Sport

No fat lady has sung; to my knowledge.

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Read something really quite interesting the other day. On the subject of fickleness, I suppose, or at least regarding the alleged facts of fandom – whether or not this notion of the part-time or unreal fan is a fair kop. (That worth a ha ha?) Or whether it’s always been statistically the case that most fans either have more than one true love in their football ether, or actually go to watch more than one club; god forbid. Anthropologists studying that commonly identified sub-group The Bloke will be unsurprised I think that within this revealingly sharp and often vitriolic debate about Prawn Sarnie Munchers being Scum-a-the-earth or the Financial Lifeblood of the Premier League, there is a historical narrative for infidelity. Apparently, for yonks, it has been gently gently secretly the case that supporters have been de-tribalising themselves in order to watch better teams outside the immediate thrall of The Manor, or shouting Ev’ton one week and Liv’pool the next (for example.) Thereby dancing silently upon the grave of their own authenticity in the eyes of all right-minded people – like themselves.

God it’s a twisted world.

In life I make a point of a) being a huge optimist but b) never really believing anybodies facts and figures, so I won’t mention that the above research on home supporters is liberated from an article in Spiel magazine, lest you go accepting/reading it. Besides, I’m dealing in the woozily general again here, and do not intend (even) to write an article about football. I merely throw in this psycho-geographically resonating lifebuoy to provide comfort to those unable to persist with a post that turns out… against the early expectations… to be, in a roundabout way, about rugbystuff.

So what are we like, eh? One minute we’re crowing or guffawing at either George North or the Irish Pack; the next we’ve drifted. Back to the Real Sporting Giants – Drogba/Suarez/Torres and soon enough Rooney. As though they can or rightfully do satiate our needs both for sporting drama and mighty role-models. Providing us with everything a fan – fickle or sanctimoniously beyond those apparently spurious judgements – could ever ask for.

The Six Nations comes to an unseemly deadstop, like some campaign in the Daily Mail undermined because it suddenly seemed Leftie; quietly and terminally, mirroring something of the muffled bitterness articulated by those dubiously rugby-converted purple rinses with their suddenly cultivated obsession for Our Stuart Getting That England Job, ahead of that Mallett man, with his unsettlingly dark features. The natural order of things succeeding, in The Mail and the proper world; properly.

The sudden smotheration of not just The Six Nations but of the existence of rugby in the British(?) consciousness so soon after that final toot at Twickenham last weekend must surely be a metaphor for something. As well as being another one of those alleged facts. Perhaps it means that – shock horror probe – folks are not died-in-the-wool, touch-pause-engaged fans in the real head-to-the-left-now-hit-like-fuck sense. They – like most of the referees at international level – have no genuine feeling for, or understanding of the dark arts or finer points of frontrowdom. They admire something of that knightish physicality; wonder how that game can go on like that with that bloke reeling around under the trainer’s insensitive touch, four foot six away from the ongoing action. Why don’t they stop, like in proper games? And how does that counter-rucking thing work anyway? And how can that thing there be right, when thingumee just pawed oosit with his studs? Like that!?! Deliberately. What ARE the rules exactly, about that?

In Wales and quite possibly Ireland there is some general understanding. The Vinnygeez has waxed lyrical often enough about this. (In Wales) red cloudbursts of communal expression; joy through clumping; tries against the English as symbols of nothing more than reasons to exist as a nation. Proper engagement on a national, visceral and poetic level. Max Boyce as the Pope/Tom Jones as The Singing Pope – or something. Something like a very much friendlier triptych than might be produced (on a post Grand Slam bender?) by Francis Bacon, let’s say, who despite his fringe-celtic toff-centric out-there-ism I suspect didn’t know much about the game of rugby. Like many residents of Soho. Apart from Brian Moore. Who really does know plenty.

But I fear I digress. (Like for a living, almost.) The point I wish to make is that there is some sudden flopping off the continental shelf going on here, as the Fact Of Rugby slips like some unappreciated gloop into the all-consuming depths. And I am interested in the reasons for that. I have a hope that because the general level of sportsmanship, commitment, fitness and honourability amongst top rugby players is so absurdly high that therefore its profile and relevance and capacity to touch the hearts of (ideally) nine year-old boys and girls will deservedly soar. Leading to – amongst other things but as a suggested minimum – a manifest improvement in respect for the planet and all who inhabit it/the necessary election of a series of humanitarian socialist governments. Because rugby really is pretty wonderful, containing as it does a uniquely focused and encapsulated form of selflessness, teamwork and bravery that entitles it fully to snort derisively at (for example) Drogba’s ham-and-pineapple quattro-staggione-in-one-day blousy affectations. Rugby I know not being perfect but rarely being that embarrassing. But I fear I digress.

Look the rugby season for our friendly Six didn’t finish just because those games did. In fact right now the club season approaches its critical phase; Heineken Cup; Premiership Trophy; equivalents and more to the massively more exposed football carnivals. So let there be space for both in your own personal calendar.

And on the international scene this enthralling but actually parochial knockabout recently enjoyed may well feel disappointingly clubby compared to summer tours or autumn internationals against the acknowledged kingly beasts and champions of the game – the Tri-Nations posse. Either way, don’t look away so prematurely, so part-time-supportedly, so uninformedly now. Because quite frankly if you invest a touch more of your time into appreciating what these backs and forwards are up to, you may well find it’s shockingly expressive of the greater sporting instincts. Those that touch pause engage upon support; heart; camaraderie. Remember them?

So that’s it then… he said, coolly.

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Wales have rightly claimed their Grand Slam. Good teams do stuff like that; express their superiority; by winning things. Following on from a World Cup where they were indisputably the darlings of the watching globe, it is surely particularly appropriate that we can actually treasure – all of us – a time when that most thrilling combination of liberated running and invincible belief have overcome more prosaic cultures. Because that’s what’s happened.

