The Geriatricos (April '12)

The news that Raul is due to be released by Shalke 04 in the summer was almost enough to make grown men misty-eyed - the prospect of the Madrid legend indulging in a second swansong at your club warms the cockles, regardless of his age.

Not all ancient footballers evoke the same romanticism - think Michael Owen at Manchester United - but there remains a crop of stalwarts still plying their trade across Europe who would be welcomed with open arms at whichever club they chose to retire at.

I give you - The Geriatricos.

Goalkeeper - Gianluigi Buffon - A relative youngster - especially for a goalkeeper - at 34 years old, Buffon seems to have been around forever. Widely regarded as one of the world's best for the last 15 years, and a World Cup winner in 2006.

Full-Back - Michel Salgado - Currently stuck in a rut winding down his contract at the Cirque De Blackburn, Salgado was fantastic during his ten-year stint at Real Madrid.

Centre-Half - Alessandro Nesta - Maturing much like former partner-in-crime Maldini, it's now been almost 20 years since Nesta first appeared for Lazio. World Cup winner and European Cup winner - twice.

Full-Back - Roberto Carlos - Now pushing 40, Carlos is currently with mega-rich Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala. He was renowned for his free-kicks - after his Confederations Cup stunner against France - but in truth he was pretty naff at them.

Midfield - David Beckham - He may have sacrificed the back-end of his career by heading for the glitz and glamour of LA - but he still owns the world's best right-foot.

Midfield - Paul Scholes - The 37 year old saviour of Manchester United's season. Metronomic, flawless passing mixed with amusing, play-ground tackling.

Midfield - Clarence Seedorf - He's won the European Cup 4 times with 3 clubs in a career spanning 20 years. A refreshing presence alongside messrs Lineker and Hansen during the BBC's 2010 World Cup coverage.

Midfield - Juan Carlos Valeron - Lynchpin of the Deportivo side which reached the European Cup semi-final in 2004. Adored at the Riazor.

Attack - Alessandro Del Piero - Made the most appearances and scored the most goals in the history of the mighty Juventus - staying with them despite their forced season long stint in the Serie B.

Attack - Ruud Van Nistelrooy - Lionel Messi recently reached his 50th Champions League goal after 66 games, Ruud managed it in 62. Prolific.

Attack - Raul - 323 goals in 741 matches for Real Madrid along with every trophy imaginable. Matured like a fine wine at Shalke 04 - now a free agent.

Adopting a 3-4-3 formation, it's a team of nostalgia and class. If games finished after 30 minutes, they'd be unbeatable.

'Stand up, if you hate Melbourne'.

For all the rivalry between the two countries, Australian football fans are keen to follow in the footsteps of their English counterparts.

Australia is a sporting giant.

Decades of ‘Pommy-bashing’ – including a jinx held over the English cricket team which at times verged on the sadistic – have helped forged a rivalry of great quality, enjoyment and more often than not, torment.

But when it comes to football – or soccer - Australian influence in Britain is comparatively negligible.

Granted, there was Craig Johnston - the mid-80s Liverpool winger who designed the Adidas Predator – and Tim Cahill’s sporadic corner flag abuse was afforded fleeting bemusement.

Aside from this, a sprinkling of distinctly average footballers – think Brett Emerton, Lucas Neill or Vince Grella – is pretty much all Australia have had to offer.

Heading down-under, it was this which made it difficult to be anything but sceptical about the prospect of the Hyundai A-League providing my fix of live football.

The A-League is largely void of the stardust the likes of Thierry Henry, and of course David Beckham, have sprinkled over America’s MLS. Average yearly league attendances only just creep above the 10,000 mark, and the football is largely considered to be absolute dross.

Still, I couldn’t resist dipping my toe in the water and heading to a game – Emerton’s laser-blue clad Sydney FC against the Newcastle Jets – a local derby and a match pivotal to both sides play-off chances.

