GRcade

Not to condone anything Maradona has done but he’s a completely different kettle of fish from someone like Lance Armstrong and there are fairly good sociopolitical reasons why he’s still held in such high regard by many Argentinians despite being an absolute strawberry float up in many ways.

Corazon de Leon wrote:Not to condone anything Maradona has done but he’s a completely different kettle of fish from someone like Lance Armstrong and there are fairly good sociopolitical reasons why he’s still held in such high regard by many Argentinians despite being an absolute strawberry float up in many ways.

Yeah, Armstrong was a doper who used his empire to systematically cheat and Maradona was mainly just a coke addict. 94 was obviously the most relevant failed drug tesf but I'd be inclined to believe his defence. Drug testing was still in its infancy back then and it was common for players to be given a cocktail of drugs which, if something got banned later, would get removed and replaced by something else in the drink. Of course, this is Maradona, so you can't rule anything out....

The Armstrong comment was hyperbole of course, but it's foolish to think that Maradona wasn't a deliberate drugs cheat.

He was a cheeky wee lad

What a scamp!

I do think there's a huge amount of nuance required to "assess" someone like Diego - as Cora mentions the sociopolitical factors around both Argentina and the man himself are a very particular cocktail that was always predisposed to develop a man that was, if nothing else, certainly fascinating to analyse.

Jenuall wrote:The Armstrong comment was hyperbole of course, but it's foolish to think that Maradona wasn't a deliberate drugs cheat.

Maradona's drug use didn't make him the best in the world.

Rex Kramer wrote:

Jenuall wrote:The Armstrong comment was hyperbole of course, but it's foolish to think that Maradona wasn't a deliberate drugs cheat.

Maradona's drug use didn't make him the best in the world.

The Armstrong comment was hyperbole of course, but it's foolish to think that Maradona wasn't a deliberate drugs cheat.

He was in with a dodgy trainer who was helping him lose weight before the World Cup and I definitely agree it's entirely possible he knew exactly what was happening. And maybe even if he didn't know, he should have been taking more responsibility and being more careful with who he worked with. The National side didn't really know what he was doing with his trainer in the lead up if I recall correctly.

However, it's also possible he was just trying to get the cocaine out of his system quicker. From memory, I'm fairly sure FIFA agreed at the hearing that he didn’t take the drugs specifically to enhance his performance, but as it was his second offence in 3 years after the cocaine test in 1991, they took a hard stance. Obviously that still makes him a drug cheat but the context of drug addict trying to hide his guilt is a very different context to someone purely focused on performance enhancing, and I think one where a least a degree of sympathy is warranted.

Trelliz wrote:Now Darth Vader has passed into the realm of the force. RIP David Prowse

He's looked both ways and crossed to the other side...

RIP, what a legend that man was.

He visited my school and taught us the green cross code.

Oh, bloody hell.

Darth Vader and the Green Cross Code guy. What a legend.

When he visited my school, he taught us a song, it was supposed to be 'stop, look, listen, and think', but he changed it to 'stop, look, listen, and stink'

He understood that making the song more fun meant us kiddiewinks would remember it better, it worked too as afterwards, i'd always think of the song before attempting to cross the road.

He was at clarks village once along with a few other star wars people (from proper star wars), but when I went to join the line to meet him, it said he was charging £25 to get an autograph. strawberry float off mate, I'm not made of money. Went to spoons instead pie and a pint oi oiiii

Victor Mildew wrote:Went to spoons instead pie and a pint oi oiiii

Ah, you must have fond memories of ye olden days when such things were allowed.

something uncle albert would say
"back in my day pre covid 19 you could go into a thing called pubs"

I met him many years ago. I don't remember anything about it other than him being insanely tall (I was only a kid so he seemed like a giant).