Wales have carried that flame for flair and expression thereof more convincingly and more closely to their hearts than anyone else. Because the essence of what they are doing is notably purer than all the remaining Six Nations sides. Because the Welsh nation wills it. Because the coaches – Gatland, Howley and Edwards – believe they have the personnel to make it work in a cynical age.

So what we get is a fascinating mixture of olde-worlde philosophical generosity (does that sound faintly laughable?) and modern drive. Gatland is clearly a gritty but inspiring sort; Howley a past master of many of the graces perpetrated by ‘girls’ and Edwards a challenger, an enforcer, a furious, steely bundle of aggressive stepforwardnowism. What is Cardiff Central here is the ability to engender real trust and belief. Not the flip-chart version; the mild-mannered or over-coiffured version. The real deal. This the Welsh leadership have managed – along with virtually everything else – modestly, with supreme confidence and not a little style.

The combination – that word again – of contrasting personalities all apparently gathering, picking and going in the same direction is one of the more discussed and imagined notions in successful team sport; it is however, rarely observed in the flesh. It’s here in Wales. In a land uniquely (probably) close to and well informed upon its national sport, people proudly identify with Warburton’s previously described Brotherhood of Redness. They might do that as a matter of course. But things take flight, passions and glorious expectations rise when there is an understanding of some value-adding extra dimension in play. It’s here in Wales. This icing-on-the-cake goodness thing. What’s not to love about your own team being both mighty successful and magnificently entertaining?

This, of course, is mere context. Welsh Windbaggery. And what pleasure it gives me to wave this flag for sporting poetry and – yes maybe – pomp, pretty secure in the knowledge that the Six Nations Table concurs with my view of this emblematically Welsh triumph; goals (or equivalents) paying that rent. Lest this ode deteriorate further into hagiography however, I would like to say a few things about what these victories were grounded upon; actually.

Start at the front. There has been an argument that Wales were in some sense not big or brutal enough to compete at the Very Top Level Up Front for some years. This argument may have had some merit to it in days when there was evidentially a shortage of cover for Adam Jones or Gethin Jenkins (say.) (This could and was also said about the second row, mind you.) In other words there was an informed view that Wales did not have a sufficiently strong or deep pool of front five assets. Fair cop. It may even be an issue now against the Tri-Nations heavies -possibly. But Wales front three against France today contained at least 2 world class performers for me – and the third, Matthew Rees – is no mug.

The second row has likewise more than held its own in this tournament but Alun Wynne Jones and Ian Evans lack the obvious class of the fellows immediately to (and up and against) their rear(s.) This hardly makes them weak links, mind. They are merely decent internationals – Wynne Jones being almost worth his place for the brio with which he sings “Mae hen wlad “etc etc.

That back row for Wales is, in the current jargon, immense. The full complement of Lydiate/Warburton/Faletau at 6/7/8 compares favourably with anything anywhere on current form. Lydiate was justifiably Man-of-the-Match today for his fierce commitment and industry, his ability to deny the opposition. Warburton is rightly already famed for his sensational athleticism and power and Faletau has the uncoachable knack of always and often crucially beating that first tackle. They have, as a unit, taken up the challenge and indeed the mantle of whirlwind All Black back rowers who have achieved almost unplayable heights in terms of their dynamism and ability to unzip the breakdown. The opposition now fears an open game against Wales for many reasons – one of them being the dangers posed when the likes of Faletau and Warburton flash from phase to phase.

But let’s face it, the fabulous truth is things get exciting when the ball goes wide. Jonathon Davies has had a superb Six Nations; Jamie Roberts a good one. But the new beasts, the cherubic outhouses on either flank have probably garnered most coverage, most glory and most points. (Haven’t checked – but you know what I mean.) George North has arrived, often with a mass of Englishmen/Italians etc attached or being swatted contemptuously aside – that’s if they had the fortune (good or otherwise) to actually lay fingers upon him. He looked like some choirboy-alien in red; some babe born immediately before the match, at 19 stones, then hurriedly unbuilt or transported to nothingness for the following week. So that the fluently superlative but somehow other-wordly charging through normally – hah! – proportioned defences could begin again. He’s er… beyond stardom already.

And then this bloke called Cuthbert turns up. Weighing in at a similarly absurd tonnage, with similar gifts for elephant-trampling or – apparently – tap dancing. Massive.

Again let me dig out one of my pseudo-anecdotal wotnots here; about this linkage between Welsh back play and culture. The fans, the people of Wales really know they have something extraordinary going for them. They know this both intuitively – in their Red Souls – and in the detail. A young woman (Sales Rep, as it ‘appens) waxed authoritatively to me recently about the weight and power advantage Wales had in the backs for their trip to Twickenham. (Meaning obviously the likes of North against say Strettle). I was fascinated by her appreciation and her relish for this new turbo-injected Dragonstuff. Glee was certainly present at the gateway to this new, physically enhanced dominion. But the nature of our conversation remained almost spiritual; does that sound laughable?

She understood, she knew, it was implicit in what she said that the game in Wales has not departed from its upliftingly sunlit dingle. Moved on, yes, but not departed. Gatland has led a revolution for mad, old, daft ideas. Both icily as well fervently – he has chafed as well as smiled no doubt. He has prepared his Brotherhood quite possibly better than any rugby team ever before. They have a remarkable team ethic because they believe in him, in something. And as that something is clearly and obviously to do with the expression of gifts as well as the exercise of power and planning, I am unable to refrain again from using this word poetry. Meaning a kind of inherently beautiful expression. In this case, on a pitch.

The difference

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The mood in Wales is different this time. There is a quieter surety about the thing. People – and in Wales this means nearly all the people – are bustling along with purpose, reflecting the emergence of a different language of being. Rather than being predicated upon that naturally occurring defiance – that celtic fire – this all-new, cooler mothertongue is born of some elite cryo-therapeutic confidence, it seems. As though the whole nation has been queueing up to march into those portable cubicles now favoured by the Brotherhood of Redness itself – the national rugby side.

