papilon

Firstly the Melbourne banner is clearly up at any sporting event within a 100km radius of any sporting even. The fact that Londons sporting venues are spread out is because of there history. They share the love. The Football clubs are still played in the local community they belong to and not altogether in some generic football stadium.

Like I said, sports fans in London pay the real cost of attending. I love sport and attend many of Melbournes sporting events. Will be at the MCG tomorrow supporting the Tigers. Not sure how good I would feel about that taxpayer susidy if I wasn't a huge sports fan or lived in country Victoria. Why are there no AFL teams in country Vic.

Olympics is always a government funded event anywhere in the world. But Londons professional sporting codes are not government funded or played in municipal owned stadia at the expense of the general taxpayer. At the last state election Brumby offererd to spend $500 million refurbishing the MCG if reelected whilst proposing to cut money to hospitals.
No professional sport stands on it's vown two feet in Melbourne. I would rather some billionaire was footing the bill and the people who attend pay the going rate.

OzTennis

If someone is silly enough to pay Terry etc over £200K a week, a week and that's just one member of the squad then someone has to pay and that's the spectator and the suckers who buy seats and each of their 7 annual strips.

We can argue on whether it's better to have a Russian or American footing part of the bill or the government. We could also argue on priorities for government spending. Remember the UK spent over £10 billion on the Olympics whilst the NHS is in a shambles and hospitals closing so don't come the Brumby proposed this or that as though it's unique.

I could give you a history reminder on how the AFL started out with 12 teams, 11 from Melbourne and one from country Victoria and how no country centre could support an AFL team now (look how much positive discrimination they give to teams from Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and the Gold Coast and they have sufficient people to draw on). I don't like the way the AFL has 'Americanised' the sport so I don't defend them. My beloved Footscray got shafted - Fitzroy Lions and South Melbourne Swans more so to let Brisbane and Sydney in but in pure economic terms 11 professional teams from Melbourne wasn't viable when they wanted to open it up to the other capital cities. (London, twice as big - Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, West Ham, Fulham, QPR, Palace, Charlton, Millwall, Brentford, Orient - the latter 2 get 4,000 on a good day, 9 clubs really.)

How much do you think the collective debt of the above football clubs would be? A generic stadium as you call it makes economic sense. Who wants the MCG and Etihad used once a week or once a fortnight just to satisfy some desire to have one sport only. How many of the 11 London stadia are 'community owned'?

Oh and we lived for a while in Bendigo so I know lots of country people look forward to a visit to the smoke to watch a test match, AFL, Aussie Open or whatever and don't begrudge the spending

roaringmouse

I have often thought that London only really needs about 3 or 4 soccer stadiums at most. It would be better economically, and also remove most of the ugly territorial side of things that can pervade the game from time to time. So really, we would be talking Wembley plus 2 or 3 others. Also Manchester and Liverpool could do with one each at most, perhaps even just share one between the two cities.

Anyway... anyone aware there's cricket test underway? Surprisingly Watson hasn't gone on an LBW yet.

old.sparkles

Gone but not LBW this time - for a change

OzTennis

Agree on London needing fewer stadia and ground sharing but will never happen, they're too territorial. Germany and Italy has council owned facilities and ground sharing and clubs are not permitted to amass massive debts; in Germany particularly. If you can't afford the wages or the transfer fee you don't get the player. Man Utd has debt of £370 mill; having recently re-structured it down from nearly twice that amount - the Glasser family use it as a vehicle for leveraging more and more debt.

Anyway, back to cricket, decent start; Rogers doing well, bit sticky now but lineup looks better with Clarke at 4 and Warner at 5.

OzTennis

Pathetic umpy and 3rd ump! Bat hits pad, no hotspot, clear gap between bat and ball; out??

old.sparkles

I don't know - I get why the umpire gave him out, but shocking decision from the review

chris955

No noise, no hotspot, not out. Seems simple enough. The umpiring just keeps getting better.

Bernieboy

Absolute shit decision.

papilon

London Olympics generated about the same amount of money as was spent on hosting the games. During a huge recession the money spent created jobs in a time of need.

At the end of the day London has better sporting facilities than Melbourne and more prestigious events. All this in a city that doesn't feel the need to claim on an almost weekly basis that it's the sporting capital of the world.

chris955

Some Aussies on Facebook amazingly (predictably) blaming England for the decisions.

Grayling

It's obviously a conspiracy.....talk about bad losers

Bernieboy

Was there another umpire on the grassy knoll ??

DeadVim

Shocking decision, I don't think anyone can deny that.

Honours pretty even so far on a good batting deck.

DeadVim

I'll add to the bottom of my lengthily list of reasons why I won't bother with Facebook