Author: bowlingatvincent

Cricket; Junior Coaching; some thoughts…

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I wrote the following to bundle the coaches at my club into a discussion on what we do. Clearly I ran the risk of patronising good people and good coaches but it wasn’t meant to be anything other than a contribution… or maybe a prompt. Because somebody had opened up their cavernous gob – me – we at least had to think about this stuff. Which is good, right?

 

Coaching Under 9’s.

GENERAL.

For starters, make a mental note that this age group may include particularly wide ranges of ability and degrees of experience – later groups should be at relatively similar levels, given their time spent at clubs/schools sessions. So we have to be mindful of this range in the youngsters and of the possibility that some may be intimidated by unfamiliar or overly challenging things. Coaches need to be sensitive and fair about this human stuff as well as smart.

The first priority, however, is to effectively to draw the new players in – to make it fun enough for fears and insecurities to melt away – by getting on with it and letting the game convert those nerves/those uncertainties into smiles/adrenalin/energy. Remember they’re kids; they just want to play; point them to a game or warm-up game, pronto!

ECB Coaching tells us to get them active and surely this is right. Minimise the verbals; when the time is right to add in technical stuff give them one or two things to think about not forty-two. Our role is most definitely NOT to show or tell them (or their watching parents, or watching coaches) how much we know about a given shot, skill, or practice. It’s to get them at it, then maybe demonstrate a couple of things well, then turn that into a game. Ideally a game that instructs – but certainly one that entertains.

We may or may not like the notion that the world’s attention span (never mind our children’s) has been frazzled by immediate thrills and addictive activity but we probably need to acknowledge it. In our coaching I think this does mean we have to keep the energy UP and the work FOCUSED; particularly for the youngest. I also feel that sessions should both sound and feel lively. Most of this will come from the coach, who (whatever his or her nature) has to find a way to drive and encourage the thing forward. So be friendly and maybe even noisy… and circulate that energy around the place.

One of the great joys of coaching is the fact that small children will respond so quickly and so fully to some real encouragement; so do that and the games themselves will light them up. And that’s magic.

Central to half-decent coaching may be that it is about asking good questions of the players. What did I do? How did that work? What were my feet doing? Why was that do you think? Describe it to me. At every age group I try to get the players to coach me – to own and understand the information. It’s better, I think, than me repeatedly spouting stuff from the various ECB manuals.

WARM-UPS.

Every session should start with a welcome; possibly a verbal one and a welcome into a gathering game – particularly if that signing kids in thing is going on elsewhere. This might be simply an all-in catching game on the Krazy Katch (trampoline thing!) or something else that makes the players feel part of something straight away – before the warm-up proper has begun. Have a think about what your group might do that would get you off to a good start rather than one that (already) smacks of drift.

I think CROSS-OVER GRIDS are a good way to warm up. They involve some running as well as requiring players to switch on their concentration and their catching skills. If players make 3 throws/catches and run diagonally then things change. If you BUILD the challenges – maybe from simple two-handed catches working in pairs, through to a flat out race to catch the pair in front – then the concentration as well as the physical readiness should increase. CROSS-OVER GRIDS also really lend themselves to variation – catches /throws/bowls of various sorts. Think about which challenges are appropriate, then increase the pace and intensity.  Always ALWAYS make it fizz – make it a giggle but a challenge. Just differentiate – i.e. change that challenge – where necessary (and with sensitivity) for children who may not achieve those grander goals.

Other warm-up games particularly suitable for this age-group (although not necessarily just this age-group!) include DODGEBALL, GRAND PRIX CARS (where players are given the number of a gear to run in and further directions added), CROSSFIRE, KWIK RUNS/SAFE CATCHES plus there are a billion things you can do involving SHUTTLE RUNS either in pairs or as individuals. I try to feed off what’s happening within these games and change or add in things that seem like fun. Remember if the children are enjoying things and following your directions this means they must be listening!

By the way; if you don’t know what a particular game looks like, ask me, or another coach, or look at HOWZAT, or the ECB Website, or go elsewhere on line. There are hundreds of ideas up there.

We are all familiar with the idea that an evening’s session will generally follow the WARM-UP/GAME/COOL (WARM?)-DOWN format. (In practice, few of us do the cool-down .) Nobody is suggesting that things should be rigid; I have no problem with ‘warm-up games’ developing so well that they become the bulk of the session – or are inseparable from the main practice. If this happens ‘more by accident than design’ so be it – it may be that a particularly dynamic session feels like it happened by instinct and clearly this is possible. However it may be more accurate to say that some preparation and the right amount of structure facilitates, or makes possible that brilliant idea mid-flow, I think. Either way, I reckon, look, listen, go with your instincts.

