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/ 27 October 2004
At midnight in the Ritz bar, the country and western music brought the painfully shy bachelor farmers on to the dance floor. Gliding and turning and sweating with nerves, they briefly clung to that rare commodity on Ireland’s west coast: women.
Jack from Tipperary sipped a pint of Guinness at the bar. Pushing 80, this was his 40th fruitless year at the matchmaking festival but, as the song lyrics kept telling him, hope was a marvellous thing.
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/ 27 October 2004
Springbok coach Jake White is a relieved man after hearing the news that his first-choice scrumhalf Fourie du Preez will be fit for the upcoming Grand Slam tour. Speaking at the Boks’ training session at St John’s College on Tuesday, White said that Du Preez had been for X-rays on his injured foot on Monday.
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/ 27 October 2004
Second-seeded Joachim Johansson, who hasn’t dropped his serve in his past two tournaments, easily beat Adrian Garcia of Chile 6-4, 6-2 on Tuesday at the €643 750 Stockholm Open. The big-serving Swede never faced break point against the unseeded Garcia at the Royal Tennis Hall’s fast Plexipave court.
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/ 27 October 2004
The Arsenal-Manchester United feud rolls on. Two days after Man U’s 2-0 win at Old Trafford, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger accused the Red Devils of betraying the ”spirit” of the game and marring English soccer’s image around the globe. Sunday’s match ended Arsenal’s record unbeaten streak of 49 games in the Premier League.
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/ 27 October 2004
England striker Michael Owen scored for the third successive match for Spanish giants Real Madrid on Tuesday as they cruised to a 2-1 victory over third-division outfit Leganes in the first round of the Spanish Cup. The England international slotted home the second after a fine pass from inside the area by strike partner Fernando Morientes.
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/ 27 October 2004
South Africa’s apartheid died in 1994, but the word is alive: Israel is accused of being ”the new apartheid” while its founding ideology, Zionism, is attacked as ”racism”. How true are these accusations? If the apartheid label is appropriate, it provides a potent political weapon. If, however, the usage is wrong it reduces the system of racism perpetrated in South Africa to just another swear word.
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/ 27 October 2004
Blue Bulls hooker Gary Botha on Wednesday withdrew from the South African ”A” squad’s tour to Argentina. Botha, who many rugby pundits thought was unlucky not to be selected for the Springbok squad, said he still wants to play for his country.
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/ 27 October 2004
The South African Football Association will host the annual Cosafa Under-20 Cup in Gauteng from November 27 to December 5. Tournament coordinator Sipho Nkumane said 13 Southern Africa countries will take part in this tournament, won by Zambia in Johannesburg last year.
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/ 27 October 2004
There were no major surprises when the South African cricket squad to tour India was announced on Wednesday. As had been widely predicted, vice-captain and wicketkeeper, Mark Boucher, was not in the squad. Thami Tsolekile of Western Province/Boland will take up the wicketkeeping duties, while Eagles captain Nicky Boje was named vice-captain of the team.
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/ 27 October 2004
Arsene Wenger has extended his contract at English champions Arsenal for another three years to the end of the 2007/08 season. That includes the first two years at the £350-million, 60 000-seat Emirates Stadium, which is due to open in August 2006.