bleungberg.com

Although the slippery French cheated defeated Ireland to win a place in this year’s World Cup, they have virtually no chance of regaining the trophy they last won in 1998.

Many blame their coach for being shit. Some blame their players for being rubbish. Many blame that cheatin’ scumbag Thierry Henry for being a smug cunt.

And the one small chance that they have in eliminating one of their fiercest rivals long before the kick-off has already disappeared - and the French football association did nothing about it.

The woman who aborted John Terry’s baby, the vampishly attractive but ’sad-looking’ Vanessa Perroncel, will not now sell her sex-history to the highest-bidding tabloid, says her PR super-guru Max Clifford.

It’s presumed that ‘JT’ has bought her silent in order to avoid further humiliation to his family at a cost of £400 000.

Many had feared that any further revelations would sour the team-spirit in the England camp, and drive an even bigger wedge between former best-buddies Terry and his teammates, notably Ms Perroncel’s former fiance, Wayne Bridge.

Those dopey bastards at the FFF have therefore completely missed out here.

By out-bidding JT for her to sell her life-story, those cheatin’ froggy scumbags could easily destroy England’s central defence before they’d even left for South Africa, and give themselves a bit of a chance during the knock-out stages.

Now, with a gagging order in hand, JT and England can breathe a sigh of relief.

When will the French ever, ever learn?!

England coach Fabio Capello limped into London to sack that philandering, roast-spitting, racist, nightclub-urinating, bottle-throwing, money-loving super-cunt John Terry as England captain, and replaced him with the dim-witted and unintelligent, equally-philandering, drug-cheating, prank-calling, orgy-loving sex tape threesome star and well-known sword-crosser Rio Ferdinand.

What’s wrong with Steven Gerrard?! He got acquitted of affray last year!

If England fails to win the World Cup, the number of people they can now blame is endless, starting with Capello, then JT, then Rio, then Vanessa Perroncel, Eidur Gudjohnsen etc etc etc…

BBC Sport have chosen Guy Mowbray to be their new voice of football.

Good choice.

In light of Andy Murray reaching his first Australian Open final, and a fine comeback by Justine Henin, we at Bleungberg have decided to pick our top ten tennis matches of the last decade. We make no apologies for the fact that many of these came a) at Wimbledon or b) during 5am or similar…

So, here goes: (in no particular order)

1) 2003 Australian Open Men’s QF: Andy Roddick beat Younis el Ayouni 4-6, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, 21-19. It went on, and on, and on, and on, and finished at 3am local time. At the end, the two players dropped their rackets and Roddick went over to hug el Ayouni, saying “he’ll never play another match like that and he grew up a lot during that single match.’. He did - the 2009 Wimbledon final against Roger Federer in which he came off worse in the fifth set at 16-14.

2) 2008 Men’s Wimbledon Final: Federer vs Nadal Round 3. Yes, best final ever in terms of quality and drama.

3) 2009 Women’s US Open SF: Kim Clijsters beat Serena Williams, who was defaulted for two code violations. Watching tennis at 4am had never been more fun.

4) 2009 Men’s Autralian Open Final: Federer vs Nadal: we watched this match in Manila, and because it went on for so long, we didn’t have dinner until 10.30pm. Federer should’ve won the match and likewise, the US Open final later that year. Would have been a calender slam…

5) 2006 Women’s Australian Open Final/Wimbledon Final: Henin vs Mauresmo Parts 1 & 2: Henin created history by quitting midway through the second set in Melbourne, thus handing Mauresmo a maiden but unfulfilled Grand Slam title. Critics remained unconvinced, but the stylish Frenchwoman put that right with an incredible triumph against Henin half a year later at SW19. No one doubted her talents again - well, maybe with the exception of Mauresmo herself….

6) 2006 Women’s Wimbledon Final: Lindsey Davenport vs Venus Williams. Live 8 was delayed on BBC1, as the two Americans battled it out in the longest final ever. Davenport should’ve clinched victory in the second set but somehow didn’t, and handed Venus another title at SW19 in a titantic third set (9-7). Sweet revenge, too, for Venus as she’d lost at Wimbledon in 2004 when the umpire called out the wrong scores during a tie-break in the fourth round, with Venus going on to lose the match.

