Josimar beats Duncan Disorderly!!!

13 - Josimar - Brasil

In this part of the year where we can't/don't/won't play cricket, I feel we can entertain some chat on this venerable platform about other, possibly inferior sports.

A question in a radio show I was listening to got me thinking. It asked;

When you were growing up, or even now, who is your cult football hero?

An additional criterion is that they are not related to the club or country you support!!!

The second name that sprung to my mind (after burglar bashing Drunken Duncan Ferguson of course, excluded by being Scottish), was that of the almost too good to be true Brazilian right back at the Mexico 86 World Cup. I spraf fondly of course about the leg end that is JOSIMAR.

Drafted into the Brazil squad after an injury to regular right back Leandro, when the second choice right back Edson also became 'Dougied', Josimar stepped into the fray wearing the somehow perfect number 13 shirt and whapped in two of the best goals I can remember seeing in his first two appearances. And yet, these goals were almost eclipsed by a couple of even more perfect celebrations.

Relive them again here

v Northern Ireland

v Poland

I could watch these all day.

Anyone able to outdo the great Josimar???

Here is one of Big Dunc to keep you going.

Note the captains armband

Cricket Practice - Another Nail in the Coffin

I was leafing through some old the Cricketer magazines, like you all do I'm sure, when I came across an article in the October 2011 edition (pictured), of relevance to one of my familiar themes.

It is all very well for one to criticise things that they see as flawed, however without then going on to say what should replace those nonsenses, leaves your criticism hollow.

I have been unable to find the article online, so will reproduce here. It is accredited to Crispin Andrews in the 'Expert Eye' column, page 24, for any subscribing hoarders out there, just in case you do not believe me. To be clear, I am not making this up!!!


Expert Eye

If you want to improve your game then forget about nets, throw-downs and fielding drills. Instead juggle, play on the Nintendo Wii and hold a pencil in front of your nose until your eyes hurt.

Last year Zoe Wimshurst, a visual performance coach, tried out some of these ideas on the Leicestershire squad. Over a six-week, pre-season period, 24 first teamers and Academy players worked on not just batting, bowling and fielding, but on improving their eyesight.

"So many decisions a cricketer makes are based on information coming to them through visual signals," says Wimshurst, who also works with the British Olympic team and runs her own consultancy Performance Vision. "The quicker those signals come in, the more time the player has to make a decision and get their body into the right position.

Wimshurst tested the players' visual skills and then split them into four groups. The first did practical visual training: juggling and kicking balls simultaneously, catching a ball with an unpredictable bounce to help reactions and moving pencils towards their nose to strengthen eye muscles. The second group used an online vision trainer that helped Clive Woodward's England win the Rugby World Cup in 2003 while the third played Mario and Duck Shoot on the Nintendo Wii. "All these help players scan ahead, get both eyes working together and assist peripheral awareness," Wimshurst says.

The fourth group did only additional cricket drills. When tested again, this group had improved it's visual performance and cricket skills least. The winners? Those pencil pushers, although the Nintendo boys ran them close.

The batsman Jacques du Toit from the pencil group, is convinced the sessions helped. "My peripheral vision improved, no doubt," he says. I can keep a clear picture of fielders without having to look up at the last moment ans take my eye off the ball."

So the next time some well meaning psychopath requests some laps of the park to 'warm up', tell them you are working hard staring at a pencil thank you very much.

Further corroboration  that orthodox training methods are very limited comes from this site which I shall let you peruse at your own convenience. In a seemingly decent piece, some quotes may appeal to the teenager in you, I've picked out my favourites:

" if you want to improve your cricket, you need only concentrate on six inches"

"cricket is a mental game"

"What is so surprising is that despite the fact that everyone knows cricket is a mind game, most players and teams practice their technique, but spend little or no time developing the mental skills "

"Once you have mastered the skills of cricket..."

"you need to be sufficiently aroused to perform at your best. But if you become too aroused, your performance will suffer and you'll start to make mistakes"

"Cricketers often allow their arousal level to become too high"

The Perils of Orthodox Thought

Inventor of Jogging - Deid

This lunch time Sky Sports News report that;

"now to England's opening tour match in Sri Lanka, Stuart Broad sprained his ankle during the warm-up and he didn't take part".

Knock me down with a medicine ball. I feel like a 'Galileo of fitness' swimming hopelessly against the orthodox view here.

Is it really worth risking these pre-match injury attempts or so-called warm-ups??? Excuse me for asking, but if warming-up is logical shouldn't there be a warm-up before you warm-up? And a warm-up before that? I could go on.

When would we have time to sit down folks, when would we actually sit down?????

If these fitness know-all's with their physiotherapy degrees and swathes of data still cannot be swayed, I urge all the non-evidence based opinion formers to heed the harsh lesson (almost) learned by Mr Jim Fixx, the infamous 'inventor' of jogging and writer of 1977's best selling 'Complete Book of Running'. This book is credited with 'helping start America's fitness revolution' (72 million obese in a recent head count). Try not to choke on your deep fried Twinkie's!!!

In what is also a dagger to the heart of Mensa, of whom Mr Fixx was a member, the poor man died of a heart attack at the age of 52 ... after his daily jog!!!!!

As the untouchable Bill Hicks once opined on the demise of Mr Fixx, "Keith Richards is still alive".

Now of course, I'm not one of these types wot just criticises whilst offering no alternative. I was pure delighted with the revelation in a recent Horizon on the BBC (still available on iPlayer via this link) called 'The Truth About Exercise' which suggested that 12 minutes of exercise a month is perfectly adequate. Alack, too late for poor Jimmy Fixx!!!

Here are a couple of great quotes from stupidgymshit.com

"Over the years I've witnessed two people rupture their Achilles tendon by doing something as simple as running in place with a high knee action"

"You'd be surprised how many people suffer injuries during their warm-up" (er, no I wouldn't).