Month: December 2011

In Between Days?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Don’t know ‘bout you guys but despite the seasonal arrival of well… mainly socks to up the sartorial ante, I’m both looking and feeling a tad dishevelled; peeky; and a tad bloated.  The dog-walking has been an essential antidote to pies and puddings and the occasional pint but not, in truth, sufficient.  I’ve needed a dive in the ocean or a game of rugby or something to truly de-cobweb  or detox the overwhelmed pipework.  Haven’t had it though.

Following this week of lacklustre engagement with either/neither the coalface or the sporting widescreen j’accuse – I accuse myself actually – of a kind of proportionate indolence that prematurely factors in all the really active stuff I have lined up and thereby gets me off the hook.  (Pass that pie, please?)  I accuse moreover, the Mother-in-Law of baking far too much.  Generally, I accuse the calendar of being too Christmassy; but I need to move on.

To the sport.

Kauto Star may well be the real story over the Xmas period but he is an athlete I am barely familiar with.  I can more honestly comment therefore, on the gallop towards the Premiership title, now featuring just the two legitimate Mancunian thoroughbreds.  If that’s what they are?

Manchester United have eased into a position of some control, despite a brief period where they were utterly exposed  -chiefly by City but then in their poor European campaign – as only mediocre pretenders to the title.  Ferguson will know that his side have barely improved of late and will be conscious of the need to maximise psychological capital from criticism of  The Reds from perceived traitors (Roy Keane) and around issues both for and against the strength of his squad – now being tested to the limit by injuries.

United certainly do need players to compete with authority and confidence in the Champions League next year; some added brilliance in midfield and some fit defenders may help.  And yet, domestically, almost independent of any assets the team may have or lack, results come.   The defining quality, the defining force of the Premiership itself still being that fierce Scottish fire smouldering beneath this extraordinary club’s belief.

Mancini, on the other hand, enters a period where both he and the widely imagined disunity within his starry group will be tested.  Are they – in particular these disproportionately remunerated foreigners – able to show real Premiership grit when the squeeze is suddenly applied?  If fluky things suddenly start to go against them, will the likes of Balotelli and Aguerro rally round some newly pressurized core?  (Given that for me both are already showing if not outright selfish tendencies then certainly an awareness of a need to make a personal impact, I do wonder how emphatically City will respond as a team to an allegedly inevitable ‘bad patch’).  We may learn a great deal about the legitimacy of any sky-blue badge-kissers in the next period, methinks.

Crucially, perhaps, now that City have finally faltered – only drawing at West Brom, being held by Chelsea – allowing United to draw level on points, will Silva flow so freely and with such influence?

So results (or something) conspired almost miraculously in the last 48 hours or so to re-hoist United, whilst undermining the Chelseas and Liverpools of this world.  Arsenal too, despite playing consistently well are coming from too far back.  Tottenham – lovely, pacy, Redknappy Tottenham – are bursting brilliantly but likely to be less durable, I would argue, than the Northern Bootboys.  The sensational Bale is quite possibly the single most exciting footballer on the planet, currently; he is the antidote to Lucas and to Cattermole and to the often outstanding but unsprinting Barry.  By sweeping past people in a way that seemingly owes more to childish expressionistic glee than to any football coaching book, Gale is capable of bursting through cynical or disinterested hearts.  Even my marzipan bubble was disturbed by the flying Welshman.

But a passing and respectful nod to Kauto Star and at least a mention of the magnificent, record-breaking crowd of 82,000 for the recent Harlequins v Saracens match at Twickenham are in order.  As is a further airing for the name Farrell (junior), with which some time in February the sporting population may again become generally familiar.

Perhaps though not before your currently sedentary scribe has actually done a substantial amount of running, throwing, batting, bowling; developing his How To Coach as well as his What To Coach skills.  Is there I wonder a workshop out there on How To Shed That Seasonal Lethargy-Thing?  If so, put my name down… immediately.

A (really crap) Lancashire Panto

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

It might be nice if life was simple; if I could talk about say… Patrice Evra in all innocence.  If I could simply idle through the only mildly offensive theories generated by my good self regarding his almost unbelievable inability (or will?) to defend.  Likewise, if only I could rave naively about Luis Suarez’s rare gift of inventing space within and around the box, his utter confidence, his unbelievably seamless transition into Premiership groovyhood.  But I can’t – not now, not today.