GAMES.

We are encouraged to move into more or less structured, often ‘small-sided’ games for the bulk of our training sessions and there are reasons for this. Cricket has particular disciplines and they do demand some attention and some patience as well as certain skills. But we can’t expect that every young player will have bundles of patience so we may need to run a number of games in parallel (if coaches are available) so that players stay active and involved. Again, rightly or wrongly, young children may drift away if they don’t get a bat in their hand pretty early… so that opportunity may need to present itself reasonably soon or often.

Think about what is appropriate and then – for this age group – set the game up and let it run without too much interruption. GAMES might be …

Continuous (or Non-stop) Cricket/variations of The Lord’s Game/Cricket Rounders/Pairs Cricket/Bowling Action (Target Bowling)/Hitting from a tee (Front Foot Hitting?)/Diamond Cricket/Catching games (relays? Vary service?) Or take a particularly good ‘warm-up game’ like Cross-fire and use it for a throwing session; coach the technique; then crack on again. All of these games can be found in the ECB SESSION PLANS, so either find a copy, print one out, or ask me.

COOL-DOWNS/WARM-DOWNS.

Let’s be honest, most young children should not suffer (e.g.) muscle injury due to their exertion during these sessions, so the temptation is there not to bother with COOL-DOWNS. There is, however, both an argument that this is good practice (and therefore it helps cement a culture of doing the right thing) AND the more convincing argument that a cool-down provides a calming opportunity to reflect on the session. Maybe simply walk through some shuttles, making simple catches… and ask a further question or two, or suggest something helpful in terms of practice away from the club. Then close the session with a few well-chosen words.

STRATEGY FOR THE SEASON.

Broadly the aim is going to be to enthuse these children – to get them ‘into’ cricket. Hence the emphasis on ENERGY and ENTERTAINMENT. But think about what proportion of your time you might spend on particular skills over the season. Would a 50% batting / 25% bowling / 25% fielding split seem about right? If so, plan for that. Or is the development of a general understanding of the shape and the requirements of the game more essential than specific skill-sets. You find that balance – or aim for it – remembering that this age group is going to be playing soft-ball, festival cricket, or just playing ‘for fun’.

marathon boy

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who were we running for or from

when we could run?

who?

in our endless unstockinged feet

with that endless dizzy lope towards the tape –

the tape that drew us and wrapped us like mummies.

who ran alongside?

was it a lifelong friend who carried us through

their heart transporting ours?

or a stranger – or twenty thousand – who twinkled their encouragement?

i can’t remember.

there was the race –

my pop PB-ed, i think

but unconfirmed.

then, before we know it,

tightly, the pull-string

on the rucksack of my heart

is tugged.

and i think

i think a cheer goes up.

i can’t remember.

A kind of ugliness?

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Before…

Chelsea – or as we in either our pomp or our provincial density call them ‘Chelski’ – have long been a symbol of metropolitan arrogance; we’ve hated them for that for yonks.  Way before the Putinesque assassin with silencered WOMP secreted about his black leather jacket wafted poisonously in.  We hated Chopper Harris – with some moral justification.  We hated Peter Osgood for his flashy bird-pulling brilliance and whiff of Kings Road boutiques.  Less obviously, we even hated David Webb for his (surely fake?) stolid yeomanhood, believing that to be the sole preserve of Northerners like er… Nemanja Vidic.  Chelsea were and are, easy to hate.

Man City are more recent arrivals at this general bile-fest.  Traditionally they had been pretty close to admirable, what with their perennial hopelessness just very rarely – like Once in a Blue Moonish, actually – spoiled by the classy shimmies and undeniable running of a Colin Bell or somebody.  (Rodney Marsh did complicate this other half of Mancunian experience by coming over all gaudy Landun The-attah on us at one stage – but this is simply a historical aberration; clearly he should have moved across to The Bridge, not Up North.)  No, City are a 21st century horror; one created entirely out of The Prem’s seduction by ‘Arab (or somebody Other’s) Money’.  Suddenly, we’re all lost in a sandstorm where the barchans are made of banknotes; where the origins of everything are unknowable; where there really is no foundation.

Chelsea got there first – before City, anyway – with the money thing.  Abramovic bought success and stuck around, presiding in a fashion we can only speculate about, his degree of control/interference/dictation being (again) unknowable.  The club has been his though.  Championships and even a turgid but triumphant Champions League campaign have followed, with (in my view) shockingly little dissent from the fans over his utterly amoral metier.  Managers have been brutally hoofed in a way that suggests Abramovic is indeed both a brute and a geezer ‘oo don’t knar ‘is fackin’ futtee.  Eventually and quite possibly ironically he has a frazzled, destabilised Benitez somewhere near the helm.  The club has gone from flash to kindof sordid, has it not?  You could only be proud of Chelsea, as a fan, in an aggressive/defensive kindofaway; not proud of how the club is.

