Love is.....

Valentine's day is here again and the boys of Sports Wall are here to tell you about the many different aspects of love...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. And may all your festive sport be magical.

The Grinch part 3

"All I need is a reindeer..."

The Grinch looked around.

But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch...?
No! The Grinch simply said,
"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make my wife do everything as usual instead!"
So he called his wife Adriana. Then he took some red thread
And he tied a small pair of antlers on top of her head.
And he put an umbrella into her hand, so he could be in the shade,
And instructed her to follow him everywhere, still wearing the antlers he’d made
THEN
He loaded some bags
And some old empty sacks
On the back of his bike
And he hitched up his wife
Then the Grinch said, "Giddyap!"
And the bike started down
Toward the homes where the boys
Lay a-snooze in their town.
All their windows were dark. Quiet snow filled the air.
All the boys were all dreaming sweet dreams without care
Dani and Val were snuggled up tight,
Dreaming sweet dreams all through the night,
Dani dreams were full of holidays relaxing, kisses and joy,
And smiled as he cuddled up next to his boy,
Vale dreamed of being a super cool movie star
Being the hero and sweeping Dani away in his fast car.
Little Marc Marquez dreamed of the pop of champagne,
The top step of the podium and national anthem of Spain,
Andrea Dovi dreamed of lounging by a deep blue pool,
Wearing brand new sunglasses and looking super cool
While the boys dreamt, Casey the Grinch did creep,
Up to the houses without a peep,
When he came to the first house in the square.
"This is stop number one," The old Grinchy Claus hissed
And he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist.
Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch.
But if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch.
It was difficult to fit his big head, but fit it he did,
And down the chimney, grumpy Casey slid.
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two.
Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue
Where the little boys stockings all hung in a row.
"These stockings," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"

The Grinch (part 2)

Then the boys, young and old, would sit down to a feast.
Wise old Loris sat at the head of the table, pride of place,
Telling them stories from all of his three hundred races,
A happy smile on his wise old face,
Further down the table, with his shirt wide open was Randy
Looking cool, French and fine and dandy
At a small table were baby Marc and all of the baby bikes crew,
Maverick Vinales, Toni Elias, Pol Espargaro and Yuki Takahashi too
All were full of smiles and christmas cheer,
And hiding in the corner were Nicky and Colin, drinking beer,
All of the boys came together to meet,
To chat, to be happy, to smile and to eat,
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They would start on chocolate pudding, and colin’s special rare roast-beast
Which was something the Grinch couldn't stand in the least!
And THEN
They'd do something he liked least of all!
Every boy down in moto gp-ville, the tall and the very small,
Valentino lofty and tall, and dani pedrosa dainty and small,
Would stand together their hands clasped tight,
And the other boys would join them and stay up all night,
They would stand all close together, with Christmas bells ringing.
They'd stand hand-in-hand. And the boys would start singing!
They'd sing! And they'd sing!
AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!
And the more the Grinch thought of the boys’ Christmas-Sing
The more the Grinch thought, "I must stop this whole thing!
I must stop it all, he said with a groan,
So I can go have my Christmas all quiet and alone,
"Why for twenty seven years I've put up with it now!
I MUST stop Christmas from coming!
...But HOW?"
Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
CASEY THE GRINCH
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!
"I know just what to do!" The Grinch Laughed in his throat.
And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.
Although he found the whole santa disguise too sappy,
The idea of ruining the boys fun made him very happy,
And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great Grinchy trick!
"With this coat and this hat, I'll look just like Saint Nick!"

