Chris Waterman examines Japan's recent love affair with rugby and with their own team the Sunwolves. Few genuine rugby fans will have forgotten watching in disbelief as Karne Hesketh dived over on 84 minutes to claim victory for the Brave Blossoms against the Springboks and thereby ignite last year’s Rugby World Cup, and although the Japanese narrowly failed to qualify for … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2016
Sports sartorialism? Nup! Here are twelve of the worst uniforms ever!
It’s sad but three of the uniforms I have chosen in my list of twelve of the world’s worst sporting uniforms were worn by Australian national teams. There could be any number of reasons for this. Firstly, the colours of green and gold are pretty damned difficult to do anything with. While Jamaica and Brazil, admittedly, just manage to put together national uniforms that are … [Read more...]
Cecil Healy – the village hero who changed the world through his sport!
One of Australia's least known sporting heroes changed the world in so many ways... but his mercurial swimming and other sporting feats were not much help against the guns and bombs of war! Manly is viewed by most as a commercial, services and tourism hub surrounded by an urban sprawl. Well, it is that. Sort of. But it’s also a village. Even twenty years ago, when I still … [Read more...]
Furano – a beautiful and inexpensive Hokkaido ski resort
My daughter and I have skied and snow-boarded in the central Hokkaido town of Furano twice now. I thought it would be a useful addition to this first edition of Sportsocratic to briefly review our adventures there. Depending on what you are looking for in a ski holiday Furano may just be one of the best snow adventure holidays you will find anywhere in the world. One thing … [Read more...]
Help us find the worst sports team… anywhere
On Saturday morning the Channel 7 Sunrise program raised the big question about who is the worst sports team anywhere. They nominated the underperforming Nunawading Lions Australian Football team as pretty close to the bottom of the barrel but predicted that bigger things were in store for the boys. It was a great story. A heart-warming story. But… with their focus on how … [Read more...]