In this respect City have come towards Chelsea.  The cheap blitz of wealth and acquisition now having passed through that anschluss/honeymoon phase into something truly hollow but still competitive.  Players who clearly owe negligible allegiance to the City Cause – but Big Name players.  Factions.  Noises off.  A kind of ugliness, symbolised (and I attempt to reflect the cruelty and bad taste of the average opposition fan here, perhaps foolishly) by the unattractive fizzog, as well as the unattractive activity of the boy Tevez.  City as some brash new ego-maniac brand; sometimes sparkling, sometimes depressingly disappointing; a metaphor for the new age in and out of the game.  For all these reasons, today’s cup semi is no popularity contest.

After…

The game was nearly fabulous.  Certainly exciting, with a coronary-inducing openness and that familiar stamp of a footie match where defenders often looked like they simply could not be arsed to defend.  (Surely this is weirdly and maybe disturbingly characteristic of the current Premiership?)  Unfortunately this was not the only stamp of note – Aguero two-footedly clumping Luiz in a fashion that should have seen him dismissed – he wasn’t.

It would, however,  be churlish to overstate that moment of callousness in a game that had much to recommend.  From the opening, City were bright and penetrative, bristling with ideas and running power; Chelsea were simply overrun.  Out wide and central, where Mikel was displaying either the nerves or the qualities of a rather ordinary player (you delete…) the disciplinarian structuralist Rafa’s posse were ragged, whilst the faux-bully classicist-fascist male-model Mancini’s unruly horde were impressively ON IT.  So no surprise – indeed predictably – that symbol of thin undeservinghood Nasri (see earlier gripes/continue at will) bundled through with some good fortune to notch a goal; for himself mainly… but also his estranged team… and yeh, the supporters.  I didn’t see Mancini’s reaction; I suspect a shrug and a turn away.

It took Chelsea a good half-hour to turn up.  By then we had seen frailties all round the park, including the obvious thing around there being too many diminutive ball-players in midfield – an alarmingly counter-Rafa state of affairs that continues, rather charmingly.  Notable I thought was Azpilcueta’s discomfort; with like everything.  The Blues (in black) did need Ramires and Mikel to enter meaningful contact with the game.  They continued to refuse all offers, though they did come, for City – with Milner again in infuriatingly one-paced and wasteful mode – were far from perfect.  ‘Twas one nil at the break and this seemed about right.

I have been known to air my displeasure at City’s striker’s greed around the box, as though this was in some way emblematic of yaknow, their selfishness and the shameless humbug that is free-market egonomics.  This persisted today, for me.  Tevez and Aguero seemed as likely to square one to each other for a tap-in as Arthur Scargill is to read the eulogy at the #Thatcher funeral.  Whether this single-mindedness (stroke greed) is coached at City I can’t say.  It suits my purposes, I guess, to continue to use it against them, in an unlicensed moral fury, until they grow up and jolly-well pass to each other. The point is this game could have been over had they showed any public-spiritedness of the sort that tends to form an essential part of a sports team; not at City, apparently.

Aguero, as if shut up folks like me who maybe under-appreciate his brilliance, scored with a header.  Then Ba, on the half-turn, following poor defending, got Chelsea back in it.  There followed a period where City, in their turn, drifted and sat, giving Oscar and co the chance to create and me the time to indulge reservations about the clunkiness of Barry as Oscar and co breezed past him.  (Couple of years ago both Barry and Milner looked proper England players; now they could barely be more limited, more uninspiring; what happened?  Oh – they’re England players!!)  On the plus side this meant the match was pretty close to exhilarating at times, as Chelsea poured forward for the inevitable equaliser.  It never came.  City won.

Many of us have mixed feelings about football being in the hands of people who don’t know the game, or worse still could never convince us they want to listen to our understandings of its daft joys.  In that way there are parallels with capitalist politics, yes?  (He asked, absurdly.)  Maybe I’m a pompous arse but I am not entirely able to untangle my feelings about these clubs/this match from the crassness and delusion and cynicism at the heart of the contemporary game.  Chelsea FC and Manchester City FC, as well as having some of the world’s significant footballing talents to call upon, represent now a lot of stuff that ain’t good.  I don’t say them alone… but they are the apex of a crappy Premiership triangle; or maybe polygon; or maybe something bit more insidiously amorphous.

Things aren’t simple anymore; the exposure is so massive, the intensity so SO unreally high definition that we are being invited to pay homage rather than view.  This troubles me.  Odd to be so dissenting of a really pretty captivating match?  Perhaps.  Perhaps.

