Righting the wrongs

I quite enjoyed the resumption of the Premier League after the coronavirus lockdown.

With a match almost every night, it really offered something to sink your teeth into.

I definitely ended up watching much more Premier League than I was earlier in the season. My attention back then may well have been saturated by the vast array of different sports available to watch, and each of their different competitions. The top level of English men’s football had become something that I was taking for granted.

This is not to say that I stopped caring, or was not watching at all. Indeed, it was impossible to ignore the fantastic season that Liverpool were forging.

With the restart, however, it gave me a chance to live through sport at its best.

Sport is at its best when it has a narrative.

If you tune in to the last five minutes of the World Cup final, or glance up at a screen just as an Olympic gold medal is being won, it is never as good as feeling like you’ve seen a story unfold by watching more than just those climactic moments.

This is what I felt with the return of the Premier League.

Yes, Liverpool were certain to win the title. But could Leicester City get the job done and qualify for the UEFA Champions League? Could Wolverhampton Wanderers or Sheffield United find a way in there, too? Burnley and Crystal Palace also had a chance of gaining European football next season. And then there’s the fight to avoid relegation.

In normal times, Aston Villa versus Sheffield United would probably not be a match which I'd sit down in front of. For their meeting on 17^th June, though, I made sure I was watching. It was the very first Premier League match back.

My anticipation had been rising. Other countries in Europe had already got their leagues back underway. German football now had a new following. I had just spent the weekend watching Polish action.

The match at Villa Park represented a success. British sport could pull itself through these tough times.

Villa Park before a Premier League match in 2006

As for the match itself, 0–0.

Yet, there was an incident.

A rather big incident.

Late on in the first half, the Aston Villa goalkeeper caught the ball from a free kick, only to take it over the goal-line. Not by much, but definitely over.

No goal.

Why? Offside? Pushing in the box?

Nope.

The Goal Decision System did not indicate that a goal had been scored.

Sheffield United were denied the lead in the most bizarre circumstances.

The match officials on the pitch should bear no fault for this failure. The referee wears a watch which alerts when a goal is scored. With no reason to suppose otherwise, the referee awarded nothing, as his watch remained blissfully sedate. He assumed it to be the case that not all of the ball had crossed all of the line.

The Video Assistant Referee (VAR), on the other hand, should take some blame in this instance. While the Goal Decision System is used to decide whether a goal is scored by measuring whether the ball has crossed the line, VAR can be used at any time to help with match changing incidents.

So why didn’t VAR intervene here?

They could have done and should have done.

In truth, upon watching the first few replays, I wasn’t 100% sure myself.

When the ball is on the ground and mostly over the goal-line, it is possible to see the green grass between ball and line, but for it not to be a goal due to the curvature of the ball, and the overhang that this creates. Although the ball was instead being clutched by the goalkeeper at Villa Park, my first thought was that this effect had come into play. After all, the ball looked far enough over the line for it to take only the slenderest of margins for it not to be a goal.

But each replay showed the keeper stumble back a little further. Surely in that moment he had taken the whole ball over the whole line?

Of course, in time, we got the clarity that he had. I guess that the VAR just assumed that the Goal Decision System was better placed to make a judgement than everyone who could see what happened on the replays with their own eyes.

On the night, it was a big talking point at half time. Another football controversy.

By this time, I had accepted that it should have been a goal.

I was thinking of reasons as to what could have gone wrong.

What with it being the first game since lockdown, maybe the officials had forgotten the correct protocols in enabling the goal-line technology? Maybe the virtual line ‘seen’ by the cameras involved in the technology had been calibrated incorrectly so that it did not match up to the actual line in real life?

Whatever the reason for the error, a thought had occurred to me during the interval.

At the start of the second half, could Aston Villa just allow Sheffield United to score, unopposed?

All three dressing rooms (home, away and referees’) must have become aware of the situation at the break. A quick discussion between a member of each would suffice for an agreement to be made that the ball could be walked in.

It would right the wrongs of the first half, and still give Aston Villa plenty of time to respond.

None of the pundits or commentators brought up the idea at the time. Maybe if they had, someone could have relayed it to the managers to mull over before they came out for the second half.

There are various precedents for teams allowing their opponents to score. Most that I can think of involve when a team score unintentionally as play is restarted after an injury.

Indeed, Aston Villa scored an uncontested goal of their own in April last year. Leeds United had scored in their meeting, despite Aston Villa having a player down injured. Then, to the bemusement of many, an irate Marcelo Bielsa, the Leeds United boss, ordered his players to allow Aston Villa to score. Perhaps most astonishingly of all, that episode saw Leeds United win FIFA’s Fair Play award later that year, despite Bielsa having his staff spy on opponents’ training earlier in the campaign.

Another occasion that I can think of involved Nottingham Forest and Leicester City in a League Cup encounter in 2007. The East Midlands rivals were drawn against each other, but animosity transitioned to concern when Leicester City’s Clive Clarke suffered a cardiac arrest. The match was abandoned.

Clarke would recover, and the match was rescheduled. As Nottingham Forest were leading 1–0 when the original match was halted, Leicester City decided that “it was a difficult situation, but it was the right thing to do” to let their opponents have a free goal in the new fixture, and reset from there.

Interestingly in that match, it was the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Paul Smith who was the one to score uncontested. In that way, betting markets couldn’t be manipulated ahead of the match if word got out about the plans.

So, should Aston Villa have allowed Sheffield United to score for free?

Or, from another point of view, why should Aston Villa have allowed Sheffield United to score for free?

It was not Aston Villa’s fault that the technology failed. Nor was it their fault that there was no intervention from VAR. It is not up to Aston Villa to referee the game. It is not up to them to decide which injustice is an injustice too many for the sport of football.

After all, football is still ridden with decisions that should not be. On Sunday, Brentford’s Rico Henry was shown a red card in the first leg of their play-off semi-final against Swansea City. That resulted from a challenge which had the Brentford bench applauding the quality of. The referee’s decision may well have been pivotal on that night, as Swansea City went on to score and win 1–0.

Henry’s red card ended up being rescinded. He was able to play in last night’s second leg, and was instrumental in Brentford’s third goal which ended up being vital. Brentford could leave Griffin Park on the highest of highs. I’m sad that I never got the chance to go to that ground.

Brentford head coach Thomas Frank has called for VAR in the play-offs. Maybe we will see that be the case sooner rather than later. Although, as we see in the Premier League, having VAR available is no guarantee of the correct decision.

There has been a litany of VAR decisions in the Premier League this season which experts have said were wrong.

So, why should Aston Villa have allowed Sheffield United to score for free?

That question's even more rhetorical this time. After all, football has seen other errors, and they have not gone on to be corrected in-game, so why should this one?

To give an answer, I suppose that this was not an instance of a red card, a penalty or anything else which might have had an effect on the scoreline. This was an instance which very much did have an effect on the scoreline, as Sheffield United had a perfectly legitimate goal simply not count.

But, again, why should it be up to Aston Villa to decide on the fairness of the situation? Is it not understandable that when you are in the relegation mire you take every single piece of good fortune that you can possibly grasp?

I think that that is what the Aston Villa fans can hold onto. If their team had just allowed Sheffield United to score, then those fans might not have felt that they’d seen their side do the right thing, and instead finish the night feeling dejected, as they’d have just wasted the biggest slice of luck that they’d been handed all season.

Regardless of what the right thing to do was, the fact is that the match ended goalless. Officially, at least.

Aston Villa were able to add a point to their Premier League tally.

Fast forward to the final day of the season. Aston Villa stay up by one point.

It’d be remiss of me to avoid mentioning the heart that the club showed to collect eight points from their final four games and drag themselves out of the drop zone.