The football was, as expected, very poor. The sluggish pace made Emerton look like Zidane and suggested even the Jet’s bench-warmer and perma-crock Francis Jeffers wouldn’t have been out of his depth.

Yet the football aside, my A-League debut was an enjoyable experience. We stood on ‘The Cove’ – Sydney’s answer to the Stretford End – where the influence of Europe, and particularly Britain, on Australian fan culture was clear. Alongside the swathes of banners and flags, the 15,000 crowd sang songs normally heard on terraces across England at 3pm on a Saturday - ‘They’re Sydney, they’re barmy, they’re off their f****n’ heads’.

As the game progressed, so too did the atmosphere. Whereas it’s a heinous crime to be seen with alcohol on an English terrace – it’s paramount to heresy to be seen without it in Australia. Stewards were also incredibly lenient with any persistent standing, and barely lifted an eye when a missile was launched at the away team’s goalkeeper after Sydney’s winning third goal –although admittedly, it was only a tennis ball.

It isn’t just the football which appears to have been ‘Anglicised’ either.

Watching my adopted local Rugby League team – the South Sydney Rabbitohs – was again reminiscent of watching football at home, as the ‘Bunnies’ fans raised their beers to ‘Drink a drink, to Sutton the king’. They even had one ditty set to the seemingly inescapable ‘Sloop John B’.

The parallels between English and Australian fan culture are clear. Given that the A-League was only incepted in 2004 and that the Premier League has such large global influence – this is hardly surprising.

It appears that for once, the Aussies are willing to take a lead from their great Pommy rivals.

A Change of Seasons.

Across England, as winter draws to a close, the first glimpse of an early spring sun is met with delirium. For some it’s the signal to descend upon the nearest beer garden and start longing for boozy summer trips to Magaluf. For others, it marks the perfect time to drag a dusty cricket bag down from the loft and crack open the linseed oil as the countdown to the season begins.

On the other side of the world however, it’s nearly time to retire the bat and gloves and lace up the rugby boots.

The Mancunion was present in Sydney, Australia, to witness an almost ceremonial changing of the guard, as the Tri-nations one day series drew to a close and the Super 15 and NRL seasons began.

The Super 15 season kicked off on the 24^th of February with the New South Wales Waratahs at home to the Queensland Reds – a fixture touted as Australia’s fiercest Union rivalry. The game was played at the hugely impressive ANZ stadium – a legacy of the 2000 Olympics.

A thrilling, open game showcased the stark contrast between Northern and Southern hemisphere rugby – and both sides inability to retain possession was perversely enjoyable.

The Waratahs, spearheaded by Wallaby Adam Ashley-Cooper – but without Berrick Barnes, Drew Mitchell and Rocky Elsom – dominated for most of the game, but a last minute error allowed Red’s Dom Shipperley to ghost over for the match-winning try.

It was an absorbing encounter – and with a crowd close to 35,000 it felt a world away from the more familiar surroundings of Edgeley Park on a Friday evening.

The following Sunday The Mancunion headed to the SCG to see the penultimate Tri-Nations group game, as Australia eased to an 87 run victory over India, ensuring their progression into the series finals.

Whilst significantly smaller than the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the SCG is a stunning venue. The stands which can house over 45,000 spectators are as impressive as the old pavilion is quaint – a perfect blend of the old and new.

The 35,000 crowd was a boisterous mix of the ‘Swami Army’ – India’s supporters group – and the Australian ‘Fanatics’. On a lager-soaked afternoon it was clear that going to watch the cricket is a different culture over here – cucumber sandwiches were replaced with ‘schooners’ of Toohey’s and XXXX. Indeed, the Australian support delighting in informing Virat Kohli that he’s a ‘massive wanker’ told you all you needed to know – this wasn’t the member’s stand at Lords.

