SB Nation User Blog: LondonNiner

Beautiful video of SF in 1905

LondonNiner — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:24:03 -0000

Beautiful video of SF in 1905

This has absolutely nothing to do with football, but since a lot of people on this site live in or near San Francisco (funnily enough!), I figured I could get away with this off-topic FanShot.

This is a beautiful video of Market Street in SF in 1905, just before the earthquake. It's set to some lovely music from back in the 90s by French band Air, and is really nice to watch. You find yourself drifting back to that time.

It appears to have been posted on YouTube 18 months ago, but it was just re-tweeted by Robert Scoble, a NoCal tech evangelist and a bit of a geeky hero of mine.

So if you live in San Francisco, or are just interested in the place, enjoy this video.

(With apologies to Fooch for a non-football post ... did I get away with it?!)

49ers sign an OT

LondonNiner — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:52:46 -0000

49ers sign an OT

Mix of Takeo dancing

LondonNiner — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:37:44 -0000

Mix of Takeo dancing

Not sure this is that amazing, but in the spirit of sharing stuff we find on the Niners, figured I'd post this, since it only went up on YouTube on Saturday. The first comment on the YT page made me laugh more than the actual video.

Michael Crabtree agrees six-year deal with the 49ers

LondonNiner — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:09:13 -0000

He hasn't signed yet, but the hold-out is over, and a deal is done.

I am probably the only Niners Nation member currently awake, and in front of a computer, so I figured I'd get a Fan Post up. If Fooch wants to move it to the front page when San Francisco wakes up, that's cool (and could delete the italics). If you want to delete this and get an official post up, that's cool too. But for now, I figured it would be somewhere to discuss it (possibly with myself ...)

Matt Maiocco is reporting that Crabtree has agreed a six-year deal, which will void to five if he has a couple of good years. Barrows reporting similar.

The 49ers have a new weapon in their offense, and the lengthy, tedious and at times bizarre hold-out is at an end. Over to Coach Singletary to decide how this young man fits in, and where he goes from here ...

10 reasons to be cheerful

LondonNiner — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:57:52 -0000

OK, a lot of these will already have been posted, but I needed to do this for my own reasons.

I've been sulking since the Minnesota defeat, but this morning I resolved to give myself 10 reasons to be cheerful. All of these will already have been discussed, but it's cathartic to me to gather them together here, and if it helps anyone else along the way, then all well and good.

I admit I was struggling with No 10. It's not completely serious, honest.

1. The Seahawks and the Cardinals both lost at the weekend too, so we're 2-1 with a home game to come against the weakest team in the West, and on our way to a divisional title.

2. Frank Gore has timed his injury to perfection. If 21 has got to get hurt, then at least he's only missing games against the Rams and another home game against admittedly tougher opposition, plus a bye week.

3. Joe Staley is fit. He just Tweeted this: "Watched and learned from the film, we are now putting it behind us and focused on St Louis. Great opportunity." To me, that doesn't sound like someone who thinks he's going to miss the game this weekend. So that means no Barry Sims.

4. We get to see Kory Sheets this weekend. Bad that Frank is hurt but good to get a chance to see Coffee and Sheets in the backfield together, right?

5. Carolina lost ... again. With the toughest schedule in the NFL, and at 0-3, they look well on track to land us a very high draft pick next year. With our own No 1 pick also, plus potentially another from the Jets if tampering with Tidwell can be proved, the 2010 draft could belong to San Francisco, and it's set to be a rich harvest, with the best players rushing to get into the NFL before the new salary rules.

6. Patrick Willis - and his defense. McDonald, Smith, Harylson, Spikes. P-Willy is leading the defense towards being one of the best in the league, and that'll get us through a couple of Goreless weeks.

7. Vernon Davis is breaking out, just like we knew he would. With an OC that helped Gonzalez become one of the best TEs in history, VD is set to continue proving why he was taken so high by the Niners. Can't wait to see what he does this weekend.

8. Shaun Hill is now being talked about everywhere, including the national media, as a great game-manager. Not a dubious quarterback, not the lesser of two evils compared to Alex Smith, just a great game-manager. If Mike is recreating his 85 Bears, Shaun Hill can be Jim McMahon.

9. Singletary has already told us we're going back to the play-offs to face the Vikings, and he knows everything. And Minnesota's aged quarterback will be very tired by then, and needing a lie-down. I reckon Ray, Justin and Parys can arrange that for him.

