Author: tobygriff

                           As you know, 2015 has been a great year of sport, with some big matches and tournaments taking place with lots of dramatic endings. I decided with my sister, the Deputy Beast of Sport, to make a list of nominees. This list is not in order.

Jack Butland: Football

Andy Murray: Tennis

Conor McGregor: UFC

Dan Carter: Rugby

Todd Frazier: Baseball

Tom Brady: American Football

Hope Solo: Football.

I thought hard about this list. But I knew that I could only pick one of these awesome athletes. I realised that not only did the person I picked have a good year, but he really has had an amazing career up to this point. Not that the other athletes haven’t. My Beast of the Year is Conor McGregor because he has essentially conquered the UFC. He beat Chad Mendes to win the UFC championship and then he more than backed up his trash talk by beating Aldo to win the UFC championship in 13 seconds!!!!!!!!!!!! A world record. He also made the UFC lots more popular not only in Ireland but the world. He is really entertaining and seems to be able call his fights before they happen. He hasn’t lost in his professional UFC career. So for all these reasons and more Conor McGregor is my Beast  of the Year.
  

My friend Ollie and I both play for Barnet FC Academy U11. On the field we are both teammates, but I am a Man City fan and he is a Stoke fan so we decided to give two different perspectives on the Man City v Stoke game yesterday. 

The Man City Perspective.

From a Man City fan’s point of view, I think that we were all over the place. The first two goals were really poor defending. But in the second half Stoke bossed us around and in truth I think that we should have lost at least 5-0 with Joe Hart making some great saves to keep City in it and the score respectable. We only had TWO shots on target that looked like they could have given us a point. Jack Butland barely had to do anything but he still looks like he could push Joe Hart as England No1 (I know Ollie certainly thinks so!).

 Man City should be top of the table but they are dropping easy points on the road so the title race is wide open. In fairness to Stoke they were outstanding and they fully deserved to win that game.

The Stoke Point of View:

From a Stoke City fan’s point of view, Mark Hughes changed the team formation to a 4-3-3 and it worked perfectly. The front players of Shaqiri, Arnautovic and Bojan were brilliant and with great technical ability they gave the Man City defence so many problems. So I agree with Toby that it could have been 5-0.

Man City did have some injuries and without Aguero, Kompany and Toure are not quite the same team, but I still expected them to be much better, regardless of how well Stoke played. I find it odd to say it was possibly Stoke’s easiest game of the season so far, and Jack Butland’s quietest game!!!

 Stoke are really starting to hit form and have now had six clean sheets in the last eight games, and are in the semi final of the Capital Cup – so being a Stoke fan is good right now!!! I would love Stoke to play Man City in the Capital Cup final and dream Stoke play as good as they did today…..but get a few more goals. 🙂

Below is the link to the highlights of the game:

http://hoofoot.com/?match=Stoke_city_2_-_0_Manchester_City_2015_12_05

As you may have heard on the news Jamie Vardy has scored 14 goals this season. But the main thing he has done is score in 11 consecutive games! That already ties the Premier League record. However if he scores today he will set a new Premier League record and tie the all time top flight record. An amazing achievement for someone who was not even playing professional football at any level two years ago. Vardy’s 14 goals are the most in the Premier League this season and if he keeps it up he will probably score more than 35 goals this year. His achievements have basically carried Leicester to the top of the table. Considering the fact that Leicester barely survived last year it is amazing to think that they have only lost ONE GAME this season. They have also scored in every game but only because of magic man Vardy. I think that Vardy could become a star on the England team and a star in the Premier League.  

As you know the Euro 2016 qualifiers moved into the playoff stage with Denmark playing Sweden and Ireland playing Bosnia. The first leg for Ireland went okay as they drew 1-1 away from home getting that crucial away goal. On Monday the second leg took place in Dublin. Ireland and Bosnia seemed equal but in the 35th minute Walters scored a penalty to tip the scales giving Ireland a small cushion. It stayed that way until half time. In the second half Walters scored again giving Ireland loads of breathing room. Bosnia then pushed  everyone forward but couldn’t find the back of Ireland’s net. The qualifiers were long and hard but Ireland gritted through it and I think that they earned being in the Euro’s this year.

