Some say that seven is a lucky number… they must be joking! My seventh season at the helm of Yorkshire County Cricket Club promised so much but ultimately provided so little. We started both white-ball formats well only to finish bottom and when second or at least third place seemed an almost certainty in the […]
Cricket Captain 2020 – Season Seven — Silly Point Cricket
Haiku copyright Francis Barker 2020
I used to enjoy football (soccer) but the lockdown situation of this year and the non spectacle of games being played in empty stadia has made me see all sport in a different light.
copyright Francis Barker 2020
copyright Francis Barker 2020
The big political guns are out.
It’s left versus right,
red stands up to blue,
the elephant against the donkey.
Entertainment for you, my friend,
at the bar munching on peanuts
and sipping weak beer.
I watch your blank eyes stare,
drooping jowls shudder with each bite
as the TV screen morphs into sporting mode.
It’s defence against offence,
the clash of grid iron titans,
all steam and bluster
like the wrestling ring.
And still you sit transfixed,
a bulldog chewing his bone.
I hand over a bill worth nothing
and exit this world of pretence
copyright Francis Barker 2019
But can astrology give any clue as to which team or contender might win? A preposterous idea, you may think; I haven’t attempted this for a time but here are my musings. It’s going to be a little complicated but please read on.
Let’s take the recent FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium in England, on May 18. Manchester City, the clear favourites before the game started, won it emphatically, 6-0.
First you have to assess who are the home and away teams. That’s easy enough for a normal league game where there is an obvious home team.
But in these circumstances, at a neutral venue, I took the favourites Manchester City to be represented by the ascendant or rising sign, and Watford were given the opposing descendant.
For a start, as the game began, there was an applying full moon in Scorpio. The full moon in itself creates tense and unusual atmospheres, a sense of dichotomy perhaps.
At the time of kick off, Libra was on the ascendant. The ruler, Venus, was astonishingly in an exact conjunction with Uranus in Taurus in the eighth house.
At best, Uranus brings something unique, surprises, something extraordinary perhaps. In a sporting context, therefore, the final result of 6-0 is surprising. Manchester City’s performance and finishing were indeed extraordinary.
The fifth (favourites) and eleventh (underdogs) houses are also considered important in terms of the teams’ performances on the day.
The ruler of the fifth house, Saturn, was conjunct Pluto in Capricorn very close the IC of the chart, again portending an emphatic, even drastic result for the opposition’s reputation.
And what about the opposition themselves? With Aries on the descendant, it’s ruler Mars was found in Cancer in the tenth house, making no major aspects, though this in itself says more about the determination and reputation of the favourites, their penchant for ruthlessness.
The eleventh house (opposition form) is ruled by the Sun, which as we saw earlier, is being opposed by an applying full Moon, ruler of the tenth house.
So maybe we see here Watford being fully opposed, cancelled out as the game went on.
All in all then, a Manchester City win was no surprise, though the manner and margin of it certainly was. The time around full Moon can be a bit unusual. Combine this with Venus (ruler of the ascendant and significator of the favourites) exactly conjunct Uranus, and bingo. Quite extraordinary.
Just as an aside, what might be gleaned from the chart for the start of the Champion’s League Final on Saturday, June 1 in Madrid? A very fluid, changeable game, a roller coaster perhaps.
Liverpool are definite favourites, may start well, but they could lose their way a bit tactically, creatively (or through injury?) during the game. Tottenham, on the other hand, seem to have luck factors (and maybe a trump card) in their favour, with a closely applying Moon conjoining Venus in Taurus, amongst other things.
I will assess this again next week, after the game, but I think it will be tight. If luck and favour can translate into goals at critical times, Tottenham can win this.
copyright Leofwine Tanner 2019
*If you would like a personal astrology report, please contact me at: leoftanner@gmail.com for further details.
Summer was once ices poles and living
on bikes; we were free like swifts
screaming circles in the air. Greens
were for football and teams twenty a side,
roads for playing cricket, where cars
were stalling aberrations. We lay
on lawns watching clouds, minds unfettered
in those zenith blues; guilt
and care belonged to
some other world and school
might well have been
beyond the moon.
Only later came guitars with boys’ awakenings;
serenading neighbours
sunbathing in the yard, or the shock
of full moons rising late in the day. We really
thought we had credence, like southern
Skynyrd boys, singing in that
sultry heat with school coming at us
like banks of cloud, the football season
begun and cricket nearing its end,
watching shadows gathering
where the sun once shone
poem © copyright David F. Barker 2012
So a Brit wins le tour, a bit
like a Brit winning Wimbledon— not! A rare
thing and pretty unlikely, but
do I care? I’m supposed
to care about Olympics, about flames
and once in a lifetime things
but I don’t. It’s not me and like
Thatcher said, there is no society, no ‘us’
at all and certainly no UK because Scotland
is on its way and Wales isn’t far
behind. Little England is
left to carry the can, where all
the cash used to be and her castles
burn. And then, there’s me
© copyright David F. Barker
