Liverpool’s Champions League quarterfinal with Juventus will take place in the midst of football’s blackest memories. There will be renewed grief and perhaps suppressed guilt over the 39 deaths at the Heysel Stadium, in view of the blame attributed to some Merseyside fans for the tragedy at the ground in which the 1985 final was held.
”When we got to the stadium, the malevolence was palpable. The organisation was chaotic and the state of the stadium, built for the 1935 Great Exhibition, gave cause for concern. For those bent on trouble, this was going to be easy.” Guardian reporter Charles Burgess recalls the horror of Heysel.
Given the somewhat depressing start to the season, the Easter weekend seems a good time to be pondering whether South African rugby can rise again. In week four of the Super 12, the Stormers played poorly and lost, the Cats played well and lost, the Bulls played out of their skins and won, while the less said about the Sharks the better.
The abstract art of gobbledegook evolves by the week. Chambers dictionary defines gobbledegook as ”official jargon, rubbish, nonsense”, which is a bit of an oxymoron when you come to think of it. I heard some official jargon only last week, when some politician spoke about a fascinating new contradiction called ”functional illiteracy”. Chambers might well consider adding that to their definition.
”Professor Greg Retallack has spent much of the past few years taking soil samples from the sites of the temples of ancient Greece. He has stumbled on a remarkable phenomenon. There is a strong link between the identity of the god worshipped at a particular temple and the temple’s location.” George Monbiot examines a theory that the type of soil humans worked determined their religious beliefs.
”Sports journalism is an oxymoron. I’m not being unkind by saying so. Find a sports journalist, perhaps sleeping under a pool table on the East Rand, the widening moat of drool spreading under his unshaven cheek reflecting the pole-dancer’s neon panties. Peel the Lucky Strike from behind his ear and light it for him. Then ask him what he does for a living.” Tom Eaton bids farewell from his last Pitch & Mutter column.
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Zimbabwe’s ageing President Robert Mugabe presented a startling sight as he launched his party’s election campaign with a woman’s scarf tied around his head. The campaign for a parliamentary election has seen a flurry of measures aimed at uplifting women in Zimbabwe’s fiercely patriarchal society.
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> The Game’s verbal delivery combines New York rap’s creative wordplay with Los Angeles’s gang mentality. Brian Letlhabane lends an ear to <i>The Documentary</i>.
The world looks beautiful for Bafana Bafana as national coach Stuart Baxter’s side look down from the top of World Cup and African Cup of Nations qualifying group B. A lot has changed since Baxter was appointed on April 1 last year. At the time, the Englishman’s appointment was met with disapproval in certain soccer circles.
White farmers who lost their land in Zimbabwe are helping neighbouring Zambia shore up its tobacco and maize production while steering clear of political controversy. ”Tobacco production has increased in the last three years because of the white Zimbabwean farmers,” says Finance Minister Ngandu Magande.