Football TBC

The New Football Pools has been relaunched for the 2008/09 football season. While many still strongly associate it as simply a betting company, The New Football Pools is no longer solely about gaming. In fact it’s rapidly becoming one of the leading providers for interesting and varied football content.

From a free monthly online football magazine to podcasts, thought provoking and controversial football blogs including columns from the likes of Liverpool legends Alan Hansen and John Barnes, ex Chelsea striker Tony Cascarino and referee Graham Poll as well as forums and to up-to-minute football news, there really is something for everyone – punter or not.

Away Win magazine is the free monthly online football ezine from The New Football Pools. Filled from cover to cover of entertaining football stories, free football themed games and celebrity interviews with some of football biggest and most popular characters while the regular Big Fat Monthly Quiz does its typical best to infuriate readers – there always seems to be one or two faces you just can’t put a name to, Away Win more than gives you your needed football dosage. And if nothing else, it certainly makes the time pass a little more enjoyably!

If you are one of those football fans who likes nothing more than sitting around with your mates talking about football? Well here’s an idea – why don’t you sit around and listen to another set of blokes sat around talking about football!

After the success of the Euro 2008 podcasts, Mark “Chappers” Chapman – of Radio One and Football Italia fame – has stepped out of Scott Mill’s shadow to reclaim his place as the host of The New Football Pools podcasts for the new 2008/09 season. Chappers is once again joined by a motley crew of footballing experts including such regulars as referee Graham Poll and Match of the Day’s Kevin Day, all of whom are poised and ready to talk about whatever the upcoming season throws at them.

The New Football Pools also has an ever-increasing online football community where members can create their own profiles, upload photos, share their favourite football experiences, make friends and comment on other member’s message boards or ‘walls’. Members are also able to contribute to the forums and Pundit’s Corner – the pools’ own football blog site.

For the new season, Pundit’s Corner is set to feature a new star-studded panel of newly-appointed Pools Pundits who will be giving their opinions and making predictions on every big weekly game. The ‘Pundits Panel’ include the likes of Match of the Day’s and former Liverpool player Alan Hansen, Sky Sports’ and ex-Chelsea Tony Cascarino and Newcastle and Tottenham star Les Ferdinand.

Their comments about controversial and headline-making issues surrounding the game as well as their views on the players to watch, the big transfer deals and the teams they reckon will pick up silverware will be published on The New Football Pools website on a weekly basis.

In addition to these opinion-based football articles, The New Football Pools also has a vast supply of up-to-date and current new stories for all Premier League, Championship and SPL teams as well as individual team news pages for all the Premier League sides. So if something is going on in the world of football, The New Football Pools has more than got it covered.

Zone blocking has become a very effective blocking scheme in football from the little leagues to the pros. It is primarily used to open up running lanes for the offense while taking away stunt and slant attacks and is increasingly used in the passing game. What makes zone blocking schemes so popular is its adaptability to almost any offense. What it does is take away the one on one blocking assignments for offensive linemen and puts them in more effective blocking strategies.

The offensive linemen in this scheme do not have to be the tallest, strongest or biggest linemen on the field. The type of offensive linemen zone blocking requires need to be more athletic, have good foot speed and movement. Coordination and technique are far more valuable that just strength and size.

This article will focus on what zone blocking is, why it works and 3 different types of zone blocks.

Instead of blocking the man in front of a guard, tackle or center the blocking assignments become zones. offensive linemen must even learn to read the defense.

Purpose:

The main purpose of the zone it to outnumber the defensive players at the point of attack, neutralizing defensive stunts and slants.

Zones:

There are three basic zones, the inside zone, outside zone and the stretch zone.

1. Inside Zone: The play is inside the offensive tackle
2. Outside Zone: The play is outside the offensive tackle
3. Stretch: The play is inside the last offensive player.

Reading the Defense:

Offensive linemen must do more than just block, in the zone blocking scheme they must learn how to read the defense and assign a level to each of the defenders they face. They must determine if the defender is level 1 or a level 2 threat and if the offensive lineman is covered or uncovered.

