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[tennisman]

Too many no brainer cheap thrillers for the last few months. Back to old Lance again. Just up to where Lance took his tumble. Great investigative journalism as per and a man obsessed and right. Based on the film amd most known, but still a great read:

A terrific read, Carlos.

Tyler Hamilton's book is a good one too.

is Walsh now girding his loins to go after Sky and Wiggins, I wonder after hearing him make some comments a few weeks back?

Not sure how much I would trust Hamilton, and any other dopers biogs though, but may well read, tennis.

Walsh after Wiggins and Brailsford would be massive. Brailsford's Mr Wiki has no mention of the Parliamentary Committees. Not sure Waksh has the heart. He played a very long game with Armstrong, not always likely to win, sure bask in his limited fame now.

Hopefully, in the fetid and lacklustre meeja, there might be someone else there to fight the good fight.

Hey, Michael Calvin or Matthew Syed?

Hushed tones or lots of mid atlantic dawl!!!

Got the sense for Hamilton's book that he was telling the truth about his descent into taking EPO etc. It wasn't a book about denial but one of revealing the truth - well that was my take on it. He talks about the rationael that riders used (use???) to justify to themselves their decision to cheat.

Only mentioned Walsh and Sky as I heard him talking about them in the same way he talked about Armstrong. But yes, it may be too big a mountain to climb.

Tennisman. Finished 'The Redeemer' and did enjoy it. As per, it pans out a lots but all strands tied up, without the need of other thriller writers to have page after page of gung ho action. Possibly a more cerebral thriller, would certainly read more if see them on my charity shop travels.

And then lo, Did Hamilton's and Landis' books in two days. Both interesting but also difficult to read as knowing so many other facts. Hamilton, I agree with you, he seems to want to clear and cleanse his soul admitting to everything and as you say and as Lance did, if you didn't dope, you'd have no chance so do or get fucked. Also, the loss of innocence from the child eyed wonder of wanting to just ride and ride to realising it was all a great sham seemed to affect him. Armstrong was probably once the same, but far more sociopathic in outlook, with me or agin me and if agin me, I'll destroy you.

My edition had an epilogue after Lance on Oprah and good to see some vindication for Hamilton. Came across as quite a sincere guy and good luck to him. A Carlos 8/10 and worthy William Hill winner.

Landis' was totally different. Written in 2007 after his suspension and leading up to his USADA case, again knowing more didn't help. But reading it, you could get swallowed up in the rags to riches Mennonite boy who just wanted to ride and was damned good at it and with a fucked hip. But a tad too much naïveté and fantasy when saying he saw and heard barely nothing about doping in the peloton.

But reading his vitriol towards UCI and McQuaid, WADA and Dick Pound and USADA in their presentation of their case, coupled with his lawyers and medical experts' findings on his case, you sort sort of want him to succeed. Lots seemed suspect and flaky on the evidence front. UCI came across as a bunch of self-interesting cunts, USADAs interpration of the process of justice seemed flimsy.

But there it finished, and we know USADA ruled 2-1 against him, upheld by CAS and he later admitted doping. Equally fascinating read, can only echo reviews I posted above about how it fits in historical context. A Carlos 7/10.

Great reviews, Carlos.

Those of us who were amateurs may always have dreamt of being pros in our chosen sports but what comes across in book after book written by pros that I've read is that it's never what you dreamt it would be for so many reasons.

It's almost the case of enjoying the fantasy of the dream against the reality where often the constant fear of failure, the need to generate more money / another contract to pay the bills makes the dynamic completely different to the party / cake walk / ideal life which we might have imagined it to be as kids.

[Carlos J]

Totally agree, tennis. The boyhood, wide-eyed view of making it as a sportsman, most here, on a forum related to a shite sports station, can relate to, we could have all been contenders.*

Once there, the pressures heap up. Except football, Where the pressure does heap up, but the coin is there. How hard to you motivate yourself at 18 at say £5k a month like the Chelseas boys reduced to or similar.

Pressure, precious, players who should be out playing cloggers in the Championship or lower. It's a game of no soul as many note.

