1. “The Longhorns have an on-campus stadium that accommodates 101,000 spectators and it’s only the sixth largest in college football across the States, yet bigger than any NFL stadium.
There are plans to extend to 120,000 in the not-too-distant future, and the stadium is used for only six or seven games per season. It’s not used for anything else, bar training sessions.
No need for pop concerts and the like to bring in the additional dollar. Everton, Liverpool, Spurs and the likes can only dream.”
On Christmas Day The Independent’s Matt Gatward published this gem of an eye-witness account of Austin’s religious devotion to college football.
2. “José Mourinho once famously declared: “I will never coach Málaga”; now, as the singer Alejandro Sanz pointedly noted, “Málaga are coaching you.” A lesson was handed out. Pellegrini defeated the club that mobilised the media against him and then sacked him. Málaga had just beaten Madrid 3-2. “It was a fair result,”"
The ever-entertaining Sid Lowe reports for The Guardian after Europe’s form team were told they could not compete on the international stage next season.
3. “…Without hesitation. Without consideration. I didn’t need to consider, for me, he just is.
This selection may not stand-up to statistical scrutiny or forensic debate but he was, in his all too brief pomp in the first half of the 80′s when I was going from plump sport-obsessed boy to stroppy sport-obsessed adolescent, my hero. That’s all you really need to know but as I have space to fill I shall tell you more…”
ESPN’s Mark Durden-Smith longs for his leaner, younger self while proudly explaining his choice of Ollie Campbell as the greatest fly-half of all time.
4. “They’re carrying ropes, straightening bandannas. The whole left side of the tunnel’s length is taken up by a holding pen packed jigsaw-puzzle full with placid, blinking steer. A steamy, neutral odor emanates from the pen, like body heat under a blanket. Everybody’s cheerful. The girls are trying to spot the rope cans of their favorite cowboys, laughing when they find one they recognize.
Our tour guide, Kendra, the NFR’s director of communications, who is wise-eyed and funny and reminiscent of the sort of high school guidance counselor who is loved by all the students, calls out hearty greetings: “Well, look who I found!” or “Hey how you been, Travis?” or “Good luck out there tonight.”
It’s not every day TheScore.ie indulges in some rodeo riding, so this Brian Phillips piece on the sport was a real treat on Grantland.
5. “My father once broke his ankle in a West Cork caravan park, following an abortive attempt to show his kids how to perform the Johann Cruyff drag-back. He loved that great Dutch team and for Christmas one year, he gifted my older brother and I an orange football.”
It’s a time of year when it’s impossible to forget those no longer with us, so two years on from his own father’s death, Dave Hannigan republished this touching, poignant blog.
6. “So desperate was the producer to use ref-cam that one ideal close shot from a touchline cameraman was cut in favour of a much worse one which showed the scrum-half’s shoulder.
Situated on the chest the ref-cam view can only ever be what is directly in front it which may be what the referee is looking at but many times is not.
It promised, but did not deliver, a closer view of the set pieces and breakdowns and the same could have been achieved by tight focus from existing cameras.”
Brian Moore takes a short shapr swipe through the Pravda to give a warts-and-all account of Sky’s newest innovation ‘Ref-Cam’ with The Telegraph.