Dani day in Deutschland

This week the giant bubble of hilarity that is the Moto GP paddock decamped to Sachsenring in Germany. Now this season has been missing something but finally on Sunday it happened. Dani Pedrosa won. It was marvellous. He had a brilliant battle with Stinky until about twelve laps to go when he overtook him with a lovely smooth maneouvre. The BBC for some reason seemed to think Casey 'had let him past' on purpose which is frankly ludicrous and anyway Dani's laptimes were faster the whole time he was stuck behind Casey and he clearly had no trouble keeping ahead of him once he did pass him. But there was more to come. Firstly we had the brilliant battles further down the field. Lovely Dovi and his teammate Cal Crutchlow were once again throwing everything they had at each other for fourth place, which eventually meant that Cal pushed a bit too hard and ran off track ending up in eighth. Valentino Rossi had a stellar battle all race with Nicky Hayden and Hector Barbera with all of them trading positions several times which was made all the better by Alvaro Bautista's stunning run from right at the back of the grid right through to seventh position.  The highlight of Alvaro's spectacular (and mad) race was his hilarious kamikaze move towards the end of the last lap where he seemingly said to himself "screw it. I'm going. Aaaaaaaaaah!!" and just lunged desperatley past three people and right to the edge of the track. I don't know how he stayed on but he did so kudos to Alvaro on that one. On top of all that excitement Vale managed to finish in sixth and home town hero Stefan Bradl finished in fifth which was really fantastic to see both for him and all the lovely people at team LCR, not least the delectable Lucio Cecchinello himself. But that wasn't the most dramatic moment of the day. This came on the second last corner of the last lap with Dani pushing hard and Casey pushing even harder to try and overtake him. Then the end of Casey's bike folded and slid out from underneath him. At HQ we couldn't believe our eyes, we'd been jokingly pointing at him all race (actually all season) in the style of the evil monkey from family guy and the bbc man had been predicting that he would retake the lead when suddenly down he goes. Actually though you could see it coming, he seemed to be pushing way harder than Dani and right on to his limits and a few times in the last few laps his bike had been squirming and sliding all over the track. So Dani wrapped up his first victory of the season and his hattrick of victorys at Sachsenring. His beaming little face on the podium was just wonderful and watching him jump up and down with excitement was adorable. And we even got a Pedrossi moment when they shook hands as they rode around post-race. Brilliant

Moto GP merch

Check it out - I've acquired a Valentino Rossi shirt. It will from now on be my 'race day shirt.' I love it so much.
PS: You'll notice that on the TV behind me you can see the half-time highlights of the Euro 2012 final.

Manning up in Le mans

I've been a little remiss in my lack of Moto GP posts this season. But the race at Le Mans this weekend was a cracker. It was in fact 'stonking' (thank you Charlie Cox.) Dani's day seemed to sort of ebb and flow as he started out in pole but then he seemed to get in difficulty and found himself back in six and at this point it would have been very easy to assume he was being over-cautious in the ridiculous conditions. BUT then first Cal Crutchlow and then Andrea Dovizioso fell victim to the slippery track and slid off while cornering. So Dani's very sensible little ways earned him a more than respectable fourth placed finish instead of the 'nightmare in a bubblecar' that the Tech 3 boys endured. Then there was Valentino. Now, you don't get to be a nine time world champion for nothing and there's no substitute for experience. During the past few months rumors of Valentino's fall were greatly exaggerated. But this weekend he showed us all what he was made of. He totally manned up this weekend and owned that circuit. He put in a vintage Valentino performance riding the wheels off his Duke to come home a fantastic second. The neighbours must once again have wondered what on earth was going on at HQ as the celebration level was pretty high given how long we've been waiting to celebrate for Val again. But the fun wasn't just restricted to on the race track. First up we had the lovely Matt Roberts from the BBC shoving right into Michael Schumacher in the middle of his live grid chat thing much to the frustration of Schumi's furiously gesticulating press lady. Then there was Michele Pirro very calmly nearly giving the BBC a heart attack by proclaiming something (the weather or his weekend I think, I missed exactly what he said) 'shit' live on air. At lunchtime. I don't think he even realised that he wasn't supposed to. So all in all a pretty good weekend in France.
PS: There's a pretty cool interview with Valentino up on Moto GP.com http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2012/Monster+Energy+Presents+Ask+Valentino+1      check it out, he's pretty charming, as usual. Though I don't believe for a second he's a fan of Angelina Jolie

Happy Valentine's Day

It's that time of year again everyone. It's Valentine's day! And once again the boys of Sports Wall are on hand to bring you a handy guide to the art of love. There are many ways to catch the eye of the object of your affections,



perhaps buy a card or gift?



maybe buy a snazzy new outfit?

 You could call up your wing man

you could try some gentle flirting

you could get romanticor get a little more 'intense'

or maybe you could go all out and re-enact a scene from their favourite movie?

Whatever you do Ruth's Sports Wall wishes you a happy boy love day.

A tribute to Marco Simoncelli

source

I don't even know how to begin this post. It's difficult to find the words becuase it's still so difficult to actually comprehend that it actually happened. At yesterday's race in Sepang Marco Simoncelli passed away after a horror crash. Its such a tragic waste of such a wonderful person. Its such a sad day for the sport and the world but particularly for his family and those close to him. But as terribly sad as we are here at Sport's Wall, we would like to pay tribute to Marco by focussing not on the tragic way his life ended but on the many many postives it contained. We feel that its only right that such a fantastic joyous person should be remembered in the same way. We loved Marco for the sheer joy he brought to the paddock every week, we looked forward to seeing and hearing his interviews on TV because he was always so heartwarmingly goofy, we loved his giant hair and how tall he was and how weird his legs looked dangling off his bike, we loved how fearless he was in every race, how defiant he was in the face of criticism, how truly special he was, a complete wacky one off. I love that even as I get teary eyed writing this, he still makes me smile as I remember all the fun and hilarity he brought with him to every race weekend. So Goodbye Marco, you'll leave a massive gap in the paddock and while it won't be the same without you we offer you heartfelt thanks and love and say simply "ciao."

