Aston Villa agree £12m fee for Middlesbrough's Stewart Downing - Guardian Headline

Aston Villa's new signing Stuart Downing in action (post op).

Aston Villa have agreed a fee of around £12m with Middlesbrough for their winger Stewart Downing. Downing is currently recovering from surgery on a fractured bone in his foot, and is unlikely to be ready for competitive football before October at the earliest, but it appears the Villa manager Martin O'Neill is now keen to complete a deal this summer, rather than waiting until January as had previously been suggested.

Martin O'Neill: Morning Gareth.

Stuart Downing: Sorry? I think you mean Stuart. Or Captain Stubing as my mates used to call me.

MON: Oh, yes, of course. Stuart. Right. So, how do you fancy wearing the number 6?

SD: Uh, that was Baz's number wasn't it?

MON: Was it?

SD: Look, Mr. O'Neill -

MON: Call me Martini! That's what GB used to call me.

SD: - Barry's name is still on the back of this shirt.

MON: Interesting. That reminds me, I'd like to show you your new wardrobe.

SD: Wardrobe?

MON: Yes, the clothes that you'll be required to wear as part of your contract. You did read it didn't you Gareth? Ah, here we are, let me just open this suitcase.

SD: Um. Right. These shirts all have Barry's name and number stitched on the breast.

MON: Hmm, yes. And you'll find they're a bit dirty on account of the fact that our dearly beloved Gareth Barry threw them out of the hotel room window during negotiations before he left—*ahem* excuse me, something in my eye I think—the club.

SD: Er, okay. I'll put these on later. So are you going to show me the training facilities?

MON: Yes, just after your pre op appointment.

SD: For my ankle you mean?

MON: No my dear Baz. Reconstructive surgery for your face! We need you to have a fuller, more manly jaw line.

SD: Oh my god, no.

MON: And I have JUST the model photograph. It's signed and everything! You can study it to perfect your new signature! Gareth? Where are you going Gareth? Security! Oop, now we've got you, thank you gentlemen!

SD: My god, please no!

MON: You see? It was always meant to be! Now let's go make you beautiful, my lovely Gareth Barry. That way we can be together for ever, and ever, and ever and ever and ever-

SD: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

MON: -and ever and ever and ever and ever

FIN

The Weirdest Summer Transfer Season Ever?

Manchester City: Tears of an insane clown

Back to the football for the moment; what is happening this summer? Fred (mostly Fred) and I have been writing fake transfer news for the Onion Bag in anticipation for the usual dead headlines among Europe's Super League of Extraordinary Non-Gentlemen, but the 'Real' news thus far has been Real Madrid and Manchester City being involved in every single transfer in Europe.

Adebayor to Manchester City? Carlos Teves to Manchester City? John Terry to Manchester City? Why do I envision their board chairman to be a psychotic clown in the Stephen King mode, or at least a crazed gambler picking cards at random from the 2008-09 Premier League Almanac? Can you envision these players on a club together? The same club with Shay Given in goal and Mark Hughes on the touch line?

The hilarious thing is Man City is spending REAL money, as opposed to their odd Spanish transfer market bedfellows, Real Madrid, who apparently thought Europe would leap for a chance at Nistelrooy's or Saviola's signature (the latter got a wopping €5 million to play for Benfica). Next season looks to be absolutely absurd, and therefore tons of fun. One more reason to avoid 'Other Sports' what with their salary caps and money sharing provisions. Pfft to that.

Other Sports: Part the Fifth - Car Racing

What we all came to see

Though 'Other Sports' is by far the least popular series in AMSL's history, I'm obliged to forge on if only to remind myself why my ten month addiction to one sport is in fact, healthy, and to be encouraged among young people and the infirm.

So with that I go to the car racing games, Indy, NASCAR, Formulas 1 through 10. Unless you're drunk at four in the morning and sitting in front of a Super Nintendo with Mario Kart jammed in its maw, racing is to be avoided at all costs. As Guardian Sport's Sean Ingle recently admitted: "F1 leaves me utterly cold. There's the race to the 1st corner ... and then 90 minutes of whiny tedium. The dullest sport of all?"

Which is to say, yes, yes it is. But it's a common mistake to leave off at F1. We had an Indy car race here in Toronto this weekend. I managed to avoid the sound of a giant bee hive buzzing through my brain for forty eight hours by taking a trip to the country side. For those left to watch the exciting finish with everyone's boyhood hero, Dario Franchitti, winning the Indy Car Hubcap or whatever they award they give out for driving someone else's machine the fastest, I believe this CBC Online comment sums up the city's general feeling to motor sport:

"Good it's over. Now hopefully they will re-open the Exhibition grounds and roads that were closed."

This should be the event's slogan next year.

Other Sports: Part the Fourth - Canadian Football

"And anyone forthwith who is ignorant of the meaning of
a 'rouge' is will have their citizenship revoked and shall be
forever expelled from the land" - British North America Act.