Yesterday, the World Gymnastics Championships blasted off with a great team competition in Glasgow, Scotland. Eight countries competed in the team competition: Canada, China, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia and the United States. I watched most of it on television and I could tell which teams were going to hold a medal based on their technique. I thought the Americans were amazing, especially Simone Biles whose stunning tricks on the balance beam blew the crowd away. She chose to compete with a much harder routine than the other gymnasts, which added to her team’s points. I was amazed that Great Britain was able to climb up the rankings after one gymnast had a tremendously hard fall off of the uneven parallel bars at the beginning. But, she managed to overcome it and perform brilliantly in the rest of the competition. I was also surprised by the Russian gymnasts. They are usually the best in the competition, but this time, two of them surprisingly fell off of the beam during their routines. They must have been feeling a lot of pressure. In the end, the gold

medal went to USA, silver went to China and Great Britain won bronze. That was the first time in history that the women’s Great British team won a medal in the world competition. The Beast of Sport award goes to Great Britain for overcoming the big fall and coming out in third; and to the Russians, who managed to be good sports despite not performing to their usual position.

-The Deputy Beast of Sport

So as you know if you’ve read my previous blog posts I predicted the top four in the Premier League. So let’s start with first place. Man City are top of the league right now so my first place prediction is correct. In second place I predicted Chelsea, but instead Arsenal have really climbed above and beyond their expectations claiming the second place spot deservedly. In third place we have WEST HAM. So LOL to anybody who thought that that prediction was bad. Finally in fourth place we have Man United. They have fought hard and gutted out victories. But make no mistake, two points separate the top two and the top four. So my predictions at the start of the year were that Man City and Chelsea were the first two and Man U and West Ham were in places three and four. I predicted three of the top four correctly, but where’s Chelsea? They are down in 15th place. So much for coming second this year. Plus they lost 6-5 to Stoke on penalties yesterday to get knocked out of the Capital One Cup. Jose Mourinho said that the lack of respect that he gets from some of his players is shocking. So while City, Arsenal, WEST HAM, and Man U are riding high, Chelsea is stuck in the lower half of the table unable to win games.

As you know, the Rugby World Cup has been going on recently. After a thrilling set of games in the group stage we are now into the knockout stages. Ireland trampled France last Sunday to ensure that they played second place finishers in pool C Argentina instead of first place finishers in pool C New Zealand. Ireland were red hot during the group stages and finished top of their pool with 18 points. New Zealand also finished top of their pool. Ireland were very happy to win against France because if they lost they would have had to play New Zealand (the best rugby team in the world).  Another reason why they didn’t want to play New Zealand is because they have never beaten the All Blacks, which surprises me because Ireland are a very good team. Argentina will look to shock the world in the up-coming quarter final match against the men in green. Even though Ireland are the favourites, rugby is a very unpredictable sport so you never know what might happen. So a big weekend for rugby! Go Ireland!!

 As you may know, Chelsea have had a horrible start to the season and only have 8 points from 8 games. I think the main reason for their downfall is the spirit inside the clubhouse. From what I know I think that there are players or staff members who don’t want to listen to Mourinho. Yesterday against Southampton if you didn’t know that Mourinho coached Chelsea you would’t know (if you know what I mean). Last year, everybody worked together perfectly and they only lost twice. This year they have worked together badly and have lost more than half their games.I think that Mourinho is a great coach but I don’t think that he can make the top four.

As you may have heard, the Rugby World Cup starts this weekend and a lot of people are looking forward to it. I think that Ireland have a strong team this year and the should make it to the semi finals. New Zealand are really strong and still do the intimidating Haka chant before they play. I think that South Africa could go a long way because they have a lot of confidence built up for the World Cup. My semi finalists would be Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand and Wales. The start of this great tournament has been highly anticipated and I truly believe that we could be in for one of the most exciting World Cups in the history of Rugby. New Zealand will look to maintain their place at the top of the world list and Ireland will look to make their mark on world cup history.
To submit your top four go to http://www.beastofsport.com and post a comment!

The Beast Of Sport

As I’m sure you know, Chelsea have had a really poor start to the season. Drawing one losing three and winning one. They are already 11 points behind the league leaders Manchester City who have won 5 out of 5. So that leaves us wondering, Is something happening back stage with Mourinho? Honestly I think that something must be happening back stage purely because Chelsea are playing more like Wigan than the defending champions. Maybe it’s because over the transfer window they only bought the struggling Falcao who only scored 4 goals last season for Manchester United. Maybe Chelsea thought they they would crush everybody because they did last year or maybe Mourinho is getting a little cocky. Whatever it is, I think that Chealsea really need to put their foot on the gas now. As the old saying goes, It’s now or never for Chelsea.