Original orbs...

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Original orbs: from Tiento in 1930 to Jabulani in 2010: the original World Cup balls.

Re that game just on - you know the one - England's heaviest defeat ever in the WC finals. Outpaced. Outpassed. Outclassed (thanks to ehaines). The least said the better but it's my fault: after 30 minutes of torture, two German goals and no English defence to speak of I turned the TV off in disgust but also - in my own psycho-paranoid-warped world - to make sure we scored; it always seems to work. Then I heard the radio outside reporting that England had scored a second goal, I tried to resist but couldn't...so I put the visual back on...from that minute England were doomed. The second half was like the first 30 minutes. England were playing well at 2-1 (so, at at least for a full minute) and they got the second but that 2nd goal being disallowed did two things: first, it didn't deflate the German side (imagine, knowing they should be four up [at least] and being pegged back at 2-2) England in the ascendancy, adrenalin high, on a roll; second, it was the English that were deflated. How can the whole stadium see a goal but not the officials? Anyway, England looked like losers and I hope the team - and not the linesman, nor the ref, nor the manager - gets all the stick they deserve...but what a fucking awful descision.

Moving on, we need a laugh: 'Send Them Victorious: England's Path To Glory 2006-2010' by David Stubbs. "A series of England match reports written by "biased but fair" jingoistic Boer War veteran The Wing Commander, it gives both the Fourth Estate and the players they overhype a right old shoeing, and is pretty much the funniest book about football ever written. Here's a tinder-dry snippet from an England-Germany report:"

"It is no exaggeration, but rather an imaginative simile, to compare this game to World War II – World War II, that is, minus the participation of Churchill, Field Marshall Montgomery, Adolf Hitler, Herman Goering, and Douglas Bader, who like our own Frank Lampard, suffered from the handicap of not being able to use his legs in any effective way."

Hat-tip: Scott Murray at the Guardian's World Cup coverage.

Another earlier snippet at The Sabotage Times.