The thing that separates our soccer heroes from most of the rest of the world is a lack of wimpiness. Oh yeah, and also that we don't cheat. 

This really makes me angry.  We play a very British form of football – lots of kick and chase, hard tackling, no tricky shit, and an emphasis on fitness.  And it's great.  The sound of the wind in your ears as you make an unexpected break like a charging WW1 digger, the glorious feeling of throwing your precious body to the ground in front of a stampeding forward in a heroic slide tackle.  That's the game. 

But these ‘Latino style players', as I shall loosely call them, are wimps.  They hog the ball, do silly tricks, and turn their back on you when they have the ball – daring you to even tap the back of their leg.  So what?  You ask.  So they're wimps?  Well if it were just that, maybe it would be OK.   

But it's the disingenuous cheating that I really hate.  The professional fouling – the pathetic dives they take every thirty seconds.     

We saw it against Holland, the third best team in the world, where our gritty tackling saw us lose a man for most of the second half, while they lay about crying on the ground – and still we got a draw.  And they were at home! 

Leg wound: Tim thinks shin pads, like gun control, is for wimps and commies

Now these guys epitomised everything about the ‘Latino' style of play.  To start off with, they were hogs.  Second, if you so much as touched their leg they'd writhe on the ground screaming ‘Why?, Why?' or ‘Hey, Take It Easy'.  Third, they loved to blast shots at goal. They loved it.  But do you think they ever went and got the ball when it went 50 metres past the sticks?  Never, not once.  When a player from our team went to get the ball, they'd quickly get one of their own balls so we'd play for a few minutes a man down.  It was the same with throw ins.  Just hilarious.   

So, you'd think if they hated being tackled, they'd just rock up in sneakers like our team do.  But these guys had the whole lot on, shinpads, boots, soccer jerseys – what a bunch of pretty boys. 

You'd think that being such a bunch of wimps would mean they wouldn't tackle you hard.  But no, it didn't.  I received a deliberate super boot to the shin half way through the match – the guy who did it didn't even look back. 

But you see, that's just the idea.  To push you so hard and make you so angry you lose focus.  To put you off your gritty and fit style of game to force you to match their wanky skills.  To punish your sportsmanship and politeness as some sort of weakness. 

Now back to our national team.  In bringing in Guus Hiddink, we've got ourselves an acolyte of the Latino style of play.  During the Japan match he shoved a FIFA official while he was trying to watch a replay of Japan's cheating goal – later he shoved a Japanese official when the Japanese were trying to waste time during a substitution.  That's what we've bought in Guus – someone who understands impoliteness, machismo and cheating, and how to beat it. 

So let me just finish by saying – Latin-style soccer, it's just not cricket. 
 

Police Dog Madness 

Tim in the pub with his mate...

There were at least four uniformed police and two undercover police.  Within minutes a van arrived from which another four or five were disgorged - obviously this was a situation worthy of backup - if only the Cronulla riots had been serious enough to warrant such attention. 

Anyway I began talking to some of the un-uniformed plods – who gave me a spirited defence of their actions based on the amount of property crime and assaults in the area.  I explained this had nothing to do with my friend, but soon after decided I was wasting my breath. 

... Just before the cops led him away

Secondly, surely our money could be better spent.  That one battered joint kept at least ten police occupied for forty-five minutes.  I'd rather that money be put into catching white-collar criminals who seem to just laugh at the law.  Consider the trial of former One.Tel directors Jodee Rich and Mark Silberman that is still going – it collapsed in 2001.   

Thirdly, it might be great for police PR (and overtime pay) to do a swoop on Oxford St nightclubs and force everyone to throw their pills on the ground, but does anybody think it will really stop people taking drugs?  Maybe drug use is a fundamental part of the human condition?  Maybe all making them illegal does is force the people who are going to take them anyway to the black market where they have no idea what they are taking.  

4WD Campaign Working! 

You may remember my crusade against 4WD's.  My basic thesis was that most people who drive these enormous petrol guzzling trucks never use them for their intended purpose so should be punished by having patented Chaser bumper stickers plastered to them.  Well – check out the email we just got here at Chaser HQ. 
 
Does your organisation approve of your members entering private property to put stickers and abusive letters on peoples vehicles?  Whether thesentiments are accurate or not are irrelevant.  Your members are free to express their opinions in an appropriate legal fashion. However it is ashame that these members do not have anything more constructive to add toour society than these trashy abusive letters. This type of behaviour only draws negative sentiment to your organisation.  

Mandatory BB crosspromotion  

Now if you're at all interested in Big Brother, this week in Who I blog about boredom and endless idiotic babble being the real enemy in the BB house, and in my video podcast I break into Nova FM with BB intruder Jade, and I speak to the renegades from Behind Big Brother - the site the BB orthodoxy can't shut down! 

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