Adding intrigue to the opening round of this year’s Vodacom Super Rugby programme is the knowledge that for so many of the teams it is a step into the unknown. You can look at team sheets as much as you like and you can run your eye over the pre-season friendly results as closely as it is possible to do so in your quest to be learned in your prediction for the competition, but the reality is that when new teams are playing you never really know what they are capable of until they actually play. There has been a massive change of personnel at some franchises, not least of them the Bulls and the Hurricanes, two teams that will be in action on South African soil this weekend. The Bulls/Sharks game at Loftus on Friday night is the headline act locally, with the Sharks fielding a team mostly of players who are known to us and who have shown good pre-season form, but with the corollary that the Sharks have only played weak opposition in the build-up. So for them this opening round is a...

London - Alex Ferguson branded Luis Suarez a "disgrace" and claimed he should never be allowed to play for Liverpool again after the Uruguay striker refused to shake hands with Patrice Evra before Manchester United's explosive 2-1 win at Old Trafford on Saturday. Ferguson was furious that Suarez deliberately withdrew his hand when he came face to face with Evra for the first time since being handed an eight-match suspension for racially abusing the United captain in a match at Anfield last October. Evra looked shocked by Suarez's snub during the traditional pre-match handshakes and grabbed at the Uruguayan's arm before his United team-mate Rio Ferdinand responded by refusing to shake hands with the Liverpool star. Ferguson claimed Suarez's actions could have sparked a riot in a fixture already drenched in hatred between the two sets of supporters. The Scot believes a club of Liverpool's history and tradition should now wash their hands off Suarez....

This article was taken partially from football365 website, written by Rob McNichol and its a fascinating read. Thought I'd share... Oh, what a tangled Webb games involving Manchester United and certain referees do weave. It seems like such a shame that such an enthralling game (well, enthralling second half) should end with talk of the referee, but hopefully that will subside and the memory of a cracking see-saw encounter and comeback will be the enduring image. I, though, have to do my job and assess the impact Howard Webb had on Chelsea 3 Manchester United 3. And it was a big one, with four key decisions in and around Chelsea's penalty area. I'll admit that I did not see shirt-pulling by Jose Bosingwa on Ashley Young on first glance, but a replay showed that Mr Webb's position would have meant it was fairly obvious. He eventually gave a free-kick to Chelsea for Young handballing it on the way down. The second of the first-half shouts was a definite foul by ...

This is a history of the events leading up to, including and following the tragedy of Thursday February 6, 1958 in which 23 people connected with the Manchester United British football team lost there lives. Events that molded Manchester United into the football club it is today. The team Matt Busby had built from the club's successful youth policy seemed destined to dominate football for many years. Such was the power of the Babes that they seemed invincible. The average age of the side which won the Championship in 1955-56 was just 22, the youngest ever to achieve such a feat. A year when they were Champions again, nothing, it seemed, would prevent the young braves of Manchester United from reigning for the next decade. United had taken their first steps into European football in defiance of the football authorities and it was on foreign soil that the final chapter in the story of the Babes was to be written. The aircraft carrying the United party back from a victorious v...

"John Terry will miss Sundays clash with Champions Manchester United due to injury" is the talk of the town and not the title decider of seasons past. Noone will be more please than the Football Association because now they do not have to worry whether or not they have to declare this match a "No Shake Hands" one as well. Chelsea are barely hanging on to fourth place with Newcastle breathing down their necks only three points adrift and Tottemham in thrid 7 points ahead.  One would be forgiven if you claim the pressure is firmly on the London club especially since this clash is  at the Bridge, even though they one point better off than they were at the same time last season. The most telling fact for the Manchester club having lost the last two times away to Chelsea in the English Premier League (EPL) and as Sir Alex alluded to this week 'very unluckily'. Manchester United would be buoyed by the fact that they find themselves level on points with their...