However, this week it has emerged that AFC Bournemouth are pondering a legal challenge over that goal-line technology error back in June.

Had Aston Villa not got a point out of that match, AFC Bournemouth would have survived instead.

Maybe this is a case of ‘would’ve, could’ve, should’ve’, and should instead be a case of ‘the table doesn’t lie’. Maybe. But this shows that there are at least a few murmurings of resentment coming out of AFC Bournemouth.

Look, I think that it’s important to point out that I can’t see any scenario where AFC Bournemouth are somehow reprieved of relegation. The season has been played out, and it is too late for any fiddling in the courts (I say that while relegation issues in the Championship and League Two are still being decided… in the courts).

What might be likely is for AFC Bournemouth to consider chasing damages, possibly from Hawk-Eye, the company which operates the goal-line technology.

After the Aston Villa–Sheffield United match, Hawk-Eye released a statement, explaining what went wrong:

“The seven cameras located in the stands around the goal area were significantly occluded by the goalkeeper, defender, and goalpost. This level of occlusion has never been seen before in over 9,000 matches that the Hawk-Eye Goal Line Technology system has been in operation.

“Hawk-Eye unreservedly apologises to the Premier League, Sheffield United, and everyone affected by this incident.”

Back at the time when goal-line technology was first being developed, two systems got the go-ahead from FIFA and football’s rule makers. One system involved cameras triangulating the ball, and the other involved a ball with a sensor chip implanted inside which would activate when passing through a magnetic field covering the goalmouth.

I’m not sure that I ever really understood the latter. How could a chip within a ball tell where the outside of the ball was, and thus whether all of the ball had truly crossed all of the line?

While I’m sure that the developers of that technology have that answer, I ended up plumping for the camera system as my own preferred choice. Mostly, this was down to the fact that replays would become available, and show a virtual goal and a virtual football, and be able to show just how close that chance that we were all wondering about really was.

What with it being a camera-based system, one thought did occur to me, though. It was a little farfetched, so bear with me.

What if a striker had a shot, and the goalkeeper adopted a position whereby they were crouching to get to their preferred height, with their hands out in front of them ready to parry? What if the goalkeeper then leaned backwards in anticipation of the force of the shot, only for the ball to avoid their hands and… go up the inside of their shirt, which had bellowed upwards just enough during the goalkeeper's movements so that the ball was afforded safe passage up there? What if the goalkeeper then fell over the goal-line, with the ball still inside their shirt, thus marginally taking all of the ball over all of the line?

Unless there is some rule which I am unaware of about the ball not being allowed to go under a shirt, then that should be a goal (at least if you followed what I was trying to describe).

However, with the ball being fully obscured by the goalkeeper’s shirt, it would be invisible to the cameras used in goal-line technology. I always wondered what would happen in this situation, and I suspected that there may be a flaw in the shiny new solution.

As it happens, in the Aston Villa–Sheffield United encounter, I had managed to watch a match which would answer my question. Alright, the actual scenario of the goalkeeper cradling the ball close to his body next to the post and other players is perhaps not quite as elaborate as my fantasy, but this was evidence that cameras can’t always see everything.

One of the drawbacks of technology is human reliance on it.

Hopefully improvements will be made to ensure that this can’t happen again.

It was always going to be the case that once technology was brought into football, far from eliminating controversy, it would just make any errors even bigger talking points.

I do actually remember one other time when Hawk-Eye cameras couldn’t be used to make a decision. It was during Wimbledon one year, and I was watching Mansour Bahrami play in the senior’s doubles. He’s known as the Court Jester, so there was tomfoolery aplenty.

Mansour Bahrami skulks his way through the 2009 Nottingham Masters

During one point, the ball went careering off into the sky. After it had eventually landed, the players decided to challenge the line call, more as a joke than as anything serious. Perhaps out of curiosity, the umpire announced that the call was being challenged. Ultimately, a message came up on the screen saying that the point could not be challenged, and so the original call would stand. I guess that the ball had gone out of the range of the cameras, and could not be tracked properly!

But, before that match at Villa Park, I had never seen that happen in football. My question as to what would happen if the cameras didn’t pick the ball up had been answered. In order for me to get my answer, though, there had to be a cost.

Sheffield United might feel that they should have had three points instead of one. And, more potently, AFC Bournemouth have been relegated. They are left to rue what they may very well feel is a crucial bonus point for Aston Villa.

Whether or not it actually is an injustice, we undoubtedly have the problem of people in the game feeling injustice.

This reminds me of the Carlos Tevez affair. In 2007 West Ham United signed Tevez and Javier Mascherano. Tevez played a significant part in helping his new side avoid relegation, most notably scoring the winning goal against Manchester United on the final day of the season. The problem was, Tevez and Mascherano were signed improperly with third party involvement.

The club which went down while West Ham United stayed up felt hard done by, to put it mildly. The fans of that club have had to wait until the start of this season to see their side play Premier League football again, and to feel that injustice finally put right. That club? Sheffield United.

Maybe it is a case that these injustices right themselves over time. This year, the English Football League welcomes Barrow back into its ranks. The club had lost its place in the League in 1972, not simply because of bad results, but by failing to get re-elected.

One match programme which I have collected tells of a similar story. I went to see Cambridge United versus Gateshead in the Skrill Premier Promotion Final 2014. The piece which Gateshead provided on their club history for the programme is titled “Looking to right a wrong”. The club was seeking a return to the Football League after failing to get re-elected some 54 years prior. The column tells me that Gateshead were left with “their demotion widely regarded as the harshest expulsion in Football League history”. Their wait goes on, as I witnessed Cambridge United coming out on top.

The teams line up for the Skrill Premier Promotion Final 2014

Now it falls on AFC Bournemouth to feel ‘what might have been’. It falls on them and their fans to have to wait until they are back in English football’s top flight again before they can feel as if the wrongs have been righted. Just like Sheffield United after the Tevez affair. AFC Bournemouth fans will hope that their wait is not quite as long as that, though, after their owner said that he wants them back in the Premier League “as soon as possible”.

And yet, all this could have been avoided. Aston Villa could have let Sheffield United walk the ball into the net, giving them the lead that they should have had.

I’m not meaning to take issue with Aston Villa in any way. In fact, of the clubs fighting relegation, I thought that the story of Aston Villa fan Dean Smith and Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish leading their side to safety would be the most romantic.

I just wonder, though, whether it would have been better for everyone if Aston Villa had let Sheffield United score. Better for football. Better for sport. Maybe. I’m not sure.

AFC Bournemouth would not suffer that stinging feeling. They would not be considering legal action.

Who knows? Maybe Aston Villa could have bagged themselves a FIFA Fair Play award.

All or nothing

To be honest, the Commonwealth Games have never been my favourite sporting event.

I’ve never really understood what being a Commonwealth champion actually means. From a sporting context, it just seems to be someone who has bettered athletes from a random bunch of countries including some, but definitely not all, of the world’s sporting superpowers.

However, I am certainly not one to pooh-pooh the Commonwealth Games experience. One of the things that I enjoy the most about the event is that it gives territories a chance to compete on an international stage when they wouldn’t normally be able to do so.

Niue's team – which does not compete at the Olympic Games – is welcomed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony

Another reason to get on board with the spectacle is that it’s an opportunity to see athletes from the Home Nations represent England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales in sports where this would not normally be possible.

Phillips Idowu represented England – instead of Great Britain – at Glasgow 2014

Most of all, though, the Commonwealth Games is a period where sport can immerse everybody that gets close to it, whether in person, or watching in every corner of the world.

My family and I attended Glasgow 2014, and we had a great time.

