Daniel Durham

Sport, Politics and moaning about CPFC. Views my own…obviously.

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

This is the year when the game of two halves became the game of four quarters. And the greatest sport and event was damaged for fistfuls of dollars. Hydration breaks ruin the game’s flow and frustrates fans and viewers. If hydration breaks were solely about player welfare then they would be linked to the temperature in the stadia. It’s a nonsense having a three-minute break in an air-conditioned arena.

Fifa should long ago have established a working party of coaches, sports scientists, national team doctors and Fifpro to agree a set temperature at kickoff, say 25C, which triggers the breaks. That would prove the breaks were for player welfare. At the moment, and to nobody’s surprise, it is widely accepted that these breaks are for US TV to accommodate commercials. Big bucks for the small screen.

Fifa should have thought more about the effect on games and to fan (and viewer) experience when negotiating. Coaches’ desire for a mid-half tactical time-out masquerading as a drinks stop should be resisted anyway. Games have been played for 150 years without needing such intervention. Coaches can shout instructions. And who says that 22 mins and 67 mins is when a coach needs to intervene anyway. It’s nonsense. It’s about money.

Respected and sane footballing voices from Virgil van Dijk to Mauricio Pochettino have spoken out against the breaks. Fifa should listen to them not appear only to listen to the rustle of dollar bills. It’s important that there is resistance to this from all over. Because if we tolerate this, our TV games could be next. BBC can’t do ads, ITV says it won’t follow its US counterparts. But it has been discussed by TV people. It’ll come one day. #FIFAWorldCup.

[Amos Murphy @AmosMurphy_]

Curacao, ranked 82nd in the world, have Germany, ranked 10th, on the ropes... but let's stop for a "hydration break" in an air-conditioned stadium.

What an absolute farce.

[Brendan May @bmay]

Hard to believe that Labour has managed to return to its lifelong reputation, only ever shaken off by Blair & Brown, for being weak on defence, anti- entrepreneurship, pro spiralling welfare and at odds with aspiration. And it’s about to get worse.

Entirely avoidable lunacy.

[Adam Crafton @AdamCrafton_]

One of my favorite anecdotes from the build-up to this World Cup, which reveals so much about the collision between FIFA and U.S. cities.

The day a FIFA exec told Los Angeles that LA needed to be “put on the map.”

@TheAthleticFC

[David Gauke @DavidGauke]

Of all the demands for additional public spending, this is surely one of the least deserving. If he’s caving in on this, God help us.

[HLTCO @HLTCO]

I don’t think it’s got anything to do with “modern” football fans.

People have ALWAYS taken joy in others’ misfortune in football, schadenfreude goes hand in hand with tribalism. You don’t have to like it but it’s not a modern shift at all.

[Central @WestHam_Central]

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[HLTCO @HLTCO]

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To enter:

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🔄RT this post

[Dean Henderson @deanhenderson]

Warra trophies 🏆 ❤️💙

[Bobby Manzi @BobbyManzi]

People diminishing Crystal Palace’s Conference League win because they are the third English side to win it should remember that Leicester, Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa all failed to do so. If it were simply about finances, there would have been five English champions.

It's such a nonsensical argument. Real Madrid have won the Champions League 15 times and are the richest club in the world — but there isn't a problem with that. The whole idea stinks of sour grapes. #CPFC

[TobyWrites @tobyasky]

I’ll tell you something for free.

At the highest level of football, there are certain things you cannot fluke.

Glasner won the Europa League with Frankfurt, this was a time big teams use to drop from UCL into Europa, so he had to face teams like Barcelona on the way. Still, he won the Europa.

He came to Palace, with a small budget compared to the other English teams, he won the FA Cup, the first trophy in Palace’s history, he beat Man City to win it. You can’t fluke that, he’s a winner.

He qualified them to Europa by winning the FA Cup , but they dropped to Conference league because of the multi-club ownership saga with Textor. Despite the setback, he has just won an European trophy for a South London club.

