Author Archives: Mike

Gil Merrick 1922-2010

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The death of former Birmingham City and England goalkeeper Gil Merrick was announced yesterday; he won 23 caps for England and played in the 1954 World Cup finals tournament, his final international appearance coming in the 4-2 quarter final defeat against Uruguay. Sporting a pencil moustache and slicked back hair during his playing days, he is probably best known as the ‘keeper who played in the 6-3 and 7-1 defeats against Hungary at Wembley in 1953 and Budapest the following year although the margin of defeat wasn’t his fault: at that time the Hungarians were playing football from another world.

Merrick was an old school one club man, making almost 500 appearances for the Blues between 1938 and 1960; the club renamed the Railway Stand after him at the beginning of this season.

News Round Up

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The draw for the 2012 European Championship qualifiers takes place tomorrow morning in Warsaw: there will be reaction to the draw at some point tomorrow but it won’t be immediate due to a family birthday celebration – happy birthday Sally!

We’re also looking at another 11lionslive event: barring any internet ‘issues’ it’s possible that we’ll cover the forthcoming friendly against African Nations Cup winners Egypt. More details later, probably via our Facebook page.

The latest John Terry nonsense  is all over the British papers and seemingly on an endless loop on Sky News, so there’s no point in rehashing it here other than expressing the opinion that Fabio Capello made the right decision to relieve Terry of the captaincy.

For Whom The Bell Tolls…

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It seems that you can’t watch TV or read a newspaper in the UK without being told about John Terry’s latest indiscretions so here’s a link to the Daily Mirror report.

The only real football interest in the story is what Fabio Capello will do. The new story – combined with other issues – has dented Terry’s credibility as captain (to put it mildly) but some of the names that have been suggested as replacements are hardly paragons of virtue. Unfortunately it seems that the press seem to think of the captain of the England team should be some kind of knight in shining armour; which is a lesson that any professional footballer with either aspiring to or currently occupying that position ought to remember the first thing in the morning when they wake up or last thing at night when they go to bed.

It was interesting watching ‘The Andrew Marr Show’ on BBC2 this morning as Sophie Raworth was the guest presenter, presumably meaning considerably less embarrassment for the BBC as Marr had one of these so-called ‘super injunctions’ overturned a few weeks ago. Arguably that should have set alarm bells ringing in certain quarters, but if you are arrogant enough to think you can get away with everything up to and including trying to gag the press…

In other news…Togo have been banned for the next two African Cup of Nations tournaments after they withdrew from the 2010 tournament (that ends today) because their bus was attacked by gunmen. Fortunately reserve keeper Kodjovi Obilale is making an excellent recovery from the gunshot wounds he received in the attack. Ghana face Egypt later in the final: the semi-final between Algeria and Egypt ended with the latter defeating the former 4-0 and the Algerians finishing the game with eight players. Not letting Algeria have any time on the ball and going for an early goal might be the way forward for our Group C game against them (Friday 18th June, 7:30pm GMT); expect a lot of impassioned gesturing, rolling around and sulking – and the Algerians may also try something like that.

More good news: Paraguay striker Salvador Cabanas – who was shot in a bar in Mexico City last week – is also making good progress although his participation this summer is highly doubtful. It appears he was shot following an argument with a known Mexican gangster who accused Cabanas of not scoring enough goals for Club America.

And finally…Arsenal v Manchester United this afternoon. In 3D if you’re lucky enough to live near one of the bars with the equipment.

History Repeating Itself?

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Thierry Henry has escaped any kind of censure from FIFA over the handball incident against Ireland last year, in much the same way as Diego Maradona did in 1986. The statement that FIFA issued is interesting though – the bold text has been added by us:

“On 2 December 2009, the FIFA Executive Committee asked the FIFA Disciplinary Committee to analyse the handling offence committed by Thierry Henry during the France v. Republic of Ireland match on 18 November 2009, and to consider the possible disciplinary consequences.

“At its meeting on 18 January 2010, the Disciplinary Committee reached the conclusion that there was no legal foundation for the committee to consider the case because handling the ball cannot be regarded as a serious infringement as stipulated in article 77a) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code. There is no other legal text that would allow the committee to impose sanctions for any incidents missed by match officials.”

In case you were wondering (and we know you were), here’s article 77 for you:

‘Article 77 Specific Jurisdiction

The Disciplinary Committee is responsible for:

a. Sanctioning serious infringements which have escaped the match officials’ attention:

b. Rectifying obvious errors in the referee’s disciplinary decisions:

c. Extending the duration of a match suspension incurred automatically by an expulsion (cf. art 18, par.4)

d. Pronouncing additional sanctions, such as a fine.’

So now you know. A deliberate handball in the act of scoring a goal that is missed by the referee is not a serious enough infringement for the FIFA Disciplinary Committee to look at it retrospectively. The last sentence in the statement is interesting as it seems to imply that the FIFA lawyers have had to look at it. You know, just in case any parties that might have had a grievance felt like taking the matter to the next level.

