Other Leagues

Watching the Final Four on Friday night I was once again struck by how poor the referees have been during the women’s NCAA basketball tournament. From the first round when Texas A&M escaped an unprecedented defeat to a No. 15 seed over a missed back-court violation to UConn’s leading scorer fouling out in the semis on a call where she didn’t even make contact, the officiating in the tournament has not been good enough.

For those who have watched the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you know there are alternate dimensions out there with different Spider-Heroes. Until Sunday, the Spider-Man of our dimension had yet to reveal themself. 

We now know there is a Spider-Man in this dimension and he plays in the Polish Ekstraklasa. Frantisek Plach is a 29-year-old Slovakian goalkeeper who plays for Piast Gliwice in Poland’s top league. 

For the second time in two days, I find myself writing about man’s struggle against nothingness. Today, however, you’ll be glad to know that Dorking Wanderers’ Jake Gallagher destroyed the concept of nonexistence in a manner not seen since Albert Einstein called the distinction between past, present and future nothing more than “a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Located in the far northern reaches of the Iberian Peninsula, Basque Country is a small autonomous district in Spain (and a small sliver of France) known for its unique language and cultural practices.

Two of the biggest soccer clubs in the region, Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao, feature lineups based heavily around home-grown talent, with Bilbao even enforcing a strict Basque-only policy at the club since 1912.

The 1996-97 season marked the 125th year of football at Chesterfield's historic Saltergate Recreation Ground, but never in its history had the stands been witness to the type of events that took place on the afternoon of February 22, 1997.

A week earlier, Chesterfield had defeated Premier League club Nottingham Forest at Saltergate to advance to the FA Cup quarterfinals for the first time in club history, and the Spireites looked to continue that good form as they pushed for promotion.

A high-profile match between FC Zurich and Sion in the Swiss Super League was brought to a halt in the 40th-minute when a beautiful White Swiss Shepherd Dog appeared on the near touch-line before scampering down the wing.

As everyone wondered what to do next, FC Zurich chairman Ancillo Canepa appeared from his presidential suite, ran down the stairs past the substitutes and helped the dog find its way back down the tunnel.