1. First level threat: Any defender who by design of the defensive scheme appears to be a threat to a gap. What this means not only is the defensive linemen on the LOS a first level threat but any linebacker that is lined up two yards back from the LOS and appears to be ready to blitz a gap would have to be considered a first level threat.

2. Second level threat: This will be any defender who appears to be reading the flow of the play and will not be attacking the gaps on the snap of the ball.

3. Covered Lineman: The offensive lineman has a defender in front of him or he can tell a defensive player is assigned to him.

4. Uncovered Lineman: He has no one in front of him and does not appear to have some one assigned to him.

Zone Blocks:

1. Base Zone Blocking: The offensive lineman focuses his eyes on the playside numbers of the defender and explodes off the snap at the proper angle, the angle being where the defensive lineman lines up. The first step is done with the near foot; the second step should place the blocker square with the defensive player. As the blocker is stepping through the defender he wants to be punching both hands into the center of the target just as he does in a drive block.

2. Scoop block: This block is very effective for an outside stretch play. The Scoop blocks primary function is to cut off the pursuit of the defender. It begins with a level one defender and progresses to a level two. This block begins with eyes focused on the outside number of the defender and a strong push off on the inside foot. Contact should be made by the second step which is a cross over step. The offensive lineman wants to rip his inside arm to the play call side armpit of the defender, turning the defenders stomach up field then release to block the linebacker.

3. Fold Block (Trap block): In this example we will be using the right guard and right tackle. The fold block is usually called when a defensive lineman is lined up in the gap where the play is going. For our purposes the hole will be on the folding lineman’s outside shoulder (R Guard) and the down-blocking lineman’s (R Tackle) inside shoulder.

The down blocker must fire off the LOS on the snap, stepping up field in a lateral movement. His left leg should step in front of the defensive lineman and his face mask should be planted in the numbers while driving the opponent down the LOS.

The fold blocker, pausing for half a second, should step to his right scooping behind the down blocker, just grazing his before heading up field. Once contact is made with the linebacker the fold blocker wants to place his helmet just under the linebackers left arm driving him back Even if the fold blocker is not able to drive the linebacker back, he should have created the seal that allows the running back to make more yards.

In conclusion the zone blocking schemes for offensive linemen have produced stronger running games by utilizing the athletic talents of the line. Regardless of the type of offense you run, zone blocking can add power to your running game by stopping defensive slants and stunts and help improve the passing game. These were just a few of the zone blocks teams are using to gain more yards on the ground. Use the links below to see DVDs that can show you how to install zone blocking schemes into your offense.

Football is actually a sport that features three prominent British values. It consists of camaraderie, good competition and drinking lots of alcohol! People of all walks of life and all ages actually enjoy watching 22 muscular men kicking the ball all over the field while wearing shorts. In truth, the British love football as much as Brazilians do because of national pride. So, this Christmas, if you are searching for presents for friends and relatives who happen to be football fans, these are some gift ideas.

Football related gift items will be the best gifts for men and women who truly love the sport. These folks might even have football bed sheets, posters and fan memorabilia. Furthermore, there are some fans that really eat, breathe and dream about football. It is a good thing that there are footy gifts for footy fans that can be affordable, unique and creative at the same time. It will not take much for a true fan to reveal who his or her favorite player is and the team a person roots for, but you have to make sure you know that beforehand. If you give a figurine of a player from a rival team, he or she will just enjoy smashing your gift. Hence, you should do a little research. Know a persons preferences, shirt size, shoe size and favorite players. Once you get all that information, you will find it much easier to search for the right gift. For men who love the sport, you can consider giving gifts like his favorite players jersey or the best football boots for weekend matches. Aside from fan gear, you can get cufflinks that complement his personal style with a football and shoe design. There are even more colorful cufflinks if you think he will prefer to have those.