The second incident is reminiscent of what happened at the World Cup in Spain in 1982. Austria and West Germany knew they only had to draw in order for both to qualify for the second round at the expense of Algeria; so it should not have come as a massive surprise that the game – which as much fun as watching paint dry by all accounts - ended 0-0. Since then, the last group games in major international tournaments have kicked of simultaneously in order to prevent that happening again.

Or at least that was how it was supposed to work. On Monday – with both teams knowing in advance that a draw would do – Algeria drew 0-0 with Angola and both qualified for the quarter finals of the African Cup of Nations at Mali’s expense; Mali have launched an official complaint to the CAF about the game.

Hopefully we won’t get any outrageous decisions or games like those mentioned above this summer, but don’t be too shocked if we do. Let’s just hope England aren’t involved in any of them.

‘O wad some Power the giftie gie us…’

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Burns Night is a couple of weeks from now, but having been for a bit of a trawl round the internet this evening I came across this gem and was immediately reminded of these lines from Burns’ poem ‘To A Louse’:

‘O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!’

By the way, the Algerians may very well be ‘box fresh’ in June but they lost  3-0 to mighty Malawi in the African Cup of Nations earlier today. If Malawi can put three past them…

Insane Finish To Angola v Mali

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The hosts managed to blow a four goal lead in fifteen minutes to share a point with Mali; Angola were leading 4-1 with two minutes left, then Freddy Kanoute (Sevilla), Sadou Keita (Barcelona) and Mustapha Yatabare (Clermont Foot Auvergne 63 in France’s Ligue 2) scored to level the game, with the last two goals coming in four minutes of injury time.

Angola literally ran out of steam and had the game gone on any longer it’s likely Mali would have won.

Reports: Four Dead Following Attack On Togo Team Bus

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There still appears to be some confusion over the death toll, but it seems likely that as well as the un-named Angolan bus driver, assistant coach Abalo Amalete, press officer Stanislas Ocloo and reserve goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale were either killed during the attack or died of their injuries afterwards.

The Front For The Liberation of the Enclave of Cambinda (FLEC) claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on Friday afternoon.

Following the withdrawal of the Togolese team, Group B has been reduced to three teams (Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast and Ghana), with Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast scheduled to kick of at the Chimandela Stadium in Cambinda on Monday afternoon. As well as all but one of the Group B matches, the stadium is the venue for the Malawi/Mali game in Group A (18th January) and one of the quarter finals (Winners of Group B v Runners Up Group A) – the latter game may feature hosts Angola.

It goes without saying that we’re shocked and appalled at what’s happened over the last couple of days. We intended to cover the tournament in order to take a look at some of England’s opponents (principally Algeria but also Nigeria and Ghana, both of whom we may face after the group stage) and while we will still do so, at the moment our thoughts are with the friends and families of those killed and injured in this terrorist attack on Les Eperviers (The Sparrowhawks).

UPDATE: Reserve goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale was erroneously reported as having died by several sources on Saturday, it now appears that he was very seriously injured in the attack and was transferred to a South African hospital for emergency surgery – pictures of Obilale arriving strapped to a stretcher were shown on Sky Sports late on Saturday night.

Breaking News: Bus Carrying Togo Team Fired On

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According to the BBC, two players from the Togolese football squad in Angola for the African Nations Cup have been injured following an attack on their team bus this afternoon. We’ll keep an eye on the situation.

UPDATE: ESPN Soccernet is reporting three players and the bus driver were injured and quotes Nantes striker Thomas Dossevi as saying that the team no longer wants to take part in the tournament.

UPDATE: Yahoo! Sports is reporting that the driver – who was Angolan – was killed and that two players and two medics were injured. Both Emmanuel Adebayor of Manchester City and Mustafa Salifou of Aston Villa are reported to be uninjured.

Togo were scheduled to begin their Group B games on Monday with a game against Ghana in Cabinda, Angola.

UPDATE: Various news services are reporting that Togo FA Vice President Gabriel Ameyi has announced that defender Serge Akakpo (of Romania’s FC Vaslui) was injured, but there seems to be some confusion over the identity of another wounded player, named as ‘Obilali Kossi’ – this might be either Obilali Kodjovi of GSI Pontivy in France or Kossi Agassa, who aslo plays in France for Istres in Ligue 2. Both players are goalkeepers.

Ameyi also commented that the team apparently did not tell the CAF that they were travelling by bus and that they ‘should have flown’ to Angola. Presumably the Togolese FA should have had some kind of say in that too?

Cabinda is an Angolan enclave surrounded by both the Democratic Republic of Congo (which older readers may remember as Zaire, the Belgian Congo or Congo Kinshasa) and the Republic of Congo (formerly known as Congo Brazzaville and the French Congo) and despite being an oil rich area has a history of political violence even though the Angolan Civil War ended in 2002.