Can it really be the case that in car parks from Haverfordwest to Harlech, butchers and bakers and candlestick- makers have been topping up their god-given verve by chilling to the Amazonian Max? Is Dai the Taps really freshly emerged from a minus 120 hit of re-energising bliss? Can he really stow away those spanners and tighten up with miraculous finger-power alone? And is Dafydd the Doors really shaving them down with his daily-renewable but diamond-edged bristles? Too right. For this is the era of the supermen.

Wales knows rugby and it knows something has changed. They have gone from being merely the best Northern Hemisphere side to watch into being the real powerhouses of European rugby. They have enormous talent and enormous backs. They look unstoppable. Right now, as Merv the mighty Swerve is rightly remembered, a new breed of animal is snorting in the background, ready – unbelievably ready – to step out and make their own statement. These fellahs are equally as proud and passionate as the former number 8 was. But they are utterly different in terms of their levels of conditioning – one reason amongst many that Warburton’s team will surely roll through any legitimate nerves to extinguish French hopes of spoiling the national party.

And yes, there will be a party.

Look away now… and over here!

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Certain things remained unsaid. So here they are- well, some of them

  • France are ordinary. (Okay, I said that but it bears repeating.)
  • Sharples was unfortunate to be Yellowed and Yellows matter. He was also, I thought, guilty of either that Rabbit-in-headlights emotion or lack of focus at two or three moments. Couple of pretty embarrassing ‘tackles’ which will not be acceptable.
  • So Strettle will come immediately back in, if fit.
  • Is it just me or are people generally enjoying Ashton’s current malaise? Despite another relatively low-key performance he made a sensational midfield hit which led directly to Tuilagi’s outstanding try. He’s got something; if he gets his rugby-player-not-football-player head back on… look out. That’s if he’s not dropped for that penalty clanger. Mouth!
  • Morgan had at least two superb breaks, where he looked spookily fleet of foot for a big man… and then showed fabulous hands to offload cutely out the back door – on one occasion putting Foden directly in. A huge find for England.
  • It was commented upon by the indomitable Mr B Moore esq, but worth noting that brotherly backslapping from England backs to packmeisters after great work in the scrum. Almost as though they’re on the same side!! (Moore made a brilliantly astute comment about English moral victories in the scrum (in Paris) opening up a wound in the ‘French psyche’.)
  • Croft, as all have observed was massive; in Lineout and in the loose; everywhere. His pace and the nature of his movement around Rougerie for the try was class.
  • The removal of Beauxis when a drop was almost inevitably going to be key was surely mad. Trinh Duc has barely gotten on the pitch and he has that dumped on him? Nah.
  • Farrell was really very good again- but not perfect. Bad penno miss and mixed kicking from hand. But his tackling was often stunning. Quite possibly in pole position for Lions 10 berth, amazingly.
  • Lastly, England did really very well. Their united white wall for the last ten was impressive. France, however, looked like strangers.

Look away now.

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Dowson family… look away now.

Not only is your magnificent specimen of a boy about to be laid very low by his own hugely brave but slightly bambi-esque attempt at last-ditch defending but he is about to get a face-full of studs from a no doubt grateful but in this moment elsewhere-fixated colleague. A bloke called Croft, who has earlier almost single-handedly doused French fires before accidentally and unfortunately crowning your son’s nozzer.

This can happen; to anyone. Anyone who is laying their body on the line – that particularly significant lime-washed line – in the dying moments of an Anglo-French rendez-vous characteristically loaded with thuddingly adversarial ros-bif. Also, in this climactic period, (some of) the family Farrell wince as the relatively diminutive Owen of their nobly tuned-in clan trammels up some oncoming euro-bison as he pounds into the 22. It’s a juddering impact shared by those in white – fist-clenchingly triumphant – and the bleu contingent, who might only acknowledge the English pivot’s ‘ballons’ in some cafe-bar, later, with a now depressingly articulated gallic shrug.

Emotions arising. From an exhausting encounter, won by the English, who scored tries – who were surely the better side? Away; in France; that place suspected by lilywhites at large of producing dangerously cynical and belligerent forwards and twinkling but unsteady backs. But hadn’t that former twinkler turned prosaic boss Saint-Andre bolstered the French weakness for girly expressivity through wholesale changes at half-back? In doing so surely delivering a hoof-enhanced robustness to his side? Indeed he had. It just didn’t work, entirely.

It didn’t work because Beauxis and Dupuy kicked poorly and because what we should surely now be calling Stuart Lancaster’s England flashed and stormed before them, being both flickeringly, individually inventive and collectively hearty. There was a welcome confidence and edge about England going forward and something close to invincible defiance, yard by yard, in retreat. Late in the game, when the home side finally shook that dark mane free, having lifted its head from some icy barrel, this thing became a Proper Test. A home crowd roaring, a home pack suddenly surging beyond its capacities with a momentum that churned the stomachs of the watching English. But not, apparently, their players.

Every tackle in that relative Parisian crisis bred an eager and an instinctive but heads-up realignment. On 78 minutes Farrell – remarkably – heaves Harinordoquy to a standstill. On 80 plus he hammers the ball jubilantly, in pain, sideways into the crowd before crumpling at the moment of celebration, his ribcage and shoulder area a bruised concertina. The last eight minutes or so had been a huge and increasingly physical challenge for Lancaster’s posse; it was one that almost to a man they accepted and rebuffed with equal and united purpose. These minutes alone may have seen off the challenge of Nick Mallett as well as the challenge of this ultimately ordinary French side. Perhaps.

