Sport

A REAL MONSTER WORLD CUP !!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So burn burn burn.

Manchester, Manchester, Manchester…

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

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

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

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

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

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

The future’s orange… fanta!

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

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

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

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

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

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

You alright?

Yeh.

Ya hungry, I bet?

Yeh.

Whatya had?

Nothing.

You telling me there was nothing, nothing you liked?

No.

Go and get yourself something…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shine on

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It’s a good time for cricket. Here in Wales, in GB and Ireland generally, it’s a good time. At my own club we have both alarmingly good activity and back-up for the kids and the seniors playing every week. Good people – and the ECB talks unashamedly loftily and ambitiously about producing better sportsmen and humans as well as better cricketers – with coaching which is typically helpful, fair, instructive, well-judged. Some of us, by current coaching protocols talk too much, but in general I am pleased to report strong numbers of boys and girls committing to the sport and a universally great attitude. (My own possee are brilliantly, refreshingly up for it and are supported superbly by parents or guardians.) Consequently, it’s a pleasure to be involved.

But where has this swell feeling come from? How much of it is due to the gathering momentum provided by successful England sides? Has the near-sensational TV coverage of recent times – where the poetic/dynamic/mesmeric nature of the game is literally being seen more clearly than ever before – had an energising effect? Does it matter why stuff’s going so well… and being rewarded by bums as it were, in pads? Possibly not.

Yet clearly having pretty close to the best women’s side in the world and now the male equivalent is at some level inspiring. Winning draws attention, attention can be good – especially if you have great role models/characters/guys or gals fans rate. Regrettably, even with an outstanding record over the last couple of years, our women stars are traceable only to the very few who follow further/deeper than the occasional media coverage deems worthy. A brilliant team remained sadly and predictably relatively faceless – even when Aussies were getting relentlessly tonked out of sight. For the blokes, it’s different.

And this may be inexcusable, but I would nevertheless like to make some comment on The Best Cricket Team in the World.

(I leave a para’ entirely out of smugness; for emphasis, in the unlikely hope that an Australian will ever read this blog).

Firstly, my pet theory. At the top level cricket is now a game for athletes; guys and gals who throw themselves around the place, who can sprint/dive/convincingly high five, or sport fashionable haircuts and go to hip nightclubs rather than the village pub. Or as well as the village pub. Occasionally. After important series have been won. None of this was achievable by Mike Gatting/Colin Cowdrey/generations, actually, of cricketers until about 2000. When it apparently became important to train for the thing.

Now, wonderfully, a kind of gnarly litheness is pretty much non-negotiable – Strauss being arguably the least gymnastic of a side full of tall, lean, cool(ish), good-looking, finely –honed sportsmen. And ludicrous as it might sound I am absolutely clear that this dramatic gearing-up in terms of dynamism, the dive around like a loony factor, has been essential to drawing in and keeping young hipsters involved. (Is it spooky but appropriate that I have associated cricket (of all things!) with ‘hipness’ twice now in two paragraphs?) See! Cooke is tall, dark and Englishly cool; Pietersen tall, near smouldering and transvaally gifted and cool; Swann tall, chopsy and mercurially sharp; Anderson creamy, athletic vanilla. Because they can all react like a bird-chasing cat and they love to dive round the place. Like kids.

Beyond this, I can tell you from personal experience that the system for developing coaches in UK cricket is particularly good – possibly the world leader? – and that the clobber/the kit/the facilities whilst inevitably variable, are generally adequate or substantially better. So it is a good time.

I find it kindof reassuring that in an age when the web of distractions/opportunities/pressures provided by the weapons of capitalism might either suffocate or entrance many kids back to the death-womb of their bedrooms (to ‘play’ with the latest weapons of capitalism), that increasing numbers of boy and girls are chucking a cricket ball about. A cricket ball, a proper one. That lovely aesthetic shiny red thing with a seam.