7) 2004 Men’s French Open Quarter-Final: Henman vs Juan Ignacio Chela. Henman never played well at Roland Garros, so it was a surprise that he reached the semis, beating renowned clay-courter Chela in the process. Henman went on to lose to Guillermo Coria in the next match (he really should’ve won that), but Bleungberg will always remember the look of incredulity on Henman’s face as he shook hands with Chela after thrashing him in the QF. The Coria-Gaston Gaudio final was a shocker, too, with the latter winning 0–6 3–6 6–4 6–2 8–6, saving match points, overcoming nerves, bouts of cramp and some truly, shocking tennis. Gaudio never won another slam, whilst Coria quit the sport under a cloud….

8 ) 2001 Men’s Wimbledon final: Rafter vs Ivanesevic - first Monday final, three-day Henman semi, wild-card victory; enough said. Watched the whole thing in Byron Bay in Australia.

9) 2000 Men’s Wimbledon final: Sampras vs Rafter - Sampras’s date with history, and a 9pm finish in total darkness after numerous rain-delays. Sweet.

10) 2005 Women’s US Open final: Kim Clijsters vs Mary Pierce - not a great final (marginally more competitive than the horrible French Open final that year which also featured Pierce) but remembered as Clijsters’s maiden Grand Slam. Questions were constantly asked of her credentials as a world number one without a Slam, and she answered all her critics in style here - repeating the feat in 2009 by coming out of retirement by winning as a wild-card.

Just missing out: Safin beating Federer in the 2005 Australian Open Semi-final, Elena Dementieva’s shocking serves in the 2004 Slam finals against Myskina and Kuznetsova, the 2003 Davis Cup Final between Australia and Spain in which the Aussies playing the old Franco national anthem to deliberately spite their rivals (who went on to win), Gasquet surviving cramp in an epic five-setter in the 2006 US Open, and Hingis against Clijsters in the 2007 US Open final QF.

Marat Safin & Amelie Mauresmo: two champions who lit up Bleungberg’s living room for best part of a decade…often at some ungodly hours during various Australian or US Opens. Physically, they were great to watch. But 90% of the time, it was to see whether they could cope mentally, and more often than not, Mauresmo would crumble whilst Safin raged against anything in his sight.

But when they were on song, they were always entertaining - and memorable.

2006 Australian Open, Wimbledon winner

2000 US Open champion

2005 Australian Open champion

Whilst watching Fernando Verdasco at the Australian Open the other day, Bleungberg was slightly disturbed by the rituals the Spaniard went through: both pre-match and in between games: towelling, ball-bouncing, and most disturbing of all: the neat rearrangment of his water bottles in between games by his seat.

All of these first surfaced during last autumn’s Paris Masters event, and have continued ever since.

We wonder if he’ll actually win something significant this year….none of these rituals seem to have done his compatriot and the equally-superstitous Rafa Nadal any good during the last 12 months!

Olympic funding rows, a growing national debt, plus panic over swine flu deaths and H1N1 jabs.

Greetings from Vancouver, Canada, though at times, it’s no different to being in London. The Winter Olympics are just over 100 days away here and up at Whistler, and a few days ago, Bleungberg visited the CA$173m white elephant that is the Richmond Olympic Oval where the speed skating will take place next February. Whilst it certainly looked impressive, we couldn’t help but question the wisdom of spending that much money for a single event. Our voluntary guide (very enthusiastic, naturally) added that the entire building will become some sort of focal point for the local community after the games which, in our opinion, is ‘rather naive’ because the local population is predominantly Chinese, and Chinese people don’t ‘do community’. Bleungberg then realised that we are doing exactly the same in London, and if Vancouver is anything to go by, then those of us living in London will have to endure even more hassle and broken promises from 2011 including numerous road closures, diversions, traffic jams, tax hikes, fare rises, expensive tickets (always the first broken promise) as well as new transport links, random pedestrianised zones, gazillions of Olympic merchandise, sob stories, protests, silly torch relays and 300% hotel price increases.

Vancouver won the rights to host the games six years ago, and ever since Bleungberg’s first visit here back in October 2003, I’ve followed the Olympic developments with interest. One of the first initiatives back then was what to do with the Eastside of Vancouver, which includes the area between Chinatown and Gastown: THE worst area in the whole of metro Vancouver and a haven for druggies, hookers, homeless people and those who have been neglected by the city (the handicapped, orphans, mentally disabled etc). The provincial government was criticised right from the outset for the way they intended to turf out these ‘eyesores’ before the winter games in case Olympic visitors ’saw the ugly side of the city’. Well, six years on, we popped round to the area yesterday and these people are still there - dealing, soliciting, loitering, and smoking (very strong) cannabis in broad daylight. Why? Lack of funding and a collective will to relocate them. When Vancouver was awarded the Winter Olympics, the economy was doing well, and the government could raise money through land sales at the height of the boom. Unfortunately, British Columbia is even more incompetent than the British government when it comes to budgeting, and with the recession, they’ve no money left to deal with these ‘eyesores’. Opportunity missed.