Your tennis, athletics, others, is the fight harder? Will the best always out? Boxing, my favourite sport is brutal. Hopefully the best will out, as the training is brutal, you can not have a bad day at the office. Not the same as being paid to attend tennis club by wannabe parents. Boxing clubs are better now, but it used to be, pay a sub, sparring and shadow boxing and then a bit of ringwork. Not a

But as per your point, once you are not even pro, cash is King, Sport's not a dream but business.

I forgot and will give the Nesbø a 7/10 and certainly happy to read more.

*Blah, blah, poor me Such an elegant southpaw, a left handed Tommy Hearns. My fault, gave it up, teenage stuff. In football, too short as per always then in u14s local cup final on a proper ground, my central midfield oppo got a run around got a straight red for a tackle on me. Hey, the cunt played Prem and Championship level. Not bitter.

Also schoolboy friend, as per who played on the satellite circuit in tennis, we played as as schoolboys during lunch but he was good. Got noted and did the ciircuit but did not make it. Same as another schoolfriend. We started playing snooker after school at 13, two year later he was giving us 80 starts and beating us. Making ton breaks before 16. He tried the snooker circuit but nay.

Could they both have made it? Were they both destined to the less than elite level. If they were picked up earlier, what could have happened?

I ask this because one of my work colleagues has a daughter who plays for Norfolk County tennis at age 7. WTF? The chap I played with and I never played till high school at 13.

A kind of rolling, rambling reply adding when I go, hope it makes some sense. Also, next, I will read this:

[tennisman]

Totally agree, tennis. The boyhood, wide-eyed view of making it as a sportsman, most here, on a forum related to a shite sports station, can relate to, we could have all been contenders.*

Once there, the pressures heap up. Except football, Where the pressure does heap up, but the coin is there. How hard to you motivate yourself at 18 at say £5k a month like the Chelseas boys reduced to or similar.

Pressure, precious, players who should be out playing cloggers in the Championship or lower. It's a game of no soul as many note.

Your tennis, athletics, others, is the fight harder? Will the best always out? Boxing, my favourite sport is brutal. Hopefully the best will out, as the training is brutal, you can not have a bad day at the office. Not the same as being paid to attend tennis club by wannabe parents. Boxing clubs are better now, but it used to be, pay a sub, sparring and shadow boxing and then a bit of ringwork. Not a

But as per your point, once you are not even pro, cash is King, Sport's not a dream but business.

I forgot and will give the Nesbø a 7/10 and certainly happy to read more.

*Blah, blah, poor me Such an elegant southpaw, a left handed Tommy Hearns. My fault, gave it up, teenage stuff. In football, too short as per always then in u14s local cup final on a proper ground, my central midfield oppo got a run around got a straight red for a tackle on me. Hey, the cunt played Prem and Championship level. Not bitter.

Also schoolboy friend, as per who played on the satellite circuit in tennis, we played as as schoolboys during lunch but he was good. Got noted and did the ciircuit but did not make it. Same as another schoolfriend. We started playing snooker after school at 13, two year later he was giving us 80 starts and beating us. Making ton breaks before 16. He tried the snooker circuit but nay.

Could they both have made it? Were they both destined to the less than elite level. If they were picked up earlier, what could have happened?

I ask this because one of my work colleagues has a daughter who plays for Norfolk County tennis at age 7. WTF? The chap I played with and I never played till high school at 13.

A kind of rolling, rambling reply adding when I go, hope it makes some sense. Also, next, I will read this:

One year when I was doing my Tennis Fantasy Camp, one f the old Aussie legends said to the assembled participants, 'This is your chance to know what it was like for us on the tour'.

It didn't matter but I thought that the week was actually nothing like what it would have been like. For one, we were all veteran hacker recreational players on a weeks holiday, not pros playing matches we had to win to earn an income. Because of this alone, the pressures, especially mental ones, would have been fundamentally different.

And in my time as a coach, I saw many young British players coming to the club to train on court, work-out in the gym, eat, often alone, in the cafe and go home in the late afternoon, to wait for the next tournament to come up, where they would have to travel and get accommodation always watching the cost. It looked like a very alone / lonely world indeed.

It underlined the difference between when they were kids doing tennis because it was fun and they loved it and when it would have been new and an activity to be done outside school. It would be a whole lot different as a young adult, striving at the far bottom end of the tour, often without the sort of entourage the top players have (with all the support that went with it) and almost always without enough money.