Well, go on then

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So the Premier League allegedly got going yesterday. But pardon me… who, exactly played? Liverpool/Arsenal? The one in mid-possibIe ascent, the other mid-possible turmoil – King Kenny having undoubtedly revitalised the ‘pool, but Wenger looking increasingly lined and drawn with Goonercares.

I confess to having plugged in to MOTD rather more deeply under a blanket than might have been the case if it felt like the Premier League had started. Given the nature of the (few) fixtures both in terms of likely quality and scale, it was no wonder the 3 Wise Men in Generally Shiny Shirts and Lots of Black seemed disinclined to animate the thing. Of course one of these aperitifs before City/United/Chelsea/arguably Tottingham legitimise the menu could have proved energising to the project. The wounded magnificence of Liverpool; the frilly glam that is QPR? They both predictably disappointed. If any side brought a smidge of class to the day… it was probably Bolton. Nuff said?

There seems to have been an elementary cock-up with the scheduling – one that is entirely appropriate to the smug hegemony of PL ‘presence’. They think they’re the unchallenged best, these folks – why else would they offer such an uninspiring entree? The fundamentals of earning the right to an audience, perhaps wanting to increase that audience, appear to be as irrelevant as fair ticket prices.

Depressingly though, it may be that despite the sombre mood and the real difficulties many look destined to face, this absurd balloon-thin carnival may continue to be the receptacle for the nations deluded passions. The thought strikes me –no pun intended – that the moment yesterday when alleged hard man and thug Joey Barton yanks Gervinho up (thuggishly) and then, having received a girly slap, drops shamelessly to the ground in order to get his assailant (I mean fellow professional) sent off, is appropriate, in its cheap, amoral, ludicrous way to the times.

Perhaps that’s how we should understand this new beginning.

Enter the dragons?

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So, this weekend lots of sporty stuff gets going; England/Wales at Twickers; The Championship; The Charity Shield. Already the distant gleam of silverware. Papers are foaming with the Fabregas thing, the Mancini thing(s), the Road to Glory thing. The usual wunnerful daft disproportionate bollocks many of us lap up – no, too unfortunate an analogy – many of us get caught up in every pre-season.

But is it a sign of something meaningful I wonder that the footie stuff in particular finds me less compelled towards engagement? For although I speak as one proud of family connections to the pro game, with a decent pedigree in turning defenders inside out, I am currently experiencing difficulties of association with the typical Top Footie Player. And I drift more towards the relative sporting class – dignity even – of the rugby boys.

Spells coaching rugby at junior level recently renewed my familiarity with the utter contempt in which footballers generally are held by the rugby community. This goes beyond the guffawing at laughably poncy reactions to the kind of ‘injuries’ we as skinny 9 year-olds would have wiped away in a moment. It goes beyond the envy at decent but not extraordinary athletes being paid obscene amounts of moolah. What offends more deeply, I suspect, is the pervasive arrogance and disrespect for the sport itself. Players diving or faking to get fellow players booked or sent off; players endlessly whining at officials; players frankly pissing on notions of fairness and honest competition between respected adversaries. The thin, arguably cowardly cynicism.

I know there are examples of cheating/faking etc etc. in rugby. However I am clear that the general level of sporting integrity displayed by elite rugby players – under massively more physically demanding circumstances than footballing equivalents – is still a treasure. Rugby players get battered; taking punishment that would reduce the likes of Nani/Drogba/you name your own pussy to a tearfully exasperated heap. Given the testosterone-worship inevitably present, rugby folks like being tough; but this tendency is expressed typically alongside a more sophisticated appreciation for… say it again… sporting behaviour. From junior level upwards, players are discouraged from celebrating in a fashion that insults the opposition; contrast this with Balotelli/Adebayor. There is a healthy understanding of commandments within the game.

Fortunately, there are certain sparkly-things in the footie firmament, Barcelona being the obvious one. Let us hope the magnificent generosity of their carousel persists, post their revered manager’s (likely) desertion to Chelsea. Their elevation of the purist, short-passing practise to a position of such command is heart-warmingly important, surely? But even here, though we absolutely revel in the unlikely domination of sublime skill over all-coming cloggers, we have to note the Barca boys propensity for an Oscar-nominated fall. Likewise the near-saintly Mr Ryan Giggs has certain ahem… imperfections. As do individual stars from premier class rugby, of course.

