This is not right

The Ballon d'Or is a discredited, dysfunctional, overblown, secretive PR exercise for football. Yesterday it came up with the most egregious decision in its 69 years of existence.

Was Ousmane Dembele the best footballer in the world in the last 12 months? It's arguable and generally (this an important point) the award goes to a player of a team which has won something, often the UEFA Champions League, but it's undoubtedly true that the player who contributed most to Paris Saint-Germain winning the 2025 Champions League was goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnaruma. Without his heroics in the semi final against Arsenal, PSG wouldn't have even have made it to the final. But the voters (more on them in a minute) love attackers and a goalkeeper has only won it once - Lev Yashin in 1963.

But this wasn't the worst decision.

Third place in the Ballon d'Or Féminin went to Alessia Russo. She won the Euros with England and the Champions League with Arsenal.

Second place went to Mariona Caldentey. She won the Champions League with Arsenal.

First place went to Aitana Bonmati. She won nothing.

But she got the sympathy vote because she recovered from viral meningitis earlier in the year, which gained her support, in the few months prior to voting, from the football chattering classes - a process well known to Oscar voters. I knew she would win; there's a strong Spanish-speaking constituency, a dominant Catalan influence and the sports writers who vote think Barcelona are the dog's bollocks of the soccer world. Bonmati has now won the award for three years in a row. Arsenal will beat Barcelona in the Champions League final again next May and she'll still win it a fourth time.

And the whole process is embarrassingly Eurocentric. No winner of the South American Copa Libertadores has ever won it.

The voters are one sports reporter from each of FIFA's 211 member countries. I tried to find out who the England person was this time but it seems bound up in secrecy.

You can probably tell I'm not happy.

Footy updates 2025/11 - the Tractor Boys get lucky

This weekend's match forecasts:

Brighton 2 Tottenham 2 Result: 2-2
Not a bad result for Spurs because Brighton are a decent team but they probably would have expected more.

Blackburn 1 Ipswich 3 Result: Match abandoned after 80 minutes at 1-0
This rain-flooded pitch abandonment probably comes as a great relief for the Tractor Boys. Their centre half Jacob Greaves was sent off and Blackburn scored from the resultant penalty. Will the match be replayed or just the final 10 minutes or so? I don't know, but see below.

Sheffield United 0 Charlton 1 Result: 0-1
Promoted Charlton having an encouragingly steady season, although this scoreline probably says more about hapless Sheffield United, who have zero points from six matches

Wycombe 0 Northampton 0 Result: 2-0
Wycombe climbing the table from a poor early position

Manchester United Women 1 Arsenal Women 4 Result: 0-0

I don't think I've ever seen Arsenal's women fail to score; we fall behind leaders Chelsea - not for the first time in recent years

Arsenal 0 Manchester City 2 Result: 1-1

A bit disappointing, given our dominance, but at least we're still above Tottenham

Tunbridge Wells 2 Whitstable Town 2 Result: 1-2
Whitstable are climbing the table. They are just three points off the leaders but have played two games fewer because of their FA Cup run. Promotion prospect?

And here's a fun fact:

[source: Football Web Pages]

Shout out to all you Whitstable fans!

Correct results: 2 out of 6

Correct scores: 2 out of 6

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Upcoming midweek matches:

Tuesday - Southern Counties East League Premier Division

Whitstable v Snodland

Wednesday - EFL Cup 3rd Round

Tottenham v Doncaster

Port Vale v Arsenal

Wigan v Wycombe

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Back to the Ipswich match; here's what ChatGPT says:

If the game is abandoned before the 75th minute (i.e. before 75% of normal time is played), the result does not stand. The fixture is replayed in full at a later date, starting from 0–0 regardless of the score when it was abandoned.

If the game is abandoned after the 75th minute, the EFL board can decide to let the result stand, but usually they still order a replay unless both clubs agree otherwise.

Clearly, Blackburn would argue that with only 10 minutes plus possible added time to go, they're 1-0 up and Ipswich down to 10 men, the chances are they are going to win and the score should stand as the result. Ipswich would say they could easily get a penalty or score from a set piece, there's no certainty. And Blackburn are responsible for the state of the pitch.

There is no situation where a game could be arranged to play out the final 10 minutes.

I reckon either they replay in full (and Ipswich get extremely fortunate) or it's declared a result and Ipswich go to court.

Youthful regression

I just listened to Béla Bartók's Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta. It's literally years since I listened to any of his works and it was great to re-experience the pure joy of his music after all this time. I used to be a fan of mid 20th century music (this is from 1936) - Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Copland, Messiaen, Vaughan Williams amongst others. I feel I may have wasted some later years playing computer games and neglecting my cultural base.

I'm going to make a playlist.

Bartók again: Concerto for Orchestra, my favourite of his works.

Hindemith: perhaps the Concert Music for Strings and Brass; there's nothing like a bit of brass. Hindemith was a prolific composer and he wrote sonatas for pretty much every orchestral instrument. I've never played his Trumpet Sonata and I don't think I've ever heard it. I really should give it a go (listening I mean, not playing).

Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time is special for its wartime context; a difficult listen but I can immerse myself. It really needs a quiet, non-football meditative evening.

In my youth I used to sometimes spend any spare cash buying long playing records (vinyl) and one of my favourites was Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1. I'll find a performance to listen to.

Charles Ives was a very odd American composer, early 20th century but stylistically adventurous. I remember his The Unanswered Question and I sought that out on YouTube. It has a trumpet solo, so that's a plus. Wikipedia tells us, based on Ives' own words:

Against a background of slow, quiet strings representing "The Silence of the Druids", a solo trumpet poses "The Perennial Question of Existence", to which a woodwind quartet of "Fighting Answerers" tries vainly to provide an answer, growing more frustrated and dissonant until they give up. The three groups of instruments perform in independent tempos and are placed separately on the stage—the strings offstage.

I've always thought of the trumpet as the ultimate in asking about life, the universe and everything!

I also discovered a YouTube channel by Thomas Ligre, where he plays 20th century classical music whilst the music score scrolls on the screen. This is magic! Totally up my street; I've subscribed and, if you are kind and leave a comment, I'll bring you some more.

Here are the opening bars of the Ives, as it appears on the video:

Not much happening, I hear you say? Wait, the trumpet will ask the question soon.

I'm regressing to my youth.

Footy updates 2025/10

It's been a busy week in Europe. Arsenal started their Champions League campaign with an excellent 2-0 victory away to Athletic Bilbao, Spurs got a very lucky 1-0 win against Villareal, whose goalkeeper effectively "threw" the ball into his own net in the 6th minute. Need to do better; him and Tottenham. 

Whitstable got an excellent - and probably unexpected - 1-0 win in the FA Cup Second Round Replay away to Chichester on Wednesday. They face Hungerford Town at the Belmont Ground next Saturday in the Third (and final) Qualifying Round; they're on a roll.

This weekend's match forecasts:

Brighton 2 Tottenham 2

Blackburn 1 Ipswich 3

Sheffield United 0 Charlton 1

Wycombe 0 Northampton 0

Manchester United Women 1 Arsenal Women 4

Arsenal 0 Manchester City 2

Tunbridge Wells 2 Whitstable Town 2

Things I didn't know #7

William Shakespeare was born and died on the same day of  the year - 23rd April b.1564 d.1616

Also:

Ingrid Bergman 29th August b.1915 d.1982

Raphael 6th April b.1483 d.1520

Machine Gun Kelly 18th July b.1895 d.1954

Sidney Bechet 14th May b.1897 d.1959

Now you're ready for your next pub quiz!

What would have made a good tournament?

A few days ago I wrote about Divya Deshmukh, 19yo Indian woman chess player playing in the Open section of the Grand Swiss tournament. Divya said

Even if I lose all the rounds, I think I will be fine if I learn.

And I promised to let you know how she got on. So here goes.

Clearly, despite her words, she would have not been happy losing a succession of games, even though her opponents were generally rated 150 and so points above her. And I've mentioned before that for top players it's not too difficult to successfully play for a draw if that's what you want to do. I can't see there would be any point in entering this competition if that's the limit of your ambition, so some wins would be good, together with a smattering of draws. Or the other way round.

The results:

Game 1: loss

Game 2: draw

Game 3: draw

Game 4: win

Game 5: loss

Game 6: draw

Game 7: win

In game 8, Divya played the current World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, rated almost 300 higher than her. Possibly her biggest challenge so far in her career, and a battle of the 19yo Indians. And got a draw after a long drawn out battle. At this point she has 4 points, ahead of the World Champion, who has just 3.5. Remarkable.

Game 9: loss, after a late blunder (yes, even Grandmasters do that!)

Game 10: draw

Game 11: draw

Divya Deshmukh scores 5 points out of 11 and 81st place out of 116 players. If 5/11 doesn't sound great, the winner of the event scored 8 out 11. She ends with a rating of 2497.6, having been 2478.0 at the start of the tournament. And she got a draw against the World Champion.

Also, it's only fair that I mention Aleksandra Goryachkina, also playing in the Open section. She has also already qualified for the Women's Candidates, like Deshmukh, so she also chose to play against the best men. She's 26, slightly higher rated, Russian born competing under a FIDE flag. Her results:

Game 1: loss

Game 2: draw

Game 3: draw

Game 4: win

Game 5: loss

Game 6: loss

Game 7: draw

Game 8: win, she's on 3.5, alongside Gukesh, with three rounds to go.

Game 9: win

Game 10: draw

Game 11: loss, so also 5 out of 11, in 79th place alongside Divya. She ends with a rating of 2541.1, having been 2528.0 at the start of the tournament.

I was unable to find any interviews with Goryachkina, so I can't tell you about her motivation or reaction to her performance.

Overall, a successful tournament for both players; they both played consistently above their ratings and proved they can compete with higher rated Grandmasters. Perhaps they'll be joined by others playing in Open sections in the future.