After Australia just managed to eclipse the 250 run mark in the opening innings, India’s run-chase never really gathered momentum. Sachin Tendulkar once again failed in his bid to reach his hundredth Century – his haphazard run-out thanks to Gautam Gambhir’s incompetence was the day’s only real disappointment.

So with the Australian cricket team leaving Sydney for the last time this winter, local attention turned to rugby league.

Akin to football in England, the NRL seems to completely dominate the national psyche – nowhere more so than in New South Wales, which boasts 10 of the league’s 16 sides.

Throughout Sydney the opening NRL fixtures were the talk of the city – especially the weekend’s closing game between South Sydney Rabbitohs and Sydney Roosters. Like the Waratahs, the Rabbitohs conceded in the final minute, losing 24-20 to their fierce rivals.

At home, it isn’t long before the first sounds and sights of leather on willow appear.

As summertime approaches down under, however, Australia is rugby mad. 

Sydney Swans are the team for me...

Sports Editor Patrick Madden in the first of a series of columns covering sport down under.

Manchester University’s study abroad programme and all involved with it are entirely competent when it comes to helping students adjust to the culture shock of a move abroad. Whether it’s how to deal with differences in language and culture to simply coping with home-sickness – the study abroad survival guide seems to have all the answers.

As I’m on the cusp of spending a term in Sydney, Australia, I was trawling through looking for last minute pointers when I realised a key chapter was missing. There was nothing about coping without the most important thing of all – football.

Indeed, like an infant torn from the maternal bosom, I am about to be dragged kicking and screaming away from my beloved Manchester United. As my plane disappears down under, so begins a 6 month break in our relationship – the longest we will have been apart.

If it wasn’t for the prospect of living in Australia, then the idea of eloping and missing the end of the season – and more importantly a trip to Amsterdam – would have been baulked at.

But as it is, last minute scrabbles for away tickets will be replaced with hunts for late night bars to watch the match – my seat in K-Stand replaced with a bar stool in ‘Scruffy Murphy’s’ or ‘Cheers Bar’ (The ‘Official’ Sydney City Supporters bar…)

The eleven hour time difference means watching most games will be a test of stamina – and whilst some of them will conveniently fall at the end of nights out, watching 4pm Sunday games at 3am on Monday morning is far from ideal.

This leaves me with a serious conundrum – how am I going to fill my Saturday afternoons?

I could go and watch Sydney FC - current side of former Feyenoord and Blackburn Galactico Brett Emerton.  Their 45,500 stadium looks impressive but unless it’s a game against fierce rivals Melbourne Victory it is rarely at capacity. They also play in a distinctive shade of laser-blue, drawing one too many comparisons with a certain team from home to warrant regular visits.

One of Sydney’s premier attractions – the famous Sydney Cricket Ground – is the home of New South Wales cricket. New South Wales currently have a squad littered with Australia’s best – including Michael Clarke, Shane Watson and Brett Lee – and have amongst their former players Glenn McGrath, the Waugh brothers and a certain Sir Donald Bradman.

Illustrious, and an enticing prospect, but for fact the season is nearly over.

By the time I will have arrived and settled the Australian Rugby League season will have started. Melbourne is often considered as Australia’s major sporting city – but when it comes to League Sydney dominates, having 9 sides.

But if I was to spend my weekends watching the NRL I’d be faced with the political minefield of who to support. Would I be a Sydney Rooster or a Penrith Panther - a Manly Sea Eagle or a South-Sydney Rabbitoh? It’s a decision I’m not yet qualified to make.

Thus, it’s left to Aussie Rules - a mix of rugby, Gaelic football and bare-knuckle boxing- to fill the football shaped void in my weekends.

The Australian Football League season starts on the 24^th March with the New South Wales derby – Sydney Swans against Greater Western Sydney Giants.

I think the Sydney Swans will be my adopted side for the next 6 months.

After all, they do play in red and white.

FA Cup tie offers end to race row. (Jan '12)

It was hard not to laugh when the draw for the FA Cup fourth round was made. Liverpool were to play Manchester United at Anfield.