10. Barack Obama has finally said he will travel to Copenhagen for the 2016 Olympics vote on Thursday. This means Chicago will win the Olympics, because everyone in the world loves Obama. This means Mike Singletary's house in Chicago will go up in real estate value overnight . This means Mike will be in a jolly good mood, and that should rub off on his players, which means they will be pumped for the Rams. Go Barack!

Which current player does not know why team called 49ers?

LondonNiner — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:17:55 -0000

We have a new Saturday morning magazine show on TV here now which appears to be aiming to bring new fans into the game, so they go through a bunch of basics.

In the second edition, which aired yesterday on Channel 5 in the UK, there was an interview with a current captain of the 49ers offense. He was asked why the 49ers are called the 49ers, and he could offer no answer.

But hey, if Vernon Davis catches the winning pass tonight or plays his part in any way in a crucial divisional victory, who cares if he may possibly win the dumbest Niner award ...

Niners on the radio (in the UK)

LondonNiner — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:37:34 -0000

I know there's at least a few 49ers fans in the UK who use this site, because a couple of others, aside from me, responded when Fooch built his map recently of where we all live.

I also imagine there are others who lurk, viewing the site but not posting. For all of you, just a quick heads-up that our season opener on Sunday will be live on BBC radio.

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra (which is only available on DAB radios or through your Sky TV box) will be broadcasting an NFL show every Sunday night this season, and the game they have chosen for the first week is 49ers@AZ.

Our game is not on Sky on Sunday - in fact we're not mentioned in Sky's list for the first four weeks of the regular season - so you can turn the radio on instead if you want commentary, unless you subscribe to NFL Gamepass in which case you can watch all of the Niners games anyway.

Just to wrap this up into one, single place where you can find out what's on and where, Sky are doing one game at 6pm (UK time) and another at 9pm every Sunday, plus any games on random days (like tomorrow's opener between the Titans and the Steelers and also the Thur, Sat games later in the season) and Total Access is continuing (sadly a day behind the States). But we have lost the red button option, I believe, which makes it less likely that we'll be able to catch Niners games.

Sky are not doing the late Sunday games (the ones that kick-off 8pm Eastern time in the US) but they have been picked up by Channel 5. Nobody is doing MNF as we stand, although that affects SF just once I believe this season?

Channel 5 are also doing a Saturday morning magazine show. Oh, and Neil Reynolds, a well-known pundit this side of the pond, has just launched a blog on the BBC website.

Apologies to the vast majority of users of this wonderful site who may be bored senseless by all of this, as it matters to you not (unless you visit our shores on business or whatever and are here in a hotel room on a Sunday night!)

Commercial sponsorship on uniforms

LondonNiner — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:24:35 -0000

I saw an interesting little piece on NFL Network Total Access on Friday night (we get that show a day behind the US) about sponsorship of uniforms.

Apparently the New York Giants have now got commercial brands on their practice uniforms, and the question Total Access were posing was, in these hard economic times, would any NFL teams actually have commercial branding on their gameday uniforms.

I find the subject interesting, and would be most interested to get a sense of how much, or not, this would impact on NFL (and Niners) fans.

I have spent 25 years either being a fan of, or working in and around, European football, or soccer, and as such I've grown up with commercial brands being on the jerseys, or shirts as we would say, of soccer teams. It's woven into the fabric, literally and metaphorically, of our game. Fans even grow attached to a certain brand - as a Tottenham fan, we grew used to a beer brand, Holsten, as 'our' sponsor, and a lot of us drank that beer accordingly. Now our sponsor is an online casino. Betraying my lifestyle choices, I have never showed the slightest interest in the online casino, but have drunk more Holsten than is probably wise.

Interestingly (or I think so anyway) only one major European soccer team has eschewed shirt sponsorship. Barcelona, that mighty, glamorous and stylish Catalan club from the Spanish La Liga, decided never to deface their shirt with sponsorship, until their 100th anniversary when they allowed the charity Unicef to display its name on their shirts - and then refused to charge them for the privilege, adding yet more fans to their principled way of organising a club.

So, were the 49ers to display Budweiser, or even Rice-a-roni, on those jerseys, would fans think that was an acceptable way of bringing in income (and I don't know whether NFL rules would even allow it, at this stage) or would it be frowned upon as a defacement of a famous and glorious jersey?