So I confess to again regurgitating dangerously general feelings on issues which may only absurdly be compared. Feelings that may not withstand laser-like or anorak-backed counter-theory. May I – should I? – then withdraw with the following, meekly? That though footie is absolutely in my (English-in-Wales) blood, ’tis to the giants of the oval ball game that I shall most eagerly be turning. For confirmation of the red-blooded, fire-breathing but relatively untainted truths.

Bottle

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Is the following a depressing notion, or a fascinating one, or an exciting one? The idea that ‘bottle’ – the possession of real confidence in the moment of real pressure – is the most critical factor in sporting success. Is it really that simple? And at every level? Well maybe today it feels like it.

1.  Having coached a cricket team this very afternoon to a losing draw where the difference was their batsmen’s prolonged exercise of controlled technique against (even) our threatening bowling

and

2.  Having watched the Japanese women cruise through penalties against the feeble, glassy-eyed Americans, it does feel like it.

The brutal truth appeared to be that in both cases the losers were offering their throats. By this I do not mean that they were in any sense cowardly. However, I think they were sick to their stomachs and they wanted an end – any end. So on the one hand they (we) flung the bat with a quiet wrecklessness; the ball, the real ball and the real fielders barely registering in our dreamlike acquiescence. Similarly, the Americans, who had generally performed with power and energy up until the moment of real asking, abandoned control at the awesome 12 yard mark, apparently transfixed by some dancing cobra. Escape – hoof! – over the bar by miles! Escape – stub it lamely near central, where any joker could save it.  Escape, from this terribly real moment, from the responsibility of all this, now.

This is why choosing an opening batsman and a penalty taker and a player to play in say… a World Cup is a job for a real manager, someone who feels the pulses of fear and comfort experienced by his players. (This does not at all mean someone who’s been there, necessarily). Surely one of the abiding memories of the last England World Cup campaign is the almost comically inept management of the player’s chronic unease. Rooney was a serial embarrassment – the same Rooney who had carried England for three years on his broad, shell-suited shoulders, in the flush of his unbridled youth. Glen Johnson –amongst others – was beyond hopeless with nerves. Neither, presumably can watch the videos without squirming… but ditto two-thirds of the squad.

And Capello failed utterly, in every respect, to act. He failed to put a metaphorical arm round the spreading fear. (Or he failed to flush out the weaklings?) He failed to make significant tactical changes, so that it felt that there were no ‘fresh legs’, no Plan B. He was petrified when leadership was called for and his substitutions were, in all seriousness, both a disgrace and arguably the single most compelling exhibit in the case against his continued incumbency. Beyond the ‘tiredness’, virtually to a man, the show ponies lacked bottle; they were pallid, they jogged around avoiding meaningful contact with the game.  Fans hate that more than anything.

Given that my cricket team are 10 years old I am not entirely equating their confidence issues with Lampard and Gerrard’s in the England shirt. But the latters relative failure to own their  jerseys, to fill their associated boots are connected to my youngsters; because sporting achievement is predicated upon common essentials. Technique and/or skill, comfort and/or composure and desire. And good players – men, women, boys and girls – at all levels, have to burst through the glass ceiling that is achievement by combining these essentials with a lusty or sanguine or precocious or forced or inspired or workaday dollop of bottle.

July 17th 2011.

Electric dreams

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…and cue the Inevitable Hot Water?

How great is this man?  On
a day when the bleary gaze of the sports journo’s is mebbes gonna  meander distractedly like between Sharapova’s
knicker-line and Hope Powell’s dug-out, it turns out (naturally like) that St James’
Park Geordieland is in hot wartah.  Or the
car park is.  Or hundreds of feet below
is.  Does the chairman know, ah wundah?  Does he have a plan?  Is it under control?  Or is Alan Pardew out there in ‘is wellies,
with a bucket, man?

