A Returned Call (From A Call I Didn't Make)

I had a phone call this morning.

The person on the other end said he was returning my missed call.

Couldn't have been me. I haven't put credit on my phone this week, so I pointed that out.

It then struck me - my number must have been cloned by scammers. So, I suggested that might have happened to the man who rang me back.

Well.. the caller wasn't ringing 'me' back, was he? Ha. 

Gawd. I hope this isn't the beginning of a stream of people calling me because scammers used my number to hide behind their con.

What a bunch of spoofers.

Kyle Busch Passes Away

I don't follow NASCAR Racing, but I did know who Kyle Busch was. 

The driver died yesterday at the age of forty-one leaving behind a wife and two young children.

Devastating. That's really all I can say to sum up that part of this story.

As I mentioned at the start, I knew Busch. It vaguely had to do with his driving career. I remember the driver from his appearances on WWE TV. He was once a special guest host of Monday Night Raw during the period when World Wrestling Entertainment would have people from other sports and entertainment show up for a night. 

I surmise it was over a decade later when Busch became WWE 24/7 Champion in an angle with R-Truth.

In-between those stints, I'd hear his name mentioned on American radio and think to myself 'ah, he's the WWE fan'.

I got to say that twice within the past day. The first was when I came across a social media post from The Athletic with a news report stating that Busch had been hospitalised due to a 'severe illness'. Then, hours later, I read he had passed.

When I looked up his biography for today's post, I noticed another thing we had in common. As well as being WWE fans we also shared the same birthday.

Funny Trivia Note About Yesterday's Europa League Final Result For Villa

Here's something I loved to realise about Aston Villa's Europa League win last night.

Villa manager - Unai Emery - has now won the league on five occasions. He has done it with three different teams.

His Sevilla teams won it in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16. That was followed by a win for Villareal at the conclusion of the 2020-21 season. 

Last night saw him lead Aston Villa to the trophy with a 3-0 victory over Freiburg.

Notice something?

All three of Emery's  Europa League winning clubs have 'Villa' somewhere in their names. 

A brill trivia note. 

This Weekend

It's going to be an interesting Premier League final day this weekend weekend because there's fight to stave off relegation between Tottenham and West Ham United.

The Hammers are currently in the basement of the league with thirty-six points. Spurs are just above them, in seventeenth position, with thirty-eight.

To escape the drop, West Ham must get a home win over Leeds United and then hope Spurs fails to get a result against Everton.

Should those occur, it'll be Spurs going down.

Manchester City's 1-1 draw against Bournemouth last night meant that Arsenal were crowned Premier League champs. It was the first time they had reached the pinnacle since Arsene Wenger's glory days.

It would make for quite a trivia question - years from now - if  'in which year did Arsenal win the Premier League and their local rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, get relegated?' is asked.

Roll on Sunday.

Birthday Spread - Archie Manning

I looked at today's page of my American football trivia calendar and noticed that today is Archie Manning's birthday.

Upon noticing that the patriarch of the Manning Family is celebrating today, I thought I'd do what used to be a thing on Hawksbee and Jacobs' radio show on TalkSport (they could still do it for all I know) in which the pair would run through names of celebrities with birthdays on that particular day. It was up to Paul Hawksbee to guess their age. They'd then work out how far - or close! - Paul's guesses were to the actual age.

I guessed Manning is seventy-six today. He's actually seventy-seven. So, I would have had one on the spread.

Not bad. 

Forgot About FA

There was a conspicuous absence on the blog over the weekend.

I didn't do the (what seems like) annual FA Cup Final post in which I point out which team I would like to win.

There's a simple reason why I didn't.

I forgot the FA Cup Final was over the weekend. For no clear reason whatsoever, I thought it was this weekend. My lapse wasn't realised until I came across a mention on TAFKA Twitter when an account I follow reposted a mocked up Ceefax results page from the game.

When my TV was immediately switched on, I saw the medals being distributed to the finalists. Damn. The first FA Cup I missed since my childhood.

You can see Ceefax 303's repost, of Telescore's image, below.

With all that aside, I would have backed the wrong horse.

Chelsea would have been the underdogs. I often go for the longshots whenever I've written those posts, so I am sure I would have picked the London club over the dominant Northern team.

The final score was 1-0 to City.

17 Seconds

I woke up early this morning. Well, not too early, but early enough to lay there and think about things before getting up to start my day.

One of the things I thought about was Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano.

'That fight was earlier today,' I acknowledged. 'Maybe I'll watch it once I'm up.'

I then concluded 'it won't be a long fight, I may as well watch it before I get out of bed.'

I fired up Netflix, forwarded to the start of the fight.

17 seconds.

That's all it took for Rousey to get Carano in an armbar and the quick submission.

Seen a portion of people calling the fight fixed across the day. Have they ever seen a Rousey fight before now?!