(late) feliz cumpleaños dani

I've been very remiss readers. I forgot Dani's birthday. Considering the ridiculous amount of time I spend thinking about varying aspects of Dani's life and career, so much I could act as some sort of semi-official sponsor of his, its frankly outrageous that I've forgotten his special day. So Sports Wall would like to send massive belated birthday wishes (and mental hugs) to the tiny little boy that holds a big place in my heart. Happy Birthday. And to mark the special event here's the early draft version of Dani and Valentino.

New wonderful world...of moto gp

It took me a while, but here's my little character profiles of some of the moto GP boys

Moto GP - the movie

Stumbled across a fabulous little trailer for 'Fastest' which is the follow to the imaginatively titled 'Faster' a sort of Moto GP road movie that follows all the dramatic developments and exciting moments of the season as a whole. Watch the trailer at the official website http://www.fastestthemovie.com/index-intl.html go on. Anyway the ridiculously dramatic cycle of flicking words like 'fame' 'girls' 'thrills' 'speed' and the really dramatic voiceover are all well and good and brilliantly OTT but I wish you could all see the trailer that very quickly assembled and started playing in my head. I think if I'd created a behind the scenes look at the season we can safely say it would pretty much be 'Bromance and sports innuendo- the movie.' My scrolling words would be very different- 'speed, thrills, secrets, bromance, accents, leather, podiums, crashes and....SIMONCELLI.' Speaking of Simoncelli, known to my mother as 'the big hairy one' I think my version of the movie would heavily feature 'Simoncelli cam' which is essentially a camera following him at all times capturing his wacky antics. One of my favourite things about the real trailer was that they subtitled him when he spoke, I know his accent's funny but it's not that bad. I think there would also have to be some sort of segment featuring 'Nicky's Frat house', security tips with the 'Texas Tornado' and a sort of eeyore type guide to all the problems (not of his own making of course) currently afflicting Casey Stoner. The main focus of course would be my constant real life quest to accrue evodence of the 'Pedrossi' bromance. I'm sure you can all work out that that's a combination of 'Pedrosa' and 'Rossi'.  Clever, I know. I'm pretty sure if you followed them all season with a camera (which God willing someone will allow me to do, one day)  you would get so much footage that someone of my very special mindset would have endless fun forming into a bromance montage. God knows there's the beginning of a photo series already. And in true moto gp- you think i've made this up but i actually haven't- style here is the fantastic return of extracurricular Thursday from Indianapolis. And the random activity selected for the boys this time is.....American Football!

(source )What I love about this is how Andrea Dovi (far right) looks like he has literally no idea what on earth he's doing there. So much so that he can't even be bothered to pose for the picture properly. Happy days.

Dani day at Sachsenring!

There was absolute pandemonium in HQ today at the end of the Moto GP race. This was because Dani's marvellous comeback finally kicked into top gear today as he marked it with a win. Yes you read that right, in only his second race back our gorgeous boy won. Not just won, won in style too. He played it perfectly with a dynamite start, then some kick ass passing moves on stinky and Jorge. It was a stunning race all round with lovely Dovi and Marco engaging in a pretty livley scrap for fourth place which was later joined by Ben Spies. Valentino had his fair share of the action too, showing us he can still get it done in an almighty scrap with Alvaro Bautista and Fratboy Hayden. One of the particular highlights of the race was Alberto the happiest man on earth hanging right off the pit wall, waving like a madman at Dani to go faster. Also good was Dovi blowing kisses at the camera at the end, he's always a very charming boy. But by far the best moment for me today was eating my moto GP winning cookie at the end of the race. I made my moto gp cookie at the beginning of the day to eat with the race in honour of Dani and it ended up a victory cookie! And it was delicious.

