

What about the teams in the league below. Well this is where we get back to grass-roots football local teams for local players in competitive matches. Take the big teams out of the league and you bring back competition. Becoming a league champion is now a realistic possibility.

Save West Indies Cricket

In sport trends come and go players change shape records get broken and traditions change. Certain sporting brands transcend this and become etched on the consciousness of the non-sporting public. The yellow shirt of Brazil, the black shirt and silver fern of the New Zealand rugby team and the pinstripes of the New York Yankees baseball team. The sporting brand I find most iconic is the maroon cap with palm tree and cricket stumps of the West Indies cricket team.

I started watching cricket in the eighties and one of my earliest memories of watching cricket is IVA Richards swaggering to the wicket maroon cap on head gum chewed and a look around as if to say to the fielding side “just watch this ball flash past you to the boundary.” My cricketing hero was BC Lara a flawed genius on the cricket field, who, when good was the greatest.

Now that iconic West Indies brand is struggling to survive, cricket would be far poorer without it. The problems of cricket in the Caribbean are many. The Caribbean is next to the biggest consumer of young athletes in the world. The United States college system offers education and the way out of the ghetto for many West Indian youths who previously would have been attracted to the cricket field.

Geopolitical organisation is a huge problem for the West Indies. Sixteen independent and proud countries from next to the coast of the United States to twenty five miles away from the coast of Venezuela form the West Indies cricket board. The only thing that links these Islands is unfortunately slavery, the English language and the game of the ruling colonial class, cricket. Politically the board can not organise itself. Witness the chaos regarding the abandoned second test and the financial carnage caused by Sir Allen Stanford. Despite this throughout the eighties the West Indies played cricket with a style, flair and dominance that was inspiring.

Cricket needs the West Indies to be a force because although it can not provide financial power or huge numbers of players, it provides the game of cricket with a soul. The noise and chaos of a Caribbean test are as important as the quiet reverence and tradition of the first Lords test of the English summer. The international cricket council needs to stop cow towing to some of the money men. Think of the difference the money spent in the IPL player auction would make in the West Indies or the English counties trip to Abu Dhabi for pre season training being switched to Barbados or Antigua. Lose the West Indies and lose cricket.

The greatest cricket book ever written was penned by CLR James a Trinidadian and cricket nut. This book perfectly evokes cricket in the Caribbean. It would be awful to think that this type of prose would be consigned to history as the game disappears from the West Indies.

First Blog

This is my first blog but I will try to get into the topic without appearing too amateurish. The first blog is about rugby, really about the English rugby team.

Firstly England are not a team of bad players. They are a team of good players playing badly. The side has players capable of getting in most sides in the world, so why the problems.

Firstly tempo is a problem the side is just playing too slowly the pieces are in the right place but everything seems to happen at a very slow rate. Tempo in rugby is dictated by three people on the field the No 8, scrum half and the fly half. Since 2003 England has struggled to get these three right. The retirement to the dance floor of Dawson and big Lol to the wasps boardroom has been a hard void to fill but the collapse in fitness of Jonny Wilkinson has been the real key to the lack of pace in the England game. Harry Ellis, Shaun Perry etc have tried to cover the number nine spot. Flood, Cipriani and Goode have all tried and been found wanting at the 10 position. Nick Easter has been a rock at 8 but with all that change around him he has struggled to impose himself.

This leads onto to the second problem. patterns. More than any other game rugby relies on its patterns whether it is the the rhythm of the scrum. The movement of the jumpers in the lineout or the moves in the backline. Without consistency in selection none of these work.

The third problem is the openside flanker position nobody has come close to competing with the southern hemisphere openside tyros since Neil Back finished. McCaw, Smith and Burger have been simply better at being nastier, meaner and generally more hostile on the ground than anything the English have to throw at them Rees looks promising but just seems to nice to be hated by other teams in the same way that Neil Back was hated by the opposition.

So that is it for my first blog all is not lost in the England camp they do have the potential to be great and anyone who admired Martin Johnson as a player most hope that he succeeds as a manager.