Sport magazine - issue 303

Issue 303 | May 3 2013

Giro hero?

Sir Bradley Wiggins on his tilt at being the ďŹ rst Brit to win the Giro d’Italia

Contents Issue 303, May 3 2013 Radar 07 Make yourself a Sandwich... ... Bike. Your new ride, inspired by the concept of flatpacking, home assembly and the humble sarnie

08 The anatomy of Money We pull apart Floyd Mayweather as he gears up for Robert Guerrero

10

Score! World Goals Recreate your favourite net-busters with the most enthusiastically titled football app of all time

oFeatures this coming week

18

Sir Bradley Wiggins Talks exclusively about his chances of winning the Giro d’Italia, his ambitions for a second Maillot Jaune and his reaction to Lance’s mea culpa

27 Mousa Dembélé Tottenham’s powerhouse midfielder on his team’s battle for the top four – and his favourite London musicals

Cover image: Scott Mitchell. This page: Scott Mitchell for Getty Images, Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

18

31

Adam Jones With Warren Gatland’s squad now named, the Wales prop can look forward to a second Lions tour

27 07

32

32 The real Harry Redknapp The Guardian’s John Crace asks if everyone’s favourite wheelerdealer is simply misunderstood

Extra Time 44 Kit Get the gear to emulate Wiggo.

Note: ankle-length socks should be worn only by female tennis players

46 Grooming Where to go to have your sideburns sculpted like our cover star

48 Gadgets The smartphones that will make your social life bigger, if not better

52

52 Entertainment Ralph Steadman’s darker creations come to the Cartoon Museum | May 3 2013 | 03

Radar

p08 – Must be the Money: we analyse the anatomy of Floyd Mayweather p10 – Score! World Goals – does exactly what it says on the app p10 – The Lions visit the Pink Lion: a pop-up pub on Parsons Green

Some assembly required iven our record at assembling flatpack furniture (Ikea 4 Sport 0), we’d be a little reluctant to test this out unless heavily padded and helmeted. If you’re braver and more adept at following instructions than we are, you might find a place in your life for the Sandwich Bike, which is finally available for pre-order after seven years of planning and development.

The bike will be shipping towards the end of 2013, having been created in 2006 by Bleijh, a Dutch industrial design studio. The body of the bike will arrive in parts – it is formed from two wooden plates made from layers of ‘sandwiched’ plywood (hence the name) bonded together by ‘smart cylinders’ to form “a rock-solid piece of technology”.

In total, fewer than 50 parts make up the design – and with the tools in the box, it’s as easy to put together as a sandwich.

An incredibly elaborate (potentially lethal) sandwich, but still.

Pre-order at sandwichbikes.com

G

| May 3 2013 | 07

Radar

The anatomy of...

Floyd Mayweather Before his fight with Robert Guerrero tomorrow, we’ve dissected the mouthy welterweight

Unlike most athletes, Mayweather is tattoo-free.

“I like the way I look without them – and I’m not a follower,” he has said. Reportedly one of the reasons he fell out with 50 Cent (see below) is that the rapper allegedly took Mayweather’s 13-year-old son to a tattoo parlour at 2.30am one evening. Troubling on many levels.

His footwork has helped him waltz to an undefeated 43-0 record, but was good enough for only ninth place on Dancing with the Stars in the States. His Paso Doble saw him KO’d by Spice Girl Mel B.

@FloydMayweather has almost four million Twitter followers, but @50cent isn’t one of them after a falling out on social media. Mayweather tweeted a picture of the rapper holding some of his title belts, and called him a “male boxing groupie”. @50Cent tweeted: “I can’t hang out with Floyd no more, I’m tired of running from Manny Pacquiao.”

Mayweather’s big mouth has got him in trouble. His war of words with Manny Pacquiao has been particularly distasteful, with the American threatening to “kick that midget ass”, along with some other things we can’t possibly print here.

Floyd has stopped 26 opponents, but he can’t pull a punch. In a staged match at WrestleMania in 2008, he accidentally broke The Big Show’s nose with a blow.

In 2012, Mayweather requested jail release because, among other things, he wasn’t allowed bottled water – tap water apparently disagreeing with his constitution. “It’s jail,” prosecutor Lisa Luzaich told the court. “Where did he think he was going? The Four Seasons?”

$213m Money is an apt nickname – his career earnings are $213m, and he’s just signed a six-fight deal with Showtime expected to be worth more than $200m.

Turn to page 36 for our preview of Mayweather’s bout with Guerrero

Think pink

08 | May 3 2013 |

All pictures Getty Images

L

ong considered (by us at least) the Tour de France’s effeminate cousin, the Giro d’Italia is nonetheless a coveted prize among elite cyclists. The second edition of Maglia Rosa, from renowned cyclo-publishing label Rouleur Books, tells the history of the 104-year-old race. Gripping photography from the early years of the race is combined with Herbie Sykes’ brilliant writing.

Maglia Rosa, out now, £24

Radar

Let’s see that again C

ountless hours have been spent in playgrounds across the country attempting to recreate the classics – the Bergkamp flick and twirl, the Higuita scorpion kick and, more recently, the Luis Suárez chomp.

Help is now at hand for those tired of nursing bruised egos, grazed palms and bite wounds after their attempts. Because the Score! World Goals app lets you recreate them in safety on your iPad or iPhone, and has just been updated to add a whole host of memorable strikes from club football to the already stellar collection of international goals. Controlled by drawing the path of the ball on to the touchscreen, it’s an immensely satisfying dip into nostalgia, and one that will eat up the minutes on your commute. The only trauma you’ll have to worry about getting from this method of recreating the classics is repetitive strain injury.

Score! World Goals, free on iOS

W

hat better way to spend a sunny May afternoon than eating kangaroo burgers cooked by former England rugby captain Phil Vickery? That is just one of the more eclectic things you could find yourself doing this month...

10 | May 3 2013 |

Streetfest 2013

The Pink Lion

Sunday 1pm, Hearn Street, Shoreditch

Saturday May 18, The White Horse, Parsons Green

A melée of urban sport stars will be showing off their moves in Shoreditch on Sunday, at Streetfest. The festival, now in its sixth year, will feature displays of skateboarding, BMX and in-line skating, as well as other, even more impractical ways of getting around.

Tickets from £5, streetfest.net

HPA Gaucho International Polo

Classic Champions League finals

Tuesday May 21, O2 Arena

May 3-29, ESPN Classic

Five of the newly named Lions squad will make an appearance at The Pink Lion, a pop-up pub on Parsons Green. It’s a family-focused event, so there will be touch rugby for the kids, speeches from leading Lions and kangaroo burgers cooked

by Phil Vickery. Scrumptious.

The world’s greatest polo players will be flying into London (probably first-class) as Argentina take on England in the centrepiece of a Latin-infused event that includes live music, DJs and wine-tasting. Hopefully not at the same time – horses don’t take too well to Pinot Grigio.

ESPN Classic will show a classic final every night – starting in 1993, when the European Cup got its current name and jingle. Look out for famous comebacks by Man Utd (May 8) and Liverpool (May 18), plus John Terry’s tears in 2008 (May 20).

pinkunbuttoned.com

tickets from £20, gauchopolo.com

espnclassic.com/finalgoals

Ben Radford /Allsport

Come what may

Free from iTunes for iPad and iPhone

Radar Editor’s letter

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Editorial

Hero worship: young Norwich fans will even mimick Steve McClaren

Role models Whether they ask for it or not, footballers have a huge influence on their young supporters

Editor-in-chief Simon Caney @simoncaney

After the Suárez verdict last week, a suspension seemingly chosen by a random number generator, there was an awful lot of discussion about whether his influence over young fans should have any bearing on his punishment. A general consensus, on Twitter at least, was that it’s the job of parents to teach children right from wrong, the job of footballers to win football matches. And in an ideal world, that’s correct.

But the reality is this: footballers do have huge influence over kids. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. In a previous incarnation, I was editor of Match!, a football magazine whose readership was mainly aged 10-14. We carried out weekly focus groups – talking to them, and their teachers, in schools all over the country – and the amount to which they looked up to their heroes was eye-opening. This is heroworship on a massive scale, and it is no surprise that they want to copy the behaviour of their idols.

Now, trying to eat an opponent on the pitch is an extreme example, and I doubt many young Liverpool supporters thought it a good idea to copy Suárez. But how about when they watch

professional footballers dive, or harangue the referee, or generally behave like oafs? There’s no question that youngsters would see that as acceptable behaviour. Of course, parents can step in and put them right. But a) are all parents taking any notice, and b) even if they are, do their children listen?

I accept entirely that footballers don’t sign up to be any kind of moral guardians, and every industry has its share of bad apples, but I firmly believe they have a role to play in teaching youngsters the way to behave on and off the pitch.

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To whit, there are plenty of crass stunts pulled in the name of football these days, but I rather like the guard of honour idea for the Premier League champions. It always sits uneasily with the team that has to do it (I recall Gary Neville with a face like thunder as Chelsea trotted out at Old Trafford – “like having to clap burglars into my own home,” he described it) but it’s a decent show of sportsmanship. Sorry, Arsenal fans.

A great deal has been written about racing trainer Mohammed Al Zarooni, banned for eight years for doping offences. But it is worth applauding the sport for dealing with the case so quickly and efficiently. All other sports (cycling) take note.

Get in touch @sportmaguk

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ack to Luis Suárez, and something I touched on last week: the way footballers influence children who follow them. Because they do. I know.