So, my congratulations to Birmingham on being awarded the 2022 event are most certainly genuine.

There is the added benefit that UK Sport may now pursue aspirations to hold a future edition of the IAAF World Championships at the city’s Alexander Stadium.

Dai Greene is one of the athletes to compete at the 2011 Birmingham Grand Prix in the Alexander Stadium

I do think that it is unfortunate, however, that the originally scheduled host city, Durban, could not go on and stage the Games.

After first seeing the South African city being awarded the event, combined with a slew of reports about British cities being interested in the 2026 version, I was thinking that we had entered into a neat little cycle.

It seemed as if the Games were set to rotate between a city in the United Kingdom, then a city in Australia or New Zealand, and then a city in a country which is relatively inexperienced in delivering major sporting events, before the cycle would start over again.

This seemed to be a good scenario. For every three editions of the Commonwealth Games, two would be in countries which already had the administrative know-how, with the third being used as a way to stimulate sporting and structural development in a country which is somewhat less used to that kind of attention.

Now that idea has gone out the window, with Birmingham stepping in to host just eight years after Glasgow. This could yet turn out to be the start of dangerous times for the Commonwealth Games Federation. It could signify the beginning of a period where the Games are effectively traded between just two countries, with the United Kingdom and Australia each hosting every other edition. If that turns out to be the case, then it could damage the event’s credibility, causing big problems ahead.

Additionally for Birmingham, though happy to be hosts, there is the downside that they have the task of hosting the Games four years earlier than what originally could have been envisaged. This means less preparation time, which means, in theory, that they can’t put on the best event that they could possibly have managed if they had four more years to think about their plans. While this is annoying to an extent, I’m sure that it will still be a fantastic occasion, and the potential bid for the IAAF World Championships may never have been a possibility if there was the extra wait.

One thing that will be a relief for all is that the process of assigning the host city is now finally complete. Work can begin in earnest in preparation for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

A big part of that work must now be to answer the question of what events to include.

Although most decisions in this area have already been made, there is still talk that cricket could make a comeback.

Any tournament, though, could well be restricted to women.

My last blog post demonstrated that women’s cricket has seen significant progress in recent years, although there can still be setbacks.

How, then, would a women’s exclusive cricket tournament at the Commonwealth Games fit into this stop-start progression?

I’m inclined to answer that it would not sit well at all.

Essentially, in the year 2022, women would be getting special treatment, and I don’t think that would be sending a positive message.

The message would be that the men are too good to play in the competition, as they’re off playing franchise cricket in money-spinning Twenty20 matches. The Commonwealth Games would merely be a compensation competition to female players.

I should say that in no way am I opposed to cricket being part of the Commonwealth Games. After all, it’s quite novel to think of a potential outing for the rarely seen national team of Northern Ireland.

I just think that when it comes to cricket’s inclusion, it should all or nothing. That means both men’s and women’s tournaments or none at all.

While I’m sure it would be a thrill for women to compete for gold, how patronising would it be if the only reason why they had the opportunity was because of their gender?

One of the best sporting events that I went to this year was the Women's Cricket World Cup, including the final at a sold-out Lord's.

The 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup Final

It was a magnificent occasion, and when the players were out there giving it everything and performing with athletic prowess, at no point did it go through my mind that they should be given special treatment solely because of their gender.

Wrong message, wrong time

This year has seen the start of a new era for English women’s cricket.

It could be argued, however, that that sentence could potentially have been overused in recent years, as the sport continues to develop.

2013 saw the introduction of an innovative new points format to decide the Ashes. It has since been used in the men’s game from this year.

There was big news in 2014 when the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed that the England women’s team would become a full-time professional outfit.

In truth, when it comes to what could be the biggest step forward for the development of a sport, then it will forever be hard to compete with the transition of going from amateurs to professionals. Yet, 2016 has still had a few noteworthy occurrences.

First, long-time captain Charlotte Edwards was effectively deposed by the ECB. She had led the team to some historic successes, most notably with victory in the 2009 Women's Cricket World Cup.

She’s been succeeded by Heather Knight, and earlier this year I went to Leicester to see her début as England’s new permanent captain.

England take on Pakistan

England were taking on Pakistan in a One Day International at what is now called the Fischer County Ground. The match actually took place on a reserve day, after it was washed out the day before. That meant no television coverage, a sparse crowd and, most annoyingly for me, there were no programmes on sale, even though they were available the preceding day.

England eased to a win, with a standout performance from Knight. She was deservedly given the Player of the Match award.

Heather Knight is the inevitable Player of the Match

2016 did not just provide a new England captain, but also new teams in a whole new competition.

Domestic cricket was given a shakeup, with the launch of the Women's Cricket Super League. Six teams took part in the Twenty20 format.

It gave the opportunity for Edwards to add a considerable feather under her cap, as she captained the Southern Vipers to victory in the inaugural edition.

Attendances were good, and the tournament was widely regarded as a success.

The feel-good factor was not supposed to end this summer, though. When the competition was first announced, plans were also laid out to include a 50-over event from next year.

However, yesterday it emerged that the 50-over concept has been shelved, and will not go ahead in 2017.

To me, this is disappointing news.

Although, saying that, surely this is disappointing news for everyone?

Well, when I found out about this by reading Stephan Shemilt’s BBC article, that air of disappointment that probably should have been there seemed to be rather lacking. Instead, it just seems that the ECB are trumpeting the success of the 2016 edition.

The article states that the ECB “decided to focus resources on developing the T20 version” of the competition. Rather than just focusing resources, is it not reasonable to expect the ECB to be providing additional resources to help with the growth of the sport?

The widely respected former England captain, Clare Connor, who is now director of women’s cricket, is quoted as saying: “It had been our intention to introduce a 50-over version of the Super League in 2017, but the success of the first edition of the T20 competition has given us a new lens to reassess this.”

Well done if you understood that, because I certainly didn’t. The competition has been such a success, and so it’s not being expanded? Maybe I need a new lens.

I do see that the decision was taken in consultation with the teams and the players, so there can’t be too many complaints. Arguably, though, that showed a lack of ambition, and they should have been more vociferous in trying to get the go-ahead for the original plans.

The biggest disappointment in my opinion is that this decision represents a massive missed opportunity.

Next year England hosts the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup. That’s all 50-over matches. Would it not have helped build interest and excitement for that tournament if it were to be preceded by a new domestic competition in the 50-over format? Looking at it the other way, surely there would also have been excitement in the domestic competition, as fans would be given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with players who could be about to feature in the grandest competition.

Now, I did take notice of the fact that the World Cup would make it difficult for overseas players to play in English domestic cricket in 2017. However, that can’t be a good enough reason to stop the expansion of the sport. If overseas players aren’t around, then that does not mean that teams go out of existence. I’m sure that there would be plenty of local players who would love to play in a competition which would be seen as more meaningful than what they’re used to.

So, as you can tell, I’m frustrated with the message that this decision sends out, especially with the timing of it.

Maybe, then, I need to start looking at positive ways forward from this situation.

I mentioned that this is a missed opportunity, but what if the decision to delay the expansion is, itself, a new opportunity?

Don’t get me wrong, I still think that the best option would be for there to be 50-over Women's Cricket Super League action in the build up to the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup. However, if that’s not going to be the case, then maybe there is now a chance to think of new ways of incorporating the 50-over format into the schedule for future seasons.

Perhaps inspiration could be taken from the points format used for the Ashes, which I mentioned earlier on. This sees the combination of the different versions of cricket to form one result. Instead of having winners for each variation, every match is taken into account, and one single nation is crowned the winner at the end.

I believe that some kind of combination of formats could be used successfully in the domestic season.