The subject of Lancaster’s seamless promotion has already occupied most of the post-match coverage. Rightly, Sir Stuart-in-Waiting has eloquently side-stepped the issue – in much the same way that the strikingly rejuvenated Croft eased by a bewildered Rougerie for his stunning try. Lancaster – sometimes to my frustration, I admit – has talked a good game, an even-tempered game, in a way that makes some of us want to throw soft toys at the telly. He is so deep into the culture of Coaching Responsibility and Calm that he appears on time to have sacrificed any real personality he may have for some imagined cleaner, higher purpose. (Either that or he is one terrifying boring bastard.) However, even cynics(?) or optimists(?) like me who crave for the ungroomed or the truly original must surely concede the man has done a blinding job.

England have had players for some years. Now they have a unit which has a powerful understanding of fair expectation; to commit bravely and fully and generously to the wonderful and silly notion that mates and fans alike must be carried, connected, on that national badge, through that roll of emotion and pride and volcanic charge to some fulfilling, unknowable end. A place where your best is good enough, provided it is a wholehearted best; a best expressive of actually rather profound, communal aspirations. Lancaster’s lot really do appear to have re-connected to this… for want of a better phrase… love of the game. And – not insignificantly – they have won three times now away from home.

But look; let’s get realer. This stuff may not move those who will choose the next England coach. They will quite rightly take a dispassionate view; one fostered by continual exposure to rule by committee. They will examine the credentials of the small handful(?) of contenders and they will do it whilst twirling expensive pens in an airless room where even memories are nullified. The immediate renaissance of fleshy resistance from Robshaw and co may not register here. Hypothetical achievements under contrasting new leaders will be imagined… and the weightless protractedly weighed. And Lancaster – despite being in post and serenely so – may not get the nod. Because a) ‘things aren’t that simple’ and b) there simply is no justice.

So that ten minute period – that mauve patch? – in the first half at The Stade, when England destroyed the French with (amongst other things) a crushing tackle from the stropmeister Ashton, brilliantly exploited by Dickson’s quick hands and Tuilagi’s irresistible charge, may not be as seminally influential as it felt. The nature, the ludicrous majesty of Morgan’s bursts into rural France, followed by his exquisite offloading to support may not count for his gaffer. Even though we felt they were landmark statements of new-found belief; such things fade; such things fade.

In beating France, in finding something to believe in, the English have transformed both themselves and arguably this Six Nations tournament. They have genuinely become the second best team in Europe. They have begun to shake off their unholy and unworthy past. They have, in a really good way, made the choice for their next Head Coach a very, very big call.

Floppiness, floppiness, the greatest thing that I possess?

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I sometimes wonder if the opportunities available to our children are better chalked up in the negatives column rather than the positive. Not I think because I’ve got that twisted Victorian spite-as-moral-policy thing going on but out of… what, exactly?

I suppose again I’m thinking mainly in sporting terms here but before I’m through no doubt I’ll have meandered like a benign motorway-curious moose into all manner of absurd pseudo-prescient linkages. Kids and health/kids and emotional breadth/kids and valuation; ideas very much to do with some feared drift into floppiness.

What I mean by this is that state of slightly disengaged involvement with things; the result of there being arguably too many things – making it either unnecessary or unattractive or uncool to commit. We have to be careful with arguments like these – careful for one thing who it really is we’re talking about – but I’d be surprised if many of us haven’t had conversations over the ‘issue’ of kids and loyalty or discipline or application. Do we imagine (and fear?) that because kids seem to have everything on a plate that they may not dedicate themselves to any one thing? Do we – especially those of us who coach(?) – have that sneaking feeling children may be less likely to stay with us, in our sport, simply due to the near-unbelievable growth in opportunity and support elsewhere? Is that actually a worry?

It’s a feeling that exists, I’m sure. In my case it’s pretty entirely separated from notions of modern children or youths as some deteriorating, sedentary, Nintendo-clasping sub-species. I hate gadgets broadly and with a passion but despite the obvious worries about and even revulsion for this idea of whey-faced kids electro-masturbating their allegedly sad/geeky lives away in bedrooms up and down the land I deny this view. Without question too many kids are spending far too long playing on screens or gadgets and not long enough running around/climbing trees/scrumping apples from Charlie Webster in an adrenalin-fuelled, co-ordinated night attack. (All of them. Every succulent or wasp-drilled one, in one of the Olympian highlights of my childhood!) But I am happy to report that though this Facebook or Angry Bird-obsessed junior does of course exist – in some volume – he or she has failed to dampen and smother the glorious up and atters, the free-flowing batters, the whipped free-kickers, the spiralling punters. Sport will out.

As kids, we had nowt – relatively. Bike; football; cricket bat; worryingly dense block of wood which we rolled gingerly into place for a wicket. We weren’t taken to football/rugby/swimming/cricket/surfing coaching sessions like, for example my son. We just played/swam; learning along the way, ‘informally’. It was wonderful.

Wonderful but not better than now. In fact clearly less good in the very real and very important sense that sporting skills are now being coached and supported generally better than ever before. (Generally.) This may or may not equate to a rise in ‘standards’ – or even rises in participation – although clearly both are to be encouraged and aspired towards. Clubs – more than schools? – have really gotten their acts together. Yes there is more administrative cobblers, more posing going on from newly qualified and track-suited coaches, but there is also, in my experience substantially more focus and intelligence about the bringing of sport into children’s lives. Critically too, the relevant governing bodies seem to be genuinely aware of their solemn responsibilities to MAKE IT FUN.

Certainly in cricket, the ECB coaching system (which I understand – HA! – is again going to change imminently) is a more than decent model for offering children both entertainment and education in the game. One of the great pleasures of my life and work is to be involved in this lighting up of a child’s enthusiasm for charging about after a shinyredthing; because if you try you might even catch it; or stop it from… reaching… the boundary. Yes!! Come on!! That daft but wonderful love of the challenge; a challenge predicated (actually) on a kind of love for your mates – maybe those new mates you don’t even know because you just joined the flippin’ team… but look how they ran for me/you! That’s great that is!