Stuff’s really gotten in the way.  To the point where the foul blood already slapping the sides of the Manchester Ship Canal collects, minute by minute, further cheap flotsam – further ammunition.  And then it gets lobbed at the other side.

Such is the feeling between Manchester United and Liverpool Football clubs.  Clubs whose realness and greatness in footballing terms is beyond dispute.  Yet the epic scale of their one-eyedness, their capacity to brutally reduce pretty much everything they have in common to a seething conflict currently excels itself.  The annual home and away contest the watching world is exposed to – itself a thing of little beauty – has been further deflowered through the ‘conviction’ of Liverpool’s Uruguayan striker in the matter of alleged racist comments made against Evra (United’s left back.)

At the moment of writing there is a depressingly self-righteous gale of protest and allegation blowing east and west.  Hot on the heels of a strongly worded statement from the club following the Football Association’s decision to substantially (hah!) fine and ban Suarez, the Liverpool players have released a strongly worded message of support for their man.  United meanwhile have spent the recent period belligerently backing Evra.  At no time has it seemed likely that anyone from either side would step forward or, more ideally remain quietly in the background whilst advocating calm.

But what might we expect?  (And this, for me, is the depressing bit…)  The context is generally close to disgraceful.

United-Liverpool games have been effectively brain-dead for ages.  There are almost no moments of class in a matrix of brittle abuse.  Abuse of the spirit of the game; abuse of the ref; abuse of the real, footballing loving fan.  The players almost to a man apparently utterly lack the discipline or will (again) to avoid getting sucked into the ‘heat of the battle’.  They aren’t, frankly, big enough to deny the fraud that is the tackle from behind, the accidentally flailing elbow, the ‘follow through’.  Season after season – even with the influx of allegedly technical players from around the world – the same violent pantomime persists.

So in one sense maybe Suarez has been either unlucky, or miscast as villain of this piece?  For every ‘derby’ match between these two since about 1970 has surely offered up some genuine candidate for an 8 week ban?  Sir Alex, burning with furious and career-long need to outdo his rival from Merseyside is certainly culpable in this general amorality – as, of course, are a series of Liverpool managers.  Don’t tell me that the players are typically eased into the bear-pit without some reminder of ‘what this one means?’   And whilst I concede the likelihood of a caution that all 11 must remain on the pitch… what we used to call “kick-ball-fly” generally ensues; with malevolent knobs on.

Regrettably and shockingly and predictably, the logical extension of this milieu of Vinny Jonesesque lowest-common-denominator clatteration is mere footballers getting themselves or allowing themselves to get twisted up into a cheap, worrying and important controversy.  Difficult to be sure if Suarez dealt in supra-offenses or just the ordinary offensive comments that the derby situation pathetically fosters.  If he has racially abused Evra and he and his clubmates are pinched along a scale between outright lies and loyal delusion, it’s outrageous.  To me it seems very unlikely that he has done nothing for which he might justifiably be ashamed.   However, I am clear that this is no one-sided issue.

Evra, fascinatingly, has previous in the shape of his involvement in a brawl (effectively) at Chelsea, involving a non-playing member of that club’s staff.  Ultimately, after investigation, the word “unreliable” was one of many used to describe his evidence on the matter.  This may, naturally mean nothing whatsoever; I merely take it as a further sign of the disappointing level of understanding and commitment to responsibilities within the beautiful game.

Returning to my own fanlike/fanlit flames of controversy, I have I confess been more than distracted by Patrice’s extraordinary absences or meagre contributions to United’s defending over a period of about eighteen months.  The conclusion has been drawn here that he can’t really be arsed much with stuff happening in the left back zone.  Which is strange, surely, for a no. 3?

Returning to er… the letter of the law, I am clear that this whole, unappealing episode may not tell us much more than this – the obvious.  That a reasonable judgement might be critical of both protoganists – who seem representative of their colleagues in many respects? – plus both clubs, for their unstinting and continuing work towards undermining our faith.

A Knight in Shining Foil?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 1 Comment

There’s been a whole pile of stuff written about JW this week, following his typically understated exit from international rugby.  Paul Hayward of the Daily Telegraph wrote with notable insight and sensitivity to the various and often conflicting Wilkobsessions, offering a real sense of the uncalm crypto-buddhism thing haunting or guiding the extraordinary Englishman.