Stand Down Margaret.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

So she finally did step down from that jewel-encrusted carriage; her head dizzy with accolades, with glorious confusion, the baying crowd perceived as purring kittens to her leonine, English majesty. She descended smoothly, unaided, to some lavender field – it should be stiff with barley? – in that singing niche of her memory that for her, forever, might be if not Ingerland, then Grantham. And as she walks, from that shop, from that street, into the butter-cupped facsimile of that rural idyll, the parting crops do then draw up to attention… and the birds stop… and the limp sun stills above the willow. Because (she thinks, or somebody thinks) something major has happened.

And maybe it has – unless I dreamed it? Maybe there was an event as well as a death. Maybe we have to concede that? And then… in what way do we rejoice?

A rake of us – a simmering multitude with every bit as much gumption and fight and ‘conviction’ as she – many of us recoil from both that faux English idyll and the idolatry, the (in our view) slightly weird, slightly perverse adulation for this woman. A woman we link to some blanched – or maybe that should be scorched? – Englishness. A brutalist and therefore hugely uncultured (opposite of) outlook. A leadenness too; dull and grey and introspective in the worst of ways – bigoted, actually – reeking memorably of contempt for the most fundamental human rights in say… South Africa, as though Apartheid itself was some acceptable province of this Way We Were nation. (Mrs Thatcher, remember, led when it came to propping up the dying racist regime in the pre-rainbow nation. Should we celebrate the memory of that, I wonder?)

Even those of us who happen to be blokes, who think it was kindof great that a woman got to be PM are denied the possibility of respecting this woman. Most of us knew already, pre the coiffured barnet, accent and manner that Thatcher’s obvious bitterness, that vile and one-dimensional and utterly hypocritical (no apology for labouring this one!) ‘conviction’ against the trackie-wearing classes, The Immigrants and The Homosexuals would make many of us squirm with shame or rage. The fact that she blew a historic opportunity for Britwomankind by being an utter and malevolent donkey in the role of PM has almost passed us by, such was the magnitude of her dislocating pomp.

She was sexless and yet quasi-regal, love-fodder for the dumb fawners and the prejudiced. The Mail invented her surely – she must have been pressed out of a centre-page special entitled Ideal Dictators? I can’t explain her any other way. The thought of her (and I know it ain’t jus’ me because we’ve been talking, right?) simply does my head in.

She got at us personally, I suppose, one way or another. In my case, we were yeh… close. Having been born and spent the first twenty-odd years of my life in Grimsby, I moved to London to work as a photographer’s assistant in what is atmospherically describable as The Thatcher Era. I had no money and shared a room in a rundown, terraced housing association gaff with one of my brothers. Hilgrove Road. It was great yet completely crappy in a way that we didn’t mind but that made parental visits unthinkable. Stepping outside the door though and walking the couple of hundred yards up to Swiss Cottage was a revelation to this particular smalltown boy. I had never really seen posh motors – Porsches, Jaguars, Rolls Royces – down here it was crawling with them. How did that work?

Now I know this car thing may not stand up as anything other than duff anecdotal opinion but it had real meaning for me, it was true – it became truer, in fact – that there was money here in a way that had never remotely been suggested Up North. Moreover as this admittedly crass osmosis of the divisive character of Elite Southness became better enriched by my experience/observation, so my political and I think philosophical oeuvre cobbled itself together; directed (if cobbling can be directed?) by Thatcherism. It became obvious that the most humungously cynical fix was going on; put simply, that the Tories were fixing it for The South. Because it didn’t matter in terms of votes or constituencies or voices how much mithering The North got up to… the South, under Thatcher won out. A massive and indeed overwhelming number of safe Tory seats in the London area effectively farted in the face of the rest.

We all knew that was what was going on. Politicking of the rawest and most unsophisticated kind. Parliament entrapped. Toffs and Tories flicking a superior brand of the V’s, whilst busloads of Home Counties-returning coppers flashed their wage packets at incandescent miners. It was deeply ugly; a legacy I was reminded of last night when a friend, having howled when the subject turned to a possible State Funeral, suggested a burial more appropriate, in her view.

Sling the old witch down a fackin’ mine-shaft. (And yes, for the record, my friend is an Essex girl. And yes, she would be right in wanting me to point out that I AM AWARE poverty and discrimination existed in the South too during this period but I stand by my identification of a very real North-South divide – construct or function though that may have been of a regional and possibly parochial standpoint. And she is with me and I am with her on the notion that Thatcher quite deliberately set us against each other… and incidentally, what does that remind you of?)