In 2 years, he has changed a club’s history and won 3 trophies for them if we add the community shield. He did this while losing big players, lost his captain January, lost his best player to Arsenal in summer, lost Olise.

This guy is a winner.

[Benedict Spence @BenedictSpence]

Burnham rejecting Blair’s encyclical because it doesn’t mention “inequality” perfectly encapsulates why Burnham is going to be as much of a car crash as Starmer has been.

[Football Away Days @FBAwayDays]

Liquidation - Cancelled
FA Cup - Landed
Europa League - Boarding

It’s been a very long, and often difficult journey for Palace fans, but nights like tonight make it all worth it.

Love their tifo before the game. 👏

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

Further to Blair. Literally every honest sensible person in all the main parties privately agrees with all these propositions:

- welfare spending is too high and is throwing good people on the scrapheap
- defence spending is too low
- the triple lock is unsustainable
- without cheap energy we cannot exploit the AI revolution
- we should be investing in EVERY form of energy: renewables, nuclear and the North Sea
- migration needs to be controlled to boost social cohesion and because the boats look like a huge failure of the state
- any new relationship with the EU will be imposed on us until we are stronger and cannot involve the closeness some desire without freedom of movement
- we are deeply embedded with America in ways which the public does not understand and cannot be told and however joyous it makes us feel to hate Trump, disengagement at the deep state level is not only wholly unrealistic but also undesirable
- Whitehall needs a total overhaul so specific project expertise and political appointees can be brought in quickly

Blair basically says all that.

The one thing he doesn’t say and which the same group of people agree on is this and it’s something Blair left behind:

- judges and quangos have too much power, are unaccountable and without redressing the balance in favour of parliament it is very difficult to do anything big fast
- the bare minimum that needs to change in this regard is to reform judicial review and planning law so we can put building and economic growth ahead of newts and NIMBYs

None of that above really ought to be up for discussion. It is all common sense but not one of our politicians will publicly say all of it

Whatever you think of Blair, engage with what he’s saying not how he makes you feel. The bare minimum we should expect from any leader is that they have an analysis of the current situation and a plan to deal with it which is as coherent and realistic as his intervention. Pretty well every critique I’ve read so far has failed to meet this requirement.

Over to Andy and Keir and Kemi and Nigel and Zack and all the others

[Daniel Durham @DanielDurham6]

@Keir_Starmer @nevisondave What about Crystal Palace on Wednesday mate. And Aston Villa last week. Didn’t see you piping up then….

[Anglo Futurism Capital LP 🇬🇧🐿️ @RollingHedge]

This is unbelievably stupid.

[Max Klinger @MaxE2review]

To put this in perspective, this railway is costing (minimum) £1,000,000 for every 2 metres of track.

Planning on it started in 2009 and it won’t to be completed until earliest the 2040s.

It’s only 215km long. Will take over 30 years to build. China built a faster train line that’s over 6 times longer than this one in three years. And that Chinese railway cost at least five times less (£21bn) to build.

HS2 has cost us more than it cost the US to fly to the moon.

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

£102.7bn. Wow!

First trains 2036. Full network 2043. Almost three times the original budget. A decade and a half late and at a fraction of the original scope.

The Transport Secretary "shares our anger about the waste and mess" while she is the minister announcing it. Ministers do not share anger. Ministers act on it. She has held this brief for nearly two years. The £102.7bn is her figure. The 2043 timeline is her decision. The slowed trains are her policy. The choice to continue rather than admit the project is unsalvageable is her choice. She is not a witness to this failure. She is its current author. Yes, she's inherited a nightmare, but she'll now write the next chapter of it.

She then cites the Elizabeth Line as proof of competence. Crossrail came in £4bn over budget and years late. The bar is now so low that overrunning a previous project counts as the credential for delivering the next one.

What a disaster. What a disgrace.