For Jonny was/is at once the least fly of fly-halves, the most lion-hearted mute, the most innocent and most experienced body.  He is special and yet magnificently, unchangingly doubty; robotically brave and yet disappointingly free of ambition.  We’ve seen a knight in shining foil – often cruelly exposed to the lances of Backrow Baddies or occasionally brittle self-confidence.  And yup; Jonny’s been kinda DEEP.

And that’s hugely rare for a really top level sports-guy, right?  (Or maybe not?)  But peculiarly, Jonny has enjoyed or endured almost Beckhamesque levels of interest and exposure during his decade of world domination; being in relative isolation the single most obvious rugby player on the planet for a good deal of that time.  And being handsome and beautifully mannered and loyal and utterly worthy and yes… impervious and deep.

England’s World Cup winning side were the only team for decades to really break the Tri-Nations stranglehold on the number one slot in the global game.  For maybe 2 years they were the unlovely best – but they were the best.  During and after this period a frequently less than fully fit Wilkinson deconstructed all-comers with a stunning if relatively narrow mixture of tactical and goal kicking.  Combined with the likes of Hill, Johnson, Back, Dawson, Greenwood he threw a blanket over any ambition the opposition might have had… then punished them.  England should have won the tremulous final against Australia by 15 points, such was their superiority but it was entirely right that Jonny coolly – with his weaker foot – slotted the deciding kick.  Entirely right.

What we need to do perhaps is look at his gifts – what he offered – as well as calibrate his undoubted efficiency.  Foremost amongst these was/is surely a kind of ultra-honesty; an elite selflessness.  Jonny gave massively to the cause. He was central rather than sensational. Indeed, the somewhat brutal truth may be that he was simply not extravagantly gifted; therefore we do revert, rightly, to prosaic assessments of his legacy; to points.

I mistrust records – points on any board always being a function of external qualities – era/opposition/position/role etc etc – but in Wilkinson’s case it is his metronomic facility to punish and reap from infringements and opportunities presented that describe him most fully.  For years he was the most feared accumulator in world rugby.  You went off your feet – he punished you.  You encroached at re-alignment – he punished you.  It’s therefore perfectly appropriate rather than begrudgingly limiting to describe him as an Ice-Cool Points Machine.

As is now being acknowledged widely, he mattered, had to be factored in to every game plan – not because he was Barry John (and therefore he might feint and dance mercurially through you) – but because he would punish you if you offered him 3 points.   This may mean that he is less great than some members of the Gene Kelly School of outside halves; but in the modern game, where it feels as though preparation (mind games) and Game Management (Mind Games on a White board?) play an arguably disproportionate role, Wilkinson has really mattered.

That iconic moment when he finally slotted the World Cup winning drop was, for me, mostly memorable as a uniquely liberating moment of personal triumph for ‘Jonny’ – Jonny personally.  When have we seen him so purely ecstatic?  When else has the responsibility of Wilkohood slipped  so deliciously away?  And how long after did he leave it before trudging out again to practice?

Perhaps he’s entrapped me here, through that punishing introspection of his, into indulgence, navel-gazing; but I find myself wondering how lovely it might have been for us to see him enjoy things more, ‘express’ himself more.  However this probably misjudges him.  He more than anyone has personified a kind of streamlined, ineffable but heroic purpose.  He wants to get the team through.  In game mode, he would rarely – very rarely – contemplate beyond the necessary, the management of the game, the kicking of the kick.

So pointless – hah! – to judge him as though he is capable of going beyond his remit, which was what, again?  Oh yeh… to be perfect.  To be ludicrously brave in the tackle (braver than any 10, ever); to be the best kicker in the world to the extent that Games Were Won Almost Always By Him Alone.  And, incidentally, to be uniquely, hair-shirtedly whiter than white.

Don’t ask him to be Carter or even Contemponi.  He is not.  Jonny Wilkinson is, iconically, a great sportsman and appropriately in an age of highly-crafted Business Bull, a Team Player Extraordinaire.  Respect!

Saatchi and me…

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Is the currently invigorating air of free-market/un-market revolution swirling and beeping its way into the contemporary art scene, I wonder?  Is it even being blackberried by its very own, from within its very own hub, rather than from without, by militant techno-geeks or the Urban Poor?   What, in fact, is occurring bro’?

If Charles Saatchi (himself) is sending out the incendiary messages – whilst presumably firing up on latte and danger-muffin in some metropolitan caff – then maybe, on this occasion, the New Disillusioned are superfluous.  The art scene may implode without recourse to occupation/immolation from uncutters or black blockers or almostinnocentbystanders.com.