Before I explain my thought process, I should probably be honest and say that I had hoped for more from the Women's Cricket Super League this year.

For a start, it was not televised. When the tournament was first announced I’ll admit that I did dream a bit about matches being shown on a free-to-air television channel. That’s what happens with domestic Twenty20 matches in Australia, and is something which has been hugely attributed as a reason for that league’s success. For years the ECB has struggled to devise a men’s Twenty20 competition that can match the quality seen in Australia and other countries. I thought that this new competition would be a chance for them to try free-to-air television, and thus start giving the foreign leagues a run for their money. Sadly, however, the Women's Cricket Super League was not televised at all this year.

The other issues that I have with the existing Women's Cricket Super League set-up relate to its competition format.

There are only six teams. This just probably dampens the prestige of the competition somewhat.

Saying that, I do understand that it’s hard to conjure up a whole bunch of new teams out of nowhere.

Following on from this, there is a particular problem with having a league of six teams. As each team is guaranteed five matches, it is unavoidable that some teams will play three home matches, while others will only play twice at home.

With two home matches teams are effectively playing one of those matches in excess of being a permanent touring side.

The bigger problem is that this gives some teams an advantage over the others. This kind of thing always irks me. Actually, the final standings in the table for this year’s competition saw all of the sides with three home games progress to the knockout phase, while all of the sides with two home games fell by the wayside. I don’t know how much you can read into that.

Of course, the situation of competitive integrity is much more of an issue in English men’s domestic cricket.

It really is a statistician’s nightmare. Teams do not play each other home and away an equal number of times in the groups for the t20 Blast. Imagine if that happened in Premier League football! This peculiarity will make its way into first-class cricket from next year, as it is being instituted in the County Championship Division Two.

I hope that the ECB can figure out a solution for men’s cricket without sacrificing the competitive integrity, which is probably the most important thing for me, as a sports fan. I always thought that there was a unique opportunity with Twenty20 for the counties. They could play in two divisions with promotion and relegation. That’s something which hasn’t been seen in the leagues in other countries. As the competition would not be a 'closed shop', there would be the potential for excitement at both ends of the table. Yet, I suppose that the ECB may keep shying away from this idea as it does not guarantee two matches between Lancashire and Yorkshire each year.

Now that I’ve aired my feelings, I’m ready to get back to proposing a solution for the Women's Cricket Super League.

I’ve explained that some teams play more home games than others. What if this was 'rectified' by playing the reverse fixtures as 50-over matches, while still keeping a single league table and crowning a single team as champions for both formats?

Firstly, it ensures that each team hosts the same number of matches, so as to provide a better amount of competitive balance.

Secondly, it provides a continuation of the cross-format approach which I was talking about, and pioneered by women in the Ashes with the points system.

And it also gives the opportunity to provide a more substantial narrative of domestic cricket for fans. By having a winner decided by two formats, it does provide a 'champion of champions' feel to the occasion.

Naturally, the idea will have its detractors. Purists will argue that there needs to be a champion for each format.

Although purists never really liked Twenty20 to begin with. My opinion is that there isn’t a huge amount of difference between Twenty20 and 50-over cricket, so anything that assimilates the two couldn’t be all that bad.

Another difficulty would be deciding how to play a knockout phase, if one was wanted. Should a final be Twenty20 or 50-overs? It may well be that a broadcaster would ask for Twenty20, thus making everybody’s mind up for them.

Plenty of questions remain. Answers may be out there, but there is uncertainty at a time when inspiring future players should be the main focus.

The idea of a mixed format competition that I have put forward has spawned out of the news that there won’t be a new 50-over tournament next year. I guess that I’ve learnt that setbacks can lead to opportunities.

Heels overheads

Much to the annoyance of my mother, the football season has started again.

For me, however, this doesn’t really mean attending too many matches.

I might though, from time to time, venture to pastures unknown, accompanying my dad to watch Stafford Rangers. Before writing this blog, I had a quick look at the new teams in their division, and seeing Shaw Lane Aquaforce amongst them gave me a proper ‘non-League feeling’. Interestingly for me, I note that they’ve got a Gibraltar international in their line-up.

Also, last season I did have a reason for going to a bit of local non-League action, as Stamford moved to their new ground. I went to their first match at the Zeeco Stadium, and then again, on the final day of the season, to see them get their first league win there. The latter contest, against Witton Albion, was an incredible match, with both sides facing relegation going into it. Stamford were two goals down and looked doomed, but they somehow came back to win 3-2. They stayed up and Witton Albion went down.

Stamford celebrate staying up

Obviously, though, I’m interested in football at the highest level as well. I’ve been to some England games, a semi-final of the FA Cup, and the Johnstone's Paint Trophy final in the past twelve months.

However, it is television which provides most of my football intake, hence my mum’s frustration.

With the kick-off to the new season not to be missed, that decided what I would be doing from nine o’clock on Saturday night.

That’s actually a bit earlier than previously, as Channel 5 has acquired Football League highlights, and is showing them in a prime time programme called Football League Tonight.

The first episode had a few teething problems here and there, but the show’s format gave me the biggest surprise. Instead of the running order of matches being determined by division, they were shown all muddled up. I would have expected the Championship to be on first, followed by League One, and then League Two. Of course, working down the divisions in this way doesn’t really work so well now, as fans have to switch over to Match of the Day afterwards, and jump back up to the Premier League. I suppose, from this viewpoint, it would make the most sense for Channel 5 to start off with League Two, and to work their way up, although I doubt that that will happen. Still, it would be better if the matches were shown in some kind of sensible order.

I wanted to see the final Championship matches, so I kept watching until the end. I then had to rewind to see that Aaron Tshibola’s shot for Reading did go over the line. No goal was given, which perhaps cancels out that weird ‘ghost goal’ that Reading ‘scored’ a few years ago against Watford.

I ended up missing the iconic Match of the Day theme, as well as Leicester City’s first two goals. Nevertheless, I was settled in to my night of football, watching the games fly by.

After a while, it was time for Norwich City versus Crystal Palace and some controversy.

Crystal Palace were two goals up, but Norwich City then scored themselves, and were suddenly hunting for an equaliser. It seemingly came when Cameron Jerome skilfully hooked the ball over his head to volley it into the net. But it was disallowed. The referee, Simon Hooper, ruled that Jerome’s foot was high and too close to the defending Joel Ward, and thus a foul. Crystal Palace then went on to score a third, and wrap things up.

The managers seemed to think that Jerome struck a legitimate goal, as did the pundits in the studio. They even showed a clip from last season of Southampton’s Graziano Pellè scoring a goal in a similar fashion.

There’s nothing new about a bit of controversy in the Premier League. Viewers of Match of the Day are used to this kind of thing. There will be some grumbling in Norwich over the next couple of days, but then everything will just return to normal.

So, why take the time to write this blog? A bit of controversy is not out of the ordinary, and nothing is going to change.

I guess, to me, this incident is more controversial than it is to others.

This is not to do with the fact that I was particularly interested in the result of the match. Nor is it to do with the fact that it was Hooper’s first game as a Premier League referee. It is true that he didn’t produce any card for Glenn Murray after he made a challenge early in the game which I’ve seen reds given for. It is also true that Hooper’s decision to disallow Jerome’s effort is the reason why I am writing this blog. However, I am not motivated to write a blog for the sake of criticising first-time referees.

So why do I think that the disallowed goal was so controversial?

It is because I saw a goal being ruled out due to the technique that was used in scoring it, rather than any seriously evident foul play.

To me, this is extremely concerning, especially at this time of year, as I will explain in a moment.