Recently (and here I’m not speaking of any reactions to the death – I’m avoiding media on the subject pretty entirely) there appears a rather sickening fashion for appreciating Mrs T’s determination and commitment to things she believed in. I’m not having that. Why credit the prejudices, the immoralities in fact, of a world leader in bulldozing folks apart? My most crucially politically-formative years were spent in a great city-state which barely acknowledged the existence of Another Country out there. Or more exactly knew all about it but didn’t give a toss. Because an allegedly strong woman was making allegedly tough decisions. I came to see her then and over time as a shrill weakling; a brittle, thin-blooded creature who plastered on thick the slap of bravery and ‘conviction’. I never believed a word – and I still don’t.

My/your Cricket Club; Junior Coaching – a proposal.

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The bigger picture: I’m in the market for slinging ideas around and would be happy if those triggered pretty much any kind of response. This is a friendly challenge – even if you reject it in a patronised huff.

So there is no suggestion here that the My/your club ‘model’ is necessarily broken, merely (like everything else) we can maybe improve it. We can and should challenge ourselves to do better… and before the cries go up, this is not remotely the same as ‘being too serious for our lot’.

One of the things we might do better, for example, is to INCREASE the amount of fun/entertainment we offer. More than anything, perhaps, we should look to avoid DRIFT; preparation and reflection can help us do this.

Our responsibilities as coaches/cricket people are what? Amongst many other things…

  • To develop players towards excellence?
  • To animate and enthuse?
  • To ensure everyone remains healthy and safe.

To achieve these things what do we need? All 3 demand some planning; whether or not this is back of a fag-packet stuff or immaculate tables of options and measurements. Do something that works for you. I know what time pressures are all about!

My general proposal is that we become better focussed and more dynamic by setting out our objectives – perhaps our individual sessions? – significantly more clearly. Far from ‘putting young players off’, I think that we will retain and entertain our young players if we offer them something that leads them somewhere, something other than just a hit, a throw, a bowl. Statistically, we are losing players from the game in the mid-late teens; I think this is partly because coaches let sessions drift. So it’s difficult to avoid this notion that we need to plan things. As an example if we ask ourselves what (broadly) we might need to cover with our young players, we might suggest

  • Core skills
  • The generic game – an understanding of what you do
  • Team needs

Then we need to address how best to offer up these skills. I’m suggesting a flexible coaching plan (weather!) where ideally we set out OBJECTIVES for individual sessions and for the season, with age-appropriate, challenging drills. Think through percentages of time spent on the three chief disciplines; think about how – and how much – technical information you give out. Think about maintaining energy and focus throughout sessions in particular – think about how you can minimise drift. As coaches I’d suggest that an important part of what we do is both an assessment of how players are doing… and how well our sessions have gone… and relationships (the link, if any) between the two things. Plus is there a way that we can support each other on what we do? Should we be having a monthly pow-wow to keep up to speed with player’s progress and our own delivery? Is a sort of hierarchy unhelpful or helpful in all that – who’s ‘judging’ who? I think we come back to that word ‘supporting‘ here, hopefully? Nets. Nets are the obvious example of where most clubs underachieve; we do! Far too often some bloke gets padded up and smashes through the ball for twenty minutes before somebody else does the same. Meanwhile bowlers bowl too much/too casually/without any real commitment. This must change. We need (and I would argue that the young players need)

  • less nets/better nets
  • clear objectives set by the coach – specific shots/specific gaps?
  • a considered and challenging environment which seeks to replicate match conditions
  • in other words, FOCUS
  • better attention to SAFETY ISSUES.

We need cones to mark out where fielders are, we need two batsmen who actually run, we need CHALLENGES and DISCUSSION and LEADERSHIP from the coach. We need reasons to be doing what we’re doing. I think this is a really good cricket club and I’ve always felt privileged to be involved; that doesn’t mean, unfortunately, that the status quo here is good enough. Whether we like it or not, we are facing all sorts of challenges – financial/competition from other clubs or sports/apathy amongst players and the general population(?) All these are arguments for improvement – for change. With this in mind I am asking those that are comfortable with the idea to firstly consider what their best contribution to the coaching of their allotted age-group might look like, then produce a plan for 4 weeks of coaching. Simple and short as you like – a brief outline for 4 sessions – meaning a paragraph or 2, that we can discuss and maybe share. If you want to go on and offer a longer view for the season – great. I think that would be a real step forward. This is not us getting too boring and serious; it’s us being more dynamic – really adding value to what we do – whilst bumping up the energy, the entertainment.

Understandings.

