Author: bowlingatvincent

An economic crisis

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Money can be personal and it can be political. By that I mean we feel its impact acutely both in our individual lives and more abstractly via some sense of how the high street, the county, the country seems. Right now, I have a personal shortage of dark vulture-swung-canyon proportions, mirroring that which apparently afflicts the (entire?) eurozone.

So am I a special case? Clearly not. Is there any comfort in this current, fateful tessellation of inner and outer skinthood? Is there bollocks. The laughably small business I have lies broken-backed on the valley floor whilst the inevitable narrowly post-dinosaur nimrods scan for signs of weakness. The fact that half of Europe feels like this fails, at this particular moment, to lighten the spirit.

So I need to make jokes/watch wonderful sport/write about stuff/recycle the juicy juice/hope that something gives. And I am. Believing and offering up and pursuing, with my characteristic utter lack of proportion, rationality, guile. Hugely, honestly aware that though I can’t afford to fix the truck/am not able to draw cash from the business etc. etc. my more significant privileges remain free from the shadow of capital(ist) fact.

And I breathe them in deeply and think, powerfully and laterally and without any despair how we might dance through this together. Work on the refinery shutdown; work at the gallery/tourist centre; work please god following a call sending me urgently to New Zealand to shadow Eddie Butler, who’s having trouble with his laptop… and writer’s block… and could I possibly knock out coupla columns? Likely or unlikely ways onward.

In one sense I love this knife-edge of possible bankruptcy and possible mindblowing leap forward. At the risk of sounding nauseatingly indulged (I can’t make you believe that there’s really no financial airbag here but I’m not seeing one) I’ve often claimed to be contentedly insecure. Not entirely in some crypto-buddhist unattached present, but pretty close, where a healthy insecurity is certainly preferred to a reactionary stasis. As a unit, me and my beautiful wife do believe we can live for a while off our wits and now we may have to. This, for us, is a test of will and imagination as well as book-keeping.

Each of our cases is unique and I seek no comparisons, being clear that we are fortunate that the prolonged exercise of my evidently poor business skills may yet be a springboard towards less prosaic business in an ideal world. Conversely, and necessarily, I am gearing my expectations down (too), being prepared to go back to where my working life started – in the frozen food factories of Great Grimsby, if you must know – or to the Pembrokeshire equivalent.

How many of us now, with how many cruel or crushing backstories are congregating in this generally greying niche of the crisis? How many have real hope of betterment? Or of achieving financial parity ‘once things straighten out’? Best not to focus on these abstract economic concepts too keenly methinks; we might find people wriggling underneath.

Eight changes…

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“Eight changes” – of what, kit?  Once every 12 minutes or so, to maximise bird-pulling possibilities/employment of backroom staff? Of formation? Of tack, or strategy, or manager? (Now we know it can’t be that). No, this phrase that seemed to resonate so, from the Five Live commentary from Lisbon was merely a matter of numbers – superficially. Playing numbers; meaning players who are good enough to wear the red of United, away, in the Champions League, in what is likely to be the most challenging fixture of their group stage.

But I’m even more than usual an unreliable witness. In fact no kind of witness, other than the aural kind, following the infuriating refusal of our antiquated telly to trap ITV. (For some reason the channels are slipping away like a soapy ball circa 1968 from under Bill Foulkes’s boot.) And rather than sling the thing out into the street, after having the kids take turns to hold down the 1 on the remote – which worked for about 30 seconds – I spoke gently to the telly and doinked it,  reaching for the laptop… and Five Live.

Which is rarely a disappointment.

And so, whilst other senses were engaged with the business of wolfing down pasta/tuna/pesto – or P and T as it is affectionately known in our house – my ears tell me that a proper European night was unfolding in balmy Lisbon. Atmosphere; chances; flashes of brilliance or that diaphragm-gurning fear of such brilliance from their number 8/9/delete where appropriate. A stunning home goal, with Johnny Evans critically drifting when an admittedly special pass unzipped him. A rare but welcome sharp finish from everybody’s favourite shagger, Ryan Giggs. (Blimey girls, imagine how sexy the boy Ryan would be if only he could have… finished?)