Those of you who missed the minority interest hoohaa not kicking but maybe shuffling off last week following Saatchi’s Guardian article please sign on here; for another thoroughly modern story is being (un?)told.  Here is the alleged figuration thing … the facts as recognised or… performed.

The boy Saatchi – actually too super-annuated to be coolly associated with rebellion, despite his impressive record for supporting Wacky New Stuff – has really launched one, really gone off on one against his fellow contemporary art enthusiasts.  (And frankly – good on ‘im!)  The essence of what he says is that being a buyer amongst the current crop is “comprehensively and indisputably vulgar”.

He goes on

It is the sport of the Euro-trashy, hedgefundy Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art-dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard.

He goes on again

Do any of these people actually enjoy looking at art? … Do they simply enjoy having easily recognised big-brand-name pictures, bought ostentatiously in auction rooms at eye-catching prices, to decorate their several homes, floating and otherwise, in an instant demonstration of drop-dead coolth and wealth?

It is, therefore a pretty spiky appraisal of those he rubs shoulders with.  Surprisingly, I have no direct contact with either Mr Saatchi or the average oiligarch, so please take any remarks I contribute with a substantial pinch of something that may or may not be actual salt or a symbol of salt.

However, Charles and I are alike in that we do have a certain general respect for contemporary artists, whilst knowing that this goes against the grain of popular understanding.  He has I think genuinely supported – arguably ‘made’ – substantial British artists such as Hirst and Emin through a belief that they say something real and important about now as well as because of their capacity to excite coverage.  He (no doubt having read my authoritative material on the subject) fully understands the difficulty many folks have with Modern Art; namely that they just don’t get it because it either doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to or ‘any fool could do it’.

Saatchi has put a considerable wedge behind the argument that c’mon, you just really have to look – engage – a bit more and other things become apparent.  For art is no longer (just) about how masterfully you can draw or paint.  It may now be the case that is essential to enter the construct that is the painting/photo/video/performance in order to make judgement upon it.  This might admittedly be more ‘difficult’ than was historically the case but THAT IS PROGRESS.  You, the viewer, have been having it too easy and you may now have to a) gawp for longer and b) even earn the right to make a decision about the artist’s talent and authenticity.

Okay I’m offering a lot given my unfamiliarity with Charles’s everything but these are surely logical extensions, or possibly prefixes, to where he ends up – i.e. IN DEFENCE OF THE REAL ARTIST – who may, surprisingly, be alive now, making art through signs or symbols or soundscapes rather than with lines we immediately recognise.

It may be argued that a leap of faith is necessary to accept some contemporary art as ‘real’, as ‘true’.  That’s maybe fair.  However it has always been the case that critical faculties must be exercised in order to appreciate.  Allow the artists to work.  Do not mistake lack of figuration for lack of quality or integrity.  Contemporary artists are making a massive and honourable contribution to our cultural lives – to our lives.   That’s not a quote from Charles Saatchi but I tell you what I think it could be.  And that’s why the presence of so many wealthy airheads on the floors of major gallery openings offends him.

Saatchiandme.co desperately oppose both the cheap assumption that contemporary art is mainly crap and the notion that it’s okay for the inevitable art market to be populated by phonies.  We are together on the barricade – his a Sheraton Bureau, mine a shopping trolley – lobbing respectively cut glass and potato peelings at the barbarian hordes.  Shouting “Love Not Money!”

So… in this cultural riot… are you with us?

Kicking.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

If I say that we are living through extraordinary times it seems blandly, even arrogantly obvious.  But unquestionably historic stuff is “kicking off” – to appropriate Paul Mason’s stunningly appropriate term – all over.  A kind of us-centric response might proffer the Eurozone as exhibit A here, but large and hairy as that problem seems, perhaps it is right to acknowledge the proper, i.e. life and death stuff going off in say Syria/Egypt, for example. Oh and say Afghanistan/Iraq/Pakistan – remember them?

But I’m being perverse, right?  What I should be saying is something about Russia – that being the real news story of the moment.  And I should headline it with something like ‘Black Belt Bear Wakes With Sore Head’ so as to respectfully treat the issue.

If there is a point to this here outbreak of acerbic indulgo-cobblers, it is that news – that sensationally important backcloth to our mortal uncoilings – is often Naughtily Non-Representative of Anything Very Much.  Or at the very least we should be looking very carefully at its proportionality, its real import, its meaning.  In short, I’m not clear that enough of our news enlightens us to the story that makes the events.

