One of the most famous boxing gyms in the country has closed down with Belfast's Barney Eastwood deciding to convert his club on Castle Street into offices for his thriving bookmaking business. Eastwood will be keeping all of the boxing memorabilia from the gym, however, in the hope that some day it, as well as the ring from the club, can go on show in a sporting museum.
"More than 50 champions trained in that ring," Eastwood told Alex McGreevey of the Irish News this week in reference to the likes of Barry McGuigan, Crisanto Espana and Dave `Boy' McAuley. The ring is actually 100 years old and went through a couple of clubs in its day before arriving on Castle Street. Built in a shipyard, it was first located at the Arthur Anderson Central Gym, from where it moved to the Immaculate Gym on the Falls Road. Eastwood relocated to the current site after the Troubles broke out in 1969.
Thirty teams from 10 countries, including the United States, France and Australia, were in Japan this week for `Robo-Cup '97,' a soccer tournament for robots which was hosted by Japan's international trade and industry ministry and sponsored by Sony.
In the four-day championships, which opened in Nagoya on Monday, each team fielded five robots for games comprised of two five-minute halves.
Goals were a little scarce on the ground, while some robots broke down in the middle of the field emitting white smoke and, on one occasion, a referee needed to stop the game when all the robots lost sight of the ball. However, generally the matches were a huge success with most viewed by crowds of several hundred.
"It's a lot of fun. I'm proud of taking part in the first such championships," said Takayuki Nakamura, director of a team from Nara Technology Institute, before betraying the extent of his computer nerdishness by adding: "but controlling robots is not as easy as just kicking a soccer ball."
A bogus team passing itself off as famous Brazilian outfit Botafogo had a disastrous tour of Spain, losing a string of friendlies while the real side went about its business in the Brazilian championship.
The penny finally dropped when "Botafogo", after being hammered 6-0 by a Salamanca side short of match practice prior to the start of the Spanish season, laboured to a 22 draw against third division Lorca and lost 2-0 to second division Logrones.
The visitors' cover was blown when Botafogo president Fernando Mendes told the Spanish media that his team had not left the country, never mind been anywhere near Spain.
Logrones president Jose Manuel Fernandez played down the incident. "It's not so serious. We wanted to play a friendly and we're satisfied," he said. "We don't mind who we play."
Nobody has discovered the real identity of the bogus Brazilians so far, and they appear intent of keeping it that way for no one seems able to find them anymore either.
Psychic Uri Geller, the man who made a name for himself on the international stage by bending spoons, has lent his hand to Carl Fogarty's bid to win his third world superbike crown.
Fogarty has slipped back to second place in the world championship standings, six points behind American John Kocinski, but this week's issue of Motor Cycle News has a picture of Fogarty next to an imprint of Geller's hand.
"I want Motor Cycle News readers to put their hands on the top of my hand imprint and look into Carl's eyes in the picture," says Geller. "I want them to clear their minds and concentrate power into his eyes and wish him to be the best."
Geller's last venture into the world of sport involved a failed attempt to turn his local football team, Reading, into a world-beating outfit. The team's obviously embarrassed players had to rub some crystals as part of Geller's masterplan.
We'll be watching the results closely this weekend to see how Fogarty gets on. Fourth-floor opinion is divided on which of our many beleaguered national teams should be put forward for help if Geller does the trick.
There was widespread disappointment in Brussels last weekend when Belgian police ruled that spectators at the city's grand prix athletics meeting should not, after all, get a free can of beer if a world record was broken.
A Belgian brewery had offered the free beer to all 39,000 spectators as an incentive to the fans to get behind the athletes.
Meeting organiser Wilfried Meert said on Thursday that local police had vetoed the plan. "They are afraid people would behave strangely in the streets after receiving the beer," he said. "There was no use in us telling police that for 21 years there had never been any violence, any hooliganism."
In the end, the police may have been relieved at the decision they made, for not only was Daniel Komen successful in his attempt to beat the 5,000 metre record, but his fellow Kenyan, Paul Tergat, set a new all-time best in the 10,000 metres. Still, it's clearly an angle for the BLE to pursue. Let's face it, Santry would have looked very different on the day of the National Championships or European Cup meet if word had gone around Dublin's student populations that there might be 78,000 cans of beer introduced to proceedings.
Come to think of it, the press box might have been a good deal fuller, too.
It seems that anything Wimbledon can do, the USTA can do better (well, bigger anyway). After the All England Club unveiled their new number one court back in June, the Americans opened the Arthur Ashe stadium at Flushing Meadow with the new court holding twice the capacity of the London venue at 22,547.
While court number one was deliberately built into a hill so as to prevent it from rivalling the status of the club's famous Centre Court, the Americans were actually rather keen to make an impression and the new stadium towers over the whole of the US Open venue.
It is also part of a far more wide-reaching overhaul of the venue's facilities, with the USTA committing a total of $254 million to the expansion of the much-criticised Flushing Meadow tennis site. The venue will initially be owned by New York City with the association buying it back for around $1.2 million per month.
"It is," as one of the association's leading officials put it this week, "a huge gamble and one that we can't afford to lose."
And finally . . . With regard to our tale from a couple of weeks ago of bribery, corruption and beloved freebies involving football writers and a northside hotel.
As we said at the time, the meal vouchers we received in return for mentioning, in copy, the good people at the Forte Posthouse Dublin Airport Hotel would be up for grabs to anybody organising a fundraiser over the coming weeks and on the lookout for spot prizes.
In the end, Andrea Molloy generously coughed up two £50 dinner-for-two vouchers at the hotel's Bistro Restaurant and these have been forwarded on to Brendan Cullen in Wicklow Town who this week organised a pub quiz to help raise funds for Shane Broderick, the young jockey hurt in a riding accident at Fairyhouse earlier this year, and Liam Heffernan from Clondalkin, who is planning a fundraiser to help send a player, Robbie Dillon, from the Freewheelers Football Club to Canada for specialist cancer treatment.
Incidentally, anybody wishing to contribute to the general fund for Broderick can do so by lodging money to A/C No. 36268025 at the AIB in Naas or by credit card by phoning Freefone 1-800-531532.
Please send any correspondence to On The Sidelines, Sports Dept, The Irish Times, 11-15 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail emalone@irishtimes.ie