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Flats on Friday

David Lyttleton

Radar Opinion

Time for rugby to get its own Jim White

I

n January I decided to muck in and become a real Brit. For too long I sat on the periphery, projecting aloofness while the rest of the country went wild with anticipation. What I did was get a takeaway meal delivered to my doorstep by a very kind man from Lithuania (we’ve become mates – let’s just say he knows the route by now).

I then swiped a couple of cold beers from the fridge, Fosbury flopped into my armchair and switched the TV from Wheeler Dealers to Sky Sports 1. I even went HD – why not go nuts?

I was there to see if Jim White and I could forge a virtual relationship on transfer deadline day.

Having been told of his legend by friends – some of whose opinions I even respected – I was curious as to whether all of this speculative hysteria could draw me in. Historically, I would let everyone go mad while I enjoyed a relaxed evening, then look in the papers over breakfast to see what had actually occurred.

Fifteen minutes in and White had me so glued to the box that I even considered using my now-empty beer bottles (it was a spicy curry) to save me a trip to the loo. And as for washing my hands – forget it.

Too risky. Yes, that night I was a bloke in excelsis.

Well, Jim was... and I was possessed by his spirit.

14 | May 3 2013 |

This weekend sees the last round of the Aviva Premiership – and, as you’ll all agree, this is even more exciting. Okay, so maybe that’s pushing it a little. However, I do think there is room for a Jim White figure on our screens as the final minutes of the matches – which all kick off at the same time – close in.

We could have ‘as it stands’ graphics popping up every minute; potential financial ramifications for clubs missing out on Heineken Cup qualification or facing relegation scrolling continuously across the foot of the screen; and bookies’ odds on which player might jump ship should the result not go the way of his team – and even whose bus journey home might be the messiest.

But to do this, we need the right personality to deliver the product. The usual faces won’t cut it.

We need someone original, and in whom the nation believes. Gary Lineker does a decent job on Match of the Day, and Clare Balding is undoubtedly a national treasure, but we need more. You may have guessed already who I have in mind; it is actually pretty obvious when you think about it.

The man for the job is Les Dennis. Imagine it... it would be televisual nirvana. This must happen.

Is it time for a petition? @davidflatman

It’s like this…

Bill Borrows

T

he reason why QPR have been relegated was there for all to see, out in the sunshine on the pitch at the Madejski Stadium on Sunday. Reading and QPR had just played out a 0-0 draw to ensure both clubs would be, as the fans reminded them, “going to Bournemouth” next season.

They had just been relegated. Did the players care?

Somebody should have asked them as they shook hands, smiled and milled around like they might be at a groundsmen’s convention or garden party thrown by care in the community for the benefit of their more sociable clients.

“Did the players Compare and contrast care? Somebody with the despair at should have asked Northampton and Rotherham as, as they smiled respectively, Barnet and milled and Aldershot were around like they relegated out of the league – or, more might be at a instructively, at garden party” Brentford, where the home team sank to the ground at the final whistle because they had failed to secure automatic promotion, albeit in bizarre circumstances. Correct response.

This writer’s Pavlovian response to the name Joey Barton is usually unprintable and involves an insertion of his head somewhere anatomically improbable, but he absolutely nailed it when he tweeted: “I can’t believe Bosingwa was walking down the tunnel laughing.”

He continued in more splenetic vein, and evaluated a number of his teammates as “w*****s” and “maggots”.

Fortunately, perhaps, the nine-year-old QPR fan next to me did not have such a vocabulary at his immediate disposal; but as Robert Green took 15 seconds to take a goal-kick deep into injury time, he screamed at the TV: “What’s he doing? The idiot.” And then, at the final whistle, he just sighed: ”Right, I don’t care any more.”

He wasn’t smiling.

‘Arry Redknapp half-heartedly tried to excuse Jose Bosingwa while distancing himself from the whole sorry business, but at the time of writing he is sitting down with Tony Fernandes to discuss the club’s future. There’s no point second-guessing because Fernandes will doubtless have tweeted all the details before you’ve read this – or, indeed, before I’ve even finished writing it. But you can sum it up in two words. And the second one is ‘bleak’. @billborrows

Plank Of The Week Danny Cipriani, Sale Sharks Why would you go out in Leeds when you live in Manchester? Inexplicable. Then again, he did catch the last bus home.

Frozen in time

Bees feel the sting Less than 24 hours before the universally popular Jose Bosingwa chuckled his way down the Madejski Stadium tunnel after QPR’s relegation from the Premier League, this was the reaction of Brentford’s players after late drama in their final league game at home to Doncaster cost them an automatic promotion spot into the Championship. The Bees will instead take their chances in the League One playoffs, and may yet go up. God help us all if they don’t.

16 | May 3 2013 |

| 17

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

Sir Bradley Wiggins

Rose pedal 18 | May 3 2013 |

Sir Bradley Wiggins begins his pursuit of the Maglia Rosa in the Giro d’Italia tomorrow.

He speaks exclusively to Sport about his new Grand Tour goal

and the man the French press affectionately refer to as ‘Le Gentleman’ announces himself to Sport as feeling “rough as arseholes”.

It’s a reminder that, despite his phenomenal success, Wiggins considers himself an ordinary bloke. “I had a lump taken off my arse and I’m on very strong antibiotics,” he explains, saddle sores having caught up with the rider who, after wearing the leader’s Yellow Jersey for an incredible 13 successive stages in France last summer, is officially Le Patron of the peloton – whether he likes it or not.

So, has he adapted to how his life has changed in the past year? “Without going into too much detail, because I always sound like I’m moaning about it, I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated what’s happened to me, really,” he says. “And I don’t think I ever will.

“I get embarrassed doing stuff... like if people see me in a restaurant and ask for a photo, because I still don’t consider >

| 19

Scott Mitchell via Getty Images

K

night of the British Empire, Tour de France victor, four-time Olympic gold-medallist, seven-time world champion on track and road,

Download the free Sport iPad app for our stage-bystage guide to the Giro

Sir Bradley Wiggins myself to be what they think I am. So it’s that acceptance thing, really.”

At one point, Wiggins shaved off his trademark sideburns in an attempt to preserve his anonymity.

Even a Batman fancy dress outfit failed to stop people in France recognising him during New Year celebrations. Has he, then, retained elements of reality in among all the hysteria?

“No, not really,” he says. “And that’s where things have changed. It’s trying to accept that maybe you can’t do the things you used to do, and perhaps not get frustrated that you can’t. At first I used to get quite frustrated that I couldn’t do the things I used to do – like shopping, or taking the kids out for a pizza – without a big fanfare.

“You end up adapting. The biggest thing was not going out looking like me. For a while I used to carry on going out looking like Bradley Wiggins, but people don’t expect to see you not looking like you. I think that’s one of the things that made life easier.”

extra iPad content

Burning pink

20 | May 3 2013 |

“There’s something about the challenge, how hard it is, that motivates you to come back” slip to fifth – one minute and 40 seconds behind the overall General Classification leader Vincenzo Nibali.

The underdog All very different to a year ago, when Wiggins rode to victories in Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie and the Critérium du Dauphiné on his way to glory in Le Tour.

He has chosen not to defend those titles this season, preferring instead to focus on training more and racing less in order to prepare for the Giro’s climbs – 11 of the 21 stages are classed as mountain or medium-mountain stages, with his favoured individual time trials comprising only two of the remaining 10.

That’s enough, says Wiggins, for him to consider himself something of an underdog for the Giro’s much-coveted Pink Jersey – but does he feel more comfortable as such? “In a way, yeah, and I like that underdog element, people doubting me,” he explains.

“I guess part of the motivation is not necessarily to prove people wrong, but maybe you question yourself at times. I think we all question ourselves.

“I don’t consider myself better than anybody anyway – off the bike. Which goes back to that whole

fame thing of not accepting it, and not thinking you’re something special. I’m just me, and I think that goes for the same on the bike.

“That’s why I try and avoid all the kind of pre-race propaganda and hype, and tend to say that Nibali’s one of the favourites for me, and that Cadel [Evans, at BMC] is tried and tested, and all this sort of crap.

“It’s for me to beat them, you know? I might think differently, but that’s what I say outwardly. As I think I said before the Tour last year, what’s more important is what happens on the road. You have all this talk beforehand, but you really can’t predict what’s going to go on. Anything can happen over those three weeks. Grand Tour racing is as much about luck as it is anything else – as I found out two years ago [when Wiggins broke his collarbone on Stage 7 of the Tour de France].”

Grand Tour racing is, however, also about preparation. There is, we point out, a big difference between the spring races Wiggins chose last season and the schedule he has followed this time.

“Yeah, definitely,” he agrees. “This year I’ve really come out of my comfort zone in trying to win the Giro.

It’s going to be a challenge. There are perhaps > Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Scott Mitchell via Getty Images

When Sport speaks to Wiggins, the sideburns are back. We meet him in the medieval Austrian town of Lienz, near the border with Italy, preparing for the Giro del Trentino. It is the starting point of the four-day race the 33-year-old specifically picked because of its similarities to the climbs of the Giro d’Italia – one of cycling’s three Grand Tours, and a race Wiggins has identified as his major goal for the season. Or, as he put it back in January: “My new challenge, my new inspiration, the new fire that burns inside me.”

We remind Wiggins of that quote, and that he called his Giro d’Italia debut in 2003 – which he didn’t finish – the “worst thing I’ve done in life”.

“Yeah, it was, yeah,” he says, smiling. “But a lot changes, you know? Your first experience of these things, I think you realise just how hard they are.

My first experience of the Tour de France was exactly the same – I could never imagine going back.

“But then you do go back. There’s the initial aftermath when you get asked these things and it’s like: ‘I can never imagine doing that again.’ It’s the same with when I won it. I could never imagine at the time that I’d be planning to be back there again in 12 months’ time, ready to do it again.