It may be that all this vinny-mithering is a function of my disillusionment with our understanding of Euro-issues following our friend Mr D Cameron’s recent summit  performance.  Maybe I’m blaming the tabloids for the nation not getting it.  But getting what?

  • That IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE ECONOMY, STOOPID
  • That surely the arguments against not joining with our European soul-brothers are much more about democracy than money.
  • That apparently there is still only black or white in all things because… because grey is just too difficult to contemplate.

I nearly, for one moment, asked if I was making sense but that’s not really what I’m seeking here.  I’m unravelling stuff; I seeketh not the crystalline – or at least I’m not in the position to make anything explicit.  Because there’s loads of stuff I don’t know.  However I do have some bloody good questions.

Like is it not perfectly acceptable to make an anti-thatnewtreatything argument on the grounds that tying so much in to one notion of (allegedly necessary) financial stability in such a draconian way is fascistically myopic.  You telling me that it’s not anti-democratic to disallow the possibility that individual governments, mandated to carefully stimulate their own economies, might act to promote recovery through prudent spending?

Bluntly, you saying that Leftism of any degree is kindof illegal?  Then I think, in the technical jargon of the financial industry, that you are jack-bootingly MENTAL.

Politics and the media seem to have colluded again in the exclusionment of ideas of this nature.  I wonder to what degree this is a function of the absolute stranglehold the god of economic growth has on legitimate debate.

So who’s having those important discussions about how new understandings of the essence of co-existence amid denuded ‘buoyancy’?  Who’s brave or stupid or smart enough to relegate mere matters of financial fact to item four or five of the real agenda?  Behind sustainable truths – behind the structural need for generosity.

I may have wandered again from the initial question of what is historically meaningful.  On the other hand, maybe I haven’t?

It’s all happenin’ boys…

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Is it just me or are there more real rugby stories about than usual; things that properly prickle the attention.  Like how about these, for example?

The Wales thing; i.e. the legacy of a pretty outstanding World Cup, where they corralled most of the goodwill a game can generate through outliving glorious Welsh stereotypes.  In other words they were often crowd-pleasingly brilliant and brought a dynamism that lit up the tournament.  Now they have to follow that.

The Kiwis thing; the laying of the albatross/monkey hybrid-demon thing, whereby the best team in the world finally gets to drink in the glory earned by generations of mighty All Blacks.

The England thing; where a recently utterly disgraced, stodgy but undeniably large and hairy beefcake begins to roll back its sleeves and get ready again.

The North American thing; where we hope shiny, happy and unself-consciously new peeps get seriously into this other oval obsession (man.)

And as babyplots, how about the Ashton Hairpulling Atrocity/McCaw Gouging Inquisition/Harlequins-Scarlets New World Order?

Living in Wales, forgive me for starting there.

Most of us are clear that Wales did bring something more than slightly wonderful to a relatively ordinary World Cup.  It was a particular belief as much as anything – a Brotherhood of Redness – a triumph for their coaching staff, who simply had the players brimful of uncluttered purpose.  They played almost without fear, knowing they were in magnificent condition, believing in the rightness of their boldness, drawing on tradition, emotion and gloriously disproportionate expectation rather than shrinking into easy conservativism.

Speaking as a coach from a laughably lower athletic stratum, it struck me that what Wales achieved was a kind of perfection in terms of expressing the wholeness that is team sport.  As well as propelling them irresistibly forward, this touched the hearts of the watching world.  One less toot from the referee and who knows – they might even have won it.

Now the trick is to sustain that aura and replicate that level of dynamism going into Six Nations.  Even the supreme Gatland/Howley/Edwards triumvirate may find that a stretch.  One argument says an expansive game is contingent largely upon pace on the ball, which needs… ‘a platform’.  Better rugby minds than my own have recently questioned whether Wales’s front five can or have generally delivered that sufficiently convincingly and express doubts about the looming 6 Nations.

Ideally Warburton and Faletau might tear teams to pieces once parity in the lumps is achieved and games are prized open.  However, I do wonder how things might look if say Jones and Jenkins and Wynne-Jones are either absent entirely or merely inconspicuous?  It’s just hard to play without the ball.  And teams – other teams – will chiefly seek to deny Wales the ball.

