2009 Dec 22 Talking Balls: Meat Pie, Humble Pie and Pie in the Sky
Some sports are better than others. Snooker should be right up there at the top. The reason? You can win your own body weight in pies. Ding Junhui did just that a little over a week ago. Ding won a world-ranking event when he beat John Higgins 10-8 in an exciting climax to the Pukka Pies United Kingdom Championship at the Telford International Centre. Ding collected a first prize of GBP 100,000, the largest prize of his career, rose to sixth in the provisional world rankings and was presented with his own weight, 68kg, in Pukka Pies, a total of 276 pies. That’s champion.
Less pukka is the news that three more have been arrested in the match-fixing scandal sweeping the Chinese Super League. Xu Hongtao, chairman of Chengdu Blades, and You Kewei, the club's deputy manager, have been arrested for allegedly bribing Qingdao’s Hailifeng Club in order to win a crucial match in September 2007 to China's Premiership. Liu Hongwei, head honcho of Hailifeng, which "deliberately lost the game" to the Blades, has also been detained. This is embarrassing beyond China as the Chengdu Blades are part owned by Sheffield United.
Chinese football fans can take some heart in the fact that Hong Kong beat Japan to lift the 5th East Asian Games crown. Japan went one up thanks to Taisuke Yamamoto but Hong Kong drew level with a goal from Chan Siu-ki. All the more remarkable when Chan had arrived back from a training camp in Britain the morning of the game. Hong Kong’ amateurs then snatched the penalty shootout over Japan’s professionals 4-2. Last month Chan Siu-ki was recently on trial at Tottenham. Look out for the name.
Chan has also attracted the attention of Shanghai Shenhua. If he ends up at the club he might well find he’s working under Miroslav Blazevic, who should by now have signed his contract. Blazevic will go head-to-head with Guoan’s Hong Yuanshou, if the Beijing club stick with him. No word as yet. According to the lastest news from Sina.com, Guoan has made a breakthrough in signing a permanent deal on Joel Griffiths with his homeclub Newcastle Jets - "both sides have almost reached an agreement". His brother Ryan will also remain as will Darko Matic. But there’ll be no Emil Martinez, the Honduran striker is heading to Europe after winning the CSL this year and being the league’s MVP last year. He’ll be missing out on Guoan’s biggest budget ever, which includes RMB 40 million of prize money. The Greens will be putting that towards making an impact in the Asian Champions’ League.
That’s your lot for 2009, next year is but a sporting scandal or two away.
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Talking Balls: Frustrated Ding, Crazy Wei and Left-out Ross
Local hero Ding Junhui fell at the final hurdle in the 2010 Sanyuan Foods China Open. Mark Williams beat Ding 10-6 after coming from behind to win his first ranking title since 2006. The home crowd were understandably disappointed – their shouts of "Ding, kill him! Finish him!" had no effect on the outcome.
Talking Balls: AWOL Aussies, Skipper Kidnaps and Giant Kids
Beijing Guoan are not even playing at the moment, but are still managing to be controversial. This time the controversy stretches all the way to Australia and guess who’s at the center of it? None other than Beijing’s former hardman/nutcase/sensation, Joel Griffiths. As mentioned in a previous Talking Balls it was understood that he was fated to return to the Newcastle Jets after Guoan refused to meet the Australian team’s valuation. But now Griffiths has gone AWOL from the A-League club. He skipped his first training session highlighting that he had an agreement that Beijing only had to offer AUD 350,000 to secure his services for next season. The Chinese champions did that on New Year’s Eve but the Jets said that deal was contingent on Griffiths finishing the A-League season and that deal ended on December 16. Read more here and here. If Griffiths is to play for Guoan in next season’s Asian Champions’ League then he needs to be registered before January 11. Wait and see.
Talking Balls: A Smoking Rocket, Marbury Mania & The Olympic Underground
The Olympics are around the corner, or should we say, further along the line. Transport London, which runs the capital's world-famous Tube, have decided to cash in on the Olympics. They've released a map with a twist: All of the stations are now named after famous Olympians. We admit that it's better than the 2012 mascots but as merchandise goes, it's still pretty bad. There are 13 Chinese Olympians on the map:
Talking Balls: Shame On Shanxi, Ghastly Guoan & Some Sports Shorts
The Beijing Ducks and Shanxi Brave Dragons have gone to game five in their CBA playoff semi-final. The game was originally set for March 14 but was postponed until March 18 so that everyone could enjoy St. Patrick’s Day. No, actually it was put back because of a near-riot in game four. Shanxi’s fans also took that meeting as an opportunity to shower the court with debris. They've been fined nine times for similar incidents over the last four years. They have just added another RMB 60,000 to the CBA's Christmas party fund. You stay classy, Shanxi.
Talking Balls: Ducks Flying, Guoan Too Green & This J-Lin Stuff Gets Silly
Good evening, sports fans. Let's get right into it. The CBA playoffs are at their semi-final stage and Beijing Ducks are back in the series after winning game two. Stephon Marbury dropped a colossal 52 points to send them on their way to besting Shanxi by 132-123. Thanks to NiuBBall for the alley-oop on the video you'll see below. Don't forget to check out the 2011-12 NiuBBall Awards. Spoiler alert: Starbury gets what he deserves.