Of course, in most top sports, if you do make it, the rewards are huge but thousands and thousands don't.

I've long ago lost track of the number of county cricketers who maybe get a contract for a few years and then get discarded and have to start again in a normal job somewhere.

At least in football, right down to 7/ 8 of the national pyramid (i.e. Step 3 / 4 of non league - Northern Premier League / Southern League / Ryman League), players can earn decent weekly money to supplement income for a main job.

[tennisman]

Carlos, on kids being selected at 7 to play representative stuff, I have always been dead against it.

Although difficult to quantify it, anecdotally, there is a wealth of information suggesting that too much pressure too soon will lead to burn out / fall out due to indifference, at relatively young adult ages.

The pressures, especially in individual sports where you are not amongst team mates are tough enough without all that pushy expectation amongst parents, coaches and organising bodies.

And like scorpions left too close to things they can sting where ultimately, they will have to sting them, so parents, coaches and organising bodies, however well intended, at some point with a comment here, a frown there, start to crank the pressure up on young kids picked out of the crowd.

If I had a £1 for every time, tennis coaches put clips on FB Tennis coaching pages of young kids who look quite good and ask others 'Guys what do you think of his serve etc', I'd be a wealthy man. The problem is that this is all ego-driven b/s.

Tennis and other sports are obsessed with Talend ID when at the same time, acknowledging that it takes 10 years / 10,000 hours (Erikson not Gladwell) to develop players to top standard as they grow up.

The problem is that the kids that 'look' like little players are defined as having 'potential'. It's such b/s as EVERY kid has potential. I got sick to death of County Officers walking around with clip boards selecting little players as if they knew, like some sort of youth development soothsasyer, that these players and these only would be the ones to receive preferential treatment.

Trust me, there's NO model yet developed to sport the next star but many spew out masses of bullshit as if they know how to do it.

The solution is from within a strategy that gets more kids across all sports playing the game in a fun but developmental environment. So much youth development is driven by a 'fast track the supposedly best' mentality which may, or may not benefit those chosen but almost always cuts out vast swathes of kids who should be nurtured and allowed to develop in what might be called a normal way.

Youth sport is always looking for Rooneys / Andy Murrays / Sachin Tendulkars who are fully developed at tender ages when the known reality is that these players are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Photographing 500 Arsenal programmes for Ebay covering 1960-2010 over the last few days, there was plenty of coverage of their youth and reserve teams inside. Right from way back (and actually, even more so now), how many players who were in those team photos made the 1st team? Hardly ANY of them!

And yet now, with all these academies set up, I know from a couple of sources that by the age of 15, most of the kids left from the culling of the ones taken in as young as 6 are actually from abroad. Yet with even more cash coming into the game and with expectations rising in tandem, still, hardly any of these kids, whether local or foreign, have a cat in hells chance of making the 1st team, especially in the top clubs.

Despite a coach here in Manchester telling me that City's long term strategy is NOT to shell out huge amounts for players but develop them from within, look at City's transfer record prior to and in this season (Jesus, Gundogan, Sane etc). He told me that 5 years ago but it's all b/s.

The problem is that in the UK, the more important it becomes to build participation, the less we make it fun for the kids. We just don't do FUN very well, thinking that it's just messing around.

From my 14 years, it's all about how you coach it.

I saw plenty of what I'd call appalling treatment of you kids where the adults were treating them as if they were small adults, which they are not.

Even Chris Davies was talking on TS today about how some 9 year-olds he coaches at football were treating him with disdain. My reaction is that this is his problem, not the kids. I bet he was talking to them as if they were Premier League stars using all the technical / tactical language we hear on TS / MOTD. Of course, that might be unfair but I've heard and seen that happening many, many times.

I've seen so much over talking and over coaching of kids amongst adults who may be well meaning but have no qualifications, have not studied the coaching process or more importantly, child development. I was probably the only coach in my time in the profession who bothered to take a quick look at the work of child development specialists like Piaget etc.

I didn't want to make it all academic but believed that if you didn't tap into the knowledge of respected people in their fields who had gone before you, then you were a chump believing you could work it all out yourself.

I always drove my activity by socio-psychological factors in how the kids were coached and grouped together etc. not only by ability which was the accepted mantra.