But then, after a while, you settle down and you want to do it again.”

Wiggins openly admits how tough he found that first Giro, which was also his Grand Tour debut.

“But there’s something about the challenge, about how hard it is, that motivates you to come back,” he continues. “It was the same when I finished fourth in the Tour [in 2009, later promoted to third after Lance Armstrong’s results were annulled – but more on that later]. It gave me that motivation for the next few years, to try and win this incredible thing that people said was impossible for you to do, because you were a flash in the pan or whatever.

“If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. And I think I like that about it. ‘Is he ever going to win the Tour?’ they ask. ‘Can he win it?’ Once I did, all those questions stopped. And now it’s the Giro. I said I’d like to win it, and now it’s: ‘Can he do it? The climbs are steeper...’ This that and the other.”

So, can he do it? Wiggins’ performance in the Trentino suggests he will be a contender; third going into the final day, a mechanical failure at the foot of the final climb en route to Sega di Ala saw the Brit

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Sir Bradley Wiggins

bigger challenges in it that go against me [more mountain stages, fewer time trials] if you compare it to the Tour. But I’ve tried to rise to those challenges.

“I’ve gone out and done things like the Tour of Catalunya, because it didn’t have a time trial.

Because those are the things – like those mountains in Catalunya – where I need to be up there with [climbers such as Joaquim] Rodriguez and that, limit my losses and not count on a time trial three days later to then stick three minutes into them and win the race.”

So was Catalunya – where Wiggins finished 54 seconds down on the winner, Garmin’s Daniel Martin – a case of racing to train for the Giro?

“No, not at all,” he says. “I was racing to race.

I raced every day, flat out. I was third or fourth on the two big mountain days, but I only lost a handful of seconds to those real climbers both days. That for me was a win in itself, because I’m never going to be

22 | May 3 2013 |

on par or drop those guys because there’s such a difference in what we do. If there is a time trial a few days later, though, you hope to go back into the lead.

“It’s kind of like playing your best cards when you get the opportunity, and hiding your hand when you get into those other kind of situations [on the climbs] – which is what the Giro is going to be about.”

Social climber Wiggins has been accused of hiding more than his hand this season. At the beginning of March, in Oman, Nibali told Gazzetta dello Sport that Wiggins “snubbed the race and hid”. Is that fair?

“I went to Oman this year and I was just nowhere,” admits Wiggins. “But I was in the middle of a big load of [training] work in that period, and it was the first time I’d been to a race as Sir Bradley Wiggins, winner of the Tour de France. And seeing everyone look at you like: ‘What’s happened [to your form]?’And then

you have to explain yourself. I’d never really had that before, because no one really gave a shit.”

Wiggins says he has worked harder than he did last year, and claims to be in better condition than he was before his Tour de France victory, adding that he feels “quite liberated since I won the Tour”. Why? “You see things in such a different light. Like I can only control what I can control. All those little doubts and fears have gone away this year. Now I know I can do my best and not really worry about all the little things that could go wrong. But physically, I know I’ve done everything possible to be the best I can.”

What about Nibali’s other assertion: that Wiggins cannot climb? The Briton went some way to answering that on the first mountain finish at the Trentino, with the Italian making several attacks only for Wiggins to close the gaps. Despite that showing, and the training he has done to make himself more explosive on the ascents, Wiggins is still, he says, not a natural climber: “Everyone says it – even Nibali says it: ‘Wiggins can’t climb.’ Which is fair enough. Maybe I’m not as good as some of the guys in the world. But I’ve worked on those areas, and I think I have improved on them.

“I won the Tour last year, and I beat Nibali by six minutes and 19 seconds. So I could have stopped for a coffee, and still won. And I don’t have to win by six minutes and 19 seconds at the Giro. So, in a sense, I’ve perhaps got six minutes and 15 seconds to play with to win in Brescia [where the Giro finishes].

“When you start looking at it in that sense, you get a lot more confidence from it. And in three of the mountain stages, I actually took time off him last year. For someone who can’t climb, that’s not a bad thing.” > Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Scott Mitchell via Getty Images

“I won the Tour and beat Nibali by six minutes. So I could have stopped for a coffee and still won”

Sir Bradley Wiggins

“I’m going back to try and win the Tour. That is what my goal has been throughout the winter” The numbers game The conventional wisdom in cycling is that riders need a decent number of days’ racing in their legs before they go into a three-week stage race, but Team Sky follow a different philosophy: as long as the training is right, you don’t have to race as much as you might expect.

Or, as Wiggins puts it: “Everything we do is evidential. It’s there in numbers. We always go on about the numbers – it’s part of what we do. And the numbers don’t really lie. So what you average for half an hour on a climb with your weight equates to a certain speed. You can then predict from that speed, as we have with a lot of the team this year, how you are going to perform in the races. We know who will be up there and competitive – it’s really quantifiable.”

We suggest that using ‘the numbers’ is a better way to prepare for a Grand Tour than by riding the Spring Classics and one-day races, because of their sheer unpredictability.

“Yeah, I think it’s a different ball game,” says Wiggins. “Preparing yourself day in, day out for a three-week tour is, I would say, a more professional way of training. I’ve done it both ways. Two years ago, when I had a disastrous Tour, I was on a wing and a prayer and judging everything on how I felt.

“But at the end of the day, there’s nothing to back up how you feel. You can only say: ‘I have done this,

Saturday > giro d’italia naples-Brescia, italy British eurosport 1pm

and I felt shit, but I did average this amount of power.’

But the fact is that it doesn’t matter how you felt – it’s the numbers you averaged that matter. They don’t lie.”

That’s all fine, but Wiggins must surely feel some slight pang of regret at choosing not to defend the titles he won last year.

“Not really,” he counters. “Because this year is about a completely different goal. I think you can get too nostalgic in trying to go back and win a second.

But I just felt that going to altitude [to train in Tenerife] and then going to Catalunya was a far better preparation in terms of what we were trying to go for in May.”

From pink to yellow Beyond May, one thing Wiggins will not readily concede is his Maillot Jaune. The line coming from Team Sky, however, suggests that Chis Froome, who finished second to Wiggins last year and captured the Tour de Romandie only last weekend, will be the main man at the TdF. But Wiggins has other ideas.

“That isn’t set in stone yet,” he says. “As I’ve said since November, I’m going back to try and win the Tour. That is my preparation – that’s what my goal has been throughout winter training. And as the training has gone on, it seems as if the likelihood is I’m going to be better on the Tour than I was last year.

“I can’t account for how Chris’ preparations are going or how he’s going to ride at the Tour. But we’re both on that track, and obviously we’ll get to the Tour and find out who is supporting who. But there is also an element of the unknown coming out of the Giro... you know, if I crash, or I’m sick, or I’m just completely f***ed after it.”

In other words, if all goes well, Wiggins believes winning the Giro and the Tour in the same year is possible. “Yeah, yeah... so that’s the path we’re both on at the moment,” he says. “And we’ll get there, and if Chris has won the Dauphiné and he’s flying and it’s obvious [that he should be team leader in France], then I’m man enough and professional enough to say: ‘Okay, I’ll support Chris.’

“That’s the challenge I’m taking on, as I did last year. I perhaps jeopardised slightly the Olympic title, and I was willing to lose that Olympic gold for the chance of trying to win the Tour. But I felt that if it all went well, I could win both – and that’s the same way I feel about the Giro and the Tour this year.”

Given his dominance last July, it’s an exciting prospect. And who knows – if he has the time, and he’s not feeling rough as arseholes, maybe he will actually stop for a coffee this year.

Graham Willgoss @grahamwillgoss

You can follow Team Sky via Facebook and Twitter.

For more information, visit www.TeamSky.com

W

iggins is renowned for his anti-doping stance, even going so far as saying Lance Armstrong could “get f***ed, completely” if the accusations against him were found to be true.

So how did he feel seeing Armstrong confess all?

“It’s amazing how it was such a big story for two weeks and then nothing since. At the time it was shocking, but not surprising either. And now you look back on it and it’s kind of like: ‘What was the point in that?’

“We’re no further on as a sport with it.

If anything, it’s worse for those of us

24 | May 3 2013 |

involved now because we get loads of awkward questions about it. And he’s back out doing his own thing. At the time, I was like: ‘He might go to prison here.’ And now it seems to have gone quiet.

“Attention has switched back to the sport, with question marks about the teams and whether Team Sky are doping, especially because we’ve won a lot of races. And that’s all happened as a result of what Discovery and Postal did, because they set that precedent – so of course now [people assume that] anyone else who is that successful must be doing what they were doing.

“We’re having to deal with it all now; trying to prove ourselves and constantly justifying that we’re not doping. You can’t blame people for thinking what they do. You know, people who don’t follow the sport and only saw the Lance Armstrong stuff in the news. I can imagine people saying: ‘Well, cycling – they must all be doing it.’

“But how shocking would it be and how deep would it go if it all came out... all these other great performances from other sportsmen.

How genuine are they? It makes you question everything. Even me – I question everything now.”

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Scott Mitchell via Getty Images, Harpo Inc/Getty Images

On Armstrong’s confession...

Mousa Dembélé

The Belgian influence As Tottenham’s Champions League chase builds to a crescendo, we talk football, musicals and the rise of la Belgique with Mousa Dembélé

| May 3 2013 | 27

Mousa Dembélé

A

lmost 30 years have passed since Jan Ceulemans captained a golden generation of Belgian players to the World Cup semi finals.

The intervening period has been notably barren for one of Europe’s younger nations: in 2000, Belgium became the first host nation ever to exit a major tournament at the group stage, and it is now more than a decade since Anderlecht were the last Belgian club side to reach the last 16 of the Champions League.