We guess it’s the equivalent of the London organising committee saying they want to give the East End a good clean-up as it might look bad to worldwide viewers watching the marathon during the Olympics, and then say they have no money for it. Or any other hollow promises they might have. We have no doubt that any new transport links will be opened in time and will work supremely well before 2012 - anything is better than now. Vancouver’s new metro line opened early back in August and although it broke down last week, it’s brilliant for those of us staying in the southern suburbs though Vancouverites still criticise the transport brains for its routing - accusing them of favouring the south of the city over the more populated southeastern suburbs. In addition, metro and bus fares are going up - tomorrow….again.

Dammit, we’ve slipped into the Vancouverite psyche of only talking about the Olympics when no one outside of the city actually cares (likewise outside of London), and have left no time to tell you how beautiful British Columbia is. Or how it’s got the world’s best Chinese food, as well as lots of rain, seriously aloof people with some of the most obtuse and abrupt attitudes in the western world. we’ll leave all of that till the next time I’m here. With an ever-expanding family here, Vancouver is somewhere we’ll have to come back to over and over again, and may even have to move here eventually. Unfortunately though, Bleungberg are becoming less fond of the place. Retirement? - yes. Otherwise - no, thanks.

Goodbye for now.

The ultimate journeyman tennis player, Ai Sugiyama, has finally retired after 17 years on the WTA tour.

Sugiayama has given Bleungberg a lot of pleasure over the years - even though they rarely ended in victories for the diminuative Japanese player.

Bleungberg now looks forward to seeing Ms Sugiyama without her trademark whitecap because, frankly, Bleungberg has no idea what she actually looks like. TV directors rarely zoomed in on her face, you see….

Anyway, thank you Ai!

For as long as Bleungberg can remember: the first Sunday in October means only one thing: the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris - Europe’s greatest horse race.

And the 88th renewal on 4th October 2009 must go down as one of the best of all time - no mean feat considering how many great Arcs there have been over the years.

Sea The Stars showed a jaw-dropping turn of foot to shrug off his illutrious rivals with contempt. And whilst the manner of his victory was indeed impressive, it was historic, too.

It’s incredible to think that no horse had ever managed the 2000 Guineas-Derby-Arc treble in the same season and those who had failed are still regarded as near immortals of racing: Sir Ivor, Nijinsky, Mill Reef, Dancing Brave.

It’s not uncommon for racing folks to resort to hyperbole so soon after a race, and it is usually advisable to have a lengthy period of assessment and put things into perspective before declaring so and so as the greatest of all time.

This time however, we can safely declare Sea The Stars as one of the greatest Arc winners AND racehorses of all time - on par with Nijinsky and probably better than  Dancing Brave, whose Arc victory 23 years ago set the benchmark for all to follow.

Sea The Stars has now come along to top them all - and with such ease.

Today’s victory was iconic, staggering and simply awesome. 88 years in the waiting - and a race that racing folks will talk about forever.

WOW.

Now pack him off to stud!

Aside from the low of Hingis’s abysmal peformance, things are looking up for women’s tennis after an atrocious couple of years….capped by Serena’s show-stopping outburst in New York.

Perennial Bleungberg favourite Kim Clijsters stole the show at Flushing Meadows, beating both the Williams sisters en route to lifting the US Open crown as a wild card.

Meanwhile, rumours of a comeback by her long-time rival Justine Henin was confirmed ten days later when she annouced on Belgian TV of her intention to play at the Australian Open, with the ultimate aim of winning the one slam to elude her - Wimbledon.

Spare a thought then for the trio of world number ones - Ana Ivanovic, Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic. With just one Grand Slam between them - none was able to capitalise on Henin’s absence from the sport. Ivanovic, in particular, has played so poorly since winning the French Open title in 2008 - three weeks after Henin had walked away from the sport - that the Serb’s even taking a sabbatical from tennis!

So, with Clijsters in full flow, Henin coming back, and Yannia Wickmayer (at last) making waves, Bleungberg reckons Belgian broadcasters who renewed their tennis contracts in the last year got them on the cheap!