February 17, 2012 | Twohundredpercent

Day: February 17, 2012

The 2012 African Cup Of Nations: The Morning After The Night Before

Posted by Mark | Feb 17, 2012 | Latest | 0 |

I’m a fan of international football tournaments on the whole, regardless of quality (regular readers may have spotted this long ago). And the 2012 “edition” of the African Cup of Nations certainly put that philosophy to the test. Take out an extraordinary second round of group games and the uplifting climax and you were left with a series of not very good football matches, spoiled by wild shooting, woeful set-pieces, shocking referee’s assistants, poor sportsmanship and crowds which gave all the grounds the look of an Isthmian League matchday… and a cold Tuesday evening at that. Yet I was sorry to see it finish. Eurosport’s commendable and comprehensive coverage of the event got me involved very quickly. But it was often a relief to get away from the stuttering football and constant injury stoppages, even the Johnstone Paint Trophy occasionally felt more like “proper” football. The indifferent displays of the top-ranked nations are well-documented. The struggles of strikers such as Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan and Senegal’s Newcastle front two – so much more effective and exciting against Aston Villa than Equatorial Guinea – spoke volumes; and the fact that a 34-year-old Hull City reject with next-to-no top-quality match fitness was the most impressive forward said the rest. Gabon’s Daniel Cousin (for it was he) won a Rangers contract with his displays (though the Glasgow club’s little local difficulties have scuppered...

Administrators, Racism & The Twitter Bug

Posted by Mark | Feb 17, 2012 | Latest | 5 |

My knowledge of the insolvency practice profession is limited to my football writing experiences, gleaned from research into articles on this and other sites. As a result, I have come to know of ‘gentlemen’ such as Gerald Krasner, Andrew Andronikou and Brendan Guilfoyle. And, as a result of that, my opinion of the insolvency practice profession is not high.The continuing story of the Glasgow Rangers Football Club, and their appointment of administrators ‘known’ to club owner Craig Whyte, was leading me towards a largely, though not entirely, critical piece on administrators in football. However, just like Whyte at Rangers, I have had to “accelerate my plans”, as the issues of racism and financial mismanagement yesterday combined on ‘Twitter’ when Nick Hood of insolvency firm Begbies Traynor accused “the fans” of Isthmian League Kingstonian of racism. Hood was actually tweeting about Rangers. Although styling himself as “a committed internationalist” at the head of his twitter page – Hood was moved to ask: “what’s an Englishman doing agreeing to be administrator of Rangers?” And he added: “Good luck with Rangers, Mr Clark. Only genuine death threat ever as an IP was on a non-league soccer club.” This brought the curious reply: “A death threat? That’s Premier League!” To which Hood tweeted: “Very definitely non-league – Kingstonian, in fact. My sin was selling the club to someone the fans didn’t like on...