On the positive side, I genuinely believe that the presence of a truly competitive Wales team is hugely beneficial to the world game – and always has been.  Support for and understanding of the game in Wales is extraordinary.  Importantly and recently, neutrals around the world received a colourful reminder of what rugby means when the Brotherhood of Redness stepped out.

There are parallels between Welsh Fire and All Black Magisterial Pomp.  The nations are united in a profound link to the unique and mostly honourable physicality of the game.  If it is ever appropriate to talk of a nation’s psyche then something meaningful may likely be said of Kiwi or Welsh expression through rugby.  But it is better felt, or heard, in the national thrum that precedes glorious success.  The difference between the 2 mighty-mouse nations is arguably that the All Blacks are almost always the best side in the world; this dominance has not, however been registered at World Cup level.

So this home victory – the agony of it, the joy of it – was understood to be ‘massive’.  Kindof trans-generationally earned, it was not merely a triumph for McCaw and his fierce leonine posse; it was for all All Blacks – all those who deserved but failed in the 20-something lean years when they merely battered everybody out of sight, but failed to find that most significant of trophies lying at their feet.  I think the watching world understood that too – even or most especially the near-heartbroken Welsh.

England, following the kind of tournament that seemed previously to belong solely to their footballing equivalents, are, I suspect, gently gathering.  The new Temporary Coaching Combo (is that what we should call them?) of Lancaster, Rowntree and Farrell – apart from sounding like a trustworthy and long-established Solicitor’s practice from a pleasantly leafy market town – seems a decent mix.  Farrell and Lancaster have worked successfully together at Saxons, where it appears Lancaster’s talk complements the former league god Farrell’s walk.

Rowntree, the bull-like Forwards Coach is virtually the only sentient being to emerge unscathed – in fact, possibly even with reputation enhanced! – from the World Cup debacle. His understanding of the dark arts and his personal likeability make him central to any resurgence. I do fancy England might be reasonably formidable opponents sometime quite soon, as both Lancaster and Farrell have shown they can manage and motivate – something sadly Martin Johnson failed to achieve.

Lastly I was pleased to deal in some depth with the rise of North American rugby in my last blog.  Pleased because there is a sense of some likeable distant cousin arriving and joining in with one of ‘our’ games; and being pretty good.  And then persuading half his mates to give it a crack.  Before we know it we’re taking club tours to each others countries/watching them develop, excitingly quickly/watching them get a Pro game going/stage a flippin’ World Cup!  Crazy and wonderful stuff like that.

Yesterday a US 7’s side competed with some distinction in the ongoing IRB Sevens in South Africa.  A strong England side beat them reasonably comfortably but they ran a highly fancied Samoan side very very close.  ‘T was another stepping stone towards being competitive.

In passing it strikes me that Northampton’s Chris Ashton’s 4 week ban for stupidly re-arranging Alesana Tuilagi’s ample barnet (even allowing for the fact it sparked an unseemly brawl) seems harsh.  The McCaw story accusing the French of gouging and other ‘filth’ is unfortunate and possibly serious.  The resurgence of both Harlequins and Scarlets – my (reasonably) local club, however, I welcome!

And now… only in America…

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been cruising websites and earwigging certain individuals in Canada and the States… so the tone of this piece cannot, repeat cannot be cynical.

Judging from reliable sources (let’s get the contradictions in terms in early) rugby in North America is on the burst.  Or perhaps more exactly the attack coach is making a convincing case to The Girls for a stunning three-quarter move.  Or he’s rehearsing what he might say later, when the guys get in after school/work.   Because it’s an amateur game, right?

No, dude.  The first Pro contracts have just been agreed for Eagles Rugby Sevens – a huge step.  Beyond this, a confirmed bid for the Rugby World Cup 2023 is beginning to shake its ass; a cusp of something approaches, another frontier presents itself…and America engages.

Olympic money – rugby 7’s becomes an Olympic sport for Rio 2016 – has been shovelled in to fund 23 professional (7’s) contracts at USA Rugby.  And this month CEO Nigel Melville, formerly of Wasps and England has talked openly of discussions aimed at bids for either Rugby World Cup 2023 or 2027.  Bids which may be joint efforts with Canada, where both Vancouver and Toronto are seen as viable bases.  NBC is also now covering the Collegiate Rugby Championship to be played next June.  All of which is brilliant news that should be universally greeted by whoops and yankeedoodles, yes?  Well nearly.

