Sport

BOD or BOFG? Silly to compare!

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There is something alarming about Paul O’Connell’s forearms; or at least I think there is.  I hope this has nothing whatsoever with prejudices I may have against Irishmen, Ginger Monsters or ham, but there is something in the club-like nature of that leading section of his limbs which has the worryingly hypnotic power normally associated with unhinged propellers.  Or – I suppose – mad, ginger-haired Irish hams.

Not that the recently reappointed skipper is himself either fully or sectionally unhinged – far from it.  In fact, on the contrary, there is something (else?) both powerful and controlling about the Second Row’s clasping gear.  It appears – it feels – as though he has uncommonly massive forearms; forearms with an extra dimension.   One where even extraordinary physicality is only part of the bundle.

This potential for extra-curricular stature is essential to O’Connell’s appeal.  As a captain – of both Lions and Ireland on occasion, remember – and as a standard-bearer leading the charge.  For a man who lacks pace, he picks and goes as effectively as any Front Fiver, having a weirdly unassuming relentlessness that smacks of indomitable courage rather than extroverted heart.  Again and again, O’Connell leads; again and again – whether in the lineout or into contact – he is present.  Such is the rather wonderful and possibly anti-heroic nature of his contribution.

Being myself mercifully six or seven inches shy of the typical Second Row’s elevation I can only speak from a respectful distance of the frequency and abrasiveness of the clashes of these titans.  O’Connell has had his share.  But what strikes me generally of the man – in particular the later vintage (Limerick)Munsterman – is the degree of control he retains whilst either being, or being in, a tide of hyper-conflict.   The temptation towards devilry when confronted by the likes of … name your most feared or revered international 4 or 5 (Botha?)… has been known to be challenging to the point of decisive – particularly in the modern era – where yellow cards for cynicism, slackness or raw violence do occur.

Paul O’Connell, though I suspect not remotely fazed by the thought of succeeding Brian O’Driscoll as captain of Ireland, is nevertheless succeeding a man who by common appreciation is one of the greats of the game.  O’Connell is not, he will know, quite in that highest echelon – though this is certainly partly a matter of differences in gearing.

O’Connell epitomizes that low-diff grungy but rangy Land Rover thing whereas BOD has the possibility for thrilling, fuel-injected glory.  The Lock, who I am tempted to burden with the BOFG moniker (Big Occasionally Friendly Giant) will never electrify us; 4 and 5 don’t do that stuff.   He will however make us roar, us Lions fans, with an imperious catch and subsequent drive, or a low-slung but vital scurry for yardage as a 10 waits dry-lipped for a drop attempt.

In addition, the aforementioned catch/drive/scurry is likely to be repeated with an efficiency destined surely to grind down or erode the confidence of the opposition.  Thus O’Connell executes.

O’Driscoll and O’Connell; two good Irishmen and true who unquestionably share a capacity to absorb or inflict pain for the cause.  As a result they’ve shared injuries and the breaks in continuity they bring.  But such is the influence both exert that they tend to feature pretty much immediately upon teamsheets at every level, right up to those conferring preciously regarded Lionhood.

As the one (BOD) steps away from some of these privileges, few would question that Paul O’Connell – magnificently armed specimen that he appears – is entirely equipped to be a worthy successor, captain or not.  And that brilliant, thunder-stealing but short-arsed centre cannot, in all likelihood rob him of one particular accolade – that of being the B.O.F.G.

In Between Days?

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

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

To the sport.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A (really crap) Lancashire Panto

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Knight in Shining Foil?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s all happenin’ boys…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living in Wales, forgive me for starting there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now… only in America…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sir Gavin of That New World says effectively this;

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

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

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

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

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

Speed is almost everything

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shane you wonderful manchild you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But has he got talent?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m not a big fan of what we might call the celebritization of our lives. In fact the notion that we should prostitute ourselves for fame – or more exactly TV fame – offends me deeply. So why all these auditions? Why am I, without any ironic context, being invited to the ritual humiliation of poor misguided singer A, or frankly delusional comic B?

I flash on the telly in all innocence – and generally some degree of mindlessness – to be confronted by another clodhoppingly tension-pregnant drumroll-heavy PAUSE… and my tired heart sinks. Everywhere there’s somebody awaiting a VERDICT. Was their singing ‘good’ enough? Was their dancing good enough? In the tabloid-stoked view of the great British public, do they look too fat/dodgy/chippy/chavvy/pervy? In the shlockingly coiffured opinionated opinion of The Judges are they, do they look The Part? Oh and can they sing or dance?

