Every top domestic league has up to three dominant teams across their history, but each league is also prone to the rare anomaly. The Portuguese league is traditionally dominated by the threesome of Porto, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, who have won all but 2 titles since its inception in the 1934/35 season. But for the time being, the Primeira Liga is witnessing its own aberration.
The latest Portsmouth-Southampton derby, a League Cup clash ending in something of a trouncing for the hosts, was deemed notable by local media not just for the one sided nature of the scoreline but a comparative lack of trouble on the terraces given the pall of violence that has hung over the fixture in recent years. But footage subsequently emerged of a Pompey fan aiming a punch at a police horse, Luna, in an act of wanton cruelty in the aftermath of his side's heaviest defeat by their red & white neighbours from down the road in some years....
As their near neighbours crack on with hosting the Rugby World Cup, having kicked off with a win over another former football World Cup host nation- Russia- the Chinese appear to have taken a leaf out of the Brave Blossoms' book & started to look into the option of naturalising players for Team Dragon...
With England's cricketers having thrown everything into salvaging a draw from the latest Ashes series, has there been a better time to leave the clubhouse & turn the pitch over to football- as Joe Root & his men often do? A recent edition of the Tuffers & Vaughan Cricket Show found the hosts discussing the merits of such a warm up routine, with a number of injuries suffered in the build up to key matches attributed to swapping a smaller red ball for a larger white one.
Before the end of the 2018/19 football season, our Ed. managed to fit in another 'football away day' trip, where he coerces a group of friends to visit a ground that he'd not previously visited, to watch a team that none of us are emotionally invested in! The focus this time was Cheltenham Town, the date April 6th, and the opposition were the promotion-chasing Exeter City. This is how our day at Whaddon Road went.