Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

Looks like we missed an investment opportunity....from Bloomberg:

'Jeremy Lin has helped drive shares in his boss, Madison Square Garden Co., to a record high and produced the National Basketball Association’s best-selling jersey just over a week after he was a substitute at the end of the New York Knicks’ bench.'

Lol, the story has legs, this could just run & run.

Report ronight, please?

We don't see so many of these fairytale stories these days, I think it's terrific, & I'm really glad you Posted it.

Gotta go, it's Monday, so need to read "The Game" from cover to cover. Your bud, Tony Evans, has penned a fine, & cutting piece, today, on the Suarez affair. I assume you have seen it. 

By coincidence, "SnapShot" (inside back cover) this week has a photo from Anfield in 1969, which includes Ian St John, Joe Baker, & Ronnie Rees, back in the days of Shankly. What great times they were for Liverpool.

[tikay]

Defo teeks....was gonna apply for the role as your sports correspondent until I realised the sports u like most (horse racing and golf) I don't much care for, so you'd only really get football, cricket, rugby and basketball with me.

That racial stuff is as surprising as it is disappointing, but I guess it's only 20 years since it was normal to go to football and here openly rascist songs sung, now that never happens. My mate Tony Evans, who gave me that first job and is now footby ed at the Time and reponsible for 'The Game' which u enjoy so much once interviewed Clyde Best, who I think was one of the first black players in this country. He was openly abused and targeted, even by his own West Ham fans, bananas raining down on him, and the stuff he went through would have had most men just give up and duck out of the firing line. His strength and determination paved the way for todays' stars and Premiership product, an amazing man, wish I could find the interview, was in Football Monthly.

More Lin-sanity news tomoro, they don't play tonight. Be fun when their stars (Carmelo Anthony is on $65m over three years) come back to find some temp guy on less than $500k a year is the new cult hero

I was looking up Clyde Best, to remind myself of him. I do vividly recall the racial taunts he got, supporters turning up at the match with bunches of banannas. What can you say about these poor, simple, types who think that was clever, or funny?

At the time, I was a regular at all the London grounds, I never much cared for the Boleyn, but remember, in the late sixties & early seventies, you could watch 30% of the winning World Cup side regularly, with Bobby, Geoff, & "ten years ahead of his time" Martin.

So, I went googling, & fouind this really geeky football fan page, giving the Clyde Best stats.....

http://www.westhamstats.info/westham.php?west=2&ham=42&united=Clyde_Best

Note that the attendance was often north of 40,000, & that was before the ground was revamped.

[TightEnd]

Clyde Best, Hurst (number 9)...Billy Bonds

Hurst scores at Filbert Street 1969 so my file says

Name the player hugging Hurst...

[SuuPRlim]

What's that yoof readers of the (one of the) greatest diary(ies) in the world? Thinking of buying a new watch? Take a look at these bad boys



The Louis Moinet Magistralis, made from 2000yr old "moon meteorite" cased in 18karat gold. I think, you'll agree a simply stunning timepiece (I had this pegged as one of my "top buys" once I won £10m from poker ) elegant, not too audacious and I believe it also tells the time, for a smooth $860,000. Not too many around due to the rarity of moon meteorite



Taking a much higher rank up the audacity ranking is the Hublot Black Caviar Bang!

Made by hand and took a staggering 2,000 hours to create, casedin 18karat white gold, it also has 322 black gem grains woven delicately into the face and strap. Only one of them made, coming in for a round $1,000,000



A very classy number, considered the most complex watch ever made by hand, made of 834 parts and takes a little over 10,000 hours (1yr+) to be made, and has two identical working faces, meaning it virtually never stops working! Only 7 units produced so far. All your's for just $1,500,000



Patek Phillippe's Platinum World Time Watch

Coming from innovative Swiss watchmakers Patek Phillippe, who have been making stunning timepieces for over 150years, started when the son of a small pocket watch maker Antoni Patek, joined up with French watchmaker Adrien Phillippe. Together they led the way with "keyless winding watches" and before long there brand had become so exclusive, the likes of Queen Victoria, the Pope and several other European and Middle-Eastern Monarch's were amoungst their clientele. This little beauty became the worlds most expensive watch in 2002. Able to display 24hr time zones for different countries, in a surprisingly easy to read format, believed to be one of the first watches ever to offer this function. No wonder that lucky collector snapped it up for a cool $4,000,000!