But yeh, given this is Wimbledon Time… and therefore we are ‘dreaming of parses’ not Premier league points… what gives?  Apart from Sharapova?  And the annual uproar in respect of her
erm… her racket.  Surely good people, the
‘interest ‘  in her ‘screaming’ says
something more profound about our attitudes than it does about a perceived lack
of femininity – sorry, ‘femininity’ – in Sharapovaville.   This noise issue is hardly a significant
problem in the women’s game.  Lack of
movement and abundance of weight is,
however.

Against the spirited
but frankly shockingly slow Brit Laura Robson (yes I mean nowhere near fit or
sharp or fast enough Robson, like fifty flatout shuttles a day short slow
Robson) Sharapova – whilst no better than average herself – prevailed with
crane-like poise relatively untroubled.
Robson – ‘our’ prodigy – is 17 and a great, wristy hitter; but slow.  What the eff do her management think they
are doing?  Sharapova won a slam event at
the same age.  Ya need to be redd-ee.  And yip, it’s a cruel
world for prodigies.

All of which brings us back to coaching; and fitness; and awareness/self-awareness.  Knowing, actually, what’s necessary.  I may be wrong but whatever her difficulties
with reported growth spurts and injury, our most virile young force in the
female game should not have been allowed to get heavy and slow.  At 17.
Sorry. I’m just not sure there’s a way back from that.

Hey look the intensity and pace with which lots of the top women are hitting the
ball is little short of phenomenal.  There
are athletes out there playing at a high level and there may be no reason why
they should in any sense be compared to the blokes.  But it’s going to happen – it’s going to happen here, actually –  especially if the
perception (rightly or wrongly) is that the women’s game is relatively poor.  So
hang on a mo’ whilst I compose a fair sentence … if a provocative ferker.

There is no woman Djokovich.
Nobody with that focussed leanness, that stunning, merciless  gearing.
(I am unwisely forced to go so far as to say that) beyond this, the
level of fitness amongst even some of the top tier women players is
insufficiently high for elite sport.
This is (within the limitations of our good-natured sporting discussion
here) unacceptable.   Superb fitness must surely be
non-negotiable?

I’m sorry to have
picked on one of our best prospects but the teenage Robson needs to be bloody electric , at 17, to be a real contender;
and she is wooden.

More senior gals display a similar or more significant
weight/condition issue.  They are too
heavy; they have bellies and big backsides – too big for a sport which revolves
around pace, agility, athleticism.

Yes but does the fact of the Williams sisters’ utter domination
of the women’s game for a decade (playing, remember as near part-timers) reinforce
or completely disabuse my argument?  (I
am aware that their POWER GAME is inevitably at the core of our suddenly
convoluted debate here.) 

So does it make
sense, is it necessary to be massive?

Drawing upon all my extensive relevant experience, my
sporting intuition and my brutal instinct for the popular I can only answer

a) I bloody hope not; for the game, the spectacle etc etc  and

b) No; does it bollocks.
But we need to find some athletes – some gymnastic/electric/explosive
whirling dervishes.  Who can hit!

Thank god St Henin, bless’er cotton socks, anti-dotes the POWER
issue entirely.  Or would if she’d been an
ongoing, serial winner of slams.  But how
would she fare, now, against the American soul-sisters?

Given that one view of Serena might be that she is arguably
best part of a stone too heavy for a top level tennis athlete and that Venus
looks notably undertoned this year, Henin at her (careful with the adjectives!)
lithe (ooh) impish (aah) and mercurial (eeeshh!) best would surely wupp their
ample arses.  In her absence… who?   Sharapova?
And… is that good coaching or the lurv of a gargantuan
geezer doing that?   (Owtch!!)

27th June 2011.

Unweighting

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Hey look there’s no point in pretending life/business/relationships/quality of backhand are islands of independence from each other; no point. On the contrary, as I am about to prove, even if your nature is to quietly shriek pallid protest against activity in all its wondrous forms – ya wuss – you cannot deny the power of sport and the need to be ready.

