Tag: football

The Promise Keepers prayer sessions held in stadiums across the US during the 1990s were the first attempt of evangelicals and American football to team up to try to bridge the racial divide.

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The last week of the National Football League (NFL) season witnessed an outpouring of Christian faith. Players have never been shy about expressing their faith. They usually pray before games on the sidelines, triumphant quarterbacks will thank God in the sky after a touchdown, and victorious footballers love to credit God for why they won the game. But Week 18 saw an even more obvious display of faith. (more…)

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Advanced robotics

Brassneck was a cartoon robot schoolboy from a popular comic I read as a young lad in the 1960s, The Dandy. Older British readers will also remember this comic’s great rival, The Beano, and Dennis the Menace (which was very different from the American Dennis). (more…)

England’s lily-white Lionesses women’s football team.

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Rampant lionesses tamed by BBC

Women’s football — soccer to my American readers — is often scorned but is actually enjoyable to watch, provided you actually like the game and not just the tribal and commercial nonsense that nowadays comes with it. (more…)

Irish hurling

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Long-time friend of the show Pox Populi was the special guest on the latest broadcast of The Writers’ Bloc with host Nick Jeelvy to discuss the situation with the Dutch farmer protests, as well as answer your questions, and it is now available for download and online listening. (more…)

Vikki Spit and her fiancée. Spit has become the first person in the UK to receive compensation from the government for a death — her fiancée’s — resulting from the Covid-19 vaccine.

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Beware the Ides of June

Under British parliamentary rules, a vote of no confidence in a Prime Minister is similar to a recall vote in the United States, but it is the members of the incumbent PM’s parliamentary party — 359 Conservative MPs, in this case — who vote, and not the people. The peons only get to vote in general elections, where their choice is essentially between two brands of the same soap powder. (more…)

British MP Jeremy Hunt, whose surname is as perfect an example of Cockney rhyming slang as you could find.

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A bad month for the Iron Lady and the suffragette

There is never a good time to be a statue in England. You are out in all weathers, for a start, and on the rare days the Sun does shine pigeons seize the opportunity to take a dump on your head. But you do usually get to hang around on your pedestal or plinth for a few decades, or even centuries, before you are abused by humans. That, like much in the old country, is changing, and 2020 shall henceforth be known as the year of the great toppling. But the last month has seen attacks on statues of two famous English women, proving equality is alive and well. (more…)

Adam Vinatieri, the kicker who holds the NFL’s all-time scoring record.

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A long time ago, in a magical kingdom tucked safely away from the flaming hell we currently inhabit, there used to be this crazy, hate-filled idea that if some groups performed better on average than other groups regarding any given task, it’s highly likely that the main reason for this is that they simply were better than other groups at that task. It was so pure and innocent in its reasoning that someone invariably had to come and fuck it all up. (more…)

J. K. Rowling, who earned praise for getting herself cancelled this year by refusing to back down from her normal views on genitalia and gender.

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We can be heroes just for one day. — David Bowie

Hans, are we the baddies? — Mitchell and Webb sketch featuring Nazi soldiers

As European and Commonwealth countries act like faithful servants to the autocratic global coup currently taking place, my own home country of England has fallen into step like a good foot-soldier. The government, nominally Conservative but actually a sort of Green Socialist elite oligarchy, has gone full Bezmenov, contradicting itself on a daily basis about COVID and preventing its people from seeing dying loved ones while it parties maskless indoors. (more…)

Mária Schmidt & Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

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Following the Hungary-England football match in Budapest on Thursday, September 2, during which racist abuse against the British team was reported, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson posted a tweet in which he expressed that it was “completely unacceptable that England players were racially abused in Hungary.” (more…)

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The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
the score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
a sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game. (more…)

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In the final days of the holy Pride Month, the National Football League told the world: “Football is gay.”

The message came in a pro-gay ad released by the macho sports league. The ad also said that: “Football is lesbian;” “Football is queer;” “Football is transgender; “Football is bisexual;” “Football is American;” and “Football is for everyone.” (more…)

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Football players in England resumed their interrupted season in front of empty stands this month. Before the first game, each player, in addition to their name, squad number, and advertising slogans (including the now-sainted NHS or National Health Service symbol), wore the slogan “Black Lives Matter” on the back of their shirts, (more…)