NBC’s involvement is clearly major, enabling a hike in the profile of the game nation-wide.  But that also means that TV-related issues clump into the foreground.  So, for example, NBC have authority to guide choices not just about how things might look, but about which teams get invited to participate in the showdown.  As a consequence, certain college teams have been omitted to accommodate those with a higher (existing) sporting profile.  Currently, this is no meritocracy – brands being more important than well… anything.

This has of course led to proper disgruntlement amongst some proper fans of proper teams.  Interviewed in RUGBYMAG.com Collegiate Championship Director Donal Walsh admitted as much but spoke of the need to build towards genuine qualification(s) over time:

“If we bring forward marquee brands at this stage of the tournament, it validates everything we’re doing to promote the sport”.

Therein lies a central difficulty; how to get recognition and acceptance of a magnificent game in a continent where scale is huge in every sense and where TV effectively controls or chooses nearly everything.  But despite issues around levels of purity, grinning excitement of a kind familiar to most of us surrounds the charge forward.  @LineoutCoach a friend, mentor and purveyor of first-hand insights into a very dynamic scenario has bullet-pointed certain essentials.  Given that he is a fully-paid member of the illustrious Hickie family from Old Ireland – now coaching at Belmont Shore RC, Los Angeles, California (how easy it would have been to conclude with the phrase “Lucky bastard!”) I am inclined – nay obliged – to listen.

Sir Gavin of That New World says effectively this;

  1. The advent of Sevens contracts is key to generating participation/momentum/awareness.
  2. The appointment of a ‘marquee’ Head coach for the international side would be more than just a statement; it would facilitate further growth.
  3. In time the domestic game must find a structure that is funded to build and to compete – whether that means ‘City Teams’ or regions.

Sitting at my laptop in West Wales, I can feel that particular gentleman’s enthusiasm and belief in the rightness of this game, at this time, in this new place.  In particular there is a feeling that the exhilarating athleticism and scope of Sevens might be an appropriate fulcrum from which to catapult the game towards an altogether higher arc.  The proviso to this infectious groundswell may be that it may be essential to combine patience and solid organisation with this precious froth.

There are those who don’t get it – possibly many who never will.  I can hear the Pretty Informed Actually But Mebbe Touch Cynical snorting thus

“Short of a change of code from D Beckham Esq, what’s to draw people?  Who they gonna want to see?  Where’s the qualidee?”

So is it going to work?  From this distance – geographically and in terms of time – we can only speculate.  But yeh.  A long run at a 2023 World Cup?  I can see that.  And good luck.

Speed is almost everything

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

As someone who has recently wittered on about a personal and much regretted disillusionment with football, I find myself struggling to enthuse too heavily or convincingly over say… the Euro 2012 draw made recently.  (Two of the groups are hugely competitive/England will fail to impress, probably from the very start against France/then they will go out with pretty much a whimper.)  Even the FA Cup draw – once I swear an extremely big deal in our little footballing household – pitching Manchester United (for whom ahem, my grandfather played) against rivals City drifted distractedly by.

But in mitigation there is something that overshadows; the as yet unexplained death by hanging of Wales manager Gary Speed.

The ‘full’ international side in Wales has sadly limped through an extended period of low morale and low achievement, during which apparent disinterest or less than full commitment from key players has contributed to a sink into uncompetitiveness. Even lack of fire – unforgiveable for a celtic side? – inveigled its way into the table of shortcomings.  No wonder the fans, as the cliché goes, ‘stayed away in droves.’

Then in one of those winningly predictable upswings of fortune, after a gently worrying start, a young, new manager began to make a difference.  Speed.  By being calmly authoritative and (I am told, in a long conversation with the esteemed Ian Herbert of The Independent) just substantially more people-shrewd, organised and critically suss than previous incumbents, the former Premiership skipper changed things.  Firstly in training then, invigoratingly, on the pitch.

In the last handful of matches, Wales have looked a threat to middle-ranking European teams in a way that has not been the case for many years.  With the alarming pace and confidence of Gareth Bale on the left flank and Aaron Ramsay a coolly-aspirant Spaniard in central midfield, a significant transformation is now in progress.  Or was?

We cannot know how things may be – and it probably offends decency to contemplate the matter ahead of further tribute to the man – but suffice to say that Wales under Gary Speed were a) improving immeasurably b) winning c) some way to reinvigorating support for the national side.  In footballing terms, given the clear correlation between Speed’s gathering influence and results, the man was on a roll.  Which rather dumbly begs the question why?  Why, Speedo, did you…?