United are ludicrously tooled up in the penetration department. Though I didn’t actually see them I believe Berbatov and Owen were amongst the predators left unspent on the bench – this in addition to the part-used Nani and Hernandez. A small digression here, before I go onto further labour this point about United’s absurd luxury of gifts…

I was on the Llyn Peninsula only the other week when who should almost bump into me – presumably in some crass attempt to get my autograph – but M Owen esquire. He looked small, young and very fit; end of. He will clearly have few opportunities but the otherwise supra-dull Mr Owen will, in his boringly defiant way, surprise no-one with a couple of significant, well-taken goals (Carling Cup/late on in Champions League matches?) and I for one, will be pleased for him.

But how far will the fizz and the flash and the alround foxy-in-the-boxiness of United take them this campaign? Evans’s blunder will not be a solitary blip on the defensive charts – though he will feature less once a) senior players are fit, if ever and b) Fergie realises he has to pick Jones ahead of him… everytime. Over recent seasons United have been pretty close to outstanding but you would fancy top players to expose their defence. Vidic can be made to look poor by pacy strikers catching him flat-footed; Evra’s defending for the last year has been, in my view, consistently shocking; Ferdinand is often imperious but more often absent.

However, to Ferguson’s great credit, United have been about attacking for aeons. As soon as you give them the ball, they are a threat. Amongst his other undoubted gifts, Rooney’s pace is at times unplayable. A simple one-two may be executed, leaving a defender utterly out of the game as the formerly balding one bolts for the return – or the return of the return. Hernandez is that precious thing the natural snaffler of sharp chances. Nani can play, no question, but needs a kick up the arse and most of us would like to give it to him.

On the one hand the team is manifestly brimming with goals… but hilariously there are a few dunces in the corner in this regard – Carrick/Fletcher/Anderson certainly, and to a lesser extent, Giggs. But to answer my question… United are looking better than last year and I like the freshness (and the challenge) Jones and Smalling are putting out. If they remain impregnable or their relative inexperience is not significantly found out then the reds are serious candidates – as in truth are City – for the last four. Barcelona remain favourites.

Back to Lisbon and a draw probably acceptable to both sides. A match with momentum and colour and something of that special atmosphere. A proper European night then, honourably competitive; one to cap with a walk on the coast path and a humbling perusal of the stars. In reality it’s thirty yards up and down the road, with the dog snorting snail-traces; bats though.

Rugby World Cup Fantasy

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Level One – where our daft fandom spills over like beer…

  • England qualify top of their group / Scotland do…
  • New Zealand get a grip / the grip is tenuous and the choke potential merely rises…
  • Wales go out following tragically breathtaking defeat against Fiji/Samoa or both / Wales beat South Africa in the final
  • Brian Habana refuses to play following spat with the management / Habana gets a pass
  • Argentina second to England in group / After a Puma prop takes over kicking duties
  • Elsom and Pocock guide Australia to glory / Wallaby pack implodes against England
  • Above the other way round
  • Richie McCaw breaks turnover records / McCaw sinbinned in final for persistent offending
  • France make 15 changes to team for quarter final / they get beat by England
  • Ireland proceed as dark horses / O’Driscoll magnificent in quarters victory over South Africa
  • Scottish back row rampages through tournament / Then they wake up
  • Kiwi’s turn on an absolute exhibition in each of the knock-out games and a nation rejoices / the world smiles with them and applauds

Level Two – where surely we must be drunk…

  • Wales qualify top of their group following Springbok implosion / England commit to 15 man rugby
  • Shane Williams scores hat-trick as Wales crush All Blacks / James Hook plays 10 and joins the pantheon of world stars
  • Martin Thomas wins a late call-up for Wales and dives over to win final / Then converts
  • France blitz Australia in magnificent semi / Australia steal it from France
  • Argentina beat All Blacks in quarters
  • Guest appearances from Lomu and Carling / Carling stops Lomu in his tracks
  • Lomu gets up and tramples entire English defence / But McCaw penalised for use of hands

Level Three – where spookily things reflect what might really happen…

  • England All Blacks final
  • Australia New Zealand final
  • Wales beat Aus and Eng but fall to All Blacks
  • South Africa have it relatively easy until clash with NZ in semi
  • Italy make knockout stages
  • Argentina really do beat the All Blacks in the quarters!

‘Real World’ likely fixtures and results…

Quarter Finals

Australia 20 Wales 16

England 16 France 12

S. Africa 19 Ireland 9

NZ 30 Argentina 16

Semi Finals

Australia 16 England 19

South Africa 17 NZ 23

Final

England 18 NZ 30

And what do you think?