At the very best of times, this is a fixture laced with more bile and venom than any other in the country. The last time a United team travelled down the East Lancs road for an FA Cup tie, the ambulance carrying an injured Alan Smith was rocked in the streets, excrement was flung at the visiting supporters and missiles were launched at Steven Gerrard.

The rivalry and contempt both sets of supporters hold for each other is such that even at last week’s fixture at home to Stoke, ex-Liverpool players Jermaine Pennant and Peter Crouch were serenaded by United fans with songs about Heysel – whilst at their end of season parties Liverpool’s chief supporters group, Spirit of Shankly, have been known to have a man on stage with a guitar singing about the Munich Air disaster.

This use of disaster to score points is nothing new, but it leaves a sour taste. In the increasingly sanitised world of modern football great rivalries are needed more than ever – and Liverpool United is one of the greatest. Born during the industrial revolution, as battles over cotton and tax led to the building of the Manchester Ship Canal, the clubs are the most successful and best supported in the country – and this has led to, as Stuart Maconie puts it, ‘a vendetta that's Sicilian in intensity’.

Recently an extra dash of poison has been added to the contest – courtesy of Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra’s clash at Anfield in October -and the proverbial shit-storm which followed.

Suarez was found guilty of racially abusing Evra by the FA and subsequently banned for eight games.

This merely made him a martyr on Merseyside, as ‘Justice for Suarez’ became the Kop’s latest campaign. Uruguayan flags were waved in unison and the Liverpool squad – joined by manager Kenny Dalglish – made the perhaps ill-advised move of warming up in Suarez t-shirts before their match against Wigan. Guilty or not, it’s difficult to see how their supporters and players could so openly back a man facing the charge of racial abuse.

The whole, sorry affair poured fuel on the fire of hatred. It was thus written in the stars that the two sides would meet in January’s cup game.

Frothing with feelings of injustice, Liverpool fans promised Evra the reception from hell. United supporters teased on internet forums about the prospect of turning up to ‘Klanfield’ with pillow cases on their heads.

The game ultimately passed by without major incident. Evra was soundly booed on his every touch -but before there could be any debate over the morals of booing the victim of racial abuse, The Kop made it loud and clear that they aren’t racist - ‘they only hate mancs’.

It was Evra –predictably -who made the game-changing error, leaving himself out of position and gifting Dirk Kuyt the chance to seal a 2-1 win for Liverpool and a place in the 5^th round.

For now, in the aftermath of the storm, tempers have cooled.

Yet his coming Sunday, when Liverpool are welcomed to Old Trafford, it could all boil over once more.

Gary Speed - Rest in peace. (Nov/Dec '11)

In the early hours of Saturday the 26^th November, Stan Collymore made a post on his Twitter page. It was a long account of his battle with depression – how he hadn’t slept for four days, how he was riddled with suicidal thoughts.

It was a tragic coincidence that the next day terrible rumours of Gary Speed’s suicide began to surface.

The news stunned the footballing world, and many outside of it.

In this post-Diana age we are a nation of grief-junkies. Whether it’s an earthquake in Japan or the death of Jimmy Saville, people are all too keen to show their concern in the form of Twitter hash-tags and Facebook statuses.

Yet when it transpired that Speed had hung himself the tributes which followed were borne out of genuine sadness and shock. There were no band-wagon jumpers who wanted to get their fix of public mourning – people, like myself, who had no real attachment or affiliation with the man from North Wales, were completely stunned.

The same day as Speed’s death the game between Swansea and Aston Villa went ahead. The Sky cameras lapped it up – cruelly focusing on a visibly distraught Shay Given as a minutes silence turned into a minutes applause. That evening on Radio 5 Live Robbie Savage was present in his usual role as co-host of the 606 phone-in. The programme began with Land of my fathers in tribute to Speed and when it was Savage’s turn to speak he simply couldn’t, as he broke down in tears on national radio.