The long awaited return

It's been a long wait but finally this weekend Dani returned to the Moto GP paddock. And of course there was a rather tall Italian waiting to greet him on his return. Unfortunatley it wasn't Valentino Rossi but Marco Simoncelli the cause of his absence. Poor Marco attempted to do the decent thing and shake Dani's hand in an attempt to put all the animosty behind them but Dani was having none of it. I was a little disappointed in Dani and his refusal of the handshake. I just didn't think he was that kind of person, he always seemed more mature than that to me. Don't get me wrong I understand why he would feel angry at Marco but I don't think continuing to blame him helps anyone. Maybe Valentino can have a word with him and help the situation since he's apparently friends with both of them. Having said that, I did enjoy Dani's deadpan declaration that "there's nothing in his [Marco's] head but hair." The race itself was pretty good with some exciting battles the whole way through the field. Dani foughtt his way from fourteenth up to seventh, which on his return from injury is pretty damn good. Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso put in sterling performances pipping Casey at the end of the race and throwing the chammpionship right back open. Also little baby Marc (Marquez) won again! Yay. We're quite fond of little baby Marc at HQ largely because he looks like the love child of Bojan Krkic and Justin Bieber.

Two Dani-less rounds

I've been slightly remiss about my moto GP postings, largely because there's been a Dani shaped hole in the grid for the past two rounds. I had to tape Catalunya because I was on holiday. I was hoping for a Valentino Rossi win since I was in Italy but fifth wasn't too bad, given he's still in the developing stage with the bike. I spent quite a bit of my day out in Riva skulking around bar canopies, leaning over in a super unsubtle way trying to surreptitiously watch their highlights. Luckily my mum then handily sent me a text informing me that "stinky" had won and Rossi had finished fifth. Stellar.
Then it was the British GP. It was eventful to say the least. Lots of rain meant crashes for Spies, Lorenzo and Simoncelli and lots of sketchy moments besides. Which means its all change in the leaderboard again. Unfortunately stinky is now leading but it does mean narrow the gaps at the top which lets Dani back in if he returns sharpish. A friend of mine attended the GP and has returned with autographs! I haven't managed to find out whose yet and the suspense is killing me, I can't wait to hear all the exciting stuff from the weekend.

A horrendous hat-trick

A stark contrast to a couple of weekends ago when everything went right. This weekend everything went wrong. Sporting wise. First up was Moto GP and while there were positives such as Valentino's first Ducati podium and lovely Dovi on the podium, there was an incident which overshadowed the joy somewhat. Dani had a little duel with Simoncelli which he came out of worse and crashed. His collarbone is broken. Poor baby Dani has only just recovered from breaking the left side of his collarbone. Now he's broken the right. It just never ends for the poor guy. I wish him all the very best in his recovery because as you all know HQ is very firmly Dani territory. Then came the Arsenal match. A 2-1 loss to Aston Villa. Robbed doesn't cover it. A stonewall penalty denied. A perfectly good goal denied for no apparent reason. Bookings and red cards not issued. Ridiculous. On the plus side Robin got fighty which is always a highlight. Then to complete the hat-trick, Rafael Nadal lost the Rome final to Novak Djokovic. What a weekend.

Dani day in Estoril

I've already talked about one momentous event that happened over the weekend but there are even more to come. Starting here. With Sunday's Estoril GP. And a stonking GP it was.
Once again before it had even started we were on the right track with a press room bitch fest worthy of the red carpet. Jorge Lorenzo and Marco Simoncelli got into a little spat about Marco's ahem aggressive riding style. The highlight was Jorge telling him that "if it happens in the future with you, then there'll be a problem." To which Marco replied "Then I'll get arrested." What a guy.
The race itself was a tactical masterclass from Dani Pedrosa. Valentino Rossi would have been proud of his patience and perserverance in stalking Jorge until four laps remaining. Clever boy. Lovely Dovi also pulled out a hell of a strategy in reflecting the famous Elias-Rossi duel over the line from 06. Its turning into an amazing season already and with Le Mans up next we're sure to have more drama coming. Bring it on

Jerez GP - Crashes, hissy fits and comedy falls

Now that is how to start the season with a bang. This weekend's race had absolutely everything you could ask for and hopefully is just a taster of what we're going to get this season. So without further ado, let's dive right in.

Sporting Thoughts- Comebacks, issues and track cycling

Well last weekend was a funny old couple of days. There was a dramatic Arsenal game and the first Moto GP race of the season. This weekend, not so much. Its an international  break and there's track cycling on eurosport. So let's start at the start and look at last weekend.

The evidence mounts

"Pedrosa called me a few times when I was still in recovery, to see how I was doing and to tell me to stay positive," GPOne.com reports Rossi as saying.
The bromance lives! The evidence just keeps building. I think google plants this stuff in my way. Anyway I just found this and I thought it would make a sweet little pre-race thing.