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Did you hear about the guy in Chicago that told a mackem vacationer how he heard it clear as day on ESPN in the play off final? It made his hairs on the back of his neck stick up. He also said he hated the mags anarl.

The Cambridge and Oxford boat race is, I'll give you that one. As for football? The richest clubs, the ones with the richest owners usually did the best, even in the days of amateur football where a rich owner would employ a talented footballer at his mill or whatever, that's now been stopped by the clubs who've benefited from it in the past and don't want to overtaken by anyone else. The blue riband event in English football was always the cup, Liverpool didn't win their first until 1965, who would argue that Liverpool aren't one of the two biggest clubs in England right now? You have to have a chance to grow as a club and that is now being denied to other clubs who are ambitious and have the means to truly compete.

https://archive.is/2025.06.10-062257/https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/crystal-palace-europa-league-nottingham-forest-john-textor-bhnd3bjtm

Truth rarely matters in a historical MLF piece.

I've been to both roker park and their new place numerous times. I've seen them play at our place numerous times. I've never, not even once, heard them sing their iconic, globally recognised anthem either tunelessly or in perfect harmony. bizarre.

Quick clarification. Vernon Reid is not dead?

Every MLF knows that in 1956, frustrated by the mysterious cabal of Tyneside businessmen and their machinations of keeping Wearside down to boost Tyneside, Elvis Presley performed 'don't be cruel' as a plea to the MCTB to give Sunderland a break. From then on he was given the honorary title of the 'Memphis Marra'. True story.

Vernon Reid guitarist from 80s/90s rockers Living Colour...

Elvis starred in Blue Hawaii though, so that's close enough to blue pop for them to rightfully have a claim

Sly

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/world/los-angeles-protests-donald-trump-calls-for-gavin-newsoms-arrest-as-riots-escalate-as-more-troops-enter-c-18979727 And he suggests Greta Thunberg has anger management issues.

Seems to be an awful lot of fake news being used by the Trump organisation to justify troops on the street in LA. Not sure how long before martial law is declared, given he is calling the rioters "insurrectionists". Australian Channel 9 female reporter apparently deliberately targetted by a copper with a rubber bullet. Sounds like they are happy to attack the press, as well. Not a good outlook for the US.

FYP

They could probably do with a little less conversation on the point.

Yep. Exactly.

I'm not trying to be argumentative either. I think I mostly agree, but I will say this sounds more like an argument that could be applied against late stage capitalism as a whole rather than just sports/football. You sound encouragingly leftist. More left than most western governments. It's all good.

I'm not really talking about individual sports teams in isolation but more so about sports administrators taking kickbacks in exchange for favours done to the sports big teams. It's a matter of cooperative corruption at this point. (Not that I'm suggesting that is "new", of course not). But I do think that it is relatively new in terms of scope and public-facing justifications used to promote it. It basically aligns, in my opinion, with a new level of marketing savvy that corporations use in an age of social media and "alternative facts". As an aside, with the latent threat of the European Super League still fresh in the mind of these administrative bodies, there is a new silent motivation for keeping the big clubs happy. And that is certainly something different given the amounts of money involved. I do also think that post-Covid in particular there is a new emphasis on "expansionism" in sport/business to maximise profits for stakeholders, yes. I didn't suggest it was a "new" development since it is in accordance with the general impetus of capitalist interest. I would've thought that should go without saying that I don't believe that sport has invented the notion of unfair competition. I wasn't born yesterday. But in terms of degree rather than kind, coupled with "legitimization" tactics build around marketing spin in a world where "truth" has fallen by the wayside, I do think these are semi-recent developments. It seems that corporations have really become adept at spinning what used to simply take place without comment into market speak to re-categorise old-school corruption and profiteering and make it appear as something positive for [insert category of public talking point here, i.e., ecology, women's rights, global south development, etc, etc, etc,]. Corporations use the good intentions of a progressivist public as a marketing tool to appeal to sentiment and feeling. Now, obviously, this is also not new. But the weird parasocial element of it where we're supposed to assume that corporations "care" is definitely a product of the social media age. This is what I meant by the "legitimization" model since most mafia organisations are predicated, i.e., only in principle, on community preservation. It's all just my opinion on the matter, of course. Don't mean to be argumentative.

You think this is a recent thing? The vast majority of "elite" sports leagues have essentially been two-horse races since the dawn of time. The two favourite horses change periodically and the financial backing adjusts accordingly, but it's always been a big human cattle market.

Mystery solved. I should've known. A new way to siphon off the cream to the elite European clubs in exchange for clogging up the calendar with more meaningless tournament football. Got it. 100m! That's a mental amount of money for what is essentially a complete laughing stock of a tournament. Why don't the European clubs just play each other and save everyone else some time? Of course, I know why: $$$ It's honestly so pathetic the way sport is going. It's the same across basically every sport I watch. Everything is geared towards making more money for the assholes at the top. Fans, players, grassroots and tradition be damned. Sports administration has followed the "legitimization" model established by the fuckin' Sicilian Mafia.

Poor dog. Sounds horrible for all involved but at least you all got out of it physically unscathed. At risk of sounding cold and callous, I remember being in the passenger seat driving through Glenveagh National Park when my oldest two were nippers and still worry if a similar experience might have traumatised them. Mrs B is driving, it's dark and we're lost, tensions getting high with two overtired tiny kids in the back We nearly end up coming off the road when a rabbit bolts out in front of us and she swerves to avoid it, loses control and we screech to a halt. Weans wailing inconsolably in the back, Mrs B trying to reassure them that she had to do that to save a rabbit (that I'm 99% certain we flattened) and I stupidly say what I'm thinking: "Fuck the Rabbit".

the man won a trophy every 9.8 minutes. an absolute legend and loved by all at city

💰 💰 💰 winners get £100m

What am I missing about this club world championship? Why do the PL clubs competing suddenly appear to give a shit about it? I always thought it was a bit of a joke, treated seriously by the giants of Mt. Maunganui FC, but kinda a bit silly for everyone else. *Fuck Tauranga AFC by the way. Biggest plastic fans of the entire Waikato. **disclaimer none of these clubs actually exist, at least as far as I know.

This shit again. 😆 The Blaydon Races was set in county Durham marra, it's a MLF song. Meanwhile wise men say, penned in Memphis, Wearside.