Maybe one of the ugliest watches you've ever seen, it's a collection of 15, 12 and 11 Karat diamonds surrounding a 163 karat white diamond, making 201 total karats, hence it's name, The 201-Carat Chopard. Valued at a mind-boggling $25,000,000 - wouldn't wanna leave this one in your locker at the swimming baths! Has held the record as the world's most expensive watch for 5 years.

There you go yoof's, impress the old guard with a swanky new wristwatch today!

[tikay]

Clyde Best, Hurst (number 9)...Billy Bonds

Hurst scores at Filbert Street 1969 so my file says

Name the player hugging Hurst...

# 4 is Billy Bonds, but not sure of the other chap.

[tikay]

Pop Robson!

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

Pop Robson!

1 banana to the old timer. well played

[tikay]

Pop Robson!

1 banana to the old timer. well played

Better Pop Robson photo here. Look at that wonderful ground, & I wonder if you can guess what competiton it was in?

[TightEnd]

Pop Robson!

1 banana to the old timer. well played

Better Pop Robson photo here. Look at that wonderful ground, & I wonder if you can guess what competiton it was in?

Was it the Fairs Cup final at St James'?

1970ish?

[bobby1]

That Jeremy Lin story is superb.

[JaffaCake]

Pop Robson!

1 banana to the old timer. well played

Better Pop Robson photo here. Look at that wonderful ground, & I wonder if you can guess what competiton it was in?

Was it the Fairs Cup final at St James'?

1970ish?

Twas 1969 when the mighty Geordies won it, last thing we won. Am I making this up or did Pop Robson used to own the newsagents we used to go to by Gateshead bus station? Never knew much about him apart from he was a bit of a ledge from the old days

[tikay]

Pop Robson!

1 banana to the old timer. well played

Better Pop Robson photo here. Look at that wonderful ground, & I wonder if you can guess what competiton it was in?

Was it the Fairs Cup final at St James'?

1970ish?

It was St James Park, yes, & it was the "Inter City Fairs Cup", I believe.

I never visited the "old" SJP, but I regularly went to Roker Park, proper ground that.

Logically, it has always seemed bizarre, to me, to have a football ground in the very centre of a City, with all the disruption, parking, & travel chaos it brings on match days.

It's nearly as daft as, say, Man U & Man City insisting on seperate grounds, ditto Spurs & Arsenal, Liverpool & Everton, (the latter two both strapped for cash, but the Directors are scared the fans might shout at them) or a hundred other examples of financial lunacy in football. 

Rugby is almost as bad -  I only realised recently, because I pass both on the way to & from work, that Twickenhsm, & "The Stoop" are a mere several hundred yards apart. It used to be a similar situation in Cardiff, too, as I recall, but I can't recall the exact circumstances - does Cardiff Arms Park not back right on to the Millenium Stadium? And then Cardiff City went & built another new Stadium, too?

[tikay]

Pop Robson!

1 banana to the old timer. well played

Better Pop Robson photo here. Look at that wonderful ground, & I wonder if you can guess what competiton it was in?

Was it the Fairs Cup final at St James'?

1970ish?

Twas 1969 when the mighty Geordies won it, last thing we won. Am I making this up or did Pop Robson used to own the newsagents we used to go to by Gateshead bus station? Never knew much about him apart from he was a bit of a ledge from the old days

No idea, but it was the thing in those days for footballers to own newsagents/tobacconists/confectioners - as something for the future, after they retired.

Robson actually must be nearly unique - he played for Newcastle United, Sunderland, & Gateshead. Not many could get away with that!

[tikay]

That Jeremy Lin story is superb.

I have had 4 PM's about it, too, it's a cracking tale.

That Kimber fella should have considered a career in journalism. Oh, wait......

[gatso]

Gotta go, it's Monday, so need to read "The Game" from cover to cover.

this made me proper giggle. never took you for a pick up artist