No surprises

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Surely the money – the big money, the imaginary money, my money, actually – was on England Argentina being crunchy and one-dimensional rather than Michelin-starred fare. Stodgy, because England will surely have regarded this opening fixture as a serious threat to their tournament. Their victory therefore, in the narrowest sense answers everything. They won.

Martin Johnson would however, probably have delivered a prolonged bollocking to his embarrased players afterwards. Repeatedly giving away cheap early penalties was surely the first sign that English eyes were glazing over but Wilkinson’s poor kicking was perhaps the most striking reflection of the not quite all blacks limitations on the day. I personally expected them to revert to rather depressing Johnsonian type because this England team is both ordinary – but powerful – and manifestly not in the grip of inspired leadership, on or off the pitch. Still they did manage to significantly underperform, again, whilst beating a Pumas side that would have given any of the real contenders in this competition a major test first time out.

( A footnote; I have just this second witnessed the cruel defeat of Wales – again! – by the Springboks in a comparatively luminous match which nevertheless suggested that the Argentinians would, for example, have more than stretched the flawed World Champions and the Welsh).

The Pumas clearly stretched the English to the point where any sympathy amongst the unbiased rugby-watching world for Brian Moore’s compatriots petered out with each slow rotation of the narrow range of possibilities learned, we imagine, by rote by everyone from Armitage to Cole. For a few minutes England looked brutish and purposeful but later they were merely characteristically dour – the epitome of everything rugby purists (epitomised by the Welsh?) detest. Johnson will I think react with fury to the general lack of quality and to specific errors, as well as to failures to execute. Then he will mutter darkly that his undeserving side won… and Gatland’s occasionally inspired boyo’s got beat.

For that, disappointingly for the watching majority, was what happened despite a near-inspired twenty minute period of the second half when it seemed that tries were about to rain for the Welsh. South Africa were reeling; Roberts looked like the Lion of old and Warburton – who’s missed tackle was instrumental in the Springboks 3rd minute score – was becoming the force many are now predicting. It seemed unthinkable that Wales could fail to convert overwhelming possession and territory into a substantial lead. But then following another surge from the rampaging centre the ball was carelessly surrendered and late on Priestland, who had previously shown admirable calm and direction, inexplicably pulled an easy drop wide. Proof yet again that pressure and expectation and the moment separate the winners from the worthy.

Wales’ tournament may now be agonisingly ‘poised’ rather than having taken flight after a famous win. To deservedly beat the Springboks would have been a huge lift from which all-singing and dancing Welsh backs might have threatened even the few world powers of the game. Surely Gatland’s players knew this. Interesting perhaps that few have used the word ‘choke’ to describe Welsh inability to convert opportunity into win(s) – perhaps this is a legacy of the goodwill towards the nation that represents and supports the spirit of rugby playing better and more genuinely than almost any other. Those neutrals will be hoping for Hook and Williams S to respond with flair and imagination to what was undeniably a devastating defeat; whether this will carry them through against the bullocking Fijians and Samoans may be another matter. Some Welsh fans fear it may not.

So again we might feel we can bless the Welsh for their colour whilst condemning the grey English. But look at the scoreboard. Young’s moment of sharpness in a dull matrix of English meanness means almost everything.

Impure speculation

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Ok so I spent time in Canada and was struck by the locals (everywhere!) passion for hockey. I watched schoolboys from Oakville and semi-pro’s from Thunder Bay; the same. High tensile, testosterone-fuelled balletic brutality cheered upon by parents or truck drivers psychotic with feeling. Equivalent, absolutely, to our footie. Wayne Gretski and Mario Le Mieux (if I remember correctly) were godlike – Rooneyesque – in their pomp. I watched Canada v USSR in a university campus bar and nearly suicidally cheered for the Soviets, such was the volume, magnificence and crassness of the home support. But man they meant it; this was the lurid expression of something powerful and wonderful as well as daft and politically dubious.

Now an appalling number – does the number matter? – of fellow hockey people have been wiped out; in Russia. A sort of Busby Babes echo – only more multi-nationally devastating – reverberates, for now even this hard-wired northern sport has ‘gone big’ and gathered in players from distant lands. Thus in a city we know nothing about (Yaroslavl) a spectacular pool of A list skating talent has been cruelly wasted. Lost too a Canadian coach – Brad McCrimmon.  And inevitably cruel worries will begin to gnaw, about what immediately should have been done and what, more broadly, consists airline safety policy in the region.