We have a version of American football, which we call Canadian football. It involves one less 'down' and the field is bigger or something, but at the end of the day is still a bastardization of rugby and a pox on all things holy and true.

That said, CBC Sports ran this headline this morning: Eskimos drubbed in Montreal again, which to my mind sounds like the city has successfully repelled an attack from hordes of Inuit attempting to take back land on behalf of the Iroquois. Seinfeld and the Simpsons have both made jokes about it, which makes it a legitimate sport. Watch at your own peril.

Other Sports: Part the Third - Baseball

"Touch 'em all Joe."

A word of warning: this could get...emotional.

It may surprise you to learn that I love baseball. It's not anything to do with the hilarious chaos of an error-strewn inside-the-park home run, the clockwork of a perfectly executed triple play, or the rare stealing of home plate (which when witnessed live will cause you to choke up with its simple deceit, like a nymph deigning to rob Zeus himself).

No, I love baseball because baseball introduced me to the euphoric, almost hallucinogenic high of watching a team from your home town win. Like really fucking win. Twice. Torontonians will talk about 1992, 93—the consecutive seasons when the Blue Jays won two World Series titles—for the next thousand years, likely because they will never be repeated. No one really remembers what 1967 felt like, the last year the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. And the Grey Cup, as venerable as it is, is an all-Canadian trophy. Canadians like beating Americans. It's in the water we drink. And winning the World Series, the highest trophy awarded to followers of America's Pastime, was liquid acid to the Canadian psyche.

I will never forget them. John Olerud, Roberto Alomar, Pat Borders, Dave Winfield, Joe Carter. My God, Joe Carter. He was, simply, my hero. Carter's 1993 World Series-winning homerun, the homerun that jostled The Shot Heard Round the World out of its place a bit, was beyond magic. When I saw it I accidentally jumped on my friend's dog's tail. I ran outside, twelve years old, waving a giant Canadian flag on one of Toronto's many leafy sidestreets. I believed, sincerely believed, this would happen every year, forever, as long as I had my being. But it was not to be.

I love baseball. But because I loved it so much, so intensely, I knew after the 1994 season, the baseball strike, I would never love it the same way again. I can still watch it and feel the way I did when I was ten years old. I smile with recognition at short stop plays from youth ("Tony'd caught that"), the abuse poured on the right fielder by half drunk crowds, the dead confidence of a pitcher walking off the mound who has struck out three in a row after giving up a couple of basehits on no outs.

But no one who puts on a Blue Jays shirt can ever be John Olerud, with his .400 average and his scarecrow batting stance, no one will have the ancient wisdom of Paul Molitor, the jheri curls of George Bell, the accent of Roberto Alomar. No one who puts on a Blue Jays shirt will ever be Joe Carter, the man who made a twelve year old kid feel like a king for a day, the man who introduced to him the fleetingly rich glory of games played in the sunshine.

Other Sports: Part the Second - Cricket

So where do I write in my net income?

Good Lord.

Rob Smyth's Ashes MBM: "What an over from Mitchell Johnson! Four balls in a row were superb and culminated in the big wicket of the captain: the first was a leg-stump yorker to Strauss that should have been given LBW; the second was a bouncer that hit Bopara; the third was a slower ball that Bopara, duped completely, drove just over mid-off; and the fourth was a vicious bouncer that followed Strauss, took the glove and looped gently to Clarke in the slips. That is modern fast bowling of the very highest quality."

WHAT? I remember what an over is (six knuckle balls), and I know LBW stands for Lyndon Baines Wicket or something like that. I think I may even know where Clarke is if he's over in 'the slips,' even though it sounds like some sort of prewar foppish hangout in West London. God, this is hard. Canada won their second Gold Cup round everyone! Let's all watch that instead. Come on, who's with me?

Other Sports Series: Part the First

So here goes; Alexei Kovalev has signed for the Ottawa Senators. He was the only reason I really really enjoyed the Montreal Canadiens in the past few seasons, even when he was a lethargic, self-regarding dick, perhaps mostly because he was a lethargic, self-regarding dick. I'll never forget his first round playoff goal when his helmet came off and suddenly it was 1972 and he scored on a backhanded shot that was beautiful.

Senators GM Bryan Murray has been quoted as saying he'd like Kovalev to score 30 plus goals next season, which is like me saying I plan to make 80 Gs singing countertenor this year, so good luck with that Bryan. Anyway, seeing him in a Senators shirt will evoke the same feelings as seeing Barry in Man City blue (leave me alone, football!); nausea mixed with regret and resentment.

PS: Ok, there are some other ways to beat the soccerless summer blues: EPL Talk has a mighty fine retrospective on the Legends of English Football, and so far no Stuart Pierce so all is well. Yesterday they did Stanley Matthews who is of course most famous for playing one season with Toronto City. Enjoy!