Thursday 28 April 2011

Women's Football and University


University might not seem the most natural home of a footballer. But for women's football in the UK it is an extremely important institution. Whilst interest and participation in women's football is growing all of the time, it does not have anywhere near the facilities of the men's game, which makes the development of young talent a lot trickier for the women's game. With virtually all of the players in the UK being semi-professionals, the players must have another job in order to have a good standard of living. Naturally many will turn to university as a way of getting a higher paid job, but it does not mean the end of a budding young women's footballing career. University can, in fact, be a stepping stone into the top clubs in the UK and its national teams.

Friday 22 April 2011

Book Review – Geoff Hurst, The hand of God and the biggest rows in world football by Graham Poll


This book is definitely from Poundland. Not only because my flat mates bought it me for my birthday (they are students after all), but because it was the usual kind of book that you find there: written by someone you’ve sort of heard of (or their ghost writer), which isn’t very offensive and isn’t a particularly stimulating read.

Sunday 10 April 2011

Philosophy of Football: Defining Football- Part 2.

In the first part of our definition of football, I left you on something of a cliff-hanger. Firstly, I would like to apologise for any distress this may have caused you, it was a bit cruel of me; but I had to! Honestly, I needed to do more research; it’s a serious business this is. To recap, we decided that sport has very few unique features and so we must use other areas of philosophy to shed as much light on the nature of football as possible. If you remember I ended by saying that we were going on a journey (hope you’ve packed like I asked you to!). This is because I have had a bit of a novel idea as to how to go about finding out what is part of football.  

Saturday 2 April 2011

On Sitting Down to Watch Match of the Day Once Again

It has been three months since I last watched Match of the Day. I have been away at university and unable to get to a television in that time. As I came home today for the end of term, I did a few things I hadn't done for a while: played my xbox, ate my dad's cooking, helped with the crossword (got craic, pretty pleased with that) and watched Match of the Day. I realise this isn't earth-shattering news, it's what a lot of people do every Saturday, but as I watched the programme I realised something; I was really enjoying myself.