Firstly, I need to establish that I support fouls being given for high boots. The reason for this is that they can be dangerous. However, Jerome had his back to Ward, and his whole body in between his boot and Ward’s head. Therefore, it’s hard for me to say that it was dangerous. When the ball is in the penalty area, footballers tend to take shots. Ward knows this, and when he went towards the ball, he would have been aware of any potential danger.

Of course, soon enough a player is going to be seriously injured by a high boot, and make me look rather foolish. Remember, though, that I support high boots being penalised. The issue is that they need to be dangerous.

Jerome struck the ball so well, but in the position that he was in, other players were bound to be close at hand. When I thought this through, I figured that anyone attempting an overhead kick in the penalty area could now be breaking the rules. In essence, I was considering what it would be like if the entire overhead kick action was to be banned.

A goal scored by a player volleying a ball over their head can be stunning. Some of the greatest and most memorable strikes involve players lifting their boots a long way off the ground. The officials in charge of the sport wouldn’t want to outlaw this kind of action. Would they?

Of course they wouldn’t. This is simply me overreacting.

Yet, as I alluded to earlier, the time of the year at which this took place is also a concerning factor for me.

With the season starting, there are a few new rules and protocols to be observed. For example, the offside rule has been tweaked so that players can now be flagged for attempting to play a ball, even if they don’t touch it.

Though the Jerome incident is not covered by any new law, what if it becomes the new way of dealing with these situations by default? After all, this is the start of the season, where everyone has the mind-set of needing to adopt new regulations. Even if it is unofficial, this would be the perfect time for a new ruling on high boots to be established, and that might well just have happened. Could football become so sanitised that nobody can ever lift their feet above waist height again?

Alright, I’m being a bit wild. Truthfully, I don’t think that anything will change. There will still be spectacular goals, scored from all kinds of incredible angels, and everyone can enjoy watching them for as long as there is football.

This is not to say that I will take nothing away from my contemplation of the first day of the 2015–16 Premier League season. I think that I now realise, more than ever before, that each sport is made up of people performing many different techniques to achieve their aims.

That sounds so feeble to say that, but after spending a whole night thinking about the art of an overhead kick in football, and the need to preserve it as an asset in its sport, I have really come to terms with the wide range of different abilities that athletes can get their bodies to perform, as that is just one example in a single sport.

It is truly extraordinary what the human body can achieve when pushed in pursuit of sporting excellence. While everybody is so obsessed with what the final results will be, and feeling the emotions that only that obsession can bring, there are remarkable feats to be seen. Every single little piece of skill is a skill to be savoured.

UK Sport rethink opens the door for all sports

Sitting behind me on a train to Leicester last year were two women, and a conversation that they were having caught my attention.

They were off to get involved in a sport of some sort together. For one of them, it was going to be her first time playing. During the journey, the other woman had set about explaining all of the sport’s key rules, and she was doing a good job of answering all of the novice’s questions. However, I never actually heard them say which sport it was. This gave me the stimulating challenge of trying to figure out what it was from what they were saying.

As I was only catching titbits of their discussion, it wasn’t easy trying to narrow down every single different sport so that it would fit in with what little I could make out. When I heard the phrase “line out” a couple of times, I became quite confused. Rugby didn’t seem to correspond with everything else that they were saying.

Finally, though, I was able to put my finger on it. The key for me was when I heard the experienced lady tell her friend that during play, there was to be no speaking. I had at last grasped that they were, of course, speaking of goalball.

Goalball is a sport for blind and visually impaired athletes, and it’s contested in the Paralympic Games.

A year earlier, and I had been fortunate enough to get a ticket for goalball at London 2012. Going into it, I didn’t really know what to expect. I have to say, though, that it ended up being rather fun. The silence in the arena as it was played made it seem all the more gripping and intense. It’s hard to find excitement quite like that elsewhere in the world of sport.

On the day that I went, I was able to witness Great Britain’s women overcome Brazil, and it was wonderful to see the sheer delight on their faces after the match as they savoured the once-in-a-lifetime feeling of being at a home Games.

Goalball at London 2012

To learn that the sport was picking up new participants a year on, albeit by simply overhearing a conversation on a train, made me rather pleased. Goalball is a sport which gets just about as little exposure as a sport can get, so it was great to find out that there was a level of awareness out there.

As I got off the train that day, I was thinking that if the conversation which I had just heard was indicative of people being willing to give new sports a try, even if they didn’t know any of the rules, then such sports would always be able to attract and retain new players. I went on to think that this would enable these sports to survive, and forever be able to continue to offer participation opportunities.

For some reason, those thoughts gave me a sense of pride.

Of the many benefits of sport, pride is the one which knits nations of strangers together to cheer on their elite athletes and will them to victory. Pride makes the people of a country simply feel good.

This, then, brings the question of how pride is best achieved.

The agency which distributes government and lottery players’ money towards the United Kingdom’s elite athletes, UK Sport, has for a long time thought that it has known the answer to this question: medals.

UK Sport has a longstanding ‘no compromise’ funding policy, which is all about gaining as many Olympic and Paralympic medals as possible for Team GB and ParalympicsGB. The way that this approach works effectively means that sports which bring home medals, or those that seem to have the potential to do so, are given extra funding. Sports which don’t meet performance targets, or where the signs of progress are too slow, have their funding reduced. In some cases, it is cut off completely.

More medals means more funding. Less medals means less funding.

When I first heard about this policy, many years ago, I was rather shocked. It seemed to me, back then, that they had gotten it the wrong way around. I would have been sure that people would have deemed that the sports which were not providing the best results would be the ones that should be getting more help so that they could improve. However, as I grew up, I learnt that UK Sport was getting it right. The policy works.

UK Sport was established in 1997, off the back of an Olympic Games in which Team GB won one solitary gold medal. Fast-forward to 2012, and that number had increased to an incredible twenty-nine. By focusing resources on the sports which were likely to provide medals, UK Sport had found a winning strategy.

Everything that I say in this blog, then, must be read in that context. All I can do is ‘nit-pick’.

The concerns that I have could possibly be imagined as some kind of weird double ended spiral, with one end going upwards, and the other end going downwards. To quote myself, “more medals means more funding” and “less medals means less funding”, and that’s what I’m getting at. I can foresee a partial danger where the sports that are successful suck up more and more funds, while the sports which are lagging behind receive less and less, until they have practically no realistic prospect of ever being able to see their athletes compete against what the rest of the world has to offer.

The level of funding that each sport gets from UK Sport really can be ‘make or break’.

So I’ll begin my critique, if I may, with cycling. I’ll admit that saying that does sound a bit curious given that the British Olympic cycling team is undoubtedly one of the country’s biggest sporting success stories in recent years. Indeed, they beat the entirety of Team GB to win the BBC Sports Personality Team of the Year Award in 2008.

Amazingly, in 2012, Team GB’s cyclists would match their 2008 tally of eight gold medals. Seven came from events on the track, and one from the road in each of these Games.

At the end of 2012, when UK Sport announced its funding strategy going forward to 2016, it was revealed that cycling was to see its funding rise from £26m to £30.6m.

In truth, this rise may not have raised too many eyebrows at the time, particularly as people may have just been digesting the news that the same strategy saw several other sports have their funding cut to zero. However, when I observed it, I couldn’t help but wonder what more cycling was going to be able to achieve with the extra money.

It was an astounding achievement to win seven out of ten gold medals on the track at each of the last Games. Of course, it would be nice to attain perfection by winning every gold medal on offer. After all, if the Chinese can do it in table tennis, then there should be no reason for the British to shy away from trying to do the same in track cycling. Maybe that is an aspiration to be worked on over time, but I also think that there does need to be a certain amount of realism. While seven out of ten is a fantastic result, the reality is that it is going to be extremely difficult to do much better than that in the future, regardless of how much money is set aside for it.