But having loved Canada’s heartiness, through the depths of several feet of snow, in fact; through the clatter and skid and bawl and body-check of hockey games; despite the absurdity – perversity even – of this link, I feel sad, deeply sad to hear of this loss. And I imagine and I think I hope that my soul brothers and sisters in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan are, at least in their minds, laying wreaths for their Russian friends, for the 11 foreign players, as well as the teams Canadian coach.

Away

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So going away is a kindof imperative. Ya need to, ya have to, it makes spiritual sense. Maybe the crushingly banal “change is as good as a rest” motif tessellated somewhere in the shadowy but soft-focussed depths of your mind has something, enough truth to make it worth the effort of packing all that stuff?  A picnic. Water. Information; mobile phone stuff, dog stuff. And that’s just for the journey. In our case this was up to the Llyn.

So we’re in Pembrokeshire, meaning we scoot – or creep and boot! – straight up the coast, pretty much. Over the glorious pimples – the Preseli’s – ‘cross the often really rather majestic Teifi and then up through the Mid-Wales coastline, where you can’t overtake for 60 miles, unless you get your Lewis Hamilton head on, which I do, when it’s safe, at about ten minute intervals. (Make that twenty minutes). Think about stopping at Aberaeron, which should you be slowish, educated, maybe foodie people might entrap you – so far we’re proving too young, too wild, too… on a journey. But I don’t rule it out, for the wide-street regency(?)-battenburg thing that’s going on is certainly appealing; and maybe too the marina I mean harbour. But by one principal car park the sea-wall and indeed the seaside is more concrete than abstract in its er… appeal.

But I’m being snobbish. It’s almost certainly a lovely town, Aberaeron – certainly parts of it are – but like much of the alternately low-slung/darkly brooding townie developed coast from here to Aberystwyth and beyond, compared to Pembs, it’s crap alternating with high pastures. The coast, that is. Something to do with the non-sand; and caravans; and fields. So we tend to look for kites.

I have, in this context to relate a minor but possibly horrifying tale for soulful or, perchance, twitchy members of my readership. On a recent jaunt up here in my capacity as coach to a junior regional cricket side, (I thank yo’), during a moment of coach-like joviality I bet the assembled players (12, aged 9 or 10, on a minibus) 50p I would see the first red kite. And I did. However it failed to dawn on me until the return journey that I think none of the boys had understood the red kite in question to be a bird of prey. They had (presumably) assumed I’d asked them a surreal question about… red kites. What this says about their family lives in rural South West Wales I try hard – very hard – not to be too judgemental upon. But I don’t care in the slightest if I sound pretentious in the following revelation; that my son and daughter both knew what a red kite was when they were 4. Maybe earlier.

In case you are interested, there are loads of Kites in this part of Ceredigion and beyond because a) the world is getting more wonderful and b) there’s a feeding station just up the road.

You skirt Aber ‘proper’ as you go North, into richer territory. Views of more authentic mountains and authentically twisted, bat-friendly trees. A flash of Aberdovey, of a river, of a railway. Less kites but maybe an osprey as Machynlleth approaches. Detour to Ynys Hir, the wetland/estuary wildlife reserve south of Mac, for a walk, a picnic, a squirrel-fest. Wonder what the posh hotel that apparently doesn’t take kids is like. Fusty and pompous? Or a relief? Imagine staying there when we’re older and foodier and all that. Wild sex and willow warblers. Maybe.

On through absurdly walled mountain flanks – Cadair Idris – passing glassy glacial lakes and pubs fit for proper trekkers with filthy boots and good taste in bitter. Down the ensuing bullet-road, who’s shamelessly exposed invitation to speed I fully intent to accept, in an Aston Martin, one day, pausing for a celebratory pint – or overnight stop! – at the Three Foxes. Then on, past stony Dolgellau.

Having stopped for healthy nosebaggings at The Quarry Cafe, Machynlleth, we were keen to (I was keen) to press on, but the Mawddach estuary is always a treasure and in the sunshine, the extraordinary railway bridge framing the view, I almost stopped. These few miles just south of and leading into Barmouth are just top. Beyond it gets caravanacious and Scousiferous and Mancunatious, as we know – and why wouldn’t it with a real, major population within striking distance? Fortunately there are the local, hoodied mountains and the views of Things Further Off; the big guns of Snowdonia proper.