‘Why?’ he asked. Why would a man like Gary Speed, respected up and down the country, with a brilliant career behind him and an equally promising one ahead of him – a man with a young family and movie star looks – kill himself?

It is the question on everybody’s lips. From the outside looking in, Speed had it all. This is the scariest, most sombre aspect of his suicide. How tormented, how mentally ravaged must Speed have been for him to take the most fateful of action?

It appears that even those closest to Speed had no idea about his depression. Less than 24 hours before his death he had appeared on the BBC’s football focus – an articulate, likeable, affable man.

Like homosexuality, depression is one of sport’s last taboos. It is obvious that top flight sports people – people who operate in a fierce, pressure cooker of an environment – are likely to be susceptible to mental problems. Yet why can’t they speak about them?

In recent times stories of sporting depression have become more commonplace. Ronald Reng’s biography of German goalkeeper Robert Enke and his suicide was named William Hill sports book of the year. Former Somerset captain Peter Roebuck, and German referee Babak Rafati, who was found bleeding to death in a hotel bath just hours before he was to take charge of a Bundesliga fixture, are recent examples of desperate cries for help.

Yet nothing has reverberated or saddened people quite like the death of Gary Speed. Since his suicide five footballers have contacted the Sporting Chance clinic, seeking help. Maybe if Speed’s death can urge people to seek treatment – and shatter one of sport's last taboos – then maybe something positive can come from something so tragic.

Gary Speed should never be forgotten. We can only hope that whatever demons he had have been put to bed.

Goodbye, and rest in peace.

Connacht make Heineken Cup debut. (Nov '11)

Ireland’s fourth province finally have the chance to dine at European rugby’s top table.

With Munster and Leinster securing Heineken Cup victory twice each in the last six years, it’s safe to say Irish domestic rugby’s star is consistently on the rise. Munster have been European heavyweights for much of the last decade - and with players of the ilk of O’Driscoll, D’Arcy and Johnny Sexton - it was only a matter of time before Leinster joined them. Indeed, even Ulster have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance after reaching the quarter-final stage last season.

Yet as a Sexton master class saw Northampton outgunned in this year’s final, the cheers could be heard out in Galway – not just Dublin – as Leinster’s victory paved the way for Ireland’s junior provincial side, Connacht, to make their first foray into European Club rugby’s premier competition.

It has taken sixteen years of trying but finally the side from Ireland’s wild, windy West have their chance to slug it out with Europe’s finest. It serves as a remarkable achievement for a club who in comparison to their rivals are extremely limited in finances and fan base - and also presents an outstanding opportunity for Connacht to cement themselves as a familiar name on the continent.

The prospect of Heineken Cup rugby may even enable them to hold onto their best talents – the likes of Sean Cronin and Paul Warwick have been lured by bigger sides in recent years. The inevitable loss of their finest players means Connacht’s squad is an eclectic mix of home-groan starlets, such as Tiernan O’Halloran, club veterans like John Muldoon and Michael Swift, and the occasional international in Johnny O’Connor and talisman Gavin Duffy.

Led by club legend Eric Ellwood, Connacht headed into their first game - away at Harlequins – with the all too familiar title of plucky underdogs.

The two sides clashed in last year’s Amlin Cup, with Harlequins subjecting the men in green to two tight defeats. The English side were also enjoying a club record-equalling start to the season after ten consecutive victories.

With this, there was an air of inevitability about Connacht’s 25-17 loss at the Stoop. In an intense, physical battle, Connacht outscored ‘Quins by two tries to one and dominated for much of the game – but the boot of Nick Evans proved to be the difference between the sides.

Yet despite the loss, it was a positive debut for Connacht.

They now prepare to welcome the aristocrats of European rugby – the mighty Toulouse – to the humble Galway Sportsground.

The French giants may have four European Cups under their belts – but not even they will fancy the trip west.