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Is it just me that thinks that Rio – in his admittedly low-voltage kindofaway – appears to want to give off both something of the guru and the gangsta? (And I ask this in the awareness of the danger of slapping stereotype upon racial slight or slackness here.) He’s got a certain power in that low-geared, almost ambling style of his that diffuses itself into ‘projects’, some of which conflict. Is he, for example (or is anyone else, mind?) really an anti-gun/knife, pro pro-empowerment-thru-education, unfaithful metro-renaissance man with what appear to be occasional flashes of lefty intelligence, who identifies with black urban music and an oppressed worldview… and produces/approves films/music with a worryingly confrontational dynamic? If so how does that all work? And why am I wondering that?

It’s partly, of course, because I’m a white geezer who really doesn’t understand or know the territory – I accept that. But it’s also because we are, right now, by his centrality to the England selection fiasco, pretty much bound to wonder at his integrity – maybe at his level of maturity (even) – given the undeniably childish way this Hodgson/Terry/Fergie/Rio/Qatari/Spinal Rehabgate thing is unravelling. In brief the er… highlights;

1. In a previous life, Hodgson foolishly chooses Terry over Ferdinand

2. Rio sulks but continues to radiate that god’s-gift sweeperaciousness whilst nonchalantly easing round the park…

3. so as to make ultimate re-selection an inevitability.

4. When the call comes, Rio snubs…

5. And Hodgson shrugs…

6. And ‘statements’ come out…

7. And they all sound like cobblers. Embarrassing cobblers.

8. Essentially, Rio has apparently done everything to exact a kind of revenge upon Hodgson, the FA, and the universe. It’s garbage – all of it. Sez yer average fan.

Now might be the time to say that Rio Ferdinand – even allowing for the debilitating injuries (particularly, I imagine the back injuries) – has been close to the best centre-back England has ever produced. If he had remained free from pain and boundlessly agile, I think he may even have been England’s finest player all round. He is one of few who can stop people playing whilst caressing the ball about the place. He can head, tackle, read the game at a level far higher than most; then he brings in that composure, that comfort on the ball and his peers – let’s say like John Terry – look quite quite ordinary by comparison. Fit, he would have been the best centre-half in the world, as Ferguson said he might be on the day he signed for United. For emphasis, I want to repeat that he’s been pretty damn close to the best centre-half in the world whilst playing hurt for years; he’s that good.

But now this. The potential for yahboosuckery has been there for some time. Without being party to the (entirely normal, actually?) clique-making proclivities amongst the Engerland FC elite, it’s been clear that Mardy-Bums lurk. Ferdinand – wow, I realise that this is such a contentious thing to write about him – appears to be an individual (amongst several – black and/or white) – with a chip on his shoulder. Therefore unlikely to accept the vagaries of a new gaffer’s policy on this or that should it clash heavily with his own needs and indeed self-image. I imagine Ferdinand can’t stand any of Hodgson, Cole or Terry and these feelings are likely reciprocated. What is a wee bit tiresome here is the fact of Engerland’s Need.

Egos. Mountainous and cavernous and generally all-round large and hairy interveneth. And it clangs against our – the punter, the fan’s – sense of what is good and right about Playing For Your Country, however dodgily old-fashioned (or not?) that concept may be. A big lump of the universe thinks that playing footie for his/her country really is an Ultimate. Yanking up those formerly Umbro socks, trotting out to wave at an openly weeping cluster of friends near the Royal Box, ritualistically parping mucous out the nozzy as the ref counts down the seconds. Ultimate. So what… what’s happened to those standards, those understandings? Given that Rio is still, currently, our best centre-back?

There is an assumption that few modern players appreciate the import of these classically traditional/tribal feelings in the way that Stanley Matthews or even Stanley Bowles did. That yes or no from the England Boss meant a huge amount. Dads did blub; mums did flutter with a pride that wasn’t all nationalistic mania; it contained or described even a kind of love. It may well still be out there, in fact; it’s just that we feel overwhelmingly that such is the absurd and cosseted and raw self-important nature of the average Premiership beast that these things typically just don’t matter like they did. (Whether this in itself is a phenomenon to regret or to celebrate, by the way, is another fascinating, quasi-political matter – but one for another time.) Certainly the modern elite pro’ doesn’t need to care about much; he is either rich or obscenely rich; there are no worries about security or profile; when every need is so luxuriously taken care of a certain smugness surely sets in. (Generally.)

Footballers are not known for their sensitivity or intelligence; though the game has changed, the prevalence of gambolling youff or over-coiffured senior – now with ‘people’ – has persisted. Rio is not one of the Grade A posers, being quietly cool rather than fawningly fashion-conscious. He’s grown out of a fair amount, moving further towards that genuinely exclusive club where players who are held as true exemplars draw the phrase ” Aww, he’s a player he is”, (or similar) from supporters home and away. He’s class and that’s been obvious for ten or twelve years. But this England thing ain’t classy.

