UFO Info Week-End

I’ve been preparing for Schenk but he just keeps pulling the sick note on me

I’ve been preparing for Schenk, but he just keeps pulling the sick note on me.”
The Swedish-born Krajnc, 26, holds the German international title and has won all his 21 bouts, 14 inside the distance.
Richard Hatton will meet the former British light-welterweight champion Mark Winters in a defence of his WBO Intercontinental title at the Everton Park Sports Centre, Liverpool, on 11 December.
Hatton, from Manchester, was due to top the bill at York Hall last week but was ruled out by a bout of flu “I’m looking forward to facing Winters. Jason Matthews is to fight in Germany after all on Saturday and will face Armand Krajnc at the Hanssehalle in Lübeck.

The withdrawal of the World Boxing Organisation middle-weight champion, Bert Schenk, with a ruptured Achilles tendon threw Matthews’ plans into disarray after he had trained for two months for his title chance.
However, his promoter, Frank Warren, has been working to find “Method Man” Matthews an opponent since Schenk pulled out last week and even had plans in place for him to fight on a hastily-arranged show at York Hall, Bethnal Green, to fill the Sky television date and ensure that the Hackney fighter’s preparations did not go to waste.
Matthews, beaten once in 22 fights, said: “I’m glad the problem is sorted out. To ask for that is to ask for something entirely new under the sun.. Jason Matthews is to fight in Germany after all on Saturday and will face Armand Krajnc at the Hanssehalle in Lübeck. Now Keegan hears the hounds baying.Keegan said on television this week that it would be greatly to the benefit of English football if English newspapers got behind the national team. Sports writers should be fair but it is naive to suppose that we should be blindly supportive.

Thrilling achievement was of little consequence when set against the disappointment that brought down attacks from determined patriots in the employ of popular newspapers.England’s poor start to the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico saw Bobby Robson branded as “the fool on the hill”, an allusion to the squad’s lofty base camp near Monterrey.Four years later Robson took England to within a penalty shoot-out of the final in Italy Graham Taylor was ridiculed. Alf Ramsey, the feted hero of 1966, was fired six months after failing to qualify for the 1974 World Cup finals in West Germany. If they didn’t say it, they should have.Of all the appointments in sport few carry the prospect of harsher scrutiny than that of England coach. Daily interviews with the Brazilian coach, Mario Zagallo, also were products of the great entertainer’s imagination His philosophy was simple. Invention was a mechanical process with them, though seldom harmful.

When reporting from the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico, a famed columnist sent back an interview in which the centre-forward of El Salvador expressed an urgent desire to wear Arsenal’s colours They had never spoken. If this is no longer observed, and I suspect not, it may help to explain why relations between sport and the sports pages are now subject to frequent emotional disturbance.An irritating fact, one I emphasised to my companions in Turin, is that television and radio play a crafty game, cosily courting sports figures but always quick to scavenge printed revelations.It has to be said, however, that before television gobbled up sport accuracy never hampered some of the old sports writers I knew. “It was making something out of nothing,” one of my companions, a Chelsea season-ticket holder, said. And he was right.They conceded grudgingly that workers in the toy department are no less concerned with sales than those employed in other areas of newspaper production but could not for the life of them see why this should be imposed on the purchaser’s intelligence.When first struggling along in this trade I was told that reporters could make no bigger mistake than taking themselves seriously, that today’s effort was destined to be a cod’s overcoat. `”Why are people built up and then knocked over?” one of them asked.It appeared that their feelings about this came to a head last week when the England manager, Kevin Keegan, came under heavy fire in the popular prints for allowing a group of his players to play cards and take a few beers while staying up to watch the world heavyweight title bout between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield.

