It’s also worth mentioning that he was one of the most ‘cheated’ against players in the history of the game, enduring the most horrendous fouls and kicks in just about every match he played. This does not of course excuse his own ill advised substance abuse, but neither was he some isolated, evil, drug abusing cheat in what is an otherwise noble game.
Yes, I felt pretty bad about it, but he’ll come to no harm from an 8 hour fast.
Typically yesterday my daughter forgot to put her lunchbox in her school bag so also went hungry - she had credit on her account but didn’t think to use it, despite us saying to them both that if ever they were out of credit again that the other sibling would probably be able to pay for them!
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Skilled sportsmen and women undoubtedly to play at the highest levels of the game, but I can’t say I’ve ever considered it a particularly noble sport in the modern era. Seems being a thespian is something of a pre-requisite for so many players - dangerous fouls are a serious matter and potentially career changing but the histrionics over minor things are often comical.
I find it sad the expectations that sportsmen or sportswomen or celebrities or royalties must be moral example for others amongst other things. Not to mention about paparazzis.
Perhaps that’s just human nature, the way it is because people look for idols and examples to follow and aspire to.
Regardless whether it was talents, acquired skills, hard work or even good fortune for what he got away with. He was a remarkable player. We can all reflect and learn from his successes and failings.
RIP Diego Maradona
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From Guillem Balague, BBC sports journalist today trying to capture a complicated icon:-
’ As much as I thought I knew Maradona, I realised once I began to research my book on him that I knew virtually nothing.
And the reason for that is because there were 100 different Maradonas. The magician, the cheat, the god, the flawed genius, the loving father, the serially unfaithful husband, the generous benefactor, the foul-mouthed oaf, the boy from the barrio with magic in his boots and the man who made it to the top of the mountain and fell down it, his body broken by cocaine’
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I’m not a football fan, despite playing a lot in my youth. Indeed, I find the tribalism of some fans, those armchair football managers and the amount of money involved in top-flight football a big turnoff.
My view on Maradona, from what I know of him, was that he was a highly skilled player, but, like some other top flight sports people, he was not a great sportsman. If people are full of their own importance, or actively cheat on or off the ‘field’ then, in my view, no matter how good they are, I personally don’t think much of them. I certainly don’t think they are a great roll model to aspiring young players. In my view the two prerequisites in sport, no matter the sport or one’s background, are that you play to the best of your ability and you play fairly - if you can’t do both of these, but especially the latter - give up and allow somebody more deserving a chance. I am sure others feel differently.
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Surely a correctly written system shoulld send out a warning when funds are low and allow two dependent children access one account? It’s disconcerting that ‘school boy’ errors are made in simple systems!
Absolutely right! Can’t stand cheats. They must be severely punished.
Tribalism amongst fans and drama on the field acting out contacts and injuries as mentioned by @Alley_Cat are great turn offs for me, too!
It’s a adult thinking. Youngsters are not racional in This terms. They’re passionate and follow what they love with blindness .
Yes that’s a very good point. To some extent I like granularity in settings for all sorts of things but as I was getting regular emails which start with:
Dear Parent Name,
You have received this email because you have enabled alerts on your ParentPay account.
I’d assumed I just had ‘Alerts’ enabled but when I checked again these could be controlled on an individual basis, as my son has changed school his old profile in the system went and was replaced by a new one - again it seems low balance alerts are on a per pupil basis but I think most parents would want this set on by default, or should at least be offered the option when you set up a new profile. Alerts come via email - you can also get them via SMS but have to pay for this.
The system is used for all manner of things from school meals to school trips, charity donation days and special clothing with the school’s badge/logo.
There is also a ‘parent credit pot’ that you can fill to easily transfer to items for individual kids rather than needing to do a card transaction or bank transfer for each small item- this parental ‘pot’ had funds - again there ought to be an option to automatically transfer to a child’s potif there is low balance.
Ths school uses an alert system to send out all manner of generic notifications so there’s often a lot of noise in emails too.
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