I could say what I am saying now, and easily go on to offer the solution of capping the maximum amount of funding that each sport can get so as to avoid successful sports vacuuming up millions of pounds every four years which might not make too much difference to them. However, I believe that there would be too many problems to be seen by having an outright cap.

For a start, the introduction of a cap would probably only end up affecting one or two sports, which would make it seem unimportant on the whole. Secondly, any sport which was going to be affected could end up arguing over the level of the cap, and perhaps claim to be a ‘victim of its own success’. Thirdly, I think that it needs to be recognised that elite sport training can be very dynamic. It is entirely possible for a new invention to surface that can significantly improve athletes’ training in some way, and it should be perfectly reasonable for sports to follow this up and buy into it, if they can afford it. I think that it would be wrong to deny them this because of a cap.

Instead, my solution for what I see as the potential for overfunding within UK Sport’s strategy would be fairly simple. I can see this issue resolved by having a more rigorous assessment of the level at which a sport has been performing in relation to how much there is left to be achieved.

With this, I have addressed the ‘upward spiral’ that I see within the ‘no compromise’ policy. This leaves me with the ‘downward spiral’ to look at, and therefore brings forward the question of those sports which receive little or no funding from UK Sport.

Back when I first looked at the numbers showing how UK Sport would fund each sport going forward to 2016, yes, I noticed cycling, but for me the most exciting figure was actually the one for water polo.

Australia's women getting the better of Russia in water polo at London 2012

The sport’s funding had been raised from £2.9m to £4.5m, with all the money to go to the women’s team. I was disappointed for the men, of course, but I was already used to seeing the fate of team sports being somewhat sacrificed in favour of individual sports. That’s why I was so excited to read about the women.

This was the chance, I thought, for Britain to build itself, consolidate itself, and have a sustained presence in an Olympic team sport other than hockey. People like me were doubtlessly looking forward to the prospect of finding out all about the British team, getting to know who the best players were, and being able to follow their fortunes for generations to come.

I had seen women’s water polo at London 2012, but not the British team. I did catch them at the temporary Water Polo Arena a few months earlier, though, as they hosted the official test event. On the final day of the competition, I saw them lose to Hungary.

Action from the VISA Water Polo International

The day before saw the tournament's best result for the home team, as they lost by only a single goal to the Americans, who would go on to claim Olympic gold. At the Games themselves, the British team lost their quarterfinal by just two goals against Spain, who took the silver.

Of course, going by wins and losses, then the team was doing poorly. In amongst it all, though, there were narrow defeats with some very encouraging performances. This is why, when I saw the funding details, I knew that this was an opportunity.

Unfortunately for people with this perspective, UK Sport decided to withdraw all of water polo’s funding earlier this year.

The team had just qualified well for the European Championships, but UK Sport clearly could not see a medal coming by 2020, and thus deemed it to be “high risk” to continue with the funding strategy laid out at the end of 2012.

Two months after this decision, the British women did manage to earn a memorable victory over Spain. Though this came too late, I’m not sure whether it would actually have made a difference to the funding situation.

When UK Sport announced the cut in funding, water polo was not the only sport to fall out of favour. Basketball, synchronised swimming and weightlifting also had their funds cut completely, as well as three Paralympic sports, including goalball.

The biggest outcry came from basketball, with British Basketball claiming that UK Sport’s funding system appeared “to show bias against team and emerging sport”.

I knew that the decision would be hard to take for basketball, but I really felt that it would be harder still for some of the other sports.

Basketball, after all, is the second largest team sport played by fourteen to sixteen year olds in this country, so I guess that I kind of always figured that it would be able to keep going. Not having a British team for such a popular sport would be inconceivable, I thought. Sure enough, earlier this month it was announced that Sport England would provide £1.18m to fund the British team. It was the first time that Sport England, usually only responsible for funding grassroots sport, had funded elite sport.

With regards to the livelihoods for the other sports that had their funding cut this year, I did manage to take what comfort I could from that conversation on the train to hope that the goalball teams could be kept going by enthusiastic amateurs. For the rest, though, it did look a little bleak.

A slew of appeals were made by the sports looking to have their funding restored. Only weightlifting was successful. Funds would be made available to female lifters after they were put at the focus of a comprehensive new strategy.

However, the decision to reprieve weightlifting, but not the others, only seemed to reinforce the notion that team sports were being hard done by. British Swimming, the country’s governing body for aquatic sports, released a statement warning that several sports now faced “dying out”, and claimed that UK Sport had particularly little understanding of team sports. It was adamant that both synchronised swimming and water polo were making progress.

Whatever that progress was, though, it was not enough for UK Sport. The ‘no compromise’ policy means that a medal has to look like a possibility within eight years.

After its appeal failed, British Swimming declared that it was going to take legal action. This would be one last attempt to wrest back some funds, but this time, it would only be for synchronised swimming. Although David Sparkes, British Swimming’s chief executive, did indicate that he would push for UK Sport to review its strategy for “all team sports”, it must have by now become quite clear to the water polo girls that it was all over.

The synchronised swimmers had, for a long time, been meeting their performance targets, so I can fully comprehend why British Swimming would want to focus all of its efforts on them.

The most widely known British synchronised swimmer, Jenna Randall, was among a number of retirements from the team last year. The fact that a young and inexperienced team was left behind could well have been a factor in UK Sport’s decision.

When she announced her retirement, Randall, who has since gone on to try her hand at Cirque du Soleil, said she hoped that the “next generation” of synchronised swimmers would “carry on the legacy” of the sport.

It’s understandable why Randall might have thought that she would be leaving the team in a fairly healthy position. Going into London 2012, I’d be sure that a big part of her focus must have been on meeting UK Sport’s performance targets: a top ten position in the duet event, and a top eight position in the team event. When both of these objectives were achieved, and funding was raised from £3.4m to £4.3m, the squad may well have thought that they had just secured the sport’s future. With that overarching goal in mind during years of training and sacrifices, their minds could finally be put at ease.

Exactly two years on from British synchronised swimmers being in the Aquatics Centre’s pool to compete at the Games, and it was announced that British Swimming’s legal challenge to restore their funding had failed. The team now looked ‘dead in the water’.

All this has shown is that UK Sport is pragmatic. All-out efforts to meet performance targets are all well and good, but throughout everything, the idea remains to be that a medal should be delivered within eight years. This means that backwards steps can always be terminal, regardless of other steps forward.

And those steps forward might not just be in performance terms.

In recent years, handball is just one example of a sport to take what I can only imagine to be a fairly drastic measure. The English and Scottish national teams merged so that they would be permanently competing as Great Britain, even outside of an Olympic Games.

The idea at the time was to give the sport the best possible chance to develop in the future so as to gain success. However, now that neither the men’s team nor the women’s team receives a penny in funding, I do rather feel that decisions such as this one were all for nothing. Costs of simply staging matches have impacted on the teams’ liberty to play.

I do worry about this sense of ‘false hope’ that seems to come with the system. Whether it is handball seeing a brighter future with unified teams, synchronised swimmers going out of their way to meet performance targets, or water polo fans rejoicing at an injection of cash, it does look as if people are being given the chance to dream, only for their dreams to be taken away from them at some point further down the road.

Maybe, then, the answer to all this is to have a more compassionate approach from UK Sport.

However, such a suggestion is completely and utterly at odds with what ‘no compromise’ is all about. Don’t forget that I’m not disputing that the policy works.

And yet I am not the one to give the hints that there may be compassion to come. No, that was done by UK Sport itself.