Certain papers will have a field day with the trip to the Middle East to spice up coverage of the England game. Considering the allegedly stringent requirements of Ferdinand’s Injury Management Schedule, Rio could hardly have been taking the piss more effectively had he first run to Qatar, then scored the winner for Montenegro on the way back. That’s a YAH-BOO-SUCKS of a fairly exaggerated quality. It’s hard not to equate this with a turning his back on England, as some unfortunately very public tit-for-tat effort unworthy of too much of our attention. But gor blimey look how much attention it’s gonna get…

How we wish to calibrate this on the rebellionometer will naturally depend on where we sit on the issue of nationalistic fervour-as-community spirit(-ometer.) Whilst not understanding (and certainly not knowing in grim detail) half the nuances of half the Fergiesque mind-games that have been played out in the last few days, I do understand the following concept, arisen like a bedraggled moggy where there should be three lions; disappointment.

 

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Six Dimensions.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Through that haze of beer and banter the single most memorable thing about Wales’ outstanding defeat of England is simply that it was a fabulous sporting occasion. Whether you were there, in the pub (like me), or at home flying miserable solo. I have little no doubt that even you residents of Billy-No-Matesville found the telly-throbbing energy of the thing compensating pretty entirely for your (on reflection) shocking absence from Cardiff itself. Meanwhile in the er… Six Dimensions of the pub I can tell you it was fierce and joyous and fun.

This is a unique fixture anyway – we all know that. Ludicrous or not, the hairy-arsed oval-ball diehards and the clean-cut and the metro-sexually svelte amongst the Welsh would pretty uniformly trade failure elsewhere in order to win this one. Because it’s England. The argument that this seepage of energy in a single direction may effectively undermine more serious campaigns against (for example) the Tri-nations elite barely penetrates the national consciousness here. Blame Owain Glyndwr or Dylan Thomas or Ivor The Engine if you will. Or watch Alun Wynne-Jones (that’s Al-leeen, by the way) sing ‘Mae hen wlad fy’n hadau’ then just go with the irresistible flow of it – the Taffness of it – because the scope of this one is not, in fact, to be described. Only to be felt. It felt extraordinary yesterday.

What you don’t see outside the principality is that huge numbers of ordinary Welsh people – old/young/sporty/non-sporty – get their red kit on and join in. There is a kind of post-Boyceian National Grid running off the generally good-natured but admittedly fast-twitch-fibrous boozy nationalism centred around the capital. On days like yesterday, with England in town, with the roof closed, with Everything To Play For, the Millenium Stadium itself does generate something special. The word ‘atmosphere’ falls short; this being something simultaneously cathartic and communally-shared, inspiringly epic and piercingly, soul-searchingly intimate – for players and crowd. So deal with that, England.

Pre-match there was speculation around the relative inexperience amongst Lancaster’s side, specifically the lack of Millenium experience. It was one of many sub-plots to the contest that alcohol-fuelled or fuelling cod-psychologists such as myself raised with our glasses. Who might be brave enough to be calm in such a maelstrom? Farrell? Possibly. Young/Launchbury/Marler/Goode? Who knows? Clearly there was an advantage for the homesters – might this really tell? Within about six minutes, it had.

Wales absolutely de-stroyed the English pack at an early scrum… and then again… and the pattern was effectively set. A retreating England reverting to conservative type (understandably) but crucially feeding the glowering opposition possession, via more or less aimless kicks from Goode, Youngs and Farrell. Kicks which fell either deliberately or accidentally several yards beyond any follow-up chase. If the policy was to hoist and sit back and defend resulting charges with composed resolution, both the law of averages and the intimidating scenario mitigated against success. Wales (or anybody else half-decent) will hurt you if you give them 70% of the ball. Most likely, kicks were nervously over-hoofed.

Wales dominated every area and as the game grew, so did that domination. Robshaw started well but was ultimately swamped under the outstanding Welsh back row – where Tipuric matched at least the excellence and ferocity of Warburton. Wood and Croft seemed near-irrelevant. Likewise Tuilagi, the one possible source of loose canonry from the whites. The most natural of the English runners took his eye off a perfectly catchable pass half-way through the first half and was never seen again as an attacking force. Ashton – who quite frankly had no right to have set foot on the park, given his desperate contribution to the tournament – made only a further decisive grab for the individual wooden spoon, as worst player in the #6nations. This the most obvious error by the England management.

