Scissors Kick

“At dusk in early winter, smoke from coal fires shrouds this bustling black township in a persistent haze resembling volcanic ash. Among slag heaps of the heavily mined East Rand, temperatures are certain to dip below freezing on a clear night toward the end of June. The corrugated-tin dwellings of KwaThema, established in 1951 to house blacks relocated from white areas southeast of Johannesburg, lack heat and electricity. So outdoor fires already have started.” (The Global Game)

Girlie “S’Gelane” Nkosi, Eudy Simelane’s teammate and a lesbian activist, murdered.
“Please read John Turnbull’s story about Eudy Simelane. Turnbull digs a little deeper into the crime reported in The Guardian’s story about the wave of violent attacks on black lesbians in South Africa (these are often referred to as ‘corrective rapes’).” (From A Left Wing)

“After just missing out on last season’s play-offs Dagenham & Redbridge have had a great start to the season and are top of League Two. As with Rushden & Diamonds, the merger of clubs can lead to success. In WSC 242 (April 2007) David Stubbs witnessed the meeting of the mergees in the Conference.” (WSC)

“Last Friday, August 21st, 2009 was in my opinion a small step back for football in this country. The controversial day marked the end of World Soccer Daily, the only daily football talk show in America. The sense of community that I & so many other American European football fans found at WSD will truly be missed.” (EPL Talk)

“Hello there. Nice to be back from the deserts of Arabia, although mentally speaking the whole La Liga thing never really went away. You can attempt a de-tox from Spanish football, but I’m not really sure that it works. Then again, I could have been returning sluggishly to another season in which the image and status of Spanish football had taken another slide backwards, in thrall to the Premier League and even beginning to worry about the Italians. Not a hope of that, thanks largely to Barcelona’s superhuman deeds last season and Florentino Pérez’s one-man mission to re-focus the world’s attention directly onto the Bernabéu and indirectly onto the league in which his latest set of toys are about to play.” (ESPN)

Real Madrid’s new galáctico era has arrived. Well, sort of …
“It didn’t have a whore for a mother, golden goolies or the Almighty in a loincloth, but it would do. For now. For everyone. Two months and over €250m later, Real Madrid’s new galácticos finally made their grand entrance, defeating Deportivo de La Coruña 3-2 at the Santiago Bernabéu. The Second Coming at last came, to a backdrop of cigar smoke and sweltering heat, Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo, satisfying everyone and satisfying no one.” (Guardian)

Cypriots Find Way Into the Richest of Candy Stores
“The great and the good, the richest of the rich of the global game were gathering in this tax haven on Thursday. They came to honor Lionel Messi. He and his Barcelona pals, who won almost everything in Europe and Spain last season, will play here Friday when they take on Shakhtar Donetsk, winner of the UEFA Cup, to decide the European Super Cup.” (NYT)

“Flávio walks into the noisy cantina. It’s Sunday afternoon and the restaurant, located in the centre of one the most traditional Italian neighbourhoods in São Paulo, is absolutely packed. Throughout the month of August, the Bixiga quarter celebrates its Virgin, Our Lady of Achiropita. Every single weekend of this month its trattorias and shops attract a large crowd of Italian descendents and tourists alike.” (ESPN)

“I recall an English club chairman indignantly saying some 20 years ago that the fans were mad if they believed their ticket money paid the players’ wages. It was a classic case of someone knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. True, in cold, economic terms he might have been correct. Money pours in from other sources – TV rights, sponsorship deals, corporate boxes and so on, but take the fans away from the stadium and all those other revenue streams instantly dry up.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

Albion Rovers vs. Celtic XI
“The question in the title was one that was asked in The Observer this weekend. It is something I’ve blogged about numerous times before. Scotland has done fairly dismally in terms of large tournament qualification and, Old Firm aside, the European qualifiers have consistently shamed the country and denigrated its co-efficient. The endless list of quality players that seemed to come through Scotland came to an end towards 1980.” (Left Back In The Changing Room)

“What Should Be Done About Scottish Football?” – James Hamilton
“This is really a placeholder from which you are to go to Rob Marrs’ post on the failures of Scottish football and their potential futures. But I have four thoughts to add.” (More Than Mind Games)