Last Sunday, for example, it seemed to me from where I sat, in the lower tier at the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin with a group of fellow trippers, that Oliver Bierhoff had headed Milan into the lead against Juventus when in fact it was an own goal by Zinedine Zidane.Later, when jesting about what happens to the eyesight of sports writers as they get older, something which the eye doctors may know about but never mention, my companions got around to deploring a preference in some newspapers for the negative story. This is prolonged, in the case of major happenings, by repeats on television. What people eventually think they remember about a game, a fight or a race will be an amalgam of what they thought they saw, what they read in the papers and the evidence of television recordings.
Television can be especially insidious. PART OF the experience, some may say pleasure, of attending a sports event is reading the newspapers next morning to see what the sports writers think happened. Solanki and Trescothick soon regained control, the Worcestershire youngster facing 42 balls and including two hooked sixes in his half-century.Final day of four; England A won tossENGLAND A – First Innings 455-9 dec (M W Alleyne 152 no, I J Ward 60, V S Solanki 59; W A Wisneski 5-98).SOUTH ISLAND – First Innings 217 (A J Redmond 51; S D Thomas 4-56) and 139-3.SOUTH ISLAND – Second Innings(Overnight: 139-3)M H Richardson b Solanki 45J I Englefield b Alleyne 37A J Redmond c Solanki b Sheriyar 23G J Hopkins c Turner b Alleyne 32W A Wisneski c Gough b Davies 60P J Wiseman lbw b Davies 39C E Bulfin c Turner b Sheriyar 12C S Martin not out 0Extras (b5, lb15, w4, nb5) 29Total (126.1 overs) 337Fall: 1-34, 2-60, 3-76, 4-144, 5-173, 6-195 7-249 8-311 9-337.Bowling: Sheriyar 28-7-66-2; Irani 16-6-39-0; Trescothick 7-3-14-0; Davies 36.1-14-71-4; Thomas 7-1-29-1; Solanki 12-4-28-1; Alleyne 20-5-70-2.ENGLAND A – Second InningsM A Gough c Gaffaney b Wisneski 7I J Ward lbw b Wisneski 5V S Solanki not out 52M E Trescothick not out 30Extras (lb1 w1 nb4) 6Total (for 2; 14.3 overs) 100Fall: 1-11, 2-31.Did not bat: *M W Alleyne, D J G Sales, R J Turner, R C Irani, S D Thomas, M K Davies, A Sheriyar.Bowling: Bulfin 6-0-41-0; Wisneski 6-1-34-2; Martin 1.3-0-16-0; Wiseman 1-0-8-0.Umpires: G A Baxter and R S Dunne.. The tail then fell cheaply to leave England needing 100 from a minimum 38 overs.Ian Ward and Michael Gough hit 11 in the first over, but the Surrey left- hander was lbw offering no shot to Wisneski, who then had Gough caught at slip. Solanki then caught Aaron Redmond off the bowling of Solanki and Alleyne had Gareth Hopkins caught behind.Wisneski made 60 in 93 balls with nine fours and a six before he gloved a ball from Davies to slip.

Then fortune smiled on Solanki as Mark Richardson jammed the ball into the ground and back on to his bails. The hosts resumed on 139 for 3, and it took only 11 balls for Mark Alleyne to uproot Jarrod Englefield’s off-stump. The tourists played with an enviable professionalism and did not lack for a killer punch, Davies finishing with 4 for 71 and Solanki, unbeaten on 52, then leading the charge to the victory target.
Solanki, with the Somerset left-hander Marcus Trescothick, saw his team through to 100 for 2 after the hosts’ second innings had realised 337 all out.South Island had added the required 99 runs needed to make England A bat again, but the tourists’ second innings was little more than an exercise in discipline. THE LEFT-ARM spinner Michael Davies and the Worcestershire batsman Vikram Solanki took the last-day honours as England A completed an accomplished eight-wicket win over South Island here yesterday. Of course it’s anonymous but so far they’ve been things like: England’s top strike bowler; one of best new-ball bowlers in the world; he has fight, determination and courage.”When they stop writing down stuff like that, that’s the moment I’ll hang up my boots; all bloody nine pairs of them.”. “Well do something about it,” retorted Richardson, “and bowl fast.” To his credit the bowler did and within days the conversion was made.It will probably shorten his career and Gough, now 29, believes he will recognise the moment when it arrives.”In the past few years we’ve had this thing where team-mates write down what they think of you on a piece of paper. In fact Gough only made himself into a fast bowler after a conversation with Richie Richardson, when the West Indian played for Yorkshire in the early 1990s.A medium-pacer with a steady county career ahead of him, he was asked by Richardson why he didn’t want to play Test cricket? “I do,” said Gough.