The faux meritocracy of these brutally engineered scenarios is the family fodder of our time; begging the question “What does that say about us?” Well (Oh Martian god of Universal Anthropology) it says we are (in an appropriately inappropriate word) mental.

And now, we have the announcement of candidates for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Is that the same cheap trick I wonder? Arguably not; witness a kind of historical precedent sentimentally loaded with some authentic respect, going back (I think) to my black-and-white childhood. Or so it feels.

For aeons the trusty Beeb has backslapped the testosteroned ones, fulfilling dutifully the role of foot-bather for footballers. Or, given the comparative lack of Brit footballing worldbeaters, athletes more generally. I think I remember David Hemery being coronated. Likewise Henry Cooper, Daley Thompson/Alan Pascoe? And surely George Best.

There’s a realness to these characters and to the tribal banter they so modestly – so black-and-whitedly? – exchanged with Coleman/Carpenter etc. that somehow legitimises the thing. They were proper sportsmen (and occasionally women) and I don’t remember the wholescale devaluation of human dignity being a pre-requisite for the evening’s viewing. There were bad speeches – do I recall a nervy Paul Gascoigne? – and bad choices – none of which included any members of the royal family. It wasn’t perfect but it seemed like perfectly good (sporting) family fare and we watched it religiously, year after year.

More recently I have to say the smarminess factor seems to have increased; or at least there’s been an upshift in the image-consciousness of a) the event b) the protagonists c) the guests. It’s not so much innocent Sunday Best suits and “I ran as hard as I could” as designer-sharp, platitudinous billowing. Does this mean the essential decency of the affair has been twothousandandelevened? Possibly. I’ve found myself avoiding the programme in much the same way as I swerve a broad swathe of Awards Shows. But the quality of my (mild) distaste for Gary Lineker’s sports-chic uber-grooming doesn’t compare with typical feelings against Cowell’s ouevre. Simply put Sports Personality does have some of what it says on the tin and is markedly less intrusive, less exploitative than the Got Talent/X-factor genre, in which personality seems to be largely confused for profile.

This year’s candidates for the unchallenged Pretty Much Most Singular And Respected Sporting Wotnot include – unlike most years – several genuine contenders. The full list is as follows;

Mark Cavendish – cyclist

Darren Clarke – golfer

Alistair Cook – cricketer

Luke Donald – golfer

Mo Farrah – athlete

Dai Greene – athlete

Amir Khan – boxer

Rory McIlroy – golfer

Andy Murray – tennis player

Andrew Strauss – cricketer.

Meaning there are no women. Which is almost certainly a disgrace but I’m not exactly sure … who might…

Easier by far is the whittling down from the seriously good but outflanked by the others (Strauss/Khan/Murray/Donald); to the second rankers, who might have won in a lean year but… (Farrah/Greene/McIlroy(?); and finally the real contenders – Cavendish, Clarke and Cook. It’s a good line-up. I favour the alphabetically advantaged trio particularly because it has felt like their year this year.

Clarke may be the housewife’s favourite, his extraordinary Open triumph being submerged in a vat of deliciously beery poignancy. He may even win it if the papers fill again with his ‘story’. Alistair Cook, by contrast, is a less demonstrative sort with only his genius with the willow to declare. He lacks perzazz but the boy is an opening bat! Frankly, I can’t see him winning it but he has shown a historically significant mix of quality and temperament to reach totals amongst and beyond the immortals of the game. However for me Cavendish should top the poll.

‘Cav’ is a god amongst cyclists. He is the torpedo after the exhausting stalk. As a sprinter in the wheelers union it’s his job to grab glory at the death, meaning that after a typical 80 miles in the saddle, he must burst through the very notion of hyper jadedness (after many hundreds of miles on the major tours) and then sprint away from the cursing pack.

Cavendish has done precisely this again this last year – better than anyone in the history of cycling. His record-breaking tour de France was an almost literally staggering tribute to his utterly exceptional wheeling-power and indeed his willpower. The proud Manxman knows that as the premier force in professional sprinting he is targeted race after race; he is proudly and hugely generously aware of the responsibility he has to his domestiques or support riders to ‘finish the job’. He is that special thing the monster sportsman (though gregarious) and indisputably the pack leader.