Last month, UK Sport announced that it would be open to a rethink, and launched a consultation, available to both its partners and the public, asking a series of questions which, on the face of it, seem to indicate a slightly more sympathetic rational. Perhaps Sparkes was able to exert some influence after all.

This could pave the way for all sports to grow at elite level in this country.

When talking about the consultation, UK Sport’s chief executive Liz Nicholl particularly highlighted the issue of team sports. Hopefully that’s something which can be picked up on by reading this blog, as well.

There have been numerous examples of team sports asserting that there is a bias against them.

“The funding system is weighted against team sports” according to handball player Mark Hawkins. “You need more time for a team sport to develop than an individual in an individual sport.”

Nicholl has explained that UK Sport would probably be ready to start funding sports based on the potential for medals within twelve years instead of eight, noting that this would cost more money. This would be of particular benefit to team sports.

I’m not convinced about how this would work in practice, though. I could easily be prepared to believe that any sport could be twelve years away from a medal if they had the right investment.

This, then, is the point where I reach my own conclusion as to how to deal with the possibility of sports being ‘wiped out’ in elite terms.

I think that every sport should get some funding. I’d propose a model of ‘baseline’ funding. This is to say that there should be an amount, say £500,000 per Olympic or Paralympic cycle, which will always be the minimum which each sport will get.

Everyone would be able to freely admit that sports on the baseline would not really be thinking about medals. Crucially, however, they would be kept alive and be ready to take in any talented youngsters that suddenly emerge onto the scene. In particular, it is imperative that team sports have squads in place; otherwise there will be nowhere to go for those youngsters, no matter how good they are.

Also, using the baseline method would mean that there would not be so many time-consuming appeals. Sleepless nights for those who have had to grapple with constructing a decent presentation to deliver to UK Sport, saying why their sport deserved funding, would be a thing of the past.

I think that everyone can understand why some sports are funded more than others. I’ve always thought that it has been a bit extreme, though, to give those sports at the very bottom absolutely nothing. That is the essence of my argument.

We’ll have to wait and see if UK Sport will go for a new approach. One possibility is that funding could be linked to participation rates. When reporting that Sport England was going to fund elite basketball, BBC sports editor Dan Roan suggested that other sports with zero funding could be hopeful. The fact that basketball is fairly popular at grassroots level may have influenced Sport England, and so other sports may see an opportunity for this effect to be replicated. Indeed, before the decision to fund basketball, there was some talk last month that UK Sport and Sport England could spread some funds over all the sports which were missing out.

That is all speculation for the future, though. For now, the consultation is still ongoing.

There are plenty of other questions that UK Sport wants to see answered in this consultation, as well. Basically, UK Sport wants to know what its remit should be.

Nicholl raised the issue of medals, and whether they should still be the primary focus. She also discussed the “impact” that can be achieved through sporting success, evoking memories of London 2012’s motto: Inspire a generation.

A crowd barrier in Greenwich Park bearing London 2012's famous motto

One other area that Nicholl brought to the fore was whether or not UK Sport should be funding sports which are included at neither the Olympic Games nor the Paralympic Games. This suggests that UK Sport might be thinking that success at the Commonwealth Games, too, is worthy of investment. Although this could be complicated by the fact that the home nations would be competing separately, while UK Sport is supposed to work for all of them, people involved in sports such as squash might have their fingers crossed, as they could be in for a bit of a boost.

At this point, I can mention the one further thing that I think might be wise for UK Sport to consider. After Rio 2016 there will be a review of the entire programme of Olympic sports, with changes coming into effect at Tokyo 2020. With this, the sports themselves won’t change, but it’s likely that the medal events will be different for a number of sports. For instance, FIBA, the international federation for basketball, is understood to be very keen about including the half court version of the sport, known as 3×3, in future Games. I’d suggest that UK Sport could think about beginning the funding of British 3×3 right now.

If UK Sport could accurately predict the events makeup of forthcoming Games, then it could start funding for events such as 3×3 before their Games presence was even confirmed, and so this country would have a head start over some of its rivals. Of course, though, this tactic is risky by its nature. There may not be any guarantees that all predictions can be accurate.

Even if UK Sport is not willing to commit funds to events before they are included at the Games, it may yet be a good idea to seriously think about what any potential new Olympic sport could be.

This week it emerged that the International Olympic Committee has put forward a recommendation that sees the cap of twenty-eight sports per Games being lifted. This concept is still at an early stage in being contemplated, along with various other recommendations. I can’t be sure, therefore, of what will come of it. All the advice that I can offer UK Sport in this regard, then, is to stay attentive.

As it happens, I do actually think about what advice I could give to UK Sport whenever I see an article concerning the issue of funding in elite sport.

Right now, however, there is a key difference: I’m prepared to be listened to.

Since UK Sport’s consultation opened, I have been reading any articles related to funding that I come across even more avidly than usual.

Earlier this month, I read about Piers Gilliver, a British wheelchair fencer. The funding for his sport was jettisoned earlier this year at the same time as it was for goalball. Since that decision, Gilliver has been competing, and winning, with the help of funds raised by his family and friends. However, there is only enough money to last until the end of this year, and it is unknown whether Rio 2016 will be an ongoing possibility for him.

As I thought about this, I couldn’t help but picture how wonderful it would be to see a Brit competing at the top of every single different sport. This line of thinking has actually already crossed the mind of Craig Heap, a personality from gymnastics, itself a sport which receives relatively high funds these days.

In my last blog I wrote about Gibraltar’s road to international football. That was an important issue to me because there has been a growing belief inside me that says that every person in the world should have a right to play international football. This belief also says, though, that a country which is developed to the extent of the United Kingdom should be able to go further, and offer every one of its citizens the chance to reach international level in any sport.

Maybe that is why I felt the pride as I got off my train at Leicester. Maybe my mind had started to envisage amateurs getting involved in new sports all over the country, and making a progression to elite level.

This, then, brings me to an answer. UK Sport wants to know what its remit should be. I think that the sole focus should not be medals, but pride.

Pride emanates from medals. That is true.

I would add to that, though, and say that pride can also come from seeing the athletes of a nation competing in the widest range of sports possible.

If you’ve got an interest in funding for elite British sport, with any views whatsoever, then I’d urge you to get involved with UK Sport’s consultation. It is open until 10^th December 2014, and can be found by clicking here.

Meet international football's newest team

It turns out that watching the World Cup of Darts gives you a haka from the New Zealand team, upset after upset after upset on Saturday night, and an emotional journey to the final for Belgium's Huybrechts brothers. However, one thing that this tournament also gives you is a rare opportunity to watch Gibraltar compete in a televised international sports competition.

Dylan Duo and Dyson Parody once again teamed up to represent the British overseas territory, and they got off to a blistering start in their first match against Poland. The pairing couldn't keep it up though, and registered two defeats in their group.

Gibraltar does have international representation in other sports, such as basketball and cricket, but to have a presence in global football would mean more to them than anything else.

It has been a long and difficult journey for the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) to become members of UEFA. The story is well-documented elsewhere on the internet, but basically it starts when the GFA applied to join UEFA in the late nineties. Politics got in the way, and UEFA changed its rules so that only United Nations members could join (existing members including England and the Faroe Islands were protected from this). The GFA appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and they ruled that UEFA must consider the GFA for membership under the laws in force at the time of their initial application. So, in 2006, UEFA gave Gibraltar provisional membership. While Montenegro gained full UEFA membership in 2007, at the same Congress Gibraltar was overwhelmingly rejected. Only England, Scotland and Wales voted in their favour. The GFA went back to CAS, and got the same ruling as they did before. Now the process is repeating itself, as Gibraltar were again given provisional membership in 2012. The vote on full membership will take place in May this year.