Enter the renaissance. Under former player Marc Wilmots, the national team heads its qualifying group for the 2014 World Cup, inspired by a new generation of Belgian footballers who are lighting up European football. And English football in particular, with no fewer than 12 of the current Belgian squad employed by Premier League clubs.

“I think it’s just a coincidence, but that’s only because I have no other explanation,” laughs Mousa Dembélé when we ask him to explain his countrymen’s invasion of our shores. “I knew the talent was there from when we were all younger, but everyone just started playing well at the same time and got their break in England at the same time.”

28 | May 3 2013 |

Sport meets Dembélé at Tottenham’s new training ground, as his side continue their quest for that all-important Champions League spot. First things first, though – was it a tough decision to move to Spurs when they came calling last summer?

“Not at all,” says the 25-year-old. “I had a few teams in my head when I was at Fulham, and Tottenham were definitely one of them because I enjoyed the football they played.

When the call came, I wanted to go there straight away.”

What about coming to England in the first place – is it true that Dembélé didn’t really watch football before his move to Fulham

from AZ Alkmaar in 2010? “Not when I was growing up, no, but when I was in Holland I started watching a bit more of the Premier League – and it looked exciting. After that, I said I wanted to come over and play here.

I didn’t know what to expect, but it was okay.

The tempo was higher than I was used to, and the players more physical, but I really enjoy playing here.”

The football isn’t the only thing he enjoys about life in London. “The musicals?”

Dembélé laughs. “Yeah, I like to do things outside football with family and friends, so I like London because there’s always a lot to do and it’s very multicultural. And yes, I like

“There was no pressure because I don’T see myself as a replacemenT for luka. he’s a dIfferenT Type of fooTballer”

musicals as well. It’s not that I go every week, but I do like them. I saw Wicked last month. It was okay. Not the best I’ve seen, but it was good.”

Earning his spurs

Andrew Couldridge Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Dembélé is far from the only Belgian making sweet music on Premier League pitches, of course. Without the goals of Christian Benteke, Aston Villa would be as good as relegated.

Marouane Fellaini has been a huge influence on an Everton team sitting in sixth, while Eden Hazard has scored or provided 18 league goals for Chelsea this season. And, lest we forget, the Premier League trophy was held aloft by a Belgian – Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany – last May. But what of Dembélé himself, who many saw as a direct replacement for the departing Luka Modrić at White Hart Lane?

“There was no pressure, to be honest, because I don’t see myself as a replacement for Luka,” he says. “A lot of people told me I was coming in to replace him, but he’s a different type of footballer with a different style to me.”

No one would question Dembélé’s style.

He has a reputation for the spectacular when it comes to goals, but six Premier League strikes in 89 games for Fulham and Spurs doesn’t represent a prolific return for a midfielder with such attacking prowess.

“I just love having the ball and dribbling, so I don’t usually think about shooting from distance,” he explains. “I think this year has

been a bit better than before, but there’s still a lot of improvement to go. You have to shoot to be really dangerous from midfield, and that’s not coming totally naturally in my head.

I know it still has to improve a lot if I want to be a top-level player.”

Not that his manager is likely to try to change him too much. “He’s really good at just letting people play their game,” Dembélé says of Andre Villas-Boas. “He’s just a very relaxed manager who gives a lot of confidence to the players. He’s a young manager, so he understands the language of the players, and that’s important because it creates a good relationship between us.

When you have that relationship, you want to fight for him, and win games for him.”

It’s clearly a tactic that works, as Tottenham are well in the mix for a Champions League spot with just four games to go – one of which sees them travel to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea on Wednesday. “It’s really important to finish in that top four,” Dembélé stresses. “You don’t

want to have this feeling that you work all year for nothing. We’ve got some big games to come, and it’s not easy because there are other teams thinking the exact same thing.

Whoever is mentally the strongest is going to get this fourth spot.”

nEw EnErgy

That bodes well for Spurs, whose earlyseason habit of conceding late goals (before Christmas, they dropped points in the last 10 minutes on five occasions) seems to have been reversed – in 2013, they have gained points with a goal or goals after the 79th minute in six games. The indication is that this is a team learning from its mistakes.

“We talked about this thing of conceding late goals,” explains Dembélé. “But I think we just improved because it had happened so often that everyone concentrated so much more on not conceding a late goal and dropping points. It’s just a case of being more switched on when the games are

“i likE london bEcausE thErE’s always a lot to do and it’s vEry multicultural. and, yEs, i likE musicals as wEll” getting to that point.”

It’s typical of the work going in at Tottenham, especially under Villas-Boas, that the little flaws are ironed out in a quest for perfection. Champions League football remains the aim, but how can this team take the next step and start to challenge the Manchester duopoly at the top of the Premier League table?

“It’s a bit of everything,” Dembélé insists.

“If we can keep this team together, we’ll understand each other better from the start of the season. A bit of new energy is always good, but you want to keep a team together.

Look at Barcelona. They don’t change 10 players every season, they just bring in one or two players. I think we’ll be stronger in our head, because this year we’ve had some bad moments and some bad luck, and we had to learn from that together as a team.

Next year, we will be even stronger.”

You get the feeling Dembélé isn’t just reading off a script. The Champions League places are the priority this season, but AVB has north London’s traditionally quieter neighbours singing from the same song sheet and ready to push for the top spot.

Manchester, you have been warned.

Mark Coughlan @coffers83 Tottenham Hotspur are sponsored by Investec, specialist bank and asset manager, in cup games.

Visit investec.co.uk or follow @investec | 29

The British & Irish Lions Tour to Australia 2013 Live and exclusive national radio commentary of every match only on

Sat June 1 Lions v Barbarians (Hong Kong, 12:30am) Wed June 5 Western Force v Lions (Perth, 11:00am)

Sat June 8 Queensland Reds v Lions (Brisbane, 10:30am) Wed June 12 Combined NSW & Queensland Country v Lions (Newcastle, 10:30am)

Sat June 15

NSW Waratahs v Lions (Sydney, 10:30am)

Tue June 18 ACT Brumbies v Lions (Canberra, 10:30am)

Sat June 22 1st Test: Australia v Lions (Brisbane, 11:00am)

Tue June 25 Melbourne Rebels v Lions (Melbourne, 10:30am)

Sat June 29 2nd Test: Australia v Lions (Melbourne, 11:00am)

Sat July 6

3rd Test: Australia v Lions (Sydney, 11:00am)

1089 / 1053 AM, on digital radio and online at www.talksport.co.uk facebook.com/talksport

#livelions

@talksport

Ten years ago, he was subbed off before half-Time in a world Cup game. now adam jones is seT for his seCond lions Tour

You finally know you’re in the squad for Oz. How much did you enjoy the 2009 tour?

“It was brilliant. You hear so many stories about the one in 2005 – not that it was bad, but that it was too professional, I guess.

But 2009 was great. The group of players were excellent, the coaches were brilliant, and South Africa is obviously a big rugby country. The whole thing was a special experience.”

Is it a case of win the series or fail for the Lions this time out?

“I don’t really see it like that, to be honest.

There’s no unfinished business or anything like that – I just want to go out there and represent the Lions again, and I want to play in the Tests. If the series victory comes, it comes.”

Going back to the Six Nations this year, Wales came into the tournament on the back of seven straight defeats. Did you really think you could win the whole thing?

“It was difficult, really. Everyone’s always confident, but I think we went into the Ireland game... not on a high, but we knew we were better than we’d been showing.

Obviously the first half, we didn’t show that – which was pretty disappointing. But we still believed we could win the tournament,

and France away was the best game to have next I think because they hadn’t been great.

But we also knew we’d have to play at our best to win out there.”

And then there was that deciding game.

It must have been nice to get one over on the English front row in a Lions year?

“Yeah, especially as we’ve probably got about 20 years on them between me and Gethin [Jenkins], so it was nice to play well.

To be fair, we scrummaged pretty poorly in the first two games, so it was just nice to turn it around against Italy and carry that form through to the end of the tournament.”

Is it fair to say that one game is the reason so many Welshmen are in the Lions squad?

“In a way, yeah. It was a tough year for this group, and losing that game would have been a big blow. Warren [Gatland] has come out and said maybe some of the 50/50 calls would have gone towards England before that last game – so the way a lot of us stepped up to help win such a big game obviously made a difference.”

Sam Warburton has the Lions captaincy, but it has been suggested that he played his best stuff when he wasn’t Wales captain in the Six Nations. Do you think he’s the right choice?

“Yeah, I think so. He’s a fantastic captain.

People like Ryan Jones are a bit more vocal and lead in a different way, but Sam’s quiet and just speaks sense when he talks. All the boys respect him and he leads by example on the field, so I think he’ll do well.”

On a personal note, you used to get taken off early in games a lot back in 2003 – how hard was that at the time?

“It was frustrating, because I was young and I didn’t really know how to deal with it – so I went into my shell a bit and put weight on. It’s a different world now, with sports psychologists and dieticians and what have you, but I was different then. Luckily I managed to get in shape and sort myself out. But yeah, it was definitely a tough time.”

Did you ever think you could make it this far?

“Not at all. I was just lucky that there weren’t many tightheads around in Wales when I first started, so I got a bit of a chance to stay in the squad even when I wasn’t playing brilliantly. If someone had said to me the first time I got subbed before half-time that I’d be going on to achieve what I have, I’d think they were taking the piss!”

And, going into the Lions, we have an Adam Jones stat for you: in the first two Tests on the 2009 tour, the Lions scored 30 points and conceded just 15 with you on the field, while they scored just 16 and conceded 39 with you off it. Did you know that?