If you are feeling a bit generous, you can even buy him shares or stocks of his or her favorite team! That will probably be one of the best gifts for women or men. A true fan that gets such a gift might even have the certificate framed and displayed for all to see that a particular team is totally his or her team. These are just a few gift ideas to consider for those who do not know what to give friends and relatives that are fans of the sport. There are lots of other gifts for fans to be found out there.

The football pools is a popular game that has been played in the UK for about 100 years.

With the goal of the game being to correctly predict the results of a set of predetermined football games that will be played the coming week, and win prize money that could be potentially many thousands of pounds in value.

Understanding how to play football pools is easy, here a a few quick pointers about the rules and what to do to get the most from playing football pools.
When picking outcomes, a player will be attempting to choose, typically from a selection of 49 games in classic pools, whether they think that a football game will result in a draw, for example 1-1, called a Score-Draw or no score draw which is a result of 0-0, for example no team scores a goal.

To win the biggest prizes you need to try and get the largest score, the bigger your score the larger the prize you might win.

A score draw earns you 3 points, this is most ideal score and is going to be a result of say 1-1 or 3-3 which means that both teams scored exactly the same number of goals each.

If the teams score no goals each therefore the end result is 0-0 then the player gets 2 points for this outcome, called a No-Score-Draw. 2 points are also awarded if the match is voided, this can happen if the game didn’t play for whatever reason like bad weather conditions. A home or away win scores only a single point, and is what you would receive for any other result not covered above.

So with the goal in mind to get the most number of points, it sounds quite simple, but is does turn out that its quite a difficult job to predict the final results.

Here are a few different ideas to get you started on choosing your first winning draws. Blind chance, some people just use their favourite numbers, each game every week is given a number, ranging from 1 to 49 in a classic pools game, so one might pick birthdays or favourite numbers.

However, even though there is some luck involved, it’s important to remind yourself that the results that determine how many points you will receive come from football teams playing football and this means that football clubs have form which can help you choose which teams will win, lose or draw.

To explain a bit more, you can usually pick your games a few days before the draw so by doing a bit of research about the teams involved you can get a jump on the other players who are using a different system – this is where the real skill comes into it.

This means factors such as hurt players, whether the team have won previous games will all calculate into the final result, this is where the skill comes in and also what makes the whole game such a challenge because it is not just about the football pools but enjoying football in general.

Hopefully this brief introduction to football pools should give you a taster of why football pools are such a popular games to play and encourage you to try it out for yourself.

On the football field, Tiki Barber is a fearless competitor who knows what it takes to lead his team to victory. Off the field, he is using that same determination to help educate children and their families about sickle cell disease and iron overload. Iron overload, or too much iron, is a dangerous potential complication of regular blood transfusions, often used to treat sickle cell disease.

Barber, All-Pro running back and a long-time children’s advocate, is spearheading a national awareness campaign called Be Sickle Smart: Ask Tiki About Iron, to empower those living with sickle cell disease to take an active role in their health so they continue on a path for a bright future.

“I’m determined to get the message out that it’s really important for people who get blood transfusions for sickle cell disease – as well as their families – to know about excess iron and to talk to their doctor about their risk of iron overload,” said Barber.

In sickle cell disease, red blood cells become deformed and can block blood vessels. This causes pain, can damage tissues and organs and can lead to stroke if the blockage occurs in the brain. The lack of healthy red blood cells leads to anemia, which can cause many problems, including fatigue. While there is no cure for sickle cell disease, early diagnosis can help people live longer, healthier and more productive lives.

Blood transfusions give back healthy red blood cells, but they also contain iron. As few as 10 transfusions may lead to too much iron in organs such as the liver and heart. Since there are not always telltale signs of iron overload, people may not realize they are at risk.

The good news is that iron overload can be detected with a simple blood test and treated. An iron chelator (k-e-l-at-@r) is an agent that binds to iron in the body and helps remove it. Iron chelation is the only effective drug therapy to treat and prevent the complications of iron overload. Your health care professional can tell you if you or your child is at risk, check iron levels and share what’s available in iron chelation.