Traditional sports ranking of community strength:

Teams > Players > League

but esports/socialmedia/fantasy/tradingcard-boom/tech-unbundles-everything has shifted things

Players > Teams > League

Players are realizing it. Teams will be wise to adapt fast.

The awesome role of backspin in swing bowling and dipping yorkers: A thread.

If you've ever bowled any kind of seam in your life, you know that your fingers impart a backward spin on the ball as you release it.

Turns out, this is important in multiple ways.

First up, releasing the ball with backspin gives it rotation about its horizontal axis, much like a cycle wheel.

Much like a wheel, this enables the seam to stay upright (or slanted) without wobbling.

This is conservation of angular momentum.

This is important, because if the seam is wobbling around, it's almost impossible to get swing.

So your fingers naturally put backspin on the ball, which keeps the seam well-behaved, in a line, which is essential to even generate swing.

Turns out, this is not the only way it's important.

Remember when they talk about bowling fuller when it's swinging?

That's to give the ball more time in the air. More time = more swing = more lateral movement. Also, late swing.

Fine. But what does backspin do?

Backspin enables the ball to hang in the air for longer.

Why? Because of something called the Magnus effect.

The Magnus force is due to this backspin, and it lifts the ball.

The ball hits the ground later than it would if there were no backspin.

A simple solution for Welsh rugby, achieved by splitting the administration and control of the community and professional game......1/

The professional game owns the competitions it plays in (so the actual clubs are the shareholders) and form an organisation similar to PRL in order to best serve their commercial interests. Competition & broadcast income no longer flows through the accounts of the WRU but 2/

rather is paid to the incorporated organisation owned by the clubs (with the WRU having a share, so an interest, in that organisation). The WRU share isn't dividend paying, however. That organisation then deals with all aspects of the professional game 3/

from dealing with CVC, to negotiating competition and broadcast income, to sponsors for the Autumn International series, to working with World Rugby on the World Calendar - everything. 4/

From the funds of that corporation, a licence fee is paid to the WRU for the use of the stadium. This licence fee replaces the grant the professional game pays (north of £10m at the moment) to the community game each year. This money, plus whatever the community game 5/

I was sent a copy of the so-called Super League document earlier today and have spent the afternoon doing some number crunching on it.

A few key takeaways

(1/)

The plan would guarantee massive income to a 15 club elite and cement financial gaps not only between those competing in the Super league and those not, but within it.

(2/)

The plan envisages one off payments of up to €350 million to the fifteen founder members, but only six clubs would receive the full amount with five of the initial members receiving just €100 or €112.5 million.

(3/)

The 15 breakaway clubs have generously deigned to allow 5 merit based qualifiers each season. But the system is totally skewed against them. They have no say in running the Super League and are entirely excluded from a commercial pot worth 15% of income

(4/)

Moreover, there is an 'equal' share of revenue that is not equal at all. The qualifiers are excluded from half of this pot of money (worth around €1.85 BILLION)

(5/)

The Story Of Biafra Football Club (1969- 1978)

By Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu

Indeed there was a country... and there was also the Biafra Football Club.

In the dying months of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, a group of idealistic young football lovers gathered together

in Valls, Barcelona (Spain) to honour the heroic struggle of The Biafrans .

They created a symbolic pennant and founded the Biafra Football club in order to draw world attention to the plight of Biafra, using one of the most potent methods known to humanity.

Football.

CF Biafra had about a hundred players from Reus to Pla, from Nulles to Tarragona they settled in El Vilar, within the federated amateur league and rode all the way to the Third Regional League.

Half a century later, the golden anniversary of the Biafra football club

was celebrated.

Though now extinct, Biafra , to those idealistic young men, was a mirror for their own struggles . In their perception, their own region of Catalunya ( Catalonia) was going through the same situation at the hands of the Spanish government as Biafra was

experiencing, at the hands of the Nigerian government.

They found a common bond and affinity with the Biafra struggle through the formation of the Biafra football club in Valls.

The club existed until 1978 when its activities were truncated by lack of economic resources.

Dear Steve, I wrote you but still ain't callin',
I left my cell, my pager, and my home phone at the bottom,
I sent two letters back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em,
There probably was a problem at the training ground or somethin'...

Sometimes I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot 'em,
But anyways, fuck it, what's been up, man. How's Lee Charnley?
Bet he wants you to quit, with that contract they have to honour,
I bought your book for my daughter, you’re a great author,
Next I’ll buy her Sweeper!

I read about Joelinton too I'm sorry,
You ain’t the first manager to have player who didn’t want him,
I know you probably hear this everyday, but I'm your biggest fan,
I even sung your name when we won away at West Ham,

I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man,
I like the shit you did with false 10s too, that shit was fat,
Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back,
Just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan
This is John Carver

Dear Steve, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance,
I ain't mad, I just think it's fucked up you don't answer written media,
If you didn't wanna talk to me outside the training ground,
You didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Steve Stone,