“No, I genuinely hadn’t heard that before.

Is that true? That’s great. Make sure you tell Warren that one!”

Mark Coughlan @coffers83 | May 3 2013 | 31

Stu Forster/Getty Images

lion hearT

Adam Jones

Harry Redknapp A Study

Mr misunderstood?

What is it that makes Harry Redknapp one of the most in-demand football managers in England? Author John Crace looks at what drives the man who has become one of the game’s most enduring bosses

32 | May 3 2013 |

Which only goes to show how easy it is to misread Redknapp. Fans, footballers and reporters have been doing it for years. Throughout his career, in fact.

Despite appearances to the contrary, Redknapp has never been football's ordinary man; he has always been everyone's exception. Other British football managers may have had more success, but few have been more universally loved. He is a man with the gift of making you feel as if you know him when you don't: a national treasure whose weaknesses only add to his charm.

'Who wouldn't want to be the England manager if everyone thinks you can do a good job?'

All things to all men As with all national treasures, people have always tended to read into Redknapp whatever it is they want to see. For some, he is the what-you-see-iswhat-you-get, always-up-for-a-laugh character out of an Ealing comedy. For others, he is the East End working-class wide boy. The archetypal dodgy geezer. Both versions of Redknapp are hopelessly simplistic. You don't get to manage a Premier League club simply by virtue of cracking a few jokes and being charming. Modern footballers can be high maintenance and demanding. As can your club's

chairman and fans. A manager who was a soft touch wouldn't last a month.

Neither does the dodgy geezer caricature stack up.

There have been rumours about Redknapp's financial dealings for more than a decade. He was, however, cleared of taking bungs by the Lord Stevens inquiry into corruption in football in 2007, released without charge by the police in the same year after being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting, and cleared of those aforementioned tax evasion charges at Southwark Crown Court in February last year. A lot of time, effort and public money went into those investigations. If there was something desperately dodgy going on, you might have expected it to have emerged by now.

Big ambition?

But it wasn't just the Redknapp caricatures that had been misread. It was also the subtler points of his personality – starting with his ambition. When Redknapp became everyone's firm favourite for the England job, before Roy Hodgson's appointment, it was generally assumed that becoming manager of the national team must have been the fulfilment of a lifetime's ambition. And Redknapp made the right noises by asking: "Who wouldn't want to be the England manager if everyone thinks you can do a good job?" Yet being handed the job on a plate is very different from having a burning desire to do it.

Take a look at Redknapp's managerial career.

He was 45 years old when he left Bournemouth, an age by which many men would have hoped to have made their mark. He reportedly turned down job offers from Aston Villa and Stoke before joining West Ham as number two to Billy Bonds, from whom he inherited the top job at Upton Park.

He stayed in east London for almost a decade, before falling out with the chairman and finding himself jobless. He then became director of k

| 33

Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images, Scott Heavey/Getty Images

I

t was the moment Queens Park Rangers knew relegation was all but certain.

Having played three-quarters of the game against Wigan with just 10 men, and taken the lead with a Loic Rémy wonder strike just five minutes before the end of normal time, they conceded a needless free-kick on the edge of their own area.

Júlio César lined up the wall, but Shaun Maloney found a way through it to secure a draw that left QPR, with Reading, cut adrift at the bottom of the Premier League table. Their 0-0 draw with the Royals last weekend served only to confirm the inevitable.

After the Wigan game, Harry Redknapp, the QPR manager, said he was heartbroken and described the result as "the toughest to take of my football career".

It was the right thing to say to the press. The fans would have expected nothing less. But was it the toughest? Redknapp's career – more than 15 years as a player, with another 30 in management – has seen more than its fair share of disappointments. Not least in May last year, when Didier Drogba's late, late equaliser and subsequent winning penalty for Chelsea in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich cost Tottenham Hotspur a place in this year's competition... and Redknapp his job.

There were many who thought Redknapp might pack it all in after he was fired by Spurs chair Daniel Levy last summer. He was 65, and he'd been through a tough court case on tax evasion charges that could have seen him sent to prison if found guilty. He had also been passed over as England manager – a job for which everyone thought he was a shoo-in – and being sacked by Spurs seemed like the final slap in the face. Surely Redknapp must have wanted to put his feet up, walk the dogs at Sandbanks and keep his hand in with a bit of TV punditry? After all, it wasn't as if there were any other big clubs in need of a manager – and moving to a smaller, less successful one was surely out of the question.

Harry Redknapp A Study football at Portsmouth – a title he had always previously described as a non-job – before taking over the manager's chair at Fratton Park. Next up, he had a tempestuous year in charge of Southampton, in which the club was relegated from the top flight, before heading back to Portsmouth.

And it was here that he achieved his greatest managerial success by steering the team to a first FA Cup for nearly 70 years.

With no disrespect intended to the clubs involved, Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth and Southampton do not have long or distinguished records of success. Or, indeed, expectations of it.

They were clubs where a little of Redknapp's stardust would go a long way, and where his managerial weaknesses would not come under too bright a spotlight. Portsmouth's FA Cup success did catch people's attention, and the big clubs did come knocking. Redknapp turned down Newcastle – a club where failure seldom goes unforgiven – and took the job at Tottenham after the north London side had made a disastrous start to the 2008-09 season under Juande Ramos, with just two points from their first eight games.

Spurs was the first truly big team that Redknapp managed, and he was more than 60 years old when Levy came knocking. It wasn't a job he had actually sought out, and a large factor in his agreeing to accept it – apart from the money – appeared to be that London was close enough to his home in Sandbanks for him to commute daily. It was a lifestyle choice, then, rather than the realisation of a football dream.

Playing the long game

Express/Express/Getty Images, Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Redknapp's might have been the career of a hardworking and talented manager, but it has not been one driven by the vaulting ambition of a Fergie, Wenger or Mourinho – the alpha males of football for whom anything less than 110 per cent, heart-onsleeve commitment to being the best is an intolerable admission of weakness. Redknapp's ambition appears to fall well short of theirs. He wants to do well, he's prepared to work hard to succeed, but the bottom line is that there are other things that mean more to him than football. Redknapp's main aim has

34 | May 3 2013 |

always been to make a living out of football, to earn enough money to provide for his family while doing something he enjoyed.

His ambition has been measured in his career's longevity, rather than its trajectory, and he'd long since been satisfied with what he had achieved when the door to the England job was tantalisingly pushed open. Doing a job he liked and being able to return home to his wife Sandra and the dogs with a view of Poole harbour was all he had ever dreamed of when he first went into management.

After he had finished his playing career for the Seattle Sounders in the United States in 1979, Redknapp had returned to the UK unsure of his future: he had never made any real plans for a life after hanging up his boots and drifted into management only when his old friend and mentor, Bobby Moore (below, left, with Redknapp on the far right), asked him to be his assistant at non-league Oxford City on £120 per week.

Redknapp was grateful for the work, but shocked at how far Moore had fallen. "It had never occurred to him that a World Cup-winning captain and football legend could end up managing a non-league

'The Sunday Times Sport Rich List 2013 ranked him in 85th place, with a salary at QPR of £3m and assets totalling £13m ' side, playing against opponents who openly disrespected his reputation," says Pete Johnson, a local sports reporter who has known Redknapp since his early days at Bournemouth. "It was a real wake-up call for Harry. If it could happen to Bobby, it could happen to anyone. From that point on, Harry was determined he wasn't going to end up as one of the vast number of bitter ex-footballers who had been spat out and left broke and broken by the game. He was going to keep his wits about him and not let anyone take advantage of him. From then on, whatever career he could make in football was going to be on his own terms as far as possible. And he wasn't going to end up penniless."

And he didn't, although it was a close-run thing in the early days. Before he got the job at Bournemouth, he considered spending his last £17,000 on buying a cab. Thankfully for football – and the south-coast passengers who have been spared his patter – things worked out rather better for Redknapp. The Sunday Times Sport Rich List 2013 ranked him in 85th place, with a salary at QPR of £3m per year and assets totalling £13m – and those familiar with Redknapp's financial arrangements considered that to be a very conservative estimate. He is, at the time of writing, still employed by QPR, where his contract runs until the end of the 2014-15 season – by which time he will be 68.

A perfect fit In which context, Redknapp's decision to accept the job at QPR in the final week of November last year becomes entirely unsurprising. He had never been that bothered about status, so taking a job at a lesser club – where he would be perceived to be on the way down – was neither here nor there to him. What was important was that it was a job, a good job at that, and that he was still working in a game he loved long after most of his contemporaries had been sidelined.

The money helped, too. QPR chairman Tony

Fernandes has deep pockets – Redknapp's favourite sort of chairman – and offered him a £1m bonus if the club stayed up, as well as giving his manager the cash to bring in six new players. That included the £12m signing of Chris Samba from Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala on a reported wage of £80k a week – even though he had not played since November and rated himself as "40 per cent fit" – and Rémy for £7m from Marseille.

All of which make QPR a typical Redknapp club.

Not only do they have a chairman prepared to spend big, but they are close enough to his home in Bournemouth for him to commute, and were amenable to him bringing along his old mates – Joe Jordan and Kevin Bond (pictured either side of Redknapp, above) – as backroom staff in an effort to turn around the fortunes of a struggling team. What could possibly go wrong? For Redknapp, the answer was next to nothing.

If QPR stayed up, he'd be a hero and collect that £1m bonus. As it was, he could not save them from being relegated, but very little – if any – of the mud will stick. The blame will be pinned on Mark Hughes, the manager from whom Redknapp inherited a dysfunctional side, and the players Hughes had bought the previous summer.