Harlech is worth a proper shuftie and I always had a soft spot for the wacky little toll bridge towards Porthmadoc – a 12 year old boy inevitably fidgeting with his Nintendo between curt revolutions of the STOP/GO sign. Otherwise blast on past Criccieth and Pwhelli, both of which seem disappointing. Getting close now, to our bolthole by Rhiw. And things open up and we lose the people and the tack and the everything, except that land’s end feeling as we roll past Porth Neigwl. Second time around, we find our slot, down a gravel track, to a loose, child-friendly, animal-friendly former farmstead. Here. Let the dog out.

A REAL MONSTER WORLD CUP !!

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Let’s hope the coming Rugby World Cup doesn’t suffer the indignities and the general scorn deservedly poured upon Channel 4’s coverage of the World Athletics Championship. In trying to rescue the situation, that near-hunky young bloke in a lumberjack shirt, with worryingly good teeth, who looked like maybe he was just about to offer the nation DIY tips, convinced almost nobody, even with the fairly wonderful Michael Johnson supporting.  The commentating ranked about no. 142 in the world this year, and Iwan Thomas – whilst coming across as the kind of geezer you might want to jaunt down the wine bar with to swap news about bands coming to the Uni – performed substantially below his PB. Given the outstanding nature of some of the sport… t’was a shame.

And it’s only now that having looked at telly schedules, I begin to fear a repeat…

Steve Rider – too smooth and bland by half – whom you might imagine has no connection whatsoever with sport, never mind rugby, fronts ITV coverage, with ‘back-up’ from Craig Doyle. (ITV1 and 4 have it all. The Beeb lost the radio slots too, to Talksport). Personally, I won’t miss Guscott’s slightly porky platitudes but the Butler/Moore axis, even if watched from behind the settee during their Anglo-welsh spats, will be missed. Big Eddie – a cultured and generous sort – will be essential reading in The Guardian and Observer, whilst Moorie will apparently be contributing – sharply – on Talksport. In combination with David Campese, the gifted and lary Aussie winger, that could be worth a listen. But it’s the action that counts, right?

The All Blacks have to be favourites, despite recent defeats in the Tri-nations. The fabulous tension around their likely progress is all in the head; but the head of a nation, plus, in truth, a whole world of rugby-conversant bystanders, now familiar with and even excited by the notion that the Kiwis could choke. Again. The Blacks are an astonishingly engineered and prepared side, year after year turning in performances of a standard far beyond anything achieved by pretenders from the North. This year is no different. France and England might compete for parts of a game – usually not more than about half of it – and an inspired Wales side (who have been known to genuinely threaten them) may conceivably make a match of it… but I doubt it. The All Blacks are still – are always – in a different league in terms of their pace and handling at breakdowns; they are more ruthless – magnificently so – when opportunity twinkles; they seamlessly switch from planned moves to electric impro’. They still have McCaw and Carter and so much more besides.

Surely then, they have too much for any of our lot? England may benefit from the need to be massive/conservative in dodgy weather and tight games – though games tend, unsurprisingly, to be tight when teams daren’t play expansively. Which England turns up per game will either by a complete irrelevance or an important and developing theme in the tournament, depending on results during dodgy weather and tight games. Ireland are almost certain to be found out as a seriously declining force fairly rapidly. Scotland may compete with real honour in a group suggesting forward power will be key, but surely they could never get beyond a quarter final? Wales, as always have a real pool of talent, particularly in the backs, so that if something really goes for them – a special and uplifting moment or two from Hook or Williams, perhaps? – then their Lion-like colours may begin to chase. But surely not to the end?

The Aussies and the Springboks however, do pose a legitimate danger – as real as the sickening possibility for psycho-doom alluded to by so many already. It appears likely that the Aussie pack (or perhaps more accurately their front five), having been mangled by the Italians and the Irish in the group phase, may not carry them to ultimate victory, despite their recent Tri-nations success. Elsom and Pocock are odds-on to be influential or even outstanding, but for the Wallabies to win big their admittedly hirsute ‘girls’ – extraordinarily minus Giteau – may have to play out of their skins. Indeed, for anyone other than the homesters to win the tournament, it may necessitate a new breed of exhilarating brilliance to emerge; or might it just be moments?