In the last month or so I have been responsible for leading cricket sessions that were always going to result in the selection of a Regional age-group side. (Perhaps you’ll forgive me if I don’t get too specific?) So I can offer some evidence that is both ludicrously anecdotal but conversely ‘real’ and resulting from careful observations. I’ve coached boys – in this case – who have a very broad range of abilities because in our region, quite rightly, if you take part in even a very basic level of the Dragons Cricket programme, this will probably entitle you to attend Regional Squad sessions. What was outstanding and indeed delightful – again – was the magnificent and inspiring brio, life and
runaroundability of the group. Kids launching smilingly and ballistically at the warm-up; when they’re supposed to be er… gently warming UP. Sprinting gleefully when they’re supposed to be jogging; having waaay too much fun to be really focused. Loving it too much to listen.

And parents quietly chuckling at the state of Dafyd’s or Geraint’s hysterical Sport’s Hall Happiness; happiness not floppiness mind.   And me hopefully reigning it in, prudently, enough; enough to coach something (too.) This, thank god, this daft celebration of liberation and movement and communal fizz and juvenile but philosophically rich expression is defiantly a reality; still; I promise. So whilst YES we may be concerned at this aforementioned tendency towards some inner-ness, some retreat into new-fangled gadget-worship amongst children of this hugely pressured modern generation, all really is not lost. Certainly I can think of a game or two that is not lost.

Let the competition gather – whether or not it be pulsing with the flash and wallop of some war game or merely providing distraction through levels of rewarded but less offensive geekhood. Something tells me that humans need to gather and to celebrate their physicality. Maybe to run before they flop; maybe to run until they drop.

The level of sporting engagement will surely vary – as will its tempo, its type, its attraction. (Interesting in passing to note how certain sports have changed in nature, partly due to changes in society/perception and partly through necessary survival instinct; cricket being a good example. Apart from changes in format to increase appeal – to a new, young audience? – I am clear that the development of athletic prowess at the top of the game has been major. Suddenly and quite rightly it’s a non-negotiable. Good. Kids love nothing more than throwing themselves around; diving! To see Jonty Rhodes and then the likes of our own Paul Collingwood flinging themselves about like maniacs is part of what makes this a good time for cricket.)

But back to the general point. Which is I think that though this floppiness, this dull introversion exists, surely what we need to do… is simply make our games better? Cater well for the undeniable longing amongst so many and create that spark where there is none. The inclination, the faith, The Market is out there in the form of boys and girls and mums and dads who quite possibly instinctively feel there’s something great – tattifelariously, indefinably great even – about sport. So let’s not let them down, eh?

Diplomacy?

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One version of events suggests that the revolution at The Bridge featured a shocking restraint on the part of the owner – a man hitherto identified chiefly for his hatchet-mania. It is said that Abramovich actually supported his manager better and longer than the players did… before finally wielding the battle-worn veteran that is his Ukrainian Kukri. Thus we are presented with the possibility that Mild-Mannered Frank, known and loved for his A Level in Excruciatingly (S)killed Diplomacy (WhenFacedWithanInterviewSituation,Brian) and for his formerly likeably cuddly tumtum may – repeat may – have played a more aggressive role in the undermining of the brilliantly verbose ex-Porto man than Comrade Youknowwho. I’m shocked.

And could it likewise be that Ashley Cole, in a post-Napolitan strop, sought to apply the full, intimidating force of his intelligence to the de-stabilisation of Villas-Boas perhaps – I imagine through scrawling SHIT on the gaffers desk, or similar? And did Didier maliciously synchronise incoming Rolexes for that infuriatingly deadline-hugging fine-teasing screech of supercars into the car park, before winking knowingly at the watching but helpless ‘boss?’ We may never know.

We may never know if that kind of stuff mattered more than the dark, results-driven mutterings exchanged between the Real Boss and (again, I imagine) his own reflection most mornings, for the last month or two. But however, it seems sadly likely that the players… the players wanted The Bemackintoshed One out. More than the newly sensitised Abramovic, amazingly.

So no more absurdly fluent but amorphous/slightly increasingly ludicrous post-match roadkill dissections. And no more cruel dressing-room japes at AVB’s expense. So… so who’s next? The flawed Benitez – who surely isn’t to be trusted entirely to spend, spend , spend on the backbone of a new squad if his record at Liverpool FC is to be held in evidence? Who else? Who else, more to the point more likely than AVB to turn around a team that in recent times combines talent with an unappealing smugness?

Even throughout the good times – and let’s be clear folks, even now is a historically fortunate time for the club and its supporters – there’s been a tad too much of the histrionic (Drogba?) or the sulky (guess who?) or the near-bewilderingly indulgent about many of the sub-galacticos that have plied their trade at The Bridge. (Their trade being actually and apparently something they’ve appeared often to tinker with or dabble at rather than apply themselves to as though, god forbid, they meant to a) truly fulfil some meaningful contract with the club and the supporters b) stay longterm.)  Maybe this is what money buys? Mercenaries. Badge-kissers.

There may indeed be some traceable and even inevitable momentum leading us to where we’re at ‘darna Bridge’. Fans feel stuff like that whilst guys and gals like me search for encapsulating wisdoms; like this one. Particularly of late there’s seemed to be no team.

Who are Chelsea? John Terry was – Frank Lampard was – but this year’s flux seems to deny us any convincing evidence of who just might be next to carry that flame/torch/designer symbol. This living by mood is surely both a result of the Russian owner’s unstillness as well as of the consequent carousel of arrivals and departures from the dug-out – whether they be playing or more-or-less ‘overseeing’ arrivals. Bottom line, like the eyes of Dr T J Eckleburg, it is Roman who sees all. Voices full of money populate both Scott-Fitzgerald’s novel and the environs of the Kings Road. A key difference is that Roman scorches past the merely symbolic into the hands-on, the prosaically influential. He is tinkerer-in-chief, in truth, as well as sower of dreams.

