Maradona

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

He thought he was bigger and better than the game that gifted him his fame. I admire his ability but I have zero respect for anyone who treats the game as their personal property and so shabbily.

I can't work out if this is serious or some sort of subtle, iron-filings styled tribute. Either way it made me laugh.

Not close to George Best who played on pitches that resembled a bog or rock hard pitches. Not a drug cheat.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Yes but George wasn’t a cheating b@stard was he?

[url] https://www.independent.co.uk/.....change-a8958591.html[/url]

No no.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

My enduring memory of Maradona is not the handball. That was cheating but it isn’t the sort of cheating that made me despise him. It was in the 1994 World Cup when he ran full tilt towards the camera and there was this horribly distorted face clearly full of some sort of drugs filling the TV screen.  He tested positive shortly after.
.

Still a cracking goal mind.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ4qF0QkcT4

First glimpse I had of him was Wembley 1980. This was a precursor to his World Cup goal against us, when he nonchalantly waltzed past the entire England defence and poked the ball just past the post. Would have been up there with the other one had it gone in. 55 seconds in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXrbxzKveRY

Cards on the table... I'm playing devil's advocate here.

I can't abide cheating, particularly in sport but that's no doubt as a result of the British sense of fair play. One of the really interesting aspects to come out of the Diego film is various commentators tell how many Latinos have a different perspective. They saw the Hand of God as being like a petulant street kid using his guile to get one over a slow witted member of the aristocracy. They think the rules are there to be broken if you're streetwise enough to get away with it. Something most of us would baulk at in the UK, when it comes to sport anyway.

I was livid when Maradona performed his infamous Hand of God. It was even more galling to see them then go on to win the bloody thing. So much for cheaters never prosper.

But after all these years I wonder if there is an element of pearl clutching when it comes to Maradona today.

Did he cheat that night? Undoubtedly. Did he cheat regularly? I don't know, other than the performance enhancing substance he took in USA 94. Maybe he was at it all the time? I can't believe taking cocaine would have given him an edge when he crossed the white line (no pun intended) if anything it would have had a debilitating effect on his health and fitness.

Is it the Hand of God that makes him an irredeemable cheat in the eyes of many, or the fact he took performance enhancing drugs, or indeed both?

If it's the first, then will Henry go down as nothing more than a cheat for his deliberate handball in the lead up to s goal against Ireland in a WC play off game?

Rivaldo for his face clutching simulation in WC 2002?

Man United and Liverpool players for fixing a game in 1915?

Juventus for match fixing in 2006?

Shearer for his excessive use of his elbows in aerial battles?

Roy Keane for deliberately crippling an opponent?

Drogba for constantly falling over at the slightest of contact?

Suarez's sly kicks at opponents to wind them up and indeed biting them?

Gazza, Merson, Tony Adams, Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath, etc...being hooked or booze and/or drugs?

Rio Ferdinand for "missing" a drugs test?"

Or are we tougher on Maradona because he had the audacity to cheat England out of a World Cup?

Personally, I think cheating is now endemic in professional ootball. How many times have we seen two opposing players scream "our ball" to the ref when one of them knows for a fact it isn't.

How many times have we seen a player roll around like they've been shot only to miraculous recover seconds later as play is waived on by the ref?

Players deliberately wasting time on freekicks or accidentally kicking/throwing it beyond a team mate to eat up more seconds before a freekick.

They're all minor, admittedly, but they add up. And when it's our team doing it we're happy to accept it.

In an alternate universe, Chris Waddle’s angled drive ricochets in off the post against West Germany in the 1990 WC Semi

Gazza holds back. Lineker holds it in. England hold on.

Diego does a number on us in the Final, mimes drinking a cup of tea - Alex Morgan style -  and captains Argentina to back-to-back World Cup victories.

The Sun gives away free airfix kits of the Belgrano, with bits missing, for the whole of the latter half of 1990 and beyond.

Rupert Murdoch orders The News of The World to hack the phones of Argentine celebrities but succeeds only in bugging a rickety villa owned by Aussie art dealers.

Fray Bentos pies are banned from UK supermarket shelves, even though they are Uruguayan.

Corn Beef Hash is renamed Steve Hodge Gash, after the scapegoated midfielder’s own goal in the Final.

In an effort to repair his image, and promote British beef, Steve Hodge is force fed a BSE infested spinal bap by John Gummer.