Whether the South Africans, until a year or so ago arguably on a par with the Blacks, can produce enough… I wonder. They should bludgeon and/or dance their way through their group and if they emerge fired up and confident then maybe lookout. The ideal scenario for us who are either unbiased or who know in our hearts that our own are Mullered Men Walking might be all three of the Tri-nations giants shaking off the minor inconvenience of the group stage with a controlled heat idling. For then we might see that top level international rugby really can be as dangerously exciting as a forest fire.

So burn burn burn.

Manchester, Manchester, Manchester…

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Football supporters up and down the land may have received yesterday’s Mancunian jolt with a mixture of emotions. Some may have been energised in the manner of Joan Miro – artist and occasional boxer – who could not function without an occasional creative kapoww! like that delivered by the two Manchester clubs against southern softie opposition. Others may have groaned in the realisation that the season may be over already in terms of its spatial distribution of trophies. Chelsea fans may beg to differ, but they will already be aware that they too may be being drawn into a subduction zone where the bulk of the UK footballing continent is now being obliterated by United’s dynamic heat and City’s sudden explosive plume. Clearly, the performances of the weekend were near freakishly brilliant, but does it not feel, already that an inevitable lava flow has lipped out over the brow and rumbles towards us mortals?

Perhaps it does. Perhaps it’s a worry. Certainly if Chelsea continue to splutter in the face of these sulphurous gasses and Liverpool fail to make the unrealistically big step up, the Premiership becomes worryingly thin on viable – should that be buyable? – competitors.

Arsenal, let’s be clear, were absolutely massacred by United in a fashion that should and will be unacceptable to Wenger, to the fans. Even allowing for the ludicrous confluence of stunning, confident finishes that did for them, the Pat Rices of this world must have been outraged as well as shell-shocked. There was something bizarrely appropriate about Walcott – a young man who for me played himself out of contention for the last World Cup through near-embarrassing schoolboy inconsistencies – understandably rollicking his colleagues for their elementary failure to pressure the ball. You can’t always defend against brilliance but you must defend.

Wenger’s principal failure has been to accommodate defensive players who are comfortable on the ball, who do the footballing equivalent of rotating the strike, but who get bowled middle stump (in other words, fail to defend) when the quickies put the squeeze on. Most of us applaud the quality and the nature of the football his teams have played; some of us might even argue that they have succeeded, beautifully, in recent seasons. It’s just that they were not durable enough in the hurly-burly to win; enough.

The goalkeeping issue and the defending issue should have been sorted. I wonder therefore, if Wenger is perverse enough to have debarred himself – out of a kind of continental superiority to us depressingly low-brow but gutsy Brits? – from buying real but inadequately skilful defenders. Surely only a complete ban on spending should have prevented the purchase of the necessary stoppers and blockers to make the crucial difference; even if this meant paying over the odds – something Wenger seems understandably loathe to do. In a side brim-full of technique and imagination might it not have been a relatively easy role to fill, the honest but limited defender? However, in a world where there appear to be alarmingly few decent keepers, the number one shirt may be a special case, a difficult one, but I personally cannot imagine there is no viable and ideally local candidate to stuff between the sticks.

But back to Manchester. City may be finally close to having an outstanding team as well as great individuals. With at least 2 strikers currently inspired by something, it strikes me that if they can learn to either love, listen to or bear Mancini enough, this really could be their time. Silva and Nasri can twinkle and Toure and Barry block. (Simples). United meanwhile seem to have yet more pace and energy and belief; plus they know exactly who they are playing for; probably the most brilliantly durable football man ever to have thrown a tea-cup.

The future’s orange… fanta!

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It’s been a spectacular sporting week. For me, I mean. Finally, appropriately somehow, I’m perched casually but respectfully within Porthmawr Surf Life Saving Club’s inner sanctum, with what amounts to a Lifeguard’s view of Whitesands beach, Pembrokeshire. I’m at the back, effectively of the lookout, aware of the sun and the bright, cold blue sea, easing towards me, the water loaded with belly-boarders and squealing kids and further off my son cruising the surf on a banana-boat of a longboard. It’s a scene that has an epic, quietly stirring quality – like some finale, perhaps.