So the club has lurched from one temporary beauty to another. Mourinho and Ancelotti, in their hugely different ways were on the one hand outstanding and on the other… gone. Hiddink too. Fans of Graham Norton will be familiar with the dumping chair at the end of his current run of shows, from which those who fail to entertain the Great Unwashed sufficiently (in Graham’s twinkling Irish eyes) are unceremoniously hoiked back’ards. Reminding me of Chelsea – or Abramovich? Who have the same crassness going for them but lack, generally, the humour.

So let’s return to that question: who’s next? Hilariously (from outside) it appears that Abramovocih has already exhausted the list; like serially. For me, Benitez is a goodish coach who rose periodically – i.e. in cups, typically – to the challenge of galvanising Liverpool. But he signally failed to produce a side which genuinely troubled those competing over the season’s length for the Premier League title. And the longer he went about that business, the less convincingly or astutely he dealt in the transfer market. Given that the Chelsea Project (volume 9?) clearly does imply a serious need for restructuring – culling, actually – as well as buying in, Rafa would not, I confess, be on my wish-list. Is he really top of Roman’s?

But who else is both capable and available? Mourinho – no? Hiddink – no. Guardiola – surely no?!? Does this already begin to bring us into contact with the untested or the (Chelsea)-undeserving? If Abramovic really does want to win and win stylishly that list shrinks yet further; to the extent that the feeling might be that Chelsea simply cannot get the right man; a feeling that first suggested itself whoa… about five or six years ago, or whenever somebody started kicking managers out every season.

Roman will surely go for a big name. Roman will surely not, however, concede to that new man the right to truly manage; begging the further question who, in their right mind, would want to take the Chelsea thing on? Unless for the money.

A confessional from a professional?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 1 Comment

High up there in the pantheon of sporting clichés there sits at least one about hookers. Somewhere behind the 47 crap jokes casually linking this most trusting of er… positions with flighty women and gaslit alleys. Somewhere on that flipchart of inclusive or exclusive banter between “Ya’ve got to be mad to be a ‘goalie”/ “Who ett all the pies ?” and “Gavin Henson is a Homosexual!” people say – even non-hookers say – they’re a special breed.

They are too. Anyone who is prepared to dangle off of the shoulders of colleagues in this most exposed of manners – with both arms effectively relieved of their ability to mitigate against serious injury – gets a pint of after shave from me. There must be surely a link between the morphology of their imperfectly expressed cruciform in the scrum, the necessary courage shown by hookers at all levels of their trade and the apparently described pathology of the breed? Which seems to involve on the one hand wholeheartedness and on the other a generally undemonstrative fearless mania.

And why wouldn’t it? Rarely in life is the head and neck so literally on the block; it’s as if your two mates either side (the loosehead and tighthead props) have your very being – or the physical safety of it – in their custody. This is no Guardian-readers-on-confidence-building workshop exercise, this is offering yourself up at the moment of the infamous ‘Hit’, when two packs of opposing forwards clang together in an expression of calculated violence designed to find you out should any weakness reveal itself. You will not, therefore, be weak.

The Front Row Union then may only allow the brave and the faithful entry to their bloodsweatandtears-stained ante-rooms. This does not, however, debar from entry the bright or the evil; and it did not debar Brian Moore. In fact the two were surely made for each other.

Brian Moore. Of England – sixty odd times. Adopted. Abused. Self-confessed Tolkien nerd and qualified Nail Painter. (That would be as in fingernails, during a stint as proprietor and technician(?) at a Soho emporium run with a former wife. 1 of 3.) Moore the proud and probably slightly perverse bearer of the various bête noire-equivalents knocking around Six Nations rugby (though it was Five when he played.) Delighted to be so hated by the Welsh and the Scots and the French and well… everybody. Inspired even by that knowledge, almost satisfied by it – especially the realisation that if he were, for example Scottish and otherwise unchanged, the Scots would love him for his fiercely committed spirit.

And yet the key thing revealed by the man himself during his predictably jarringly honest visit to Nurse Kirsty’s knee for Desert Island Discs was this ‘almost’.

In an extraordinary but typically articulate self-skewering Moore constantly alluded to his inability to recognise, to be at peace with his achievements. Utterly without resort to idle pleasantries – how, we imagine, he must hate them! – the former England number 2 rumbled like some worryingly law-conversant boar through the excited parabola that is his personal history. Adoption into churchgoing family/abuse from within churchgoing milieu/sporting and academic success/then oodles of hard-won glory at an international level for England RUFC. Success he still finds hard to own.

Fascinatingly(?) Brian Moore refused to emerge from the dressing room to participate in celebrations and photocalls following England’s 1991 Grand Slam victory. He simply wouldn’t do it. Issues of self-worth were so darkly present that Moore failed to shift from his bench… because he didn’t feel he deserved that victory. Psychologists – cod, like me, or otherwise – have your field day.

On the way to his metaphorical Desert Island, Brian Moore revealed pretty profound stuff like this every other sentence. Not out of arrogance you sensed – although there may be some self-obsession implied? – but because he gives a straight and generous answer to a genuine question. This is how he understands the world; there’s surely something to be said for that? He was alarmingly open about his everything; from his ‘Pitbull’ness to his other darknesses, his lost times under the influence of all manner of substances, following his release from the strictures of his athletic discipline. (Basically he went mental in his beloved Soho.)

Moore’s choice of music inevitably reflected his scope as a bright, bullish, sensitive bloke. It combines what some might consider appreciation of the finer things with punkishness. So from Mozart to Green Day. From Ian Dury to Pietro Mascagni. And one from the much-admired soulbrothers-in-peachy devilry, The Stranglers – an attractive, near melancholic, rather beautiful song called “Always the Sun”. (Listen to that …and it figures?)

But Moore would want to be judged on that which he committed to; formerly the rugby/now the journalism and commentary. He knows how much his confrontational personality, his facility to wind-up the world at large has discoloured how he is received. Despite this awareness of the extensively ventilated voodoo doll- version Moore out there in the public mind, I don’t hear him complaining, ever. Serious – often- and lugubrious as well as loquacious in his muffling, bell-chiming fog of sincerity; but too manly for self-pity or show. So judge him fairly, please.