I followed the situation avidly in 2006 and 2007, eager to see if there was going to be a new football team propping up qualification groups of the future, à la Andorra and San Marino. Almost every day I'd be frantically typing my searches into Google, desperate to find out any tiny new piece of information. Sometimes this even included putting Spanish articles through the translator. I also attended a seminar given by an experienced 'sports mediator' from CAS, and I asked him about it. As it happened, he was actually working on the case, and told me to "watch this space".

I sense that the current period of provisional membership is a little different, though. For a start, UEFA has included Gibraltar in its draws for youth and futsal qualifying groups. It was engineered so that Gibraltar could not be in the same group as Spain, in the same way that we have seen recently with the prevention of groups involving both Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Georgia and Russia.

Futsal hasn't found its way into the hearts of people here yet, but elsewhere it is a popular five-a-side version of football played on a hard court. And it was a hard court in the south of France where a bit of history was made.

If you were preoccupied with Bradford City reaching the League Cup final, ball boys being kicked, and a non-League team knocking a Premier League side out of the FA Cup, then you'll be forgiven for not noticing the UEFA Futsal Euro 2014 preliminary round qualifiers taking place. It was these which saw a Gibraltarian side travel to Nice to play in their long-awaited first ever UEFA-sanctioned matches. Gibraltar might be excluded from the youth groups which they were drawn into because they take place after the GFA's application could be rejected in May. Crucially, however, the futsal qualifiers took place before that decision, allowing the team to get out there and play.

The players have been used to the eleven-a-side game, and a look at the teamsheet shows a mix of Spanish and British-sounding names. The very first match, interestingly enough, is against Montenegro who, for the time being, are still UEFA's newest members after they were admitted when Gibraltar was not. That aside, and it is a bit of a wake-up call as Montenegro run out 10-2 winners. I, like many over in Gibraltar, follow the text commentary on the UEFA website as the action unfolds. Although not an ideal start with double figures in the concession department, the important thing was that they scored in their first match. Joseph Chipolina got that historic first goal.

An improved showing in their next match saw them only lose 6-2 to their French hosts. I'm no futsal expert, but it looks to me as if they need to work on their defending a bit.

Having already been eliminated, and it left for France and Montenegro to contest for the qualification spot, it was up to Gibraltar to give it all they had in their last match, for this was their big chance to register a win. San Marino stood in their way.

The Sammarinese haven't had the easiest time of it in international futsal. Despite being around for a lot longer than Gibraltar, they were also viewing this match as an opportunity for a first ever victory. Perhaps that showed, as by half time San Marino were 5-2 up, with Matteo Michelotti netting a hat-trick.

Just as it looked like it was going to be an opportunity missed for Gibraltar, they came out determined in the second half, and set about making up the deficit. A goal fourteen seconds after the break, another from Chipolina to make his mark again, and then Liam Clarke completed a hat-trick of his own to draw the scores level. It was to be a happy ending for their Nice adventure, with two further unanswered goals making the final score 7-5 to Gibraltar.

Montenegro go on to the next phase of qualification after topping the group by drawing with France. Gibraltar go away with a creditable third place that should be celebrated. The bearable wait for success goes on for San Marino.

And so, despite not being part of any confederation, or even playing on a grass pitch, I make it that Gibraltar is now international football's newest team.

The future of futsal in Gibraltar is unclear. A summer league has been mooted. An interesting idea would be for them to focus on futsal and become specialists at it (I think that Azerbaijan have done that to an extent with their beach soccer team, and have achieved some decent results). It all depends if UEFA admit them. This is not just an opportunity for regular international football, but there would also be improvements in coaching and facilities.

UEFA has a decision to make in May. There will be politics. Not everyone will vote for the GFA. There may be some representatives voting who have never even heard of Gibraltar before this. But will they get in? In 2007 I was pretty sure that they would, and I was left surprised with the voting, so I wouldn't be so sure with my prediction. This time, however, UEFA may be more resigned to the fact that Gibraltar's membership seems inevitable, as indicated by president Michel Platini. It's true that the GFA can keep coming back to knock on the door because the key thing is that they have CAS on their side, which UEFA cannot ignore.

Can moments of history be left to chance?

I was going to open with a rant about how the travel problems on Tuesday left me sprinting down Olympic Way to Wembley, only to miss the first ten minutes of the match. However, after reading that a Wales fan lost his life that night, the problems which I suffered have been put into perspective.

For fans of the bigger clubs, this international break has provided the opportunity to reflect on how well their teams have fared over the first few games of the season.

It might feel a bit weird for fans of Brighton and Hove Albion to hear their team described as one of “the bigger clubs”, having spent the last five seasons down in League One, and more than a decade in an athletics stadium. However, after joining the growing number of English clubs in concluding that it’s not a great idea to have eight lanes of running track between the fans and the pitch (only West Ham United seem to be thinking in the opposite direction), the South Coast club might just have to get used to tags of greatness. They’d like to hope so, at least.

After promotion last season, the club has moved into their swanky new American Express Community Stadium in Falmer, and blazed their way to the top of the table. Southampton sit just behind, giving the early Championship table a rather similar look to the final League One table last season. Can they stay there? Robbie Savage couldn’t think of a reason for them not to.

I admire what Gus Poyet has achieved with the Seagulls. I thought that the lure of playing Championship football in their new stadium would have been what he used to motivate the players last season, but it is a great feat to get the players to continue their form into the new season. I attended a discussion forum with him once, and he came across as intelligent, funny and just a generally nice guy. I’m with many others, I’m sure, when I expect to see him managing in the Premier League at some point in the future.

Brighton and Hove Albion fans will want to keep hold of him. After all, they couldn’t have wished for a better start.

There is one exception, however. There was a lot of interest in the first competitive match at the Amex. Football Focus chose to present their programme from there, rather than show off their new Salford studio. The fans were all given little flags to wave, too, with each displaying a brand new badge/crest/emblem/logo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. The atmosphere built up to give a real sense of occasion. This was history. The only problem was that Billy Sharp, of the opposing Doncaster Rovers, nabbed the first competitive goal at the new stadium. That wasn’t in the script.

The home fans would have left happy, though, thanks to their side’s comeback. They will only feel a tinge of disappointment that that first goal didn’t go to one of their own.

The goal, itself, wasn’t the most spectacular. Though he couldn’t stop it, the goalkeeper did manage to take a lot of pace off the ball. It’s fair to say that it ended up trundling over the line. That got me thinking. What if the ball hadn’t got to the line? What if the ball had got to the line, but it wasn’t clear whether it had gone all the way over or not? Of course, these situations have come up many times before. An often controversial decision is made by the referee and the assistant, with a debate on goal-line technology following soon after by fans and pundits alike.

Sharp’s goal, however, was different. It was more than just a goal. It was a moment of history. So, what if it had been one of those controversial goals? What if the first ever competitive goal at Brighton and Hove Albion's new stadium had been something akin to that ‘ghost goal’ in that match between Watford and Reading a few years ago?

The moment of history would be tarnished. That’s not right. In years to come, people would look back with unease, and without having that certain attachment to the memory which such occasions should have provided.

When answering one of the questions at the forum, Gus Poyet said that he preferred football without video technology. He thought that debating refereeing decisions in the pub after the match is what makes the sport enjoyable. That debate, though, has moved away from whether the decisions were right or wrong, and onto whether it is time for technology or not.

That debate isn’t going to go away until it’s introduced. I enjoy watching football without the technology. I think that most other fans do. At the same time, I’m quite sure that I could cope if it was there.

Whatever the future holds, though, one thing that must not happen is for moments of history to be allowed to be corrupted.