This may be just ‘cos it’s Friday(?) Or it may be that my energy, drained to nil following an extraordinary and outstanding week, seeps out to the horizon. Whatever, let me tell you what’s been happening.

Spent 3 days up in Aberystwyth in my capacity as coach to a (junior) regional cricket team – perhaps it’s best if I don’t specify entirely. Smallish boys, possibly sleeping away from mum and dad for the first time, playing competitive/festival cricket. Individual rooms – six along my corridor, six with my colleague. Parents and guardians are typically staying locally, but not in fact allowed to dorm with their children, who ultimately finish up 2 or even 3 to a room. (Sweet!) Perfectly acceptable if functional rooms, with bistro style and quality grub – and loads of it.

Our cricket was a real success, the lads playing with the heightened focus of those energised by a) a challenge b) an adventure c) a shit hot coach. However, two meals in – that is, after a packed lunch and then the evening meal Monday night, certain foodie issues have arisen.

When I say foodie I’m not talking Otto Lenghi. I’m talking (only) relating to food in a conceptual way rather than anything qualitative. Because food appeared to exist in theory for these hungry young boys, but not in practice. They failed to eat; or they certainly failed to eat meals.

Instead, even when gently encouraged by myself to think about re-fuelling sensibly for the next bout of sporting combat, the lads chose snacks. Make that ‘snacks’. When presented with an actually pretty decent turkey salad sandwich, plus apple, crisps and mid-range drink (by this I mean faux-healthy fruited water rather than total shocker) they chose crisps only. When presented with bistro-quality nose-baggings at evening meal – following a 35 over per innings cricket match – including several good and undemanding opportunities for mid-range healthy eating they typically chose only chips, or chips with the plainest lump of meat available, most of which was soon discarded. At every meal salad, broccoli, carrots, peas were present, but like the girl at the school disco with the allegedly smelly knickers, they remained tragically and notably unpicked. On every occasion mum or dad was actually at hand, the following conversation would he heard

You alright?

Yeh.

Ya hungry, I bet?

Yeh.

Whatya had?

Nothing.

You telling me there was nothing, nothing you liked?

No.

Go and get yourself something…

Cue the tinkle ping shlapp of a vending machine and the arrival of… fanta/coke/fruit shoot plus lion bar or equivalent. Meanwhile I had feasted on pork loin with noodles, plus salad plus (because it was free) coupla roasties, brocc/carrots peas and fruit salad to finish. Or, okay, carrot cake.

After evening meals, football; we ventured out onto the nearby astro-turf to further entertain our 12 tired but by now increasingly vocal players. They ran around like maniacs for two further hours, pretty much. (I meanwhile, more heavily loaded, adopted the Baresi role, bringing magnificent and clinical order to the otherwise skeletal defence). They were weirdly greedy goal-hangers.

On returning to the University dorms, a calming game of charades had to be abandoned before ear drums were actually burst. They’d gone utterly mental, these kids, with tiredness and excitement, yes, but as I live and breathe the clear and unanswerable truth was they were beyond hyper with setts of sugar rushes, with additives, with non-food crap. I have never seen wild, wide-eyed looney-toonerdom so up front and obvious. On two consecutive nights, even with a deal of coaching the alternatives, these boys were hysterical.

Arguably I should have set out my stall on this one a tad earlier – the sophisticated away team notion that suggests look, listen and learn you Rooneyesque plebs. But I am no health fascist; I don’t know enough to be a complete bore on this one. And yet even from the point of view of a gastro-dunce I am compelled to risk the following, especially given that these kids are in fact budding elite sportsmen.

  • What gives? How can these kids get to this food-free place when they and their parents have gotten and are getting a reasonable lump of education on food issues?
  • Have they really been allowed to by-pass fuit and veg? Really?!?
  • At what level should I be intervening?
  • Is it already too late?
  • If our real sporting talents – all of these guys are decent, one or two are close to Wales level cricketers – are this shockingly bad at ‘looking after themselves’, what does this mean for us more generally?
  • Should we knocking their parents heads together?
  • How do we pay for the hysterical fatties of the future?

We had a wonderful time at the cricket festival – we even had Cardiff and the Vale on the rack. The kids were fabulous company, they tried their hearts out, I am so proud of every one of them. But Jesus, when it comes to eating, things go weirdly, weirdly wrong.