Moore is a complex and yes a dark, difficult guy. A proper hooker – with that hunting dog relentlessness and low-burning fire. Beyond indomitable – more alive and more interesting, despite his saddening ‘baggage’. An essential part of a particularly English rugby team, a successful one, for several years; drawn absolutely to the thick of it. Now in triumphant opposition to the platitudes and the rehearsed banalities of much sports-speak, instinctively and with some style telling us how it really is.

He writes now acutely and often brilliantly for the Daily Telegraph. He commentates, often as foil to the more circumspect Mr Eddie Butler, with whom, surprisingly, he generally disagrees. In all of this there appears to me not an ounce of what my lot would call ‘side’ – meaning pretence or calculation or feyness or… dishonesty. He picks and goes without pausing to preen I think. And I wonder if he dare give himself some credit for that?

Oh England my lionheart?

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I may junk this first sentence because you may not get how treble-edgedly smart it is – how both insinuatingly and philosopho-buntingly alive it is – despite appearances. Let’s try…

It’s a big week for England.

So big it needs exposure; like some craggy castle or monkish retreat now unveiled as home to bulging but youthful talents previously hushed by authoritarian loonies. Like Capello; or Johnson; or Margaret Thatcher – Boadicea! So big because two magisterial rivals come to call, bringing again their frankly superior entourage of exotic skills. Wales and Holland; the passionate and the cool. Welsh brio again soon to be anthemically lit by amply-lunged, prop-proportioned women in red; Dutch ease fanned by a sea of orange madmen in Wember-ley.

A zenith of sports-cultural counter-activity approacheth, or so it feels, as “Gwlad” rehearses itself in the dingle-dell that is the red soul of Wales and the misleadingly understated Nederlandpeeps fold their tangoesque flags. Buildup of a particularly rich, vocal and simmeringly intense quality is building up. In Wales a low appreciative hum has begun to throb as news of the return of Warburton and Wynne-Jones and Lydiate has slid ominously around. You don’t need to know the Welsh for “kop that bach” to sense the tectonically impressive confidence around the confrontation with Lancaster’s undemonstrative charges. No arrogance yet, but a belief amongst the star-hung valleys that Wales rugby – with the stamp of world-wide approval – has a real current supremacy throughout these allegedly United Kingdoms.

And Holland, who despite their comparatively low ebb, are expected to carouse serenely around the very emblem of ‘our patch’ like the special edition Martin Dobsons or Alan Hudsons we know them to be. Sometimes almost cruelly or arrogantly brilliant, Dutch sides have a habit of quietly handing out a lesson or twelve in the art of composure and ball retention. Admittedly this does not always end in victory but typically it does end in the revelation of inadequacy amongst their English oppo’s. Such is the potential for embarrassment against this particularly Dutch capacity to bypass traditional (anglo-saxon?) confrontation (er… by passing) that I am clear Stu Pearce’s selection of tumbling youth is made in full consciousness of the likely outcome of a ‘full-strength side’ competing. They’d get quietly outplayed, probably, as usual.

Cynical? Perhaps. But the selection of a slack handful of worthy young’uns removes fears of more than one variety. In truth I expect the starting line-up for England to look… how can I put it…? Unreckless. In a squad looking frankly short of top talent – remember the Terrys’, the Ferdinands, the Lampards, for all their diverse frailties did have international quality – a 4-4-1-1 of Hart/Richards,Jones,Smalling, Cole/Milner, Parker, Gerrard, Young/Rooney/Sturridge or pretty similar might be our strongest available. Expect run-outs or more from Cleverley and Wellbeck as additional elements of youff-encouragement. The chronic shortage of goal-keeping back-up remains an issue, as do the centre-half slots and arguably the striker(s). Can we swap a right back with somebody, I wonder?

But let’s not kid ourselves. The rugby is infinitely more tantalising a prospect. Stuart (Clive Woodward School of Smart Blandness?) Lancaster has done a decent-plus job of bringing England round from their World Cup hangover. He sits somewhere between articulate Yorkie schoolteacher and Rugby Bore in a way that worries me slightly; like Woodward he might seem inadequate and slightly out of time if England lose anywhere badly. Currently – as they have managed to win bravely but fairly badly in Italy and in Scotland – he remains untested in that respect. (A diversionary footnote here; did anyone else who saw Woodward’s ‘mare of a performance on Hardtalk the other night – dull/reeking of fusty anoraks – question how much of All That Stuff He Achieved was actually down to him, I wonder?)

New model Stuart L’s England have played like a side run along well-propounded dictums; solidly and with conservative purpose rather than inspiration. Hodgson’s absence for this weekend has – in the great tradition of Best Teams Selected By Injury – realigned an especially well balanced English back line; one that may yet prove to be exceptional. Half-backs Dickson and Farrell; centres Barritt and Tuilagi; wings Strettle and Ashton; Foden at full back. This is a good lineup. It has composure in defence and power and the possibility for electrification going forward. What it lacks, relatively, is of course experience (and tries?) placing a huge burden upon young Farrell at pivot.

But Farrell seems very much the unflappable type – possibly even culturally so, given his lineage. Whether a close-quarters encounter with Sam Warburton’s ludicrously enhanced biceps might change this impression is hard to predict… but Owen does seem unflappable. He gathers, he kicks. He plays within himself and almost certainly within the (arguably fairly limited?) game plan. Given that England are not likely to stray too ambitiously from a containing/territorial game against the gifted Welsh the likelihood may be that a tightish affair ensures; unless somewhere a dam breaks.