It is a shame to go down to the Championship, yes.

But it is not – for Redknapp – the end of the world.

If the chairman does decide to use him as a scapegoat and sack him, he will probably be offered another job sooner or later by a similarly desperate chairman of another struggling club. And he would likely take it, providing it was close enough to Bournemouth. Because football, for Redknapp, is not all about the winning. It is about staying in the game.

John Crace @digestedread

Harry's Games: Inside the Mind of Harry Redknapp by John Crace is published by Constable & Robinson at £18.99

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7 Days OUR PICK OF THE ACTION FROM THE SPORTING WEEK AHEAD

MAY 3-MAY 9 HIGHLIGHTS » Football: Premier League Preview » p38 » Tennis: Mutua Madrid Open » p40 » Golf: The Players Championship » p40 » Horse Racing: QIPCO 2000 Guineas »p41 » Football: Championship Preview » p42

Saturday BOxInG | FLOyd MayweaTHeR JunIOR v ROBeRT GueRReRO | MGM GRand, Las VeGas | BOxnaTIOn 2aM

Who you gonna call?

The gifted braggart widely ranked as the best

against Andre Berto, Guerrero landed numerous

fact that Mayweather is 36 now, has had a year out

pound-for-pound fighter in boxing returns for a

straight left hands – and that could be his key punch

of the ring and – judging by his last performance

spot of ghostbusting this weekend in Las Vegas.

against Mayweather. Unfortunately, while Berto tried

against Miguel Cotto – is easier to hit now than he

Floyd Mayweather's welterweight opponent, Robert

the shoulder roll defence, he was a Diet Coke version

was at his absolute peak.

'The Ghost' Guerrero, is just the kind of rival that

of Mayweather. This weekend, Guerrero faces the

Mayweather likes to select: someone with enough

full-sugar version, and will find that Mayweather is

a few rounds, but that he isn't quite big, quick or

talent and popularity to attract fans, but not a boxer

slicker, quicker, smarter and unlikely to be fazed by

powerful enough to score an upset. A clear points

likely to shatter his 43-fight unbeaten record.

the roughhouse tactics that caused Berto problems.

victory for Mayweather seems the most likely

Guerrero is versatile, and able to box off the back

outcome. However, if Guerrero can catch his

The 30-year-old is durable, seasoned, experienced

foot or push forward. But outboxing a master-boxer

illustrious rival and cause him problems, as he

at elite level and has 31 pro wins, against just one loss

is unlikely, so his tactic will probably be to pressure

may well do, some of the young sharks circling

and a draw. He's also a southpaw, and boxers of that

Mayweather. Unfortunately, he isn't a particularly

Mayweather – such as the unbeaten light-

stance have a history of bopping Mayweather on the

elusive ghost, so is likely to eat plenty of precision

middleweight Saúl Álvarez – may start to sniff

nose more often than is customary. In his last fight

punches in return. Guerrero's best hope lies in the

blood in the water.

36 | May 3 2013 |

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Frederic J Brown/AFP/GettyImages

Mexican-American Guerrero has his strengths.

The strong suspicion is that Guerrero will win

THE OFFICIAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE CLUBS’ APP

LATEST NEWS LIVE MATCH SCORE CENTRE FIXTURES PLAYER PROFILES PLUS MUCH MORE

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7 Days

Premier League

sunday liverpool v everton | anfield sky sports 1 1.30pm

Champions Manchester United have the chance to dent Chelsea’s Champions League hopes, while Big Sam holds a hammer over a black and white coffin sunday manCHester United v CHelsea | old trafford | sky sports 1 4pm

Everton can still play European football next season, if Tottenham continue to ‘do a Spurs’ and relinquish fifth place. Liverpool’s only chance, however, lies in the Fair Play League – in which they currently sit second, behind Arsenal.

That 6-0 win against Newcastle was all well and good, but Daniel Sturridge and Glen Johnson both got booked, dammit. Expect more cards on Sunday – there were seven when the teams drew 2-2 in October.

saTuRday West Ham v neWCastle | Upton park | 3pm

It’s now three whole years since Chelsea won the

to a guard of honour at Arsenal last week, they can now

It’s been a game of four quarters on

Premier League, and in Roman Abramovich football

rub their title in the face of another of their challengers.

Tyneside this season. By the end of

United have got better as the season has progressed,

October they’d lost just two league

years, that’s almost a whole lifetime. True, his charges are still technically the champions of all of Europe, but that

and Sir Alex will have been delighted with the recent form

games, to Chelsea and Man Utd.

probably comes as cold comfort right now.

of Shinji Kagawa. The Japanese star looks as if he could

Then they lost to pretty much

With Chelsea a full 20 points behind Manchester

be the answer to the conundrum of who Fergie chooses

everyone. Then they signed (more)

United, Abramovich is presumably pondering a busy

to build his midfield around next season. All guile, vision

Frenchmen and started winning

summer. That said, the teams have faced each other four

and intelligence, he would fit in well at, well, Chelsea –

again. But with just one victory in

times this season, and United have won just once – but,

where Eden Hazard, Juan Mata and Oscar have created

their past six – the 0-6 nadir coming

crucially, that was in the league. Chelsea might have

chances aplenty. The Blues’ problem has been that not

last weekend against Liverpool –

knocked the Red Devils out of both cups, but we’re not

enough of them have been converted. Chelsea desperately

they are in real danger of the drop.

sure Roman would have much cared. For United, then,

need to start doing so here – failure to make the

In-form old boy Andy Carroll will give

this is a time for celebration. Having enjoyed walking out

Champions League, for Abramovich, is unthinkable.

them a headache, in every sense.

38 | May 3 2013 |

SATURDAY TOTTENHAM v SOUTHAMPTON WHITE HART LANE | 3PM

SATURDAY FULHAM v READING | CRAVEN COTTAGE | 3PM

SATURDAY NORWICH v ASTON VILLA | CARROW ROAD | 3PM

Odds on to be up last on Match of

Aston Villa’s season has come down

This may well be the best season

If ever a team was likely to ‘do a

the Day, this is a game for die-hards

to two matches, and they’ve already

Swansea City have ever had, but it’d

Spurs’, it is Spurs. Tottenham, once

only. Reading are gone, while

won one of them. Their demolition

be useful if their players didn’t think

again with a Champions League

Fulham have relied heavily on the

of Sunderland on Monday propelled

the season ended at Wembley in

spot seemingly at their mercy, have

grand old duke Dimitar Berbatov to

them away from the danger zone,

February. Since then, they’ve won

managed just eight points from their

haul them into a position that is

and a win at Norwich will see them

just once (the following week,

last six league games – compared to

neither up nor down. Fulham have

on their way to a place in Europe*.

against Newcastle) and are unlikely

Arsenal’s 14 and, indeed, the 11 of

got a result (nine wins, 10 draws) in

Only the hardest of hearts, or

to return to winning ways against

Southampton. Much depends, as

19 of the 31 games he’s played this

Birmingham fans, would like to see

a City side with the most miserly

ever, on award-winning former Saint

season, while in eight without him

Villa relegated: Paul Lambert’s team

defence in the top flight. At the

Gareth Bale, back from injury and

they’ve won just once and drawn

play football as it was meant to be

other end, Carlos Tevez and Sergio

with two goals in two games. If he

two. Do the math. Tottenham need

played. And they still have Wigan

Aguero have been in dazzling form

can help Spurs into the top four,

a goalscorer. Do the math again.

on the final day. (*It won’t.)

of late: this one’s an away win.

he may even stay another season.

SATURDAY QPR v ARSENAL | LOFTUS ROAD ESPN 5.30PM

mOnDAY SUNDERLAND v STOKE | STADIUM OF LIGHT SKY SPORTS 1 8PM

PRemieR LeAgUe TAbLe W D

L

A

Pts

1

Man Utd

35 27 4

4

79 36

85

2

Man City

34

21

8

5

61

31

71

3

Chelsea

34

19 8

7

68 35

65

4

Arsenal

35

18 10 7

66 36

64

5

Tottenham

34

18 8

8

60 43

62

6

Everton

35

15 14 6

52 38

59

7

Liverpool

35

14 12 9

67 42

54

8

West Brom

34

14 6 14

46 44

48

9

Swansea

42

P

F

34 10 12 12

43 44

10 West Ham

35

11

41

11 Fulham

35

10 10 15

12 Stoke

9 15

49

42

44 53

40

35

9 13 13

31

41

40

13 Southampton 35

9 12 14

47 57

39

14 Norwich

35

8 14 13

33 54

38

FA Cup finalists Wigan are the only

Oh, irony of ironies. The last time

It’s only a few weeks ago that Stoke

15 Sunderland

35

9 10 16

39

51

37

team in the land never to have been

Arsenal lost was two months ago,

were, by common consent, the

16 Aston Villa

35

9 10 16

42 64

37

relegated from the top flight, but

when they were beaten 2-1 by

team in freefall most likely to get

17 Newcastle

35

10 7

18

43 66

37

unless they pull out their fingers,

arch-rivals Tottenham – the team

sucked into the relegation battle

18 Wigan

34

8

8 18

39 62

32

that proud record, intact for a whole

they will now, most likely, deprive

(‘there’s always one’). Two wins

19 QPR

35

4 13 18

29 56

25

5 10 20

37 65

25

eight years, is under some threat.

of a Champions League spot. Their

later, and they could finish in the top

That said, West Brom have lost the

opponents this weekend will either

half. Sunderland had apparently

odd unexpected game at home

play with the freedom that comes

been perked up by Paolo Di Canio

(notably to QPR and Fulham this

only when all hope is lost, or have

and also put two wins together, then

year) so all hope is not lost. Ten-goal

one eye on the beaches of Dubai.

got mercilessly humped by Aston

Arouna Kone is the man most likely

Either way, Theo Walcott and Santi

Villa on Monday. Indeed, this is the

to notch – and he’s due one, having

Cazorla should prove too much for

match of the weekend. Don’t let

not scored in the whole of April.

