Is the John Terry Racism Claim Damaging to English Football?

Among the sudden troubling outbreak of Premiership players throwing alleged racial epithets (and spitting) around, the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand “F*****g Black C**t” incident stands at the forefront among the other incidents involving Luis Suarez/Patrice Evra and Antolin Alcaraz/Richard Stearman. Due to Terry’s standing as Chelsea captain and currently holding onto the cursed idol that is England captain, it is obvious that his is the most newsworthy scandal but a bigger question remains.

If Terry is guilty, does this hurt English football?

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EPL Talk: Arsenal: The Making of a Modern Superclub

With a team that has as lush of a history as Arsenal, the idea of a lengthy tome about the club is near picture perfect. In Arsenal: The Making of a Modern Superclub, authors Kevin Whitcher and Alex Fynn have created an extremely detailed, heavily dramatic and well researched book about one of Europe’s most celebrated clubs.

The partnership between Fynn and Whitcher is a pure all-star team for the book. Whitcher is the editor of Arsenal fanzine “The Gooner” and Fynn is an advertising and football guru who has been acknowledged as one of the architects of both the Premier League and Champions League.

The edition that I received is a newer one with a preface that details the passing of owner Danny Fiszman and his sale of the 16.1% of the club to current majority owner Stan Kroenke. Along with the preface, the new edition also provides lots of information on the club’s youth policy, commercial developments and Emirates Stadium. In what is also an eerie bout of foreshadowing, the authors throw in an open ended question about how the club would change under Kroenke’s majority ownership.

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IYS Review: The Bandana Splits

The Bandana Splits are retro girl group music done by singers Lauren Balthrop, Annie Nero and Dawn Landes. By retro, I mean RETRO. Like “Phil Spector waving around a loaded gun in a studio while the Ronettes sing the same hook over and over and over”.

Dressed in the matching outfits that all the old girl groups wore, the Bandana Splits sing songs like “Sometimes” which is 2:32 minutes of one hook. Is that a good thing? It’s probably something that is good right now but doesn’t have a lasting appeal. It’s not that the group doesn’t write great songs; “Lavez Vous” is a definite side step from the girl group sound by using acoustic guitar and odd, well done lyrics. The problem is two fold:

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