1. ”A year after their first democratic election, South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup. It finished with Nelson Mandela, sporting the green and gold jersey, handing the Webb Ellis Cup to captain Francois Pienaar. It was an image to show the marrying of the new South Africa, but it was still a country trying to find its feet.”
ESPN’s Tom Hamilton goes to find out if South Africa can really describe itself as a ‘Rainbow Nation’ 20 years on from Pienaar’s symbolic meeting with Mandela.
2. “Corbett would have felt more at home in a nightclub than on a trail. Fun for her then meant dancing for hours a night, high on meth and cloaked in black clothes and white makeup, like a vampire. Now she looks like a punk rock fairy, a colorful sprite known for her spirit and enthusiasm.”
Dan England keeps pace with the former drug addicts now hooked on Ultrarunning, for SB Nation.
3. ”So the schedule for Thursday 13 September 1937 on the BBC Television Service ran as follows:
3pm: Fancy That!
3.30pm: British Movietonews
3.40pm: Football at the Arsenal
3.55pm: Cartoon
4pm: Close
The Guardian’s Scott Murray takes the 78th anniversary of football’s first live game to delve in to Arsenal’s difficult early days on the box.
4. “We are informed that Chelsea is now by managerial decree a banter-free zone, which cannot help but serve as a reminder of what we have lost. For Cobham is not merely the locus of arguably the definitive Premier League moment – the time when Ashley Cole shot a work experience student with an air rifle at close range – it has also led the way in the league for high-concept japery. ”
Marina Hyde takes a sledgehammer to Chelsea in The Guardian - just for banter, like.
5. “Here’s a thing in the NFL called an “injury settlement,” whereby if a player gets injured during the preseason, and the team wants to get rid of that player, they have to cover his medical costs and salary for the weeks he’s predicted to be injured in a one-time payout. This amount can be in the thousands, if not the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, well, NFL teams don’t like parting with their money.
Sports Illustrated’s Chris Kluwe details how America’s richest sporting institutions get around paying injured players.
6. “New Zealanders temporarily outraged by Dawson’s hilarious – no seriously, get some duct tape, my sides are coming apart – parody of the Maori haka are simply experiencing what all viewers of A Question of Sportor televised rugby have known for a while. Dawson would win a Nobel Prize for Irritation every year.”
In The Telegraph, Jonathan Liew casts an eye on ‘rugby’s Tim Lovejoy’ Matt Dawson.