There are apparently no suggestions of depression or problems at home.  Or – more exactly – friends and likely confidants(?) have stepped up to the mike and been universally sure ‘nothing was wrong’.  It’s a tragic unexplained suicide.  This dashing, handsome, modest and room-changingly engaging man; this only recently outstanding specimen of model pro’-dom; this quietly heroic skipper for his team and country, this man arguably absolutely at the height of his powers/influence/sporting pomp has confounded all this wonderful but meaningless sporting momentum in a single spine-chilling act.  Unreally and really, we break the news to fellow sportsfolks, Gary Speed is dead.

Personally (though I never met the man) I was shocked to the core; that amorphous and often fickle bunch the football community was shocked to the core – responding with rare grace through the most heartfelt and dignified of tributes.  Some laid wreaths, some sustained flurries of appropriately neutered applause.  All were touched deeply and were respectful of the nature of Speed’s contribution to the game.  He was honest, he was all-action but never bullish, he sprinted/covered/’gave’ and then sprinted some more.  He had and he reflected a true understanding of the game.  So better surely to remember the man for his genuineness than to allow fears of some cheap revelation to creep?

We have lost Gary Speed, and we are right to note the passing of an outstandingly complete sportsman.  To us fans, he was a top player.  To friends and family, it transpires, he really was almost everything.

Shane you wonderful manchild you

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Real rugby news seems to be swallow-diving out of obscurity and into our living rooms.  And maybe it’s about time.  But given that much of the news has been either unflattering to the game or downright bad, we the rugby-sympathetic don’t know whether to continue hiding behind our hands or devour it for signs of better things.

In the UK, Shane Williams, the all-smiling shim-meister has provided a focus for goodwill and good humour – as he always has – during the last scuttle towards the tryline of his international career.  It barely needs me to add my ill-informed tribute to those already being spontaneously lobbed like roses into the horse-drawn cart of his Special Day but frankly, I’d like to.  And it may or may not be appropriate to begin with a non-rugby matter but… tough… here goes.

A close family friend suffered Sudden Death Syndrome i.e. he unaccountably collapsed whilst playing rugby and stopped breathing entirely.  I believe he was 16 at the time.  The coach and others splendidly came to his rescue during and after the deathlike state but inevitably he was hospitalized for some weeks.  I am reliably informed that the thing that gave him and his family most cheer at a time of unimaginable stress – raw fear even – was a bedside visit from Shane Williams.

I am aware that sportsmen and women do these kind of things but it will make utter sense to everyone who has ever either seen Shane play or heard him talk that the one man most likely to raise the spirits of an ailing lad would be Shane Williams.  He is a compendium of bustling, smile-inducing energies.  He defies all that is depressing or cynical.  His sporting gifts are predicated on a ludicrous and liberated enjoyment of his instincts; they in turn are irretrievably generous in the sense that he has always chosen to fly, to entertain, to dance through the dull matrix of negativity or doubt.  This is why he is loved as well as admired. He is Shane.

In Wales – and his particular brand of invincible pride, ‘step’ and community-driven dash could only be welsh – Williams looms disproportionately large in the hearts of everyone. Clearly he might be Housewife’s Choice anywhere (forgive the political naivity of the phrase) for his impish cuddleability.  But the meaning of Shaneness has implications it seems in the lung-busting, whole-nation nature of celebration gathered around him now/when he dives over/always.

People know here that he is allegedly far too small to compete with these other, bone-crunching giants. They are specimens of Transformer, surely, escaped from some 3D action epic, trampling through the conscience of the sporting world.  Witness the 17/18 stone wingers – the Banahans, the Lomus, the Nearly Everybodys clumping across the landscape in a shirt bearing 11-15 in recent years.

And yet the relatively diminutive welsh left-winger (what a teasingly evocative phrase that one is!) has been astonishingly productive in terms of tries scored.  59 in 87 games represents a sensational haul in an era when defences have become massively more watertight.

Williams is generally somewhere between 2 and 4 stones lighter than his opposite number.  This we have to respect.  It appeals also to widespread notions of doggedness under challenge or oppression, notions understandably generally held to be viscerally central to welsh self-image.  This is not to say that Shane is enjoyed mostly as some politically charged symbol of defiance; it’s simpler, lovelier than that.

He is at once a spectacular and a modest man, a talent wonderfully expressed.  He is that sparkling contradiction – the Charming Rebellion.  Welsh or otherwise, we just love to see the bugger run.