John Gummer’s daughter goes to Harvard instead of sitting around in her pants all day, watching Homes Under The Hammer.

Tesco are rocked by a scandal that they have been selling Argentinian beef (*spit*) incorrectly labelled as horse meat

The Argentine Tango week on Strictly is replaced by Nigel Farage morris dancing in a pair of crotchless Gaúcho chaps

Hodge and Farage (“Farodge”) - by this stage, as mad as each other - team up to launch an anti-Argentine political party, which suggests Argentina is on the verge of joining the EU and hordes of Zapata moustached revolutionaries are queuing up at UK borders.

Steve Hodge’s mind turns to Bovril. John Gummer is charged with manslaughter. Boris pardons him because, “Alas, the manslaughter was accidental, the beef was oven ready and we really need to channel the, grasp the, brandish the sword of Damocles and fight back against these puerile, Peronist pampasninnies”.

I want to live in your alternate universe Knut.

By the way, i think we would have beaten the Argies in the final had we got there.

Quoted from ginnywings

I want to live in your alternate universe Knut.

By the way, i think we would have beaten the Argies in the final had we got there.

The version where England win Italia 90 isn’t that different to be honest.

The Daily Mail employ lip readers to establish that Gazza’s tears induce pent up desires in Gary Lineker. As Gazza blubbers, Gary turns to Sir Bobby and says, “I really want him”, not “Have a word with him”.

Gary and Gazza elope and set up a string of sh1t bars in Spanish seaside resorts

Steve Hodge and Steve Bull replace the lovestruck Spurs duo in the Final. Hodge. Bull. 1-0. Goals pay the rent and Bull does his share.

Steve Bull signs a lucrative deal to promote British beef in the wake of the BSE scandal. “Bully’s Beef - you’d be mad not to”

Poses with Gummer. Goes mad. Mounts anything with udders, including a surprised Gazza in Linekers Marbella.

England still lose to Sweden at Euro 92, with Bull leading the line in an Umbro straightjacket. Gazza and Gary are watching it unfold in Linekers Torremolinos. Bromance. Darling. Brolin!

Steve Bull and Nigel Farage form a political party. BullKIP

Bull has a fallout with The Guardian (it’s just a red rag to The Bull) and, still upset about Euro 92, sets out to demonise the Swedes

Viking FM is taken off air

Ulrika is imprisoned in a flat pack prison

PM Bull appoints Mike Newell as player manager of England instead of Sven, and Gary and Gazza live happily ever after

Zhang Enhua decides he doesn’t want to leave China for BullKIP’s oppressive, authoritarian regime. Peter Handyside(s) ends up playing over 800 matches for Town and gets awarded a Grimsby ‘s’ in the New Year’s Honours List

Quoted from Knut Anders Fosters Voles

The version where England win Italia 90 isn’t that different to be honest.

The Daily Mail employ lip readers to establish that Gazza’s tears induce pent up desires in Gary Lineker. As Gazza blubbers, Gary turns to Sir Bobby and says, “I really want him”, not “Have a word with him”.

Gary and Gazza elope and set up a string of sh1t bars in Spanish seaside resorts

Steve Hodge and Steve Bull replace the lovestruck Spurs duo in the Final. Hodge. Bull. 1-0. Goals pay the rent and Bull does his share.

Steve Bull signs a lucrative deal to promote British beef in the wake of the BSE scandal. “Bully’s Beef - you’d be mad not to”

Poses with Gummer. Goes mad. Mounts anything with udders, including a surprised Gazza in Linekers Marbella.

England still lose to Sweden at Euro 92, with Bull leading the line in an Umbro straightjacket. Gazza and Gary are watching it unfold in Linekers Torremolinos. Bromance. Darling. Brolin!

Steve Bull and Nigel Farage form a political party. BullKIP

Bull has a fallout with The Guardian (it’s just a red rag to The Bull) and, still upset about Euro 92, sets out to demonise the Swedes

Viking FM is taken off air

Ulrika is imprisoned in a flat pack prison

PM Bull appoints Mike Newell as player manager of England instead of Sven, and Gary and Gazza live happily ever after

Zhang Enhua decides he doesn’t want to leave China for BullKIP’s oppressive, authoritarian regime. Peter Handyside(s) ends up playing over 800 matches for Town and gets awarded a Grimsby ‘s’ in the New Year’s Honours List

I doff my cap to thee.