Formula PlayStation

Awesome news from the World of F1, where ahead of the season's pipe-opener, Williams co-owner and former chief designer Patrick Head has come up with a novel suggestion to even the playing field between the leading teams and the rest of the chasing pack.

His answer? Easy, start the race in reverse order, with the championship leaders starting at the back of the grid and having to pass the other teams on their way to the chequered flag. It’s a novel suggestion and certainly not without its merits, meaning we’d get a wealth of overtaking and potentially quite huge amounts of carnage (which let’s face it would certainly make Monte Carlo a blast watching the McLarens and Ferraris desperately trying to get past a super slow Super Aguri).

Genius or rubbish? it’s often such a thin line that decides...

Elsewhere we learn that F1 cars are going to have a special boost button this season, which will give the motor an extra bit of oomph for rapid overtaking manoeuvres. Frankly we thought Alain Prost was exaggerating recently when he likened current Formula One to ‘playing on a PlayStation’, but a boost button on an F1 car is an idea nicked straight off the PlayStation generation.

What next? DualShock 3’s instead of steering wheels? Kimi and Lewis showing off their 'mad drivin' skilz' and trash talking each across Xbox Live? Perhaps they should dispense with the whole global F1 circus and have the championship played across the PlayStation Network?

It’d certainly save on the carbon offsetting.

The Cash dash...

It’s just as well there was a decent weekend of FA Cup action, as for England fans there was nothing to sup on but the bitter pint of despair and the soggy crisps of humiliation as we were respectively tonked by the Kiwis at Cricket and hammered by the Scots at Rugger.

So moving swiftly on, we’ll gloss over those which is readily covered by the old standby, ‘It’s England, what else do you seriously expect?’.

But the other big issue exercising us at the moment is the Indian Premier League and last week’s announcement that anyone playing for its rival the Indian Cricket League in future will be banned from all cricketing activity .

So donning our big sports punditry hat of seriousness we’d like to consider what this means for the game. First up let’s dispense with any coyness, this is simply about making the Indian board an even bigger pile of cash than it currently squats on, by some estimates the IPL will earn the BCCI $1 billion dollars.

When Zee Telefims threatened to break their cricketing monopoly, the BCCI quickly knocked up their own competition, the ICL, which is so awash with wedge that it threatens to disrupt the entire international schedule (which is already stretched to breaking), as well as sucking out the leading players into an essentially meaningless though extremely lucrative knockabout.

What’s even more depressing is the way the BCCI has used its financial muscle to bully the rest of the ICC (the ECB included) into forcing players to boycott the ICL for fear of not being allowed to play in their own domestic game. Restraint of trade anyone? Someone, probably England or the Aussies should have called their bluff, instead of meekly bending over.

When Twenty20 was introduced it was touted as a real saviour for the world game, but we seriously doubt this is what anyone had in mind.

Jolly Green Giant Killing

Previously on World of Spurt... We've talked about the Romance of the Cup before but it's nice to see ourselves vindicated by one of the most extraordinary FA Cup weekends ever.

With semi-final places at Wembley up for grabs, you'd think the big boys would be licking their lips and getting their suits measured already. But at 3pm on Sunday it now looks like the biggest weekend of giant killing since Jack went postal up the end of the beanstalk with the AK47 and the rocket launcher.

Has there ever been an FA Cup weekend like it? We're too lazy to look it up, but surely not in living memory.

Okay, so maybe Portsmouth were a touch fortunate to mug Man Utd at old Trafford in yesterday's lunchtime fixture. But Barnsley thoroughly deserved their more emphatic victory over Chelsea in last nights late game. Magnificent stuff from the Tykes and another stake in the heart for Avram Grant – with the media's knives being well and truly sharpened for the Chelsea boss.

And now Cardiff 2-0 up away against Middlesbrough at half-time and looking utterly superior to the Premiership side who were booed off the park by their own fans. With Bristol Rovers or West Brom guaranteed a place in the final tie of the weekend, we could see an FA Cup winner from not only outside the big four, but the top flight entirely.

That's why the FA Cup remains the most exciting knock-out competition in the footballing firmament.

World of stupid... Rugger Buggers...

And so to Friday and just a few short hours now until we’re freed up to drink ourselves into Friday night oblivion to try and forget after another week slaving in the salt mines of The Man.

Slightly disconcerting news from the strange world of rugby last night as hot England prospect Danny Cipriani has been dropped from Saturday’s clash against the Sweaties, after being papped leaving a nightclub on Wednesday emphasis on the quotes “in the early hours of the morning”.

