Micah Richards - BBC Sport Columnist

[Don]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55037641

Single-handedly proving the link between heading a football and dementia, this man is a colossus of sport media.

A thread to saviour his contribution to the field.

This week's highlights:


I am only joking, though


I wasn't particularly sensible off the pitch when I was a young player either - I just didn't get caught as often as Mario did.


His nickname was Super Mario but the other players used to call us "the brothers" or "the twins", although I was the much better-looking one, obviously.

I was going to suggest whether he submitted these to the actual writer in the form of a drawing on an Etch A Sketch signed 'micah aged 32 ½' but turns out he just gets a call.

[Baz]

I enjoy his input on MOTD. :sorry:

[Manc]

Not worthy of a thread.

[Kikó]

Dementia and football is though. Can the game survive if they ban heading?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Ghosted player columns are the pits. In fact, most insider football anecdotes (at least from modern times) make the sport sound like a spectacularly boring and sterile environment. I guess nobody drinks and barely anyone speaks the same language so they remain children all their adult lives.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Dementia and football is though. Can the game survive if they ban heading?

No one wants to investigate it. Same story in rugby and NFL where presumably it is worse.

[Spikey M]

I enjoy his input on MOTD. :sorry:

This week his reasoning for Man City being shit this year was 'because they haven't had a pre-season' (nobody has) and 'because they had players on International Duty last week' (so did Spurs). He's a retard.

[niko_cee]

Dementia and football is though. Can the game survive if they ban heading?

I'm no head injury expert (etc) but when we're looking at the addled brains of footballers who used to head the ball [a lot] in the '60s and comparing it to heading a modern ball, are you really comparing apples? It's probably completely wrong but it seems to me that modern footballs are way less concussive than those of days gone by.

[Kikó]

Garry Pallister, from the 90s, had an article in the Mail about his own memory issues and migraines so I don't think it's necessarily true. Maybe in the modern, tick tack tick game played today, heading is less important but the point was the velocity and speed of the ball is faster which is just as important to the weight.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8971459/Ex-Manchester-United-colossus-Gary-Pallister-55-describes-fears-memory-lapses.html

[Don]

It's a chicken or egg question, isn't it? Did dementia hit them or were they just mentally retarded to begin with and found their home playing as aerially dominant proponents of sunday league brexit ball.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It might just be anecdotal but I'm sure sportsmen get a disproportionate amount of motor neurone disease, too.

[Raoul Duke]

Ghosted player columns are the pits. In fact, most insider football anecdotes (at least from modern times) make the sport sound like a spectacularly boring and sterile environment. I guess nobody drinks and barely anyone speaks the same language so they remain children all their adult lives.

Who is the most interesting footballer today? Obviously Sir Marcus Rashford Phd is up there. Juan Mata knows all the local owl sanctuaries. Do any of them have interesting hobbies now? Come back Moritz Voltz, all is forgiven.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The fact that they all holiday in Dubai tells you all you need to know.

[Luke Emia]

The fact that they all holiday in Dubai tells you all you need to know.

Crouch touched on that in his book. How they all do exactly the same things it’s almost like a herd mentality.

[Raoul Duke]

I was once in the same shit indie club in London as Crouch and his missus (her brother was in a band who were playing), so he might want to wind his neck in there

[Lewis]

Crouch touched on that in his book. How they all do exactly the same things it’s almost like a herd mentality.

I saw him talking about something similar and it seemed more to be the case that there are very few holidays you can go on that offer any sort of personal space/privacy, which is where Dubai or some other boring place comes in.

[Mellberg]

That'd take a while.

@ Raoul

[John Arne]

Dubai is something like the 5th most visited city on the world. I refuse to believe it. Absolute bollocks - they must be counting transit travellers.

EDIT: 7th, based on CNN 2019 estimates. There are varying numbers floating around.

https://gyazo.com/9d04fdc9f3108ef7138f6a2f84ad4596.jpeg

[Spikey M]

Do the numbers include all the kidnapped Nepalese they traffic in to build their ridiculous skyscrapers?

[Don]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55790817

Pep, take note, mate.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Jesus is not the focal point City need

Nero said that too and look what happened to him.

[Yevrah]

If you want an example of the impact Costa could have, then look at what Edinson Cavani has done for Manchester United this season.

Why stop at Cavani? Bruno Fernandes is surely also an example of what Costa could do.

[Lofty]

I saw him talking about something similar and it seemed more to be the case that there are very few holidays you can go on that offer any sort of personal space/privacy, which is where Dubai or some other boring place comes in.

Yeah like Harry Maguire drinking in that bar when he got nicked in Greece and everyone kicking up about the bar bill as if it wasn't priced that high to keep the riff raff out.

Apparently the Barratt homes woman Sol Campbell was seeing (lol) said something simular about the WAG culture and how they had some kind of pecking order about who got off the bus first, depending on importance.

[Lewis]

That just sounds like women being idiots. The whole 'WAG' circus is due a comeback now that there are loads more black/half 'n' half players. Imagine the wanky articles you could write about the racial dynamics of Mrs Harry Kane vs the Instagram brass, or exploring why the non-white attraction to shapeless blondes is completely wealth-resistant.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm not sure footballers are quite as massive a set of public figures as they were in the Beckham/Rooney days. Is there anyone who is a genuine tabloid star? Someone like Jack Grealish would have all the credentials, but they seem to have been overtaken by reality TV types in the public's (thick women's) imagination.

[Don]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56126957

[Don]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000wq9g

Forward to 1:29:00 for a very good 25 minute interview with Brentford DoF Rasmus Ankersen who is a very worthwhile character to listen to on the whole.

Interesting point regarding there being not that big a difference from 9th in prem all the way down to the Champ in terms of quality but that the real key is athleticism. Welcome aboard the ebony love-in, son. Mans moving about 5 years ahead of the learning curve of elite football and I still have to put up with your shit.

Anyways, posted in this thread as Micah comes in (at 1:46:00) with some absolutely stonking thick as shit views. I know we all love a bit of good solid casual piss-taking steeped in solid racism but this guy is the sort of genuine mongrel who can single-handedly hold back the country's understanding and, consequently, success in the sport by having such a prominent media role. And the beauty is, there ain't no ending his reign now.

[Lewis]

'Come on, that nonsense thing he never said is nonsense.'

[7om]

Our last hope is that Roy Keane finally snaps and murders him on live tv.

[Baz]

All hail Brentford’s Danish overlord. Loaned me some Danish children on FM, who are smashing it up in Denmark division 2.

[Shindig]

I'm convinced Micah gets the job because his laugh sounds so threatening.

[Spikey M]

Just now on Match Of The Day:

"Disastrous. There's no other word for it, other than Shambolic and all the words under the sun"

Fuck off Shakespeare, you've been replaced.

[Ian]

"there's no other word for it other than literally every other word."

Good effort, Micah.

Sky showed the Rooney overhead against City earlier and I was reminded of Tyler's commentary which was something like "It defies description! How about.... "Superb"!?"

Good work Martin, you've described the apparently indescribable with a word people regularly use in day to day life.

[Kikó]

Just now on Match Of The Day:

"Disastrous. There's no other word for it, other than Shambolic and all the words under the sun"

Fuck off Shakespeare, you've been replaced.

Send that into private eye.

[Lewis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MUxWG-FC54

'Carra' genuinely struggling here. At three minutes he decides to switch into full dealing with a retard mode.