I know that many of my fellow coaches thought I was a bit OTT but they never actually asked me why I had 700 kids a week coming to lessons (built up from 140 a week when I began) and the rest couldn't get their acts together at all.

10 years on since I left coaching, I see on Facebook Group pages all the same questions from coaches how to coach kids and build participation and somewhat depressingly, most of these questions are the same ones being posed back in 1993 when I started out as a coach.

If, as Chris Davies and all JWOTS's guest are right in saying 'society is different now' well, no shit but that you've still got to work out how to communicate with players in the right way at the right time.

I bet if we analysed it deeply enough, we'd find that many of the approaches that the likes of Busby, Stein, Paisley and Clough used would still work today, if only coaches and the media would stop stereotyping today's pros and look at them, understand them and talk to them specific to their needs / personalities.

[Carlos J]

Excellently put, tennisman and agree with all you say on caoching and talent spotting. And amusing about the county officers with clipboards. Kids of 7 should be playing for fun and enjoyment of the game, coaching can eliminate faults but adding pressure of competing will fuck more off than they help. You know and summarise the situation too well, shame there's not more you can do about it.

[tennisman]

Excellently put, tennisman and agree with all you say on caoching and talent spotting. And amusing about the county officers with clipboards. Kids of 7 should be playing for fun and enjoyment of the game, coaching can eliminate faults but adding pressure of competing will fuck more off than they help. You know and summarise the situation too well, shame there's not more you can do about it.

Thanks Carlos.

In many ways I was caught in a sort of Catch 22 with it all.

Many of the things I did broke their mold because I hadn't been produced by it.

But ultimately, there were too many in command who had been produced from the mold, so were uncomfortable doing the hard work needed to change things and do it differently.

One senior Head Office bloke at David Lloyd once told me to slow everything down as my success and continually growing attendance / revenue numbers were showing everyone else up.

FFS, I thought I'd walked back into the set of Peter Sellars Fred Kite character walking around the factory where they were all playing cards behind tea cases in the film 'I'm alright Jack'.

When hearing I had had to give up, one local coach said to my then boss, 'That's alright. At least the coaches meetings will be shorter now'.

I am not a violent bloke but that sort of comment made me want to throttle him. It summed up the comfy complacency that permeates the sport and means it'll never change regardless of how many times Murray or anyone else wins Wimbledon. They don't want to shift themselves out of the comfort zone that has been created.

Changes that are made by successive LTA Chief Executives on obscene money are really just tampering with cosmetics.

10 years on, the LTA and many coaches still can't work out whether they should be doing mass participation or elite performance. For me, they are part of the same whole.

But none of them seem to get it that its not Andy Murray, the LTA, the British Coaches Association or anyone else who will build the sport but individuals doing their stuff on their plot in their way. If there's one legacy I can leave behind, it is surely that. I didn't wait for anyone to tell me or to do it for me.

[Carlos J]

Indeed. same as in County FAs and sports admiinistration and coaching up and down the country. How many are for for what they can get, rather than what they can give? At least you have your legacy and can be proud of that. Plus you articulate it so well, shame that voice doesn't get a larger audience than us, digispy and wherever else you post.

Get fucking Calvin and Syed off Saggers' show and get a three hour tennisman special.

[tennisman]

Indeed. same as in County FAs and sports admiinistration and coaching up and down the country. How many are for for what they can get, rather than what they can give? At least you have your legacy and can be proud of that. Plus you articulate it so well, shame that voice doesn't get a larger audience than us, digispy and wherever else you post.

Get fucking Calvin and Syed off Saggers' show and get a three hour tennisman special.

Very kind, Carlos

In tennis, it's just not going to happen, I'm afraid.

There are a few coaches I used to know when I was one and we are FB friends. For a few years, I'd like everything they posted and comment positively on their posts. I'd also mention them / highlight them when I was talking in coaches pages (i.e. big them up).

Not once did I get any form of reciprocal contact. So I stopped all the contact. I thought, 'I'm not a 'Like' service to massage your feed egos!'

Another guy I knew and got on well with found me on FB and after a FB chat, he told me he had been made Chairman of one of the coaching associations and that he must use me / my voice somehow in their organisation and / or at their annual conference.