Turns out young Danny boy was actually dropping off some tickets to the game for a mate at ten past twelve, didn’t drink in the club and was tucked up in bed within the hour. Several ex-players and his Wasps coach Shaun Edwards immediately leapt to his defence.

But no wonder he’s been banned say we. This is surely conduct unbecoming according to the rugby Neanderthals we occasionally encountered in our youth, who’d account it a disgrace if they hadn’t drunk themselves nearly unconscious, indulged in several bouts of homo-erotic grappling and imbibed at least a pint of each others bodily fluids the night before a game.

We know it’s a different game nowadays and this seems especially harsh on the talented young fly-half, even if he does have some rather unusual previous, allegedly bedding an ex-man woman.

Still, perhaps it proves England coach Brian Ashton’s a touch more old school than we thought?

Anyways, elsewhere there’s a veritable sport-a-thon to enjoy this weekend, with umpteen hours of Six Nations action to enjoy, a full round of televised FA cup glory and England probably narrowly escaping defeat at the hands of the sheep worriers. Top quality and Mrs Spurt is sure to be royally neglected this weekend. Sorry love.

Toodle pip! A spurting weekend to you all.

Gourmet Gunners

The Premiership, touted as the best league in the world and it probably just about is with its trademark pace, power and passion resulting in football of the most exciting and eminently watchable kind.

But equally, like connoisseurs of a particularly obscure branch of pornography, we occasionally like to sample a bit more of a cerebral incarnation of the beautiful game here on World of Spurt.

That’s why the prospect of a Champions League Tuesdays often rattles our collective chains during the workaday work-a-day, as we slowly measure out each and every individual second until we can escape the dull monotony we laughingly call gainful employment.

Okay so it’s broadcast on ITV, but there’s a price to pay for every iota of pleasure in our experience.

Still, last night’s AC Milan versus Arsenal game was truly one of the great European nights of recent memory. A fascinating duel between two outstanding teams, it was a joy to watch Fabregas et al, slowly, almost lovingly dissect Maldini and co. over the course of 90 minutes.

A truly cerebral encounter, it was a masterclass in tactical acumen, intricate passing and movement and the dark arts of defending , in short it had everything a Premiership game lacks and was all the better for it. A true connoisseurs experience, we could feel our footballing IQ slowly creep up with every pass.

It would be all too easy to write it up as the old order changeth with the young Gunners displacing a glorious but increasingly decrepit old guard

...so that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Le streak, c’est chic

Well some days we’re sitting around scratching our balls, all of a fret and wondering what tasty spurting morsels to lay before our great reading public to tantalise, delight. tease and incite ... and then - like a gift from the very heavens or a juicy half-volley downt the leg-side - something like this falls slap bang into our lap.

Symonds, streaker, punishing shoulder barge, enough said. Apols to Getty for stealing the image, but surely they’re rich enough to spare one for this little blog and in this case it really does speak more than the requisite thousand words...

++Update++ See it for yourselves, thanks to the wonders of YouTube.

‘Tha’s good technique from Symonds is that’ as ‘Sir’ Geoffery Boycott would opine and clearly the ‘fair dinkum (ex-) Pom’ has a promising career in the frankly scary Ultimate Fighting Championship should ever interest in donning the baggy green wane.


But World of Spurt is forced to ask, why oh why, outside of nudey rugby icon and 40- inch mammary wielder Erica Rowe, is it only ever blokes who feel the urge to streak?

Ladies, this is the age of equality after all and we have no hesitation in calling for a mass female streak-off during this summer’s first test at Lord’s (the Saturday please, we have tix, thanks).

The blame game...

A new day brings a new something or other, and our first duty on this first spurt of the month is to send a message of brotherly solidarity to improbably vowelled Bolton keeper Jussi Jaaskelanen, who had a bit of a shocker during Saturday’s lunchtime Premiership outing.

Diverting an off-target Steven Gerrard into the back of his own net, via first hands, head then body, the ham-fisted, klutz normally cat-like Jussi copped a lot of flak for his mistake, which handed Liverpool the initiative and arguably helped them triumph in a tricky away fixture

As veteran keepers ourselves in our delinquent youth (which is thankfully not quite over yet, the fire still burns, it still burns we tell you!), we can eminently sympathise with young Jussi.

We can confirm that all anyone ever remembers is your high profile howlers trifling mistakes as a keeper, never the four or five times on average per game you save the team with your outstanding reflexes, clairvoyant positional sense and admirable personal courage.

Ahem, rant over, but Jussi you have our keeperly sympathies, we keepers truly are a breed apart.