On the colourifically-aspirational side for the whites, the selection of Tuilagi amplifies hopes for some liberation from repeatedly prompt felling of English attackers at the gainline. This boy can run. And the way he runs suggests a love of that simple pleasure – cradling the ball whilst sinuously, boy-in-the-parkfully rampaging up the pitch. Indeed the battle of the centres in this match (both Roberts and the now fully-emerged Davies surely Lions-in-waiting in every sense?) could be either (oh go on, take those liberties!) swervaciously or, more prosaically crunchingly magnificent. It really could be wonderful – would that England come out and play!

They probably won’t. Certainly not early on. Surely? Even if the quadruple-bluff of an immediate Barbarian-style English onslaught has fabulous appeal, surely they won’t. Coaching thoroughbred that he is, Lancaster will have them ear-twitchingly prepared; nose-bagged up; with a freshly-pressed but learned-by-rote game plan. The skipper will lead his men nobly. Morgan and Dickson will be ready. Foden will have the occasional foray. But the occasion will demand foremost that the dam not be breached. And anything further… becomes a bonus, an opportunity, as Lancaster might say, upon which we must capitalise.

Blandishments aboundeth? I’m personally fed up with the word ‘mentality’ tripping so pretentiously/unpretentiously from the rehearsed mouthings of the England camp. So much that I’m going to use it and leg it past, sharpish – treat it like the stink-bomb it is. The quality of this match will depend far too much I’m afraid on the mentality of the men in white. They have it in their hands to deliver us something sensational but the reality is likely to be ordinary.

Previously I have waxed – and then some – on the profound successes of the Welsh. If they do, as I think they may, go to Twickenham and again demonstrate the kind of fearless yet focused rugby fizzing with the simple joys then they will march on with the support of the morally-enhanced majority. A classic ding-dong confrontation, in which a rejuvenated England play a full part until Welsh brilliance finally denies them, is surely the ideal scenario – even England fans might appreciate that? Eventually.

(Inter)National Coaches Week

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I’m declaring it to be (Inter)National Coaches Week on several grounds – The Emirates/Twickenham/The Stadium Of Light (Sunderland) for starters, arf arf.

For Coaches R It this week and these disparate, more or less absurdly named arenas seem urgently/particularly loaded venues for fascinating, topical and revealing (Inter)National Coach Intro/Circum Spection, surely. (I am so sure about this I’ve already posted upon the Roker and Twickers connection to the subject – indeed The Week at hand).

But these two par-blooming sporting meadows, instructive though their gathering lushnesses may be, threaten to serve only to heighten the drama darna Emirates, where desertification has manifestly struck. Wenger – he of the oft-reported urbane manner and quasi-Catalonian seedlings – is, this week, in the words of the renowned Spanish Sportsmeister Jorge BlackAdder, more weakened than a very weak thing. And this strikes me as a matter of considerable regret.

Arsene – who has borne with some dignity the inevitable xenophobic dross about picking poncy foreigners for years – may soon have tilled North London’s soil his last. For like this apparently bipolar metaphor, the downs seem now to have swallowed the ups.

Following the Gooners distracted-to-the-point-of-uncaring loss at the San Siro last night, the abuse coalesces malevolently. Indeed, plenty of it has already been let loose, understandably in the case of the 5,000 (can it really have been that many?!?) who travelled to Northern Italy to be rewarded with an unacceptably poor performance. Those fans will surely have felt betrayed (a strong word but in this footballing context a relevant one) by the uber-laxity of their side’s defending all around the pitch and the comparative lack of urgency from their players to put things right.

Both the result and the performance were a blow, for sure, but for many including my good self neither came as a real, full-on shock. Because Arsenal have been so obviously vulnerable for some considerable time; indeed their recent absence of trophies is a clear reflection of lack of durability rather than lack of talent. And Wenger the purist, the inspiring torch-bearer for twinkle over clonk, is heavily culpable in this deficiency. Ironic but true, he really could have done with a British centre-half; or full-back; or something. Something to balance and stiffen the current malleable, tippy-tappy model.

So is there an argument that those who have bayed for Wenger’s head out of Brit-nationalist leanings may have fluked their way to centrestage; because Arsene is in trouble now.  But let’s not capitulate space to the fat beer-belly of prejudice, eh?

I am aware that the near incomparable Alonso of Real has expressed dismay and even disbelief that the Brits still see tackling as an essential component of the game at the top level and I have some sympathy with his view. However, simple lack of tackling ‘ability’ is not the issue at Arsenal; it is more a lazy disinclination to pressure the ball once it is lost and to genuinely track the movements of the opposition attack.

Unsurprisingly, Barcelona provide a sensational example of a side prepared – and I use the word advisedly – to relentlessly but with some intelligence hunt down the ball (and thereby regain possession) at the earliest opportunity. Arsenal seem to have neither the inclination or the athletes to do this. If Song and Ramsey for example are not allowed their preferred mode for coolly dictating play, they appear one-paced and sometimes adrift from the action. They can both tackle – unlike Rosicky? – but in Milan they and the bulk of their teammates shared an alarming tendency to let the opposition play.

Even in deep positions this lack of engagement characterised the performance. Simply and as a whole the defence was unspeakably bad; bad in a cultural, absence-of-application rather than very occasionally switching off kindofaway. Even allowing for the individual paucity of Walcott – again playing like a fifteen year-old – and later the hapless Djourou, it was distressing to see the ease with which Ibrahimovic and co were able to turn and play or pick a choice pass. For Wenger, seeing this must surely have been torture; torture beyond national boundary and almost beyond belief.

But Arsene IS responsible. He has failed to address an issue that needed addressing several years ago. Generally the coach pays the price for these kinds of flaws.

On the one hand the Gooner ownership are to be heartily congratulated for gifting the British game a Wenger Concept that has entertained us and unquestionably enriched the Premier League. On the other, in the brutal terms of this No-Place-For-A-Sensitive-Boy environment and given that there appears no reasonable prospect for the learned Frenchman to so utterly reform his comparatively spineless side, he may have to go. Go or clear out the nearly brilliantly total footballers he’s stood by for so long. Sad, methinks that his flawed generosity should expose him so. But what can you do? What can you do?