Preparation? Everywhere. Man in sport there’s a spooky amount, an industry – an absolutely sexsational amount of ‘ready positions’ like, for starters. Tennis the currently obvious one; receiver with knees bent, weight slightly forward, hands in front, gusset slightly exposed. Rugby (backs); hands out in front, attracting the ball, offering a target, inviting that moment of caress, of possession.

The talk in coaching is deliciously loaded with this stuff. And the transferability of these sopping metaphors is meaning frankly Frankie, you ain’t got no escape; not in the office, not in ‘sales’, not in bed, much less out-on-the-park. And yet, amongst the daft-punk dribbles, the cod-psychology… there’s some really byoodifull stuff man.

Take fast bowling. It’s an admittedly staccato dance that grippingly, thrillingly transcends its technically-heavy brief. (Sheesh – did I nick that from Ronay?) Whatever, lately think Anderson ‘when it’s coming out nicely’. Jimmy – aka The Burnley Express – in his pomp, does deal in majestic simplicities; purring in, expressing repeatedly creamy smooth bursts; simples.

Simples but superceded surely, by the intoxicating Michael Holding at his peak, ‘pace’ being then at that perfect moment where something beyond words was, really, momentarily described. And during that alarmingly fluent Caribbean blur, amidst the ecstatic barrage from Marshall, Walsh, Garner et al, we strain for … sentences like that last one… where words transparently fail. Or maybe we simply concede, smiling, and not a little awestruck, (that) that was bloody unplayable.

And now we find ourselves marking out the run-up to some truth; particularly if we think of the batter .

Take my word for it here that when you face fast bowling you are shitting your pants. No question. For maybe only a few minutes, but parping like a good’un, nonetheless. So, with apologies to Jessica Oosit Parker in “Sex and The City” mode, if, say Michael Holding is that challenging, that much of an extreme test; How do you get ready for that?

Unweighting. Ian Chappell – yes! Aussie skipper and general arse.

Extraordinarily (and, sharing a birthday with I.T.Botham, I ask no forgiveness for the implied anti-antipodeanism here) Ian Chappell formulated the following really rather beautiful and insightful concept.

Simply put, unweighting is a process necessary for a batsman to enable ‘survival’ against quick bowling. So this usually happens most – and most obviously – at the beginning of an innings, or when the dreaded or lusted after new ball is taken. (See what I mean? Sopping). Pre-delivery or ‘trigger’ movements occur in the batsman, either consciously or not, in order to facilitate, to cope, to avoid getting hurt or out. Because the ball may come down fucking hard and fast. Batters may open their eyes wider/crouch intently whilst setting their neck/flex their knees/give up and dollop one.

Generally coaches identify two movements of the bat before hitting the ball, at that crucial heart-thumping moment when (godforbid), Holding is unleashing. There is bat-lift and then bat-swing; the former involving simply raising the bat from the ground, the latter the judgement and immediate subsequent execution of how much or little you’re going to swing the bat. The minutiae of both can naturally – and I use the word advisedly – vary from player to player but Chappell’s view has been that these ripples of the wrist or micro-steps or other habitual or rehearsed or coached movements are key. Likewise the momentum or freedom engendered by the transfer of weight from one foot to another. Unweighting.

Thus, sagacious reader, the batter’s ready position against extreme pace has to be an exquisitely timed and balanced and consistent and fluent and enabling stance for that which may be unplayable. So can you move instantly (in a balanced etc. etc. way) forward or back? Can you withdraw from the stroke? Can you duck? Can you look in control and not give the bowler and the infield signs of encouragement? Are you, in these milliseconds, rhythmical and composed and absolutely at the top of your game? Man it’s a wonderful, frightening test.

And how do we transfer its richness, its poetry and its latent dynamism to work… to life… to relations(hips)… to bed?!?

Can you find it, this unweighted state? Are you ready? Are you?

June 24th 2011.