Clint Hill and his laughing Hoops.

anyone try to tell you differently.

23 20 Reading

35

Players used

by Everton and West Brom in the Premier League this season – fewer than anyone else

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand | 39

All pictures Getty Images

SATURDAY WEST BROM v WIGAN | THE HAWTHORNS | 3PM

SATURDAY SWANSEA v MAN CITY | LIBERTY STADIUM | 3PM

7 Days Monday > Tennis | muTua madrid Open | The magic BOx, madrid | sky spOrTs 3 12pm

Thursday > gOlf | The players champiOnship | Tpc sawgrass, flOrida | sky spOrTs 2 6pm

All on red

Holding out for a hero Golf’s self-styled ‘fifth major’ tees

While its famous (and treacherous)

off on Thursday, desperately hoping

17th hole island green gets the most

for a marquee winner to thrust it back

TV coverage, the tournament is won

into the big time. Before the advent

and lost before then. It demands

of the World Golf Championships as

supreme accuracy off the tee, but is

The ATP and WTA tours converge on Madrid

a second tier of events underneath

not suffocatingly long – there are

next week, for one of the highest-profile

the Majors, there was no question

three par-4s under 400 yards, and

clay-court events outside the French Open.

that the Players Championship was

its par-5s pose terrific risk-and-

Last year’s tournament was overshadowed by

a seriously big deal.

reward dilemmas.

the organisers’ decision to turn the traditional

Between 1991 and 2001, every

It’s no surprise that Sergio Garcia,

red clay court an offensively bright shade of

winner had either won a Major

with his masterful tee-to-green

blue. “Too slippery,” moaned Rafael Nadal

already or would go on to win one –

game, has a great record here – and,

and Novak Djokovic, although Roger Federer

since then, however, only Davis Love

now he seems to be over the worst

didn’t mind. After early exits from his two main

(2003), Adam Scott (2004) and Phil

of his putting woes, he can go close

rivals, he beat Tomas Berdych in the final to

Mickelson (2007) fit that bill.

again. Look out too for the Green-

win his 20th Masters 1000 title.

Unlike the blue clay, Federer is back for this year’s event. The 31-year-old has been on a break since March, so will be less practised but fresher-legged than the competition, which this year includes Andy Murray – the Scot missed out with a back injury last year.

The women’s tournament (British Eurosport 2, Tuesday 10am) sees Serena Williams (pictured) return to defend her title. Williams called the men “weenies” for their complaints over the blue surface last year, which was probably fair enough.

40 | May 3 2013 |

The TPC at Sawgrass is still as tough an examination as it ever was.

Jacketed Scott, getting the most out of his long putter while he can.

Friday CriCket | YB40 Group B: essex v HampsHire | CountY Ground, CHelmsford | skY sports 3 4.40pm

Royals begin crown defence Clydesdale has been replaced by Yorkshire as the title sponsor, but little else about domestic cricket’s chief limited-overs cup competition has changed ahead of the 2013 renewal. A field of 21 teams split into three groups of seven will continue to contest who reigns supreme over the largely irrelevant distance of 40 overs.

In 2012, that was the Hampshire Royals, who emerged victorious from a thrilling Lord’s final against county champions Warwickshire – and they are in action in the opening game of this year’s tournament, against the Essex Eagles at Chelmsford today (Friday).

The teams will be well acquainted with each other, having spent much of the week facing off in the County Championship, but four-day form often has little bearing on the shorter versions of the game. Hampshire’s success at Lord’s in the autumn, when captain Jimmy Adams (right) top-scored with a breezy 66, should see them start favourites to clip the Eagles’ wings.

Bright new dawn?

Flat racing’s search for a new hero to replace the

spectacular performance – while going one better than

now-retired Frankel gathers pace this weekend,

his own sire, New Approach, who finished second in

with the first two Classics of the season taking place

the 2008 Guineas on his way to glory in the Derby.

at Newmarket. But it is the first of those, Saturday’s

Champion trainer Richard Hannon brings another

2000 Guineas, that houses the likeliest potential star

unbeaten colt to the party in the form of Toronado,

of the future: Jim Bolger’s unbeaten three-year-old

while the ever-powerful Aidan O’Brien saddles the

Dawn Approach.

battle-hardened Cristoforo Colombo alongside the

The colt (pictured, right) heads to Newmarket on

once-raced Mars. It wouldn’t be a shock if any of the

the back of an unbeaten 2012, when wins at Royal

above were to win, but Dawn Approach is a worthy

Ascot and in the prestigious Dewhurst Stakes (also at

favourite to give his beleaguered owner Sheikh

Newmarket) established him as Europe’s champion

Mohammed a timely boost. After a month in which

two-year-old. Victory in the Guineas would further

one of his principle trainers was banned for eight

fuel comparisons with Frankel – whose sensational

years after admitting to doping his horses, success

win in the 2011 Guineas remains his most visually

here would represent something of a new dawn.

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand | 41

Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/GettyImages, David Cannon/Getty Images, Harry Engels/Getty Images, Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

saTurday Horse raCinG | QipCo 2000 Guineas | newmarket | CHannel 4 & raCinG uk 3.50pm

7 Days Saturday rugby union | aviva premierShip: harlequinS v norThampTon | The SToop | eSpn 2pm

Sunday > Snooker | World ChampionShip Final | The CruCible, SheFField | bbC TWo

Playoff preparations There might not be too much to play for at the

on Warren Gatland’s radar, while Saints’ hooker

Stoop tomorrow – bar a catastrophic upset,

Dylan Hartley will have an extra spring in his step

Leicester will join Saracens as the second home

after being named in the squad.

semi-finalist for the Premiership playoffs, leaving

Back-to-back wins have Harlequins happy once

Harlequins and Northampton as the travelling sides.

more, but the reality is that they have been below

Make no mistake, though – form matters going

their best for some time. One defeat in their last

into the playoffs, so neither of these two will

seven means Northampton are the team in form,

want to lose.

and the power game they’re likely to bring to the

There’s also a Lions Tour on the horizon – you

Stoop will trouble a Quins defence that has

might have read about it this week – and as long

struggled in recent weeks. It’s all about the playoffs

as there are potential replacement spots to fill,

from here on in, but both sides know momentum

there are men out there with a point to prove.

is the order of the day here. Lose, and an away trip

Chris Robshaw, Danny Care (pictured) and Mike

to Leicester or Saracens will represent a pretty

Brown will be among the Quins still pushing to stay

daunting task.

Saturday FooTball | ChampionShip: hull CiTy v CardiFF CiTy | kC STadium | Sky SporTS 2 12.45pm

Newly crowned Championship champions

Elsewhere, playoff places are still up for grabs.

Cardiff will have a big say in who joins them in the

Nottingham Forest (seventh) and Leicester

Premier League next season. In the final round of

(eighth) play each other at the City Ground, and

fixtures, all of which kick off at 12.45pm tomorrow

either could sneak in if Bolton (sixth) slip up at

(Saturday), they visit second-placed Hull – who

home to Blackpool (15th). At the bottom, every

could guarantee automatic promotion with a first

team from Huddersfield in 18th down to a

win in three games.

desperate Wolves in 23rd could still face the drop.

Failure to do so will leave the door open for

In the League One playoffs, Sheffield United

Watford – a draw at home to Leeds (Sky Sports 1

play Yeovil at home on Friday night (Sky Sports 1,

red button) will send Gianfranco Zola’s men up

7.45pm), with the return leg on Monday (Sky

on goal difference if Hull lose (they have 28 in the

Sports 1, 1.30pm). Brentford go to Swindon on

plus column, compared with Hull’s nine), although

Saturday (Sky Sports 2, 5.20pm), with the return

a win will be required if the Tigers manage a draw.

leg on Monday (Sky Sports 1, 4.30pm).

42 | May 3 2013 |

One last chance

2pm

Glory baize On Thanksgiving, families across the United States

a darkened room and television featuring two

last year – and at the time of writing he remains on

come together to watch American Football. It’s

besuited men walking around a table with a stick.

course for a possible repeat. The viewing figures

a time of togetherness, of celebration and of elite athletes competing at the highest level of sport.

Yes, it’s the World Snooker Championship final,

on both the BBC and British Eurosport will benefit if he makes it, but let’s not delude ourselves here

the 2013 renewal. The gloriously talented ‘Rocket’

– whoever makes the final, you will watch it for as

May Day Bank Holiday weekend, when families

Ronnie O’Sullivan (pictured), a genius with the

long into the night as it goes on for. As will we.

across the nation ignore each other in favour of

aforementioned stick, took home the trophy

It’s tradition.

It’s much the same here in Blighty over the

David Rogers/Getty Images, Warren Little/Getty Images, Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

and Sunday afternoon marks the beginning of

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand | 43

EXTRa TiME Making the most of your time and money

P52 artist Ralph Steadman does Alice in Wonderland.

Don’t have nightmares

Kit

Collect your Giro Specialized allez Sport 2013

It is, unequivocally, always about the bike. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Very wrong. This stiff, light (despite its aluminium frame), race-inspired beast, however, is very right. It offers great acceleration and handling for aspiring Maglia Rosa-wearers, but also makes a trusty day-to-day commuting workhorse. Nine-speed Shimano gearing and light wheels will help improve your efficiency over any terrain. Don’t just watch Wiggo in the Giro. Grow your sidies, saddle up and remember to grab your copy of Sport when you fly past your Tube station next week. £725 | cyclesurgery.com

Louis Garneau Massimo Long Sleeve Jacket

As the velominati.com will tell you, race leader jerseys must be worn only if you’ve led the race.