Cycling is a minority sport. It may be that because comparatively few understand the tactical resources expended or even the extent of the raw bravery necessary – particularly during the rampage that is the bunched sprint – the serial Green Jersey Man is overlooked. But he is different class, a true icon; loved and worshipped for his talent, his affability and his titanic shouldering of the burden. The winner, really, has to be Cavendish.

Anybody else drifting?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Five Live on and the thrum of news and noise and oohs and aahs. Snippets tumble and actually – following late night(s) and some devastatingly wholesome fresh air via The Beach all morning – fall in time with … my eyelids. And briefly, the sleep of the just. Or rather a luxurious snoozette, reflecting justifiable knackeration and also some degree of meandering of interest away from the allegedly beautiful game.

If pushed I could establish in some depth the atvincent pedigree in terms of closeness to and understanding of that extra limb, that family member we grew up calling footie. Then, we had or wanted or were aware of little else, it seems.

My authority in the subject is however sentimentally deep rather than encyclopaedically Motsonesque. I forget dates but remember Saturdays or Wednesday nights at Forest/Derby watching United/Everton and The Happy Hammers. I remember pink Football Specials – on one occasion with a front page feature welcoming a Dad down from Grimsby with his clutch of sons to watch Clough-era Baseball Ground action. Back even further, I remember late-vintage Best/Charlton/Law skitting unreally beneath the floodlights, with Foulkes/Crerand/Byrne patrolling like red minesweepers.  And Dave MacKay there, pigeon-chestedly bustling through a throw-in, in order to reduce my appearance fee on MOTD.  These are indeed memories of a convoy-on-the-horizon kind; almost monotone perhaps, but nevertheless poignant.

Family life nowadays seems more cluttered; there are obscene and wonderful multitudes of distractions whirring noiselessly or insidiously close. Running off down the park is not the dumb-heavenly default position it once was. Many more things blink and shine and probe for the burnished weaknesses to break the surface; the needs for the new; the needs for the cool. The story can never be languidly innocent again it seems; and it’s ‘clips’, not a story.

But ludicrous to imagine otherwise. How could the context for anything remain unshifted in times characterised by rapaciousness/superficiality/dynamism of the tail-chasing sort? Why would footie remain untouched by all this stuff? It hasn’t.

Let’s swerve to the positives – of which there are always mercifully plenty (too.) The pre-eminence of Spain in world football marks perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime triumph for skills over functionality. The current gorgeous irresistibility of David Silva amongst the often unhinged limbs of the Premier League is likewise something to be treasured. Arsene Wenger’s magnificently imperfect but idealogically Invincible tenure at Arsenal is similarly inspiring, if a small degree of separation from the need to win big is negotiated. Levels of inclusion and even anti-racism are massively improved. And yet I drift.

I drift because of many things – some of them impossibly beyond footie’s remitt or control;

  • the competition from rugby and cricket
  • the indescribably absurd amounts of dosh being shovelled around, generally in the direction of pretty modest talents
  • the cynicism of many in or around the game, exemplified by the typical forward -Oops, striker!- thinking only of drawing a foul or penalty when breaching the box, rather than instinctively bursting the net
  • the shameless faking of injury or contact
  • the foul abuse of referees/officials
  • the fact that only 2 or 3 teams could actually win the Premiership.

The tsunami that is Manchester City epitomises many of these concerns. Funded remorselessly, they have spent the last few seasons proving that great individuals don’t make a team, whilst their fans foamed with expectation and United and Chelsea trod the ammoniated waters, fearfully. For an age their Mancunian galacticos teetered on the brink of implosion, such was their incapacity to win.

Now, things have changed, results-wise. But this is still a club attempting to smother a terrible secret – the Tevez affair. The Argentinian may have entirely refused to step on the park when called upon by the manager Mancini, or he may have not. He has, however brought shame upon the sport through a series of defections and mercenary switches of non-allegiance; metaphorically kissing the arse as opposed to the badge. Serially.

This insensitivity to the essence of the thing is both unforgivable and sadly infectious in the modern era and it therefore reflects an important truth. That football may have more dead souls, more non-sportsmen, more Show Ponies than is viable for a world-important game.

Whether the plusses tippy-tapped out by our Spanish brothers can either mitigate or make amends entirely for the mouthy the ungrateful and the undeserving is open to question.  Watching Rooney – brilliant though he is – face contorted with Shrekian rage, assaulting a ref or TV camera by way of expressing his dark but manicured frustrations invites recoil towards less offending alternatives.  And so I drift, unsure of whether to hope.