Beyond that, Lancaster and co sat back and went through their full, eighty minute grimace routine. The irresistibility of the Welsh was to most a thing of some wonder… but not, I suspect, for the watching Rowntree, Farrell Senior and Lancaster himself. Rowntree will know he has to take a long hard look at himself and his forwards, post the mangling they received in every facet of play. The fly-half’s dad will not either have enjoyed much of what he saw. His son stood up to be counted with a huge second half hit in midfield that momentarily stemmed the flow but even that defiant clump counted for little. Remarkably, Wales were not just winning the championship, they were absolutely rampant, with Cuthbert scorching in for two tries as the scoreboard went into Cymro-dreamland.

The tempo of the Welsh game, upped from the outset by a re-energised Phillips enabled an unthinkable demolition of a previously doughty English defence. Momentum is maybe the word of the sporting decade; here Wales had it in spades, in lorry-loads; they were mining it. After maybe five minutes of parity, at no time in the game did England threaten. But think on that. Even when looking an effective side, they have looked somewhat toothless, have they not? Goode and Brown seeming competent or composed often enough but rarely menacing. As chirper-in-chief Austin Healey has said, they still lack magic.

At the Millenium, with Barritt looking a solid defender but little else and Tuilagi as absent as any white from the line-breaking stats, Wales indulged. Roberts finally found some form, making headway for the first time for aeons. Davies ran with belief and both Cuthbert and North cut through. Wales – the team and the nation – could barely believe its luck; full-on and wonderful indulgence followed. It looked, sounded and felt spectacular; like top, top international rugby football does.

It’s unwise I know to use words like ‘massacre’ in the sporting context. But that was what we were saying, in the pub, when the screen said 30-3. You wondered, looking at good English players being repeatedly over-run or out-flanked or out-fought by this Brotherhood of Redness, whether the occasion had swallowed them, or had their limitations been simply found out? Or more exactly I wondered that – the rest of Wales was bouncing now, in (and I don’t mean this critically!) dumb euphoria at a win against the English.

Afterwards and later – yes – the ifs. Principally, ‘If Wales had turned up in the first forty against Ireland… blahdiblah’. They didn’t. As England were here, Wales were simply blown away that day – that one half – by the passion and the belief and the pace of the opposition. Otherwise, obviously, a Welsh Slam. That both the Irish and the French should have such crushingly disappointing tournaments – such bad ones – maybe does reflect the ordinariness of some of the fare. Perhaps this #6nations did need a carnival farewell ? Thank you for that to Wales and the Welsh.

 

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Bute Park Divers.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I walked that millennium way

My hurry a commonplace in the eye of the border

And the riverbank

My breath in unison with the joggers and the students,

The bud-killing cold some amber glory

But the stands as silent as the fish.

The whistle of that city bustle no doubt stilled

After the game that swallowed him

For no man in its dream of Jonah or of Jaws

Drunk well on its remembering.

I bounced on,

Drawn to the bridges.

The flush of youth is here

Craning for trout, or bikes, or signs

The students in their lycra shoals

Miked up to saccharoidal bliss,

Found within their luminous buzz.

Who is lost amongst the cityfolks?

Distracted, scarfless in the permafrost.

Is it cold, cold in there

Where the tiddlers dream who won?

Not traipsing off to Ely or to Eden

By foot or boozy mini-cab

I flank the water.

I wasn’t close – and yet I was.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Because some dumb people still aren’t getting it…

bowlingatvincent's avatarbowlingatvincent

Encouragingly, this sport thing won’t go away. As both a political argument and a philosophic one it’s stayed present because like some shirt hoisted into a euphorically-stacked crowd, it draws loads of us. Our instincts kick in around it. Essentially, we’ll grab a hold, thank you very much and we’ll pull as hard as we need to establish our part – our ownership maybes.

Young and old, man and woman. Think of those around you, think of the things that animate them, that light them up with either joy or fury or the most hilarious disproportion; probably sport. The lines blurring magically over whom, exactly, is taking part; everything coalescing around some need to play or join or represent.

I know not everyone gets it. (Shame.) At a time when we as a nation have greater need than ever for obesity-reducing running about the place, we can easily side-step fears…

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Catch.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

That soft sphere clasped in her blind ‘basket’

Those four eyes handling.

The adrenalin shaking out its fur.

She goes again.

Through that matrix of fraught failure,

Dry-lipped and unexpressing

This little girl is nearly smiling.

Again.

Airborne – she and the tiny earth together

Palmed out towards the radar

Of her own blurred universe.

She grabs; it falls.

By now the room is watching.

Again – a hopeful exhortation

From Dan and Jack and Rhodri bach –

Again.

They know this is not rocket science,

They know that it’s not luck

That coaxes or coordinates such things.

But I’m the coach. Not pre-disposed I hope

To seek for epic confirmations, lightning bolts.

A gentle word.

With barely a flicker, she raises hands.

We lend our focus and the ball… lands.