You’ve not earned the pink one yet, but this water-resistant, breathable LG number made with stretchable fabric is your ticket to unprecedented comfort and ease of movement. £80 | evanscycles.com 44 | May 3 2013 |

Team Sky 2013 Grand Tour Mitts by Rapha

The same gloves Wiggo himself will wear in Italy are made from highly breathable African leather (known for its suppleness and durability) and boast militarygrade padding on the palms. So you won’t shred your hands if you go over the handlebars trying to beat your Strava records. £120 | evanscycles.com

Louis Garneau Revo XR3 Road Shoe

A summer shoe, this, with great ventilation thanks to rigid carbon/nylon soles with vents in them. Breathable nylonmesh/synthetic leather uppers also allow air to circulate. They’re LG, like the jacket – but don’t overmatch your kit, or accept that you will look like a douche. £100 | evanscycles.com

Eastpak Ekspres Velow 17” Laptop Backpack

Designed for a bike commute, the Ekspres Velow features a padded sleeve to securely fit any laptop up to 17 inches, should you be without your domestique and have to carry your own gear. An ergonomic design and adjustable buckles ensure the best fit. £80 | johnlewis.com

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Completely free every Friday.

The UK’s top sport magazine The biggest interviews The best previews

iPad edition on Newsstand now

ET

Grooming

BiG-TimE BarBErS

If you’re a proper bloke, getting your barnet chopped is one of your least favourite things. Where to go to make that chore a pleasure?

Huckle the Barber, Shoreditch

“We’re trying to create that nostalgic feeling where barber shops used to be a sociable place to hang out,” explains Huckle guvnor Chris Ward of his no-nonsense Shoreditch shop. “We have a comedy night coming up next month called ‘Cut Throat Comedy’ – for which we’re getting five comedians in – and we get bands in regularly to perform their tracks acoustically.” Not only that, but they will hand you a posh beer on arrival, and give your beard/’tache/barnet a quite excellent trim. A touch of class.

Haircuts £20-£40 | 340 Old Street, Shoreditch | hucklethebarber.com

Jacks of London, Wimbledon

No appointment required – just drop by, grab a free beer from the fridge and enjoy watching sports, free internet and gaming while you wait. One of several unique offerings from the lad Jack that caught Sport’s eye is the ‘Grooming the Groom’ wedding package: three choices (£30-£50) of grooming experiences to avoid “photos that could haunt you forever”. That aside, Jacks has everything you’d expect from a quality barbers... and colouring, should that be your bag.

Haircuts from £15 | 15 Wimbledon Bridge | jacksoflondon.co.uk 46 | May 3 2013 |

Fish, Soho

Achingly trendy former fishmongers (hence the name) turned sex shop has been serving Soho for 26 years, but don’t be fooled by its location. It shies away from the pompous, prima donna attitude of many hairdressers in the West End, and even retains the art deco tiles from its salmon-slinging days. Fish rightly has a reputation for quality cuts and a relaxed, down-to-earth vibe – right down to the dog that may even haul himself up to give you a friendly welcome on arrival.

Haircuts from £34 | 30 D’Arblay Street, Soho | fishsoho.com Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Losing your hair like your Dad? If you’re losing your hair, you’re looking for facts, not fiction. Fact: for 95% of men, hair loss is hereditary. REGAINE® scientifically proven foam could be the answer. It is proven to help stop and even reverse hereditary hair loss, working deep down at the root.

Find out the facts at regaine.co.uk

REGAINE® for Men products and treatments are for male hereditary hair loss. REGAINE® for Men Extra Strength Scalp Foam 5% w/w Cutaneous Foam contains Minoxidil. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL.

eT

Gadgets

mAke A BiG cAll

Based on the current rate of progression, in 10 years smartphones will be so big that you’ll be able to ride them like hi-tech surfboards

Huawei Ascend G510

Chinese manufacturers Huawei have been twisting tongues and turning heads with their affordable smartphones, and the new G510 is no exception. With a 4.5-inch screen and 1.2Ghz processor, it will do a job for you on the cheap, much like Phil Neville.

And it’s pronounced ‘wah-way,’ apparently.

Free on £13/month contract | vodafone.co.uk

Samsung Galaxy S4

Bigger, more powerful and bursting with features – Samsung have gone for the ‘more is more’ approach with the sequel to the best-selling Android phone ever.

It retains a similar feel, adding features such as SmartScreen, which pauses videos when you look away, and Air Gestures, which lets you control the phone without touching it. £80 on £41/month contract | ee.co.uk

Blackberry Q10

The Q10 performs a delicate balancing act.

It combines keyboard and touchscreen, and you get the option of switching between ‘work’ and ‘play’ modes – a bold move for a brand synonymous with the chained-to-the-desk executive. The best features are gesture control and the message hub built into Blackberry 10 OS. Free on £33/month plan | carphonewarehouse.com 48 | May 3 2013 |

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). MAC13569

Talking to your family about cancer can be really tough.

But a chat with one of our experts on the Macmillan Support Line can help you find the words you need. So you and your family can face the future, together.

This is just one of the ways the Macmillan team can help you through cancer. Our medical professionals, cancer support specialists and benefits advisers are just a phone call away.

For cancer support every step of the way call the Macmillan team free on 0808 808 00 00 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 8pm)

or visit macmillan.org.uk

Extra time Ann-Kathrin Brรถmmel

50 | May 3 2013 |

Guten price tag

| 51

Mandarine Media/Lipstick Syndication

S

o well have Borussia Dortmund been playing of late that even Ann-Kathrin Brömmel, the model girlfriend of soon-to-be Bayern Munich midfield star Mario Götze, needs a lie down.

This is her, we assume, moments after Die Schwarzgelben humbled Real Madrid 4-1 in last week’s Champions League semi final first leg.

Or perhaps she is still coming to terms with her 20-year-old boyfriend’s price tag, with Götze set to become the most expensive German player of all time when he joins the Bundesliga champions this summer for a reported £31.5m.

That move has undoubtedly made him the more famous face in this particular relationship. That said, in a previous life, Brömmel held her own as a singer by the alias of Trina B. Sample lyric: Trina B/You’d better watch me/Girls, it’s a game they play/Just want to say: ‘Just set yourself free’.

That, meine lieben, is poetry of which David Hasselhoff would be rightly proud, and on which you cannot put a price.

ET

Entertainment

GoNzo, No MuPPETS

A new exhibition celebrates Britain’s gonzo cartoonist, a punk band nail their debut and an indie classic is recalled

Exhibition

Music

Silence Yourself Savages

Steadman at 77 Cartoon Museum

Friend to the late Hunter S Thompson and to Johnny Depp (who describes the British illustrator as “a man and artist of superior calibre”), Ralph Steadman is the subject of a new exhibition at London’s Cartoon Museum. His sublime grotesques perfectly accompanied Thompson’s Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and made his reputation in the 1970s. However, there are more strings to Steadman’s bow than just gonzo surrealism. The 100-plus pieces of

Blu-ray

The Impossible

Diving down a Scottish toilet in Trainspotting is now the second most traumatic thing we’ve seen Ewan McGregor experience on screen. Co-starring an excellent Naomi Watts, The Impossible tells the based-on-truth tale of a family holidaying in Thailand during the 2004 tsunami. It’s part spectacular disaster film and part tense, moving drama.

Out Monday 52 | May 3 2013 |

This all-girl punk band smash down your door early next week with one of 2013’s most anticipated debut albums.

Savages arrive with a highvelocity guitar wail and driving bass that’s as refreshing as an ice-cold beer to the face on a hot day. Sure, their material bears the strong influence of their British predecessors (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Wire), but it’s good to have a band that puts their own spin on a genre rather than doing so via a few ‘ironic’ nods. With succinct, punchy songs such as She Will or the whispered menace of Husbands, these feisty Savages make for very welcome guests.

Out Monday

original artwork at this retrospective show include cartoons for Rolling Stone and Private Eye, as well as illustrations for books such as Animal Farm (above) and Alice in Wonderland (right), which we strongly imagine are responsible for a fair few kids’ nightmares. Despite turning 77 this month, the supplehanded loon is still cranking out the cartoons as well; extinct and imaginary birds being his latest project. Find out more by visiting cartoonmuseum.org.

Open now

Film

Gimme the Loot

A pair of graffiti artists have 48 hours to raise $500 in order to pull off a spectacular stunt in this exuberant indie film which has won warm critical acclaim.

Sofia and Malcolm sound like soft names for Bronx teens to us, but they prove tough enough to handle drug dealers, entitled rich kids and Malc having his shoes stolen. Get thee to a Clarks, boy.

Out today

Music

DVD

Heart of Nowhere Noah and the Whale

They started making inoffensive, folk-pop just before it became uber-trendy – and they’ll keep on doing so until the whale flops dead over the drums. This fourth album features Anna Calvi on the title track, and her staccato violin adds a lively energy to the catchy ditty. To be overheard in a Topman near you soon, no doubt.

Out Monday

Mountain Picnic Blues: The Making of Tellin’ Stories

Despite being The Charlatans’ creative and commercial high, 1997 jangle-pop masterpiece Tellin’ Stories was marred by the tragic death of keyboardist Rob Collins. Covering the album’s creation and aftermath, this new documentary features intimate band interviews, including with a marvellously wigged Tim Burgess.

Out Monday

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