Whens the last time an aussie won a golf major? World Heavyweight Boxing Champion? Australia will never win a world cup - FACT. Your good players are retiring soon and you have no youth coming through.
That does sound bad. Our broadcaster showed all the Dutch athletes live plus had 10 live channels on the internet! You could basically act as your own television producer it was great.
What a load of bollix. Talk to any athlete and they'll tell you they're much more comfortable in colder wet weather. I'm sorry but I can't believe how childishly jealous the Australians are of the Brits. The Brits proved that investment in sport does pay off and well done to them. And while it's downright impossible to match Beijing, I'm 100% confident that London will do a great job.
Yet on the FIFA board there's a whole bunch of you arguing that Australia deserves to host the world cup more than the Netherlands because Aussies love football too.
You don't know that, we have a decent future. All of our senior players tend to peak once there past 25 guys im sure your familiar with like Grella, Bresciano, Cahill, Neil, Emerton, McDonald, etc. We have never had an amazing young talent besides Kewell, but now with the A League we are producing some good young talent.
Guys, just ask yourself one question... How many people in the UK watch Tennis in between Wimbledon every year? There's a tennis competition in the US every year but I doubt the vast bulk of people in Britain even know what it's called. The viewing figures for Wimbledon are about 21m from the figures I've seen. The WC Final gets over 1 Bn. In any event I'm not saying we only care about Football. I'm saying that the level of interest in football is far, far greater than other sports.
Personally I'd prefer the synchronised pro-am grass mowing... I'm sure the aussies would do well at that and we all KNOW how popular and important it is
I found myself completely fascinated by the waterpolo. It's like wrestling in the water by oversized people in hideous swimsuits - ugliest sport ever but fierce! Not that I'll ever watch it again, not until the next olympics come around in any case.
There's a weekly olympic sports programme on Dutch telly that's called Studio Olympia, I don't think anyone watches it and by contrast everybody watches the olympics. Olympic sports are interesting once every four years and that's about it.
Some sports I'd never watched before were really good. Like handball, who knew? One of the great joys of the Olympics is watching stuff that probably wouldn't even be on TV otherwise.
The beauty of it being that these are people who for the most part don't earn a thing with their sport (that's what it's like with the Dutch anyway). The Dutch waterpolo girls trained 30 hours a week on 70% of the Dutch minimum wage. I watched the waterpolo final after reading an interview with Jaap Stam whingeing about how he spent half his life in five star hotels and how terrible it was that he was forced to take a nap every afternoon - that kind of thing almost puts you off football.
Not that impossible to match Beijing (except in the opening and closing ceremonies). As you mention, the weather is one thing London could easily improve on. Another is the overall party atmosphere surrounding the games. From all accounts, Beijing was quite lame in that respect.
There's another sign of the relative interest in sports as well. I saw something on the telly the other day about the sports facilities in Athens and how they're being used, (or not), now. Apparently quite a few of them are standing empty... huge white elephants that nobody gives a damn about. They're making a special effort to try and avoid the same thing happening over here and part of that is the new large arena is being designed as the central sports facility for track and field will be altered afterwards so that it can be used for..... FOOTBALL!!! Surprise, surprise Yeah, but they're like a lot of people, tbh... only happy when they're winning and thinking that everyone cares about what they care about. The idea that 95% of the population of the planet doesn't give 2 shits about it never seems to occur to them So apparently we all love cricket, rugby and tennis whereas in fact, we don't. We love it every 4 years, (one year for tennis, if that), for about a week. Truth is that people over here were upset when we didn't qualify for the euros but that we didn't get anywhere in the Olympic men's swimming finals? Who the hell cares???
Well theirs been talk about having a sitting tenant at Stratford though not necessarily football. But it will definantly stay an athletics course as well.We should have a world class athletics stadium in this country, hopefully London will get added to the Golden League rotation.
Certainly not in handball, though - a Bundesliga will earn arround 20.000 Euros a month there, some top stars more (just wanted to throw this in, as this was the sport The Potter mentioned).
Andy, you might find that at one time or another, 95% of the world population does care about other sports on top of the football. Take cricket for instance, almost 25% of the world population lie in cricket playing countries. Tennis fans have 4 grand slam tournaments a year, golfers 4 majors to look forward to plus any other tournamnets tiger plays etc. However you made a valid point regarding the white elephants. In Australia for example, the white water / rowing venue is desolate at times while the Olympic stadium is used for rugby league, some AFL games, rugby union internationals etc. The aquatic centre is used extensively and does have showers and soap on the premises. Thus the challenge London will have is what to do with facilities after the games because it will be used extensively during the game and not much afterwards. Buidling a multi purpose area with all the facilities and stadiums close by would work a lot more than have everything spread out because you can use the facilities for developing future athletes ie institute of sports etc. Roy, Geoff Ogilvy won a major called the US open a couple of years ago which is one more than Monty or Westwood ever won. I suppose you will claim Harrington as a Brit even though he is Irish. Mind you if I had the ability to play golf like Monty or Westwood I would be quite happy. As far as heavyweight champions go, I don't think we have produced one for a while but we are not fussed. We don't lose sleep over it. When was the last time a Brit won Wimbledon? Aussie football scene is improving with the advent of a new league a few years ago. Good kids are coming through and your 4 nations are lucky that we can't compete against you in euro or world cup qualifiers.