We exchanged phone numbers and the following evening, I called him and left a message. He never returned the call, nor contacted me again.

I can't be arsed with this stuff.

Interestingly, one aspect of all the junior development stuff was that tennis coaches, it seemed, had a notorious reputation for NOT calling people back. So when I used to religiously never go home in the early evening after lessons until every message had been returned (based on my corporate customer service training and just out of basic courtesy), I'd have parents gushing with thanks as, apparently, this didn't happen elsewhere.

Why do parents like you, Tennisman? Because you get on well with kids? No, because I phone them back!

In another area of it all, the LTA set up a circuit of tournaments for the younger kids which I got involved with, holding one at each level (5 in all). They had rules about all entries being received one week before the date. Knowing parents as I did (a week is a very long time), I bent that rule and accepted entries up until the last minute if I could accommodate them, on the courts / within the format.

At a coaches meeting, I told them that this was why I had such good entry numbers and that they should change it to say 3 days before and with organiser discretion to allow others in. I also raised the issue that parents had told me that when they called the number at the clubs listed on the information document for all the events, they never could get through to anyone and no-one ever called them back.

Go figure. It's so basic and if I ever got on Saggers show as you suggest and they asked me the question, 'What one thing would you do to get participation levels up - invest the millions of Wimbledon pounds differently?', I bet everyone would think that I was bullshitting them if I said, 'Make sure parents get called back'!

[kevin04]

Only forty pages in, but maybe of interest for End-o. The author talks to people from across the nations of the old Soviet Union about the USSR, communism, identity, and the future.

[Carlos J]

Excellent as always, tennisman. One last reply off topic reply. Saw this yesterday, when coaching gets extreme, though still on trial so we'll see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... hters.html

[tennisman]

Excellent as always, tennisman. One last reply off topic reply. Saw this yesterday, when coaching gets extreme, though still on trial so we'll see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... hters.html

Appalling, Carlos.

I haven't seen anything as bad but have seen some pretty poor treatment of kids by their parents in a youth sport environment.

[Man_called_sun]

[Carlos J]

Posted that, MCS in various threads here, indeed the old sporting books thread. A magnificent read, which always with Garrincha, I am compelled to post this video:



And this. Garrincha was doing everything Ronaldo does 50 years before. Look at the Little Bird, double and treble marked by cloggers, but gained two World cup winners medals, ruined in 1966. Ronnie, a gliorified cheerleader and his one Euro in 2016. Socalled Goatfuckingtastic:

is Walsh now girding his loins to go after Sky and Wiggins, I wonder after hearing him make some comments a few weeks back?[...]

Not sure how much I would trust Hamilton, and any other dopers biogs though, but may well read, tennis.

Walsh after Wiggins and Brailsford would be massive. Brailsford's Mr Wiki has no mention of the Parliamentary Committees. Not sure Waksh has the heart. He played a very long game with Armstrong, not always likely to win, sure bask in his limited fame now.

Hopefully, in the fetid and lacklustre meeja, there might be someone else there to fight the good fight.

Hey, Michael Calvin or Matthew Syed?

Hushed tones or lots of mid atlantic dawl!!!
[...]
Only mentioned Walsh and Sky as I heard him talking about them in the same way he talked about Armstrong. But yes, it may be too big a mountain to climb.

Tennisman. Read Syed's column in The Times, Wednesday about Wiggins/Sky and he notes some Walsh comments about it, plus calling for whistleblowers and something may come out re: jiffy bag.

Not looked into what Walsh has said or done, will do, but maybe the house of cards will crumble.

[Man_called_sun]

Posted that, MCS in various threads here, indeed the old sporting books thread. A magnificent read, which always with Garrincha, I am compelled to post this video:



And this. Garrincha was doing everything Ronaldo does 50 years before. Look at the Little Bird, double and treble marked by cloggers, but gained two World cup winners medals, ruined in 1966. Ronnie, a gliorified cheerleader and his one Euro in 2016. Socalled Goatfuckingtastic:

Top work, Carlos. I think we're in agreement about the fake Ronaldo.

[Carlos J]

Indeed. Another note about Garrincha, despite the hacking attempts, he never went down and when he did, tried to get up.

Ol' Pet might remember a couple of those 1966 games from t'Park.